William Yeatman

It seems that the recent failure to obtain sonar “hits” of Nessie are a sign that the beast has been doomed, and by global warming. Sit back and savor that logic for a moment.

If true, the timing of this, by some accounts, Pleistocene relic (given the Loch’s age, probably not, let alone Jurassic) is curious. After all, there have been numerous, far stronger warmings during the oh, 2 million years preceding that of the late 20^th Century – including the 1930s, when she was first sighted – but presumably the most recent warming weakened her to be unable to deal with the cooling of recent years.

Scotland’s (relatively) more modern history, however, also raises some questions about this newest application of the today’s “Twinkie Defense” for all things we cannot rationally explain (or emotionally extinguish). This might also explain why ET and other cryptozoological specimens have made themselves scarce as of late.

The worst part is we also haven’t seen Champ, meaning she, too, may have gone the way of the Loch Ness Monster. Just as I was preparing an endangered Species Act petition seeking her listing as threatened, to remind the hippies what it’s like when their abusively expanded rules designed to limit other peoples’ land use hit home.

Maybe New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is running for higher office. He has gone from tempering media alarmism to, as of today, being the alarmist’s alarmist.

As NewsBusters reported last November:

“On Monday’s CBS ‘Early Show,’ co-host Harry Smith interviewed New York City Mayor, Michael Bloomberg. The liberal mayor has followed in the footsteps of Al Gore and implored the government to take action to address an impending environmental crisis, saying ‘We need to do something now.’ To match Bloomberg’s alarmist rhetoric, Smith added ‘Manhattan will be underwater by 2050.’ Amusingly, even Bloomberg thought that assertion went too far, ‘There’s a — I don’t know that Manhattan will be underwater, but certainly the environment’s going to be a lot worse that we leave our children’.”

Times change, and the New York Sun now cites Bloomberg saying that global warming “has the potential to kill everybody” (conveniently, others today have a quite different view).

Now, it has been quietly suggested that to call the global warming doomsayers alarmists is to engage in name-calling just like them. This episode offers a good pressure test for that position. The tag “alarmist” is simply not in the same solar system as calling anyone who disagrees with you – nay, with your prophesying of the future, no less – akin to a Holocaust denier.

“Alarmist” also is far less tame than this behavior demands. People insisting that catastrophe is ensured – even that quite possibly everyone on the planet will be wiped out – unless you do what they want are hysterics. Be happy with “alarmist”.