The NRA: Threat or Menace?
Via Instapundit we have this article criticizing Michael Crichton’s latest book. The authors of the article, Profs Gregory Benford and Martin Hoffert, are physicists who study climate change, and they say that in his attempt to argue “against the reality of climate change,” Crichton misrepresented their work, and the work of others.
I’m not intending to weigh in on this matter; Profs Benford and Hoffert and Dr. Crichton are all smarter and better edumacated than I is. I won’t even roll my eyes here at B&H’s rationale for “climate skepticism”–“the reality of climate change triggered by continued fossil fuel burning – and increasingly coal – threatens entrenched energy interests”–that follows their pooh-poohing of “a vast conspiracy – involving the editors of Science, Nature, Scientific American and some dozen other peer-reviewed journals – to exclude and reject climate skeptics papers.”
No, the thing that made me do a double take was this:
The reality of climate change triggered by continued fossil fuel burning – and increasingly coal – threatens entrenched energy interests. Some of these lobby against it with the ferocity of the National Rifle Association.
Let’s even skip the question of what the antecedent of “it” is (Big Oil is lobbying against reality?). Why is it that these guys think the NRA is the epitome of ferocious lobbying? I bet if you polled the bloggers list under Say Uncle’s “Guns” blogroll, you’d find a hefty percentage think the NRA is all too willing to sell out the interests of gun owners.
January 27th, 2005 at 11:10 pm
Here’s the dirty little secret of this game – climate change legislation is going to be enacted . . . . and some time soon . . . . . not because there is really a threat or the enviros have been telling the truth (there isn’t and they haven’t) but instead because these same oil and gas and utility and coal interests have invested heavily in technologies to reduce carbon emissions and will receive trillions of dollars of emissions credits over time. Once a CO2 regime is implemented, it will only be the largest of the large energy companies with the capitol and invested infrastructure that will be able to achieve excess emissions and take advantage of a trading regime.
January 27th, 2005 at 11:40 pm
The NRA–
Seems to me that they’re all too willing to sell out us fringe types who like to play with ugly military-style semi-autos in order to protect “nice” “respectable” guns.
January 28th, 2005 at 9:05 am
I always thought that the AARP was the epitome of the ferocious lobbying group.
January 28th, 2005 at 11:47 am
I noticed that, too, Thib. The press talks about how powerful the NRA is, and never applies the same criteria to other lobbying groups, like the AARP example HL mentioned.