| Friday, February
23, 2007 The Global
Warming Oscar
Are we prepared for the Global Warming Oscar Al Gore will pick up, and
the coming storm of legislative proposals to make Global Warming Denial a
criminal action?
There is in gaol in Germany a Canadian legal resident who posted items
questioning the Holocaust on a Canadian web site. He was deported to Germany
and sentenced to five years because the web site is available in Germany,
where Holocaust Denial is a criminal offense.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/02
/15/ap/world/mainD8NA79PO0.shtml
http://www.canada.com/topics/news/story.html?
id=e27b8f44-72a3-42d0-bcc8-804257e204a9
In his own closing arguments, prosecutor
Andreas Grossmann called Zundel a “political con man” from whom the
German people must be protected, widely quoting from his writings, which
argue that millions of Jews did not die at the hands of the Nazis.
“You might as well argue that the sun rises
in the west,” Grossmann said when asking that Zundel be given the
maximum sentence. “But you cannot change that the Holocaust has been
proved.”
My point in bringing this up is not to open debate on the Holocaust. (The
only debate I can see would have to do with numbers and intentions; it is
not questionable that the Third Reich deported Jews to camps where they died
in great numbers; how many by being worked to death and how many by Zyklon B
is important to scholars, but not that interesting to moralists. But, as I
say, that is not the point of bringing this up.) Whatever one's view of the
degree of proof of the Holocaust, it is rather certain that one would not be
sent to five years in prison for asserting that the Sun rises in the West.
I can conceive of imprisonment for Global Warming Denial. Scenario: A US
citizen posts essays questioning Global Warming. He then travels to, say,
Germany. Meanwhile, some other nation in Europe makes Global Warming Denial
a criminal action, and says that anyone asserting this is a political con
man from whom the, say, Danish or Belgian people must be protected. The
Global Warming Denials are on the web, and thus visible in places where they
are proscribed, and under European Union rules the US citizen is handed over
for prosecution. Will the US government act to protect that citizen? Or
would that depend on who is the President of the United States at the time.
Now let us change that to a National Guardsman, who runs a web site
denying Global Warming, and is subsequently sent to Iraq, wounded, and
transferred to a US military hospital in Germany. Or -- but you can
imagine other such scenarios for yourself. These all seem unlikely.
Alas, the word is unlikely; a few years ago, the words ridiculous
or impossible would have come to mind. They no longer do.
Global Warming will get its Oscar this Sunday, and we will be bombarded
with arguments to the effect that the debate is over, and anyone denying
Global Warming must have evil motives. Look for it.
====
I continue to grind away at Chaos Manor Reviews, and fiction. I do thank
those who have recently subscribed or renewed
subscriptions. That's the only way I can afford to keep this place
going. At the same time, I want to be clear: I'm not really neglecting
fiction for this. What I am neglecting is grubbing for journalism to bring
in quick income; so long as the subscriptions come in, I don't have to do
that, and I can put as much time into fiction as I have energy for.
Mr. Heinlein told us long ago that we -- writers, particularly fiction
writers -- are professional gamblers. Our fiction income comes in fits and
starts. Sometimes there's a lot: I had several best sellers. Of course that
was when I had four boys to get through college. Sometimes there isn't much;
BYTE took care of that for me for a very long time, and I am quite thankful
for that; I didn't have to rush about looking for journalistic assignments.
Now it's a matter of paying the bills while I turn out Inferno 2 and the
next volume of Janissaries. After which I have a novel of a future society
in which the trends to anarcho tyranny have continued. And another about an
asteroid civilization. All of those are in various stages of preparation.
Subscriptions allow me to pay the bills while I work on them. I'm not
begging. I still have plenty of contacts in the world of science journalism.
But I'd rather work for you...
====
I don't have a new XBOX, but I may be tempted:
http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/sim/
wingcommanderarena/news.html?sid=6166308
Friday TOP
Current Mail
|
