Variations on that theme might be included in some of my future writings I suspect, so thanks greatly for the lead.

When a bird on territory sees someone approaching the nest, its first instinct is often to attack in defense. But when it sees the size of the intruder, the next instinct is to flee. Caught between two equally powerful conflicting emotions, what does the bird do? It pecks its foot. Knowing it should do something, the bird performs a grooming displacement behavior at odds with the situation.

There’s a lot of footpecking going on. Why else would anyone unquestioningly accept the claims of wind salesmen, unless their good intentions were whipsawed between the desire to do something about climate change, as if they could, while clinging to the comforts of a life fossil fuels make possible. Since wind developers promote their technology as both environmentally benign and effective, support for wind technology allows people to footpeckingly sooth their consciences without affecting their high-energy lifestyles.

Genetic fallacy or poisoning the well: the source of, or supposed motivation behind, the idea determines its worth.

Factual truth is independent of the source espousing it. Both American rockets and Soviet rockets worked, despite one coming from capitalists and the other from communists. The proof is in the pudding, not the chef.

Charles, you’ve hit a nail on the head. In the United States, courts are reviewing several tort cases against energy companies for their alleged responsibility as CO2 emitters for the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina, melting permafrost at Alaskan villages, and other damages blamed on global warming. Of course, energy companies produce or contribute to CO2 emissions only in the process of serving customers who consume electricity, gas, and oil. People powering their factories, lighting their homes, running their laptops, and driving their cars are ultimately to blame for destroying the planet, according to the “science” invoked by plaintiffs. In their worldview, everybody is injuring everybody else. “We have met the public nuisance, and it is us.”

This mentality is deliciously lampooned in the South Park Episode, “Two Days Before The Day After Tomorrow” (http://www.southparkstudios.com/guide/908/) – a parody of the preachy, global warming, Sci-Fi disaster film, The Day After Tomorrow.

The South Park episode implies that warming hysteria feeds two psychological cravings. One is the need for villains to blame and punish. Stan and Cartman “borrow” (steal) a speed boat and crash it into the world’s largest beaver dam, breaking the dam and flooding the town of Beaverton. When Stan gets home and sees people stranded on their rooftops on the evening news, he asks what the government is doing to help them. Stan’s father lectures him that helping people is less important than finding out who deserves blame. A mob forms outside the mayor’s office, with some South Park residents blaming George Bush, others terrorists. But soon a consensus of scientists decides that global warming caused the flood. When this explanation later proves false, because the climate does not flip into an ice age as scientists predict, the U.S. Army identifies a new culprit: six-legged, pincered “Crab People.” The people of South Park are ready to believe in this hobgoblin too.

At that moment, Stan steps foreward and confesses that he broke the dam. This is immediately misinterpreted by an adult who says, “Can’t you see what this child is trying to tell us? We all broke the dam.” Another adult steps forward and confesses, “I broke the dam,” and another, and another, etc.

In addition to providing villains (oil companies, coal companies, George Bush) to blame and punish, climate alarm feeds the yearning for group think, for membership in a greater collective, replete with rituals to atone for collective guilt. ‘Yes, I am destroying the planet, but we all are, and at least I recycle, voted for Obama, support cap-and-trade, use compact fluorescents, drive a hybrid, etc.’

Owen, you’ve lost your girlish laughter. I would not bother exposing the hypocrisy of “polluter-funded” global warming advocates and “polluter-crafted” cap-and-trade bills if the warmists were not so sanctimonious. I thought this was evident from the content and tone of my column. Please think about it, and if the gist still eludes you, trying watching another South Park episode, “Smug Alert” (http://www.southparkstudios.com/guide/1002/).

Man what a damned hypocrite.

What most people haven’t realised yet is that the ‘Big Polluter’ is wearing the face that you see in the mirror every morning. Ergo, he is promising to bring the whole population to account for being this Big Polluter’.

Luckily he has not yet developed an irony detector, as it would be ringing off its head at the moment if he had!