"The Day After Tomorrow" - Entertainment or Propaganda?

George C. Landrith

As only Hollywood and its multimillion-dollar special affects can, the movie “The Day After Tomorrow” depicts floods, tidal waves, hurricanes, and other extreme weather events as the result of human caused global climate change. Perhaps this is just more fun and fictional entertainment from Hollywood. Who would criticize the “Lord of the Rings” movies for being unrealistic? Wasn’t that part of the show? But extreme global warming adherents are excited for the release of “The Day After Tomorrow” because they hope Americans will view it as an accurate depiction of science.

Perhaps they are right, but I doubt it. I don’t think Americans view movies such as “Jurassic Park” or “Armageddon” as serious efforts at scientific inquiry. They were fun movies, but they were not sound science. Likewise, “The Day After Tomorrow” may be fun entertainment, but it is not science.

Unfortunately, there will be some who attempt to use this Hollywood special effects extravaganza as proof that man is causing global warming and that extreme energy taxes and regulations must be adopted immediately to save us from the horrors depicted in the movie. This is as silly as basing America’s energy, environmental and economic policy on children’s cartoon movies like “Ice Age” or “Lion King.”

One of the favorite ploys of the extreme environmentalist Left is to use politically motivated pseudo-science in an attempt to scare Americans into accepting their job-killing environmental policies and burdensome regulatory regimes. They conjure up some urgent and terrible risk to the environment and our health. Then they promise us that if we will give them the power to regulate the economy, kill jobs, and increase prices for basic goods and services, they will rescue us from the catastrophe that they have predicted.

The problem is their claims of future catastrophes are based on shoddy junk science. Their claims are not true or real. But the economic devastation that they cause is real. The jobs lost are also real. The increased costs for energy and food and goods and services are real.

Extreme environmentalists claim that the climate is warming and that it is man’s fault. They tell us the debate is over and that the science is certain. John Kerry parrots this line and has used his power in the U.S. Senate to support job killing regulations, higher energy prices, and greater U.S. dependence on foreign oil. Kerry has also worked to make it harder for Americans to drive the cars they need and want for business and their family – all of this while promising that if elected, he would make jobs a priority. It sounds like junk science would be his priority, not jobs.

There is no reliable scientific data proving man is causing global climate change or that such modest changes, if they were to occur, would cause any real harm. The one constant on earth is that climate has always changed. We have had ice ages and warmer periods and mini-ice ages – many times. None of this is new.

The world’s current temperature averages are cooler than the average for the last 10,000 years. Yet despite this fact, we are promised by warming adherents that if we allow them to restrict and tax energy and kill jobs, they will save us from warmer temperatures. Even if one accepts their premise, the solutions they offer will not solve the problem they claim exists. Their claims of manmade climate change are just so much hot air. Unfortunately, the jobs they would kill are real and the poverty they will inflict on Americans is real – all this to fix an imaginary problem.

Americans should not trust Hollywood movies or the extreme environmentalist Left as reliable sources for sound scientific data. Nor should Americans take seriously their political demands for more taxes and job-killing regulations.

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Mr. Landrith is a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law, where he was Business Editor of the Virginia Journal of Law and Politics. He had a successful law practice in business and litigation. In 1994 and 1996, Mr. Landrith was a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives from Virginia's Fifth Congressional District. He served on the Albemarle County School Board. Mr. Landrith is an adjunct professor at the George Mason School of Law. He is recognized as an authority on constitutional law and jurisprudence, federalism, global warming, and property rights.

george@ff.org