Dec 6th, 2007
Ron Paul Contrarian Thinker of Global Warming
Ron Paul commented on the issue of global warming and warned of “the fear-mongering” and encouraged contrarian thinking on the issue during an interview with host Layla Kayleigh of G4.
Paul said, “People think that Greenland’s going to be gone in 20 years - I don’t buy into that…but I think man contributed to it.”
Asked if he bought into “the ice glaciers melting,” Paul responded, “They can find just as many places where the ice is building up - in Greenland, in certain parts of Greenland, in Antarctica.”
Indeed, research conducted using the European Space Agency’s satellites in November 2005 concluded that Greenland’s interior ice sheets are thickening at a rate of six centimetres each year.
Dr. Paul responded pointedly when challenged by Kayleigh, who used to work for Al Gore’s TV network, “My advice is strongly this: listen to the scientists on both sides - people who have make up their mind. There’s something in investing, it’s contrarian investment, when everybody knows ‘this is the thing’ - watch out. The contrarian does something else. And right now there needs to be a little contrarian thinking about the fear-mongering that’s going on with global warming like it’s the end of the earth.”
Ron Paul emboldens the cognitive style of a contrarian thinker - seeing black when others see white, opportunity instead of failure. That’s one of his greatest gifts to the world of ideas and politics: the expansion of a group’s perspective to see problems in a new light.
Inconvenient Truthers, most of whom support democratic candidates such as Al Gore, see this issue as critical and the establishment and MSM seems to agree heralding the former Vice President’s Nobel Peace Prize. Ron Paul is testing the boundaries on the global warming debate and challenging the status quo. In the usual Paul way, he isn’t playing partisan politics or pandering to any group. This type of statement does nothing to convert democrats and independents, but rather he continues to be the voice of reason when reason seems thrown out the window…the voice of dissent when others follow the line…the contrarian thinker when perspective is required.
Asked if there was any country in the world that he admires for their social and political values besides the United States, Paul said “I sorta like Switzerland…because nobody knows the name of the president. And they have Cantons, which are individual states, they have various languages, and they always stay neutral in world wars. They are well armed and they have a militia and everybody has big guns in their house. They don’t have crime and violence. It’s not a centralized government. So, in many ways, they are very much like a republic, like we’re supposed to be like.”
Some believe that most glaciers in Switzerland will completely disappear by 2080, leaving nothing but valleys and slopes - and that global warming is our primary concern. Others believe our primary concern is that America’s sovereignty will disappear soon leaving nothing but another failed freedom experiment. Contrarians like Paul say that in both cases we have opportunity instead of failure.
