Crank Trifecta Complete

It's funny, but the crank use of the recent reevaluation of global AIDS statistics by the UN reminds me of a sign you see driving towards Charlottesville from DC. It's faded wooden thingy that says, "Get the US out of the UN". About 5 miles up the road is a derelict-looking building with what looks like Santa Claus dressed as a confederate soldier carrying the battle flag, so you get a feel for the general sentiment of the area. For those outside the US, it might be helpful to understand this problem to know that a big part of the hatred is based on the belief of some fundamentalists that the UN represents the beast of revelations. The establishment of world government brings rapture, yada yada. They have a whole series of creepy books about it that, to the US's everlasting shame, are bestsellers.

So far, Denyse O'Leary and Tim blair used the UN correction to suggest all science is BS, or at least anything believed by that there dirty UN should be suspect. The trifecta has now been sealed by Steve Milloy, denialist extraordinaire.

It should come as no surprise that, according to the UN, 257 years of western development and progress has placed the Earth in imminent danger of utter disaster and that the only way to save the planet is to drink the UN Kool-Aid and knuckle under to global government-directed energy rationing and economic planning.

Oh, and did I mention that the UN says we only have seven years to end the growth of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and 40 years to stop them entirely if we are to avoid killing as many as one-fourth of the planet's species?

I'd be scared too, if I didn't know that this is the very same UN that just admitted to inflating the African AIDS epidemic -- thereby maximizing the public panic feeding its fundraising efforts -- and the very same UN that presided over the corrupt oil-for-food program which gave Saddam Hussein as much as $20 billion in kickbacks while delivering food unfit for human consumption to hungry Iraqis.

Note the conspiratorial tone? The UN didn't make an epidemiologic error, it was all part of its dastardly plan to create panic and raise money! Because actions of some corrupt members in oil for food means every wing of the UN, even UNicef, is out to rob us!

This is actually a pretty clever tactic for the global warming denialists. The UN is definitely a target of a lot of right-wing hate, and if you can create the false association that climate science = the United Nations, well that right there will gain you the toothless rapture-ready vote. DeSmogBlog has it right I think, it's more than just the usual crank glee at a perceived failure of science. It's also a clever political smear trying to unite UN hatred with climate science.