Sometimes we get so used to the histrionics of the BVoAF that we fail to consider any perspective. So on a hunch from Basement Cat, I googled “billions will die” to see how mainstream a claim that is:

Hmm. What do we have on the first page?

Three youtubes:

1. A prediction that billions were going to die on Dec 21, 2009

2. A prediction that billions are going to die sometime in 2080

3. Something from a group called “ex Catholics”, with a strong language warning

And seven web hits:

1. A satire site

2. Some site called “Diary of Daedalus” with an article about some lunatic at some other site called LFG

3. Some about.com thing with some guy talking about the Gaia hypothesis

4. Some hedge fund blog nobody’s heard of

5. Some peak oil blog nobody’s heard of

6. Somebody hawking an end times prophecy book

7. A Newsbusters article from 2007 ridiculing some weatherman on ABC for claiming that billions were going to die.

Now, who hasn’t claimed that billions were going to die?

Greenpeace

Sierra Club

NRDF

Kos

Huffpo

NYT

PBS

NPR

Realclimate

Romm

Hansen

Mann

Jones

Gore

IPCC

Get the picture?

This isn’t an orthodox global warming alarmist belief. Now I’ll leave it to the reader to decide what that says about “consensus” “scientist” Ludwig van Quixote. But let’s ask another question. Do you think it ever occurred to Chuck Johnson that this claim is so out of the mainstream that it shouldn’t be implicitly approved by the blog? Do you think that Chuck should distance himself from such fringe beliefs?

If not, why not?