The public school costs nearly 80 million bucks, and should open in days, for about 600 students. But there’s a prob: it’s located on a pile of toxic goo. Yep, according to activists, the soil there contained more than “a dozen underground storage tanks serving light industrial businesses,” and even more ooze may have come from tanks of a nearby gas station.

So the fact that this enviro-church sits on a vast mound of chemical poison may sound pretty ironic, at least to bloggers who might say, “hey, this sounds pretty ironic.”

But that would be an incorrect usage of the word irony.

Because, Rachel Carson’s ideology is poison, responsible in part for the deaths of millions of children worldwide. It seems only fitting that a structure named after her SHOULD be the cherry on the contaminated cake.

Carson, if you remember, wrote about DDT in her book , “Silent Spring,” back in 1962. In it she falsely wrote that the chemical – which kills malaria-carrying mosquitoes – caused harm to birds. She also linked it to cancer (more b.s.), and it was this alarmism that led to a DDT ban in 1972.

Now, decades later, the loss of DDT in the developing world has allowed up to two million human deaths each year from malaria. According to the American Council on Science and Health, 30 to 60 million have died since the ban took effect.

So anyway, that’s why irony doesn’t work here.

Side note: for all you folks panicky over the the rebirth of bedbugs, realize that experts blame the DDT ban, combined with global travel, for that, too. It’s kinda sad that something like that might bring DDT back, instead of large-scale death.

And if you disagree with me, you’re a racist homophobe who won’t fix me a nice lunch.

Tonight,

The delightful return of Greg Proops!

The delightful appearance of Patti Anne Browne!

The delightful dementia of Dana Vachon!

Irish directors Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney have brought Gore’s controversial picture back under critical focus in their new documentary, “Not Evil Just Wrong,” which addresses the science and language of Al Gore and other environmentalists who see global warming as a major problem. Nearly 10,000 people in 22 countries simultaneously watched the film as it was streamed online via USTREAM (28,000 tuned in at different times), as well as almost 8,000 screenings across the U.S., all of which started at 8 p.m. EST. yesterday, October 18. 

This isn’t the first time “An Inconvenient Truth” has been critically studied. When the British government planned to send the DVD to 3,500 secondary schools in 2007, volunteer school governor Stewart Dimmock challenged the decision, believing it is inaccurate and biased. Just over two years ago (Oct. 11), British High Court Judge Michael Burton found nine significant errors in the film, and ruled that it could be shown in schools only if accompanied by guidance to counter its one-sided views. Without this guidance, showing the film would have been breaking the law. While Gore himself claimed he won the case, Judge Burton disagreed, saying, “I conclude that the claimant substantially won this case by virtue of my finding that, but for the new guidance note, the film would have been distributed in breach of … the 1996 Education Act.” 

“Not Evil Just Wrong” picks up where the High Court left off, picking apart both Gore’s film and the environmental movement through case studies and in-depth interviews. It addresses the economic and societal impacts of environmental regulations, as well as the scientific truth behind today’s environmental hype. Key components included a study of DDT, a chemical that kills mosquitoes. It helped end malaria epidemics in many countries, and was once widely used in the United States until environmentalists convinced governments around the world that it caused cancer and was harmful to wildlife. Because of this DDT was banned. Without DDT, malaria-carrying mosquitoes have thrived in third-world countries, especially in Africa, and have killed millions. But in 2006 the World Health Organization removed its ban on DDT after beliefs about its negative affects were disproven. 

The film also revealed that the “hockey stick” global warming graph, which was cited in “An Inconvenient Truth” as evidence of global warming, was in fact incorrect since its compiler Michael Mann used flawed mathematics to reach his end result. Its underlying mathematics was flawed. The film cites a warm period during the Middle Ages and the 1930s as exceptionally hot periods. 

Gore himself declined to be interviewed for the film, but McAleer was able to pose a question to Gore at the Society of Environmental Journalism’s 2009 conference in Madison, Wisconsin, giving his film a burst of publicity just before its release. They briefly sparred after McAleer asked Gore whether he accepted the British High Court’s ruling that there were nine significant errors in the film and what he’d done to correct the errors. Gore evaded the question and the two locked horns over one issue: the number of polar bears alive today. This is probably the worst of the nine errors to fight over, since neither side can say with certainty how many polar bears there are. Terence P. Jeffrey, an editor at large for Human Events, wrote in May of last year that there is really no evidence to base numbers on other than estimation. 

On the whole, the film excellently uncovered the facts about Gore’s campaign, though when the lights came up, I for one would have liked to know more. In that vein Andrew Breitbart plans to help the filmmakers launch “Big Environmentalism” as a platform for environmental truth. McElhinney announced the decision at the panel discussion after the Washington, D.C. film premiere.

Watch Lemon’s response around thirty seconds in. It looks like someone gently pokes him with a stun gun.

Can we go back to that moment again? But this time, producers, let’s slow-mo it.

Joy! In that instant, you learn a couple of valuable things:

-Lemon is adorable when he’s miffed

-It’s always hilarious when a reporter’s assumptions aren’t met. Blinded by ObamaLove, Lemon overlooks the fact that Bush is pretty much a hero in Africa – ending brutal wars, giving tons of humanitarian aid, and most important saving millions of lives fighting AIDS and malaria (a disease brought to you not just by mosquitoes, but by your average environmentalist and his misguided hatred toward DDT).

-In sum, when it comes to Africa, Obama has some pretty big shoes to fill. How disturbing it must be for Lemon, that they belong to Bush.

Tonight, the delightful John Gibson, the hilarious Frangela, and the delectable Anna Gilligan. And finally, our softball game. It’s worth the wait.