How Green Gullibility, Hyperpartisanship Are Wrecking The Climate Movement
by Walter Russell Mead The American Interest (excerpted)
One of the biggest intellectual failures of the global green movement against climate change is the persistent failure of its leaders and spokespeople to grasp the way their own advocacy fatally undermines their credibility. They blame cunning, unscrupulous and well funded enemies for disasters that their own inaccuracies, overstatements and disingenuous advocacy have brought on their movement.
Robert Murphy over at Master Resource has an excellent essay that shows how the credulous and gloating response of so many greens to the Heartland Institute affair and the faked document at its core made the green movement much less credible as a source of reliable information about climate matters.
Says Murphy,
The Heartland affair has shown not merely that some climate alarmists (namely Gleick) will stoop to outright deception, and most of his peers will close ranks to defend him in a sort of Green Wall of Silence. Perhaps more disturbing, it reveals that these people really have no idea how their opponents on the climate issue actually view the world. So when they dismiss skeptics as having no legitimate arguments, it should make outsiders take pause.
Without being a trained climate scientist, I can read the various blogs and try to parse the academic papers, but ultimately I have to rely a lot on the good faith and judgment of the scientists themselves. The Heartland affair has reassured my earlier conviction that the case for climate alarmism is far weaker than the alarmists have been telling us.
Murphy is writing here more about the green advocacy and blogging community than about the actual scientists, but this is all the more important as illustrating how advocacy has gotten so far away from science and ended by weakening the credibility of the green agenda. Read the whole thing.
…
The root cause of all this remains, in VM’s opinion, a truly idiotic set of policy proposals that, no matter the state of the underlying science, simply cannot and will not be implemented.
Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make green. Just ask Peter Gleick.
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Full article here
Our own leader Bob Brown of the Green party in Oz is waiting for a call from E.T.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/why_hasnt_an_alien_rung_bob/
Credibility FAIL
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green (grn)
n.
1. The hue of that portion of the visible spectrum lying between yellow and blue, evoked in the human observer by radiant energy with wavelengths of approximately 490 to 570 nanometers; any of a group of colors that may vary in lightness and saturation and whose hue is that of the emerald or somewhat less yellow than that of growing grass; one of the additive or light primaries; one of the psychological primary hues.
7. Green A supporter of a social and political movement that espouses global environmental protection, bioregionalism, social responsibilty and non-violence.
10.
a. Lacking sophistication or worldly experience; naive.
b. Easily duped or deceived; gullible.
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I think I know which definition fits the best.
Suggested wording mod:
“Whom the gods would destroy, they first dye green.”
😉
It makes target-spotting so much easier.
>:)
10.
c. Not fully developed or ready for harvest; immature
Anthony thanks for posting that article and links, very interesting reading.
And Pete of Perth, we have been outed by the refs from making any comment on Bob Brown’s home ‘state’ Tasmania, Australia and map thereof.
Though I did note that someone slipped in a youtube on the matter of Tasmanian maps some months ago 😉
When has the “green movement” ever been a credible source of information? When has any movement ever been a credible source? By definition, movements exist to advocate for a particular point of view. Look for facts elsewhere.
No, the original still holds true.
http://tongue-tied2.blogspot.com/2006/12/leftism-as-psychopathy-by-john-ray-m.html
Words are just words: what I call sociopathic, this guy calls psychopathic. Same thing, different words. (Although, as an aside, cause and effect are reversed between the two.)
Ta.
But the cause is just, don’t you see? After all, the world must be saved, so the end justifies the means.
This political analysis of why the green activist climate initiative is failing takes no position of questinability, weakness or invalidity of the underlying science. As a result, it comes off as a “shame it’s going down this way” type of analysis. They are correct in noting that the movement would be doomed to political failure even if the science were there. But the science is not there (certainly not yet by a long shot) and the scientists out in front converted to activism, which makes the movement a very bad thing – the worst thing if you listen and understand who they are and what they want – and it is not a shame that it is going down this way.
Their lust for power makes them incorrectly assume their opponents actually are as badly behaved as they are. Hubris blinds the self-critical eye.
this is what happens when u follow the Agenda 21 blueprint. only a 1 percent drop for the Greens so far, but they would surely drop further if only the MSM would inform the public better on the CAGW and carbon dioxide trading scam:
27 March: Australian: Matthew Franklin: Federal Labor vote near Queensland lows: Newspoll
The latest Newspoll survey reveals that federal Labor’s primary support has dropped three percentage points to 28 per cent in the past fortnight just one point above the 26.9 per cent figure achieved in its devastating loss in Queensland…
However, it also found the Coalition extended its commanding two-party-preferred lead over Labor to 57 per cent against 43 per cent in the fortnight when the Prime Minister successfully pushed the mining tax through the Senate. Two weeks earlier, the Coalition led Labor by 53 per cent to 47 per cent…
If the latest Newspoll results were reflected on election day, Labor would be trounced, with its primary vote now 10 percentage points below the support it attracted in the 2010 election, in which it failed to secure a majority of seats in the House of Representatives…
The latest Newspoll found the Greens primary vote stood at 11 per cent down one point from the March 9-11 survey.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/federal-labor-vote-near-queensland-lows-newspoll/story-fn59niix-1226310792897
Alternatively, maybe its because many Greens are just batshit crazy.
Read this speech given by the Australian Greens leader, Bob Brown.
Fellow Earthians,
Never before has the Universe unfolded such a flower as our collective human intelligence, so far as we know.
Nor has such a one-and-only brilliance in the Universe stood at the brink of extinction, so far as we know.
We people of the Earth exist because our potential was there in the Big Bang, 13.7 billion years ago, as the Universe exploded into being.
So far, it seems like we are the lone thinkers in this vast, expanding Universe. However, recent astronomy tells us that there are trillions of other planets circling Sunlike stars in the immensity of the Universe, millions of them friendly to life. So why has no one from elsewhere in the Cosmos contacted us?
Surely some people-like animals have evolved elsewhere. Surely we are not, in this crowded reality of countless other similar planets, the only thinking beings to have turned up. Most unlikely! So why isn’t life out there contacting us? Why aren’t the intergalactic phones ringing?
Here is one sobering possibility for our isolation: maybe life has often evolved to intelligence on other planets with biospheres and every time that intelligence, when it became able to alter its environment, did so with catastrophic consequences. Maybe we have had many predecessors in the Cosmos but all have brought about their own downfall.
That’s why they are not communicating with Earth. They have extincted themselves.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/why_hasnt_an_alien_rung_bob/
Give them enough rope and they will hang themselves. Another phrase from my youth that has comfort me through these trying times. The left has went all in on the old nag and she is running out of gas on the back stretch. =:D
Bob Brown should pay for his excruciating torture of the English language [SNIP: Sorry, we are just not going there. Even a /sarc wouldn’t have helped here. -REP].
Extincted indeed!!!!!!!!!!!!
LOL bob must be in contact with the realien society. Is “extincted” even a proper word? sheese the quicker they become a non party the better, with nutjobs like that as their leader.
It’s not the “green” movement, it’s the “watermelon” movement — green on the outside, red on the inside.
You didn’t think that all those Marxists and Communists just faded away after the Soviet bloc fell did you? Nope, they live on in academia, education and government.
BTW: The corporatists (the more accurate term is Fascists) don’t really care what the movement is, they just want to get their share. Global cooling, global warming, climate change, climate disruption, foreign oil, energy independence, decarbonization — none of these things matter to them, getting a hold of your money is all that counts.
That speech by Mr. Brown has the aura of ganja about it….
Reminds me of this….
Purest green!
advocacy has gotten so far away from science and ended by weakening the credibility of the green agenda.
Had the advocacy not gotten away from science there would be no green movement and all that would be left would be good science using money well spent on research into weather and climate. Their tactics and words only demonstrate the value of their science.
Note that there is almost no difference between Brown’s wondering why the Aliens haven’t rung and bishops of a previous generation wondering why the Angels have not descended from Heaven in all their Glory yet.
Except that previous generations were quite a bit more honest and open about their religious faith. They didn’t apologize for it, and they didn’t try to hide what it is, either. I think that more than anything else is what makes Brown and his ilk so wretchedly nauseating.
As Clemenza might have said to Paulie in the Godfather, ‘Extincted? Extincted!? Just be careful we don’t extinct you.’
It’s déjà vu all over again: Liberals/progressives saying really stupid things that are later proven to be totally false.
But then you have to ask yourself:
“Self, if they have been proven so wrong so many times, why do people like Paul Erlich still have jobs? And why are people still buying the New York Times?”
In the early 1930’s, the Communists (led by Lenin and then Stalin) had already murdered more people than the Nazis (led by Adolph Hitler) ever would. Yet, Walter Duranty wrote and the New York Times published a series of propaganda stories on the Soviet Union including the infamous passage: “Conditions are bad, but there is no famine… But…you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.”
Yet, Duranty KNEW it was a lie: “in private he told Eugene Lyons and reported to the British Embassy that the population of Ukraine and Lower Volga had “decreased” by six to seven million.”
Even Wikipedia has it. They call it the “Holodormor”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denial_of_the_Holodomor
Progressive college students of today will find this part interesting:
“ Stalin’s wife.., learned about the famine from Ukrainian students… They described acts of cannibalism…(she)complained to Stalin, who then ordered the OGPU to purge all the college students who had taken part in collectivization” (Purged i.e. tortured and shot.)
Progressive government bureaucrats of today will find this part interesting:
“(the) January 1937 census..(showed in the) Ukraine …evidence of the mortality resulting from the famine …Those collecting the data..(were)… arrested and executed”
We are finding proof that more and more of what the greens are telling us is false: DDT is ‘bad”, the hole in the ozone is going to kill us, the spotted owl needs old growth forrest, and the current apocolypse du jour, CAGW (which will require Global Governance to save us-with THEM in charge, of course).
In the 1930s, it was about Global Governance to create a utopia “so perfect that it would be the end of history” (i.e. there could be no further improvement). They called themselves Communists back then and, naturally, THEY would be in charge.
Now they call themselves Green. It’s deja vu all over again.
The questions arise: “Are the people who continue to tell us these lies just stupid? Or are they evil? And what of the people who still continue to believe them?”
Regards,
Steamboat Jack (Jon Jewett’s evil twin)
Ahh…our well informed Mr. Brown…
“We people of the Earth exist because our potential was there in the Big Bang, 13.7 billion years ago, as the Universe exploded into being.”
Really? Like AGW, the BB is a THEORY Bob. Do you know what that means? And you want to expunge us from this rock? Such ignorance. This is the same man who stated at the 2010 federal election that “…with a carbon tax we could have improved schools, health roads, transport…” So, Bob, clearly the carbon tax is all about raising revenue for 2013! Did you see what happened in QLD?
I think Walter Russell Mead misses the point. AGW advocacy was nothing more than window dressing. And with tens if not hundreds of millions available through non-profits, trust funds, and taxpayers, the entire PR wing of the Alarmists evolved into a glut of hyper busy PR flacks, grandstanders, and publicity hounds. Dr Mann showed just how easy (and lucrative) it was to play the role of Cassandra. Lest people forget, he was the toast of the East Coast media establishment for quite some time. Overnight this obscure climate scientist was a celebrity. Just think how many enviros switched graduate schools after watching him on Good Morning America!
Circa 2005-2007 a day didn’t go by without some Alarmist Doomsday study blaming some misfortune on AGW (that is, before it became Climate Change). There were so many neophyte Michael Manns are only so much bandwidth available.
If one is over fifty, say, he probably is less likely than a youngster to trust anything computer generated; let alone, doomsday, “The end is near“, crapola. When I was young, I saw people walking the streets wearing sandwich board signs prophesying doomsday. These alarmists were doing the same thing Al Gore does today. Only Gore uses Power-point instead of the sandwich board. It’s the same thing though.
The Man-Made Global Warming scam/lie/hoax becomes evident when one looks at the narrative that spews from the alarmists: Only evil and suffering can come from a warmer Earth. Fossil fueled, Western style prosperity must stop. This is the real agenda. Saving the Earth has little to do with it. Even if all the CO2 causes warming “theory” were true(I’m sure it’s not), It still does not absolutely dictate doom.
I say, why can’t it be? :
“Congratulations children, The Energy sources that fuel our economies and our prosperity, give us long life and comfort, these fossil fuels will also cause our planet to warm gently, about 2C degrees over the next century. What luck!
With the warmth and extra CO2 for plant life, millions of acres of tundra will become forests. Millions of acres of frozen steppe will become arable. Starvation will end. Prosperity will reach even the poorest people. We must keep searching for and burning oil and coal so we can improve our climate and prosper.
Humanity will become wealthy. With this wealth we can preserve habitat for animals, protect the rain forest. We will clean the oceans and the land. Our future is bright. We are entering the age of abundance. “
The Earth is not warming of late though. Too bad.