A little tale to illustrate how alarmism works.
Story submitted by WUWT reader Andre Bijkerk
Tribe wizard:
“Dear tribe, I have returned from my long and dangerous quest for the truth and on the mountain top, I have found out why the river stays frozen and the land white, although the sun is high and the moon is old. Friends, it’s a very serious matter. There are strange and powerful creatures who call themselves gods.”
Old sceptic tribe idiot:
“That’s baloney, been there long time ago. Nobody is there, just barren rock.”
Tribe wizard:
“Don’t listen to that fool, dear tribe. These creatures only show themselves to the chosen ones like me. Anybody else cannot see them. And they are in anger as our tribe has displeased them and they are punishing us with casting the cold spell.”
Old sceptic tribe idiot:
“Nonsense, we had severe winters when I was young. It’s just natural variability”
(crowd murmers)
Tribe wizard:
“Quiet, quiet, don’t listen people, he is paid by the firewood companies. Luckily I have managed to calm down those gods and they promised, if I bring them all our goodies, that they will bring the summer back and the globe will warm again”.
Old sceptic tribe idiot:
“Baloney, if you give him all your goodies, you will just die sooner and nothing will change the natural course.”
Tribe wizard:
“Thou dreadful denier, how dare you risking future of our tribe, no, even the end of the world by calling upon us the wrath of the gods? Ban him! Ban him!
And thus the old sceptic tribe idiot was gone, the tribe wizard returned to the mountain with the goodies and sure enough it worked, the summer returned and the tribe knew for a fact that the gods of the mountains needed to be kept satisfied or the world would come to an end.
“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” – Mark Twain
Some interesting references to give it a scientific hue:
Mercier and Sperber 2010, Why do humans reason? BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (2010) 34, 57–111 doi:10.1017 /S0140525X10000968
(we argue to win and dominate others, not to find the truth).
Moral Panic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_panic
Moral enterpreneurs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_entrepreneur
Folk devils: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folk_devil
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If their thesis is correct, what are we to make of Mercier and Sperber’s reasoning? And why should we believe it; by their own arguments, doesn’t that make us marks?
My brain must be defective. I argue to find the truth. I have no desire to dominate others.
Bill McKibben waxes exceedingly rhetorically alarmist in:
Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math: Three simple numbers that add up to global catastrophe – and that make clear who the real enemy is
e.g.,
He apparently has not heard of climate persistence or Hurst-Kolmogorov dynamics.
He ignores evidence that nature thrived when climate has been substantially warmer with higher CO2.
Appeal to authority fallacy.
A rare recognition of pragmatic reality.
Relief that there are still some oil, coal and gas reserves to tide us over until we can make sustainable fuels cheaper than gasoline from crude oil.
“Give up all your goodies so we can survive”!
Meaning “We must keep nature pristine at all costs”.
That most harms the poor – most of whom are outside your borders.
As Christopher Monckton quotes: “
McKibben has apparently never studied the geological evidence etc. shown by Don Easterbrook or the likelihood that the rate of temperature rise will likely decline over the next three decades, possibly resulting in actual global cooling!
By the way, why are most migrants leaving the colder climates for warmer climates like Florida and Texas?
Bull Hockey pucks. My best arguments are against my own best ideas from the day before. Creativity works best when you treat your own ideas no more respect that you treat others.
The most successful creative teams respect each other and don’t waste mental effort trying to dominate each other. Ego building may work among the cubicles but doesn’t impress mother nature when the finished product is far away and not ready for prime time.
So that’s where all the trees on Rapa Nui went.
When I read the caption of the photo first I thought: What, Kickstarter now funds lumber business?
Andre owes me a computer monitor.
Of course many of the other tribes (Russia, China, India, etc.) will NOT give their “goodies” to the “gods” under any circumstances, so we’re stuck with the anger of the gods, whether we give them our goodies or not. I say we keep our goodies and use them to survive whatever curses (or blessings) the gods bestow.
Oh yeah, we should also fire James Ha–er, the wizard–and give him a job more in line with his aptitudes, like shoveling manure.
…the summer returned and the tribe knew for a fact that the gods of the mountains needed to be kept satisfied or the world would come to an end.
Then one evening, as the shaman (who was now the plumpest member of the tribe) came waddling down the mountain after delivering the latest batch of goodies to the gods, a sudden gust of cold wind carried the first snowflakes of the blizzard into the village.
There is a story that one year the Indian chief forecast a brutally cold winter because the white man was stocking a whole bunch of firewood.
Remember when you use some of that firewood or goodies:
Obama 2012
Mark Twain was not only very funny he was a skeptics skeptic. His most skeptical and darkest work is “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyberg”. It’s plot as I recall is not all that different from what is going on with the Church of Climatology.
Truth is found by falsification and not by defending (arguing) your favorite ox from being Gored by Al. Argumentation is not argumentative.
That firewood by Kickstarter brought immediately to mind the Emerald Ash Borer and Wisconsin’s 600+ Million ash trees. I am told that people still drag firewood-coals to New Castle.
“Folk devils” thanks for that reference.
Wikipedia on the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake:
David L. Hagen says:
July 19, 2012 at 2:30 pm
Remember when you use some of that firewood or goodies:
Said the Community Organizer who would not know what it takes to run a business or how to even split firewood if his life depended on it.
If you are successful or have started and run a good business it is because of YOU and no one else. No one else can make you learn what is needed, no one else can put what it takes into a business to make it successful.
This whole mindset of ‘we are just mindless replaceable ants in a big ant hill’ is a denial of the ingenuity of each individual. Unfortunately it is now permeating businesses who no longer value individuals and their contributions but only see people as disposable and interchangeable “Human Resources”
Speak for yourself, Chuck, I argue to crush my enemies, see them driven before me, and to hear the lamentation of their women. Just sayin’
eeemmmmmmm! Nice pile of wood.
I got wood envy!
Doug Jones says:
July 19, 2012 at 4:01 pm
Speak for yourself, Chuck, I argue to crush my enemies, see them driven before me, and to hear the lamentation of their women. Just sayin’
===============
Kipling ?
Maybe not.
“When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains, and the women come out to cut up what remains, jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains and go to your gawd like a soldier.”
Rudyard Kipling
That “Old sceptic tribe idiot” reminded me of John Stossel while he worked for 20/20.
See “No, They Can’t” (2012).
Hmm. Makes me wonder if those Clovis people worried about global warming when the Laurentide ice sheet was retreating or if they just said something like: “Cool, more hunting grounds”.
That’s because you don’t care what other people do, as long as it has no practical impact on you. But there are people who do care how others live, what lifestyle choices we make and they have very strong opinions about it. They use “Butterfly Effect” arguments that anything you do could impact them and, therefore, they should have a say in how you live.
Our fires in the last 3 years have increased by a factor of 2 every year. This is after an almost 15 year hiatus when we hardly used the lovely beast. Because it was warm and comfortable in the evening. Homes in my county, and there are many without fireplaces, primarily built in the 80’s, are now buying area heaters, as I had as a child, for a home built in the ’20s, when fire places were rare. because they were unnecessary. A look at fire place construction will likely wield a better understanding of decadal temperature than that provided by Mr Hansen and his minions.
AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.
We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.
We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.
With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.
When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “Stick to the Devil you know.”
On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “The Wages of Sin is Death.”
In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”
Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.
As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!
Rudyard Kipling
u.k.(us) says (July 19, 2012 at 4:33 pm): “Kipling ?”
Conan the Barbarian.
HR says (July 19, 2012 at 4:33 pm): “eeemmmmmmm! Nice pile of wood.
I got wood envy!”
Sheldon Cooper on wood: