So, as WUWT readers well know, I have a different opinion about global warming.
Do you think the New York Times should endorse stabbing me (and others with similar opinions) through the heart like a vampire because I hold that opinion? See panel #4 “self destructing sabers for dispatching climate-change deniers”.
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2014/02/09/opinion/sunday/see-something-say.html?_r=2
Admittedly, this is a lame attempt at humor/satire, something we are all well familiar with applying here at WUWT. But, imagine if the tables were turned, and the cartoon depicted global warming alarmists such as Mike Mann or James Hansen in the same role? Our friends would have a collective cow. Yet, somehow, somebody at the New York Times thinks it is acceptable to suggest “dispatching” a whole class of people that hold a different viewpoint from them.
I’m waiting on I have a comment from NYT’s Andrew Revkin, who was the subject of a post yesterday, as to what he thinks about this in his own newspaper.
For the record, I don’t think global warming is a “hoax”, but it certainly has been oversold.
h/t to Steve Milloy at Junkscience.com
UPDATE: Andrew Revkin sends this comment via email:
I find the final panel in this cartoon on uses for surplus icicles to be the antithesis of humor. But some artists, like some bloggers, seem to thrive on edge pushing. Andres Serrano (“Immersion: Piss Cross”) comes to mind. There are many others. We are quite a species.
UPDATE2: Revkin has added some additional thoughts at his tumblr blog:
It’s worth saying more. This cartoon is right up there with the “pretty edgy” 2010 climate-campaign video showing a teacher blowing up students who didn’t sign on to cut their carbon footprints.
Both are great attention getters, and were utterly stupid if the goal was do accomplish anything other than inflaming and dividing people on an important issue. And that would be a reprehensible goal.
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I don’t get the Department of Commerce connection, though.
[snip – let’s not – Anthony]
…oh, and it’s just one more example of “global warming nazi-ism”.
Roy I was thinking of your stance when I wrote this post, I’m saving commentary on it for a future post.
Our distinguished host says:
“I’m waiting on a comment from NYT’s Andrew Revkin,”
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That echoes the thinking of many of us, here.
How about it, Andrew Revkin? Put up, or shut up.
That’s the crux of this whole divisive issue. There are no climate change ‘deniers’. I prefer ‘realists’, which is in fact, what we are.
I thought that was a subtle jab at the Warmists. hmmm
In all fairness, it does appear in the Opinion section, in the “See something Say something” section in which things from round about are quoted. They are not meant to represent the opinion of the Editors of the NY Times, but a round up of opinions being expressed elsewhere.
Reblogged this on What Say you and commented:
Unbelievable, and frightening. I understand the power of the propaganda engine that surrounds the AGW religion, but this literally has shades of the horrific satiric cartoons that ran in many German papers daily from 1933 to 1945.
@Roy Spencer:
I think the connection to the Dept. of Commerce is a new “Cash for Clunkers” program aimed at Al Gore and John Kerry, people trying to save the earth by flying around it, but in old inefficient airliners that should be traded in for newer, Greener models.
Greenshirts.
Two final requests:
1) All the warm mongers must come and dance on my grave
2) I want to be buried at sea
Religious zealots have no moral boundaries. Climate alarmists are only interested in imposing their beliefs on people no matter the cost.
pat says:
February 23, 2014 at 8:11 am
I thought that was a subtle jab at the Warmists. hmmm
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Can you cite any other example of satire where it is appropriate to call for the death of those with a different viewpoint? Maybe a modern day Leni Riefenstahl could make a short comic/satirical video of such an example. Would Andrew Revkin find such satire apropos?
The USPS doesn’t seem to know about 1042 American Way, I expect to find some cute hack, I guess the authors only do crude hacks.
Those are pretty lame icicles. The best I’ve seen are on western New York farm houses with lousy insulation and a little lake effect snow every night. Once the reach the ground they’re a lot less dangerous.
As the Russians say (but in Russian):
“In every joke, a little bit is joke and the rest is true.”
Did ya’ll notice that the guy being stab with the icicle is a caricature of a fat cat banker/rich person?
Notice the cigar popping out of the “climate-change denier(‘s)” mouth as he is stabbed with the icycle. A not so subtle attempt to connect climate skepticism to opposition to the government report on tobacco in the 60s.
The cartoon is further proof that Thermophobes either have a warped sense of humor or don’t have one at all.
I can see Pat’s point though. It starts off with what to do with ice “icicle surplus”
Andrew Harding: may I please have a funeral pyre using discarded tree rings, the scrifice of a couple of polar bears and some Minnesotans singing a medley? Not otherwise.
It is so beautifully incoherent that I see it as a jab at the warmistas also. Then again there is nothing so “tolerant” as the frenzied political left trying to destroy their opponents along with all our enumerated liberties. Anything is possibly I guess.
It isn’t funny, its dehumanizing to depict murder. It reminds me of the awful anti-Jewish humor/propaganda cartoons of NAZI Germany or the old Soviet Union. Seriously, the victim here doesn’t have a human nose like the other people depicted in the cartoon, he has a pig-like nose. Dehumanize your enemies, its always the same. They aren’t people, they’re dogs, pigs, vermin, etc. “You can kill them, they aren’t like you at all.” It is interesting that they use “denier” so deliberately and so casually when the term is loaded with monstrous dishonesty.
When you say “global warming” isn’t a hoax, do you speak of the planet warming per say, or “Global Warming” as a socio-political narrative? I’d have to say you say the latter is true: CAGW as a organizational phenomena a la Al Gore/David Suzuki, IS a hoax.
GW is a falsely presented prediction of calamity on a planetary scale based on current human industrial activity, which purpose it is to deindustrialize and deconsumerizee the modern world while limiting the industrial and, hence, consumerist growth on the non-First World countries. It comes from a Malthusian belief in limited resources already at the stretching point for the non-human biosphere. It comes from a quasi-liberal, “enlightened” view of single-malt drinkers in a club discussion that others wastefully and appreciatively spend and play with the bounty that only sensitive spirits understand lies about them. CAGW comes from a place that says central government control, while not perfect, is better than individual control because even if its reasons are wrong, its final objective – a Rousseauian world in which the lions lie with the lambs – justifies its strong-willed actions.
The GW narrative, not any warming of the planet, IS a hoax foisted on the caring people of the world. It is a hoax just as the Weapons of Mass Destruction was a hoax foisted on the anxious people of the world: as long as everyone gets on board and the enemy is defeated, the truth is irrelevant.
They seem stuck with the Warm = Cold meme, even making fun of it.
If it was warm why was there so much snow and the resultant large crop of icicles ?
I thought a long time ago that their inability to control the overselling of the message would lead them to make more and more ludicrous statements each outdoing the other until they were so far away from reality that even an unobservant person couldn’t help but see it. Maybe we’re there ?
I also agree with Anthony, there has been some effect from AGW. We can then argue the extent of the issue, by my rule of thumb measure I’d say the AGW effect of CO2 has been overstated by a factor somewhere between 5 X and 10 X reality. The climate is nowhere near as sensitive as the alarmists predicted.
I also find nothing funny about violent and derogatory cartooning of one’s enemies on the opposite side of a debate. It happens though. Does it get my vote? Does it convince me of the argument? Not in the least. I much prefer classical debate. That this form of discourse is not a required element of high school curriculum escapes me. Except that maybe, just maybe, the political party in power does not want its young citizenry so educated.
‘incitement’