The Air Comes Out of the Climate Change Talks

Rupert Darwall writes in “Real Clear Politics”

cop15_balloonTuesday’s climate summit at the U.N. may well mark a turning point in the long-running talks as the reality sinks in that they are heading nowhere. For sure, the rhetoric is unchanged. Recently appointed U.N. peace messenger Leonardo DiCaprio is the show’s newest star, telling the meeting that it was “humankind’s greatest challenge.” But the older acts sounded stale. Former Vice President Al Gore demonstrated his green credentials when he said that political will was “a renewable resource,” recycling a line he’d first used at the 2007 Bali climate conference.

Underneath the overheated rhetoric and the U.N. platitudes about acting together, the signs of failure are already apparent. The original intent of the summit was to put world leaders on the spot. With the eyes of the world upon them, they would feel compelled to make ambitious pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions that could be inked in to a legally binding text. Instead, the leaders that came were let off the hook. Now they are only expected to submit their proposals by March next year. All the talk was of reaching “agreement” in Paris, which is a long way short of agreeing to a treaty. Countries were going to agree to make contributions to tackle global warming, not hard and fast commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Contributions are much weaker than commitments. For developing countries, it means listing the sorts of things they are doing anyway – a bit of reforestation here, some solar panels there.

All these are signs of slippage.

There were quite a number of empty seats in the chamber as the president spoke. Secretary of State John Kerry played with his BlackBerry. Many looked bored. At the end of the president’s remarks, the most enthusiastic applause came from DiCaprio. Perhaps that’s because he’s good actor. The climate change talks might be attracting dwindling audiences. But there’s one thing you can bet on: the climate change show will run and run.

h/t Bill Hough
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Doug Huffman
September 26, 2014 4:51 am

Don’t miss
“I’m the president, BRING ME MY SIPPY CUP!” one wrote, in reference to a shot of Mr. Obama’s edge-of-seat pose in a oversized chair, right before his speech.
And another wrote, about the same photo: “Thank you — and now I’ll sit in a huge chair that makes me look like a little boy.”
Still one more: “Tiny Obama back in the huge chair at UN.”
And again: “Sums up Obama, little man w/small mind & big ego sitting in a to[o] big chair.”
http://media.washtimes.com/media/image/2014/09/24/un-general-assembly-obamajpeg-0c8c3_s877x659.jpg?bba74a8a38aa142cf32c215cbf742961833aa192

Jeff
Reply to  Doug Huffman
September 26, 2014 1:21 pm

Reminds me of Lily Tomlin’s Edith Ann (from Rowan and Martin’s Laugh In, years ago…)(still funny)
The sandwich could stand for the hodge-podge of “climate mitigation efforts” from this and other administrations – all they do is make a big mess, and even a dog knows better than to get near it…
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocBO0fr1Ui4%5D

Reply to  Doug Huffman
September 26, 2014 2:17 pm

But for his great effort Obama will be given a seat somewhere within UN? Good salaries and a now tax? Where did the socialists go?

Reply to  Santa Baby
September 26, 2014 8:41 pm

Many Retired socialists end up within the UN?

Mike Bryant
September 26, 2014 4:54 am

Not with a bang…

September 26, 2014 4:57 am

This scare is all over bar the shouting.
Mind you, there will be A LOT of shouting…

Editor
Reply to  soarergtl
September 26, 2014 5:05 am

And the echoes of that shouting will be heard for decades…in a continuous whine.

Reply to  Bob Tisdale
September 26, 2014 9:49 am

But with scarves around their mouths and chattering teeth, it will mercifully muffled.

Reply to  Bob Tisdale
September 26, 2014 1:31 pm

I doubt it, Bob.
They’ll slide right into the Water Justice issue.
Certainly CAGW will remain in the background but they don’t mind shifting gears.
Look what happened to the protests against the wars.
Put a democrat in office and they stop protesting the government and go after people.
By name and address when they want to.
It’ll resurface when the leadership changes parties.
But for now, CAGW will quietly take a back seat to water, the next crisis to not “go to waste.”
Maybe that’s where Eric is headed? To spearhead the water issue?
imho

garymount
Reply to  Bob Tisdale
September 26, 2014 3:25 pm

The whine from the wind mills?

richard
September 26, 2014 4:58 am

I wonder if that was the Blackberry Passport. I rather like the look of that , i hope the company survives.

Stephen Richards
September 26, 2014 4:59 am
WitchFinder General UEA
Reply to  Stephen Richards
September 26, 2014 5:36 am

Sorry I watched a middle class, North London, metroplole chundering on (AUS) about nothing. gag

DirkH
Reply to  Stephen Richards
September 26, 2014 7:03 am

“we would all get together and discuss, for instance, what would we do to prevent the Netherlands from flooding”
Well I though the Netherlands have solved that problem themselves quite well in the 210th century, and seem to be well prepared to continue tackling it. The catastrophic floods were BEFORE the age of the big Global Warming swindle…

ConTrari
Reply to  DirkH
September 26, 2014 9:01 am

And that’s why you won’t find the Dutch too concerned about floods and sea level rise. They have had centuries of practise in tackling it. They know they can cope. They have reclaimed a large part of their country from the sea. They have experienced disastrous floods, like in 1953, when 1800 were killed. Not much talk about co2 in those days.

September 26, 2014 5:02 am

I promised I will reduce my CO2 emissions to nil and even start absorbing some of it myself, as soon as possible…
…which might as well be never, if that’s not possible.
I didn’t realize how easy it was to become a champion of green values!

ConTrari
Reply to  omnologos
September 26, 2014 9:06 am

Sacrificing a limb or two might help save the world. If all mankind had at least one wooden leg, think of the carbon sink effect! (Or something) Where are the Greenpeace surgeons? The cutting edge of environmentalism?
And in winter, you could keep warm by the cosy heat from your thigh-fire.

Jeff
Reply to  ConTrari
September 26, 2014 1:23 pm

“Only a flesh wound”….not…

AllenC
September 26, 2014 5:05 am

Is that the same Leonard0 who owns 5 homes and partied on a super yacht (which burns hundreds of litres of fuel per hour) during the World Cup?? No hypocrisy there.

Jimbo
Reply to  AllenC
September 26, 2014 8:28 am

Leonardo DiCaprio’s hypocrisy while at the UN has been exposed! See here and here.
According to this website Leonardo DiCaprio has / owns the following:
• Net worth $220 Million (while opposing coal power for dung heating Indians)
• 3 or 4 homes (1 is a mansion)
• A private island 2.2 miles long
• 3 cars

Jimbo
Reply to  Jimbo
September 26, 2014 8:36 am

Ooooop!!! I forgot to mention that Leonardo DiCaprio also owns private jetS and “even if he took only commercial flights his plane travel spewed 40million metric tons of carbon into the air….”
Another source says he also has private yachtS.
If this is how you fight ‘climate change’ then let me on board (the yacht of jet). LOL.

kcom
Reply to  Jimbo
September 26, 2014 8:41 am

Just before coming here I happened on a news story about George Clooney and his A-list friends all converging on Venice for his wedding. Someone should start toting up those CO2 numbers and see what they get. Hypocrisy, thy name is Hollywood. The good news is I’m pretty sure they were all flying coach.

Jimbo
Reply to  Jimbo
September 26, 2014 8:42 am
Jimbo
Reply to  Jimbo
September 26, 2014 8:56 am

When the New York march was over what did Al Gore do? DO AS WE SAY, AND NOT AS WE DO. It’s all for the little ol’ grandchildren dotchaknow.

Al Gore Leaves People’s Climate March in Chevy Suburban SUV
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/09/22/Al-Gore-Leaves-Climate-March-in-Chevy-Suburban-SUV

Winston
Reply to  Jimbo
September 26, 2014 8:58 am

“Update: Leonardo has only FOUR homes”
“Oh, the hypocrisy!”

Lee L
Reply to  Jimbo
September 26, 2014 8:58 am

(Overheard at UN as spoken by the ‘Messenger of Peace’….
“It’s time to GET THEM OUT OF THEIR YACHTS!”

Jimbo
Reply to  Jimbo
September 28, 2014 9:10 am

More exposure of Leonardo DiCaprio and green march hypocrisy. DO AS WE SAY, AND NOT AS WE DO. OK then.

Why Leonardo DiCaprio is a poor role model for saving the planet
…..The greenest people on Earth are the poor.
That’s because they live in small apartments (if that) rather than McMansions, take public transit rather than drive cars, never fly anywhere on vacation or business, don’t consume exotic foods and can’t afford an iPhone…………
……If the theory of man-made global warming is correct, then the only way to slow it is to consume less, which many of the people telling us to consume less are not prepared to do themselves.
And that, is the very definition of hypocrisy. ……
http://www.torontosun.com/2014/09/27/why-leonardo-dicaprio-is-a-poor-role-model-for-saving-the-planet
http://www.carbonated.tv/news/leonardo-dicaprio-un-climate-change-summit-2014-speech-video
===================
…..It’s fascinating how hypocritical the climate change movement’s leaders, as well as its followers, can be. If they honestly believe that everyone must do their part to save the environment, why are they the exception? In the very least they could start by picking up their own trash.
http://www.christianpost.com/news/climate-change-and-hippie-hypocrisy-126917/
===================
The height of hypocrisy: Climate change marchers trash NYC
…With many expecting that “green” gala to be a squeaky clean event, replete with recycling bins and reusable drinking containers, many were shocked to see the piles of garbage strewn across the marching route. The litter-laden aftermath of the event (see photo from Twitter to the right) had many climate-change skeptics questioning the heart behind the movement….

Steve P
Reply to  AllenC
September 26, 2014 8:54 am

When Hollywood is involved, you know it’s all about creating an illusion.

ConTrari
Reply to  AllenC
September 26, 2014 9:14 am

No, that’s somebody else. Entirely. Another part to play. Another movie altogether. The actor entering a private jet in LA is not the same when arriving in NY. The script has changed. Don’t blame the actor for doing his job, his profession is to create illusions. But it takes a really good craftsman to stir some life into the old CAGW story. You need a good actor to do that, and DiCaprio is good. At acting.

Phil Ford
September 26, 2014 5:05 am

Leonardo DiCaprio: another multimillionaire Hollywood star determined to use his money and celebrity to get a platform his climate propaganda. But he’s also a hypocrite – although he’s far from alone, sharing that dubious honour with the likes of James Cameron (film director), George Clooney, Matt Damon, Cate Blanchett and so on, ad infinitum. Hollywood – showbiz in general on both sides of the Atlantic and beyond – cannot breed rabid, unimaginably wealthy CAGW eco-zealots fast enough, it seems.
Still, besides their rampant hypocrisy, they at least share one other thing in common: none of them – not a single one – is a climate scientist. Funny that. Because I thought it was only ‘climate scientists’ who are qualified – permitted, even – to make utterances in public on the subject of ‘climate change’. That’s what the BBC believes, anyway, and it is doing its level-best to ensure that’s what happens – you’ll not find one climate sceptic being given the time of day by the hateful Biased Brainwashing Comintern here in the UK.
Still, what harm could there possibly be in allowing an unqualified, albeit immensely wealthy, thespian to take to the platform inside the UN building (no less) to address the world, apparently unchallenged – applauded, even – on the subject of climate change?
Who knew he understood all this stuff? The UN, apparently.

Alex
Reply to  Phil Ford
September 26, 2014 6:20 am

Empty heads with makeup

Winston
Reply to  Phil Ford
September 26, 2014 8:41 am

Prepare to puke, DiCaprio and Sanders interviewed by skeptic:

Winston
Reply to  Winston
September 26, 2014 8:56 am

Could the instantaneous intervention by someone (bodyguard?) nearby immediately after DiCaprio was asked about his yachts and homes be due to that question being “An Inconvenient Question”?

Reply to  Winston
September 26, 2014 12:59 pm

Hilarious when Sanders found out he was being interviewed by a real correspondant how his deneaner changed from a one of “How dare you ask me that you Oil Company shill” to one of “I better answer according to the script”; or at least that’s how it looked to me.

Reply to  Winston
September 26, 2014 11:49 pm

Dicaprio is just another in a long line of useful fools……

Reply to  Winston
September 26, 2014 11:52 pm

Where do we find such pig headed, ignorant politicians. Have they all been injected with some virus that makes it impossible for them to reason?

Jimbo
Reply to  Phil Ford
September 26, 2014 9:06 am

Phil Ford,
Here is the real BBC. More hypocrisy.
BBC Pension – Top equity Investments at 31 March 2013
Altria Group [Tobacco]
Drax Group [Electricity generation]
BHP Billiton [Oil & mining]
British American Tobacco
BG Group [Oil & natural gas]
BP [Oil & natural gas]
Royal Dutch Shell [Oil & natural gas]
Imperial Tobacco
Centrica [Natural gas & electricity]
Reynolds American [Tobacco]
Petrofac [Oilfield services]
Occidental Petroleum [Oil & natural gas]
The above list “Does not include any assets held in pooled funds.”

[BBC Pension Scheme]
“The Scheme is also a member of the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC) and has signed up to their investor statement.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/mypension/aboutthescheme/responsible.html
—–
“The statement is supported by 259 investors – both asset owners and asset managers – that collectively
represent assets of over US$15 trillion.”
IIGCC – November 2010

Reply to  Phil Ford
September 26, 2014 8:55 pm

Willi and his innocents clubs are to blame? http://www.heretical.com/miscella/munzen.html they are just useful idiots for a political Agenda?

September 26, 2014 5:11 am

All of this – all of it – will one day, hopefully soon, be the subject of a mini-series along the basic structure of ’24’. It all starts out like things are under control, and we think we know who the bad guys are. And then, slowly, with increasing tension, the drama unfolds and the unexpected happens and continues to happen, just barely below the threshold of collapse.
It would be a very cool show.

euanmearns
September 26, 2014 5:33 am

What’s up with the Bern Model?
I guess this is covering ground covered before on WUWT by Willis, I think we reach the same conclusions. But I hopefully add something new by looking at what is sequestered instead of what is left behind in the atmosphere. The T173 and T∞ processes do nothing on human time scales. 0% decline doing nothing may come as a surprise to some.
http://www.euanmearns.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/bern_sequestered_2.png
And there’s lots more….

euanmearns
September 26, 2014 5:39 am

This is not Bern by my own 2Tau model and shows what might have happened if emissions were switched off in 1990
http://www.euanmearns.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/2comp_emissions_off.png

Geckko
September 26, 2014 5:42 am

There is an endless stream of Hollywood global geo-political wannabees queueing at the door to the UN.
DiCaprio, Watson, Beckham. The place is turning into a circus.

DirkH
Reply to  Geckko
September 26, 2014 7:06 am

Don’t forget Angelina Jolie. NWO Globalism campaigning seems to be an important source of income for actors these days.

Mumbles McGuirck
Reply to  Geckko
September 26, 2014 7:11 am

“The place is turning into a circus.”
The UN has *been* a circus since the 1960s. Self important tyrants have used it as a platform to taunt the United States and other civilized countries about their general ineffectiveness in reigning in tinpot dictators and their bloody purges. The inmates have long been running that asylum.

Jimbo
Reply to  Geckko
September 26, 2014 9:31 am

Victoria Beckham is married to David Beckham. Together they have at least:
• FOUR homes (at least 3 are mansions or villas)
• A vineyard
• 5 cars (1 SUV)
http://www.bornrich.com/victoria-beckham.html
http://www.bornrich.com/david-beckham.html
The same website says that her husband (some jointly owned) has
• NINE homes.
• TWENTY TWO cars only (Hummer, SUVs, sports)
I hope these two nice people steer clear of making pronouncements about climate change.

ConTrari
Reply to  Geckko
September 26, 2014 9:33 am

My favourite is the South Park episode where everyone is driving av hybrid car (called “Pious”), creating a disastrous cloud of feel-good atmospheric disorder, which connects with the permanent morally superior cloud hanging over San Francisco, AND the better-than-thou cloud from George Clooney’s Oscar speech. San Francisco is never seen again….

September 26, 2014 5:44 am

I was just thinking: Leonardo could take two versions of the yacht he rents, line both up end to end, and it would make a ship longer than the Titanic.
Didn’t he play a poor boy in that movie?

Leon Brozyna
September 26, 2014 5:48 am

Climate change experts … failed politicians and movie stars.
What?! … no used car salesmen in the mix?

RockyRoad
Reply to  Leon Brozyna
September 26, 2014 6:03 am

No… Used car salesmen do have some scruples.

SMC
Reply to  RockyRoad
September 26, 2014 7:02 am

Used Car Salesmen are a step above Lawyers on the evolutionary ladder.
Lawyers (or is it properly spelled liars?) are a step above Politicians.
For comparison, the Ebola virus is several steps above Used Car Salesmen.

September 26, 2014 5:53 am

DiCaprio has lots of Hollywood company, all of whom are rich enough to consign everyone else back to the dark ages. It’s their idea of leadership.
http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2014/06/12/american-traitors/
Pointman

Eustace Cranch
September 26, 2014 5:57 am

You know, I’m no spring chicken. I look around and the climate is pretty much the same as it was 50 years ago. Yet it’s now “humankind’s greatest challenge.”
Right.

ConTrari
Reply to  Eustace Cranch
September 26, 2014 9:37 am

Don’t you see, that’s just the greatest challenge. To find the change. Sisyphos is nothing compared to our heroic climate change fighters.

Cheshirered
September 26, 2014 6:03 am

If climate change really IS the ‘world’s greatest challenge’, but intelligent, informed leaders of responsible, developed nations are still unable to deliver lasting, contractual reforms, then the question to ask is ‘Why’?
The answer is blindingly simple: observations have NOT supported the rhetoric, the hysteria, the claims of planetary Armageddon. CO2 is not causing catastrophe. These people aren’t world leaders without at least some good reasons, and they can see with their own eyes that shouty AGW advocacy is not being matched by our relatively benign climate. The theory is failing before all our eyes, and there are only a few who refuse to see.
If AGW had catastrophic consequences we would be seeing them now. We’re not. So we don’t need stupid, harmful, expensive decarbonisation policies to not solve a non-problem. Hence, world leaders are not playing ball. It really is that simple.

RockyRoad
Reply to  Cheshirered
September 26, 2014 6:37 am

I submit that world leaders are indeed “playing ball”–lured in by the UN with their visions of global domination supported by their taxation scheme. Chances are slim that any of that tax revenue will go to so-called “climate-change-impacted” countries.
No, it will stay in the coffers of the UN where it will be used to establish a One World Order that dominates humanity. And with such chaos in the world, what laws will be the basis of this new Order? Likely it will be Sharia law–which alone is brutal enough to bring all factions under control.
Climate change is the ruse they use and power-hungry politicians see it as a brilliant way to control the masses. Whether temperatures go up, down, or stay the same, it doesn’t matter. Political control is the beast they worship and global domination is their end game.

Robert of Ottawa
September 26, 2014 6:06 am

The New York thingy had two goals:
1. Garner supportfor the Dems in the mid-terms from the eco-millionaires and other watermelons that support Obomber.
2. Polish Obomber’s credentials to be the next UN king.

Jason H
Reply to  Robert of Ottawa
September 26, 2014 6:57 am

3. Bring the Socialists out of the closet.

D.J. Hawkins
Reply to  Robert of Ottawa
September 26, 2014 11:34 am


Regarding point 2., that can only happen if BHO renounces his US citizenship. Citizens of nations with permanent seats on the Security Council are not eligible to sit as Secretary General of the UN.

Auto
Reply to  D.J. Hawkins
September 26, 2014 2:21 pm

Whilst I am sure the good community organiser was born in Hawaii, might he not be able to claim Kenyan citizenship, through his late father?
Kenya – population some 45 million, and growing at >2% per year.
Just asking [Not original, but not inappropriate, either].
Auto

September 26, 2014 6:12 am

I’ve become very interested in the pathology and prognosis of such great delusions. The CAGW construct is a rare and complete global experiment in social and psychological science that, ironically, seems unlikely to be studied or even noticed by social scientists themselves. This is sadly a measure of the disciplines’ complete corruption. Lewandowski and students of his, or indeed graduates of any of the world’s universities are simply oblivious of the E=mc^2 moment this represents for their otherwise thinly served sciences. They are part of the pathology.
Forgive a geologist, but the gross stages of this pathology would seem to be:
1 A quiet, sincere science has been working at understanding climate with modest success.
2 A soshulist elite are looking for a vehicle to put their political agenda across.
3 They recognize that the environmental movement is well developed and organized and has wide support globally. They define a problem for the science to solve, starting with the premise that the problem is caused by humans and is a product of western capitalism and its productive industry.
4 They create a uniting organization in the UN with the mandate to study the problem as defined by them.
5 Governments recognize a huge opportunity to expand tax revenues to control the “problem”. They provide huge sums of money for research and universities and other research institutions, including government agencies respond by creating and expanding departments to take advantage of the money and career building (knowing that only preordained results are acceptable). The new faculty grows and attracts huge numbers of students. Scientific journals expand, fill editorships with facilitating staff and reduced standards to publishing.
6 Other disciplines jump on the bandwagon – the social sciences, life sciences, medical sciences…
7 When results start to come out, a small, dedicated and unorganized group of sceptics develop to criticize the work being done, unfailingly, demonstrating the poor quality of this mission oriented science.
8………I leave the rest for homework.

Reply to  Gary Pearse
September 26, 2014 6:34 am

Gary Pearse
Although I agree much of what you say, I dispute this

2 A soshulist elite are looking for a vehicle to put their political agenda across.
3 They recognize that the environmental movement is well developed and organized and has wide support globally. They define a problem for the science to solve, starting with the premise that the problem is caused by humans and is a product of western capitalism and its productive industry.

Margaret Thatcher was NOT “soshulist” but as is explained here she started the scare as a vehicle to put her political agenda across.
Richard

Reply to  richardscourtney
September 27, 2014 7:03 pm

No, Margaret certainly wasn’t a soshulist and I think, that although she took advantage, apparently temporarily, of the AGW opportunity politically, she wasn’t the real deus ex machina in the global warming story. Check out Maurice Strong – real “Goldmember – Doctor Evil” type of guy. I would be surprised if you haven’t heard of him. He created the whole framework for this in his UN environmental agency creations and even laid out the problem that needed scientific support – that man is responsible for warming and the system has to be changed. He wasn’t particularly interested in biological diversity and other such boring subjects – but in the ready made organization, broad appeal and endless supply of useful idiots of the environmental movement that could be re-purposed, essentially without their knowledge of it. He’s loved in China where he has lived for a number of years and admires how they promulgate policy.
Now here is what I mean by a soshulist elite. Soros, Strong, Steyer, just to look at the ‘Ss’ These guys actually use both CAGW and socialism as a tool for their plans. I can well understand why you would reject them as socialists, but socialist elites are something different. They imagine themselves exempt from the need to contribute and share. They just believe that ordinary folks can’t rule their own affairs (down to simple details) but require a wise elite to do this for them. When it comes to the need to reduce population, who better to manage this? Redesign their diet. Ration their travel, etc. They are rich and powerful already, although not powerful enough in their eyes, and in no way are they beholden to Marxian principles for themselves.
As an aside, is it any surprise that the lofty humanist goals of the first major experiment in socialism – USSR- wound up corrupted by the same kind of thing giving us Uncle Joe. Churchill’s remark about how lousy a system capitalism is, but… is apropos here. All systems – benevolent dictators, socialism, capitalism all work wonderfully well in theory. It’s in practice that we run into problems because individuals are basically predisposed to do what’s best for themselves. I guess Churchill’s choice and mine seems to recognize this human failing (?) and prefer more of a freedom of action, controlled by regulations. It at least is the best for generating wealth so that there is something to redistribute.

Reply to  richardscourtney
September 28, 2014 1:29 am

Gary Pearse
You say

No, Margaret certainly wasn’t a soshulist and I think, that although she took advantage, apparently temporarily, of the AGW opportunity politically, she wasn’t the real deus ex machina in the global warming story.

Sorry, but Margaret Thatcher was “the real deus ex machina in the global warming story”.
Many people – including those you mention – had tried to start the scare but she did. And she needed both motivation and opportunity to be successful: she was the first person to have both and she deliberately started the scare.
Please read my account which I linked, and please note that my account was originally a prediction that the global warming scare would occur and that prediction was considered to be fanciful at the time.
Revisionist history may suite the agenda of those who want to pretend the global warming scare is a left vs. right conflict. But the actual history demonstrates it is not and never was a left vs. right conflict.
The global warming scare is a useful tool for totalitarians of all political persuasions and they are all using it to further their objectives.
Richard

Reply to  richardscourtney
September 28, 2014 1:37 am

Gary Pearse
You also assert

As an aside, is it any surprise that the lofty humanist goals of the first major experiment in socialism – USSR- wound up corrupted by the same kind of thing giving us Uncle Joe.

That “aside” reveals your true intent.
The USSR was communist, not socialist. And if you think the USSR had “lofty humanist goals” then I suggest you read the excellent parody “Animal Farm” by George Orwell.
Revisionism is malign propaganda.
Richard

DirkH
Reply to  Gary Pearse
September 26, 2014 7:13 am

Gary; good summary.
Important part though: Bored, depressive unproductive Westerners kept afloat by abundant industry output look for a meaning in their useless lifes and rally around the offered “problem”, making it their personal cult (and therapy). Leading to imitation of the religions they left, inventing new sins, a saviour, and indulgences, even new pseudo gods (Gaia).

Reply to  DirkH
September 27, 2014 7:07 pm

Well, this looks like part of the homework I prescribed

Reply to  Gary Pearse
September 26, 2014 9:03 am

Gary Pearse on September 26, 2014 at 6:12 am
– – – – – – – –
Gary Pearse,
Are you maintaining that their political beliefs is the fundamental motivation for the scientists whose works are essential in supporting the premise that the earth needs to be saved from CO2 from fossil fuels?
If you do maintain that, why?
John

David A
Reply to  John Whitman
September 27, 2014 4:51 am

John, this is what Gary said; “Governments recognize a huge opportunity to expand tax revenues to control the “problem”. They provide huge sums of money for research and universities and other research institutions, including government agencies respond by creating and expanding departments to take advantage of the money and career building (knowing that only preordained results are acceptable). The new faculty grows and attracts huge numbers of students. Scientific journals expand, fill editorships with facilitating staff and reduced standards to publishing.
6 Other disciplines jump on the bandwagon – the social sciences, life sciences, medical sciences…”
=================================================
In essence he stated that humans have universal qualities, good and bad. Just as some on the left note the bad behavior of some capitalists (The Robber Baron era for example) and blame their behavior on the system of capitalism, instead of on the human failure and greed of the individuals involved.
The truth is that scientist are human, just like the “greedy capitalist” and most succumb to the pressure of government driven political agendas; especially when their house payment depends on it. The dark side of human nature does not stop with any system. Devising a system wherein all power is ceded to central authority only consolidates the dark side of human nature into one venue. “Government is a necessary evil” Thomas Jefferson. The US system of “necessary evil” was devised to protect individual liberty from the most prevalent forms of group power prior to its formation, mostly political or religious. Sadly the world has forgotten this lesson and more and more looks to Government to be the savior.

David A
Reply to  John Whitman
September 27, 2014 4:58 am

John, “Group Think” “Peer pressure” and “Confirmation Bias” comingled with the necessities of feeding one’s family and paying the mortgage, all have combined to create the social phenomena we call CAGW.
As someone up thread commented, the social scientist in their failure to really address this have been missing a golden opportunity to study the “quaint human spectacle” Mark Twain.

Reply to  John Whitman
September 27, 2014 10:26 am

David A on September 27, 2014 at 4:51 am
– – – – – – – – –
David A,
I do not see where Gary Pearse (Gary Pearse on September 26, 2014 at 6:12 am) addressed my subsequent question (John Whitman on September 26, 2014 at 9:03 am). My subsequent question was whether “their political beliefs is the fundamental motivation for the scientists whose works are essential in supporting the premise that the earth needs to be saved from CO2 from fossil fuels”.
He posits that a large number of scientists flock to the government’s beck and call for the climate change cause implying either money or career advancement or political advocacy is why they did it. He does not address why the core group of scientists whose work is at the very foundation of the scientific support of the climate change cause are pursuing the cause with scientific work that I think has been recognized in the broader culture as having been bent to the cause.
Are you suggesting that it is money or career advancement or political advocacy that are the fundamental motivations for the scientists whose works have been essential in supporting the premise that the earth needs to be saved from CO2 from fossil fuels?
This is important to understand very clearly, because to make a precise and effective strategy to intellectually remove their impact on our society then we need to have the right assessment of the source of their actions, premises and beliefs.
John

Reply to  John Whitman
September 27, 2014 7:17 pm

Well, certainly liberal progressive would net most of them, but really, no. These guys have been corrupted by the huge influx of cash that this “position” gives them. Any reticence they may have had was rationalized out of them and the cashflow, exotic meeting locales and rock star status suborned them. They are, in effect, elite useful idiots. I’m speaking really of their masters that they are unlikely to be aware of – the socialist elites, the types that meet in Davos every year or two. See my reply above:
Gary Pearse
September 27, 2014 at 7:03 pm
“… Check out Maurice Strong – real “Goldmember – Doctor Evil” type of guy. … He created the whole framework for this in his UN environmental agency creations and even laid out the problem that needed scientific support – that man is responsible for warming and the system has to be changed. He wasn’t particularly interested in biological diversity and other such boring subjects – but in the ready made organization, broad appeal and endless supply of useful idiots of the environmental movement that could be re-purposed, essentially without their knowledge of it.”

Reply to  John Whitman
September 28, 2014 5:03 pm

Gary Pearse on September 27, 2014 at 7:17 pm
Well, certainly liberal progressive would net most of them, but really, no. These guys have been corrupted by the huge influx of cash that this “position” gives them. Any reticence they may have had was rationalized out of them and the cashflow, exotic meeting locales and rock star status suborned them. They are, in effect, elite useful idiots. I’m speaking really of their masters that they are unlikely to be aware of – the socialist elites, the types that meet in Davos every year or two. See my reply above:
. . .”

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Gary Pearse,
I take it that you basically think even the core group of scientists, who are the creators of the founding and continuing scientific basis of the climate change cause, are opportunists. If that a fair statement of your assessment of the nature of what drives the climate focused scientists involved in the climate change cause?
It appears, based on what I think you are saying, that we disagree. My thinking is they are pure idealists who are profoundly motivated by a sincerely held self-created heroic mythology. A mythology which involves them having a firmly believed story involving a self image of having incorruptible faith while on a self-righteously heroic crusade through skeptic infested badlands to achieve a self-evidently true cause to save the earth from fossil fuel created CO2. Their idealistic myth requires that they as scientists are, in the context of their work product and behavior as scientists, willing to sacrifice anything and everybody that risks their myth.
John

Reply to  Gary Pearse
September 26, 2014 11:49 am

Mob psychosis.
Like RC I don’t think socialist covers it, more like phoney socialists, statists, bureaucratic parasites?
As in people who seek to use the force of government to seize power.
They use the socialist messaging because it resonates in the welfare societies of the West. (Where the money and power was)

September 26, 2014 7:06 am

DiCaprio a good actor? No, just better than most politicians.

dp
Reply to  philjourdan
September 26, 2014 7:50 am

What does the button on the back of his head do?

ES
September 26, 2014 7:11 am

“But there’s one thing you can bet on: the climate change show will run and run.”
Just like the Energizer Bunny.

Non Nomen
September 26, 2014 7:13 am

“Recently appointed U.N. peace messenger Leonardo DiCaprio is the show’s newest star, telling the meeting that it was “humankind’s greatest challenge.”
Hmmm…aren’t actors always parroting something that somebody else wrote down?

JM
September 26, 2014 7:13 am

But we have a new “buzz word” – “climate-resilience.” See the President’s latest Executive Order.
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2014-09-26/pdf/2014-23228.pdf

Eliza
September 26, 2014 7:42 am

Looks like Google has completely blocked/deleted anything about Mann Vs Steyn (news). They must be worried.

hunter
Reply to  Eliza
September 26, 2014 7:49 am

It is interesting that the latest news is from June, 2014. How cowardly of Google. How typical.

hunter
Reply to  hunter
September 26, 2014 7:49 am

….sorry, I meant August 2014…….Given the news volume since then, my comment still stands.

September 26, 2014 7:58 am

‘The Air Comes Out of the Climate Change Talks’ by Rupert Darwall at Real Clear Politics.
Rupert Darwall said,
“. . . The climate change talks might be attracting dwindling audiences. But there’s one thing you can bet on: the climate change show will run and run.
. . .”

The clear reason the climate change*** cause will run and run is that it can so easily influence scientists to make their published science bend to the profound belief in the cause.
Without that bending by some published scientists, there is no climate change*** cause. This whole show is attributable to those scientists’ willingness to forgo objectivity for subjectivity to the cause in their published science. Seek their philosophy of science principles and you will understand why they can so easily be bent into subjectivity.
*** climate change*** cause is the belief that they are saving the earth from C02 produced by using fossil fuels.
John

hunter
Reply to  John Whitman
September 26, 2014 8:23 am

Hopefully Dr. Curry and her co-authors are in the vanguard of a reform desperately needed in science in general and climate science in particular.

Reply to  John Whitman
September 26, 2014 8:36 am

hunter on September 26, 2014 at 8:23 am
Hopefully Dr. Curry and her co-authors are in the vanguard of a reform desperately needed in science in general and climate science in particular.

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hunter,
I agree with you. I think there is a energetic and growing vanguard that is making progress to correct a lot of climate focused science that was bent to support the climate change cause.
John

Reply to  John Whitman
September 26, 2014 11:07 am

ConTrari on September 26, 2014 at 10:17 am
And that is precisely why alarmists can claim that so-and-so many scientists support the CAGW scare. I if were studying the break-stick-beetle, for example, I would probably not get much funding for the beetle itself. But wrap the insect up in a “break-stick-beetle climate change challenge” package, and the money would flow. Now, I would not start my research by questioning the basic claims of CAGW; I just want to study my beetle. And if kow-towing to some theory of which I have no interest is what it takes, then so be it.

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ConTrari,
Are career advancement and money the fundamental motivation of any scientists who bend their science in support of mythologies created by the climate change cause?
Or are such scientists fundamentally motivated by a belief in the mythologies created by the climate change cause and in doing so they then, secondarily, try to make a living and get career advancement while pursuing their primary motivation to aid the cause?
I think the later motivational scenario fits with the idea that the subject scientists really believe that they are saving the earth from fossil fuels. It fits with the idea that it isn’t politics or gain that is motivating them; those things are just expedient practical means for them. I am making the case that they have an ethical ideology motivating them which influences the outcome of their science.
John

ConTrari
Reply to  John Whitman
September 26, 2014 10:17 am

And that is precisely why alarmists can claim that so-and-so many scientists support the CAGW scare. I if were studying the break-stick-beetle, for example, I would probably not get much funding for the beetle itself. But wrap the insect up in a “break-stick-beetle climate change challenge” package, and the money would flow. Now, I would not start my research by questioning the basic claims of CAGW; I just want to study my beetle. And if kow-towing to some theory of which I have no interest is what it takes, then so be it.

Reply to  ConTrari
September 26, 2014 11:11 am

ConTrari on September 26, 2014 at 10:17 am
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ConTrari,
I responded to your comment above at ‘John Whitman on September 26, 2014 at 11:07 am’
Sorry that I did not post it immediately following your comment.
John