Note: I don’t normally allow the discussion of things related to Nazi Germany here, including discouraging the use of the word “denier” due to it’s “Holocaust Denier” connotations. But this full page ad in the Sunday papers in Britain, touting “climate crime” and “climate cops” is just a bit over the top, and deserves some attention. It is particularly relevant since the sponsoring website climatecops.com has a teachers section, and we’ve just seen some sensibility from Schwarzenegger in Sacramento on this very issue. I find this method of indoctrinating school children to normal everyday living being harmful to the earth with the “climate crime” connotation as distasteful and wrong headed. I have no problems with energy conservation, in fact I encourage it. But combining such advice with a “climate cop” idea is the wrong way to get the message across. Can you imagine what sort of reaction the neighbors will have to the kids hanging this door hanger on their front door? Will the result of this now be hiding your electric dryer behind false walls so the kids and neighbors don’t see it?
At the very least, npower could have chosen a different color scheme: red, black and white are the same three colors used in the flag of Nazi Germany What were they thinking? – Anthony
Reposted from the website EU referendum:
Can I be the only one more than a little disturbed by the latest campaign to be fronted by energy company npower?
Launched today with large colour ads in the Sundays, it appeals directly to children, urging them to enlist as “climate cops”, to root out “climate crimes“, and thus “save the planet”.
In a luridly-designed website, mimicking the style of “yoof” cartoons, it offers a bundle of downloads, including a pack of “climate crime cards“, urging its recruits to spy on families, friends and relatives, inviting each of them to build up a “climate crime case file” in order to help them ensure their putative criminals do not “commit those crimes again (or else)!”
Quite what the “or else!” should be is not specified, but since the “climate cops” are being encouraged to keep detailed written records (for those who can read and write), there is nothing to stop these being submitted to the “Climate Cops HQ” for further sanctions, the repeat offenders being sent to re-education camps. And for those “climate cops” that successfully perform the “missions” set (or turn in their own parents), there is the reward of “training” in the “Climate Cop Academy”.
In a system which has echoes of Hitler’s Deutsches Jungvolk movement, and the Communist regime Pioneers, perhaps successful graduates can work up to becoming block wardens, then street and district “climate crime Führers”, building a network of spies and informers.
How nicely this ties in with James Hansen’s call to put the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies on trial for high crimes against humanity and nature, accusing them of actively spreading doubt about global warming.
No doubt, with a willing band of “climate cops”, the prosecutors can spread their nets wider, reaching into the homes of all climate change deniers, until the insidious virus of doubt is exterminated (final solution, anyone?). Then we can all march on the sunlit uplands of a “carbon-free” planet – to the tune of Ode to Joy no doubt.
Keystone Kops
Re-posted from our forum, placed by a noted local (British) journalist:
“No one should be surprised by this turn of events. Totalitarianism always recruits children. In 1984 children are encouraged to join The Spies, a more vicious version of the cubs or scouts. In Pol Pot’s Kampuchea, Year Zero began with children denouncing adults in middle class professions. In Mao Tse Tung’s Cultural Revolution were not Red Guards vicious young ideologues whose pleasure it was to drive out intellectuals into the countryside to shift shit and plant rice? The worship of youth is always a big mistake.
Jim Greenhalf”
My kitty is a klimate kriminal. Kitties are the kause of klimate change. Seriously though, it appears that appeals to Nazism and Stalinism is rooted in human nature when a problem fails to be solved in time, whether it is real or not. So, who should I watch out on the street for now? The Climate KGB, or the Gestapo of Good Weather?
[snip – I welcome your comments but please, let’s leave the taunt and ad homs out of this]
This is very disturbing. I live in Europe, and the politicians are really going off the deep end. The above campaign is yet another unsettling sign of a coming madness, which all starts somewhere. And the latest campaign in Europe shows this madness is starting off in earnest.
What can happen when reason succumbs to radical ideological doctrine and widespread madness?
Expect a sort of “KLIMATE KRISTALLNACHT”, where energy consumers will have their windows and property smashed and spray-painted by marauding eco-zealots. See how Hansen and Gore are fanning the flames of intolerance.
Indeed Hansen now seems on the verge of calling for the herding of climate criminals onto railcars for transport to centers for the final solution. These centres could have signs up front: “ENERGIESPAREN MACHT FREI” (Saving energy liberates).
Or climate criminals may be just sent off east somewhere to climate gulags. Watch out for Stalinst-like cleansings, where millions of CO2 emitters will simply be purged.
The odds of the above happening are sadly far greater than Hansen’s kook scenarios coming true. They’ve hasppened before, and not long ago.
Or else? I can think of a few things a new-minted little cadre of Green Guards could do to coerce their non-complying fellow citizens. Vandalising a neighbour’s SUV. Spray-painting walls and doors (with environmentally friendly paint, of course.) And superglue has its mischievous uses as well (as the geniuses at Plane Stupid have shown.) For indoctrination purposes, it’s vital to get to people while they are young, as radical Islamist groups also know. As the Jesuit saying goes: “Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man.”
I know my previous entry sounds radical.
But humanity is never ever far from madness. This latest campaingn, and the tones of intolerance by Hansen & Co, are signs that we are indeed entering a new period of madness.
The rest of us ought to be preparing for a kind of Climate D-Day.
IS this what its coming too!?!?
Speaking of re-education.
The chief meteorologist at one of our local TV stations here in Buffalo recently came out in support of AGW after spending a few days in Boulder, CO at NCAR. Should we start calling it the National Center for Atmospheric Re-education?
Are they now operating a concerted effort to get meteorologists to get with the program and embrace AGW, since they’ve been such a well known body of skeptics for so long?
I am speechless.
I know the UK government has bathed itself in the baptismal waters of the Church of Global Warming. But, what in the H#%$ are they thinking?
This isn’t helping anyone or anything. This is nothing more than nasty propaganda. Teach em young to be eco zealots and turn in others that don’t follow their climate religion?
Ahg. I can’t even begin to describe my utter disgust at this!
My name is Rich Hickey and I am a Climate Skeptic.
Oops, I left my computer on overnight. Might want to come write me up.
Isn’t it interesting watching the fascination Europeans have with dictatorial personalities? They seem content being ruled by either a political strongman, or a huge nameless, faceless, unelected and unaccountable government bureaucracy, which intrudes on all facets of their lives, right down to their clothes lines and cell phone chargers. And ten dollar a gallon gas? It’s a small price to pay for the putative security of having all those tax sucking bureaucrats rule their lives.
Looking back on 20th century history, I wonder why the U.S.A. paid so much blood and fortune to save these Euroweenies from the same fate that they seem to crave today.
There’s no denying that most Europeans have a serf mentality. The only difference in the cartoon ad is that the kid has on a red shirt, instead of a brown shirt. Sign of the times, I guess.
As an American, I can’t help but be disgusted at the Europeans’ servile demeanor. Those with any “can do” attitude must have already immigrated here. As a John Wayne character once said, “The weak died along the way, and the cowards never started.”
/rant
After reading Pierre’s post above, and the others, I owe them an apology. Not all Europeans are wusses. But there are too few who believe in their own self-sufficiency to outnumber the servile herd, which is always eager to trade its last remaining freedoms in return for the mirage of security.
creepy
Orwellian.
I think this climate cop thing is a good idea. Parents who are caught out should be suitable chastened and help put things right. They should carry out the following CO2 reducing activities:-
1) Remove the fuses from most of your child’s toys, tv, phone charger, etc.
2) Turn off the heating/air con to your child’s bedroom, ambient should do
3) Refuse to drive your child to anything fun
4) Serve cold, locally sourced food (lots of broccoli)
5) Buy new clothes for them from a second hand source
6) Halve their allowance and place it in and eco fund.
7) Make them plant trees on the weekend.
8) Send them to a local camp while the rest of the family fly away on a holiday.
9) Make them wash the dishes and their clothes by hand.
I’m sure we can think of some more helpful carbon cutting hints.
Smokey:
That’s a pretty broad brush. Let’s wait and see what kind of backlash this causes. There are plenty of libertarian types, at least in the UK. It also means very little until some important icon comes under threat. For example, curtailing night time football will likely produce a backlash of sizable proportions.
This type of program, like throwing blood on people with fur coats, may well serve to wake up people to the more extreme political aspects of AGW promoters.
Re Smokey (13:19:51) :
I am a climate sceptic, and I live in Europe. I feel offended. I could come up with some counter arguments, but I will not.
I can’t see how Smokey’s post is helping the issue of fighting the AGW madness. Can’t we just work together?
The future belongs to them.
Stunned. Just stunned. I keep thinking I’m going to wake up.
[RANT]
Why not just come out and call them “der Gore-Jugend?” It can be mandatory service until age 16 and pack’em off to the Climate Change Assault Detachment also known in the inner circle of the National Green Workers Party (NAGWP or Naggies for short) as the ‘Storm’-troopers. There could be special opportunities for the ones willing to turn in family and friends, especially their parents and siblings. They get a carbon-black shirt when they join the Climate Protective Squadron!
Perhaps skeptics shall become inconvenient “Lebensunwertes Leben” and the Naggies will gas us with their sequestered CO2 at Climate Concentration Camps?
Skeptikerfrei! Das ist gut, mein leader, ja?
[/RANT]
My apologies to my Deutsche friends. The slide into totalitarianism can be invisible to all but the most observant until the Reichstag burns. This sort of stuff scares the heck out of me and sarcastic humor is sometimes the only release from the fear that we are tottering on the edge of that dark night.
“Lebensunwertes Leben” was the Nazi philosophy of ‘Life Unworthy of Life” which was the justification for the extermination camps and the other horrors of the holocaust. When we allow the marginalization of any segment of society simply because they don’t agree with the opinions of the current majority, we risk repeating the history (again).
I wonder what Hitler’s carbon footprint was?
We’re going to jail boys and girls… just a matter of time. Ain’t science grand?
Pierre Gosselin:
Klimate Kristallnacht? Why did I not think of that? I think it is time we d****rs prepare for a Climate Cleansing, where the Supreme Green brainwashes us like in A Clockwork Orange, where they hold our eyes open with those rod things and constantly give us eye drops, all while watching An Inconvenient Truth and having the IPCC AR4 report read to us during the credits. I think I would say that it is “very likely” (greater than 90%) that politicians in Europe will push even more radical things than this before a very ugly public uprising. It’s funny how most mentions of global warming in the media are made by politicians, journalists, and actors instead of scientists these days.
[…] This foolishness was brought to my attention by Watts Up With That. […]
The UK has rather nice organisation called the Advertising Standards Authority. I’d advise anybody who lives in the UK and finds the advert disturbing to complain to the ASA. Just a single complaint will result in them investigating the advert.
In response to Smokey’s comment, and as a Briton whose grandfather fought on the Western Front, I would like to assert that not all of us here, on the other side of the Atlantic, are servile in the way you state. Try telling the young British soldiers currently fighting in Helmand Province that they are cowards and serfs, and you will get a robust response, to say the least. We have nothing to prove.
Regarding green taxes and the like, politicians in the UK now surely know that if they attempt to coerce the people into carbon serfdom, they will lose their grip on power, come the next election. We will exercise our democratic rights and throw them out.
Right you are, Smokey. I also want to add that it is “virtually certain” (near 100% probability) that I have no tolerance for neo-Nazi propaganda.
I have a question. Does anyone know the difference between a global warmi-er, I mean, a climate change d***er and a climate change d***alist?
Also, I have noticed a story that was found by the blog GREENIE WATCH that mentions that green-themed magazines are becoming as unpopular as ever:http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/mixed-media/2008/07/24/green-issues-a-tough-sale-at-the-newsstand
Maybe that can apply to Europe. Maybe.
It’s rare to see a post as finely crafted as the above from Smokey.
TinyCO2, your suggestions are absolutely brilliant. 🙂
I would like to add another ecologically sound suggestion to your fine list:
Rig the partental controls on your computer so that whenever your child logs in to the “Climate Cops” web site, the computer automatically shuts down.
That should save both energy AND hot air! 🙂
When Obama gets his national security in place, the one he said should be as “large and well funded as the U.S. military” , there will be plenty of funding to have the US goverment start such programs. It is sad that no one had demanded he explain what he meant by this outrageous comment.
It ill behoves an American to lecture us Brits on the evils of Global Warming propaganda. Maybe when the US produces its own version of GGWS (or even deigns to show the current one on TV) or drags AIT before the Supreme Court, then maybe you can say you are making a stand.
All this nonsense started with Hansen and Gore, remember.
@Stan
This nonsense started with Dame Maggie. Didn’t you watch GGWS?
Ta!
I think you all are getting a bit overwrought. Yes, it’s a dumb move by a power company trying to prove its ‘greener than thou’ credentials, but I predict it’s going to fizzle out pretty quickly.
Any kid who starts sporting a Climate Cops badge at school is soon going to find out the meaning of peer pressure.
The Nazis were amateurs compared to the Communists when it came to social engineering by setting children against their parents.
I can’t but think, NPower has deliberately allow the eco-fanaticism to show in this ad, because it is going to alienate a lot of people.
Some of the saddest things I’ve seen.
All in the name of doing ‘good’.
Truly makes the saying “Hell is paved with good intentions” come to mind.
I was wondering if I could take the lightning bolt (a natural hazard) from the climate cops shield and replicate it four times rotated around the top square. However, I’m not that ambitious, and it turns out it npower has already said it would annoy them. BTW, your page will annoy them. I heartily recommend checking these pages, which by virtue of not being their home page, will annoy them. Got to admire an organization that won’t let me (err, Anthony, err, WordPress) link to a company’s privacy policy.
http://npower.com/web/at_home/popup/website_terms_and_conditions says:
Oh wait – the Terms and conditions is at npower.com, so I’d say it’s okay to link to whatever you want at climatecops.com. Furthermore, it appears we can modify the climate cops logo, it’s just the npower logo we shouldn’t besmirch.
http://npower.com/web/at_home/popup/popup_privacy_policy
This is okay. They explicitly state they won’t rat you out. They don’t state whether they will encourage others to rat you out, so the Climate Cops site is free to encourage kids to rat out relatives and neighbors.
You can have my programmable thermostat when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.
That’s where the road is leading: energy rationing. And the day that a government employee shows up at my house to install a remote-controlled GPS thermostat is the day you’ll all see me on the national news.
Hopefully you’ll all be kind enough to throw a tea party in my honor.
TinyCO2, very good!
Climate Crime 6:
Food needs to be cool before it goes in the fridge.
Follow that one, and the kids will end up as orphans — if the botulism or salmonella don’t them, too.
Ah, yes, npower.
Is this the same company that that wanted to dump 250,000 tonnes of pulverised ash from the Didcot ‘A’ Power Station in the Thrupp Lake? Fortunately, their plans have been just been scuppered by the local council (21 July 2008).
See: http://www.saveradleylakes.org.uk/srl_campaign/documents/documents/PressRelease_21_07_08.pdf
Is this also the same company?
“Ofgem, the energy regulator, began a formal investigation yesterday into alleged mis-selling of energy contracts by npower, one of Britain’s top six power suppliers.”
See: http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/utilities/article3799222.ece
In all honesty, how can they then claim to have the moral authority to turn our children into spies?
I’m no longer a customer of theirs (changed last year) and will NEVER be again.
The “Most Wanted” poster states “When someone’s finished charging their mobile phone, they should always remember to unplug the charger.”
In fact, unplugging the charger when it is not in use saves zero energy. I’ve seen this recommended for years and was always dubious of it, having studied electrical engineering in college and being familiar with how a transformer works (that’s basically all the charger is). So I tested it myself. I have a digital “Kill A Watt” power meter that measures the power use of any appliance. It works very simply. You plug the meter into the wall outlet, and then plug the appliance into the meter. The meter displays the amount of power being used. I plugged the charger for my Nokia 6126 cell phone into the power meter, without the phone attached. The reading: ZERO watts. Then I plugged the phone into the charger and the power meter displayed 3 watts. Unplugged the phone from the charger, with the charger still plugged into the meter, and the meter immediately went back down to 0.
Another example of something that sounds like a good idea but the science simply doesn’t back it up.
However, unplugging the charger is a fairly simple thing to do, and not too inconvenient, so a lot of people will be persuaded to do it. And that’s what is so insidious about it. It’s an easy way to create “buy in” and get people in the habit of following the advice of environmentalist gurus. It can serve as a foot in the door for AGW alarmists to sell the public on taking ever and ever more drastic measures.
It pays to be skeptical even of the little things like this.
What’s with the red theme on the art work? The poster is red, the kid is wearing a red jacket. Maybe there is something to the notion that the Greens are simply the Reds that have changed color. Maybe they are changing back. Whatever it takes to hamstring Western economic growth in order to reduce competition for China!
Do not look at the colours, look at the sign below the ‘climate cops’. It looks like a symbol for lightning (‘Blitz’). It could also mean an ‘s’, but written like a rune ‘s’. Add a second rune ‘s’ and you have the ‘Schutz-Staffel’ signature. Schutzstaffel fittingly means ‘protection echelon’. Climate protection echelon, or climate SS! The next black humour question is who might be the German climate SS Fuehrer? No, not an Austrian again! All living Austrians are as wonderful as Arnold, believe me!
OK, now I am really worried!
It seems that npower is owned by a German firm.
@Pierre Gosselin
Such are the results when you put into jail “whatever deniers”. Such must be the results when the National-Socialist (NO nazi!) emblems are forbidden but Red Stars, comrade Che T-shirts, or Lenin’s Potraits are freely distributed. (I am for freedom for all.) Europe is quickly heading into national-socialist union called European Union, and we’ll see “ENERGIESPAREN MACHT FREI” on mob’s banners very soon.
And sooner than later we will see Americans and Europeans emigrating to Russia (yes Russia!) as the only freedom country being able to protect citizens’ freedoms.
Mr Gosselin, you’ve made only one mistake. Climate Gulag will emerge in the WEST. You still think in old way of Soviet Era stereotypes. After all you live in UESR (Union of Europe Socialist Republics) for many years, don’t you.
Regards
At least it’s slightly more positive than Australia’s ABS’s “When should you die?” website from a few months ago.
George Orwell is spinning so fast in his grave that with a little copper wire and some magnets they could turn him into a 10 MW generator.
@Smokey
“Looking back on 20th century history, I wonder why the U.S.A. paid so much blood and fortune to save these Euroweenies from the same fate that they seem to crave today.”
You are not the first who asked that question. I have an answer. Otherwise Soviet Union would incorporate European Union into gigantic Atlantic Superpower. Then USA would face from the west – Atlantic Ocean with Soviet Empire (even more – from Atlantic to Pacific!), and from the East, across Pacific Ocean, communist China and Soviet Russia. As you can imagine the Middle East with its oil would fell into communist influence. What’s more, US would be banned from the resources pretty easily. So much for the geopolitics.
Regards
@Carsten Arnholm, Norway
“I am a climate sceptic, and I live in Europe. I feel offended.”
How can you be offended? After all you “sleep on oil” (have plenty of oil) and have the highest taxes on gas?!
You live in sort of socialist state and what Smokey said was downright truth! Like the proverbial capitalist who would sell the rope for profits on which he would be hanged, most of Europeans (if not 99%) would “trade its last remaining freedoms in return for the mirage of security” (a quote from Smokey). But the nanny state trickles in into USA as well. And it is not a creek but a size of the Amason River!
Regards
Didn’t Russia sign Kyoto putting it into effect.
This is how great civilizations crumble: a collective madness seizes the population and drives it to self-destruction.
Gee, I thought it was because Germany declared war on Us.
Well, I’ve just spent almost an hour reading the sample materials (both student and teacher). The (sample) student notes are not too bad as an introduction to electricity and electrical circuits. Sure, there’s the obligotary images of polar bears and drought-cracked ground, but on the whole it’s not too bad. The “climate crimes” cards are mostly good (except for the food one). I mean, is it that bad to think about using energy efficient bulbs? The dirty windows could be fun:
Child: “Mummy, the windows are dirty, and this is bad for the enviroment because it lets less light in and makes us use electricity”
Mother: “You’re right… here’s some cloths and window cleaner; come back when the windows are clean”
I loved the picture of the power station with the cooling towers bealching the most potent greenhouse gas of all – and the text concentrated on CO2 emissions!
The (sample) teacher’s note are a different story. They emphasise the climate change doctrine. They also seek to promote wind power as the way of the future. I had a look on the npower website, but I couldn’t see if nopwer is a proponent of wind farms (ugly things they are; my wife and I saw them on our trip to Scotland a few years ago now).
As an Australian, I didn’t see the Nazi overtones, as mentioned by posters above. Dictatorial govenrments are not our style. What I’m not keen on is the concept of “climate crimes” and cards for kids to run around and “police families” with. I’ll ask my wife (an educational / developmental psychologist) her opinion of the (potentially) harmful effects on childhood development with this material.
It’s a fine day when a Russian lectures Westerners on freedom. Lady Liberty can’t be killed, it seems. She just leaves where she is not wanted and moves to where she is wanted.
Maybe the Russians and Chinese will shame us into a new birth of liberty in the US.
This next time, please, no government schools and no government backed banking cartel!
I am stuck in some really awful irony today. One another thread I apologized for evidencing Godwin’s Law. Soon thereafter I turn to this thread and holy cow!!! Some of the comments on this thread make my apology totally pointless.
You all know that rabid comments will be used to counter reasonable skeptics at some time, and if the comments are rabid enough, effectively so. Yes, that website is an abomination. Yes, propaganda is still as effective as it ever was, and yes, there is always plenty to fear in the madness of crowds. But, have a little faith. People who get it, get it. While I disappoint myself often by taking the bait (ironically I did it again today)–I still ask all of you to remember that your concerns are important enough to be worth changing some minds.
If you really care as much about this issue as I think you do, you will care more about being effective than indulging in your opportunities to vent. Please write in more measured tones while the chance to debate openly is still available to us. After all, carrying on open reasonable debate in an effective manner is your best chance to prevent the worst from happening.
Ralph Marston (15:38:54) :
The Kill-a-Watt (not you, Anthony) only has a resolution of 1 watt. I plugged in a fairly heavy transformer that goes to my Rav-o-Vac NiMH charger. With the charger disconnected from the transformer, I got a reading of 0 watts, but did get a VxA reading of 6. The power factor was 0.12, so it was really drawing about 0.7 watts.
Oh duh – it does report a current draw of 0.05 amps, so that matches the VxA of 6.
An ideal transformer would dissipate 0.0 watts, but soft iron hysteresis, magnetorestrictive effects and a few other things make them “infinitely” more power wasting.
The history of the recommendation dates back to people doing such measurements, multiplying the power by an estimate of the number of “wall warts” in the USA and coming up with a value close to a minor commercial power plant.
ISTR that they the researcher reported higher power dissipation than what we’ve measured. Guess I should’ve checked at the time, and there’s a very good chance that they measured current, not power.
BTW, power factor referred to a lag in electric motors where peak current occurs after peak voltage. Actual power dissipation is different in that case than what you’d expect from just measuring current and multiplying by voltage.
There has been a transition from transformer based wall warts to “switching power supply” tech. They are lighter, probably draw less idle current, are more efficient under load. While they could fail and put line voltage on phone, I haven’t heard of that failure, and there’s probably circuitry that blows a fuse if that happened.
More interesting are the devices that have a standby mode. People have found several that draw as much power, about 20 watts, “off” as when they’re on but idle. Idle shouldn’t take much more than to run the remote control sensing electronics and the all important time-of-day clock. Where would we be without 20 clocks in a household?
On further thought, it is the nomenclature “Climate Cop” that is the most insidious, for it presupposes that those who transgress are materially affecting the climate. It is telling our kids that, by leaving our mobiles on charge (instead of getting up at 3am to unplug them), we adults are responsible for polar bears dying, ice caps melting, increased hurricanes, floods, pestilence, etc. etc.
If the term “resource marshall” was used it might be less nasty (since stewardship of resources is sensible) – but only slightly less nasty, given that the campaign is aimed at squarely aimed at kids which is frankly despicable.
Bernie said (13:33:02) :
And it was. Living in California, sometimes someone will do the same thing by saying, “You people there get the government you deserve!” And I think, But… but… I don’t deserve it! So, mea culpa. I feel bad for the people being steamrollered by the European nanny staters, who have become very adept at gaming the system. They’re doing it here, too — and if it weren’t for sites like this one, their objective would be much farther along. And their objective is not the elimination of CO2. That’s only what they say.
I worked for one of the largest U.S. defense contractors for 30 years. Right after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the company hired an ex-KGB officer, Yuri Bezmenov, to give lectures to its employees on how easily defense intelligence was collected [the #1 method: using janitors to go through the engineers’ trash at night looking for discarded technical documents and drawings].
This same KGB officer can be seen [here], explaining in a very matter of fact way the long-term plan the Soviets implemented to undermine the West. It has had fantastically successful results.
If the Board of Directors of a giant U.S. defense company thought it was worthwhile to pay this man to travel the country speaking with their 80,000 employees, it might be worth taking a few minutes now to listen to him. It worries me more every time I hear this interview.
At first I thought it might be a spoof so looked up the domain registration – its true it is owned by Npower registered 28 07 07. They also own this domain in .net .org .biz.
So I looked at Npowers website – this is what they say about themselves :RWE npower owns and operates one of the largest and most diverse portfolios of coal, oil and gas fired power stations in the UK, with the capacity to generate over 10.3 GW of electricity.
Our combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) power stations are more efficient than coal or older gas power stations because the heat yielded by burning gas is used twice in electricity generation – a gas cycle and a steam cycle.
Our portfolio also includes three of the UK’s largest coal-fired power stations, located in southern England, which have good access to distribution and rail facilities for sourcing fuel from different suppliers.
In addition, we have two oil-fired stations, burning heavy fuel oil. These operate only rarely at times of high demand. The short start-up times for these stations is important in helping to balance demand at peak times.
They are also into “renewables”, so I suppose this has come from some marketing department that has gone mad.
I am an avid reader of EUreferendum.com from which this story is relayed – this is not such a surprise to us on EUreferendum.com, our media and political system have become a trashcan for hype and untruth. We have completely lost it as a nation, I no longer bother with the British newspapers, I rely on reading the blogs like this one and EUreferendum.
I despair at what is happening to our liberal democratic traditions and how they are being lost to a subculture that glorifies in dumbed down junk stories that have not reality. This is far more dangerous to our future survival than global warming
This is absurd, of course. It will cause reasonable folks to laugh, “No one would ever really do that.” And they are right. But it will allow them to accept more “reasonable” solutions. That’s the (shallow) slippery slope. One small step at a time.
“The little foxes spoil the vine.”
I figured the UK was already a fascist country when I found out about their anti-freedom of speech
TV police.
http://www.turnoffyourtv.com/international/bbc.html
This propaganda urging kids to act as climate cops just confirms it. Never ever will I travel to the UK as long as this nonsense goes on- Alan McIntire
AEGeneral said 27/07/2008
You can have my programmable thermostat when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.
Shouldn’t this be ‘… from my warm, dead hands.’?
Package this idea with a Transformer (toy) and every schoolchild will be on it like a flock of seagulls on hot chips.
Smokey and the other Bandits:
Shame that Anthony did not snip some of your comments telling as they are. they do nothing for the cause of disputing AGW. I would second the comment of Stan in reply to you. Why do you attack the people on this post who, in effect, are on your own side in this debate? Is this blind pannic on your part? I am English. I am not European. I feel for the poster from Norway who was served a mouthful of abuse simply because you covet his nation’s energy reserve per capita or what ever it was. We’re all angry about this. it’s not all about the USA. As for the Maggie Thatcher comment, in case it had escaped your notice, she divorced herself from the AGW idea and has been misrepresented. It was not Maggie ringing the alarm bells, nor was it Maggie telling people how the planet had a fever. She foundan apparently harmless reason (cleaner and cheaper energy) that fitted her economic and political agenda. Never did I hear her make false claims about environmental issues of the sort discussed widely. Never did I expect that I would find myself defending Mrs Thatcher! It’s not the Germans you need to worry about, it’sHollywood.
Mr Smokey said (13:19:51) :
“Isn’t it interesting watching the fascination Europeans have with dictatorial personalities? They seem content being ruled by either a political strongman, or a huge nameless, faceless, unelected and unaccountable government bureaucracy, which intrudes on all facets of their lives, right down to their clothes lines and cell phone chargers. And ten dollar a gallon gas? It’s a small price to pay for the putative security of having all those tax sucking bureaucrats rule their lives.”
It is not just Europeans, Mr Smokey, it is the same here in Britain (yes, I am from the camp that believes the headline “Fog in English Channel, Continent Isolated”).
This is not the forum to discuss British politics, much though I would love to, so I will restrict myself to some words about NPower. As others have commented above, NPower is a German company with a significant foot in the British power industry. It is a very shrewd operator which has gained a big share of the market pretty quickly. One way it has done so is by pushing its “green” credentials.
I don’t criticise them for doing so, they are in business and (at the moment) “green” sells. The wise words of Saint Al of Gore are pushed in our state schools as though he were Isaac Newton talking about gravity and the “pester power” of opinionated children is a significant force on household budgets. If you ran NPower, wouldn’t you try to catch that force for the benefit of your business?
It will not be long before this particular advertising method has to be abandoned. The Advertising Standards Authority might stop it but I suspect general criticism of the concept of children spying on family, friends and neighbours will have greater effect in the short term.
We can but hope that the distasteful overtones of NPower’s poster will encourage more people to look into the AGW theory and form their own view.
I’m not concerned, 85% of the environmental movement is malcontent [snip] hippies who resent cops.
REPLY: Watch this Penn and Teller Video and decide for yourselves if Mike C’s view fits.
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=8917946
It is long, about 29 minutes, but very entertaining and enlightening. – Anthony
First they came for the automobiles.
And I didn’t say anything because I didn’t own an automobile . . .
Just a few thoughts on the climatecops.com newspaper ad:
Terrible, diabolical, grievous, harmful, foul, frightful, ignominious, horrible, ugly, hateful, inglorious, scandalous, shocking, bad, hideous, horrific, offensive, disgraceful, dishonorable, immoral, outrageous, sinister, unworthy, wicked, atrocious, corruptive, despicable, devilish, heinous, injurious, and monstrous.
(If reasonably good taste wasn’t mandated on this site I’d tell
you the rest of what I think.)
Looking back on 20th century history, I wonder why the U.S.A. paid so much blood and fortune to save these Euroweenies from the same fate that they seem to crave today.
We considered the alternative. #B^1
“We considered the alternative. #B^1” Evan
Our involvement in WWI was not necessary. It led to the humiliation of the Germans and along with the Great Depression (thank you Federal Reserve system) led to WWII and probably the Cold War. We should have listened to George Washington about foreign entanglements. But I reckon there were more Americans with British cousins than German ones.
BTW, what does “#B^1” mean? Sometimes, I r dense.
Vaclav Klaus, the President of the Czech Republic published a book in 2007 titled Blue Planet in Green Shackles (What Is Endangered: Climate or Freedom?). In his book he cites the many similarities between Communism, which he personally experienced and the current state of the environmental movement.
“And I didn’t say anything because I didn’t own an automobile . . ” Evan Jones
And then they came for my breath because I was a heavy breather.
Thank you for your article. This is a very troubling trend and even I find it hard to put a positive spin on it. I wrote an article about a year ago pointing out global warming is becoming to the left what the war on terror is to the right – a reason to control every person on this planet.
I am confident that most of the people living and working on this planet do not support this kind of nonsense and that we can address our common (legitimate) problems together and with wisdom and reason.
The worst thing is that this global warming cult (as it’s becoming) works under cover of legitimate concerns we all should and do need to address. Young peoples’ best intentions and desire to good are used against them in this scheme.
People desiring freedom to think, act, and move on this planet must demand sanity be returned to the deliberations on these topics. Right now, Chicken Little is in charge.
TinyCO2: I like it!
Can’t we just work together?
Yes. And we will. (Those on the front lines like you are the most valuable.)
as a Briton whose grandfather fought on the Western Front, I
(P.S., and thanks for saving the western world in 1940.)
Any kid who starts sporting a Climate Cops badge at school is soon going to find out the meaning of peer pressure.
Point.
I really like tinyC02’s response above.
This is basically happening already in our US Schools. Middle School (Grades 6-8) teachers require, for a significant grade, that students document in essay or research paper how their families are “harming the earth” with certain practices at home. The lack of producing any harmful crimes in their project produces a failing grade.
The assignment conclusion requires a description how the student confronted their parents about the “earth violations”, and what they would do next if their parents did not repent and make the appropriate changes to their demands for change.
My oldest son and I had a good laugh over it.
This is bad for one reason: it comes ten years too late.
Yippee! Now I can have the delightfully horrible world of “1984” only a few decades delayed in “2014”! Won’t it be great when we all have nervous twitches and are terrified to voice anything even remotely resembling doubt of the new world religion of global warming? I don’t know about you but I just can’t wait to rat out aging grandmothers for using their cars to get around! I mean really, just because some is sixty+ is no reason they can’t walk several miles to buy their medication! How selfish of them. And those oil companies? Why certainly they should be sued for high-crimes against us all. Seriously, the way they’ve been forcing us to use gas all these years and hiding the better solutions in an elaborate conspiracy? How great will it be when those inspired environmentalist DRIVE up to the courthouse (Either in gas powered vehicles or in the GREENER solutions that cost about the same as a third-world country) and nail those awful capitalists jerks who tried to make a living and became too successful.
-Note: For those without senses of humor the previous paragraph was indeed satirical and making fun of how ridiculous some people can be
Didn’t Russia sign Kyoto putting it into effect.
I have no doubt that Russia will uphold its treaty obligations every bit as well as they have over the last seventy years.
BTW, what does “#B^1″ mean? Sometimes, I r dense.
Turn it sideways. Of my own design. (Unless someone else I don’t know of beat me to it.)
Mencken opposed US entry into WWI. I have pondered it, but on balance, I favor US entry. (The Versailles screwup, the Ruhr intervention/inflation fiasco and the rise of Hitler were not predictable in the same way as, say, selling out the Czecho was.)
The “Climate Cops” would have to take our whole neighborhood to jail for “Climate Crime #3”. Our covenants specifically prohibit using “wash lines” to dry clothes.
We should have listened to George Washington about foreign entanglements.
Mmm. The ocean was “bigger” back around then.
Besides, remember what the Spider-Man said: “With great power comes great responsibility.”
And then they came for my breath because I was a heavy breather.
It’s about time you scofflaws got what you deserved.
This is bad for one reason: it comes ten years too late.
Yes, it would have been that much more effective before the last ten years of mild world cooling, wouldn’t it?
I find this “discussion” utterly fascinating. Is this the site where all the climate change deniers gather?
The first thing I notice is that while everyone is anxious to denounce the “Climate Cops” campaign (it does sound like an obnoxious idea regardless of the ideology), nobody – that’s NOBODY –in this thread is bothering to discuss any of the FACTS regarding climate change.
If anyone has a rational argument to dispute Al Gore’s data showing the most rapid rise in temperature in geological history correlated with the continuous increase in atmospheric CO2 – well, if anyone does have such an argument I’d be anxious to hear it.
The other, almost unspoken idea underlying this whole non-debate is the notion that one might have to give up one of your SUVs or, god forbid, get on the bus or train (or bicycle) in order to save the planet for our grandchildren. I’m sure I will be called a Communist for mentioning this at all, but I would like you guys to do some serious research, not into the physics of unplugging your phone charger, but in global economics, the role of energy corporations in deciding the future of millions in America and billions around the globe, and why this country, as precious as it is in reality as well as ideals, must constantly be at war.
For starters, I recommend that you watch the news about the Beijing Olympics and ask why it is that international athletes are staying away from the city as long as they can. Could it possibly be the toxic air that is degrading the health of everyone In the area? This goes for India too. Hmmmm…..
REPLY: Julius wrote: “The other, almost unspoken idea underlying this whole non-debate is the notion that one might have to give up one of your SUVs…”
Sir, I used to drive an SUV, now I drive an electric car to/from work each day.
See this:
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/05/12/what-ive-been-up-to-electrifying-my-ride/
I just bought a SECOND electric car. So please, don’t label people you know nothing about.
– Anthony Watts, site owner
Here is a good post summarizing why this is offensive:
http://umbrellog.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?p=69709#p69709
“Firstly, the designation of certain lawful actions – desirable or not – as “crimes” is an unwholesome distortion of our moral code. It confers moral equivalency between not turning off a light and, say, shoplifting or vandalism. It seeks to impose a moral judgement on a normal activity, blurring the line between something which is lawful and something which is not.”
Google “temperature rise precedes carbon dioxide ice core” for a few dozen examples.
Also, conflating real air pollution with hypothetical Global Warming is not a relevant discussion.
And there are hundreds of other threads here where it is much more appropriate to discuss this topic.
Wait a sec…… [we are not going to get into a taunting and teasing session~charles the moderator]
You are quite funny, Julius. This is just one thread. Why don’t you go to the right side of the page under the list of categories and click on “solar” and “climate_change” for debate about global warm-I mean climate change(see? we’re hip!)? You will find compelling arguments against your profit prophet, Al Gore. That is, of course, if you are open to debate and listening to alternative arguments. If you continue to call those like me deniers (those who deny) and denialists (those who specialize in denying, like a profession), than “we” will continue to call your “side” [snip, point made without going there~charles the moderator?]
Also, Julius, why do you say “Al Gore’s data”? Do you have any idea Al Gore has no science degree whatsoever? The least you could have done is mention Hansen.
Lol you’re right, I was out of line. My apologies.
Julius as a point of information, I did not edit your post, but the word “denier” as a pejorative is prohibited as this site, as well as some of the words I just edited out of someone else’s response to you.
I’m going out now everyone, so please let’s not get into a taunting match. Please answer with respectful solid arguments so Anthony doesn’t have to do a lot of work while I’m gone.
charles the moderator:
I greatly appreaciate your push for a clean board, but why is Julius being let off for calling everyone here a denier? Has he not heard of the Holocaust? Why don’t you warn him, or just give him some advice?
[Reply: We are of the same mind, I posted as you wrote this~charles the moderator]
[snip, adds nothing to this discussion~charles the moderator]
This might change a few minds.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/07/26/eawind126.xml
(I wonder if the Stern Review included this in his costs of mitigation?)
Is this the site where all the climate change deniers gather?
We have to gather somewhere and the Ritz was booked.
See, you can all take a cue from Evan. Respectful, clear, concise, and full of relevant information.
as the saying goes: ‘hook ’em while their young…’ heh.
Evan Jones (21:47:35) said: This might change a few minds.
Evan, I only looked at the title of the piece. ( It’s late, I’ve been reading all day and I’m kinda watching a movie right now ) It made me think of the folks along Boone Pickens water pipeline right of way.
in this thread is bothering to discuss any of the FACTS regarding climate change.
If anyone has a rational argument to dispute Al Gore’s data showing the most rapid rise in temperature in geological history correlated with the continuous increase in atmospheric CO2 – well, if anyone does have such an argument I’d be anxious to hear it.
Many such rational (and detailed) arguments. On that particular subject among many others.
See other threads.
Could it possibly be the toxic air that is degrading the health of everyone In the area? This goes for India too. Hmmmm…..
Discussed (by me and others) from both environmental and demographic perspectives.
See other threads. Rational debate elsewhere.
This is the outrage thread.
This is basically happening already in our US Schools. Middle School (Grades 6-8) teachers require, for a significant grade, that students document in essay or research paper how their families are “harming the earth” with certain practices at home. The lack of producing any harmful crimes in their project produces a failing grade. — Tim Rueb
The target audience is getting younger & younger. Take a look at Amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/Winston-Churchill-Battle-Against-Warming/dp/1570615438/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1217219731&sr=8-1
Reading level: Ages 4-8
At age 4, I was too busy watching Wile E. Coyote (ignoramus stupidus magnus) take a dive off a cliff. Kids that age shouldn’t be subjected to this kind of stuff, and yet that’s exactly what’s happening.
My wife & I just had our 2nd daughter this past week. I know full well I’m not going to be facing this in 10 years when my oldest hits 6th grade – at the rate this is going, I’m going to be facing it in 3, when she’s in kindergarten.
Some people here would tell their kids to just nod their heads in approval and then teach them otherwise at home, but that’s not my style. On the other hand, do I teach my kids to be confrontational at such a young age and risk them having no respect whatsoever for any of their teachers in any subject?
Heck, I don’t know what I’m going to do. Guess I’ve got 3 years to figure it out before the Climate Crime Cops Project (CCCP) comes to a school near me and performs their presentation for the whole school, and my kid comes home with a green Sherlock Holmes hat & a magnifying glass.
It made me think of the folks along Boone Pickens water pipeline right of way.
I am a proud early adopter of T. Boone Pickens distaste. (I took it up around 1984.)
We deny
the sky is falling.
We deny
big government’s calling.
We deny
Al’s piece of the pie.
If anyone has a rational argument to dispute Al Gore’s data
Julius, AIT the movie is so riddled with errors and untruths, hardly anything in it is true.
If you disagree, then take my AIT challenge. Pick 3 consecutive sentences from the movie. The only condition is that the three sentences must refer to temperatures or ice.
Then I will point out the error in those sentences. You can choose any 3 sentences you like.
Apologies for being OT.
The more things change……….
This is quite disturbing, kids should be kids until they cannot be anymore.
Children should not be encouraged to “police” their parents, friends and family because the impact on society is well understood, when it comes to children this type of recruiting and pattern programming is a terrible lesson to teach a child. What kind of generation will we raise, one who spys and records others activities, believes that they have the right to interfere in the lives of others and dictate lifestyle? Is that the future we really want?
This is not about Climate Change, this is about the society that we will become.
Julius
This is a bit off-topic, but that bit about “the most rapid rise in temperature in geological history” raised my hackle. It is a pure and simple lie, and while Al Gore probably does not know enough to realize this his advisors must do. Global temperatures have risen something like 0,6 degrees centigrade in about a century and there are many known cases of much more abrupt climate shifts. In some of them the temperature change *per year* may have been larger than the rise during the last century. The most obvious recent examples happened 8200, 11600 and 12800 years ago. If you don’t believe me just google “Younger Dryas”.
This thread had stirred the creative juices and I have realized what we lack on TV is a reality show where a houseful of Greens attempt to win a million dollars by seeing who can reduce their carbon footprint the most in the course of a year.
Each Green’s total annual net carbon output is measured and the Green with the lowest wins.
The show would be called, what else but ‘Big Carbon.’ Suicide would be permitted as a way to lower one’s carbon footprint, but the carbon released during decomposition would have to be included.
@Julus
The reason I don’t have any suggestions how to stop climate change is because I firmly believe that there is NOTHING anyone can do to stop climate change (nor do I believe that there was anything we did to start it). Also, I don’t drive an SUV – I drive a MONSTER V-8 in a HUGE Pickup Truck. Then again, I can’t see trying to haul a pair of 1300 lbs horses around behind a Pirus.
Convince me there is man-made climate change. Where are your facts?
This may be a UK thing not a climate thing. Under the Labour government the UK has pioneered a series of steps by which acts against which there is no law are criminalized. And under which accusations substitute for proof. The first step was the ASBO, by which someone can be forbidden to do something not in itself illegal, and not illegal for anyone else, under pain of criminal penalties. Like, for instance, set foot in a given street, make sarcastic remarks.
We then have the power of on the spot fines by local government officials. A recent case was two men smoking while driving in a van. They were accused by an official of smoking in a place of work, and each fined $50 on the spot. No proof that this was indeed a place of work, no presentation of evidence. This was reported to have happened in Wales.
Another example is the proposal that people accused of illegal downloading shall be disconnected by their ISP. Not proven to have. Just accused of. Not prosecuted, disconnected or throttled.
It is now proposed to deny IVF treatment from the compulsory membership health service to smokers and ‘the obese’. Family courts meet in secret, its an offense even to mention the name of anyone who has been before them, their decisions are not subject to appeal, and they routinely assign children for adoption or make orders disposing of other family matters.
The issue with this is not AGW. Its what has happened to civil liberties in the UK. The AGW people are just jumping on. What you see in the UK today is a combination of things:
– substitution of accusation for proof
– sanctions imposed by bodies other than courts
– non-legislative criminalization of activities which are not unlawful
They have in place the full apparatus of the authoritarian state. The only thing holding it back is habit and the goodwill of the current ruling party. History shows this has not been a robust defense
Well, guys don’t be to worried…
You forget negative feedbacks. AGW religion is all good and well now, when it means people “are more aware when travelling on planes”. Or “consider buying a hybrid”.
Just wait until the fuel bills gets to high or unemployment increases due to this, then people might want to look more closely on things. Anyway the BS factor is already pushing it. More and more people get sceptical because it’s just not credible…
This is so close to children being indoctrinated into spying on their own families in case of “thought crime” that Orwell envisioned that I have actually shit in my pants through fear.
Just a couple of comments, Mr fred (00:44:17).
The Family courts in England and Wales (different legal system in Scotland, I don’t know whether the same applies there) have not been open to the public since they were first established. It is nothing to do with secrecy but to protect the interests of the child who is an innocent party. Whether it serves any real purpose can be debated, but it is not new and it is not based on anything sinister. And appeals are allowed from family court decisions, often this requires permission from the court or the appellate court but that applies to almost all civil court decisions here.
As for your suggestion that the goodwill of the current ruling party is holding back a move to authoritarianism, words fail me. Well, not quite … the current government has introduced more State snooping and petty interference in the way we live than any government in our history, and they aren’t finished yet. Their plans include a State controlled database of all telephone, text message and internet use – yes, that is not a typo, they really have proposed it.
On your general theme of penalties being imposed for activities which are not criminal, sadly everything is outlawed which the State does not specifically permit. There is an interesting comparison with the US Constitution which operates by recognising that people have innate rights which the State is not permitted to violate. For example, the US Constitution does not GRANT the right of freedom of speech because it is not the State’s to grant, rather it recognises that freedom of speech is a right the State has no power to violate; the Constitution defines the limits of what government may do not the limits of what the people may do. Over here we have The Human Rights Act 1986 which expressly operates in reverse. Rights, such as freedom of speech, which were previously innate now exist because the State decided to take to itself all rights and grant some back to the little people. In this way it is not necessary for activity to be made specifically criminal before a penalty can be imposed, a penalty can be imposed simply because the activity in question is not one we have been granted the right to perform. It is really quite hideous.
A complaint to the (UK) Advertising Standards Authority is being actively considered. However, it is not entirely straightforward. More details here.
I am ashamed to be British – millions died last century for nothing if we let this continue.
Global Warming is a fact. The debate is not whether there is global warming, but what is causing it. Are humans a scourge to the planet the way the GW crowd wants to paint it?
I can take you to central Kansas in the heart of North America and show you formations from when that part of the world was covered by the sea. Archaeologists the world over are now discovering ancient ruins of cities thought to be myths under water in the Mediterranean and other places around the world.
We’ve had ice ages with miles thick ice over what are now major cities. The Sahara Desert was once a tropical oasis.
Go talk to space meteorologists who are wondering why global warming is happening on several other bodies in our solar system.
Some of the geologists and archaeologists who study these things are probably part of the 33,000 scientists who have signed a petition “denying” the climate-changers premise.
We live on a volatile planet that changes constantly and sometimes drastically.
Are human polluting and hurting the environment? Yes. Should we take every reasonable step to mend our ways? Absolutely.
The leaders of the climate change movement are using these normal and natural changes and mixing it with legitimate concern for the environment and creating an excuse for controlling every person on this planet.
This is not about SUVs. It’s about human freedom and the right experience our lives in our own way without a government bureaucrat watching our every move.
So when some of us react the highly charged word “denier” and calls for children to spy on and tattle on their parents, it is with good reason. Using the word denier is nothing less than an Ad Hominem attack designed to stifle discussion.
Several people have brought up Orwell’s 1984. That book is very instructive here. How much control and infringement on your person do you suppose will be necessary for the government to monitor your carbon footprint?
Whilst I agree wholeheartedly that this Ad campaign is sinister and very worrying, I think the best thing about this wonderful site has always been its steady and insistent examination of the science (or lack of it) behind the whole climate change debacle, leaving the political arguments to others and enlightening scientists and lay people alike.
I’m slightly concerned therefore that anyone new to this blog (and I for one am constantly referring friends seeking info on climate change to visit here) might get the impression that we’re a just bunch of political fanatics. I know how tempting it is….I was halfway through writing a treatise on the erosion of civil liberties in the UK (where I used to live) and Australia before I stopped myself…
The mainstream press in Australia are being increasingly drawn into the political debate by the crazy acts of demagoguery and extremism such as this Ad. They’re very good at exposing this kind of madness. Perhaps we would be better off focusing on the science, as this is ultimately the instrument that will undo this unholy mess and leaving the indignation to the popular press. In the end, I guess, ignorant trash like this can only harm the reputations of its perpetrators.
Actually, the word “denier” is not inappropriate in this context. The context is the global warming crowd which somehow is in utter denial over all the observational evidence that has disproved their CO2 climate-driver theory, many times over. As far as I can tell, there is presently zero observational evidence that supports this theory. Zero. And vast quantities of data that prove it wrong, not least of which is the fact that for the last ten years, co2 has gone up, while temperatures have gone down. Same thing happened between 1940 and 1970. In the last 100 years, there has been no correlation whatsoever between CO2 and climate. How all these global warmers are able to maintain their state of denial over these scientific facts is troublesome. I guess trying to indoctrinate unsuspecting school children is easier than facing up to the reality which is that their theory has been completely disproven by the scientific community.
Apologies if this has already been mentioned but I have not spotted it.
The first major UK off-shore wind farm – North Hoyle off the North Wales coast – was originally presented as a joint venture between n-power (when it’s organisational structure was such that it had more than a retailing role iirc) and Greenpeace.
North Hoyle, last time I was able to check any form of information about output, seemed to be maxing at about 34% of total theoretical capacity. Somewhere around 2 years after it went into production Greenpeace and then n-power (I think by that time this particular operation had been absorbed into the German owned RWE operation – it’s difficult to tell sometimes since the number of re-organisations and apparent ownership changes seems enormous. Possibly to do with tax and subsidies) sold out to a middle eastern venture finance group and a ‘back-room’ UK (?) based organisation to front the running of the thing.
What amused me at the time was that Greenpeace would snuggle up so closely with RWE who were and are (afaik) a major operator of nuclear plants in Germany. Obviously the driving philosophy has changed since Greenpeace was set up all those years ago and established an appeal to my generation.
Tax breaks and subsidies lead to strange bedfellows.
The kid’s web site is, in my opinion, insidious no matter what one’s view of climate issue might be. Really a form of grooming.
Hopefully it will enlighten a few more of the middle ground majority to what is going on behind their backs. Their response may tell us something about the direction green related decisions will take in the immediate future.
Just had to get in on this one,
AE General and Daryl hit the CO2 where it lives – how can you train your kids to be skeptics yet respect rightful authority? Wow! What’s maddening about this situation is that these types of curricula are taking the respect children have for their parents and throwing it into the wind turbine.
I’ve had good teachers and bad, but only in retrospect did I understand that. Having become a teacher (instructor) later in life, I hope I emulate those who have stood the test of time.
Who would have thought the AGW argument would cut so deeply into our most basic unit, the family!
Six million jews killed and Anhtony Watts compares it to hiding dryers? You’ve lost it, dude.
REPLY: We’ll see, there’s a lot of people that agree that the method is wrong. Unfortunately for you, you don’t seem to care about the method, since it promotes something you believe in. Telling others that I’ve “lost it” is a typical tactic to minimize one’s opponent – label them crazy. Surely you can do better.
You might work on spelling too.
Folks, this is just an advertising gimmick to get kids moderately interested in science and the environment, just like The Magic Schoolbus and Captain Planet were back in the day.
While I don’t agree with the style of this campaign, I can’t imagine even the most fervent climate change denier objecting to the message: conserve water and use less energy.
REPLY: I personally don’t object to the message, which is “conserve energy” in fact I encourage it, and do such things myself, including drivin and electric car to/from work each day.
But it is the METHOD that is objected to and strongly. The method is wrong headed. – Anthony
If this doesn’t send chills down your spine, go read “The Killing Fields” and see how the Khmer Rouge used the children to root out the parents that were a threat to the revolution.
I read this last night and my mind would not let go of it. I was tired and went to bed, but failed to go to sleep. Different ideas and phrases kept popping up.
I like the idea of taking out ad space. I believe you should investigate late late night ad on cable TV [15 second spot]. I would not try to defend any position in the ad. Create a series of interesting headlines and then give link for more information. This link would give individuals access to the best science research and theories on climate change. Another section could link to news reports about changing weather patterns. Another section devoted to satellite photos comparing different time frames for the Polar Regions, Greenland and other areas of interest. And yet another section on how temperatures are taken around the United States and/or the World. Other information could include debunking the polar bear myth, history of polar bear photo Gore used, the 8 factual errors in Inconvenient Truth, hints or tips about being green and efficient [cfls’ wonderful, but dangerous if broken and how to dispose of them] and many other topics.
Another idea would be to record a series of short videos on some of the same material listed above. Videos should be 5-10 minutes and done by those that are both passionate and well spoken. On cable there is a channel called Current. It is basically viewer created content and might be another place to put short videos.
The link from the ad [s] might be something like: in defense of science; science requires proof or some similar set of words.
Headlines are the tricky part and maybe we have some copywriters or ad people that could help. Here are a few:
Lies, Numbers, and Truth
What do they have in common?
Manipulation!!!!
Is there another side?
Is the debate closed?
Has science spoken?
Do you like it hot?
Do you like it cold?
Do you know what’s going on?
What drives it?
A couple of weeks ago Gore was on Meet the Press. I tried to watch, but I switched away every few minutes because of what he was saying and the fact that Brokaw did not challenge him. I thought about that show and then wrote Mr. Brokaw a letter/e-mail informing him that that “consensus” was a myth and then provided him links to several papers and articles. I don’t expect a response, but maybe others could follow my example. I have decided to send a similar letter to the main editor of my local newspaper. This paper has done some good to great investigate reporting. Am going to ask them why they have failed to report on the other side of the man-made global warming issue and give them the same or similar links showing the other side. I don’t know if this will be effective, but it’s a start.
Love the conversations here!
debby
Liberal Fascism: In U.K. Kids Asked to Become Climate NARCs…
Yes, environmentalism is a religion. And across the pond in the ever-devolving U.K., it seems to be second only to Islam. This is right out of Nazi Germany or Orwell’s 1984. A British energy company — yes a company —……
No one is connecting the dots concerning the parallels between indoctrination of EU children and where Obama will take us. He proposes national service for all young adults and a similar program for young children through the school structure. His buddy, former Weatherman, Comrade Bill Ayers, will become head of the Dept of Education.
See: http://www.city-journal.org/2008/eon0423ss.html for a description of the real Bill Ayers. Scary.
Future teachers all currently being indoctrinated in the education schools of universities with teaching methods to propagandize children with appropriate doctrines.
Pay attention to what Obama says. There is no mystery as to his plan for the US, rampant socialism.
Two quotes from De Tocqueville are instructive:
“Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.”
” The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.”
If Obama is elected and the Democrats get veto prof majorities in both Houses of Congress, kiss your asses goodbye.
What is the modern equivalent of ‘Fiddling while Rome burns’?
This exchange of e-mails looks more like ‘. . . . . . . . . while the ice caps melt’!
I find this “discussion” utterly fascinating. That is good, Julius. Stick around – you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Check out some of the other threads as has been suggested, if you are more interested in the scientific aspect. The political side is an extremely important one, though, thanks to the AGWers, who have decided “the debate is over”, “the consensus is overwhelming”, ” we must act immediately to save our planet from climate doom”, and other alarmist nonsense.
Is this the site where all the climate change deniers gather?
First, Julius, the phrase “climate change deniers” is a perjorative one, as I’m sure you must know. It is also inaccurate, since no one here claims that the climate isn’t changing – of course it is, it has always changed, and always will. We are in general either Skeptics or Climate Realists, and I certainly wouldn’t say “all”, but certainly many, as this is known as a top notch site.
The first thing I notice is that while everyone is anxious to denounce the “Climate Cops” campaign (it does sound like an obnoxious idea regardless of the ideology)…
Congratulations for noticing the obnoxious quality of the idea – that’s at least a start, and puts you ahead of most AGWers, who probably applaud it.
…nobody – that’s NOBODY –in this thread is bothering to discuss any of the FACTS regarding climate change. That is because that isn’t what this thread is about, Julius. Stick to the topic at hand.
Weren’t Captain Planet and the Planeteers throwing eco-criminals in prison at around the same time as Hansen’s first Congressional testimony, all the while advocating some sort of hippy Gaia-worship? This all sounds like some dumb ad campaign to get kids more conservation-minded. Please pardon me if I don’t see terrible socialist undertones to the whole thing.
[…] again, liberals appear to have been using the novel not as a warning, but as an instruction manual. Watts Up With That reports on Britain’s alarming Climate Cops campaign: Launched today with large colour ads in […]
This all sounds like some dumb ad campaign to get kids more conservation-minded. Nice try, counters. Huge difference between being simply conservation-minded (a good thing to be) and “climate cops” spying and ratting out friends and relatives. You just need to take your AGW blinders off for once.
Please pardon me if I don’t see terrible socialist undertones to the whole thing. No, of course you wouldn’t, since it’s your AGW propaganda (in the guise of conservation) that kids are being indoctrinated with.
I guess this is what happens when asking nicely doesn’t work at first? Very scary stuff.
Hey ,
Guess what? I just got banned from Tamino’s ‘Open Mind’ blog for questionning the GISS surface station coverage. Seems open minds mean different things to different people.
The same sort of people who will try to influence vulnerable children perhaps?
Nice try, counters. Huge difference between being simply conservation-minded (a good thing to be) and “climate cops” spying and ratting out friends and relatives. You just need to take your AGW blinders off for once.
Until the government starts deputizing children and creating Facebook and MySpace applications which let them directly tip off the authorities, then this is nothing more than a stupid PR campaign to encourage conservation. In the real world, governments aren’t setting up Ministries of ClimateTruth, evident by the fact that you’re still free to misinterpret this “news story” however you want.
No, of course you wouldn’t, since it’s your AGW propaganda (in the guise of conservation) that kids are being indoctrinated with.
Yes, because the journals I read aren’t actually longstanding repositories of scientific knowledge, they were all crafted in some sort of global conspiracy by Al Gore and the UN over the past decades and centuries as a plot to overthrow capitalist governments and enslave everyone to communes. Did you know that nPower, the company behind the ad campaign, is actually owned by RWE of Germany? Damn, that’s a much more concrete link to Nazism than having the color red on their logo!
Sorry, but this is ridiculous. This is a stupid advertising campaign by an energy company. It’s amazing that anyone is reading more into that.
I have to give the anti antghropomorphic case for global warming in a sixth form general srudies talk next term anyone got key points for me? 🙂
when i say anti AGW i mean dounting it not necessarily discounting it
Is tough here to put over such a viewpoint without being though as Atila or Ghengis…
Help!
have some ideas
priority is my main consideration
denis
Luckily i teach in a non-state school. these days I wonder if i would be allowed to express such views in a state funded school.
I have mentioned this site to several people at meetings and was told that it was dangerous to confuse students by raising such issues
they will carry on with their awful carbon life style if we dont make the msg strongly!!!!!
and this was from a top educationalist linked to the higher reaches of the scientific community here in england
I was going to try to recommend toning down the emotional phrasings, but I can see it being particularly difficult on this particular thread, as Evan noted, this is the outrage thread.
Do what you can to not go over the top everyone~charles the moderator aka jeez.
I am ashamed to be British – millions died last century for nothing if we let this continue.
It’s not Britain that is doing this. Britons are leading the EU fight against such things. Thinking Americans will applaud such revolutionary spirit (although I probably would have been a Tory in 1775).
OT but speaking of disputes:
http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/timblair/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/hail_the_hailmen/
I wonder if they mean sleet, or scraffle, or to ignore the obvious. Poor blokes.
My apologies for not proof reding before submitting! It is all this Global Warming in England… Its been too hot and humid for me today (exhausted!)and I had to light a bonfire to get rid of an old lilac tree. probably get arrested for doing that!
I have corrected the spelling now.
I have to give the anti anthropomorphic case for global warming in a sixth form general srudies talk next term anyone got key points for me? 🙂
when i say anti AGW i mean doubting it, not necessarily discounting it.
Is tough here to put over such a viewpoint without being thought to be Atila or Ghengis…
Help!
have some ideas
priority is my main consideration
denis
Luckily i teach in a non-state school. These days I wonder if i would be allowed to express such views in a state funded school.
I have mentioned this site to several people at meetings and was told that it was dangerous to confuse students by raising such issues.
They will carry on with their awful carbon life style if we dont make the msg strongly!!!!!
and this was from a top educationalist linked to the higher reaches of the scientific community here in england.
Yes, because the journals I read aren’t actually longstanding repositories of scientific knowledge, they were all crafted in some sort of global conspiracy by Al Gore and the UN over the past decades and centuries as a plot to overthrow capitalist governments and enslave everyone to communes.
LOL. Great straw man, counters. Oh, and BTW, I don’t know what those journals you read are repositories of, but they sure aren’t of scientific knowledge. Peer reviewed hogwash peer reviewed by other peer reviewed hogwashers is more like it.
Totalitarian – a word invented by Mussolini to describe the Totality of Society, or The Whole – as in modern-day usage “Holistic.”
Evidently still very much in fashion in Europe today, but this time it’s not the National Socialists of Germany (and Italy) who are “promoting” a Unified Europe, nor the Soviet Stalinists of the later Cold-War era — it’s the Entrenched Bureaucrats of Brussles…
I agree with my old friend Mr Counters (12:59:00) : “This is a stupid advertising campaign by an energy company. It’s amazing that anyone is reading more into that.”
On the more general political points people are making it seems to me that we are seeing here what we see everywhere that touches on AGW and politics, namely, that there is far too much generalisation. We can test this by asking some simple questions:
Do proponents of AGW believe in the science as contained in the latest IPCC report? Answer: some certainly do but not all.
Do proponents of AGW believe changing behaviour in the USA and the UK will have an effect on the climate? Answer: some certainly do but not all.
Do proponents of AGW wish to destroy western capitalism and replace it with State Socialism? Answer: some certainly do but not all.
Do proponents of AGW promote the theory because they will make a profit by doing so? Answer: some certainly do but not all.
Do proponents of AGW promote the theory because they think it will save fluffy animals? Answer: some certainly do but not all.
It is hardly surprising that those with a genuine belief in the correctness of Dr Hansen’s analyses find it offensive to be labelled as anti-American subversive Marxists, when the truth is that they are genuinely persuaded and genuinely worried.
It is as false to dismiss all AGWers as self-serving lefty fraudsters as it is for them to accuse we who disagree with them as oil funded mass-murderers.
http://thefatbigot.blogspot.com/2008/07/lets-be-nice-about-global-warming.html
Denis,
England? Humid? why I can’t believe it. Hot, well temp here is 92F a rather moderate day in Pueblo CO. Haven’t set any records this year for heat, but one tie earlier in the month.
You have a wonderful opportunity to bring together Civics, Chemistry, Physics,
Astronomy, statistics, history, conservation, and I could go on. History shows us what does happen, and therefore what could happen again. Climate Science.com is a good one for technical stuff, you can bring it to a child’s level. Chemistry, and how do “green house gasses” behave – the largest one being the humidity – water vapor – you spoke of.
Climate change is with us – AGW is an hypothisis, and a failed one. Follow Anthony’s links – also Junkscience.com
Hope that helps!
(I think this one is really on topic given my previous post!)
heeheh thanks yes i know most of that stuff am a physics teacher as well doing an international astronomy project with schools in seville and granada and slovakia looking at how our view of the heavens has changed over time. So got plenty of stuff from this site and from mysterious climate etc
is the priority that i have to sort.
i thought try mentioning the middle ages warm period etc
the little ice age
the idea that i am so old (57) that i remember a time when we just had “weather”
the problems with surface weather stations and reliability
the constant statistical massaging……. do many people realise this happens? is there really that much justification for it?
i have a copy of GGWS but that got bad publicity here last week
when it was said that some views were misapplied and out of context.. although the judge did not specifically say any of the views were unfair the media line implied that that was proven
it has its good points but i did not feel it was such a good argument type programme
anyway i have an hour and must break it up some way or other either with a video clip or some game to show how stats can prove anything
is it true that weather stations in soviet siberia closed down through lack of funds after 1990 and this has not been taken into account with average temps from stations now losing some of the colder placed stations?
Denis Hopkins,
I thought about this and I assume you are looking for help to structure your presentatin, rather than specific details.
You can find many graphs and arguments to support the naturalist view of climate change on this web site, Icecap, climateaudit, climate skeptic and many others.
As to structure, how about asking the following questions at the start then answer them.
For man made catastrophic global warming to be true, the following questions must be answered in the positive.
1. Is the globe warming?
2. Is mankind responsible?
3. Is it a disaster?
The answer to all three is NO, that is, in teh negative.
However, you can explore the following with each question, answer them one after the other:
1. Historical temperature record – Mediaeval warm period, little ice age – go back further, plenty of charts. Show recent satellite charts which show cooling over the past 10 years. Concept of averages and variations and trends long and short. Convenience of the warmers to use the most recent cool period (1970s) as reference.
2. Even if there were warming, there is no evidence that man has caused it. It has clearly warmed in the past. Only assumptions built into climate models, which is self-fulfilling. Effect of clouds and rain not modelled – you need dig a reference, say from Pielke’s page for this.
3. Even if there were warming, man-made or not, this is not bad. 5-8000 years ago the tree line was much further North in the Canadian arctic. Polar bears still alive. Longer growing seasons in Canada and Russia – two crops per year, possible. More CO2 makes for a greener planet as CO2 is a fertilizer, not a poison.
a post above said the politicians in the UK (and here I’m afraid) have gone off the deep end…SOMBODY put them in power…the same SOMEBODIES (Voters) can remove them
Robert (and Dennis)
OK, so I jumped a bit in my excitement. Thanks Robert, for putting me in context. Dennis – just remember, there are two sides to this argument. Some pretty decent people believe man is responsible, and they need to be treated with respect. Their arguments met with fact and data, but their person left intact. It’s OK to disagree, it’s not OK to waste the person you disagree with. (This from a combat soldier) Good Luck and Good Hunting. (Anthony you may use my email. I own the site.)
Oh Liberals, with their brainwashing kids…
Luckily i teach in a non-state school.
AGW 101? No! Don’t take me! Take him! He’s the thought criminal!
anyone got key points for me? 🙂
Well, since it’s for the kiddies . . .
Here is a brief, very incomplete list.
1.) The “Big 6” Ocean-atmospheric cycles (PDO, AMO, NOA, IPO, AO, AAO) all switched from cool to warm phase one by one from 1977 to 2001. Temperature warmed then went flat to mild cooling.
2.) PDO has switched to cool 2007/2008 and temperatures dropped.
3.) Mild temperature decrease 2001-2008 following ElNino/La Nina flux from 1998-2000.
4.) Mild ocean cooling for five years.
5.) Major Solar minimums/ Little Ice Age.
6.) Medieval Warm Period, Roman Warm Period, warming in 1920s-30s more rapid than today.
7.) Surface temperature stations called into very damn serious question.
8.) “Eenie Weenie Ice Age” (1950-1976) corresponded with PDO/AMO cool phase (Haven’t checked the other 4. )
9.) Solar Cycle 24 where aaaaare you? (It is the very model of a modern Maunder Minimum . . .)
10.) When CO2 was 7000 ppmv (today it’s 385 ppmv) it was warmer (except when it wasn’t), but there was no runaway GW.
11.) CO2 correlates rather poorly with temperature trends since 1950. Oceanic cycles correlate rather well. (Not proof, just inductive evidence.)
12.) Temperatures remained stable despite climate criminal/mad arsonist teacher on the loose illegally burning lilac trees. (LILAC trees, do you hear!)
FB (15:12:06) : Agreed. I have never thought of AGW as a fraud. Merely an error. (Albeit a careless error with serious consequences.)
FatBigot: “It is as false to dismiss all AGWers as self-serving lefty fraudsters as it is for them to accuse we who disagree with them as oil funded mass-murderers.”
Good point, although people tend to speak in generalities, and of course polemicists of whatever stamp speak for persuasion rather than accuracy.
But it’s ironic that those who decry AGW alarmism are not shy about proclaiming their own form of alarmism, as in this case, where a marketing campaign is seen as a harbinger of death camps and gulags.
My conclusion is that alarmism is a trait shared by all human beings, possibly for evolutionary reasons, and that despite the self-declared ‘realism’ of AGW sceptics, many of them are happy to engage in alarmism when it suits their case.
So why can’t we all just get along? I’d say it’s because people from both camps view the issue in terms of the survival of civilisation as we know it. So alarmism will persist until the evidence shows otherwise.
Thanks. It is not lack of information that was my problem. It was trying to sort out the key points. Wood from trees etc.
We are giving both sides. Geog department puts the AGW case the week before.
The concatenation of climate, cops and crime sure looks like an Islamofascist fist bump to me!
People should feel free to complain to the small renewables-based electric co that prepared this, but there’s no state action here.
Denis: You or your students might enjoy playing with various processes on the raw data: http://www.woodfortrees.org
I’m glad some sanity has returned to this thread… To be honest I think some of the reactions here to nPower’s ads/website has been a bit over the top. As a Brit with kids of the target age, I think it’s just a rather clumsy attempt to engage kids in energy conservation; nothing much wrong with that. The whole ‘cop’ thing is just a metaphor and the kids aren’t going to take it any more seriously than any of the other marketing that they get swamped with. It might be in rather poor taste for people who have suffered under various forms of police state but it’s not the End of the Free World.
More cynically, some might see it as an cheap way for nPower to greenwash their power generation activities and get something to put in the CSR section of the Annual Report…
I don’t know what those journals you read are repositories of, but they sure aren’t of scientific knowledge. Peer reviewed hogwash peer reviewed by other peer reviewed hogwashers is more like it.
Sorry for not responding last night; Vista decided to flip me the bird and I ended up having to re-format. Anyways, at some fundamental level, Bruce, you have to accept the utility of the scientific method. Perhaps your qualms aren’t necessarily with AGW, but with science itself. If that’s the case, then we’ll just have to agree to disagree.
REPLY: Get XP or a Mac, Vista is the OS of pain.
It is as false to dismiss all AGWers as self-serving lefty fraudsters as it is for them to accuse we who disagree with them as oil funded mass-murderers. Straw man argument, Fatman. AGWers’ reasons for pushing the debunked and discredited AGW hypothesis are many and varied, be they political, professional and/or egotistic, monetary, or emotional, and in any combination.
Moderator: I do mostly avoid Vista; I use Ubuntu for the vast majority of my work at home. Still have to boot up Vista every now and then to manage my iTunes library and to play the occasional game. In the process of updating Vista, something went FUBAR… MBR got messed up, then the repair option nuked things more than it helped them and I couldn’t even get into my Ubuntu partition. Pain… just pain.
Anyways, Bruce, AGW is hardly a debunked and discredited hypothesis and it’s delusional to suggest to otherwise. Certainly, some areas have been shown to be in drastic need of review, but the theory is much more robust healthy than Average Joe Skeptic believes. The bottom line is that your prescription as to the motive of AGW proponents apply more to the skeptics who refuse an aspect of its premise habitually. I have no political, professional, egotistic, monetary, emotional or any other motive to “believe” in AGW. My personal analysis simply leads me to believe it is the best theory out there to explain the climate trends of the past 150 years.
You really need to disconnect the political and the scientific sides of the debate. Although it’s a heavily politicized topic, there most definitely is a fine line. Promoting AGW does not automatically imply promoting a socialist, unitary world government, just as being skeptical of AGW does not automatically imply that someone is in cahoots with Big Oil.
REPLY: Well, on Vista we agree. I run a new laptop that “had” Vista on it last year, pulled the hard drive, put in a new one, put on XP and Ubuntu and I’m a happy camper. I gave Vista 6 months, and decided it was a waste of time and effort. The eye candy makes it a slow dog for anything useful – Anthony
Perhaps your qualms aren’t necessarily with AGW, but with science itself. If that’s the case, then we’ll just have to agree to disagree.
Wrong again, counters. It is precisely because I (and many, many others) have respect for science and the scientific method that I totally reject the AGW hypothesis, which has not only never been proven, but has been completely discredited. Only those with an agenda (or the mentally challenged) still believe it.
I think pranging the Lilac murderers is a reasonable first step . . .
Thanks Paul (Woodfortrees) My project team had a task to look at your site over the summer hols and try to look for any patterns in data.
Simple patterns hopefully, rather than the stats analyses!
I suggested temp and sunspots etc All the usual things.
Also to look for trends by using different starting points to show how you can get patterns in either direction depending on starting point.
Did not realise you were in England.
Perhaps I should get you to come to the school to discuss this. 🙂
Just teasing.
We had Simon Singh give a whole school assembly last December on the Big Bang. It was excellent.
However, at the end he did make a few comments about how you should not believe anything from people who doubt AGW. It is definitely proven.
Afterwards I told him about this site and the surface stations project.
He said he only trusted satellite data anyway.
Is it not the satellite data that shows the cooling since 1998? and only the surface stations that almost show continued warming? 🙂
Very disturbing, but not surprising. The environment movement is dominated by left-wing people who love using the State’s powers to control and repress.
Serious posts, funny posts, interesting tangent posts. Read lots but no time to read all. Would that each of us — bite the tongue, take a breath, count to ten, before slopping broad bush strokes that sully us all. That’s “them,” not us.
counters:
“Sorry, but this is ridiculous. This is a stupid advertising campaign by an energy company. It’s amazing that anyone is reading more into that.”
You haven’t had first-hand experience of being bombarded by their propaganda, …er.. ‘advertising campaigns’ like we have in the UK.
Especially when said company have upped their prices exorbitantly so I now have the dubious pleasure of forking out over 1000 GBP for the privelege of heating my small house for about two months of the year – mornings and evenings only. And I can’t get a much better deal from other companies.
Bunch of hypocrites, accusing people like me of ‘climate crimes’ whilst simultaneously cleaning out my wallet!
Dennis Hopkins:
“We had Simon Singh give a whole school assembly last December on the Big Bang. It was excellent.
However, at the end he did make a few comments about how you should not believe anything from people who doubt AGW. It is definitely proven.”
I’m a bit surprised at Simon Singh.
However, beliefs are infinitely more powerful than science, so perhaps we should cut him some slack.
counters:
“I use Ubuntu for the vast majority of my work at home.”
At last, something we agree 100% on 😉
counters:
“In the real world, governments aren’t setting up Ministries of ClimateTruth”
In New Zealand, they have a Minister for Climate Change.
Coming soon to a government near you…
[…] British Utility nPower sponsors the “Climate Cops” a cartoon website aimed at children encouraging them to ensure that “climate crimes” such as using the dryer, putting hot food in the fridge and leaving the TV on do not go unpunished. I first read about this on a European blog, followed up here. […]
is it just me, or does this remind anyone of the sort of comics, advertisements, and the likes that are geared at young children by PETA?
does anyone remember the comic book entitled, “you mommy kills animals”?
http://www.theanimaladvocate.org/040726_mommykills.jpg
just another item to add to the list of things that will poison the minds of our children… *sigh*
[…] Don’t let the Climate Cops get in your kids heads. Can I be the only one more than a little disturbed by the latest campaign to be fronted by energy company npower? […]
Is it not the satellite data that shows the cooling since 1998? and only the surface stations that almost show continued warming? 🙂
Yes. And not even all of the surface data. HadCRUT shows some cooling.
The (British) Advertising Standards Authority rejected our complaint. This, it said, “… seems to be just an educational way to engage children in this topical issue.” The odd thing is, we hadn’t actually made a complaint – we wrote asking them for help in framing a complaint. See here.
Intriguing (and yet distrurbing) development. I have to admit it would be nice if my 12- and 16-year olds would DO some of these very things. I think they are actually the worst offenders in my home, standing in front of the refrigerator to open and close it a few times to see what’s in it, to reach in for a cold drink that they then put back in, only to be back a few minutes later for another sip. It took a while, but I did finally get them to stop taking 30 minute showers. Although, at the present, I think I’m the only one who takes water conserving showers as a matter of routine…
The chairman of nPower should be asked to explain himself (herself?). I wonder if the company has entered an “alliance” with an environmental group that is pushing this? Being a US citizen, I’m afraid I do not know if the nPower (as a UK entity) is a public firm with stockholders and an oversight board, nor the extent to which there is a regulatory oversight system, any of which might be “asked” about this program. Or if stockholders, approached with a petition (filed by a stockholder) at the annual meeting to raise attention to the perceived problem. These latter techniques are employed as routine methods by enviro activists and social rights activists in the US. They should be considered as a means to provide a “wake up call” to nPower’s executive management
One question that might be posed to regulators, management and owners on the “educational value” provided: How do the “climate cops” know that the adults of any “case” don’t offset their emissions? Goodness, even Al Gore does that! And if Big Al does it, it must be okay, right? Does that mean the Klimate Kops are authorized to check my finances?
This also rather reminds me of the attempt by the animal rights group PETA to get people to not drink milk a few years ago. The campign was set as a parody of a well-known US ad campaign. In PETA’s case the slogan was “Got Beer?” As I recall, they had radio and TV spots prepared, bottle and can openers and other labeled merchandise (propoganda) bought, paid for and delivered. Then they found they had just pissed off the anti-drunk driving people. Needless to say, the whole campaign ended up in a dumpster.
As for the potential for violence mentioned by more than a few commenters, we already have these situations in the United States, with extremist groups such as the Animal/Environmental Liberation Fronts burning and defacing what they do not like, spiking trees so that they cannot be harvested (even if the land and trees are privately-owned, I believe), and destroying fields nearly ready for harvest that are believed to contain GMO crops. Then there are groups like “Earth First!”, known for its perception that humankind is but a parasitic plague upon the earth, parasites that they wish to see eliminated. Anyone here ever read the Tom Clancy novel “Rainbow Six”? Sets a fictional scenario (we hope) for how far some of these groups might go to depopulate the Earth in their Druidic quest of worshiping, protecting and “restoring” Gaia, Mother Earth.
Gene, one of those very same people is Maurice Strong, one of the higher-ups in the IPCC. He’s infamous for quotes such as this:
“Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialised civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?”
And here he is now in a position to actually set his plan in motion. Imagine that. But I’d be willing to wager he would be one of the select few to still be allowed to maintain an industrial lifestyle after the rest of us are forced back into hunter/gatherer subsistence.
We haven’t a clue and our actions show it.
http://www.forbes.com/opinions/forbes/2008/0811/094.html
what`s electricity?
i been in the stone age for years,
guess that makes me a star citizen
now only if there was a county worthy of having me
sure isnt one on this planet
all the leaders have screwed them all up
Someone thinks of a way to conserve energy which has a fun slant for kids and suddenly it’s a communist conspiracy being compared to the Hitler Youth. Kids love the cops and robbers dynamic. My under 11’s soccer team’s colours were also red, white and black. Way to suck the life out of an innocent child’s activity. You’re reading way too much into this.
Klimate Kristalnacht is a most definate maybe. Here’s the difference though – I’ll shoot whatever pricks are marching around breaking shtuff…I don’t care if the little bastards are someone’s precious little nazi.