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.
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[…] 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.