From Spiked-online.com
(h/t to Trevor Gunter)
NOTE FROM ANTHONY: this topic is rather contentious, even though temptation abounds and emotions will run high, please refrain from playing climate gutter ball. Comments will be snipped that stray far from decorum.
Wednesday 4 March 2009
Pathologising dissent? Now that’s Orwellian
Brendan O’Neill
A few months ago, for a joke, I set up a Facebook group called ‘Climate change denial is a mental disorder’. It’s a satirical campaigning hub for people who think that climate change denial should be recognised as a mental illness by the American Psychiatric Association, and that its sufferers – who probably engage in ‘regular chanting and intensive brainwashing sessions in cult-like surroundings’ – should be offered ‘eco-lobotomies’ to remove ‘the denying part of their brain’. The group now has 42 members. Yes, some have signed up because they get the joke, but others are serious subscribers to the denial-as-insanity idea. ‘Thank God I’ve found this group’, says one new member, who is sick of other Facebook groups being ‘hijacked’ by unhinged eco-sceptics.
The idea that ‘climate change denial’ is a psychological disorder – the product of a spiteful, wilful or simply in-built neural inability to face up to the catastrophe of global warming – is becoming more and more popular amongst green-leaning activists and academics. And nothing better sums up the elitism and authoritarianism of the environmentalist lobby than its psychologisation of dissent. The labelling of any criticism of the politics of global warming, first as ‘denial’, and now as evidence of mass psychological instability, is an attempt to write off all critics and sceptics as deranged, and to lay the ground for inevitable authoritarian solutions to the problem of climate change. Historically, only the most illiberal and misanthropic regimes have treated disagreement and debate as signs of mental ill-health.
This weekend, the University of West England is hosting a major conference on climate change denial. Strikingly, it’s being organised by the university’s Centre for Psycho-Social Studies. It will be a gathering of those from the top of society – ‘psychotherapists, social researchers, climate change activists, eco-psychologists’ – who will analyse those at the bottom of society, as if we were so many flitting, irrational amoeba under an eco-microscope. The organisers say the conference will explore how ‘denial’ is a product of both ‘addiction and consumption’ and is the ‘consequence of living in a perverse culture which encourages collusion, complacency and irresponsibility’ (1). It is a testament to the dumbed-down, debate-phobic nature of the modern academy that a conference is being held not to explore ideas – to interrogate, analyse and fight over them – but to tag them as perverse.
Leading green writers have welcomed the West England get-together to study the denying masses. One eco-columnist says the conference might generate ideas for dealing with those who are ‘pathologically’ opposed to the environmental movement (pathology, according to my OED, is the study of ‘morbid or abnormal mental or moral conditions’) (2). Environmentalists recognise the inherent elitism of saying that, while they brave few can see things clearly, the rest of us are somehow disordered (greens are the ‘watchful ones amongst the slaves’, according to one environmentalist writer); yet they seem unashamed. The eco-columnist says this weekend’s conference will be useful because where ‘mainstream politics now largely “gets” environmentalism’, there is still a sceptical mass, ‘a baying and growing crowd, largely consisting of people resistant to the prospect of ever having to alter their lifestyles’. Apparently this crowd ‘gathers to hurl invective’ at environmentalist ideas, such as recycling and low-energy lightbulbs (3).
In a sense, this vision of elite, brainy environmentalists on one side and a baying, insult-hurling crowd on the other speaks, however accidentally and however crudely, to an underlying truth: environmentalism remains a largely elitist project, beloved of politicians, priests and prudes keen to control people’s behaviour and curb our excessive lifestyles, and it rubs many ‘ordinary people’ up the wrong way. Of course much of the public goes along with the environmentalist ethos, bowing to the central idea that mankind is destructive and observing such rituals as sorting their rubbish, but they do so half-heartedly, recognising that, fundamentally, greens’ anti-consumerist, anti-reproduction, anti-travel arguments run counter to their own personal aspirations. Yet rather than recognise this frequently hidden divide between the green elite and the ‘baying crowd’ as one built on differences of opinion, on clashing aspirations, even on rational assessments by sections of the public that recycling is a waste of time, increasingly environmentalists pathologise it, turning it into evidence of their wisdom in contrast to the public’s mental instability.
University departments, serious authors, think-tanks and radical activists are embracing the ‘psychological disorder’ view of climate change scepticism. At Columbia University in New York, the Global Roundtable on Public Attitudes to Climate Change studies the ‘completely baffling’ response of the public to the threat of climate change, exploring why the public has been ‘so slow to act’ despite the ‘extraordinary information’ provided by scientists. Apparently, our slack response is partly a result of our brain’s inability to assess ‘pallid statistical information’ in the face of fear (4). The Ecologist magazine also talks about the ‘psychology of climate change denial’ and says the majority of people (excluding those ‘handfuls of people who have already decided to stop being passive bystanders’: the green elite again) have responded to warnings of global warming by sinking into ‘self-deception and mass denial’ (5). An online magazine called Climate Change Denial is dedicated to analysing the public’s ‘weird and disturbed’ response to climate change (6).
John Naish, the celebrated author of the anti-consumerism treatise Enough!, says our consumerist behaviour, with its promise of ‘ecological disaster’, ultimately springs from the fact that we’re all using the ‘wrong brain’. Our culture, all those flashy ads and temptations to buy, buy, buy and be fat and happy, is aimed at stimulating our ‘primordial instinct’, our ‘reptilian brain, which is responsible for arousal, basic life functions and sex’, says Naish. It neglects and makes lazy our ‘neocortex, the intelligent brain we evolved in the Pleicestocene era’. In short, we’re behaving like animals rather than intelligent beings; indeed, says Naish, our consumer culture is sending us ‘knuckle-dragging into ecological disaster’ (7). In a less hysterical and monkey-obsessed fashion, Al Gore, the king of climate change activism, says the media are warping people’s minds and actively encouraging thoughtlessness and climate change denial, giving rise to a public response to ecological disaster that is not ‘modulated by logic, reason or reflective thought’ (8).
The labelling of those who question certain scientific ideas or green ways of life as ‘deniers’, ‘addicts’ and ‘reptiles’ with a ‘baffling’ inability to understand The Science and act accordingly has a deeply censorious bent. If ‘climate change denial’ is a form of mass denial and self-deception, a fundamentally psychological disorder, then there is no need to engage in a meaningful public debate; instead people just need to be treated. Thus the Ecologist says ‘denial cannot simply be countered with information’; indeed there is apparently ‘plentiful historical evidence that increased information may even intensify denial’ (9). The respected British think-tank, the Institute for Public Policy Research, goes so far as to insist that ‘the task of climate change agencies is not to persuade by rational argument but in effect to develop and nurture a new “common sense”’ (10). This is the logical conclusion to treating disagreement as ‘denial’ and dissent as a ‘disorder’: no debate, no real information, just an insidious demand to change The Culture in order to relax the wrong side of our brains or to inject us with a new commonsensical outlook.
The psychologisation of climate change denial – even the very use of that term: denial – reveals how utterly aloof and cut off are the environmental elitists from mass society. They cannot comprehend, indeed are ‘baffled’ by, our everyday behaviour, our desire to have families, our resistance to hectoring, our dream of being wealthier, better travelled, our hopes of living life to the full. For them, such behaviour is irresponsible and it runs counter to the ‘extraordinary information’ provided by scientists. They seriously expect people to make life decisions on the basis of pie charts and graphs drawn up in laboratories in Switzerland, rather than on the basis of what they and their families need and, yes, what they want. That the green lobby is so perturbed by our failure to act in accordance with scientific findings shows the extent to which, for them, The Science is a new gospel truth and religious-style guide to life, and anyone who disobeys it is a sinner, heretic or deranged individual, a moral leper of the twenty-first century.
Psychologising dissent, and refusing to recognise, much less engage with, the substance of people’s disagreements – their political objections, their rational criticisms, their desire to do things differently – is the hallmark of authoritarian regimes. In the Soviet Union, outspoken critics of the ruling party were frequently tagged as mentally disordered and faced, as one Soviet dissident described it, ‘political exile to mental institutions’ (11). There they would be treated with narcotics, tranquillisers and even electric shock therapy. In George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, O’Brien, the torturer in Room 101, offers to cure our hero Winston Smith of his anti-party thinking. ‘You are mentally deranged!’ he tells him. Today the word ‘Orwellian’ is massively overused, to describe everything from fingerprint library cards to supermarket loyalty cards, but treating your dissenters as deranged? That really is Orwellian, and we should declare permanent war against it.
Brendan O’Neill is editor of spiked. Visit his website here. His satire on the green movement – Can I Recycle My Granny and 39 Other Eco-Dilemmas – is published by Hodder & Stoughton in October. (Buy this book from Amazon(UK).)
Mike D. Thanks for the response, but I must beg to differ. I’ve followed this blog since I’ve been on wordpress and seen nothing but a parade of bull. Consider as a recent example the post titled “Basic Geology Part 3 – Sea Level Rises During Interglacial Periods”. First note the appeal to flattery in the very title of the post. You see, those IPCC dummies don’t even understand basic geology. You, dear reader, are so much smarter than those dummy scientists and can get the facts in this short blog post. Pfffffft.
The post argues that because sea levels have risen for reasons other than human caused climate change in the past, they must not be rising for that reason now. This is a fallacy of causal reasoning. Imagine a crime scene investigator who reasoned like this: “The last murder I investigated was a jealous boyfriend case, so lets just assume this one is too”. Like effects do not necessarily have like causes. True, natural climate change has occurred in the past. Do you really think this is news to climate researchers trying to figure out the causes of the current trend?
The post specifically states the following:
How many readers of this blog turned to the IPCC report and peer reviewed scientific literature to find out more after reading that? How many do you think rested on the warm feeling that they know The Truth, unlike the brainwashed masses and the scientific conspirators? Now here is the difference between a denier and a skeptic. The skeptic will read this blog but will also do further research. The denier is the sort of conspiracy theorist that doesn’t trust mainstream science, suspecting they’re “in on it”. I don’t know which you are, denier or skeptic. If you are a skeptic and not a denier, might I direct you to IPCC FAR ch. 5, specifically FAQ 5.1. You will find references to the scientific literature there.
hareynolds (20:36:34) :
So true about Rex Tillerson. I had a few classes with him many years ago in undergrad. It is no surprise to me, nor anyone else who knows him, that he rose to the highest position in the biggest oil company in the world.
But about the wind-power and CNG, aka the Pickens Plan, it works quite well here in California. It will not work as well elsewhere, no doubt, especially where the wind turbines are subject to icing over. Icing over is not a problem in California, at least thus far! But the fact is, in California we have thousands of CNG powered vehicles, from cars to buses, and thousands of windmills generating power every day. This has existed for many years.
T. Boone sells the natural gas and compressor stations out here, and made a fortune.
Yes. I used to get seam stockings at a splendid little shop near Macy’s in SF. They carried extra long sizes for the trannies (and tall girls like me) and the quality was exquisite. My favorite pair lasted for years. The difference wasn’t the particular knitting stitch so much as the thickness, strength, and numbers of twists per inch in the thread used to make the stockings. Same deal with old denim jeans vs. new denim jeans. The first Levis had a huge number of twists per inch and a very dense twill weave. The pair I bought last week is like tissue in comparison.
Anthony, sorry it’s a bit OT, but it *is* applied science! And, if we are entering a minimum, the warmth and durability of clothing is soon going to increase in importance.
Ok, I can’t resist. In my previous post I quoted Steven Goddard on this blog claiming that the IPCC predicts 2 meters of sea level increase this century. What does the IPCC actually say though?
So where did Goddard get 2 meters from? I did a quick googling and found a number of places suggesting that the IPCC has underestimated in light of new evidence of accelerated melting. None of this was mentioned in Goddard’s post, which is why I encourage skeptics, ~snip~, to do more than read this blog and pat themselves on the back.
Mine are so long that I have to hook them below the band. Which still hasn’t harmed them one bit. The only thing I can’t fix is the built-in heel shaping. The heel is no where near my heel. However, the heel shaping fits my ankle only because my ankle bone takes up the slack a bit. The amazing thing is the toe. How in the world the toe shows no sign of wear after 40 years of occasional use is just amazing. And the toe seam is the most comfortable part. Not so with todays hosiery. That toe seam is like walking on a straight pin laying flat in your shoes all day long.
jrshipley (08:55:58) :
Label me a skeptic, then, and a serious denier where the IPCC and other so-called “scientists” have blatantly lied, distorted, manipulated, and/or hidden their data and methods from scrutiny.
I do wish Dr. Richard Feynman were still alive, just to hear what he would say about the IPCC and all the “science” surrounding it.
Many of us, even those having no PhD after our names, are quite capable through education and experience of reading and understanding what is served up. Our good and trusty servants physics, math, thermodynamics, chemistry, and statistics do not let us down. I also rely heavily on economics. I wish more people would.
A good skeptic, in my opinion, listens to the “science” but verifies with his/her own eyes. As President Reagan said in a different context, Trust but Verify.
So, we are told the debate is over, the science is settled. Is that a skeptic, or denier issue? Well, if the science is settled, why did NASA send a (failed) satellite up to measure CO2? There are many, many, other such examples of knowing that the science is not “settled.”
Or, another good one, does settled science have multiple models, none of which agree with the other? The GCMs are manifold. Are there truly as many models, with different results, for predicting the speed of a falling object acted upon solely by gravity? When the GCM’s can agree, and get their predictions as accurate as a gravity equation, THEN will I agree that the science is settled.
Ya’ll have a ways to go.
If the IPCC (the “scientists”) are correct, why have so few of their gloom-and-doom predictions come to pass? Is that a skeptic or denier issue? (refer to predicting velocity of a falling object acted upon by gravity, above) Smokey regularly posts links to IPCC global temperature predictions, yet none of the (at least three!) measurements of global temperature match the IPCC.
The “scientists” tell us the seas are rising. Not off of California, they are not. The government’s own satellite data shows this. Further, why is the sea level data not on the public website after December 31, 2008? The trend was downward; could it be that the trend is continuing downward, and that is just too embarrassing for the AGW crowd?
Hurricanes are supposed to be growing greater and more frequent, per the “scientists.” They are not. Should a thinking person accept that as a skeptic, or a denier?
The ice at the poles is predicted to melt away and cause great rises in sea level, islands inundated, and huge population relocations. From above, we know the seas are not rising, so the ice is not melting. Which islands are underwater, and how many million people are dislocated?
Oceans are cooler, not hotter. Air temperatures in Europe, and North America are colder, and snows are greater.
All of these things exist even while CO2 is increasing in the atmosphere. But, no major volcano erupted recently to cool things down.
Just how many lies, and flat-out wrong predictions, are we supposed to accept from the “scientists,” before a rational person says this is a bunch of crap?
We have our own eyes, and our own ears, and with the internet, we can find stories such as the party ship and the icebreaker (!) caught, stuck, in ice in the St. Lawrence — weeks before the ice usually closes in. Sure, that is an anecdotal piece of evidence, but it has photos, and eye-witness accounts, and official statements. As an attorney, I can assure you that is very strong evidence.
This is not a game anymore. This is deadly serious business. California, where I Iive and work, has already passed strong legislation to adversely impact all aspects of our once-great economy; this is known as AB 32. I predict it will be known in history as the Bill that Killed California.
President Obama, with a complicit Congress and Senate, has promised to sign into law a similar bill in 2009. Watch for the Dow Jones index to take another swan dive when that one becomes law. Dow 2000, anyone?
The social and political consequences of millions of retirees with zero funds on which to live, because Global Warming legislation cratered the economy, are things the politicians should be contemplating.
So, I deny what is obviously and demonstrably false. And, because of the falsehoods and obvious manipulations that we have seen repeatedly thus far, I am highly skeptical of anything else spouting forth from the so-called “scientists,” especially the IPCC.
Long rant, ya’ll. I’ll go have my soothing herbal tea now, and contemplate the snow storm in the Seattle area.
Again.
In March.
Pamela Gray,
Your posts always make me laugh. Here is one upside to GW…in the warm summer months, I go hoseless. Not possible in the colder months, but then I do wear a lot of tights, which have a much stronger weave and don’t run.
Also, if you buy the thigh-high sort of hosiery, each leg is independent, so if one leg runs, you just mix the remaining leg in with your other pairs (all the same color, bien sur). And thigh-highs are sexy.
I think it’s just a hippy hugfest there’s nothing very serious there.
I hoped that reading the comments to this post would let me relive the delight of turning over a rotting log when I was younger.
Thank you Anthony!
REPLY: You are quite welcome, though I’ll point out that derisive labeling is a foolish tool. – Anthony
Mike Bryant
“I better ask my wife.”
I’d do it via email or long-distance, if I were you.
Wow, Roger, I enjoyed the detailed and passionate response. It sounds like a summation for the jury, devastating. I’m voting guilty.
Mike
Roger, you say that sea levels are not rising off of California. The IPCC report I referenced makes clear that there are regional differences in changing sea levels and thoroughly discusses the physical basis for these differences. Even the post on this very blog that I referenced made clear that sea levels are in fact rising, but you deny [snip] this?
Finally, thank you for indicating who the real fearmongers are in this debate, namely people such as yourself who claim that we cannot stop changing the climate and also rebuild our economy after the Bush collapse. So pessimistic. I believe that America is up to these challenges, if only we can overcome the natering nabobs of negativity and get to work.
You said:
“nothing better sums up the elitism and authoritarianism of the environmentalist lobby than its psychologisation of dissent…. and to lay the ground for inevitable authoritarian solutions to the problem of climate change.”
I’m in favor of environmental conservation, but I don’t psychologise dissenters. So, since I don’t fit your broad sweep, might the “lobby” not be as monolithic as you imply? I can only think of a few people I know who are fringe-ish enough to be that narrow. Most people simply care about the water, air, soil and animals.
But as for “inevitable authoratarian solutions,” I’d like to see the data that leads you to that conclusion (#1). And #2, what alternative approach do you suggest for managing and caring for the environmental degradation that *is* occuring? Do you feel that a continued “anything goes” free-wheeled approach is more likely to cause people to be more caring?
For example, your graphs on climate change & CO2 compared to life expectancy are interesting, but have you extrapolated that data out to estimate global life expectancy and quality of life for global population 3, 4, or 5 generations from now given our rate of resource burn? Burning faster now may fuel our longer lives but what does it mean down the road for those who come after us?
Thanks.
“please refrain from playing climate gutter ball.”
let me relive the delight of turning over a rotting log
Sounds like he wants pull flies wings off rather than play ball Anthony.
The reason there are women with thigh high tights here but not on Alarmist blogs is that women do not like stinky hippies. They like smart forward thinking guys, who dress well, eat well, wash well, work well and drive well. They like guys with big…….carbon footprints 😉
jrshipley,
The problem is that you start from the assumption that CO2 is causing global warming and like the warm-mongers you are not prepared to be convinced otherwise.
Most of is who contribute to this site, scientists and non-scientists alike, would be quite happy to agree with the science of global warming except that we never get to see any. We get ad hominem attacks; we get “the science is settled” (in which case it isn’t science); we get told if we don’t agree we are deluded or shills of the oil or electricity industry (conveniently forgetting that both have enthusiastically jumped on the cap and trade bandwagon now they see some profit in it.
The wheels on the AGW bandwagon are coming off — NOT because the theory’s wrong (though I think it is) but because there is an increasing number of scientists and other intelligent and reasoning human beings who are seeing other possible causes of the global warming of the last 30 years and the warm-mongers refuse to consider the possibility that they might be a better metric for measuring climate change. (Bear in mind that there has been no net warming in the last six years at least: the models say this cannot be since warming and CO2 are in lockstep, even though they are now trying to tell us that this is part of the pattern. You cannot have it both ways!)
Added to which we are extremely doubtful about computer models that are told what answer they have to come up with before they start (positive feedback where there is empirical evidence of the opposite, to quote one example).
I could go on for several pages!
jrshipley (11:44:19) :
Even the post on this very blog that I referenced made clear that sea levels are in fact rising,
The data is here:
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/current/sl_noib_global_sm.jpg
It shows sea levels peaked at the end of 2005 and have been falling on the average since.
Plate tectonics changes the sea levels and makes adjustment to the depth of seas all the time. Tectonics do not exist in climate models.
Water usage isn’t included in climate models either, especially future water usage.
Clouds and precipitation aren’t done well in climate models at all.
So when the IPCC claims they know what sea levels are going to look like in many years to come, I would ask them to show me which crystal ball they were using
How about “Phobiaphilia” Love of Fear.
The AGW movement is based on the sale of fear… Why people love to buy the stuff I don’t know. However I speculate that the process goes as follows.
Sales. Here have some fear…
Buyer. Oh.. that’s good, I was getting bored…
Sales. Now that your frightened… I’m here to save you…
Buyer. Oh… thanks… I thought that I was going to die….
Sales. No problem – your safe as long as you do as I tell you…
Buyer. Whew! For a minute there, I thought that I might have to take personal responsibility for my life…
Buyer. Hey does this cost me anything????
Sales (sotto voce). Only everything…
Sales. Hey I’m saving your life here… get over it.
tallbloke (12:59:04) :
jrshipley (11:44:19) :
Even the post on this very blog that I referenced made clear that sea levels are in fact rising,
The data is here:
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/current/sl_noib_global_sm.jpg
It shows sea levels peaked at the end of 2005 and have been falling on the average since.
I’m sorry tallbloke. I’m under the impression that the graph that you have just linked to shows that.
[1] The sea level is still rising.
[2] That the rate of rising appears to have stalled over the last 2 to 3 years.
I fully grant that “rising sea levels” are an AGW Poster Child, however the key arguments – to my mind – are the following.
[1] That sea levels have been rising since the last ice age as a result of natural climate variation.
[2] There is nothing “catastrophic” about the current rate of sea level rise.
[3] For sea levels to rise catastrophically, large sections of Greenland and Antarctic ice will need to melt, for which there is not yet substantial or unequivocal evidence.
I may have got this wrong.
My boyfriend goes from white to black every day. He owns a welding shop and smells like metal shavings mixed with tractor grease, no matter how hard he scrubs. But then I grew up on a farm with a blacksmith shop. I like the smell of metal shavings and tractor grease.
REPLY: Smells like “Lincoln” is something I’m familiar with – Anthony
Sam. I don’t know how you could have any clue where I started in investigating these issues based on a few comments. I’m not the least bit insecure about whether I’ve given adequate attention to the skeptical arguments. I’ve followed the debate for nearly a decade now and get a little obsessive from time to time in researching and responding to skeptics/deniers. I realize you covet your persecuted status, but you must realize that ad hominems go both ways… take it from this “environmental whacko socialist treehugger”.
You write: “would be quite happy to agree with the science of global warming except that we never get to see any.” Seriously? None whatsoever? A mark of an evidentially weak position is the need to grotesquely overstate. You may start with the IPCC reports. If you think that that process was rigged by socialist conspirators at the UN (or whatever) then you may turn to the scientific papers cited therein. It’s one thing to, as a skeptic, attempt to refute the scientific case that has been layed out in decades of research. It’s quite another to deny the research even exists.
Aron,
Yes, we skeptical women like men with a big…er…carbon footprint.
And there are no thigh-high-wearing women in the AGW crowd because they have to wear pants to cover up the fact that they don’t shave their legs.
Sorry, Anthony, was that playing climate gutterball? :+)
Queen1 (10:41:18) :
My mom used to go one better and cut the ruined leg off a pair of tights. When she had two like that she’d wear them together, swore the two ‘tops’ meant she could do without a girdle. Extra layer for warmth too. Hey, that could worth trying if it gets any colder.
Tallbloke. The link you provided shows sea levels continuing to rise. I think you are confused by the fact that the increase is not monotonic. It goes up and down, but tends to increase statistically. You say sea levels have fallen since 2005. By the same standard they fell between 98 and 01, then fell again between 02 and 04. When will they stop falling?!!!? LOL. Of course, you’ve cherry-picked 05 precisely because there’s a spike there. This is the same childish point as the “warming stopped in 98” line, an argumentum ad nauseum that one hears all to often. Grow up.
The fact of the matter is that the IPCC was conservative in its estimate of sea level increase and did not predict a 2 meter rise as this blog has falsely reported. The IPCC assumed no major loss of mass from Greenland or Antartica this century. Observations subsequent recently published in Nature and Science (two
top journalscoconspirators) to the IPCC report, however, indicate that Greenland and Antartica may be losing mass much sooner (more of that nonexistent science).So, if you’re keen on making the point that some of the science is not absolutely settled realize that goes both ways. Outcomes could be not as bad or much worse. What is widely accepted by experts, and in that sense settled, is that we are changing the climate. We could know-for-sure what the outcomes will be by continuing to change the climate. Out of pure scientific curiosity, I’m for it. However, it strikes me as highly unethical to perform this experiment on the ecologies that humans rely on for food and water.