There are so many to choose from in this interview, I suppose I’ll just have to list them all. But #3 is the most profound.
From the Atlantic:
An Interview With Nobel Prize-winning economist Thomas Schelling, Part Two – Conor Clarke
#1 …And what I don’t know is whether Americans are really willing to understand that and do anything for the benefit of the unborn Chinese.
#2 It’s a tough sell. And probably you have to find ways to exaggerate the threat. And you can in fact find ways to make the threat serious.
…
#3 But I tend to be rather pessimistic. I sometimes wish that we could have, over the next five or ten years, a lot of horrid things happening — you know, like tornadoes in the Midwest and so forth — that would get people very concerned about climate change. But I don’t think that’s going to happen.
h/t to Tom Nelson
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I think this illustrates the worst aspect of being an alarmist: You’ve backed yourself so far into the doomsayer’s corner that you find yourself in the unenviable position of having to ignore good news and wish-for/celebrate bad news. Pitiful.
#3 is a shame. He should take that back.
EPA defining toilet paper must be a joke don’t you think.
I wish it was true:
http://planetgore.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YTY4NTQyMjJjN2NjZTgxMDhkOTkwN2YyNTIxNzEzNDU=
From Andrew Bolt:
2002:
Australian scientists say global warming is turning the world’s squid into much larger creatures, with huge appetites and fast breeding cycles.
2009:
Global warming is shrinking fish.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/
The problem isn’t the Nobel Prize. The problem is the extraordinary assumption that a Nobel Prize makes the winner an authority in subjects he or she has not studied.
Yesterday I was reading about Michael Collins and his role in the Apollo 11 mission and how proud he was of his part. But what was interesting for me (and this mirrors what other astronauts have said) is Collins’ denunciation of “celebrity culture” where people are “famous for being famous”. He didn’t think that Apollo astronauts were heroes or celebrities, but as people who had a tough job and did it to the best of their ability.
The problem is the celebrity culture that has infected science, especially climate science, allowing highly educated people in a particular discipline to pontificate in subjects they have no idea about (like economics, for example). When I read the IPCC reports I am struck by how amateurish are the descriptions of real world social and economic processes, indicating that the authors are seriously out of their depth.
Certainly I find James Hansen talking about the need for a carbon tax as informative and compelling as Pee Wee Herman talking about nuclear physics.
Gary Hladik (16:02:13) : “We have to destroy humanity in order to save it.”
Kind of like the police killing a man to save him from committing suicide.
(Yes that actually happened in Sarasota Fl)
“We have to destroy humanity in order to save it.”
This is the pinnacle of achievement?
Maybe they think that in thier next life, they will be the next Adam. 25,000,001, a Global Warming odyssey.
That isn’t solving the problem, that’s eliminating the consciousness of it.
Nothing to worry about when the Human Race is extinct.
Ah, my redneck boss was right: Some folks are tired of living.
“Can anyone advise what the best line of argumment might be to politely counter such ‘fundamentalist’ AGW enthusiast positions.”
Robin download the “Skeptics Handbook” on global warming. Get it here:
http://joannenova.com.au/global-warming/
Sadly, I believe these folks want people to die. At the bottom of it all, they are anti-people, at least anti-people “who aren’t like them.” To these folks, people don’t matter; they see humans, except for themselves, as the problem, not creative, sentient resources to work on solutions to the world’s problems. They are selfish and borderline sociopathic because they do not feel true empathy for human suffering, it furthers their purposes, so it’s not really that objectionable.
“If you forget all about the bias nonsense that connects CO2 to the forming of
night clouds, this is a very interesting article”
Noctilucent clouds were first observed following the massive eruption of Krakatoa in 1883:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noctilucent_cloud
Could their increase this year be because of the solar minimum and the up-tick in volcanic activity?
>>>I think you’re mischaracterising Jeremiah.
>>>He didn’t want his people destroyed
On the contrary. Take a look at Jeremiah 44:12. The prediction is that, for burning incense to other gods, the merciful deity will destroy them all.
So one religion is saying “I will destroy you to make you believe in me”, while the other is saying “because you did not believe in me I will destroy you”. I’ll leave you to work out which one is which. 😉
.
“As the poles warm and there is less difference in the temperature gradient between them and the equator, there is less transfer of energy between them. That means that storms such as tornadoes become less severe and common not more so.”
Common meteorological sense would say this is so, but Schelling goes by the U.S. government published CCSP report for his talking points:
“Across the upper Great Plains, where strong storms are projected to occur more frequently, producers are being encouraged to increase the amount of
crop residue left on the soil or to plant cover crops in the fall to protect the soil in the spring before crops are planted.”
Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States, P.128
@ur momisugly Karl (20:47:25)
It’s not just common sense. It’s Meteorology 101.
Misanthropy on this scale reveals a disturbed mindset alienated from reality.
Robin, if you’re still checking in (I meant to post this earlier from work, but my boss’s 70th birthday party distracted everyone)
In my case, the only way to deal with my friends and family is to not talk about it. While they’re lost in their stress-filled fantasy world of tipping points and unprecedented “warming”, I’m laughing at them (but not so they can see).
My brother, for example, called me “stupid” at a family gathering. I have yet to meet a more conspiracy-theorist non-scientific individual, and yet to him not believing in the AGW doctrine is “stupid” enough to attempt to ruin Thanksgiving. Not worth the effort.
I have long time friends that I just don’t talk to anymore. And as I’ve posted in the past, I’ve been through all this before with the whole Apartheid thing… my aunt and uncle were missionaries in Africa for 4 years, and I knew more from them about what was REALLY happening than all the musicians and idealistic 20-somethings that I was surrounded by could ever know.
Be aware, it will pass, especially now that our side (the realists) are fighting back. As with many here, I used to believe, really I did. It was actually quite a jolt for me when I discovered the whole thing was just plain untrue… I doubt many of my friends could have convinced me, since “skeptics” were then (as now) painted as fringe lunatics.
Gradually introduce people to the problems: surfacestations.org, JohnDaly’s site, lack of sealevel rise, lack of solar activity, lack of ocean warming, lack of upper troposphere warming, heck, lack of any warming for 8 years, and pretty soon they’re interested in what else you might know that they’re not hearing.
After all, the whole “I’m just asking questions” is used by the enemy to spread outright lies, we should be using the same technique to spread the truth.
To Brian Baker @ur momisugly 8:09 am
“What I want to know is when will the civil war begin?”
After Krugman’s recent declaration of treason against US reps who didn’t support Waxman-Markey, I would have though the civil war was now, in effect, declared ?
It is simply that the alarmists, Malthusians and wanna-be totalitarians haven’t been able to co-opt the political class to deploy the state security forces against the dissenters – yet.
Perhaps the professional political class retains a shred of self-preservation in not allowing the zealots to get their hands on the levers of power and enforcement. You never know who the nutballs will turn the guns on at the end of the day – maybe the political class itself ??
The Nobel Peace Prize should not be confused with the other Nobel Prizes. The Economy Prize is awarded by the Swedish National Bank (Riksbanken) and the Science Prizes are awarded by the Swedish Academy of Sciences.
The Peace Prize is a purely poltical prize and awarded by the Norwegian Nobel Committee. The members of this committee is nominated by the Norwegian Parliament (Stortinget) and this in turn is dominated by socialists.
CodeTech: The net result is that the same psychological need that religion filled has to be filled in some other way. Gaia worship? In a way…
As it happens the world’s religions have three approaches to god (excuse the generalisation but I’m not about to ask you go read a dozen books just to verify this point). Those three approaches are, becoming god-conscious, having a relationship with god as a great other, and seeing god manifest as the whole natural world. People implicitly “know” these three aspects and tend to emphasize one or the other when they approach their faith, and even whole traditions can end up emphasizing one or the other. So Christians tend to see god as a great other, ie. as a being whom we have a relationship with. Zen Buddhists tend to go for god-consciousness. And just as it happens, as an example of how people implicitly “know” about these three aspects, one of my very atheist, liberal friends, said to me, without prompting, “if there is a god, it is nature”. In other words, she felt implicitly the third aspect of god, the god as “web of life”. And why not? Many people look at Nature, and they just feel amazed by the complexity and beauty, and end up with a feeling of awe.
So environmentalists themselves identify nature as god. Now where the usual references to religion get into trouble, is that most people equate religion with irrationality, dogma, myth and santa claus. When people attack religion, they’re tending to attack dogma, which they imagine all religion to be. But that’s more about the history of religion…. Before we had science, and reasoning for one’s self, we lived in the dark ages, in ancient times when most people were simply into beliefs and myths, because they didn’t have the scientific method, so a lot of stuff that was just myth became bound up with religion. But that is a far cry from someone today who is basically rational, looking at nature and feeling awe. Feeling awe is not dogma, it is simply an emotional reaction to the complexity of our universe. And maybe that feeling of awe evokes a feeling of care, and transcendence, and wanting to connect, and connect with fellow man. People can feel this to varying degrees, be it a walk on a sunday afternoon, or kids going to a festival in the countryside.
So generally, environmentalism does have a strongly “religious” component, but only in this specific sense, and it is not dogma in the old sense. Where it does get dogmatic is when people make errors in thinking, and make errors in their analysis. But that’s not religious, that’s just bad reasoning.
As this site has often made the point, many people who don’t identify as environmentalists, nevertheless actually work to help the environment, and perhaps even do more to serve the environment, simply because they care, and their reasoning is better.
So when we feel tempted to lambast something as religious, we could just ask, are we accusing them of faulty reasoning? Can we show them why their analysis is flawed? We could even express a feeling of awe for nature, whilst scrutinizing and picking apart their flawed logic and data?
Ian Plimer, on page 12 of “Heaven and Earth” says
“The slogan “Stop Climate Change” is a very public announcement of absolute total ignorance as it is not cognisant of history, archeology, geology, astronomy, ocean sciences, atmospheric sciences and the life sciences.”
Not a bad future Quote…
Ian Plimer, on page 97 of “Heaven and Earth,” while discussing the hockey stick, writes
“In many fields of science, this would have been considered as fraud. In many fields of endeavour, Mann would have been struck off the list of practitioners. In the field of climate studies, he was thrashed in public with a feather and still gainfully practises his art.”
A nomination for a future Quote…
>>>So generally, environmentalism does have a strongly “religious”
>>>component, but only in this specific sense, and it is not dogma in
>>> the old sense. Where it does get dogmatic is when people make
>>>errors in thinking, and make errors in their analysis. But that’s
>>>not religious, that’s just bad reasoning.
True, but you do not allow for that other human need – power and influence. Once you have a large number of people all thinking in a similar manner, you always have the possibility of dynamic and ruthless individuals stepping in and organising a personal power-base.
However, once a power base has been set up the institution often becomes largely self-perpetuating – transcending the goals of the original founders, and often existing merely for its own good and survival. And to facilitate that survival the organisation needs a dogma to stabilise its power base and authority.
Christianity was highly factional and impotent, until successive Roman Emperors enforced a common creed (dogma) which made it more powerful. Scientology appears to be a bizarre belief system to me, but has nevertheless become a successful self-perpetuating society, based on a strong core dogma. A core of determined believers with a strong dogma will always attract others, because they cannot all be deluded – can they?
Likewise, the Creed of Environmentalism has built upon the universal Gaia Deity perception, and mutated into a powerful self-perpetuating organisation with goals far in excess of the original ideals. The priesthood of the new Green Religion can now flex their might and feel world governments quake at their every proclamation. That is real power, and power brings great wealth and influence to the new high priesthood, so why not use that power to effect other goals too?
Political manipulation? Social change? Wealth provision? Population control? Economic ideology? One World government? You name it, a whole host of peripheral goals that are largely irrelevant to pure environmentalism are now within the grasp of the Green high priests – and since they have the power, they will certainly be tempted to use it.
But, like every religion, their power-base is founded squarely upon the creed. No creed, no religion. If it could be proven that Jesus did not rise from the dead, Christianity might topple. If a letter from Muhummad was discovered, detailing his purchase of all his texts at a local flea-market, Islam may falter. By all means, the dogma-scaffolding that supports the creed must be maintained.
With Environmentalism, that creed is now firmly affixed to Global Warming, and this is a crucial mistake by their high priesthood. Had the goal been a generally cleaner, more natural world, their task would have been easier in the long run. But linking the foundation of the Creed to GW has exposed the entire self-perpetuating edifice to undermining by any cooling trend. Hence we see ever shrill cries, to secure the foundations, with olives and dates being grown in the UK within 20 years, :
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6719157.ece
But the shriller the cry, and the more often these dire predictions fail, the more the foundations of the Green Creed edifice will be remorselessly undermined. I predict that the tipping point will be some completely absurd prediction that completely fails, and the entire population loose heart simultaneously. At that point, the Greed Creed and everything associated with it will collapse – which is a shame in a way, because we need a cleaner environment.
But the higher you build, the greater the potential fall.
Stefan (02:41:04) : The people I have a real problem with are those who believe mankind to be the Devil.
ralph ellis: But the higher you build, the greater the potential fall.
But…before falling there will be too much suffering, as history shows.
You say alsoGW has exposed the entire self-perpetuating edifice to undermining by any cooling trend
But…they have realized this also to happen, that is why they changed the label “global warming” to “climate change”.
Now he or she who sees any change in current climate will say aloud “that’s climate change!!” and that soul will be “served on the table”to be “eaten” by the closest “prophet” of this new religion.
Ron de Haan:
Global warming is shrinking fish Funny but you made me remember that UN’s FAO (the same UN of the IPCC) has a paper where predicts temperatures, following LOD, up to the year 2100, where THERE IS NO GLOBAL WARMING AT ALL!!
The following is the link to download this paper:
ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/005/y2787e/
(download all files to have it complete)
If GLOBAL WARMING is true temperatures won’t decrease during the sun eclipse on asia due to all the GHG emitted by China and India.
Wait for the latest news from all witnesses!!!!