From National Review online, the story a modern opera, though not by Wagner.
Image from Wikimedia
Exaggeration and alarmism have been a chronic weakness of environmentalism since it became an organized movement in the 1960s. Every ecological problem was instantly transformed into a potential world-ending crisis, from the population bomb to the imminent resource depletion of the “limits to growth” fad of the 1970s to acid rain to ozone depletion, always with an overlay of moral condemnation of anyone who dissented from environmental correctness. With global warming, the environmental movement thought it had hit the jackpot — a crisis sufficiently long-range that it could not be falsified and broad enough to justify massive political controls on resource use at a global level. Former Colorado senator Tim Wirth was unusually candid when he remarked in the early days of the climate campaign that “we’ve got to ride the global-warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing — in terms of economic policy and environmental policy.” (Not surprisingly, after Wirth left the Senate and the Clinton administration he ended up at the United Nations.)
The global-warming thrill ride looks to be coming to an end, undone by the same politically motivated serial exaggeration and moral preening that discredited previous apocalypses. On the heels of the East Anglia University “Climategate” scandal have come a series of embarrassing retractions from the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) regarding some of the most loudly trumpeted signs and wonders of global warming, such as the ludicrous claim that Himalayan glaciers would disappear within 30 years, that nearly half of the Amazon jungle was at imminent risk of destruction from a warming planet, and that there was a clear linkage between climate change and weather-related economic losses. The sources for these claims turned out to be environmental advocacy groups — not rigorous, peer-reviewed science.
Read the complete essay at National Review Online
The history political of environmentalism in the ultra conservative Nazi Party, whose idealists like Himmler, Hesse and Darre which wanted to destroy modern industrial civilisation.
The philosophy is still alive today amongst the global elites like the British royal family and aristocracy (who supported Hitler pre WWII).
It is also popular amongst useful idiots like James Hansen
James Hansen recently endorsed an extreme eco fascist book by Keith Farnish calling for the end of industrial civilisation.
Farnish writes
The only way to prevent global ecological collapse and thus ensure the survival of humanity is to rid the world of Industrial Civilization
Hansen wrote
Keith Farnish has it right: time has practically run out, and the ‘system’ is the problem. Governments are under the thumb of fossil fuel special interests – they will not look after our and the planet’s well-being until we force them to do so, and that is going to require enormous effort. –Professor James Hansen, GISS, NASA
I think we can all imagine what ‘system’ Hansen would like to see, and it wouldn’t be democracy.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Times-Up-Uncivilized-Solution-Global/dp/190032248X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1265053838&sr=8-1
Nazis and environment links here
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/sealed/gw/greennazis.htm
Rm gates .
Hansen in the foi(us emails) said something along the lines of “there is no detectable agw signal in the us and there may not be for 20-40 years. Cet in the uk, no agw signal. Susan soloman and her water vapour accounting for 30% of the warming,Miskolczi, a further climateologist stated in jan that “some unknown variation is masking the agw signal(despite all variations being included in the models,our variable star . Yet you persist in believing that 4 out of every 10000 molecules can influence the other 9996, and man is responsible for less than 10% of that. Those co2 molecules that we emit must be super molecules taking on allcomers and kicking their asses, a bit like Neo and all the agent smiths. Agw theory is toast, had its 30 years in the light time to go back under the rock.
Marvin: Global warming doesn’t cause the destruction of the forests… cattle ranching does, and a minor contributor is logging.
Add Global Warming Scare to that list – it has done real damage to rain forests (through bio fuels, e.g. palm oil in Indonesia).
R. Gates (12:42:59) :
I like this part of this post the most:
“The global-warming thrill ride looks to be coming to an end…”
I will read and cherish this forever, and pass it on to my grandchildren, reminding them that this is what “conservatives” of the early 21st century thought of global warming.
It’s interesting that you choose that particular statement as the object of your ire. FYI, it isn’t just conservatives who are able to see the falsity of AGW doctrine, but truth-seekers of all types. The fact that the whole monstrosity is now falling apart is evident to all but the most blinkered of Believers. In the future, your grandkids will more than likely be reading of how mankind, for a time went into a sort of hysterical insanity wherein he actually thought his burning of fossil fuels was bringing imminent doom to mankind and to this planet. They will know that instead of “saving the planet”, the doomsayers were only hurting mankind, and in many cases of actually causing environmental damage. They will know that C02 was in no way harmful, but actually benefiting both man and the environment. In fact, instead of being hated, feared, and called a “pollutant”, it will be looked upon as no more “harmful” than oxygen. They will laugh and be amazed at those who thought otherwise. This time period will be likened with the Salem Witch Trials, the difference being the AGW mania was pretty much a world-wide phenomenon, with much greater, and more damaging effects.
That’s why I wrote, “The blanket is diffuse and amounts to a coarse net.”
But check out the scorcher here: “Climategate e-mails reveal strenuous efforts by climate scientists to censor their critics”: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/09/peer-review-block-scientific-papers
The politics of global warming are dead. The science of global warming, which depended critically on the politics, is coming undone. However, one would never know this – any of it – from reading the New York Times.
See “Global warming and the New York Times”:
Back in the 70’s a certain cult was calling for the end of the world on say Aug. 15 at 2:00 pm,1976.(my memory is slightly fuzzy on that date, btw) I was
working as a printer’s helper. just about finished with University studies.The
assistant manager was a high poobah in this cult. One thing, he was admant
about the world ending,so admant,he quit,his wife,daughter and his followers
all sold their homes, possesions, and bought white clothing to await the arrival
of one of the following:The Mothership,the Unkown Prophet,(could explain why
they had this paper bag fetish),the arrival of the darkness of doom, or whatever.
Well, 2:00 arrived then 3:00, then they stayed up all night.On a hilltop in NE
Oregon,the stars came out the Coyoties howled, No Mother ship,no Prophet,
and the sun came up as it has over the high lonesome for untold aeons.
Poobah found a use for that paper bag….
As everyone here is so well aware, there are very few things in life that are either purely “black or white” (pick your own opposites). Everyone of us on this planet are various shades of the two and many have some very big dark freckles and gleeming light spots. To glumb all AGW or Anti-AGW folks into a homogenious group is nie on impossible.
Extreme caution should be exercised when dealing with any AGW type these days – for their sake as well as your own. There are many who will turn on their betrayers and stand beside you against all comers in the future, if you give them the chance. If you ridicule them they will turn into a life long enemy. Leave the door open. We didn’t win. The radicals just went too far and shot themselves in the head. Their followers are now stunned and assessing all options.
The sources for these claims turned out to be environmental advocacy groups — not rigorous, peer-reviewed science.
So, seems to me that us deniers should use the word rigorous and let the alarmists keep their robusts. As in, “I’ll call your three robust articles and raise you two rigorous”.
Paul Vaughan (14:19:33) :
True environmentalism most definitely does not equate with climate alarmism.
Any fake “environmentalists” who want to argue with me, be forewarned: I am a true hardcore environmentalist – (i.e. not of the flaky climate freak variety). You folks are threatening nature by generating massive instability – you’re creating a backlash against fake environmentalism that threatens legitimate (i.e. true) environmentalism – next thing you know the backlash will start going after our rivers & parks …and I’ll place the blame right where it belongs: on you.
When they come after the bully, they will bring baseball bats. Why did you instigate this? Time to smarten up & start being sober. Offload the climate freaks – & get back to being pure. Deny ongoing incentive to leverage control away with more boom-&-bust bubble-cycles by being sensible. Think of the trees and realize that stability in human society is good for the longevity of parks – (just think what one nuke would do [& not only to humans]). Stability in human civilization is good for trees & parks.
Paul Vaughan
Ecologist
Don’t blame us. If you are fundamentalist evangelical hardcore caped-crusading environmentalist, then go and dig the filth out of your own back yard. As for the planet, it’s as tough as old boots, and will outlast us all.
Just think of the car drivers who are always having accidents, and it’s always the other guy’s fault.
Allan Morgan
One-time fundamentalist evangelical religious type, happily saved now. But the cape doesn’t suit me.
Douglas DC (08:05:09) :
Back in the 70’s a certain cult was calling for the end of the world on say Aug. 15 at 2:00 pm,1976.(my memory is slightly fuzzy on that date, btw) I was
working as a printer’s helper. just about finished with University studies.The
assistant manager was a high poobah in this cult. One thing, he was admant
about the world ending,so admant,he quit,his wife,daughter and his followers
all sold their homes, possesions, and bought white clothing to await the arrival
of one of the following:The Mothership,the Unkown Prophet,(could explain why
they had this paper bag fetish),the arrival of the darkness of doom, or whatever.
Well, 2:00 arrived then 3:00, then they stayed up all night.On a hilltop in NE
Oregon,the stars came out the Coyoties howled, No Mother ship,no Prophet,
and the sun came up as it has over the high lonesome for untold aeons.
Poobah found a use for that paper bag….
See also: When Prophecy Fails by Leon Festinger
Allan M (08:03:09) “[…] If you are fundamentalist evangelical hardcore caped-crusading environmentalist […] As for the planet, it’s as tough as old boots, and will outlast us all.”
You’ve seriously misinterpreted.