Historian Matthias Dörries reveals the role of fear in our understanding of climate change
From apocalyptic forecasting to estimates of mass extinctions, climate change is a topic which is filled with fearful predictions for the future. In his latest research, published in WIREs Climate Change, historian Matthias Dörries examines the cultural significance of fear and how it became a central presence in current debates over climate change.
Climatic change, as represented by the media, often prompts headlines predicting disastrous events, frequently adopting fear laden language including analogies with war and warnings of the imminence or irreversibility of pending catastrophes. For Professor Matthias Dörries from the University of Strasbourg, a culture of fear is alive, and doing very well.
Professor Dörries looks at the issue of fear from a historical perspective, asking how our current society has come to conceive of climate change in terms of catastrophe and fear.
“Recently historians have underlined the necessity to revise the grand Enlightenment narrative of science as antidote to fear,” Dörries stresses, “We should now look at how popular and scientific discourses frame fear, and study the constructive and destructive functions of these fear discourses in societies.”
The 1960s and 1970s were characterized by an increasing appropriation of the future by science, leading to a rise of fear discourses by scientists themselves.
“For the very long run, science has indeed some terrifying prospects to offer for the planet Earth, and on a scale of decades, science has identified serious threats, such as anthropogenic climate change,” Dörries remarks.
“The current discourse of fear over climate change reflects the attempts to come to grips with the long-term issue of anthropogenic climate change,” concludes Dörries. “They are appeals for action, they imply claims to power, they stress that the issue is political and cultural, not merely a matter of science and reason alone.”
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You Americans have a big problem; just like the Lame Street Media has misled the public on AGW they have misled you on Globalization and Corporatization. YOU do not live in a democracy. Anyone outside America looking at you sees Capitalist Extremism run amok, do you have any idea of how the rest of the world sees you. I see allot of people here that are very good with very complex math, how many of you have added up the numbers on your obscene debt and its consequences.
If you think I am being overly harsh listen to one of your own Liberals (Chris Hedges of the New York Times) lament the failure of the American Liberal Class and their complicity in your creation of a “Corporate State” !
Here Chris Hedges of the New York Times speaks on American Liberalism
http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/2010/11/nov-0210—pt-3-american-liberalism.html
Click on the podcast link at this page.
There are two ways to lead a population, one is to inspire and lead by example using stirring words,deeds and appealing to the higher aspects of human nature like honour, courage, self sacrifice, honesty and patriotism. Of course to use this route the cause has to be just and genuine and honourable and honest with the highest of aims and led by people endowed with the highest principles.
The other way is darker and meaner and cynical, it appeals to the base and dark instincts of human nature. Fear and uncertainty and jealousy and hatred have long been prime mass motivators of humanity, make someone frightened enough and guilty enough and angry enough and they will do almost anything and follow almost anyone way beyond civilised behavioral norms. Those who use this method usually have a dark and dishonest set of aims which have to be hidden. Those using this method can also believe that any action however repugnant and morally corrupt is justifiable because the ends justify the means which in itself is merely a self justification for doing evil. This method thrives on lies and deceptions and cannot in fact exist without them, it drives the entire method and eventually kills the entire enterprise because eventually everything becomes infected with lies and deceptions and nothing is true. This I believe is the difference between good and evil, one path leads to heaven and one to hell. The one that leads to hell is solidly paved with lies,deceptions and good intentions from the start, once the first lie is told and the first deception enacted to sustain the narrative the cause is lost. More lies and more more deceptions can prolong the method and narrative for a time but it is an ever decreasing circle of diminishing returns for ever greater outlays of lies and deceptions.
If history has taught us one thing only it is to never go down the road to hell, yet still forces are at work to take us that way again, will we ever learn?
I have always felt and argued that climate alarmism is more dangerous to humanity’s present and future prospects than anything the climate can conceivably throw at us. Even if you stipulate to a greater than 2C rise in GMT by the end of the century the present global carbon demonization model fails on any rational consideration of the economic fundamentals of cost- benefit ratio and opportunity costs. Even at our present early stage in the plan, though it does seem to have been going on forever already, we have a litany of epic fails that demonstrate this exactly.
The humanitarian and natural disaster sparked by the biofuels bubble. The diversion of limited global capital, in a world facing facing an inexorable demand for increasing amounts of cheap and abundant energy, into massive investments in wind and solar projects that have almost no prospect of providing meaningfully for present demand let alone the needs of the future, while concurrently depriving R&D and deployment capital from systems that have at least the possibility of solving future needs. The demands for completely ignorant carbon sequestration schemes which, even in the highly unlikely chance that they will work, will consume supposedly scarce fossil fuel resources 50% faster and provide climate benefits so small we wouldn’t be able to detect them. The push to convert the vehicle market to electrics, which promises to be another disastrous bubble when the small segment of population who are willing to sacrifice money and functionality for a psychological green feel good moment becomes saturated.
The now Trillions of dollars spent and many more Trillions demanded in the future, which have been and will be diverted into this dead end anti Carbon scheme are, by creating and fostering massive economic inefficiencies, damaging the present and robbing the future.
Climate fear results in large part from the abject failure of government education, in which “studies” have replaced large swathes of the hard sciences [Mrs Smokey was a teacher, and a Principal for the past twenty years. She retired last June].
Students are being cheated, there is no other way to describe it. From middle school through college, the minimum curriculum [IMHO] should at least include:
• Civics and the U.S. Constitution
• Calculus, Physics, Chem, and Biology, including some Biochem & Organic chemistry
• Western Civilization; Hammurabi through Plato, to Nietzsche and Popper
• Western Literature, The Book of the Dead, Gilgamesh through Homer and Hesiod, to Twain and Melville
• Music History
• Art History
• English Lit
• English, with emphasis on reading, writing, grammar, spelling, and punctuation
• Economics, micro & macro
• Intro to Geology
• Intro to Philosophy
• American History
• European History, plus a Shakespeare course
• One classical language [mine was Latin], plus one modern language [French, German, Spanish, Russian, Asian & East Indian are good choices]
• A basic Business course, with Accounting and Business Law
• Intro to Statistics
What do they get instead? Numerous “studies” courses, watered down arithmetic, politicized science, primarily 20th Century history. [Civics? What’s that??]
No student should be promoted to the next higher grade without passing a proficiency exam. Letter grades and the grading curve must be used in every school [including the once great Harvard, which now uses easy Pass/Fail grading].
Rigorous thinking is no longer taught in public schools. Textbooks are selected based on politics. Students are promoted to the next grade, and kids graduate with high school diplomas who literally cannot read or write. Mrs Smokey was told that she had no choice in the matter, and would be replaced if students in her school were not graduated. Teachers routinely game the NCLB tests.
With a government school system that no longer teaches rigorous thinking, is it any wonder that the fear of “climate change” can be instilled so easily in a population that gets its primary education from propaganda films like An Inconvenient Truth, and the 10-10 video implying that dissent deserves the death penalty?
Well the climate has changed for the good since the last ice age but that can’t be used to tax, regulate, dictate, suppress and grow government power. I guess they knew that.
It ought to be the hysterical climatologists we should fear since they are the ones who tries to persuade people to do something that cost money to do with no benefit in sight, or the climatologist just want more of the peoples money so they can get yet another umptenth chance to prove that what they try to persuade people to do by spending money on nothing is the right thing to do. And what not.
But of course in more rational reasoning these hobnobs are not to be feared, just like climate change is not to be feared since climate always change. Laugh at the hobnobs, or just annoy the hell out of em for good sport and a spite, and adapt, as per usual, to any change climate or otherwise.
Cassandra King, Nov 5, 11:43am:
You are ‘spot on’, Sweet Pea! Your cogent distillation mirrors my own sentiments and philosophies, yet far more precisely and elegantly stated than I have ever managed. May I quote you and use your homily in its entirety?
Encore! Encore!!!
Science and fear – Opposite sides of the same coin
Science – looking at a storm and wondering how it works
Fear – hearing the thunder and running for cover
Facing your demons is the only way to overcome fears, so how has our society come tho this – by the application of equality that all people are created equal and devolving that to rule of the lowest common denominator that makes them equal. Take your pick
White
Black
Native
Jew
Christian
Moslem
Communist
Capitalist
Climate Change Alarmist
Climate Change Denier
Don’t care
When in reality no person equals any other person, everyone is an individual entity with unique characteristics, needs and desires. And, the characteristics, needs and desires of every societal group, from a family to a city to a country, are a function of the individuals and the environment that those individuals, live grow and die in.
I agree with Smokey (at 12:18 pm) children are not being taught the principles that brought modern man out of the stone age, and instead are taught stories about how things used to be, or how some idealist would like them to be.
The world to a newborn is a wonderful place until they are trained to fear it, and only the lucky ones will overcome their fears and use their innate investigative and problem solving skill to maintain and improve their life.
From:
http://www.thebodysoulconnection.com/EducationCenter/fight.html
The “fight or flight response” is our body’s primitive, automatic, inborn response that prepares the body to “fight” or “flee” from perceived attack, harm or threat to our survival.
============
Mess with it, at your own peril.
In addition to fear itself, we now have fear-mongers who exaggerate every natural disaster into epic Apoplectic proportions, for the express purpose of Power & Money.
They now have to fear the opposite sine exposing them for what they really are.
What warms up must cool down.
u.k.(us) says:
November 5, 2010 at 2:12 pm
The “fight or flight response”
Using fear as a marketing tool has the advantage of creating a response that shuts down rational, critical thinking.
I understand cultural level fear, both presently and historically, is essentially caused by a culture viewing nature as malevolently active. Such cultures expect bad things from existence itself . . . . . constant fear results.
Likewise, a culture that views nature as benevolently active has positive engagement with nature and lacks fundamental /pervading fear of it. Nature is a positive aspect and since man is naturally part of nature, man is benevolent as well.
Science has been the source of the benevolent view. Science still is.
The source of the malevolent view is supernaturalism, demonology and superstition.
Science hasn’t changed per se. Climate science has been infected with non-scientific views designed to give a malevolent view of man for himself as man.
John
John Whitman says:
November 5, 2010 at 4:50 pm
I agree John, wholeheartedly. The sad thing is so many are unwilling to question what they’re told, whether through the MSM or at school. It’s a shame too.
I can’t recall who the comedian was but I recall the “punchline”: “If America was discovered by the current generation they wouldn’t have made it past Boston”. Referring to the attitude of fear, victimization, entitlement, etc. It would seem we’ve come a long way, unfortunatley in the wrong direction. By my compass since the early 1900’s (1910 to 1913).
Well done. Lots of thought-provoking comments on this post. Thanks everyone (so far)!
toryaardvark says:
November 5, 2010 at 8:11 am
The problem with crying wolf all the time is that when the wolf finally turns up no one is really that bothered.
Governments have always needed the scare thing to unite or should that be control their populations.
After Hitler we had Reds under the Beds and as the Cold War ran down they figured that a Climate of Fear would do the same thing, only they were wrong.
Problem is most people are to scared to live, they live in fear that something might happen to them, so yes fear is probably the biggest fear of climate change.
As we do not create climate change why worry about something that is beyond our control.
I am reminded of the story of Professor Heinkel and the bumble bee, according to Prof Heinkel the laws of aerodynamics indicate that the bumble bee cannot fly, in blissful ignornance of this the bumble bee flies
Well, as I keep posting:
—————
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
~ H. L. Mencken ~
—————
And there you have it.
@ur momisugly Enneagram: November 5, 2010 at 10:19 am
The precise idea behind this is:
“THOU SHALT BE HUMBLE AND MODEST”
There is a surprisingly large number of people who support this message, though they do not necessary live by it.
But in our modern times you cannot just shout
“THOU SHALT BE HUMBLE AND MODEST”
and hope that lots of people will be impressed. You need data to support it!
I’ve been personally promised for 4 decades now that petroleum will run out in 10 to 15 years max. What happens is that crude oil production and consumption rises and after 10 to 15 years people are deeply worried to discover that we only have 10 to 15 years of petroleum left. These data obviously doesn’t do the trick.
So if you can’t muffle the supply you have to muffle the exhaust. The pollutants produce by burning fossil fuels can all be avoided or somehow filtered, leaving only water and CO2.
Declaring water a pollutant was too though which left CO2, which is a tough one too. But then they remembered Arrhenius and dreamed up CAGW:
“We are messing with our climate! Nothing less than Armageddon!”
So they founded the IPCC to support the idea:
“THOU SHALT BE HUMBLE AND MODEST”
with data and it doesn’t matter if the data are wrong since the message:
“THOU SHALT BE HUMBLE AND MODEST”
is genuine, just and true and data are only needed to support it. This is why the “errors” of the IPCC are no concern since they point in the right direction.
I don’t think fear is a big driver here. People would act differently if they were really scared. No, it is this warm feeling you get when you save the earth. Doing the right thing is a strong motive. There are all kinds of rituals (unplugging your standbys, ride bicycle (if the weather is not too inconvenient), recycle etc..) you can do to show your dedication.
Sure some will get filthy rich and powerful in this process but the mass of supporters are just doing their rituals to save the earth.
Jimbo says:
November 5, 2010 at 9:42 am
{For Professor Matthias Dörries from the University of Strasbourg, a culture of fear is alive, and doing very well.}
“It has always been alive and well and has been around for donkeys’ years. We used to burn witches over failed rains. :o)”
And the fate of the IPCC/Hadcru coven ?
I know many people who have stopped believing in AGW, but are still convinced that “the weather is doing weird things” in more recent times. Weather, it would seem, is about the easiest matter to spook folk on.
Dear Mac the knife,
You may use my humble post as you see fit, I am very pleased you find some truth in it and I am very glad it may be seen by a larger number of people.
The post is now yours to modify and improve as you think best.
Yours
Cassie K.
Cities, counties and states that have skeptical folks running the show (that would not be, I assume, about elected folks that follow the careers of people like the pothead who just got elected in California), need to take back their thermometers. In terms of giving the data away to so called slimate scientists, just shut’er down till we get some ‘splainin from GISS and a proper independent analysis from an independent gold star panel of statisticians. Every conservative city, county and state needs to take the show back from Hansen and his ilk till they coughs’up what they have done to the data, and why their version is different from the raw data. I believe an entire country has done that. The Netherlands? So why have the numerous conservative states not taken up the call to “meet at noon on main street”? Are conservative governmental leaders chicken? We now have control of the House. So man up Republicans. Do the bidding of the people who gave you back your House.
These scientists – never trust em. Some science blast from the past ( Alf Wegener or whatever) came up with this bizarre idea that all the continents had been joined together and then moved apart.
What a wag. He went to his grave with people thinking he was a nutter…….
Rocket Science says:
November 5, 2010 at 7:49 pm
‘Jimbo says:
November 5, 2010 at 9:42 am
“It has always been alive and well and has been around for donkeys’ years. We used to burn witches over failed rains. :o)”
And the fate of the IPCC/Hadcru coven ?’
Respectfully, Rocket, you have it about face. The IPCC and their scientific Dominicans are the Inquisitors and we dissenters the ‘witches’. After all, it’s not us threatening them with burning (or red buttons).
Adam gloated
—————–
Ha ha. This reminds me of a couple of weeks after Y2K never materialized.
—————–
Since Adam was in school he probably did not learn about the very large effort that was expended to fix the Y2K problem, so that it did not become a catastrophe.
I think I have noticed this kind of weird logic before;
1. Someone says there is a problem
2. Someone devises a fix for problem
3. Problem gets fixed
4. Problem does not appear
5. Attention seeker announces that this is evidence that there was no problem
Lazy teenager claimed:
“1. Someone says there is a problem
2. Someone devises a fix for problem
3. Problem gets fixed
4. Problem does not appear
5. Attention seeker announces that this is evidence that there was no problem”
Someone claimed there was a problem, some people exploited the perceived problem, the MSM jumped in because it sells copy, some people made lots of money inventing fixes to the supposed problem which did not fix the problem because there was no problem to fix in the first place.
The problem did not in fact exist at all, fear and uncertainty exploited by self interest and peddled to a trusting population, sound familiar?