Oh dear, some of these folks aren’t the brightest CFL’s in the room.
Readers may remember this famous Penn and Teller video from 2006 where they get well meaning (but non thinking) people to sign up to ban “dihydrogen monoxide” (DHMO), which is an “evil” chemical found in our lakes, rivers, oceans, and even our food!
Yeah, they signed up to ban water. Now watch the video from the Cancun climate conference, you’d think some of these folks would have enough science background (from their work in complex climate issues) to realize what they are signing, but sadly, no.
Some people will sign anything that includes phrases like, ”global effort,” “international community,” and “planetary.” Such was the case at COP 16, this year’s United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Cancun, Mexico.
This year, CFACT students created two mock-petitions to test U.N. Delegates. The first asked participants to help destabilize the United States economy, the second to ban water.
The first project, entitled “Petition to Set a Global Standard” sought to isolate and punish the United States of America for defying the international community, by refusing to bite, hook, line and sinker on the bait that is the Kyoto Protocol. The petition went so far as to encourage the United Nations to impose tariffs and trade restrictions on the U.S. in a scheme to destabilize the nation’s economy. Specifically, the scheme seeks to lower the U.S. GDP by 6% over a ten year period, unless the U.S. signs a U.N. treaty on global warming.
This would be an extremely radical move by the United Nations. Even so, radical left-wing environmentalists from around the world scrambled eagerly to sign.
The second project was as successful as the first. It was euphemistically entitled “Petition to Ban the Use of Dihydrogen Monoxide (DHMO)” (translation water). It was designed to show that if official U.N. delegates could be duped by college students into banning water, that they could essentially fall for anything, including pseudo-scientific studies which claim to show that global warming is man-caused.
Despite the apparently not-so-obvious reference to H2O, almost every delegate that collegian students approached signed their petition to ban that all too dangerous substance, which contributes to the greenhouse effect, is the major substance in acid rain, and is fatal if inhaled.
Perhaps together, the footage associated with these two projects will illustrate to mainstream America the radical lengths many current U.N. delegates are willing to go to carry out an agenda no more ethical, plausible or practical than the banning water.
Jeez, a high school sophomore should be able to figure that out in about five seconds of rumination! It would be interesting to see who signed, frankly I’m curious just who attendeds these things anyway? Scientists? Politicians? Bloggers? Certianly seems quite a bit more ticky-tackey than the Save the Planet Conceit and Pomp of Copenhagen.
Alpha Tango
December 8, 2010 10:17 am
Dammit – Tea all over my screen now.
Hu Duck Xing
December 8, 2010 10:17 am
I have been the chief operator of a DHMO company for almost 30 years! They’ll probably want to imprison me! I’ve been shipping DHMO through a pipeline directly to 400 homes, 24 hours a day. Uh oh! I’m in trouble!
tarpon
December 8, 2010 10:18 am
Can’t fix stupid.
Peter Miller
December 8, 2010 10:18 am
This is a very serious question indeed:
Which is more dangerous: di-hydrogen monoxide, or oxygen di-hydride?
Perhaps the good folks at Real Climate could help, they like to think they are scientists.
tom T
December 8, 2010 10:20 am
Now we know why they don’t know that water vapor is the biggest greenhouse gas, they don’t know that what water is.
Henry chance
December 8, 2010 10:25 am
President Bush left Obama with the Gulf of Mexico filled with the stuff.
AC
December 8, 2010 10:25 am
If this is true, the it is certian that the people working in AGW are to specialized and from the shallow end of the intellegence pool. The petition to ban water has been going around from time to time for 15+years. This student did it in Cityville, or that student did it TownCity. Perhaps a little Clorine would help (with our without that villian Sodium.).
Although I supose I shouldn’t be surprised, one of the founders of Greenpeace quit the movement when the exec board of Greenpeace was considering taking a stand banning Clorine -because of CFC’s destroying the atomosphere. He was like ‘really, you want to ban an element? How would we even do that?’
footnote for MAX @ur momisugly 12/10 10:01 – wouldn’t ethenol/ CHOOH be better described as Carbonic Hydro DiOxy Hydrogen?
PRD
December 8, 2010 10:30 am
I use a gaseous state of HOH to produce another very dangerous type of energy. The HOH state I use can cause severe burns if engulfed, if discharged with great enough kinetic energy it will lacerate and/or sever limbs. When it is returned to its liquid state, the purity is such that if consumbed over extended periods of time, may leach nutrients from the bloodstream and cause severe anemia.
And yes, I’m linking this for all to see (at least those I can reach).
Jenn Oates
December 8, 2010 10:31 am
Oh, my, I realize that this is serious and I shouldn’t really laugh, but I can’t help but do it anyway. Have NONE of these people seen P&T’s stunt on You-Tube?
When I was a kid, back before the days of being able to e-mail jokes, I remember my dad having a much photocopied (probably from an original carbon copy, no less) “screed” against the dangers of Dihydrogen Monoxide, and even as a kid I thought it was hilarious (and who would fall for that, anyway?) and right along with the Nacirema in terms of sarcasm.
I had great parents when it came to expecting critical thinking from their kids.
grant mills
December 8, 2010 10:31 am
Max@10:01…Come on now. Since when is CH00H considered ethanol. It has been over 40 years since my chem. classes and even I remember that there are 2 carbons and a single oxygen in ethanol C2H50H. Or is this an attempt to see how little attention is paid by the readers of this blog?
This just goes to show you that the UN IPCC and their cronies are not about helping the earth.
Curiousgeorge
December 8, 2010 10:38 am
Things like this just escape most people. They have other things on their tiny minds, besides Carbon ( 3rd most common element in the universe), Water (70% of the surface area of this rock), etc., etc. Such as why they can’t get a signal to tweet their latest ( and no doubt infrequent), synaptic connection.
Pops
December 8, 2010 10:40 am
They MUST release the list of names – wikidlecher would.
Stephen Brown
December 8, 2010 10:41 am
@max Hugoson, December 8, 2010 at 10:01 am
CHOOH is methanoic acid and probably not very nice to imbibe. Ethyl alcohol is CH3CH2OH, it is found in many pleasing beverages, most especially single malt whiskies, where it is an essential component.
Not that it would matter to the signers, but the claim that DHMO is fatal if inhaled is false. Anyone breathing the natural atmosphere inhales it with every breath, and most of us die of other causes.
derise
December 8, 2010 10:45 am
A small smile, a knowing wink. What’s the diffrence to the likes of these? CO2, Freon, DHMO, DDT all represent the same risks and all must be banned! Some of those signers may have been “Lead Authors” ya never know, the dangers og DHMO may make the big time, take the place of Coral Bleaching or Ocean Acidification or who knows what as the NEXT BIG MAN INDUCED…must go take my meds.
Jeremy
December 8, 2010 10:46 am
Water is fatal if inhaled? I’m inhaling some now at around 20000 parts per million.
Stonyground
December 8, 2010 10:46 am
I think that not everyone would know what Di-hydrogen monoxide was straight away, if it was me the penny would drop eventually or possibly straight away there is no way that I can know. Like Stefan though, I always ask a lot of questions before I sign petitions.
On the subject of words that sound as if they mean the opposite of what they actually mean. I always found the phrase “The exception that proves the rule” baffling. Surely, I thought, it should be the exception that disproves the rule. The answer of course is that the word “Prove” can mean put to the test. this is why prototype vehicles are ‘put to the test’ on a proving ground.
Jeremy
December 8, 2010 10:47 am
It may be satire but it actually proves a very interesting point that is exploited by nearly all con artists.
You start with a proposition that you know that the target will be sympathetic to and will want to believe. The rest is easy and it clearly demonstrates how easy it is to sell man-made global warming guilt-trip. (after all, particularly in the West, we all tend to feel a little bit guilty about the fact that we live better off than any generation that has ever lived and far better off than 6 billion others currently alive)
It is the same principle used by big box electronics stores all the time. The target has just purchased a wonderful expensive piece of electronics or new speakers (where markup is perhaps 20% or less, and where the price has often been discounted with rebates and with a “guaranteed low price”). The next step is for the sales person to convince the target that in order to get the best performance from their purchase they cannot possibly use ordinary copper wires to connect the electronics. The customer is naturally proud of the new purchase and will often throw in a couple of hundred extra dollars at some “special” cables with special properties (no discount). Unwittingly the target has just bought a product with a mark up of several hundred percent and one that will not make one wit of audible or visible difference (compared to adequate spec ordinary cables) – despite all the nonsense marketing technobable and custom packaging.
The fact that this type of “con” works every day out in the open and that nobody bats an eye is an indictment of our western school system. Nobody is being taught critical thinking anymore. The latest generation appears to have an even higher percentage of sheeple than the last. Where this will take us nobody really knows but, for sure, despite all our technology, Western Society appears especially vulnerable to manipulation by con artists and the powerful people pulling the strings behind Can’tcon know this all to well.
A variant of this is a move to ban “protonated hydroxyl ions.” Same thing. Water. H2O.
Water is simply H+ combined with OH-, where OH- is the hydroxyl ion, and H+ is a proton.
Gotta watch those chemists and chemical engineers. Sometimes they can get pretty fancy with the language.
Michael D Smith
December 8, 2010 10:52 am
In case any of you haven’t seen the facts about DHMO, here is one link. http://www.dhmo.org/facts.html
Sounds like pretty dangerous stuff. Did you know they’re finding this stuff in virtually everyone’s urine? I hear they’ve never tested a brain cell sample of any mammal that did NOT contain DHMO… Heh.
Guybrush Threepwood
December 8, 2010 10:54 am
It’s entertaining, but I honestly don’t see how it’s any more ridiculous than calling Co2 a ‘pollutant’ that causes global warming!?
gcb
December 8, 2010 10:57 am
Dave Springer says:
December 8, 2010 at 10:03 am Dihydrogen monoxide is a widely used industrial solvent which is harmless in pure liquid form but evaporates into a powerful greenhouse gas when exposed to air.
Not quite harmless – very high doses are in fact toxic to humans. It is also, as pointed out above, harmful if inhaled in large quantities.
Jeez, a high school sophomore should be able to figure that out in about five seconds of rumination! It would be interesting to see who signed, frankly I’m curious just who attendeds these things anyway? Scientists? Politicians? Bloggers? Certianly seems quite a bit more ticky-tackey than the Save the Planet Conceit and Pomp of Copenhagen.
Dammit – Tea all over my screen now.
I have been the chief operator of a DHMO company for almost 30 years! They’ll probably want to imprison me! I’ve been shipping DHMO through a pipeline directly to 400 homes, 24 hours a day. Uh oh! I’m in trouble!
Can’t fix stupid.
This is a very serious question indeed:
Which is more dangerous: di-hydrogen monoxide, or oxygen di-hydride?
Perhaps the good folks at Real Climate could help, they like to think they are scientists.
Now we know why they don’t know that water vapor is the biggest greenhouse gas, they don’t know that what water is.
President Bush left Obama with the Gulf of Mexico filled with the stuff.
If this is true, the it is certian that the people working in AGW are to specialized and from the shallow end of the intellegence pool. The petition to ban water has been going around from time to time for 15+years. This student did it in Cityville, or that student did it TownCity. Perhaps a little Clorine would help (with our without that villian Sodium.).
Although I supose I shouldn’t be surprised, one of the founders of Greenpeace quit the movement when the exec board of Greenpeace was considering taking a stand banning Clorine -because of CFC’s destroying the atomosphere. He was like ‘really, you want to ban an element? How would we even do that?’
footnote for MAX @ur momisugly 12/10 10:01 – wouldn’t ethenol/ CHOOH be better described as Carbonic Hydro DiOxy Hydrogen?
I use a gaseous state of HOH to produce another very dangerous type of energy. The HOH state I use can cause severe burns if engulfed, if discharged with great enough kinetic energy it will lacerate and/or sever limbs. When it is returned to its liquid state, the purity is such that if consumbed over extended periods of time, may leach nutrients from the bloodstream and cause severe anemia.
And yes, I’m linking this for all to see (at least those I can reach).
Oh, my, I realize that this is serious and I shouldn’t really laugh, but I can’t help but do it anyway. Have NONE of these people seen P&T’s stunt on You-Tube?
When I was a kid, back before the days of being able to e-mail jokes, I remember my dad having a much photocopied (probably from an original carbon copy, no less) “screed” against the dangers of Dihydrogen Monoxide, and even as a kid I thought it was hilarious (and who would fall for that, anyway?) and right along with the Nacirema in terms of sarcasm.
I had great parents when it came to expecting critical thinking from their kids.
Max@10:01…Come on now. Since when is CH00H considered ethanol. It has been over 40 years since my chem. classes and even I remember that there are 2 carbons and a single oxygen in ethanol C2H50H. Or is this an attempt to see how little attention is paid by the readers of this blog?
“A US-British team of astronomers has discovered the first planet with ultra-high concentrations of carbon.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11942451
TAX IT
This just goes to show you that the UN IPCC and their cronies are not about helping the earth.
Things like this just escape most people. They have other things on their tiny minds, besides Carbon ( 3rd most common element in the universe), Water (70% of the surface area of this rock), etc., etc. Such as why they can’t get a signal to tweet their latest ( and no doubt infrequent), synaptic connection.
They MUST release the list of names – wikidlecher would.
@max Hugoson, December 8, 2010 at 10:01 am
CHOOH is methanoic acid and probably not very nice to imbibe. Ethyl alcohol is CH3CH2OH, it is found in many pleasing beverages, most especially single malt whiskies, where it is an essential component.
Not that it would matter to the signers, but the claim that DHMO is fatal if inhaled is false. Anyone breathing the natural atmosphere inhales it with every breath, and most of us die of other causes.
A small smile, a knowing wink. What’s the diffrence to the likes of these? CO2, Freon, DHMO, DDT all represent the same risks and all must be banned! Some of those signers may have been “Lead Authors” ya never know, the dangers og DHMO may make the big time, take the place of Coral Bleaching or Ocean Acidification or who knows what as the NEXT BIG MAN INDUCED…must go take my meds.
Water is fatal if inhaled? I’m inhaling some now at around 20000 parts per million.
I think that not everyone would know what Di-hydrogen monoxide was straight away, if it was me the penny would drop eventually or possibly straight away there is no way that I can know. Like Stefan though, I always ask a lot of questions before I sign petitions.
On the subject of words that sound as if they mean the opposite of what they actually mean. I always found the phrase “The exception that proves the rule” baffling. Surely, I thought, it should be the exception that disproves the rule. The answer of course is that the word “Prove” can mean put to the test. this is why prototype vehicles are ‘put to the test’ on a proving ground.
It may be satire but it actually proves a very interesting point that is exploited by nearly all con artists.
You start with a proposition that you know that the target will be sympathetic to and will want to believe. The rest is easy and it clearly demonstrates how easy it is to sell man-made global warming guilt-trip. (after all, particularly in the West, we all tend to feel a little bit guilty about the fact that we live better off than any generation that has ever lived and far better off than 6 billion others currently alive)
It is the same principle used by big box electronics stores all the time. The target has just purchased a wonderful expensive piece of electronics or new speakers (where markup is perhaps 20% or less, and where the price has often been discounted with rebates and with a “guaranteed low price”). The next step is for the sales person to convince the target that in order to get the best performance from their purchase they cannot possibly use ordinary copper wires to connect the electronics. The customer is naturally proud of the new purchase and will often throw in a couple of hundred extra dollars at some “special” cables with special properties (no discount). Unwittingly the target has just bought a product with a mark up of several hundred percent and one that will not make one wit of audible or visible difference (compared to adequate spec ordinary cables) – despite all the nonsense marketing technobable and custom packaging.
The fact that this type of “con” works every day out in the open and that nobody bats an eye is an indictment of our western school system. Nobody is being taught critical thinking anymore. The latest generation appears to have an even higher percentage of sheeple than the last. Where this will take us nobody really knows but, for sure, despite all our technology, Western Society appears especially vulnerable to manipulation by con artists and the powerful people pulling the strings behind Can’tcon know this all to well.
A variant of this is a move to ban “protonated hydroxyl ions.” Same thing. Water. H2O.
Water is simply H+ combined with OH-, where OH- is the hydroxyl ion, and H+ is a proton.
Gotta watch those chemists and chemical engineers. Sometimes they can get pretty fancy with the language.
In case any of you haven’t seen the facts about DHMO, here is one link.
http://www.dhmo.org/facts.html
Sounds like pretty dangerous stuff. Did you know they’re finding this stuff in virtually everyone’s urine? I hear they’ve never tested a brain cell sample of any mammal that did NOT contain DHMO… Heh.
It’s entertaining, but I honestly don’t see how it’s any more ridiculous than calling Co2 a ‘pollutant’ that causes global warming!?
Dave Springer says:
December 8, 2010 at 10:03 am
Dihydrogen monoxide is a widely used industrial solvent which is harmless in pure liquid form but evaporates into a powerful greenhouse gas when exposed to air.
Not quite harmless – very high doses are in fact toxic to humans. It is also, as pointed out above, harmful if inhaled in large quantities.