I watched some of this yesterday, noting that Mr. Hertsgaard seems to simply be making a ruckus to promote his new book. There doesn’t appear to be any depth beyond that. The Economist seems to agree. – Anthony
Who are you calling a climate crank, nut job?
by C.W.H. | WASHINGTON
HOW do you describe a phenomenon that is global in its impacts, yet must be addressed locally? A phenomenon that is difficult, if not impossible, to detect clearly at a single place in time? That’s the linguistic challenge that has confronted climate activists for decades. Forget the science and geopolitics of the issue. What name can communicators use to communicate the scope and severity of the challenge at hand?
…
The public is now aware of the issue. But the record global temperatures set last year make clear that naming a problem is quite different from solving it. The remaining challenge for “climate hawks”, as some environmentalists have taken to calling themselves, is to convince or confront politicians and businessmen, who still question whether the world has a climate problem. In that pursuit, the Guardian’s Leo Hickman worries that environmental activists have again gotten side-tracked in linguistic debates.
Just what the climate debate doesn’t need: a new moniker for those who do not accept the mainstream scientific view of anthropogenic climate change. According to environmental activists planning a day of protests across the US [on February 15th], “climate crank” is set to be the latest name added to the growing list – self-appointed, or otherwise – which already includes sceptic, denier, contrarian, realist, dissenter, flat-earther, misinformer, and confusionist….I’m left wondering whether this new exercise in name-calling will only serve to distract from the important task at hand.
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Environmentalists efforts to fight spin with spin seem to have spun out of control. The Twitter hashtag created to publicize Tuesday’s event, #climatecranks, was used in nearly equal measure by both Mark Hertsgaard, the environmental correspondent for the Nation who coined the phrase and led the action, and an opponent of greenhouse-gas regulations, who co-opted it to heckle him. And America’s “fair and balanced” network was also quick to belittle the activists’ efforts. “Global Warming Nuts Try to Ambush Sen. Inhofe…Fail”, jeered the Fox News headline.
Climate activists have the science on their side, but American conservatives are winning the war of words. And as the rhetoric heats up, so too does the planet.
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read the whole article here http://www.economist.com/blogs/johnson/2011/02/environmental_insults
@ur momisugly Mike 86
This video of Inhofe appears to be taken outside his office in one of the Senate office buildings. Within the Senate and House offices and the Capitol itself, visitors are welcome. They have to pass through airport-style security to get into the buildings, but representatives are quite accessible in the hallways, offices and other common areas. There are also public galleries over the floors of the House and Senate–these have a bit more security. It’s refreshing, actually.
“Climatecrank” implies, to me, someone who believes in catastrophic climate change at the hands of man. It doesn’t have connotations of a laid-back conservative who thinks it’s all over hyped and there’s nothing to worry about.
And that’s all down to the way the term crank has been used in the past. It’s a label thats been applied to someone who tends to be obsessive or paranoid over something that appears imaginary or at best trivial to most people, and who believes that some terrible event will unfold as a consequence.
This will definately backfire.
These lunatics refuse to submit to the facts. They continue to lie and name call because their phony science has been unmasked as the fraud it always has been and continues to be.
Monty Python’s dead bird skit was at least humorous. These environmental green nazis are not funny and never were. Their lies have proven over and over as contemptible con jobs to enrich themselves with government grants. Their continued lies after being caught red handed over and over again is sickening. Micheal Mann comes to mind.
Anyone taking taxpayer money for this scam should be prosecuted. Anyone aiding and and conspiring to maintain this criminal con job should be dragged into court and face a jury.
Belief in AGW is not just a global IQ test for stupid anymore. AGW has become a perfect litmus test for the truth. These people are liars and need to be exposed as liars every time they open their pie holes.
The hoax is over and the joke’s on the losers who pushed this con job of globalony.
I posted my comment on ‘the economist’ website, called the article rubbish, and appears to have hit a common cord, as it is the most recommended comment so far.
Sloppy journalism from a new generation that had bad schooling, forgive them, as we were too busy putting bread on the table whilst their teachers were stuffing AGW propaganda down their throats in ‘science’ classes.
I have read the Economist on an occasional basis for 35 years or so. I have always found it to be (very) long-winded, politically biased (to the left), full of bombast, and plain wrong. I can’t find the link, but someone once did a serious analysis of the main predictions made by the Economist. They were 80% wrong. Still, I suppose that’s a much better track record than the current Governor of the Bank of England.
Like many others commenting here, I used to be a regular reader, occasional subscriber and always an admirer of The Economist for decades. This started changing around 2006, when not only their reporting on climate change startet assuming that the alarmist interpretation was “the truth”, but also most of their other writings decayed as well. They used to be proudly independent in their thinking (they defended Lomborg’s first book when it came out, when the MSM was demonising him). Now they seem to aim at fitting in with whatever is fashionable among the City of London’s banking crowd. I barely read The Economist anymore, as it has become trivial.
I think this change can be directly associated to when it ceased to be run by Bill Emmott and Clive Crook, and John Micklewaith became the editor. His stated goal at the time was to make The Economist more “mainstream”.
The absurdity is that they still pay lip service to free markets, free trade, and low government intervention as their values. Yet they see no contradiction in supporting carbon policies which, to be successfully implemented, would require global economic intervention, the kind of which was never seen before.
I do wish, now that Phil Jones has admitted there’s no warming, what exactly is causing this alleged climate change! Anyone know the alarmist spin on that and can clue me in?
I used to read the Economist maybe 20 years ago. It always seemed informative, willing to take on controversial subjects, at least somewhat balanced. But now they just go on and on and on and on about AGW. It’s just boring now, and rather sad.
So I started reading Foreign Affairs instead, but more and more AGW articles and references are sneaking in there too. There clearly is a difference though, it’s just one person’s viewpoint, or one small point in an otherwise sound article. Hopefully it doesn’t go the way the Economist did. It has turned into a zombie version of it’s old self, lurching around moaning about AGW. The change has meant the loss of a very sound, well-regarded journal.
Think of the children.
Henry Ergas and economist in Australia analysed the economic case put forward by the warmists. You know their slogan, the cost of action now will outweigh the cost of inaction.
In pure economic terms, he proved it is rubbish. The cost of action now will so impoverish the future adults that will not be able to act because they will not have enough money, so floods and cyclones etc will mean people will literally have to walk away. No rebuilding.
So the AGW cranks are now the “Climate Quacks” and I am no longer a denier but instead a “Climate Dove”? I kind of like that tag. I’ll keep it.
It’s OK with me if they prefer “Climate Duck” instead of “Climate Quack” for the MSM.
After reading the Economist article I noticed this equally pathetic story there:
“Why don’t Americans believe in global warming?
Feb 8th 2011, 20:03 by E.G. | AUSTIN
“I’ve been wanting to take a step back and think about why America is a laggard in the fight against climate change.”
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/02/climate_change
The people at The Economist should stick to their knitting:
http://www.debtbombshell.com/
Please watch how Sen. Jim Inhofe is able to defuse what might have been a tense situation:
http://nation.foxnews.com/global-warming/2011/02/15/global-warming-nuts-tries-ambush-sen-inhofe-fails
Calm, measured statements interspersed with a genuine connection to his opponents. The guy is a class act.
The Climate Warmists will soon become Climate Dodos.
For over ten years I have read the Economist every week, cover to cover. At one point it began to dawn on me that this newspaper was all style and no content. To be popular and talked about the Economist will go with what they consider the mainstream. The final straw came during the now infamous Internet Bubble period when the newspaper hyped how the Internet technology was going to change the way the world works and the 22 year old geniuses will rule it all.
This hyping went on months after month shamelessly. When the bubble burst the Economist just stopped hyping and seamlessly went on to other things and I have cancelled my subscription.
And so it is now with AGW. It is a current hot topic and the newspaper hypes the current orthodoxy. But with what style. I hold that there isn’t an other paper in the English language with style to rival the Economist. But their content is more than feeble it is largely without substance.
I’m confused!! who are the climate cranks? I can’t keep up with all the slurs, name calling, ambushes and lies!
Re nomenclature, CAGW = Hotheads
I propose rebranding ourselves as “scorcher scoffers” or “scorcher-scam scoffers.”
“Scorcher” usefully distinguishes between possible harmless “warming” and a catastrophic (scorching) temperature rise;
“Scam” (optional) captures (tho imperfectly) the focus of our critique: the insane costliness and ineffectiveness of the proposed mitigation methods.
“Scoffers” has both negative and positive connotations, so both sides can accept it;
I thought the science of name calling was settled?
I don’t quite get these new names. They seem to have been accidentally switched.
Climatecrank = skeptic? Climatehawk = AGWer? Huh?
That’s like saying:
Hippie = industrialist
Square = longhaired pothead
or
Alcoholic = tea drinker
Teetotaller = beer guzzeler
or
Machinist mate = gays in the military
Gays = Marvin’s fanclub member nickname
a good lesson on how not to persuade people: call them flat earthers, cranks, or deniers. the catholic church has tried this numerous times over the years, even backing it up with old fashioned burning at the stake, and look how that turned out.
Calling someone a name illustrates – obviates – that you have nothing sensible to say or a sensible response to criticisms and flaws.
Dave Wendt says:
February 17, 2011 at 11:34 am
[so the solution is to just accept AGW ?]
No indeed! That was not at all what I was trying to indicate. Rather I meant another cautionary warning that, though the CAGW program may seem to be faltering, these folks will never quit. Unless we are willing to accept that we and all our descendants deserve to be the dependent lackeys of a horde of global bureaucrats, we all have to be willing to match their tenacity and to commit to holding the feet of the political class to the fire continuously, not just in occasional spurts. Right now the politicians are all seeing this faux crisis as the golden goose with little downside threat attached. They need to be reminded each and every day that the elections of 2010 were not a one time thing and if they feel that they can sell out the public trust again and count on their incumbency to preserve them in their comfortable power, that they are sorely mistaken. We can’t rely on the relatively small community of the skeptosphere, but must convince as many fence sitters as we can of the need to fight this with equal dedication.
To accomplish this we have to be willing to be seen as a bit of anal orifice to friends and acquaintances by applying immediate smackdown whenever the topic rears its ugly head. Since even the scientists most intimately involved with the topic don’t really seem to have much mastery of it, and the vast majority of the population has no capability of understanding the dialogue, arguing the scientific minutia is not a productive approach.
The real weakness of CAGW is the abysmal economics of all the proposed solutions and even complete scientific illiterates tend to grasp the concept of a really bad deal. The most fundamental analysis of the opportunity costs and cost-benefit ratios shows that, whatever one choses to believe about the future climate, none of the presently offered plans make any kind of economic sense. Indur Goklany and to some extent Lomberg have done valuable work in this area. If you aren’t familiar with the economic concepts. I recommend Thomas Sowell’s new “Basic Economics”.
For the real hardcore believers no amount of rational discourse is likely to be effective, for those my recommended strategy would be a good dose of ROTFLYAO. The true believers are willing to say incredibly stupid stuff all the time, but they don’t deal well when they are greeted by the raucous laughter their statements have always merited.
But in the end the tactics of the moment are much less important than the commitment to push back with a Sisyphean dedication for the duration and beyond.
I read The Economist for over 30 years. Their bias in the past decade became unbearable and I dropped my subscription last year. It was not without a point of view prior to that, but it was reasoned and open about it. Their current management has done an extreme disservice to their readership, predecessors, and journalists. Sadly, it is no longer a pleasure to read.
We also dumped the Economist and National Geographic in the past few years. They used to be great magazines–not so since they decided to drop their (decidedly different) core constituencies. Sorry–I won’t fund what they are now.
Daily Kos, Puffington Host, Mother Jones, Grist, Nature & The Economist, what is the difference?
About 180° of the political spectrum. Just because some people share some features does not make them similar. Angelina Jolie and Margaret Thatcher were both women, ergo, what’s the difference?
I note many other commentators are subscribing to the silliness that because the Economist is not economically dry enough for them, it is “Marxist”. What crap! The Economist has been for many years politically liberal (in the British sense). It is also economically “dry”.
The conservatives like the dry, but don’t like the liberal. The more idiotic then label the Economist as “Socialist”. The left likes the liberal, but doesn’t like the “dry”, so will often label it “right wing”. They can’t both be true, and in fact neither description is appropriate. It is liberal and dry.
You might not like that, but to call it “Socialist” is plain stupid. It has never advocated Socialist economic policies. It sometimes advocates the same policies as Socialist parties on non-economic matters, but for entirely different philisophical reasons.