Personally, I’ve always thought that the key to an advanced and open society was freedom of information. Apparently too much freedom for certain labeled groups of people is going to destroy the planet. Gosh. Australian media really has gone off the edge of the Earth since Gillard took over. Oh in case you haven’t seen it, here’s the leaked Gillard game plan to teach those Australian “deniers” to accept a new carbon tax. Damn that Internet and those meddling kids!
From Jammie Wearing Fool (via Chris Horner) who sums this farce up quite nicely.
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Great News: The Internet Will Destroy the Planet
Now how exactly will Al Gore’s masterful invention go about destroying the planet? Why, by giving climate change “deniers” a voice to oppose the environmental wackos.
Broadcaster and Sydney Morning Herald columnist
excerpts: …
The planet may not be so lucky. It’s increasingly apparent that the internet may bring about the death of human civilisation, beating out previous contenders such as nuclear holocaust and the election of George W. Bush.
The agents of this planetary death will be the climate-change deniers who, it’s now clear, owe much of their existence to the internet. Would the climate-change deniers be this sure of themselves without the internet?
Somehow I doubt it. They are so damn confident.
They don’t just bury their heads in the sand, they fiercely drive their own heads energetically into the nearest beachfront, their bums defiantly aquiver as they fart their toxic message to the world. How can they be so confident, in the face of so much evidence to the contrary?
It’s the internet, of course, and the way it has given climate-change deniers the perfect forum — one in which groups of quite dim people can swap spurious information, reassuring each other there’s no evidence on the other side, right up to the point they’ve derailed all efforts to save the planet. Call it ”mutually reassured destruction”.
In decades past, the climate-change deniers would have swapped theories in the pub or at a barbecue. But at the barbecue there was always one person willing to put a contrary view, to say: ”There’s another side.” And unless the barbecue was particularly nutty, there was no one handing out gestetnered sheets of dodgy science for people to take home.
The net allows the climate-change deniers to bleat about the scientists and whine about a price on carbon without fear of ever hearing a different voice, right up to the point of planetary collapse. To reformulate T.S. Eliot: ”This is the way the world will end — not with a bang but a whinger.”
On the upside, when it all does end it’ll spare us from reading nonsense like that.
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Gosh, those intellectual media types are so smart. Oh wait, I’m a “broadcaster and columnist” too. Hmmm. I thought about leaving a comment on his blog as a courtesy just to let him know that some deniers took notice of what he wrote, but he doesn’t accept comments. Good thing too, the wrong people could get ideas that way.
Maybe we could all send Mr. Glover the The big self parodying “climate change blame” list.
Problem is lately, the “deniers” as we are called, outnumber the “believers” when opinion polls are taken.
/sarc
UPDATE: Some commenters have questioned whether Mr Glover isn’t simply writing a sarcastic piece. There’s two reasons why I don’t think so:
#1 While it is often difficult to detect sarcasm in writing, there appears to be no hint of it here in this piece that I can detect.
#2 He’s written about his dislike of the Internet and people who use it before, specifically Twitter. In March 2009 he claimed it would be gone in 3 months. Here it still going strong is two years later, more successful than ever.
This quote from that article rather sums up his world view when it comes to technology use by people:
The 1970s were full of innovations that were meant to change the world forever but then retreated to the fringe, providing little more than a safe habitat for nutters.
Reality about Twitter is far different than Mr. Glover’s opinion, see this:
Source: http://venturebeat.com/2010/06/10/twitter-growth-125-million-users/
I thought it was the liberals that said the internet would be the best thing since white bread….
…now it’s the liberals calling for censorship
Imagine that….
I guess free speech is easier to accept when you and the people who think like you are the only ones that are allowed to speak.
This is the sort of factless, evangelical rant that proves that AGW is the new left wing religion.
John F. Hultquist says:
April 3, 2011 at 9:21 am
“. . . quite dim people . . .”
The wonderful art of public put-downs isn’t what it was.
http://www.quotes.ubr.com/subject-quotes/p/put-downs.aspx
http://bertc.com/subfour/truth/putdowns.htm
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Thanks for those excellent links.
My favorite:
“They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge.”
-Thomas Brackett Reed
Glover says “The agents of this planetary death will be the climate-change deniers who, it’s now clear, owe much of their existence to the internet. Would the climate-change deniers be this sure of themselves without the internet?”
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Well, I suppose as a clapped out writer hack, he has got some reason to be concerned that people now use the internet to communicate. They can by-pass his drivel in droves and leave him without an audience. Wind bags like Glover need oxygen from the MSM to survive. All he is getting now is the co2.
Douglas
My internet connection will not harm the planet as it runs exclusively on Unicorn farts.
“Poot poot!” 3<<:o( = warmista in the drawing room.
Yes indeed! “The agents of this planetary death will be the climate-change deniers…”
Rats get so nasty when they’re cornered.
If the Article is genuine Richard Glover should be the first give up his freedom to use the Internet for giving his opinion on what ever hell he’s rattling on about.
Richard Glover should note that years before “Blogs” even before web-browsers & Google, the majority of Internet users back then would use the Internet as a forum to discuss scientific issues or any other topic of the day for that matter, without ever reading a useless piece of illiterate BS like the article I’ve just read at:
“smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/why-the-internet-will-destroy-the-planet”
Back when network tariffs and Computers were more expensive & less user friendly there was 99% less of Mr. Glover’s kind of vile propaganda. User friendly technology and the scent of financial gain has brought a new breed of traveling snake oil salesmen into town (be it a virtual one) peddling a wealth of magic tonics, tailored for the 21st century’s gullible.
What Mr. Glover appears to be so afraid of and is witnessing happening in real time around the planet virtually through Internet is the 21st century’s version of the Towns folk rounding up the traveling snake oil con-men and running them out of town.
Hmmm… thinking of Australia I am reminded of South Park’s warning about the danger of ‘gingers.’ In this case their ginger PM is a blatant liar and, given her rise to power in her own party, a real weasel. Or, as they say, a lying weasel. And it looks like her puppets like Glover are squealing on command.
I think your mistaken here. Glover is a genius of sarcastic commentary. I love reading his columns.
Regards
Michael (who lives in NSW where he comes from)
I think he forgot the sarc on/sarc off. Or am I being too naive?
To Richard Glover.
Why the Internet will destroy the planet
Quite the contrary Richard the Internet will and has saved the world and us from the likes of you and every other socialist control freak, and it hurts like hell doesn’t it!
I read your column with disgust. It smacks of gas chamber elitism, a scorn for all humans, the smiling face that hides the evil that is the FINAL SOLUTION. We Skeptic are more than an inconvenience to you, because we are well informed and knowledgeable and it just burns you up!
We are not going to allow you or your kind to frog march us down the road to financial ruin, re-education camps, AGW fraud, Carbon tax, Cap and trade or any of the endless doom and gloom predictions you drone on about. You’re all about the party line and indoctrination about the dangers of CO2 in publications and Public broadcasting and print media.
We will not allow you to filter, control or shutdown the Internet; It’s the one thing that gives all people a voice we have never had before puts us on a more level playing field. Your editorial is a disgrace to the humanity, but I welcome it, it shows your true colors to perfection, you’re words smack of Stalin’s and Hitler’s hate speech. You would be at home in George Orwell’s 1984. You could fit very well in a black leather coat as the commandant in the thought police or possible one of the goon squad members from the ministry of Truth (Truth as only you see it)
You look with intellectual disdain on anybody disagrees with you, or has the intelligence, temerity or rigor to stand toe to toe with you. Or god help them, an average hard working Joe who likes a pint in a pub (The Idiots you called them). You are an intellectual midget as all big government lovers are. You see all people as trolls, pawns, sheeple or useful idiots to be manipulated. You are incapable of open discussion or debate of the facts or the science behind the earth’s history or climate science, or probably any other subject matter.
It’s a shame you don’t have a comments section, people who understand the pen and real science are mightier than a DIM WITT low paid columnist like yourself, we would shred you with informed and fact based comments, A scary thought for you isn’t it.
Below are some of the publications like-minded mental midgets like you have published as you can see there really isn’t a condenses at all:
Below are just a few things caused by man-made Global Warming Climate Change Global Climate Disruption Excessive Climate Change Research Funding.
Etc………
Am I the only one who thinks this is a joke?
Stalin would be proud of Glover.
Please – before any more indignant comments, go look at Richard Glover’s other essays: this is a VERY tongue-in-cheek guy…quite funny, too.
Thank you so much for the laugh! My first thought was that was somehow a belated April Fools’ Day joke. Then that this columnist was from a college paper. Turns out that he is a humorist:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Glover_%28radio_presenter%29
C’mon, Anthony. The “bums all aquiver” and nuclear holocaust/George W. Bush references didn’t give it away as satire?!?!
Yes, if it was not for the internet anarchy and the ABC would reign.
Richard’s Glover’s little innuendos and leftist views on his tax funded afternoon drive show would go uncontested;
Fran Kelly’s daily climate change sermon would go unchallenged;
Tony Jones line up of prophets of doom on Lateline would remain unopposed;
The un-ending stories of creatures facing oblivion on ABC News would be undisputed.
And we would live is peace and security as our windmills gently whir away at the top of the hill.
Hey wait a minute Richard, what about the ABC Drum? Aren’t you putting the message out there? Richard, that IS the Internet. Richard, you are ON the internet.
Oh I see, you cannot CONTROL the internet – oh, what a shame.
Immensely successful self-parody! Award that man a Pukelitzer!
Mr. Glover’s opening paragraph seems to be a projection of his current life experience.
He feels that he is an idiot who corrals himself in a pub, bores others with his crazy opinions while drinking himself into alcoholic dementia and projects his personal habits to those around who disagree.
“OMG, this is such crap” is a succinct description of his article, Why the internet will destroy the planet.
This is the first contact with Mr. Glover’s writing, but I suspect that perhaps all of Mr. Glover’s writings have a scatological tinge. Not to worry. I have some Vigamox eye drops.
Mr. Glover seems to include himself in the despotic group that believes their rights and privileges should be denied to others who disagree with the despotic view.
Mr. Glover speaks of nuclear holocaust and the election of George W. Bush as maybe bringing about the death of human civilization but ignores the ongoing presidential disaster that the United States of America is currently experiencing. This seems to verify his membership in the despotic class.
Mr. Glover complains about Twitter and YouTube.
Mr. Glover, decline to use either as many do. It is often referred to as FREEDOM OF CHOICE, a grand ole American concept.
All in all, Mr. Glover has nothing to say and says it very well.
Yet another AGW true believer who, when push comes to shove, has no respect for human rights.
CO2 obsession is apparently, for many, a serious moral disorder.
Control the media and you control the people!
So far the Internet is not controlled the democracy is working.
My father and grandfather lived in a time of total control and a wrong word at a wrong place and you end up in prison or other place. Even they realized what was going on at some stage and that without Internet.
AGW articles and argument give you very often hints that the argument is wrong and farfetched.
The Internet is a voice to tell the other side of the story freely and does not require an underground activity.
On great public put-downs – the classically educated English politicians of the 18th and 19th centuries are hard to beat…
Benjamin Disraeli:
The difference between a misfortune and a calamity is this: If Gladstone fell into the Thames, it would be a misfortune. But if someone dragged him out again, that would be a calamity.
Supposedly Gladstone to Disraeli, actually between Montagu and Foote:
John Montagu: “Foote, I have often wondered what catastrophe would bring you to your end; but I think, that you must either die of the pox, or the halter.”
Samuel Foote: “My lord, that will depend upon one of two contingencies; — whether I embrace your lordship’s mistress, or your lordship’s principles.”
I had always recalled the latter as “embrace your politics or your wife” – but on checking, Foote was not so unkind – the mistress, however, is apparently fair game.
Freedom of information was always the dictator’s main enemy. The pen is mightier than the sword. At least they realize that internet is finally, for the first time in all human history, destroying a big of that nauseating corrupt pseudoscience that mainstream media and academia gave us in these democratic societies.
IMHO WUWT is writing the book on how to destroy that pseudoscience, I have said that ad nauseam here
Why go to such great length at trying to antagonizing the opposition by just being vulgar. Since there’s not even a hint of trying to write intelligently I think that he’s just frustrated.
He should at least try and respect the clean slate intelligence of the ones he’s trying to antagonize by making them laugh at being antagonized. :p