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/
Keith G says: “…Turns out that he is a humorist: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Glover_%28radio_presenter%29”
You may think he is, and Glover may think he is, but you’re both wrong. His diatribe is full of hate masquerading as humor.
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Jorge, I was just pointing out that Wikipedia says he is a humorist. He’s written several humor books (not that I’ve read them). Satire and humor are generally linked. And my beloved Wikipedia says this about the most famous satire, “A Modest Proposal” by Jonathan Swift.
“Readers unacquainted with its reputation as a satirical work often do not immediately realize that Swift was not seriously proposing cannibalism and infanticide, nor would readers unfamiliar with the satires of Horace and Juvenal recognize that Swift’s essay follows the rules and structure of Latin satires.”
Being unfamiliar with his work, I just assumed that Glover was not being serious. It just seemed too ridiculous to be anything other than a goof. His column was a series of over-the-top insults without mentioning facts. Quivering, toxic buttocks? Pubs extolled as examples of rational and even-sided discourse? Some have called what he wrote self-parody, it just struck me regular old parody. I glanced at a few of his columns, and he was advocating things like flogging school children and toughening up children’s immune systems by having them drink spoiling milk. He seems to say outlandish things just to incite others.
If he doesn’t believe in AGW, then it is funny in a cruel way, like “Borat”. If he does believe in AGW and his column was in fact written to discredit those who hold a different opinion, then the man appears to be unhinged.
“It’s increasingly apparent that the internet may bring about the death of human civilisation… The agents of this planetary death will be the climate-change deniers”
The internet is just a tool of communication and information. If the overwhelming consensus of scientists and politicians cannot use the internet to effectively communicate their message and compete with a small minority of climate-change deniers, despite having “so much evidence to the contrary”, then something must be wrong with their message. Either that, or they are sorely lacking in communication skills. But even then, when the scientific process is open and transparent, the truth will eventually win out. Maybe that’s what these Gore disciples are afraid of.
I’m still not sure if his sarcasm in in overdrive or not but in response to this:
“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. ”
I’m pretty sure I owe most of my existence to my mum and dad; the internet is only something I waste my life on.
Regards
Michael
Keith G says:
April 3, 2011 at 10:27 pm
Keith, go read his other stuff. I spent an hour or so yesterday reading his other columns and on other topics he says things I can appreciate, empathize with, sympathize with and even agree with. Nothing deep, really… but AGW really does have him unhinged. He knows nothing and wants to know nothing…. connecting the dots is one day going to earn some journalist a pulitzer… but not this one…. and he’s no satirist.
I haven’t read a single comment thus far and I can immediately think of one reason why Anthony is still wrong: he has never listened to Richard Glover on radio.
I used to listen to his afternoon programs on ABC quite often and he always began his show with a sarcastic comment about the day’s issues just like the one above.
Richard Glover isn’t the kind of person that would be serious about what he said above. If anything, he is the kind of person that would be extremely skeptical about a looming climate doomsday, even if he believes in AGW.
REPLY: Then his mistake is in thinking his writings don’t have a worldwide audience from which to take away his particular brand of satire. You can tell such things in voice usually. I use the satire tag in postings that I intend as such to avoid such confusion. SMH should do the same if that is the intent -Anthony
“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.”
The 2000`s were full of invocations that were meant to heat the world forever, but we returned to the frigid, providing no safe habitat for nutters.”
Even more interesting… Former Australian Prime Minister the now Foriegn Minister Kevin Rudd, just stated that members of the cabinet were wanting the ETS to be scrapped completely last year during the period when he was removed as PM. This is on ABC’s Q & A show tonight. I wonder if he will stay a minister in the current cabinet now. Now of course the same people are wanting an ETS.
If it is sarcasm he is not very good at it.
Anyone who actually believed that the election of George W. Bush could bring on the end of civilization itself, isn’t to be taken seriously on any subject.
Any relation to Danny Glover?
/sarc
The Alarmists have no sense of irony.
Twitter grows because:
1) People who work at desks always want a distraction.
2) People who work in exciting jobs always want to show off how awesome they are.
3) People who are famous always need another outlet for their narcissism.
Not that twitter doesn’t have uses. Any form of communication will, given a long enough timeline, find or create a bubble of culture in which it must exist. Twitter has already found that, so it’s not going away. I don’t use it, but I can understand why some people might.
MR Richard Glover is Funny!! He’s So Funny because he writes Articles full of what he actually believes to be true, the Irony is that he believes he writes funny articles.
Oh the Irony!!
Satire is the witty and wry reporting of actual events, and to become a successful satirist requires very considerable intelligence and talent; this person’s efforts come across as billious rants caused by either heartburn or a total lack of wit. Not funny, not accurate, not clever, not even intelligent. There is enough stupidity and ignorance in the world without encouraging the talentless to produce more. Mark? Fail.
‘But at the barbecue there was always one person willing to put a contrary view, to say: ”There’s another side.’
He got it exactly right – except he was standing in front of a mirror…
I simply can’t tolerate his intolerance.
/sarc off
And in other news . . . “promised investors astronomical annual returns of 80 percent on their investments in his companies”. . . . .
$47 Million Investment Fraud
http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2011/2011-73.htm
This is mostly due to Craig’s List + the attractiveness of the Internet, not to a fall-off in the quality of newspapers.
“This is mostly due to Craig’s List + the attractiveness of the Internet, not to a fall-off in the quality of newspapers.”
What? Are you serious or did you forget your sarc tag?
Well, Anthony, you run a wonderful website that has a worldwide audience. Yet, whenever someone raises the issue of the US-centricness of WUWT, the first retort they get is something like “this is a website intended for an American audience”.
Richard Glover writes for Sydney Morning Herald… part time. Sydney-siders know him in his day job as an ABC radio shock-jock. Like a Rush Limbough and Glenn Back, if you wish. Maybe he ought to have put ‘/sarc off’ at the end of his piece for the SMH, but how could he know people at the other end of the world would be reading him?
Honestly, Anthony. This is just one time you have to concede that you got the humour wrong in good spirits>. It happens a lot on the web. Back at Bishop Hill, I took the issue with a fellow who claimed an Irish postman could predict how bad the winter was going to be. I felt like a fool the whole bloody month.
I hear him of a day on the radio and it really isn’t clear that this article is satirical. I think probably not. Its timed to coincide with the Carbon Tax debate in Australia as is the current Climate Conference. There’s no way this guy would be a climate skeptic particularly working at the ABC.
He also is anything but a ‘shock jock’ as one poster suggested. He is a run of the mill ABC presenter who has a ‘fun’ radio show with quizzes etc.
…. but how could he know people at the other end of the world would be reading him?
Perhaps when he actually clicked the ‘post’ button to publish his words on the internet, a medium that in itself is suppose to be all about ‘connecting us all’ in ‘global communications’. However I assumed as well, I thought that someone employed in the media business might grasp this concept, my bad I guess.