Submitted by Professor Bob Ryan
The debate between advocates of CAGW and ‘sceptics’ is a rerun of an old argument between those who take a pessimistic and those who take an optimistic view of humanity. Following the collapse of communism – an extreme version of the pessimists’ creed – those who took that position had to regroup around a new agenda. This post, which is an opinion piece, argues that in searching for their new Trojan Horse the pessimists discovered, in climatology, the ideal opportunity to bring together science, political expediency and social uncertainty in a way that would enable them to capture the political high ground. – Professor Bob Ryan
Although many of us would prefer it otherwise arguments are won through the heart as much as through the mind. To turn the tide against the advocates of CAGW we should recognise that fact and understand what has been happening over the last 20 years. I believe that it is only through recognising the ‘global warming’ debate for what it is that we can make sense of the violence and antagonism it has generated and come up with a successful counter-narrative to the CAGW position.
Throughout recorded history individual and political opinion has always polarized into two camps. There are those who fundamentally believe that humanity is irredeemably lost, that people must be subordinated to social control and that individual choice cannot lead to desirable social outcomes; and there are those who take the opposite view. This is what I describe as the ‘pessimistic’ and the ‘optimistic’ view of humanity – this distinction has been manifest in many ways: the catholic versus the protestant, the communist versus the capitalist, and now those who support the CAGW version of environmentalism and those who do not.
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990’s the pessimists were in disarray. Communism, the creed which had emerged as the 20th Century expression of the pessimists’ agenda had collapsed under the weight of its own contradictions. For a short while those who believed that humanity could, through individual action and freedom, create a better world appeared to have won the argument. The retreating left had to find something – anything – to turn the tide in their favour. They needed a much more sophisticated argument to express their world view – an incontrovertible argument that would allow them to capture the moral high ground and be sufficiently alarming in its implications to win over politicians and populations to their agenda. The beauty of CAGW is that it cannot be fixed by the individual or indeed the individual state. It needs a global solution because if runaway global warming has the potential to wipe out a large proportion of humanity then action to prevent it must be equally drastic.
However, the last dozen years have not been good for those who take a more optimistic and liberal view of humanity. The turn of the century brought a nasty dose of millennium angst and a fundamental questioning about where we go from here. Y2K, the dot.com crash, 9/11, financial boom and bust have all produced fertile ground for the pessimists to regroup and in climate science they found their Trojan Horse. Here was a relatively new science bringing under a single umbrella a wide range of sub-disciplines: geo-physics, oceanography, meteorology and many others – all populated by scientists who whilst not technically involved in atmospheric physics might well be sympathetic to the central CAGW message.
By good fortune for the pessimists, a small sub-group of relatively modest UK and US research institutions had been developing their specialism investigating the recent history of global temperature change and the role of CO2 and other atmospheric gases in regulating the climate. Bring them together with a group of savvy and articulate politicians of the (mainly) left, establish a UN panel with the remit of winnowing out of the scientific literature anything which supported the CAGW position and marginalised anything that challenged it, and the Trojan Horse was assembled.
The attack came on two fronts: first the CAGW narrative had to be sufficiently persuasive to win over those scientists whose research, no matter how tangential to the central thesis, would give it added credibility. With this a claim of ‘scientific consensus’ could be established supported by the various scientific bodies who in one way or other act as mouthpieces for the scientific community. Second, the political agenda had to be captured. In this the pessimists were aided by another social and political change.
Across the major economies, politicians had found it increasingly difficult to relieve their populations of their cash. The old approaches to the taxation of income were no longer viable – so called ‘progressive’ taxation and the ‘welfarism’ it supported were becoming very unpopular. Politicians, who by and large are a pragmatic lot, had to find ways of relieving us of our cash by stealth. In the UK, for example, hundreds of tax wheezes were invented to raise taxes in ways the political class hoped would go unnoticed. Furthermore, stealth taxes are much harder to avoid – no accountant or tax lawyer can reduce the tax you pay when you buy a new TV, fill your car with fuel or buy an airline ticket. So the last 20 years have been characterized by a search for new ways to relieve us of our money. In CAGW, the scientific and moral argument could be made for the ultimate stealth tax. Use energy and we will tax you.
And so we have it: a potent brew of political fundamentalism, fiscal expediency, social anxiety, uncertain science and huge vested interests. I do not think science can now resolve the debate about global warming. It is not that the science is of no consequence – it has simply been marginalised in the much bigger social and political debate that is underway. Scientists are highly specialised, discoveries come in bits and the knowledge gained is provisional. For the young working scientist cracking the next problem and publishing the result is the main priority. They will interpret the significance of what they discover, just like the rest of us, according to their underlying beliefs about the way the world works. But as far as the bigger picture is concerned their views are no better than anyone else’s.
The positive message is that the tide is now beginning to turn against the pessimists. Climategate and all that went with it gave hope to those arguing against the CAGW orthodoxy. But in the end the revelations were not conclusive. What is and will be conclusive is the fact that the climate is simply not playing ball. The balmy climate of the last 50 years may be coming to an end. Global temperatures appear to have steadied over the last ten year, the rate of increase in sea level is slowing and across the planet things are not quite going the way the prophets of doom would have us believe. It is not decisive yet but in 5 years it might well be, and as further good quality research establishes the role of other forcings in climate change the pessimists will have to look for another outlet for their world view. But be of no doubt – they will. The battle will be reengaged but next time on a different stage.
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Greg, Spokane WA @ur momisugly June 9, 2011 at 3:25 pm
quoted the Pompous Git quoting Bob Ryan and said:
“Probably the only way out of that is to keep the central government as weak as possible and the rights of the individual as strong as possible.”
I could not agree more 🙂
Interesting idea– to look at human personality in such simplistic and dualistic terms. This statement:
“This is what I describe as the ‘pessimistic’ and the ‘optimistic’ view of humanity – this distinction has been manifest in many ways: the catholic versus the protestant, the communist versus the capitalist, and now those who support the CAGW version of environmentalism and those who do not.”
Seems to be the core of your conjecture. Are humans really so one dimensional in that they exist on a spectrum that is so reidculously simplified so as to be one thing or another, and not complex mixtures? The mere attempt to simplify the human psyche– to make it a absurd cartoon of the full rich and complex dynamic that it is, reminds of all other failed attempts to see the human soul in absolute opposite terms of black and white, good vs. Evil, us versus them, etc. They are never useful or enlightening, tell us nothing about the true depth and variety that is in each of us, and in the extreme, such attempts to dichotomize the human experience leads to conflict and war, as one can more easily kill another human if “they are not one of us.”
Gates says:
“Are humans really so one dimensional in that they exist on a spectrum that is so reidculously simplified so as to be one thing or another, and not complex mixtures?”
R Gates is a two-dimensional mixture: 25% skeptic, 75% alarmist.☺
We need to remember that under communism man oppressed his fellow man, whereas under capitalism, it is the other way round.
Funny, Murray. But keep in mind that “capitalism” is a Karl Marx word, based on conflating labor and capital. Small businessmen might disagree that they’re not laboring, while providing jobs for others. But I suppose that particular battle is lost, and ‘capitalism’ is here to stay.
The truth of the matter is that the free market – of which capital is only a part – provides expanding wealth for all. Unlike communism, which provides economic equality for the proles, who are uniformly destitute as a result.
Take your pick: unequal prosperity and expanding national wealth, or equality of results through redistribution of wealth, and universal poverty. South Korea vs North Korea, if you will.
@R. Gates
“Are humans really so one dimensional in that they exist on a spectrum that is so reidculously simplified so as to be one thing or another, and not complex mixtures?”
The biochemical electrical process’ might be complex but peoples behavior resulting from such process’ are always either or or in limbo awaiting to make a decision. Western society are based upon the either or, yes or no, decision and that’s what defines us. Through out history, it used to be, and it still is in lots of countries, the king’s, or queen’s, or dictator’s, or emperor’s, or communist leader’s, decision that you had to officially accept as the word. People’s behavior is very predictable, generally speaking, like Pavlo’s dogs, it is learnt, not come of enlightenment by individual reason, but learnt from birth. You either jump off the bridge, like all hippies, or you don’t.
Smokey says:
June 9, 2011 at 5:08 pm
Take your pick: unequal prosperity and expanding national wealth, or equality of results through redistribution of wealth, and universal poverty.
==========
It’s not universal, except among the “little guys.”. Those tied closely to the party do very well. Cuba, for example. I’ve heard rumors that Castro is a billionaire, or close to it. Those close to that Gov are the ones that Mr. Moore showcases in his “documentaries.” Everyone else is kept far from prying eyes. To keep from being corrupted, you know. In any communist country the same is pretty much true. There’s a comment somewhere above regarding the Soviets and their stores and perks that were for the elites only.
Having the greens rule in the name of “Save The Earth!” would be no different. They’d live well and we’d be like the bulk of the Soviet citizens, quietly complaining to ourselves while sipping some cheap imitation of Vodka. No thanks.
At least in Capitalism and a free society the little guy has a chance to become a much bigger guy.
Interesting article. But I think there may be other ways of describing what is happening here. Namely:
1) Socialists LOVE to tell other people what to do. Whether this is due to a pessimistic view of human nature or the rather more banal lusts for power, money, and prestige is debatable.
2) After the fall of the Soviet Union, socialism was for a time greatly discredited. There were a lot of people who wanted to tell others what to do, but no way to justify doing so.
3) Enter Global Warming (now CAGW.) The wonderful thing about it is that it is remarkably complex and scientific. But it is just the justification for telling LOTS of people what to do, and helping themselves to money- by controlling energy production and usage.
The result is the WATERMELON: Green on the outside, RED on the inside.
Thus the entire debate on climate is a cat’s paw for achieving radical control over the production and consumption of energy.
While pondering if I’m either a pessimistic or an optimistic person within the context of this interesting article and it’s readers comments, I’ve actually realized something, What I’ve realized is, being a pessimistic or an optimistic person is absolutely irrelevant to me. The inferred contradiction of terms are a psychological limitation for me, It’s very Freudian, I mean, If it looks like a glove and fits like a glove then it probably is a glove or maybe it’s just a glove shaped cigar… Having a pessimistic or an optimistic view of any particular subject gives no indication or the true nature of the factual content. Or maybe I’m just being “cutesy and coy” again as Willis would put it. 😀
1DandyTroll said @ur momisugly June 9, 2011 at 5:34 pm
“People’s behavior is very predictable, generally speaking, like Pavlo’s [sic] dogs, it is learnt, not come of enlightenment by individual reason, but learnt from birth. You either jump off the bridge, like all hippies, or you don’t.”
Let’s take the Australian historian Keith Windschuttle as an example so that you can enlighten me. When I met him these many long years ago, he was a Communist. These days, he is the bête noire of the Left. Since you claim he cannot be but one, or the other, which is he?
And for Bob Ryan, who quite possibly has met him too, at what precise point in time did Keith cease to be a Communist and become its diametrically opposed opposite? If the dichotomy be true, it is not possible that he changed gradually over time.
1DandyTroll says:
June 9, 2011 at 5:34 pm
@R. Gates
“Are humans really so one dimensional in that they exist on a spectrum that is so reidculously simplified so as to be one thing or another, and not complex mixtures?”
The biochemical electrical process’ might be complex but peoples behavior resulting from such process’ are always either or or in limbo awaiting to make a decision. Western society are based upon the either or, yes or no, decision and that’s what defines us. Through out history, it used to be, and it still is in lots of countries, the king’s, or queen’s, or dictator’s, or emperor’s, or communist leader’s, decision that you had to officially accept as the word. People’s behavior is very predictable, generally speaking, like Pavlo’s dogs, it is learnt, not come of enlightenment by individual reason, but learnt from birth. You either jump off the bridge, like all hippies, or you don’t.
———
And thank God for hippies and others who protested the Vietnam war or even more American lives might have been completely wasted over there fighting a war that never should have been.
And what about the greedy SOB’s that bet against America and nearly brought down our banking system? Were they liberal or conservative? Pessimist or Optimist? You see, this simpleton way of looking at the world doesn’t really capture the essence of the true complexity of the human experience. There is greed and love and fear and passion and curiosity and and so many other rational and emotional experiences that motivate humans. We are all unique and you can’t divide humans into just two types without becoming trivial and bigoted in your perception and inclined to distrust those who don’t think just like you.
Professor Bob Ryan says:
June 9, 2011 at 3:10 pm
Thank you all for your comments …
**************************************
Dear Professor Bob – if you want to trace the green/environmental movement back to its roots, I think you have to go back at least to the early/mid 18th century in the works of French writers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau (and his precursors, whom I have not read). In their works you will find a pre-Romantic idealisation and love of “nature”, and a corresponding implied dissatisfaction with current humanity and its works. The related concept of “the noble savage” goes back at least to the 16th century. Starting with 20th century communism is a bit late, I suggest.
All the best.
@R. Gates
I agree that its very simplistic, but to measure anything, we need to break it down to parts that are measurable. In doing so we lose some of the gestalt honesty of the whole, but at least you get a spectrum that can be described or measured quantitatively. From what I’ve seen, there’s definitely an individual vs collective focus spectrum, and another spectrum I can’t quite describe.
The rest of my family (who now look down on me for stating that I don’t believe in global warming any more) seem to be life’s and the world’s victim’s in their own minds. I think that encourages the propensity to find AGW appealing. Many environmentalists I’ve met in the past, seem very full of anger and needing an outlet, someone to point it at. “The Other” in that case is the evil oil baron or capitalist. But to blame a section of society (never yourself) for destroying the world is pretty common stuff for life’s victims in many different arguments. I once set up a AGW website, and was about to publish the thing when I realised that everything about it was negative. It was an interesting observation.
The current fuss in Australia because of the proposed carbon tax, was fascinating. The major piece of news from that was that the “climate scientists” had received death threats. A recycled piece as it turned out, but again – its the victim story being used as justification. At the same time that a columnist suggested that “deniers” should be tattoo’d. I wonder if they’d considered the juxtaposition themselves…
“Greed” is also a blanket category. Yes individuals want more. But as a mass human driver, wanting more is just evolution exploring possibilities and looking forward for more, throwing forward new potentials. That’s also what “problem” means, “something thrown forward”.
When something goes wrong we think of it as a negative and associate it with other negatives like “greed”. But that’s just a habitual mental association. Yes the messy suffering arises, but that is pain of change. That is life and growth and death.
All those who ask for the end of greedy capitalism and greedy consumerism are also asking for change, and change will bring new problems and new suffering, in growing pains.
The “pessimists” in this context are those who see the current system as irrevocably outdated and broken. The “optimists” in this context are those who see the system as having achieved a lot and is something to improve upon.
The “pessimists” are those who believe technology will not solve humanity’s problems. The “optimists” are those who believe it can, and business as usual will continue to gradually improve life for everyone.
One reason I linked to the Howard Bloom book is that he talks about greed, and about economic cycles based on promising technology, but in his view, developments is neither hindered by greed alone nor encouraged by new technologies.
He points to places in history where often there is a lot of new technology bursting forward and yet the economy goes into a depression. He points to times when greed seems dangerously rampant and yet the economy goes along fine. So how can this make sense?
His idea is that actually there is a natural cycle of boom and bust that’s simply the way all life evolves and changes. Occasionally it bursts forward with creative novelty, and then at the end of the cycle it contracts and cuts off the useless parts and consolidates around the most useful structures, and fixes them into place. Then it bursts into creative novelty, and so on.
The pessimists, in that context, are those who are seeing the end of the creative cycle and, losing confidence, want to cut back, withdraw, conserve, socialise the system, create safeguard rules, and tightening things down. The optimists, in that context, are those setting out, trying stuff just for the sake of it, experimenting, full of confidence and daring, going wild with crazy ideas, feel secure about venturing out, and are looking for more and more opportunities.
Bloom’s point seems to me to be that whether we like it or not, as a mass of humanity we are driven to these cycles of boom and bust, exploration and consolidation, freedom and control, breaking limits and setting limits, simply as part of the nature of life’s creative process. And that nature doesn’t care about us. In the human sphere, greed is just a component driver as is the thirst for novelty and the need for security. (And it is no accident that books like “Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism” get written, as people can be driven by greed to seek spiritual blessings and join spiritual communities, just as they might shop at the mall for a new dress or look for a new partner at a party.) The deeper driver is the cyclical life process of creation and consolidation.
In that perspective, a prescription like “The Limits to Growth” can’t be sustained, because nature habitually cycles between exploration and consolidation. At some point we consolidate; when we happen to be in the cycle of consolidating, things appear to confirm the “truth” of “the limits to growth”. But nature will then, after consolidation, expand anew into a new cycle, and break the old limits. And we as humans are nature, so we as humans will again break the limits in a new cycle. The wisdom of the limits of growth will become the stagnation of old sterile and banal systems that are too stable, that don’t change, that are sucking the life out of everything, and so we’ll enter a new cycle of wild experimentation and even more startling growth.
NikFromNYC says: June 9, 2011 at 9:00 am
Thanks for posting Nic, this is the third time I have watched this video, most interesting. I can’t work out why there is no apparent wind or sunshine. But then I am from Australia.
At 3.28-4.26 he speaks of the weight of bulls**t.
But surely this is where self interest steps in, as opposed to a less reactionary eg Marxist super-structure? Ah, accumulating s**t, what can we turn this into?
Politics outstrips science? Use of language outstrips science?
I find the video difficult to understand. If a country can run nuclear, fine. And those countries with natural gas and capacity to use and export, fine. And if there is still available coal, fine.
I understand the desire to rant about the leftists, but the real problems are the statists, those who actually believe that governments fix things. Individuals fix things, period.
I fully understand why “Capitalism” is getting a bad rap. When Crony Capitalism and “State & Private Partnerships” are ruining the markets and sucking money out of our pockets, it’s not hard to see why people blame Capitalism. But it isn’t Capitalism, it’s Feudalism under a new guise.
Very few Universities teach non-Keynesian Economics, and most of those are Econometricians. The Austrian School has been ignored, their warnings ridiculed. There are very strong parallels between how they’ve been treated and how largely the same group of people have ridiculed those of us who are skeptical of AGW.
As my dad always says:-
“There are no such things as conspiracies, only convenient convergences of self-interest”
Thanks Prof. Ryan for an interesting and thoughtful post, also to Peter Taylor for as cogent a comment as could be wished. The commenters who continue to flog the dead horse of the “left-right” paradigm, imo, really ought to think a little more about the authoritarian-libertarian axis, where most of the action has been for years now.
Here in the UK, in 2008, a Conservative (“right wing”) MP, David Davis, resigned from Parliament as a show of principle over the Labour (“left wing”) government’s latest expansion of the State’s intrusion into our lives. In one of the resulting TV interviews about the affair, Tony Benn (now retired, but formerly practically a leftmost marker for Labour) was asked by the interviewer whether he didn’t find it a little strange to be supporting Davis’ action in the company of all these right wingers. Benn chuckled, and assured him that left and right “sort of met round the back” when it came to opposing authoritarian power structures and encouraging libertarian ones.
His observation is no less true today: the UK’s “coalition” government of nominal right and centre (whose activities I view in much the same light as does Archbishop Rowan) has made one or two public displays of “rolling back the surveillance state” as both parties had promised – for instance, they scrapped Blair’s and Brown’s less-than-popular ID card scheme – but of course, the underlying structure of databases, cameras (some with microphones and speakers, FFS, so they can listen to what you’re talking about, and shout at you for dropping litter), bank records, social security records … grows apace, with little apparent public awareness, still less control. Cameron’s promise to “regulate the use of CCTV”? – It turns out to mean not reducing the number of cameras shoved in your innocent face each day, but ensuring that all are upgraded to HD to ensure that the forensic evidence against you is of the highest possible quality.
Does this approach show Cameron to be “to the right” of Blair? No, but it shows him to be just about as authoritarian – which if anything fits rather oddly with the traditional “right-wing” belief in individual freedom. Really, the right-left labels are only even left in place nowadays to attract that party’s “traditional” voters: what you increasingly get, whichever, you vote for, is government by people who know nothing about the world outside politics, for the benefit of international corporations and banks, period. Blair’s “Third Way”, Cameron’s “Big Society” – both are smoke-and-mirrors to divert attention from the encroaching centrally controlled communitarianism underneath. And it’s just the same where you live.
Ultimately, if humanity insists on building these power structures, then we are going to find that the people at the top of them are the people who are best at clawing their way up power structures, by definition. “Élites” is a popular word used to denote them, those who use it apparently unaware that “élite” is properly an adjective, which simply means “best at something“, not “best human being“. What these people are élite at is demonstrating the fairly obvious truth I first heard on the radio years ago, that top businessmen and politicians have the same sort of psychological profile as psychpaths – the same fixity of purpose, the same willingness to smile and lie and cheat and do whatever is necessary to “get ahead”. It’s quite a popular theme on the “conspiracy” sites these days, though it must be thirty years since I first heard it.
What we have at all levels at the moment is a “kakistocracy”, rule by the worst – the most plotting, devious, scheming, unprincipled critters on the planet, fighting for power. That one realisation is probably the greatest single help in trying to make sense of what goes on around Planet Earth: basically, a handful of alpha males are playing their power games with our planet now, and don’t give a monkey (pun quite intentional) what normal people think.
For the enlightenment of those who comment negatively about political topics surfacing in the comments, last time I looked the words “puzzling things” and “recent news” were still up there at the top of the page. “Recent” needn’t only be whatever nine day wonder the mainstream media are blathering about today, and increasing numbers of people are wondering where the hell sanity went in most of what goes on, so why not talk about it when it comes up? Global politics is, de facto, a dimension of particular importance as it applies to AGW – it’s the main driver, for Heaven’s sake.
Oh, and everyone commenting here is an optimist – we want to help humanity come to its senses whether about AGW or NWO or WHY (“what have you”), but let’s be honest, now – while those big alpha male monkeys control all the drivel the general public absorbs from the MSM all day, most people are still going to think we’re the nuts.
At least, until a few cold winters with unreliable energy supplies wake them up at last. Sh*t safely on course for fan, folks, it’s not going to be boring.
Steve C….I had a pleasant surprise a few months back….David Davis’s secretary rang and asked if I would come in and discuss the implications of my book (Chill: a reasssessment of global warming theory). He is a senior Tory, former shadow Home Secretary…I didn’t know at the time anything about him, but the internet told me he had resigned on principle over the extension of ‘terrorist’ legislation…hence unlikely to prosper under Cameron. We spent a couple of hours talking – he had read Chill, all 400 pages, and was clearly open minded and appreciative of scholarship….and I think a lot of people listen carefully to what he has to say.
I should add that not a single other politican has asked to see me! Nor any of my former ‘green’ allies, despite the second half of the book talking about how to create a truly green energy policy that was resilient to climate variability – especially the potential for it to get colder.
I live in rural Somerset. We have noticed a steady deterioration with the police. A week ago they raided a ‘gypsy’ caravan encampment ‘looking for a man reported to own a gun’. The pictures in our local paper showed a full SWAT team, with machine guns, body armour, visors and helmets. This week, some old guy with 6 pot plants had his door smashed in at 5am and he was hauled off. There is a prosecution pending now for a musician who leads a circle of singers who drink ayahuasca in ceremony….the tea (which contains a small amount of DMT) is sourced ecologically in Amazon communities – entirely legal in Brazil, and many such groups have already won the right to drink this in ritual in the USA, Netherlands, Australia – after equally heavy handed attempts by the authorities to brand it a ‘drug’ and the singers as criminals. The police will almost certainly lose the court case. But this is about harassment. The singers were all arrested in dawn raids, their bank accounts frozen, tagged and given house-arrests under bail (meaning they could not earn a living from organising the gatherings). Yet, a friendy interview would have told them they were not dealing with criminal gangs.
I begin to worry for this country. I have had a brother in law and best friend in the police force…..my local beat copper taught my son to box at the youth club…..so I know what good policing looks like…..but there is something bad happening….the cameras are everywhere and nobody raises any objections, it is really spooky to travel the motorways where they are on high stands at all the junctions.
I doubt that politicians have much say in it all….other forces are at work behind the scenes and they are quickly told where to stand. Blair or Cameron, Third Way or Big Society…..like you say, Steve, all smoke and mirrors.
Bob – thanks for the comment on ‘Chill’….it has sold well for a small publisher and a weighty tome, about 2500 copies so far with very little publicity….all the left-liberal press refused to review it (not even to give it a bad review!) and it got a few mentions in the Mail, Express and on Al Jazeeera! In the past the Independent has reviewed my books (full page spread on ‘Beyond Conservation’ in 2005) but completely blanked me. New Scientist likewise. It certainly woke me up to the extent of the bias….never seen anything like it, not even in the anti-nuclear campaigns – when the Media would show both sides of the argument. The Greens then slander me for only using the right-wing press! George Monbiot at the Guardian is typical….says I have a good reputation as an ecologist – he has read my work, but then says I have no business commenting on climate when I am not a published climate scientist. I am afraid none of them will listen until my analysis surfaces in the science lit…and as Richard Lindzen posted here…..we may be wasting our time with western journals. However, there are some offers outstanding – one in the paleo-climate field, and it is just a matter of time (and funding).
It is a small figure in the grand scheme of books, but I do know that it gets to the decision makers – the financial community have shown the greatest respect and interest in its conclusions….they know a bubble when they see one and want to know when it will burst! I had one group of international bankers call me in for a breakfast seminar and they were so well-briefed they wanted a discussion on the shifting jetstream, the PDO….I couldn’t believe it!
Peter – A pleasant surprise indeed! The man has just gone up a notch in my estimation. There seem to be one or twp MPs with principles in Westminster most of the time if you look hard enough; Manny Shinwell was another on the Left, who worked tirelessly on behalf of working people for decades, Enoch Powell one on the right who dared to repeat in public “unpopular” views on race, rather than denouncing them in the approved manner. Such “one-offs” will be kept safely away from the levers of power, of course, and actually used as evidence of how we have free speech.
It’s good to see that the “grassroots environmentalism” which I’ve inclined towards myself for most of a lifetime is still around – and still keeping an eye on reality by frequenting at least one fine science blog! As with socialism (basically, the principle that humans are social animals, and we do better if we look out for one another), environmentalism (the principle that you take responsibility for not fouling up your environment with your poisons, stink or whatever) seems to have proved itself too readily open to takeover by extremists. Those pesky big monkeys again, getting us all used to their armed police on the streets and helicopters in the sky and training the kiddies to spy on the neighbours. I wish I didn’t think it, but I do:we ain’t seen nothin’ yet. It’s not just the lunatics who’ve taken over the asylum – it’s the élite lunatics, remember.
Good luck with Chill – I shall drop by your site and look round when I have a little more time.
@R. Gates
“And thank God for hippies and others who protested the Vietnam war or even more American lives might have been completely wasted over there fighting a war that never should have been.”
The hippie movement didn’t stop the war and since, it has never stopped anything, but how many need to die or get mangled for life because of the hippie “pacifist” movement Mr Gates, before they take responsibility?
But of course, hippies has the self proclaimed birth right to blame all crap, including theirs, on everyone, and everything, else.
Do you even know that it was communist Minh that violated his own peace agreement? Had there been any more war had he not done so? Not against US, Canada, Australia, UK, and the rest, but still against South Viet Nam, Cambodia and Thailand.
Or maybe you think the Vietnamese people should have suffered the japanese or french still?
Hippies, never did anything to stop a war and the only people the hippies ever helped was drug addicts getting more drugs. But you keep on being proud of such otherworldly feats of accomplishments. :p
At the highest levels, the desire and search for money and power merge. The money is both a marker/scorecard, and a tool to exercise power, and the power enables access to the “unlimited” pool of public goods and funds. These wannabe global controllers collaborate, while carefully watching for opportune moments to take each other down.
And the game is shielded from public view in plain sight. Watch Bill Gates for a view of a poster child of the evolution of money seeker to World Controller. He’s not quite up to it, but he’s trying hard. And so on.
Gorbachev (who is, Jason, another interesting example for your list), is pretty much in like Flynn, too. He’s leveraged reputation and contacts into a sizeable pile, and associates with all the au courant movers and shakers. Strange bedfellows like Gorbachev and Kissinger and Soros are not actually to be wondered at. Players in the Great Global Governance Game.
1DandyTroll says:
June 10, 2011 at 5:53 pm
@R. Gates
“And thank God for hippies and others who protested the Vietnam war or even more American lives might have been completely wasted over there fighting a war that never should have been.”
The hippie movement didn’t stop the war and since, it has never stopped anything, but how many need to die or get mangled for life because of the hippie “pacifist” movement Mr Gates, before they take responsibility?
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Wow, seems you’re a bit touchy on the subject of the Vietnam war. Hard for you to admit that it was a huge waste of time, money, and American lives, and that regardless of their other deficits, “hippies” were right on this issue– it was simply the wrong thing for America to be doing. This is the problem with those who want to always see everything in black and white terms…i.e. EVERYTHING that “hippies” did must be wrong, and of course, the inverse would be need to be true as well…everything that those who hate “hippies” do must be right.. This is the exact issue with trying to put the world into neat little boxes of “us’ versus “them”…it is too simple in the extreme. Humans are complex creatures, and certainly capable of complex motivations that don’t fit into neat little boxes and to attempt to do so does not clarify anything, but only serves the cause of creating division. The absurd notion that “communists” and “Catholics” and those who believe in AGW are all “pessimists” is so absurd and myopic that if it weren’t so sad it would be laughable in the extreme. It seems, strangely enough, that the groups who wanted to see things is such black and white myopic terms through history tended toward extremism and authoritarian rule…and began first by showing how wrong those people were who didn’t believe or think the same way, and then the next step was to dehumanize the “others” before moving on to the final solution… which is of course to eradicate the “others” who, in the minds of the black and white thinkers, are barely human, and certainly subhuman anyway. Black and white, us-versus-them kind of thinking leads to some very nasty and inhuman acts…
“The desire to save humanity is always a false front for the urge to rule it” — H L Mencken