Guest post by Alec Rawls
Jill Singer, long time Aussie talking head:
I’m prepared to keep an open mind and propose another stunt for climate sceptics – put your strong views to the test by exposing yourselves to high concentrations of either carbon dioxide or some other colourless, odourless gas – say, carbon monoxide.
You wouldn’t see or smell anything. Nor would your anti-science nonsense be heard of again. How very refreshing.
Her mind is OPEN to wishing for the deaths of those who disagree with her ignorant presumptions. All in good fun of course! But this totalitarian closed-mindedness really does seem to strike her as a kind of open mindedness. She finds the thought “refreshing.”
Maybe its just an Aussie thing, like the forced tattooing of political opponents. And Singer does make a serious charge. She accuses Aussie business leader David Murray of a very unscientific leap:
Murray states there’s no link between global warming and carbon dioxide emissions because carbon dioxide is necessary for life, colourless and odourless – and therefore can’t be considered a pollutant.
If Murray actually said that because CO2 is necessary for life it cannot cause warming then flamboyant gibes would be merited and the rest of us could only drop our faces into our own palms. We would never hear the end of it, sigh. But the charge is false. David Murray and his interviewer both clearly distinguished the pollution question from the warming question:
DM: [Carbon dioxide] has got nothing to do with pollution.Financial Review interviewer Colleen Ryan: What do you mean?
DM: Well, carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. It is colourless, odourless. It is not a pollutant.
FR: Yes, but it is still bad for greenhouse gases.
DM: No it isn’t. It is a tiny proportion of greenhouse gases.
FR: So, if you believe in the warming of the planet, it is a tiny proportion of that?
DM: There is no correlation between warming and carbon dioxide.
FR: So if you accept the warming of the planet, what should you do?
DM: Take measures to stop the effects of it.
FR: What about the melting of the glaciers?
DM: They’re not. The amount of ice in the world is slightly increasing. It’s not decreasing. It’s just staggering. Staggering. So you call something a pollutant, which it is not. It is actually necessary for life. And then the people who disagree with you, you call skeptics or scumbags or doubters or something.
Murray gave a perfectly logical reason for dismissing the greenhouse effects of CO2 as dangerous and it has nothing to do with CO2 not being a pollutant. CO2’s greenhouse effects can be dismissed because they are so tiny!
Exactly right. The only way CO2 warming could be dangerous is if it were dramatically amplified by water vapor feedback effects, in which case our climate would be radically unstable and sneezing would be dangerous. In other words, the only way CO2 is dangerous is if EVERYTHING is dangerous, and there is no evidence for such instability.
Singer is really just lying when she says that Murray denies a link between global warming and carbon dioxide “because carbon dioxide is necessary for life.” After reading his remarks on a conservative Aussie site she accuses Murray of an unscientific leap that he absolutely did not make, then she uses this deception to justify her happy death wish for everyone who doesn’t toe the party line.
If casual death wishes really were just an Australian mannerism they would appear on both sides, but Murray, for example, is the opposite of Singer. He appeals to Singer et al. to stop calling their opponents dirty names and she responds by dreaming of his annihilation. Nope, it’s a believer thing, as believers in authoritarian religions have always wanted to expunge heretics.
The only twist on this old story is how today’s eco-religious believers are able to imagine themselves on the side of science even as they do things like knowingly deceive their readers about what their opponents are saying. What does science mean to them if it doesn’t require truth? And if they don’t care about the truth, how can they possibly think they are right?
Because their religious authorities tell them so. Facepalm.
As the heat continues to go missing, expect to see a lot more of this:
“…exposing yourselves to high concentrations of either carbon dioxide or some other colourless, odourless gas – say, carbon monoxide.”
I’m guessing we’ll burn.
Alternatively, we could put some plants in there and see what happens
Nick Stokes, since this kind of disparagement of, and its implied wish for a certain kind of end to to befall any “skeptic” whatsoever is apparently a fixed feature of thought for people such as you, you are therefore correct according to your rather personalizing point of view – which obviously places much less emphasis on considering the scientific issues involved with the CO2 = CAGW hypotheses. Essentially for those who “think” as you do, more of the same old same old from skeptic-haters is not really more. It is simply “par”.
Re Uber: I was being careful when I wrote “believers in authoritarian religions have always wanted to expunge heretics.” Notice I did not say believers in all religions, only in authoritarian ones, and not all religions are authoritarian.
Judaism and Christianity are the great source of western liberty, based on the assertion in Genesis that man is made in God’s image. God, being omnipotent, epitomizes free will, hence men, made in God’s image, have free will too, and the only forms of government suited to such a mankind must enable and empower that free will.
Certainly there have been authoritarian sects in Christianity, but the main thrust is clearly the opposite. In particular, Christianity gave rise to the American system of liberty, and it ended slavery in the west (though it still exists in Islam).
Re Nick Stokes: All Nick sees is “Singer disagreeing with Murray about whether CO2 is a pollutant.” Did he miss the part about breathing enough CO2 to never be heard from again?
Consider a parallel example. Imagine a group of eco-alarmists has managed to convince half the world that H2O is a dangerous pollutant. A business leader points out that, far from being a pollutant, H20 is necessary for life, and the eco-alarmists retorting, “I’d like to see you submerge yourself in it then, so we never have to hear from your like again. How refreshing that would be!”
Ring a bell?
Interesting parallel between Singer and Chris Matthews today. Singer doesn’t seem to know what open minded means. Totalitarian closed-mindedness is her personal example of something she feels open minded about.
Ditto for Chris Matthews, who doesn’t seem to know what “objective” means, declaring: “I hate that so-called evenhanded so-called objective journalism. You know, you know, you can’t say something isn’t true if it’s true in the interest of evenhandedness.” (Translation, for people who have trouble with Matthews-speak: “If you know that something isn’t true, ‘evenhandedness’ won’t let you say so.)
Actually, objectivity and “evenhandedness” call for honest fact-checking of all claims, reporting truth and falsehood wherever they can be determined, and being guided in one’s focus only by how consequential the subject matter is.
Not for Matthews though. Like Singer, Matthews invokes his own dictionary, employing concepts of objectivity and evenhandedness that have nothing to do with what these terms actually mean. He uses them as an excuse not to reveal damning information that he sees as unfairly damaging to his favored side. And yes, he was talking about global warming, miffed at his lack of success in convincing the public that “the science is settled.”
John Marshall says:
June 22, 2011 at 8:28 am
“She would get on well with Joana Nova. Sparks would fly.”
The fur wouldn’t fly for long. If Jill Singer went toe-to-toe with Jo Nova, Psychic Larry predicts that Joanne would score a TKO in the first round. Jo Nova is a world-class polemicist, and judging by her writing, is even more formidable in that respect than Christopher Monckton.
Jill Singer sounds like a junior school child, someone should ask her to include high concentrations of pure oxygen in her list of colourless, odourless gases that are harmful to humans.
Oft be said, better blue than green or red:
http://oi54.tinypic.com/3496kp1.jpg
Alec Rawls says: June 23, 2011 at 12:51 am
“Did he miss the part about breathing enough CO2 to never be heard from again?”
No. Though you’ve modified it – she suggested carbon monoxide – CO. But as I said that was amply covered in the previous post. The headline here says more casual death wishes from Australia. What is it referring to?
This Jill Singer is a bit of a worry she seems to have no idea of the real world or science. I would like to ask her if a room full of pure oxygen, tasteless and odourless, is a better test for her religious beliefs. Perhaps she could be persuaded to take the test, after all, oxygen is not a pollutant. After her lipstick explodes and she has a frayed mouth she may be less strident and more amenable to alternate views if her lungs still work. Today such is the measure of many ” Journalists”, so sad that so many generations of people toiled and fought deprivation and wars to allow freedom to people such as this woman who now wishes to forcibly push us into a new age of tyranny.
At my age I should no longer have to fight for freedom, but the brainwashing of the younger generations has been pervasive and it my and the generation before that are taking the fight to these foolish people. Oddly it seems that Gen Y 20 to 25 years olds are joining the oldies in OZ in rebellion, the internet sets them free. Thank you for all your good works Anthony.
Nick: Aha. The previous post was not up when I submitted mine. Sorry. Didn’t realize we had a double.
At the risk of boring the reader and imposing on the hospitality of our host I’ll complete the bigger Oz constitutional/legal/judicial jigsaw for those still awake.
Now Australia still has the British monarch as Head of State which may seem anachronistic to Americans and so many ex-Commonwealth countries, having gained their independence from Britain in the 60s and 70s. Well the truth is, although Queeny is officially the HofS, the effective power is vested in the Governor General appointed by the Parliament (actually the elected majority Govt of the day and its leader the Prime Minister) and like Liz acts on the advice of Parliament (except that the GG has the reserve power to dissolve an unworkable Parliament and send it back to the people a la 1975). As well we no longer rely on the British Privy Council as our highest deliberative Court, but since the early 70s have had our own High Court. To all intents and purposes we are a totally independent actor from Britain, with a dual House, Westminster system, but we still have Liz as our Queen paid for by Brit taxpayers and saving us the hooha and expense of Presidential elections. It also negates the problem of conflict of power between elected PM and President like some have.
As outlined before we have no individual Bill of Rights but rely largely upon Anglo Saxon heritage and precedent law just like Britain, although we don’t mind borrowing from US law, etc. Hence the opportunity for the usual suspects to occasionally implement their nefarious laws to oppress us for our own good (naturally). Just like unelected EPAs Vilification Acts and the like. However like all PC laws and their promulgators they inevitably piss off the masses and some political Party or wind sniffing Court decision will come to the rescue. Just like the Dutch Court decision on Geert Wilders right to criticise Islam, their worm has clearly turned as it is turning here. Well if Bolt plays that video speech of Steyns in Court it will be a brave judge to convict I’ll warrant, but we’ll just have to wait and see.
Now we have had the regular push to ditch Queeny and become a Republic mostly from leftys as you can imagine and for a while it looked like they’d win the day until defeated at a referendum a few years ago. However their problem was in ditching Queeny, they had to come up with the whole box and dice ie how to elect a HoS and the question of a Bill of Rights, etc. Well the electorate smelled the stench of a Bill of Wrongs and they also wanted to elect any Pres, while the pollies wanted an appointed one and it was all too hard and the NO vote ensued. Funnily enough non-Anglo immigrants were as attached to a Queen as conservative Anglos, which still drives the Repubs crazy as you can imagine. No doubt because so many come from previous tyrannous republics and regimes without royalty. How can you have a HoS of another country as our HoS they shriek down their noses at us. Well that’s because it doesn’t really matter, she costs us nothing and Aussies are that damned relaxed and comfortable about ourselves these days we don’t have to follow the mob. It’s quirky, nostalgic and fun and it really pisses off the leftards who want to control us and tell us what to do all the time and noone, but noone tells Queeny what to do. It’s delicious and free.