This is from Tom Nelson, who took notes on yesterday’s Google hangout between Andrew Revkin and David Roberts
[1-hour video] Andrew Revkin from Dot Earth Blog and David Roberts from Grist.org chat about climate change topics
My rough notes on this hangout are below. Nothing outside of double quotes below is a direct quote; I wish our super-organized, well-financed climate cabal had a couple hundred dollars to spend producing a good transcript of this Google hangout.
—-
10min Revkin: Serenity prayer; Lots of things policy-wise not going to change; realism/fatalism?
12.5 min: Revkin: Colorado fires not caused by CO2; Sandy floods not caused by CO2; Get out of harms way
Revkin has had fights with Mann and trenberth
Revkin: Tornadoes not caused by CO2
16 min Revkin: Sub Saharan Africa has had century-long droughts; tweaking CO2 has no real relevance to problems there
Roberts admits that giving a dollar to a sick child now might be better than trying to use that dollar to prevent CO2-induced bad weather
20 min: Revkin: no confidence in global social global warming movement. He’s tired of too many noes (nuclear, fracking)
25 min Roberts wants his grandchildren to have well-sharpened axes and hatchets to deal with CO2-induced problems
29 min Revkin Republicans don’t care about science
2009 cap and trade bill wouldn’t have done much good if passed–would hand out credits to farmers for doing things that wouldn’t actually prevent bad weather
39 min Roberts wants to “Force people to behave differently”. Wants a certain class of people (“His class”, “elites”) to force people to behave differently
Maybe we can get the policy that Roberts wants by going after elites, or doing what Gore did–trying to influence super-rich people
Revkin not a fan of Hansen’s “Death trains” rhetoric: Roberts: “more extreme the rhetoric, the better”
44 min Revkin: Some of that extreme rhetoric can backfire
45 min Roberts on social proof: Really nobody is acting as if they really believed in global warming alarmism.
Roberts: burning coal is like slavery
Revkin: but cheap energy has its benefits. I just flew here; we have climate-controlled room and electricity for our computers etc
Roberts: What to do about deniers?
48:55 Revkin: There’s one watching us right now! (turns his computer in an attempt to show some of my tweets from above).
Revkin: There are professional naysayers, but money isn’t as big a factor in climate skepticism as Roberts thinks.
Some lawyers use FOIA to stymie scientific activity.
Revkin: Deniers can use social media just like we do–they can find each other.
Revkin tried for decades to “change things” via his journalism. Got out of journalism when he decided it wasn’t working.
52 Roberts: hard-core deniers know more about climate than casual believers; the deniers would do better on a climate quiz
53 Revkin: There’s more uncertainty in climate science than the popular conception
Revkin: Obama dropped ball on climate
Roberts: Thinks the best way to get his preferred policy is via Machiavellian means
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How does Jack bring down The Giant? Answer: 10% of registered voters participate in the primaries. This 10% is the most ideologically committed.
Slightly OT, Google are shutting down their Blog reader product next month, it would be interesting to find out the user statistics between skeptics and alarmists and if this has influenced their decision.
I would hate to think that when “do no evil” looks for public support from it’s users over censorship issues, it is actually being two-faced with its own kind of censorship.
Does Al Gore still sit on the board of directors at Apple and serve as a senior adviser to Google?
He quotes the serenity prayer but he’s too politically correct to mention the word God in the prayer.
second point “the old white guys running things” near the end of the video. What a hippy..
David Roberts, of course, is the fellow who in Sept. ’06 wrote “we should have war crimes trials for these bastards – some sort of climate Nuremberg”. He wasn’t alone, either. Mark Lynas, in May ’06 wrote “I wonder what sentences judges might hand down at future international criminal tribunals on those who will be partially but directly responsible for millions of deaths from starvation, famine and disease in decades ahead. I put this in a similar category to Holocaust denial – except that this time the Holocaust is yet to come, and we still have time to avoid it. Those who try to ensure we don’t will one day have to answer for their crimes”.
Little did they know then, that the real enemy of mankind was themselves. Now, they are beginning to reap what they have sown.
quite a few comments about: Republicans don’t care about science
I gather at least some of this perception was confirmed by the 2012 Republican presidential candidates, when most raised their hand as not believing in evolution. I found this summary (from examiner.com) of their respective positions on evolution:
Pro-Evolution
Jon Huntsman: believes in evolution, expressed concern that Republicans are anti-science
Middle of the Road
Newt Gingrich: doesn’t need to be conflict between faith and science, both should be kept separate
Mitt Romney: believes in a God-guided evolution
Pro-Creation
Rick Perry: called evolution ‘a theory with some gaps in it,’ a firm believer of intelligent design
Michele Bachmann: pro-intelligent design, but thinks both sides should be given equal time in school
Rick Santorum: believes the Bible is literal truth, tried to get creationism mandate included in NCLB
Ron Paul: said of evolution ‘I don’t accept it’ but that judging candidates on such an issue is wrong, too
Undeclared
Herman Cain: has not specifically addressed the question in public, but has strong religious beliefs
Via the latest WUWT post I found this paragraph which (almost) nicely sums up the current situation.
It’s just not over yet but is playing out now.
QOTW nomination?
Now dave,
Not all politicians can be as scientifically savvy as Democrats.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/guamtip.asp
http://retractionwatch.wordpress.com/2011/01/16/salon-retracts-2005-robert-f-kennedy-jr-piece-on-alleged-autism-vaccine-link/
“Roberts: Thinks the best way to get his preferred policy is via Machiavellian means”
In case anyone needs a reminder of the meaning of this clever word choice
-Machiavellian-
Synonyms
cutthroat, immoral, unprincipled, unconscionable, unethical, unscrupulous
Antonyms
ethical, moral, principled, scrupulous
Related Words
merciless, pitiless, remorseless, ruthless; crooked, deceitful, dishonest, jackleg, knavish; corrupt, debased, debauched, decadent, degenerate, degraded, demoralized, depraved, dissipated, libertine, licentious, profligate; cheapjack, dog-eat-dog, opportunistic; calculating, scheming, sharp
Used in a sentence-
David Roberts of Grist thinks that the best way to achieve his preferred policies for constipating CACC is via immoral, merciless, ruthless, dishonest, corrupt, depraved, unprincipled, scheming means.
Congratulations to David Roberts for providing an elevator summary of the Climateers- the exact opposite of ethical, moral, principled or scrupulous.
Dave,
Many conservatives have trouble with evolution because it directly contradicts their religious beliefs, so they tend to interpret the science to protect their beliefs. There should really be no more problem with evolution then there is about believing in the sun centered solar system, but, the general acceptance of evolution is rather recent, and, as you must know, evolution is very complex.
Even the believers in evolution cannot explain many facets of it. For example, explain to me how different numbers of chromosomes have evolved in closely related mammalian species.
Explain how Darwinism accounts for sudden changes the fossil record. Catastrophes to explain the fossil record were a favorite explanation of the Christians back in the 19th century. Catastrophes are now in vogue among the atheists.
I think these questions will be answered with more research, but, that is a belief. I can’t prove it.
But, for all their problems with evolution, the conservatives do not take their beliefs on evolution and try to redesign the industrial world to suit these beliefs. That is, their quaint ideas on evolution are not a threat to anyone.
The Democrats have taken their “religious” beliefs and have created social and governmental policies to put them into force, with disastrous effects. The global warming crusade is just one of them.
BTW, the reason that “deniers” know more than the believers in the global warming debate is simple. Our education system teaches almost nothing about climate. What the kids get in school is unadulterated propaganda. So, anybody who takes a few tens of hours to learn about climate will simply run rings around the average person, who believes the propaganda.
The two go on at length about tribal ‘thinking’ but fail to acknowledge their own.
Joel Hammer says:
June 16, 2013 at 10:35 am
“Even the believers in evolution cannot explain many facets of it. For example, explain to me how different numbers of chromosomes have evolved in closely related mammalian species.”
Genetic accidents. Does not necessarily stop animals from interbreeding. See
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Przevalsky%27s_Horse
“Explain how Darwinism accounts for sudden changes the fossil record.”
Evolutions usually accumulate changes in the genome that don’t become apparent in changes to the fitness of individuals at first (most of the genetic changes come about not through mutations but through genetic crossover or in the case of bacteria, horizontal gene transfer (introns)). Only occasionally, after many generations, occurs a sudden leap to a higher fitness, this often leads to progressive improvements over several generations. The name for it is punctuated equilibrium. I have only observed it in certain simulated evolutions (genetic algorithms) but the theory of punctuated equilibrium comes from Stephen Gould. It can explain a scarcity of “missing link” fossils.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium
In practice, the potential for a new “trick” that the population learns accumulates over time, then, suddenly, the accumulated changes actually get applied, and an individual thrives, multiplies and the population gets infested with the new genetic trick, and begins to optimize it.
Notice that I see no contradiction between evolution and religion.
“But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” ( 2 Peter 3:8 )
Meaning, that the one week for the creation of the world should obviously not be taken literally.
Stage 3 of the Kubler-Ross death acceptance process; “bargaining”. Two greens whining in their beer.
It’s a dying movement. It can’t be walked back anymore than Napoleon could get a parade leaving Russia.
Tin foil hats should have been issued to Revkin and Roberts for this interview.
What’s really amazing about Roberts is he really trying to pass off that he isn’t part of a tribe? They should really be wearing Grateful Dead or Che tee-shirts and passing a joint while wearing their tin-foil hats during the interview.
The totalitarian inclination in full-view at 53:, “public and media and just wrong”. We need climate a climate dictatorship.
@milodonharlani, johanna, janice moore, oebele bruinsma, jorgekavkazar –
David Roberts is a classic example of how the term “liberal” has evolved from meaning one who wants to extend people’s freedoms (Civil Rights Act, 1964, which, incidentally, more Republicans than Democrats supported) and enable them to keep as much as possoible of the fruits of their labor (JFK tax cuts, 1961) to meaning one who wants tiny self-appointed elites to rule the world, confiscate people’s earnings to use for their own personal use and enrichment, and suppress civil liberties. Today’s “liberals” are anything but, in the classic sense of the word; what they are is fascist reactionaries, looking backward for their inspiration to the failed socialist models that, among other things, gave us the Holocaust and the Gulag – even as their meme portends another Holocaust, possibly one amounting to a substantial multiple of the last one. This is why I call these people the Criminal Reactionary Left.
This conversion of the liberal identity really began with the opposition to the Vietnam War, which found the left wing increasingly sympathetic and apologetic for a tyrannical, brutal, amoral enemy – and I do not hesitate to say that these sympathizers bear a heavy share of the responsibility for the Holocaust that followed in Vietnam and Cambodia after the Communist victory. Among other things, the leftist news media falsely reported Tet as a defeat for the US, when in fact it was a devastating defeat for the Viet Cong, as acknowledged by them, virtually wiping them out (and then the war was taken over by the North Vietnamese). (And failed to report, indeed actually covered up, huge atrocities by the Communist side – 100,000 people buried alive in ditches with bulldozers outside of Hue, as an example, during Tet.)
I believe AGW is rooted in this same mentality, the same hatred of country and liberty and modern civilization in general that drove the Vietnam dissidents. This is evident in the singularly destructive effects, intended not unintended, of what they propose for the world. David Roberts and his ilk will be just as responsble for the next Holocaust. And now we have that ultimate enemy sympathizer, so very enamored of all those tyrannies that control the UN, John Kerry, leading the charge for AGW that threatens to destroy the world as we know it.
AGW is mass murder, and its proponents are mass murderers. Le plus ce change, le plus c’est la meme chose.
Janice Moore says:
June 15, 2013 at 8:43 pm
““45 min Roberts on social proof: Really nobody is acting as if they really believed in global warming alarmism. ***
52 Roberts: hard-core deniers know more about climate than casual believers;… ””
***************
They KNOW it’s only a belief. Their language betrays them.”
Nice pick Janice Moore. This is precisely it. Their beliefs came not from science other than the parts where “science” supported their socialist beliefs – i.e. shut down capitalism and go for prescription socio-economics.
someone is going to get an invite to the Bllderb3rg group and the other will have to wait outside.
Is there any less meaningful scientific topic than evolution vs creationsim? Other than deciding what goes into elementary school textbooks, what effect does it have? Who gives a rat’s patootie.
Clinton and Obama are religious as well. Does their stance on the issue have to do with science or what gets them the most support within their party?
Nobody is giving presidential or Congressional candidates a science test.
John M says:
June 16, 2013 at 10:20 am
———————————-
Thanks for the links, most amusing.
Got me a little sad when i thought that the political class of the US are likely the result of a private education.
“39 min Roberts wants to “Force people to behave differently”. Wants a certain class of people (“His class”, “elites”) to force people to behave differently”
Global Warming Is Feudalism
This shows what the thoroughly modern and up to date, ‘progressive’ global warming movement really is, it is actually a return to the ancient ways. In olden times, there were two classes of people, nobles, and pheasants. The nobles considered themselves ‘your betters’, they, after all, went to all the right schools, had the best taste, and all that, the pheasants were boorish and ignorant, ‘the rabble’, ‘the masses’. Nobles made all the decisions and received all the benefits and pheasants were slaves in all but name and lived in abject poverty. The nobles stayed in top by using force, the pheasants were not allowed arms (read the papers, pheasants like you cannot be trusted with arms, only nobles, or their designated representatives, like the army and police, who the nobles think they control, can be trusted).
Then along came a new idea, “that all men are created equal’, and all that changed. Now, however, after more than two centuries of that, we were are offered “hope and change”, which immediately caused me, at least, to ask “change from what”? We are indeed changing, we are ‘progressing’ back to the ancient way, where a small number of ‘nobles’ will make all the decisions and the rest will be their slaves.
This, however, brings about a certain resentment among those who now think of themselves as the nobles did, ‘your betters’. One can see this idea going on for years, for instance, in art. With freedom and learning, people were able to appreciate the same art that was formerly reserved only for the nobles. The modern ‘nobles’ (so they perceive themselves, although they will not admit it) did not like that, how could they show their superior taste if all could? So they invented ‘modern art’, and told themselves that the reason most did not like it was because they alone had the superior taste to appreciate it. Just go look at the modern art displayed in front of your government buildings, ugly simplistic statues that you don’t appreciate as the great art they tell you it is because you are a boor and think that it was made that way because it is easier than going to the trouble of actually making something people like (a lot of work!).
Now, to save you from global warming, they must reimpose all the old controls the nobles had, they must control every part of your life (as controlling power generation and use will do) ‘for your own good’. in short, this is merely a return to feudalism. Or in their own words ” Roberts: Thinks the best way to get his preferred policy is via Machiavellian means”.
“What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which one can say, “Look! This is something new”? It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time.”
52 Roberts: hard-core deniers know more about climate than casual believers; the deniers would do better on a climate quiz
Milton Friedman “You cannot be sure you are right unless you understand the arguments against your views better than your opponents do.”
good lord, my impression is these two bozos are talking incredibly above their respective paygrades. They need some serious deprogramming.
@Legatus –
The same things that you describe re art and sculpture have happened in classical music: the going thing is noise that most people would not recognize as music. In the three principal “styles” of “musical” composition, serialism (cerealism?), indeterminacy (indiscriminacy?) and miminalism (trivialism?), still in vogue at the music establishment, there has been a systematic process of purging the material of all that makes music what it is: recognizable melody, harmonic progression, formal cohesion. (Minimalism, while usually less harshly dissonant than some of this other crap, is no less devoid of musical content.). Composers seeking to provide entertaining music – for isn’t that the purpose of music, to entertain? – are marginalized. And sadly, the bulk of the traditonal concertgoing audience that supported classical music has been largely driven out of the concert hall for fear of being forced to listen to this acoustical garbage – in fact, this stuff might well be termed acoustical abuse, since much of it is openly intended to offend audiences.
I am myself the composer of over 150 works in many genres and styles, including 9 symphonies, 16 string quartets, 20 concerti for various combinations, 21 piano sonatas, many art songs, short piano pieces and a lot of other chamber music. And I have gotten nowhere with my efforts to get my music performed and in print. While I certainly wouldn’t presume to be a great composer – that would be for posterity to judge, at best – some of the people who have heard such computer-generated recordings as I have of my music have raved about it and begged for more – including of some of my more astringent pieces, and I think I am not out of line in thinking my material deserves a hearing.
Some may say that dissonance is the problem with modern classical music, but audiences love improv jazz, about as dissonant as you can get, some of it, yet the three essentials of musicality are plainly in it and people respond to it. Many 20th-century composers like, say, Bartok or Ravel, have produced very dissonant music that audiences love – likewise because the essentials are there. But then you have Arnold Schoenberg, the serialist – probably the single most destructive influence on music in history – and John Cage, who did things like saying sitting at a piano for 4e minutes 33 seconds doing nothing was “music” and rolling dice to decide which note to play next – and then finally the miminalists repeating an inane three-note phrase 1,000 times and calling that “music.”
Of course, the establishment empire fights back – you have arrogant blowhard Charles Wuorinen saying people don’t like serialism because they’re too lazy or too stupid to learn to understand it. Well, I’ve got news for Wuorinen – people reject serialism because they DO understand it and recognize it for the unmusical crap that it is.
What is the connection here to global warming? The music establishment to a man/woman are fanatical warmistas, and their conceptions of what is music is about on a par with their conceptions of what is climate change. Funny how dogmatism and intolerance and delusion and hubris and just plain stupidity (on the part of people who surely ought to, and could, know better) run across so many different disciplines.
@Legatus –
How about we force Roberts to “behave differently”? See how he likes his own medicine, being hoist on his own petard?
Also you put your finger very adeptly on the fundamentally reactionary character of leftist politics.
Beautifully said. Congrats definitely deserved.
@Bruce Cobb –
The next Holocaust is already under way, but it is the doing of Roberts & Co.: 36,000 dead in Europe from hypothermia because carbon taxes made them unable to heat their homes; 200,000 starved in Africa because of the ethanol program; more thousands dead from der Fuehrer’s favorite energy source – biomass, i.e., the shit too many Afroicans have to burn to cook their food. The list of alarmist crimes goes on and on. If force is to be used, let it be used against the REAL Holocaust deniers – those who think it’s A-OK for green to kill people (and endangered species like California condors and whooping cranes).
“””””…..@ur momisugly Chad Wozniak:
I am myself the composer of over 150 works in many genres and styles, including 9 symphonies, 16 string quartets, 20 concerti for various combinations, 21 piano sonatas, many art songs, short piano pieces and a lot of other chamber music. And I have gotten nowhere with my efforts to get my music performed and in print. While I certainly wouldn’t presume to be a great composer – that would be for posterity to judge, at best – some of the people who have heard such computer-generated recordings as I have of my music have raved about it and begged for more – including of some of my more astringent pieces, and I think I am not out of line in thinking my material deserves a hearing.
Some may say that dissonance is the problem with modern classical music, but audiences love improv jazz, about as dissonant as you can get, some of it, yet the three essentials of musicality are plainly in it and people respond to it. Many 20th-century composers like, say, Bartok or Ravel, have produced very dissonant music that audiences love – likewise because the essentials are there. But then you have Arnold Schoenberg, the serialist – probably the single most destructive influence on music in history – and John Cage, who did things like saying sitting at a piano for 4e minutes 33 seconds doing nothing was “music” and rolling dice to decide which note to play next – and then finally the miminalists repeating an inane three-note phrase 1,000 times and calling that “music.” ……..””””””
So I’m puzzled by your word usage. Surely “modern classical music” is an oxymoron.
Lots of people I know, would say that the era of “classical music” came to an end with Beethoven, launching a new genre of Romanticism, where composers paid more attention to how their music sounded to their audience (and the ear), and less attention to how it might be linked to “Art of Fugue.”.
So modern “classical” music, to me sounds like a dissonance in itself.
But good luck on your “stuff”, which I’ll accept that you regard as “serious music”, as distinct from the “one from column a, one from column b” of modern “music du jour”.
Our local Bay Area (SF) “classical music station” KDFC, has the world’s largest collection of obscure music, from obscure composers, some dating back to 1066, or thereabouts. They play it all day long to Bay Area audiences who just lap it up.
And the vast majority of that music, thoroughly deserves ALL the obscurity it can muster; and then some.
It was trash when it was written, and it is still trash today; but it seems that some folks won’t let it go away. I defy one out of ten KDFC listeners to recall any composer and composition pre 1750, that they heard on KDFC just one week ago today; and hum a few bars from it.
People don’t realize, just what giants, were the Bachs, Mozarts, and Beethovens of great music.
Antonio Salieri was most fortunate as a composer, to have a spat with Mozart. But for that, he would be a quite unknown name of history; even to the zealots at KDFC, who dredge up all that old elevator music rubbish, they play all the time.
My son writes “music”, dj style on his computer; its all ones and zeros. No, I could not hum you a single bar, from anything, he ever put together, and I doubt he could hum anything he wrote 6 months ago.
But it sure pleases the crowds, who attend the events, where he gets paid to entertain. Well isn’t that what all those ancient composers did. Provide elevator music, for their patron, while he wined himself to sleep after dinner.
Much success to you Chad Wozniak.