Guest essay by Brandon Shollenberger
Global warming proponents support genocide. That may seem hard to believe, but remember, they’ve said it’d be right to blow up dams and burn cities to the ground:
Unloading essentially means the removal of an existing burden: for instance, removing grazing domesticated animals, razing cities to the ground, blowing up dams and switching off the greenhouse gas emissions machine. The process of ecological unloading is an accumulation of many of the things I have already explained in this chapter, along with an (almost certainly necessary) element of sabotage. If carried out willingly and on a sufficiently large scale, this process would require dismantling many of the key components of civilization; no person would be foolish enough to cut off their own limbs unless they were suffering from some kind of psychotic delusion, and no civilization would be willing to remove many of the pillars of its own existence. Looking from the outside, though, a civilization hacking off its own extremities would seem like exactly the right thing to do.
That view is not from some fringe element global warming proponents shun. James Hansen, arguably the most influential member of the cause, supported the book that statement was written in. Hansen has also suggested “coal trains will be death trains” and GHGs could “destroy much of the fabric of life.” Supporting genocide is incredibly extreme, but clearly extreme is acceptable to them.
But supporting genocide? That’s hard to believe. I’d need some strong data to make me even consider the idea. That’s why I collected some. (Note: several climate blogs were used, including WUWT here – Anthony)
Using the approach of Lewandowsky et al, I created a survey (copy here) which got 5,697 responses (two of which I filtered out for being incomplete). Three items on the survey were:
You believe global warming is a [sic] real.
You believe global warming poses a serious threat.
You believe genocide is…
Respondents were asked to rate their level of disagreement/agreement (1-5) on the first two. For the third, they rated bad/good (1-5).
I found statistically significant correlations (at the 99.99% level) for all pairings of these items:
As you can see, people who say global warming is real but not a serious threat are more likely to oppose genocide. On the other hand, people who say global warming is a serious threat are more likely to support genocide. The effect isn’t large, but it is statistically significant. There’s more. The survey also included the item:
You have never been wrong.
The effect is small but statistically significant at the 99.99% level. Believing global warming is a serious threat correlates with believing one has never been wrong. Believing you are fallible correlates with merely believing global warming is real. Combine these two findings, and we get:
- Believing global warming is a serious threat correlates with believing you are never wrong.
- Believing global warming is a serious threat correlates with supporting genocide.
Therefore, global warming proponents believe they are never wrong, even when supporting genocide.
Quick note, Stephan Lewandowsky built upon correlation matrices like mine by using factor analysis and structural-equation modeling (SEM). These cannot change observed patterns; they can only tease out additional ones. I am not replicating those steps.
Caveat: The results are obviously nonsense. However, they were gotten from the same methodology used by Lewandowsky and others. More to come…
A favourite
http://goo.gl/0rPJ0B
While I’m sure this is meant to be nonsensical there are likely some inferences that can be drawn here. First and foremost the bulk of the populace sampled will tend to support or deny AGW and CAGW based on their political leanings. Those on left tend to be in favor while those on the right opposed.
In response to a study regarding right vs. left politics there was an article written in mother jones about why liberals tend to less accurately portray their political counterparts. http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/12/we-are-more-alike-we-think.
The most interesting part of the self analysis comes in part 4 of the potential explanation or hypothesis.
“a fourth possibility is simply that liberals are wrong. We interact very little with conservative institutions (churches, business groups, etc.) and therefore don’t understand them, while conservatives have no choice but to interact with liberal institutions (Hollywood, academia, etc.).”
this tracks well with a 2010 study regarding political ideology and the willingness to discriminate against opposing views. The findings of the study were 1 in 6 would discriminate in presentation or review, 1 in 4 for grant applications and 1 in 3 for for hiring. This corroborates the climategate emails and sentiments of conservatives (note recent IRS scandal).
http://yoelinbar.net/papers/political_diversity.pdf
Not only is the left self segregated and inundated in personal media, but at work, and potentially at home as well. With liberals having a strong tendency to cluster together according to a UMichigan study. (I couldn’t get it to work but ths is the purported link.
http://www.umich.edu/~jowei/florida.pdf
So if climate alarmism tracks with politics (it does) and if the politics it tracks with is essentially self segregated and isolated, then it stands to reason that the individuals within this category would never hear a critique of their belief structure. If they did there would be plenty of others affirming the beliefs and mitigating the psychological disruption. If you were constantly surrounded with people that agreed with you, the strength of your belief in the infallibility of yourself and those around you would be bolstered. The resultant moral authority, particularly when an individual who subscribes to the ideology is in power, makes even the most heinous actions justifiable.
Thus the result of this survey, ridiculous as it may be, could be factual. The study simply reflects widespread, undisturbed group think. There are indeed many other ridiculous things you might be able to find assuming that the hypothesis is true. This also explains the climatological debate, US politics (its winner take all after all) and the fundamental disregard for proven alternatives (such as nuclear or molten salt nuclear) to alleviate the problems ascribed in the ideology, if the solutions (and faults) aren’t part of the rhetorical structure they cannot be true.
Atheists-Evolutionists included Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao etc. The Gaia cult is composed of the same belief system and naturalist-materialism. If the human is just a bunch of chance molecules knocking about why not kill it ? Abortionists claim that the fetus is frog or a clump of meaningless tissue. Fascist theology demands purging, bloodletting and sacrifice for sins. Islam is the same in this regard as the cult of Gaia.
It is interesting how casually some warmists like Hansen (and the Greens before Warmism) support extreme depopulation and accept that their preferred actions (shutting down coal fired power plants, energy rationing) would cause mass starvation, or who argue that Africa should not be helped. I believe it is because they hold Nature (capitalization intentional) as the highest good, and that saving Nature must be done at any cost, as if Nature with no humans would have any one to appreciate “her”.
@Craig Loehle – “they hold Nature (capitalization intentional) as the highest good, ”
And firmly believe that man is not a part of nature, but rather a cancer on it.
Blimey. Some people won’t accept that this is a mockery of Lew’s poor methodology.
It is ridiculous. Lewandowsky is ridiculous.
Most people who I disagree with on the subject of Global Warming will be right about many subjects.
Most people who I disagree with on the subject of Global Warming I will agree with on the subject of genocide or the moon landings or the Elvis Presley’s CIA hit-squad. Because everyone agrees with that.
Even on the internet everyone sees that the crazies are crazy.
bshollenberger says:
January 15, 2014 at 5:56 am
I find it unbelievable that nearly 1 in 10 think that genocide is acceptable in any way, shape or form. Even if they were joking it’s a bit much.
@Fred Jensen – one needs only look to the support for Planned Parenthood in this nation to see the number is, while alarming, not surprising.
Figures don’t lie…but liars can figure
Fred Jensen, I think you were thrown off by WordPress stripping the extra spaces used to keep things aligned. I’ll rewrite it:
Thanks, Brandon. This already suffices. Don’t show these figures to the reviewers of your upcoming article. Probably, they will not ask for it.
Headline: Warmists Are Never Wrong, Even When Supporting Genocide
Caveat: The results are obviously nonsense.
So why publish a headline that is “obviously nonsense”. Feels like a cheap smear to me.
Steven Burnett:
Your post at January 15, 2014 at 6:21 am says
That political alignment only exists in North America and nowhere else.
Many who will have responded to the survey are not Americans.
And your mistaken assumption concerning political alignment is shared by some American extreme right-wingers who distort discussions on WUWT because they make that mistake.
Richard
Steven Burnett wrote:
“Thus the result of this survey, ridiculous as it may be, could be factual.”
So, Brandon, you correctly anticipated how folks would respond to your survey and how the results could be used to show an absurd correlation. The point is certainly valid, but did you also anticipate that some skeptics who might ridicule Lewandowsky for his methodology would flip over and suddenly endorse the methodology if it supported their world view?
Fred Jensen, only 29 out of 5,695 thought genocide was “good” or “great”. That is 0.5%. Another 1% said genocide is no big deal. (Perhaps they look around and don’t believe they see it happening or about to happen)
Perhaps you meant to write you are surprised that almost 10% didn’t reject genocide in the strongest term available – “terrible”? I get it: 29 people listing genocide as good or great is alarming. But 98.5% said it was terrible or bad.
Matt Skaggs, this silly exercise has had no effect on my considered opinion that an alarming fraction of Libs are anti-technology, anti-West and anti-Man. And, they are more like Lenin than Marx, in that they are ready to strike out vs. waiting for an eventual inevitable collapse.
I formed that opinion by listening to them and reading what they’ve written of their own free will.
Richard Courtney, are you saying there are not huge numbers of clueless Leftists in Europe, Canada and Australia that are so intellectualy inbred because of their political tribalism that they are no longer able to recognize their own craziness?
Watch this NASA Presentation I posted earlier to find out playing with the idea of genocide is not limited to warmists but well embedded in UN (Agenda 21) and US Government institutions like NASA.
One of the fist slides has this to tell
Space Ship Earth
The crew are:
– plundering the ship’s supplies
– Tinkering with the temperature and life support controls
– Still looking for instruction manual
– Engaging in bloody skirmishes in every corner of the vessel
– Increasing the size of the crew by 2 million PER WEEK
P. Creola
There is much more if you take your time to click through all 113 slides including the public slaughter of Americans on CNN. (No joke)
http://www.slideshare.net/johnkhutchison/future-strategicissuesandwarfare
Hell, even Obama’s Science Czar is obsessed with the concept of Genocide and can’t wait to bring his idea’s into practice. NAZI’s are particulary fond of the concept of Genocide and we have some people here in the US with roots in Europe before WWII who take their time to warn us for what is happening right now.
There are indications that NAZI’s pose a real problem in the US as illustrated in a video about
The Assassination of JFK Jr – Full Version:
Unfortunately many people I speak think too many people inhabit the planet. This doesn’t make them proponents of genocide but it does tell me we have a lot of explaining to do informing people that 7 billion, 10 billion or even 12 billion inhabitants is not a problem for the future of the planet.
Apparently the constant stream of information initiated by the Club of Rome about over population (Limits to Growth) and WWF (Three earth’s necessary to serve the current population) have proved to be effective propaganda which is in desperate need to be compensated by some basic sanity. Especially within Government circles.
The author states: “Believing global warming is a serious threat correlates with believing you are never wrong. Believing global warming is a serious threat correlates with supporting genocide. Therefore, global warming proponents believe they are never wrong, even when supporting genocide.”
The “Therefore” conclusion is fallacious, as correlation does not imply causation – the most that can be said is that a statistically significant proportion of actual respondents to this particular poll answered along these lines. But this exercise was promoted as making a point about the Lewandowsky poll so called out to be gamed by respondents, to have a prank. Personally, I think both polls were equally silly – what information can possibly be obtained by graduated responses to questions such as “You have psychic powers” or “… have been abducted by aliens” other than the response “Utter rubbish” – which wasn’t available.
May we have the full data on the poll responses please, both to follow scientific method properly and to allow us all to have a good laugh at many of the contrived answers.
You will never be wrong as long as you support UNFCCC/Agenda 21.
Ye gods! Some folk take themselves too damn seriously.
Matt Schilling says at January 15, 2014 at 7:31 am
Speaking for myself, not my father, I would say there are “huge numbers of clueless people in America, Europe, Canada and Australia that are so intellectualy inbred because of their political tribalism that they are no longer able to recognize their own craziness?”
I don’t see it as a regional thing or a left-right thing.
Just in, my experience, the English-speaking world is full of people who generalise about those they disagree with and then demonise them.
Jammy Dodger, I published it because the results were gotten via a methodology commonly accepted by global warming proponents. They shouldn’t accept the methodology because it is insanely wrong. As long as do though, I’m willing to use it to mock them.
Matt Skaggs, I did. However, I doubt many (if any) will. You quoted Steven Burnett, but he didn’t do it. He said the results may be right, but that doesn’t mean the methodology was. I picked that question for this survey knowing James Hansen and other environmentalists have been accused of supporting genocide. That predated my results.
Matt Schilling:
At January 15, 2014 at 7:31 am you ask me
No, on the contrary.
I am saying that in North America there are clueless right-wingers who when they look in a mirror fail to recognise that they are seeing people so intellectualy inbred because of their political tribalism that they are no longer able to recognize their own craziness.
And, unfortunately, they often pollute WUWT with their craziness.
So, having got that out of the way, can we please return to the subject of this thread?
Richard
I love the weasel words “ecological unloading”
Watermelon speak for mass murder.
TimC, I’m glad to hear you think both were equally silly. My goal was to replicate Lewandowsky’s process in a way that made it clear how ridiculous his approach was.
By the way, I posted a link to the data file on my site a little while ago. You might be surprised at how little gaming there was. It doesn’t really matter though. I intentionally designed my survey so people gaming it would increase, rather than decrease, the correlations I found. Filtering out fake responses actually strengthens my conclusions.
Richard Courtney, ” And your mistaken assumption concerning political alignment is shared by some American extreme right-wingers who distort discussions on WUWT because they make that mistake.”
You know Richard, I often enjoy reading your posts, as you consistently make cogent and sage comments on science and engineering. I only wish you would refrain from these sophomoric, juvenile, and naive socialist exhortations. It doesn’t become you.