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…
bshollenberger says:
January 15, 2014 at 4:31 pm
Seriously guys? Are you trolling, or are you really so petty and self-centered you’d sabotage a good thread with this drivel?
===============
Threads go off the rails…..
So, bring it back on…
You think this is “petty and self-centered “, just wait.
I’m just getting started.
So, now this is a serious post about “nonsense” ?
No one told me.
Richard Courtney, ” Do lefties such as me and e.g. Jo Nova have to stop opposing AGW because right-wing nutters claim we must be right-wing to oppose AGW? Please remember that almost all right-wing politicians in Europe promote AGW.”
Slow learner I see. Stick with your wonderful science knowledge, and take your socialists rants to other sites.
Like with the Lewandowsky survey in Sept 2012, I have taken a quick look at the data, using pivot tables in Excel. Brandon Shollenberger has managed to replicate many of the problematic features in the Lewandowsky paper. In particular
1. Analyzing the views of one group through (mostly) surveying the opposed group.
2. The results being dependent on a small number of, clearly, scam responses.
3. Having questions that nearly every sensible person will support, so that the scam responses stand out.
As well as debunking Lewandowsky’s methodology, Brandon Schollenberger has (possibly inadvertently) achieved something else. He has shown that the extreme belief in impending climate catastrophe that justifies policy is held by very few people. About 3% of total responses. Take out the scam responses, and it is an even smaller proportion. Whilst Lewandowsky asked questions to polarize, the reality is much more nuanced.
http://manicbeancounter.com/2014/01/16/observations-on-the-shollenberger-survey/
“That political alignment only exists in North America and nowhere else.”
Maybe you should learn about other countries before saying this.
If you really want to get into it, genocide is happening in Iraq, right now.
Afghanistan, also certain countries in Africa, are in the midst of it.
Are they included in the stats ?
@bschollenberger;
The <pre> tag might work to enforce fixed font tables:
Means “preformat”.
Oops; left lotsa viariable font spaces in place which expanded.
Again:
Last try.
[Easier, and less distracting, and faster, to use the “test” screens. See the top of the WUWT page, click on the “Test” tab. Mod]
{Also, decide where you want the columns to line up with each other (decimal place, right edge, left edge.)}
typo: WYSIWYG
It does appear to be a simple arithmetic that the UN with its UNIPCC and UNFCCC is striving to build, institute and achieve. If you check out the UNFCCC website, http://unfccc.int/2860.php, it’s all about ‘Finance’, I would posit as in Romancing The ‘Climate’.
It is all written in the 2nd “Founding Statement” of the IPCC! All is settled, all is consensus all cause rests with humans.
Of course, Finances, must be given by people, a portion of the wealth they create!
Instituting Genocide to achieve reduction of GHG and ‘reverse’ human global warming will be counter productive because, people make money and killing people decreases money (Al Gore’s nightmare on Elm Street [staring Al as Freddy] conundrum).
Has James E. Hansen [and ‘anointed GISS Savior wunderkind’ Gavin Schmidt who famously ‘does not debate’ yet will appear on camera but not in the same frame as a ‘questioner’] painted himself into a corner without escape? Granted! Ah. [trimmed.] Fun for the whole family, eh not the ‘nuclear’ family for sure, and leave the kid(s) at home with the nanny, least they not have nightmares like Al and growing up into an image of Barak Obama. E Gads.
…backing out of the thread quietly and with much darting of the eyes…
Brian H, thanks. I didn’t realize WordPress supports that.
manicbeancounter, I don’t think you can conclude anything about the prevalence of views on the subject of global warming. The sample wasn’t remotely representative. Also, I’m pretty sure your 3) was supposed to be “every sensible person will oppose.” I asked about things like genocide. I don’t think sensible people will support that!
By the way, I liked your post.
Run the number.
If they believe that AGW is real, and we have to do real mitigation, then a reduction of the human population to less than 1.5 billion a single generation is a necessary part of any solution. So they are just being consistent.
Bob:
re your post at January 15, 2014 at 5:41 pm.
Clearly, you fail to see the irony in your claiming I am a “slow learner” concerning your red-neck trolling.
I refer you to the post of Aphan which points out your error. To help you, I provide this link which jumps to it.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/15/warmists-are-never-wrong-even-when-supporting-genocide/#comment-1536881
Richard
AlexS:
re your red-neck trolling at January 15, 2014 at 6:46 pm.
I live in a country other than North America.
And the AGW scare originated in my country. It was created by the right-wing Margaret Thatcher.
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2012/09/12/richard-courtney-the-history-of-the-global-warming-scare/
Please stop polluting WUWT with untrue red-neck myths.
Richard
Whether AGW politics are Left or Right, more important is whether it is politically Totalitarian or Open. (N.’s were Left and Totalitarian, no?)
Soros’ point about an Open Society: we recognise knowledge is always imperfect and delusions are self-confirming so nobody tries to impose anything with too much force, because even the best intentions can cause unforeseen bad consequences.
An Open global governance can’t be for population control because that takes away the distributed intelligence of the people who can figure things out for themselves.
If you’re sitting in your office writing thoughtful pieces about how you’d rule the world, for the good of all, maybe in consensus with your like-minded friends, for world harmony, “we have to do something”, then that is totalitarian.
Open systems allow the chaos and distributed intelligence to work it all out as best possible, in ways small groups can’t manage. Empires fail because sooner or later they become too big for any small group to understand.
An Open answer to AGW is to let people figure out for themselves how to adapt.
The contradiction is the AGW people who claim they know the facts and the only people who are subject to delusions are the deniers. That’s totally missing the point about uncertainty. An Open society knows it is ALL uncertain, and we don’t impose anything believing ourselves to have got it right.
I haven’t seen much negative response so far, but Greg Laden is amusing me:
https://twitter.com/gregladen/status/423631600601948161
I don’t think he’s caught onto the fact this is all a joke. I hope he doesn’t:
https://twitter.com/gregladen/status/423802462974128130
For additional fun, I don’t know what’s so hard to understand about the idea of people believing something without believing all arguments used to support it.
https://twitter.com/lrmothersole/status/423749608842747904
I’m starting to wonder if any critics have actually read what has been written.
There are death trains. They carry oil. Warren Buffett owns shares. This accident didn’t kill anyone:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-31/north-dakota-train-fire-adds-fuel-to-keystone-xl-debate.html
This one killed 47.
http://freebeacon.com/keystone-pipeline-could-get-boost-following-canadian-train-accident/
And who is responsible? The people blocking the cross border section of the Keystone Pipeline.
These folk ask in the comments:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3107473/posts
Buffett owns the railroads that transport the oil. That is why Obummer won’t build a pipeline. Where are the Commies protesting the greed of Buffett?
bshollenberger:
Thankyou for your information in your post at January 16, 2014 at 5:33 am.
Yes, that is amusing, and you are ‘on a roll’. Clearly, Greg Laden is worried.
Either he accepts that
(a) the method of Lewandowsky et al provides spurious results
or
(b) the method of Lewandowsky et al provides a result which he calls “asinine and offensive”.
Please keep up the good work. Science progresses by falsification.
You have falsified the method of Lewandowsky et al in a manner which puts a bomb under it, and Greg Laden can hear a ticking noise.
Richard
Actually I think I’m warming to the notion of some selective unloading –
http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/timblair/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/poley_dancer/
WARNING: put your coffee down before opening Tim’s link
Probably just need a modest UN grant to study the probability of Fukishima blowing a hole in the troppospheric CO2 layer and letting the alien space rays in.
richardscourtney, thanks. The trap you describe was the idea behind this approach. The problem is people like Greg Laden can just keep their mouths shut and avoid it. I’m not sure how to get around that. Maybe just keep hammering at them about the issue until they discuss it?
In other news, I think I fixed my display name. It was really bugging me.
It is necessary to call attention to the paragraph quoted in the article is preceded by another which says the following:
“There are two ways to do this: the first is a combination of Unloading and Setting Aside, the second is Active Restoration Within the Culture of Maximum Harm the first option is impossible to Achieve..”
Ie, the author of the Post in a malicious way removed the previous paragraph to dramatize the discussion, and places as an option Keith Farnish an option he considers impossible.
Whether or not we skeptics maintain honesty!
I am sorry people – but this article is an absolute joke.
I don’t believe man made climate change exists, but at the same time I don’t believe people that do support man made climate change are in support of genocide as this ludicrous article clearly suggests.
Further to that, and here is the irony, despite my views on climate change I also am being accused of supporting mass genocide. And for what – daring to say that the world is overpopulated. I also think Americans are fat and overweight. It does not follow that I want them all to go on a diet. Nor do I believe that the global population should be reduced.
Everything I read here is about demonstrating some conspiracy theory.
Meanwhile, any sensible discussion on here that discusses the fallacy of man made climate change will be muddied by silly conspiracy theories.
At one end of the spectrum you have sites like SKS and Hot Topic that are propaganda sites for man made climate change. Or the blogs on the Guardian, run by John Abraham and his sidekick from SKS. At the other end you have WUWT.
Apart from a bit of tit for tat I thought WUWT was quite good at refuting man made climate change. But my view over the last few days has been quite different. I have heard enough references to genocide and mass extermination to last me a lifetime.
There used to be a few sites around that objectively discussed climate change – they simply don’t exist any more. If they do, I haven’t found one.
I am happy to support the anti man made climate change view, wherever I can, but at what cost. The most recent post to me from Richard Courtney in the other thread I was posting in, where he compares me to something stuck on his shoe demonstrates exactly why this is clearly not the place for me to put posts. You are welcome to it. I won’t waste any more time trying to convince people that can’t be convinced of my beliefs and what drives them.
Richard Courtney, “Clearly, you fail to see the irony in your claiming I am a “slow learner” concerning your red-neck trolling.”
So, Richard, anyone who is not a socialist is a red-neck troll. I used to enjoy reading your posts but your comment reveal a certain character flaw, i.e. resort to ad hom when all else fails. It is a shame.
rogeriomaestri, that’s just silly. I never claimed the author of the book said that was the only idea to consider. I never even claimed the author said we should do it. I claimed the author said it would be the right thing to do. That’s true even if other ideas exist.
Accusing me of maliciously taking the quote out of context requires claiming the author didn’t say it would be right to burn down cities and blow up dams. However, the paragraph I quoted clearly says:
Which is what I described. There is no basis for your accusation of dishonesty.