The royal prince in waiting of Britain labels climate skeptics as “headless chickens”.
From The Telegraph:
Prince Charles has criticised climate change deniers, describing them as the “headless chicken brigade” during an awards ceremony recognising a leading young green entrepreneur.
Charles, who has campaigned for years to reduce global warming, also spoke out against “the barrage of sheer intimidation” from powerful anti-climate change groups during the event held at Buckingham Palace last night.
The mark of a true leader is bringing people with diverse views and backgrounds together, clearly with this recent pronouncement, Prince Charles clearly has failed as a leader.
I’ll point out a few things the prince who may be king should know, but doesn’t, or chooses not to.
1. Rational climate skeptics don’t doubt that some portion of the proposed greenhouse effect is real, it’s just that nobody (and that includes many scientists) seems to be able to agree upon how much. The few who actually deny the Greenhouse effect exists, such as the “Slayers” aka “Principia Scientific” only represent the views of a fringe.
2. Item 1 then leads to arguments about climate sensitivity, values are literally “all over the map”:
3. The global climate isn’t responding as it was predicted by government scientists, the trend over the last 12 years is basically flat:
Compare that to climate sensitivity predictions, which center around .2°C
The three graphs above are from Michaels and Knappenberger in this post.
4. The response of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is nearing saturation, which may explain why there is little warming over the last 12 years:
Figure 4 is from this WUWT post: Sensitivity Training: Determining the Correct Climate Sensitivity
5. While rational climate skeptics point out reality based factual inconsistencies with warming projections, the global warming movement has been hijacked by emotional activists, such as Bill McKibben and Al Gore, who use emotional pleas and invective to motivate people. You won’t see them ever show the graphs above because they don’t deal in facts, only emotional appeals.
6. By making an emotional label about climate skeptics, instead of dealing with facts, Prince Charles demonstrates that’s he’s no different than Bill McKibben and Al Gore. Given recent opinion polls, he’s basically called about half of his potential subjects “the headless chicken brigade”, yet it is he who seems to be centered on the emotionalism and randomness more suited to that label.
Perhaps there is a reason the Queen has held on so long.
Possibly not easy to understand in America but so long as Charles doesn’t kill anyone he can do and say most anything wants to. He doesn’t have to worry about elections, public opinion, money etc. He owns most of Cornwall and about the only person he is accountable to is his mother. If Victoria didn’t disown her son Bertie I can’t see Elizabeth dumping on Charles. He has nothing to prove, in fact you can disapprove of him until you are blue in the face for all the good it will do you.
Oldseadog says:
February 1, 2014 at 9:14 am
> Tsk Tsk, Mr. Watts, “Britain” not “England”
What’s the difference between “Great Britain” and “Britain”? Is the latter just a nickname? I assume there’s no “Lesser Britain” unless that’s what the EU and British energy policies have created. 🙂
Charles is not all that bright, but he is sincere and honest, which is really all that his job requires. If the position was held by a highly intelligent, forceful personality then the true elite would see him as competition and a threat, and they would get rid of him one way or another. By maintaining a kindly, slightly woolly style he remains popular and safe. On the positive side, once you have got through to Charles you have probably gained the support of the majority of public opinion anyway. I do not think you will get through to him with this kind of insolent sarcasm, though. He doesn’t like it any more than you do.
Britons seem to generally agree that Charles is a loon. Most of us are hoping the monarchy can skip a generation and go to one of the kids.
Novantae says:
February 1, 2014 at 9:32 am
“Go easy on him – he comes from a very dysfunctional family background. He’s really quite a pitiful creature.
Did you know he talks to plants?”
Yes; many people do that; but he is one of the few who maintain that the plants answer.
Makes me wonder if the Royal Family has sunk a lot of money into green schemes.
Prince Charles and Al Gore should start a carbon footprint hypocrites club.
Didn’t he once say that the best thing for the environment would be for a deadly virus to wipe out half of humanity?
King Charles, should he ever ascend, will be the last English monarch. I have no doubt that that is why Elizabeth will die as Queen regent rather than step down while her embarrassment of a son yet lives.
Steven says:
February 1, 2014 at 9:48 am
“Didn’t he once say that the best thing for the environment would be for a deadly virus to wipe out half of humanity?”
That was a different one of the Welfen. Prince Philip I think.
About all you can say for the Hapsburgs is that they were slightly smarter than the Stuarts. But that is not saying much at all.
However, I cannot forgive Charles for being an adulterous cad. He had the morals of a snake. One of the best things that ever happened to me is that grandad and grandmom got on the boat and left that freak show.
Ouch!
Did not mean to tread on silk shod slippers. In this arena all public figures are fair game. He raised his head “above the parapet” and there it is. Do you really think he’s reachable through logic.
We got into this mess by placing way to much weight on the loose thoughts of the high and mighty. Putting them in their proper place in our minds is a big part of the solution.
Prince Charles finds himself at the Head of the Chicken Little Brigade, clouds to the left of him, models to the right, onward, onward, into the Valley of the Shadow of Doom.
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Anthony, I hope someday it may dawn on you that what you now consider to be “the fringe” – those like me who disregard any significant CO2 influence – have been in the right place all along. I think the true deniers are people who deny the Sun’s variability is the reason for “climate change”.
All are encouraged to spend 48 minutes watching a fascinating video from 1977 called ‘The Sunspot Mystery’ at http://youtu.be/v3frXY_rG8c to see what scientists back then knew about the sun-earth weather/climate connection. It’s interesting to see how far from that basic understanding we’ve come in the last 37 years as scientists ignored history while taking us down the wrong road.
Notice that Dr. Stephen Schneider in this video was firmly in the solar warming camp before he later turned towards CO2 as the cause of warming. My own soon-to-be-released fact-based video on this same channel will support solar-caused warming and cooling. Preconceptions of out-of-box thinking will soon crumble as the truth is revealed…
As for Charles, Gore, and Obama: they are protecting their agenda (21) driven lockdown and regulation of all energy sources worldwide. They are the real “chickens” and the real “deniers”. They are very afraid to sit down with people they disagree with and come to a real consensus. They are the people who have gone to great lengths to intimidate anyone who gets in their way.
Right now I think they are afraid – very very afraid of an increasingly wary and resistant public. Will we see a backlash from the government with further demonization of people in their way? I think they are setting the stage for that. Have a nice day and keep up the good work.
REPLY:Changed. I can never figure out which is correct, England, United Kingdom, and Britain are essentially interchangeable terms in the American psyche, at least that’s my view of it – Anthony
Anthony
The time to start worrying is when you call Scots, “North Britons”!
One or two points to note.
I wouldn’t expect him to understand anything that you couldn’t sketch on a stable door with a stick of chalk. Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity trends and frequencies? You’re having a laugh!
This is a guy who believes in Homeopathy and talks to his tomatoes.
After Climategate broke, he re-arranged his (admittedly busy) schedule to drive to UEA to express his sympathies and strong support for the CRU incompetents and con men.
He may talk of ‘deniers’ having ‘vested interests’ but he makes Millions every year from Big Wind. Apart from the Whirligigs on land which he controls, the power from every offshore subsidy farm obviously has to come on shore, across the land / sea bed below low tide level, all of which ‘belongs’ to the Crown Estates.
I guess our American readers knowledge of English history may be understandably rusty. But the first Royal Charles (Charles Stuart or Charles I) came to a bad end. Captured and tried by Parliament in the name of the People, the Chief Judge’s verdict was that “he, the said Charles Stuart, as a tyrant, traitor, murderer and public enemy to the good of this nation, shall be put to death by severing of his head from his body.” One might have expected that even Prince Chuckles might have hesitated to use an insult about “headless” anything!
Could this be the same Prince Charles, who was so concerned about green issues, that he took the whole Royal Train on a week’s tour of the UK, with just himself and a few flunkies on board, in order to preach his message!
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2014/02/01/prince-charles-still-does-not-get-it/
REPLY:Changed. I can never figure out which is correct, England, United Kingdom, and Britain are essentially interchangeable terms in the American psyche, at least that’s my view of it – Anthony
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Cliff notes version :
Great Britain is the main island, which consists of England, Scotland and Wales.
The United Kingdom also includes Northern Ireland, hence the full title “The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland”.
Ireland, despite being part of the same island as Northern Ireland, is a separate independent country.
Some off-shore islands (Channel Islands, Isle of Man) are self-governing, while others (Orkney, Shetland, the Hebrides, the Isle of Wight & the Isle of Anglesey) are not, and are considered part of Scotland, England and Wales respectively according to their geographical location I’ll stop now, because it’s starting to get confusing.
Hope that helps…..
Oh, and Prince Charles is a twat.
Who cares? He’s not a climate scientist, so (as they used to say about us) why should we listen to him?
@richard Sharpe – Her Majesty owns rights to the sea bed all round the country. Her Majesty’s Government is planning lots of (highly profitable) wind turbines in offshore locations …
It would be lovely if the majority did indeed listen to rigorous scientific discourse. Such has been absent in these considerations and has resulted in much ado about nothing. Charles lost out in arithmetic. PDE are so far beyond him as to appear magical. There’s the rub, it’s magic.
Ric Werme says at February 1, 2014 at 9:43 am
Lesser Britain is Brittany, currently in NW France. It is lesser in area.
About a thousand years ago it was in the Dukedom of the Normans (Norsemen who’d settled there and converted to Christianity). When William I (the Conqueror) defeated Harold Hardrada at the Battle of Hastings this island became the other part of his territory and the “Great” came into use for the land of the Britains (Bretons) in the northern part of his lands.
Both were already lands of the Bretons.
You can tell him what you think here ( https://www.princeofwales.gov.uk/contact-us ) as I have, but please remember not to play using his tactics. Ad hominems never improve an argument.
For the UK, let’s hope instead for “sprinklings of real ale in the low lying areas, outbreaks of common sense, and absolutely no chance of cyclonic fruitcakes.” Nigel Farage of UKIP reports:
I just can’t see Charles surfing the net to educate himself on matters of which he so ignorantly, and pompously, opines, so he, like so many, will remain ignorant. The rest of us, well, WUWT is just a click and some study time away…