Opinion by Dr. Tim Ball
We must welcome any refugee from the government falsehoods on global warming and climate change. However, the reason for the epiphany is critical and there must be accountability. Caleb Rossiter lost his position as a Fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) because he wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ). They said it didn’t agree with their philosophy because it spoke of damage done to Africans by climate change policy. The damage done is much wider and more damaging, but Rossiter appears unaware of the scale while IPS is in denial.
That damaging policy was going on for decades and was well documented through the 23 years Rossiter was with IPS. Where was he? He was out there teaching, preaching and promoting IPS policy as his Curriculum Vitae attests. Apparently for his entire career he ignored the damage it was doing. It’s clear he didn’t know what was going on because he was stunned by the IPS reaction. Likely, he spoke disparagingly of those who did speak out, as his comment to Climate Depot (CD) infers.
It is hard to understand what Rossiter was expecting when he wrote an article for the WSJ. A brief list of recent articles at the IPS web site includes;
EPA’s Carbon Rule Falls Short of Real Emissions Reduction
UN Green Climate Fund Open for Business – Now Where’s the Money?
Keep Dirty Energy Out of Green Climate Fund, Demand Activists and Community Groups
The Moment for Climate Justice – IPS
Fossil Fuels: The Tide is Turning – IPS
With such a bias just publishing in the WSJ is likely unacceptable.
He told CD “If people ever say that fears of censorship for ‘climate change’ views are overblown, have them take a look at this:” The comment intimates that he believed fears of censorship were overblown, otherwise, why be surprised when it happens to him. Where has he been? Now he thinks his loss of the Fellowship puts him in the group who, all along, have been skeptics. Now it appears he wants to play the victim card defined by Wikipedia.
It is common for abusers to engage in victim playing. This serves two purposes:
• justification to themselves – as a way of dealing with the cognitive dissonance that results from inconsistencies between the way they treat others and what they believe about themselves.
• justification to others – as a way of escaping harsh judgment or condemnation they may fear from others.
His cognitive dissonance appears to be twofold. He personally became aware of what other global warming skeptics have known for years and is embarrassed by his lack of awareness of how unjustified and nasty the attacks. He sold the IPS line without understanding or thinking of the consequences.
Caleb Rossiter is not a victim. He was accidentally thrown into a small club of people demonized for daring to question, to practice skeptical science, and to speak out. We wouldn’t be hearing about him now if it weren’t for the termination of his Fellowship. Some would read his article, a few might quote it and even fewer would be influenced, especially his former colleagues at IPS.
Where was Rossiter when skeptics were telling the world the climate science was bogus? Where was he when I was being served with three consecutive lawsuits for daring to write and speak about what was going on? Some say by mentioning these impacts I give comfort to those who brought the lawsuits. Maybe, but that is only true if they achieve their apparent goal and silence me. I want people like Rossiter and the public to know just how nasty, immoral, unethical and anti-intellectual their actions are. He has been missing in action and only reacts now because his ox is gored.
Now we hear about problems in Africa because of climate change policies. The issue is much larger and known about for a long time. It is Rossiter’s lack of awareness that is troubling. Crimes were committed and Rossiter was aiding and abetting by failing to open his mind and do his research. Why else would he have a Fellowship at the IPS?
On a recent radio program a caller asked me who had killed most people in history. The usual suspects mentioned included Hitler, Stalin, and Mao Zedong. The caller rejected them and said the answer was Rachel Carson with at least 90 million, mostly in Africa. Carson wrote “Silent Spring” that started the hysteria of environmentalism against chemicals. She believed her husband died of cancer because of DDT. There was never any proof and the claims about eggshells thinning were also a complete emotional misdirection. DDT was banned worldwide as environmentalists went to work imposing their view on all. Paul Driessen identified this in his book Eco-Imperialism that explains how western environmentalists imposed their views and philosophies on developing nations. Driessen opened his mind as the linked page explains,
A former member of the Sierra Club and Zero Population Growth, he abandoned their cause when he recognized that the environmental movement had become intolerant in its views, inflexible in its demands, unwilling to recognize our tremendous strides in protecting the environment, and insensitive to the needs of billions of people who lack the food, electricity, safe water, healthcare and other basic necessities that we take for granted.
Where was Rossiter when we were warning about the failures of alternate energies and the impact on economies? Where was he when we were writing about thousands of Africans dying because of high food prices caused by US farmers growing corn with government subsidies to fuel American cars? Does he know that the so-called “Arab Spring” protests in Egypt that triggered all the shouts about democracy among liberals, were actually food riots caused by governments listening to alternate fuel advocates like IPS?
There is a larger omission in Rossiter and the IPS view. It relates to the overpopulation issue that is basic to the environmental and global warming philosophy of the Club of Rome (COR) and incorporated in Agenda 21. Open-minded research would lead them to the Demographic Transition, first discussed in 1929 and in the literature since the 1940s. It shows that population declines as development increases. That is achieved by industrializing with fossil fuels. We also know that attempts to operate using green agendas and alternate energies doesn’t work.
It is too late for a mea culpa or even a mea maxima culpa. It is likely Rossiter would still support the IPS agenda if the Fellowship weren’t terminated. They left him. Is he going to expose what is wrong with the message of the IPS from now on? I doubt it, because of what it took to make him open his eyes. It likely hasn’t opened his mind, which appears was closed throughout his career.
There is no excuse. If you didn’t know what the IPCC were doing you are ignorant, if you did you are willful. How can you ignore the evidence of the leaked emails, the failed predictions, the change of names from global warming to climate change to disruption?
Some, like Klaus-Eckart Puls, admit their failure
Ten years ago I simply parroted what the IPCC told us. One day I started checking the facts and data—first I started with a sense of doubt but then I became outraged when I discovered that much of what the IPCC and the media were telling us was sheer nonsense and was not even supported by any scientific facts and measurements. To this day I still feel shame that as a scientist I made presentations of their science without first checking it.
The public is very frustrated because nobody is ever held accountable. It is especially egregious in bureaucracies, which is why Maurice Strong told Elaine Dewar he went to the UN with his political agenda. There he could get all the money he wanted and not be accountable to anybody. At what point is a person or a group responsible for their actions? How much loss of life and hunger, not to mention disrupted and destroyed economies, has to occur? What about the impact of the 2001 IPCC Report with its falsified “hockey stick,” that became the poster child for the demonization of fossil fuels and all subsequent energy and economic policies?
Now we read about Rossiter’s concerns as if he is the first to discover what has been going on for years. Spare me the histrionics and the Uriah Heap hand wringing and go back to your ivory tower in which you are isolated from the real world. Think about the phrase “It’s purely academic” that means it is irrelevant to the real world. The situation in Africa and around the world is a result of the leftist policies he supported and no doubt taught his students. So, the answer to the multiple-choice question in the title is “All-Of-The-Above”.
I welcome him to the truth. I will have greater sympathy for his defection when he acknowledges that he was a significant part of the problem and probably wouldn’t be a defector if he hadn’t lost his Fellowship. Knowing there is no accountability is a major driving force for much of the corruption and deceptions for a political agenda. Do we forgive murderers if they say murder is wrong? I will be more convinced and welcoming when he actively confronts the policies espoused by the IPS.
Rather blistering I would say.
Eugene WR Gallun
Wait till this guy finds out you don’t get paid for being a skeptic.
Eugene WR Gallun
Probably credits himself with figuring out that which others have been telling him for twenty years. Gurus may recant their teachings but they never recant their belief that they are gurus. It will take some convincing to make him realize that he doesn’t now hold a leadership position in the skeptic movement.
Eugene WR Gallun
Being a sore winner is undignified. The facts contained in your essay may all be true, but your overall tone is wrong. Smugness. Stridency. Hostility. They are just as unhelpful here as when they are so maddeningly practiced by AGW alarmists.
“Helping others” blinds us to the harm done by “good deeds”.
For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Newtons Third Law. Recognized as Yin and Yang more than 3000 years ago, it is what gives rise to the Law of Unintended Consequences.
In the west we narrowly apply Newton’s Third Law to mechanics, while we fail to recognize that it applies to everything.
Tim Ball:
I usually support and often applaud your articles on WUWT. However, in this case I write to disagree.
I am among those who for decades have been opposing the harm caused by harmful AGW policies such as biofuels (see e.g. http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/originals/biofuel_issues.html ). I want everybody to join those of us who know and understand the truth of the AGW-scare.
Long ago someone much wiser than me said
We are not in heaven so we need to welcome into the light all who repent a mistaken belief in AGW. Anything else hinders such repentance so minimises our numbers. The welcome includes joyful support and not opposition.
Richard
People can change. I have no clue if Rossiter has mitigated his opinions from earlier years. But he possibility exists. Time will tell if he has decided to become honest.
I have no problem with Tim’s tone. We aren’t talking about theoretical deaths attributable to policies involving ethanol as an example. Alarmists continue to preach from ivory towers to their believers that they are the righteous and good people of the planet and that anyone who disagrees with them should be jailed or tried for war crimes against humanity. When one of them is thrown from the tower I think it is an opportune time to point out the failings of the fallen, and point out why they were excommunicated. Redemption of the fallen is entirely in the hands of the fallen, and their redemption (if any) can only be judged by their future actions, not their past. They say confession is good for the soul, and I think in matters concerning changes in scientific viewpoints, such as becoming more skeptical about CAGW, confessions are critical to redemption, ala Puls. Let’s see what Caleb does with his opportunity…will he squander it, or be converted?
Here’s a similar statement:
Dr. Tim Ball can turn a positive thing into a negative thing. Misery invites company. I recommend psychological counseling.
This is a misguided, if not mean-spirited essay.
Simply because Mr. Rossiter has not yet embraced one’s own point of view, does not justify castigating him for not yet achieving skeptic nirvana.
Almost 50 years ago I witnessed the changeover from fixed continents to mobile continents. The shift was relatively painless because the continents move about as fast as fingernails. Little scaremongering was possible.
That is not the situation today for refugees from the catastrophic AGW camp. For some of ex-warmists, the theory of AGW will be, “The god that failed”.
I believe we ought to consider how to receive more graciously thousands more warmists as they lose faith in AGW, eventually all those who have been suborned by social, economic and political pressures and some who have been caught up in th religious and moral fervor surrounding the AGW crusade.
Today, warmists who realize that the world is not what they thought it was may experience something like loss of faith in a religion. And we cannot offer much to someone in place of the Church of Gaia, except “The null hypothesis cannot been disproved, therefore we reject the theory of catastrophic AGW.”.
In my opinion, we should be less judgmental and more willing to express sympathetic support for those suffering emotional trauma as they awaken from the counterfeit reality they have known most of their lives.
I suggest something like, the sign-off from “The Resilient Earth: “Be safe, enjoy the interglacial and stay skeptical.””
Let us not have any more articles like this, “We told you so. Why did you fail to listen to our words of wisdom”
Just imagine Mike Mann recanting!
Would he get a seat at the front of the bus?
richardscourtney:
You beat me by a couple of hours and stole my quote to boot. I agree with you 100%.
The Paul Driessen comment is the money quote:
…the environmental movement had become intolerant in its views, inflexible in its demands, unwilling to recognize our tremendous strides in protecting the environment, and insensitive to the needs of billions of people who lack the food, electricity, safe water, healthcare and other basic necessities that we take for granted.
Environmentalism is on an asymptotic curve; future improvements will occur in smaller and smaller increments. All of the major environmental problems have been fixed.
But the big enviro groups like Greenpeace have learned that by repeatedly sounding a false alarm, their members will funnel immense dues and other contributions into their accounts — more than $300 million per year at last report. And that is only one group. That money is then used to buy legislators and lawsuits — resulting in more income, and more political power.
Environmental concerns should properly be State concerns. President Nixon is vilified by the same groups that benefit from his creation of the federal EPA. Those groups are awash in money, which they get largely through their promotion of the carbon hoax. Can Mr. Rossiter follow the money?
Thanks Dr. Ball
I agree. Your statement “Knowing there is no accountability is a major driving force for much of the corruption and deceptions for a political agenda. Do we forgive murderers if they say murder is wrong? I will be more convinced and welcoming when he actively confronts the policies espoused by the IPS.”. Cannot be over empathized. Those in the mainstream media (MSM) that have much of the responsibility for the harm that has been and will continue to be caused. They must not be allowed to just shrug their shoulders and say sorry, if they are then these kinds of horrors will continue to be unleashed upon the world.
Jim Francisco
@richard
Oh how holy and noble. But to attain that pretence you had to ignore this from Ball’s article.
“I welcome him to the truth. I will have greater sympathy for his defection when he acknowledges that he was a significant part of the problem and probably wouldn’t be a defector if he hadn’t lost his Fellowship. ”
That is a welcome. And it says he has sympathy for him. But it also says, how about showing some accountability? How about looking at the policies that have caused damage that you have supported. How about taking responsibility for a career that has wallowed in the mire of Left Wing Progressive Puke with it’s attitude of all that matters is the practitioners intentions while the corpses pile up behind their never backward looking journey.
I feel Ball’s anger and think it totally justified, given the consequences of the policies of IPS and that Rossiter was a willing proponent of those actions that led to those consequences.
TANSTAFL! ‘There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.’ In economics or morality. Especially morality.
@Frederick Colbourne
Absolutely wrong, both psychologically and morally. Or to be more precise, the mea culpas to be extracted and expected are in direct proportion to the power held by the person recanting.
Joe Sixpack who got suckered by the nightly news gets away with a slap on the back of the head and an admonishment to pay attention and not be so easily suckered by the media.
But do your really think Al Gore, Harry Reid, Barack Obama, Michael Mann, Jim Hanson, Rajendra Pachauri et al should be treated to a slap on the back, a toothy grin, and a ‘hail fellow well met?’
There are scientists like Richard Dawson, Lawrence Krauss, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Sam Harris and others who have lent their prestige in an unthinking and uncritical manner to the AGW crowd because their politics were more in line with the AGW crowd. They need to be tarred and feathered (figuratively with moral sanctions), not greeted with open arms.
Has Greenpeace done anything illegal? Or how about Rachel Carson? This is a question for Western Civilization to answer…how should we respond to people who operate within the law but pursue policies with no point other than the accumulation of wealth or the aggrandizement of their own power (with lies, distortions and propaganda) that result in the deaths of millions?
You’re suggesting that we let them say, ‘Oops, guess we got it wrong.’ And that’s it? Really?
That isn’t moral but the abdication of any responsibility to pass moral judgement and as the saying goes, ‘All it takes for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing.’
At the very least we need to bring all the moral opprobrium we can muster to bear on people who have egregiously followed policies that have been wholly destructive, who have lent their reputations to those pursuits which includes people in the media, Hollywood and authors. For example: Joel Fox (Director and Producer of Gasland) is a rather nasty piece of work and deserves to be shunned by people everywhere. It is the very least that they deserve. Civilization requires nothing less to stay mentally healthy…otherwise the moral rot just slithers underground, makes us all sick, and waits for the next opportunity.
The problem we have with the Left (And CAGW is a creature of the Left) is that they have no moral opposition. The people that should be slamming them daily on moral grounds are asleep at the wheel and have been for 60 years.
@takebackthegreen
I understand what you’re saying but it is morally obtuse to say it.
“Being a sore winner is undignified. ” Really, is that how you see this? Dr Ball is the ‘winner.’ And for him to point out what is missing in Rossiter’s epiphany is to be undignified?
The side that stands for the Enlightenment. for science, for reason, for freedom hasn’t won yet.
This is not a game and it never ends and our unwillingness to pass moral judgement on those who pursue policies that harm people without every asking for moral accountability has done it’s part to lead to the moral rot that occupies Washington today.
I’d say smugness is contained in the notion of winners and losers in this game where people die when the policy makers get it wrong. It’s bad enough when those deaths are accidental but when they are considered as collateral damage on the way to Utopia by smug, sanctimonious folks who think they know everything there is to know and the little people should just shut up and do as their betters tell them it is galling to the point of creating visions of gallows.
You seem to be a practicing member of Clintonian morality: “What does it matter now, anyway?”
That is an abdication of a moral position. Just like Janet Reno who burned women and children alive, said ‘I accept responsibility,’ and then…nothing. What was the price of her actions? A hefty retirement account on the back of tax payers?
We have political leaders, activists, scientists all over the world declaring, ‘So?’ in the face of their policies making people’s lives miserable…to killing them. From the Great Society to Hope and Change we have let loose upon the world a bunch of do gooder authoritarians who believe deeply in their own moral superiority and think their particular world view is so important that any means to achieve their ends is justified and that it doesn’t matter how many people suffer and die as they use the police power of the State to ram it down everyone’s throat. And your attitude towards these people is…a shrug? Let’s go along to get along? Shall we turn a blind eye to the moral depravity of scientists on the public payroll who refuse to release their data, who refuse to reveal their computer code? Let’s ignore the lying and deception of UN members and academics and journalists and people who think intellectual integrity and fundamental honesty are irrelevancies in the modern age?
I think you confuse stridency and hostility with someone exercising a moral compass. Dr. Ball expressed a welcome and sympathy that was civilized and appropriate. But to pretend that Rossiter has not been part of the problem would be to go way too far, to give up moral responsibility which seems to be a disease of our time.
I’m a child of the Enlightenment. I think people should pretty much do whatever they damn well please as long as it doesn’t impinge on anyone else’s rights and they then should be allowed to suffer the consequences of their behavior. But in a society that values freedom, the ability to make moral judgement is paramount. This isn’t being judgmental, but practicing justice instead of just yammering about it.
The stridency, smugness and hostility of the CAGW crowd is a cover for their lack of integrity. It is nothing at all like a just person passing moral judgement on someone who has failed humanity in being a considerate and civilized human being who guards against self-delusion. What can we do with someone who is practicing values and following pursuits that are wholly damaging while willfully ignoring the consequences of those pursuits. Or worse, just not giving a damn.
I don’t know how to say it any more plainly, but this is a situation that requires every ounce of intellectual clarity, honesty and courage that we can muster in order to make appropriate moral judgements on the people who have plagued us with this massive fraud. And it is by no means over. The UN is a hotbed of this kind of phenomenon and will not fold up it’s tent and walk quietly out of town, but will simply transmogrify into some other con. If we don’t have moral clarity about the people that perpetrated this fraud, if we don’t exercise that moral clarity in passing judgement on these people…we simply invite them to reinvent another ’cause’ to pursue their pathologies and cut our own moral throats.
Dr. Ball should be applauded!
Early converts should be given a free pass. The die-hards who stick to their positions to the end should be made accountable for the whole. Justice will never be realized… better than that. GK
“Caleb Rossiter – Missing In Action, Johnny-Come-Lately, Faux Victim, Political Tunnel Vision, or All-Of-The-Above?”
You missed one Tim, “Rat jumping from sinking ship.”
Daniel:
.
re your post at June 21, 2014 at 11:21 am.
Please read my post at June 21, 2014 at 6:25 am again: it is here.
I was asserting practicality and not morality.
And I am often surprised that people who raise the issue of morality (as you have) make amoral comments.
Richard
Defectors from man-made global warming should be treated like the cult members that they are.
A study of defecting cultists concluded, “For deprogramming to work, the victim must be convinced that they joined a religious group against their will. They then must renounce responsibility and accept that in some mysterious way that their minds were controlled.”
Renounce. Accept that his mind was controlled.
Tim is helping this defector on that journey.
Tough love.
I am undecided as to the merits of the article. On one hand, I fully agree with the tone taken by Dr. Ball, that there should be loud and clear condemnation of the atrocious consequences of promoting the CAGW scam. It is a very fine example of the disgust that all right thinking people have, with the corruption within the politico/scientific dictatorship, that society endures today. I believe it is high time to call these charlatans to task and make them accountable.
I’m not sure about levelling his ire at Mr. Rossiter. I could be wrong, and happily stand corrected. My understanding is that Mr. Rossiter did not have an over night epiphany, or suddenly spoke out against the IPS after falling foul of them. He has been going against the flow for some time now and actively preaching against the CAGW myth, whilst still associated with the institute.
In his own article, he admits that he did support the party line of Obama etc. once upon a time, and he castigated those who didn’t. However with doubts creeping in, he began asking the awkward questions and finding answers that changed his mind. They threw him out after the oped he wrote, as a last straw. It seems he was a thorn in their side and probably causing considerable embarrassment. Who knows, maybe there are others within the institute similarly uncomfortable with the policies, but not brave or honest enough to shout stop.
If he wasn’t thrown out, I suspect he would still be there speaking contrary to their position, and we wouldn’t be discussing him as a victim or wheather or not we should feel sympathy for him. Indeed, I feel neither for him anyway, as I think he is better off not being associated with a criminal organisation.
Personally, I do not know Mr. Rossiter, so I simply put my view here with no agenda other than in the interest of fairness. I only Know Dr. Ball from the wonderful stuff he writes on climate and respect his understanding of this is probably more profound than mine. If it is difficult for the closet sceptic to jump ship because of retribution from the side abandoned, surely it will make the leap even more daunting, if the other side is waiting to shred you to pieces. Not to say that, I’m sure there will be plenty of climate alarmist refugees wanting mercy, when they plead innocence to all the above accusations by Dr. Ball, after their ship sinks, but that, I think is a different type of enlightenment. They deserve to face the full implications of their disgraceful past.
Eamon.
@ Tim Ball,
With respect, you have indeed put up with a great deal of persecution from Mann et al, which cannot be shared out among the rest of us who believe as you do, to lessen the blow—so you’ve taken a bit hit for the team, as it were. Thank you for being the kind of person to state unpopular views, and not cave when the other side uses the machinery of the legal system to try to silence you. People like yourself, Anthony, Dr Curry— What can I say? For what it’s worth, my very sincere thank you for all you have done, all you do.
But in the same way that I can’t help share your burdens even though I share your convictions about the climate, I don’t believe visiting all the scorn due to all the alarmists on this one person is entirely correct either, and it does appear to me that you are doing this in your post.
Everything you say is true, and you yourself, and others’ commets above, have mentioned that while the alarmists and the left speak academically about the “horrors” of warming, they either callously ignore or are criminally negligent of the toll in human lives and misery the policies they support cause, especially in the Third World. That said, I know more than a few who blindly support a skeptic stance simply because they oppose all the works of the Left, and are equally ignorant or callous in their disregard of the plight of citizens of the Third World, and only care about their own pain at the pump. There is callous disregard enough to go around in this world, for certain.
To me, your post appears to reveal bitter anger at the alarmists—which is very understandable, if true—and that you’re taking it out on this one person—which would also be understandable, but I don’t think it would be right. And if this isn’t your motive, I still feel that your tone is too harsh for the circumstance of this one individual at this time.
I agree that he should not be held up as some sort of martyr, since he really is only now, after profiting off the alarmist perspective for so long, apparently waking up to reality.
What I’m interested in is how he behaves from here out: did he really have his Saul-on-the-road-to-Damascus moment, or is his article sour grapes because he only just learned how vindictive his colleagues are?
However his future actions play out, I think if you look at this all again, if you can take my perspective, you will see his defection, even if it’s momentary, as a victory in the battle you’ve been waging with the alarmists: even if his post is simply his own angst at his treatment by his erstwhile friends, what prompted him to write what he did in the first place? Obviously, something that he read, or heard, or learned made him go back and re-examine what Science actually said, as opposed to the dogma he’s been repeating all this time.
From my perspective, you, and Dr Lindzen, and Dr Curry, and Anthony, et al, have won a big victory in the battle of ideas, and caused a defection from the other side.
No, it doesn’t mean the defector is absolved of accountability for any of his actions all these years, supporting policies that had tragic, real-world impacts. But are those who have stood by idle going to get a by, just because they agreed that cAGW was alarmist nonsense?
The Blame Game is self-defeating. Especially if we, in the minority position (as measured by influence with policy makers) adopt it. Castigating converts to our way of thinking is not going to win more converts. And in order to save people in the Third World from even more dire effects of misguided warmist policies, we need to swallow our egos, welcome converts with open arms, trumpet the news that yet another person agrees with us, and AFTER we have sane people in the positions of policy makers, AFTER we fix what is wrong with this entire situation, we can worry about who-shot-john.
Right now, we still need to win the battle of minds.
So while I don’t exactly agree with your tone and position regarding this lone individual right now, I agree with your sentiments as directed at the entirety of alarmists.
And again, you have my sincere thanks that you were willing to stand up and speak the truth even at the expense of not one but three lawsuits which were nothing but extra-legal attempts to silence you.
p@
And before some climb on me that I sound like some namby-pamby, “can’t we all get along type,” I’m retired military. Don’t make the mistake of thinking I’m nice.
I believe that strategy drives tactics, not the other way around, and history proves me correct. I don’t necessarily call myself a child of the enlightenment, but I am an autodidact, and I took my professional military career seriously.
It was said above that part of the rot in society is due to the unwillingness on “our” part to hold people accountable (if I may paraphrase to show I understood. If you believe I haven’t, let me know). I’m well aware of the damage done by relativism in moral thought; it was a subject well documented by Allan Bloom in The Closing of the American Mind nearly thirty years ago, and revisited again just last year by Bruce Bawer in The Victims’ Revolution, The Rise of Identity Studies and the Closing of the Liberal Mind. I highly recommend both.
Having been aware of this rot in our education system during the Reagan years, “we” were still unable to prevent it from bringing about the “PC revolution” (by the way, “political correctness” was a term coined by the Communists in the 1920s—few ideologies were more closed-minded) which ushered in the Clinton years. Or was perhaps ushred in BY the Clinton years. Why?
In my opinion, primarily because people mistook tactics for strategy. Rose and Milt Friedman could speak all they wanted about Freedom to Choose, but provided no strategy for ensuring that we remained free. And the Statists, with Agenda 21, out-planned those who had won the Cold War with Communism and it’s centrally planned economy. And who are those who are pushing the Green Agenda? Statists and others, primarily on the political Left, who use it as the crisis of the moment to stampede the electorate. And it works. That is their tactic. One tactic. There are others. Their goal is world domination with a global government; this isn’t melodrama on my part, it’s well documented.
If we wish to undo their bad works, our strategy now must be how to end the stranglehold the alarmists have on the Policy Makers ears, and what passes as “news” media. THEN we can worry about accountability. Which is not to dismiss the issue of accountability, that it’s just an afterthought. No: it’s merely that we’re like the mythical hungry man who says, “If only I had a chicken, I could have chicken soup. But if I had a hen, I could have eggs and chicken soup. If I had…” If only doesn’t get anything done.
Think of it in terms of WWII and the Nuremberg Trials (an ironic comparison, since the Left wants to hold such for “deniers”, claiming we’re guilty of the crimes that their policies are creating right now): no, I’m not advocating accepting people like Algore and Michael Mann with a “toothy smile” and a handshake. Had he survived to surrender, do you think Hitler would’ve gotten a handshake and smile, and a good-sportsman-like, “Well fought! You gave us a run for our money!”?
I’m not advocating anything radically different regarding those who were profiteers on the misery their inflicting on everyone else. What I am saying is that it’s a little early to be deciding what color you want to paint their prison cells.
There’s nothing wrong with building castles in the clouds… …until you try to move in.
Let’s stay focused. The strategy has to be based on the goal, and the goal has to be ending the lock the AGW Alarmist crowd has on policy-making.
Anything which does not directly further that mission is distraction.
For all his justifiable anger at the Left and the Alarmists, Dr Ball’s article here is a distraction.
I believe now is the time for a good, through whistle blowing book by the good professor.
Turn on the lights and tell the world the things he’s seen and done.
If the organization is on the up and up then they have been honest in all of their dealings then he has no material for a book.
On the other hand…
What has he seen and what made him come out of the closet?
If he was indeed a closet skeptic does he know of more that are afraid to speak?
cn
interesting bit of info I’ve gained by raising turkeys. The girls lay eggs with shells of various thickness depending on how well I supply them with calcium carbonate.
Nothing to do whatsoever with pest control. It’s all down to their diet.
P@ Dolan:
Thankyou for your very fine post at June 22, 2014 at 8:10 am. I write to draw attention to it.
To help people find it, it is here.
Richard
The Heartland Institute should offer Caleb Rossiter a fellowship.
Make a convert out of him, not an infidel.
He might again feel secure but on a different bandwagon.
The bandwagon upon which empirical science rides.
A very good article.
P@ Dolan,
Respect Sir, those were fine posts.
A plague on all your houses.
This article disgusts me.
Better late than never to have seen the light at all.