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Guest essay by Charles Battig
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Shakespeare’s Hamlet pondered the eternal conundrum of competing choices. His “Aye, there’s the rub” nicely summarizes the conflicts inherent in the present socio/political/scientific arena of climate discussions.
Years of relentless doomsday prognostications by a variety of public voices spanning the political-scientific spectrum have found their mark in a gullible and guilt-prone public. There is a Medusa-like quality in the serpentine web of doomsday prophets, including members of the Club of Rome, Paul Ehrlich’s “Population Bomb,” and the current White House science advisor, John Holdren. Al Gore came to discover “Inconvenient Truths,” later found to be not so truthful.
Al Gore’s contribution to making climate change a co-equal amongst the four horsemen of the apocalypse is matched by M. Mann’s reinterpretation of global temperature history. Repeated refutations of “faulty” science and failed predictions of climate calamities have not deterred these marketers of doom. Cut the head off, yet it lives on.
Sustainability, population control, and redistributive-based social justice were offered as moral justifications for the one-world governance needed to solve one-world problems, as posited by the UK’s Barbara Ward. Answering this “cri de coeur,” the U.N. global bureaucrats crafted the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as the instrument by which life-sustaining carbon dioxide would be reinvented as the most dangerous threat to the world. Our current Federal government is more certain than ever that “the science is settled,” and that the global climate bears the human stain of excessive consumption of fossil fuels. An unelected Federal agency, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), has assumed the role of guardian of public health via arbitrary edicts regulating all things atmospheric, in addition to all surface waters. Those wishing to pursue independent traditional scientific inquiry and reproducibility of EPA claimed findings have noted an adamant shyness by the EPA in producing the requested original data.
“Fear and loathing” is no longer confined to Las Vegas, but has been turned into a self-hate/guilt propaganda tool by doomsday prophets and fear profiteers. Humans are carbon — based life forms intertwined in the biological interdependence upon green plant production of oxygen and consumption of carbon dioxide. Thus the guilt stage is set for humans to be declared a living source of this newly-defined carbon pollution, and therefore enemies of mother Earth. According to the Club of Rome: “The common enemy of humanity is man. In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.” Population control is the implied remedy.
More recently, a trio of financial market heavyweights has entered the climate change propaganda fray with their “Risky Business” media blitz. Perhaps somewhat jealous of the huge financial profits that Al Gore‘s Generation Investment Management (GIM) made from his doomsday climate predictions and inconvenient truth campaign, these risk experts have their own updated scare story. Business will lead the way, they say: “We believe that American businesses should play an active role in helping the public sector determine how best to react to the risks and costs posed by climate change, and how to set the rules that move the country forward in a new, more sustainable direction.” Trust us, we are from the government has been usurped by a “trust us, we are from business.” These risk experts and their companies have reaped huge financial rewards by profitably defining and pricing risk, and then getting the public to pay insurance premiums to protect itself from the hypothetical risk. The greater the hyped risk, the greater the corporate insurance profit.
Countering this climate doomsday propaganda has been a number of scientists and independent organizations. Manipulation of the historical temperature record by our own government agencies has been documented. Such revisions serve to make the historical record conform to the political aims and views of our Federal government, that global warming is occurring and is linked to fossil fuel use. Proliferation of internet access has provided the new open public soap box, independent of traditional media, itself fully in the climate panic mode. Web sites maintained by Anthony Watts, Marc Morano, and Steve Milloy are just a few of many striving to get the unpoliticized science before the public.
In this admittedly truncated history of climate change propaganda and counterargument, there is contained the conundrum originally mentioned. Incomplete climate science, unsubstantiated claims in place of traditional scientific proof, political policy dogma, social equity objectives, and businesses feeding off the largess of government and public fear continue to receive scant criticism in the general media. The public has downgraded its concern with “climate change” when polled, yet it continues to elect politicians dedicated to enacting a governmental cure for climate change. Businesses profit from proclaiming that they are “green.” Renewable is the key word for obtaining government largesse.
For the public at large, scientific truth alone does not trump feelings of environmental guilt and demands that politicians take care of the presumptive problem. Scientific validity in these matters is an essential, but not adequate response to change the public’s emotional concerns for “clean air,” “clean energy,” and a “healthy environment for themselves and their children.”
Economist Julian Simon reflected upon the failure of the news media to report his debunking of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s “vanishing farmland scam” in his 1999 book, Hoodwinking the Nation. Most of the rest of the book deals with the conundrum of the public’s propensity to accept “false bad news.” In the intervening 15 years there is little evidence that this peculiar human trait has changed; bad news still sells; bad news still drives charitable public donations.
Even earlier, Charles Mackay provided historical evidence for the peculiar behavior and beliefs of large crowds in his 1841 book, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. It contains an insightful account of the “Tulipomania” craze of the mid-1600s. When considering the current climate change craze, reflect upon Mackay’s observation that: “We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object and go mad in its pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one delusion, and run after it, till their attention is caught by some new folly more captivating than the first.”
So perhaps climate change hysteria may yet have to burn itself out much like a disease pandemic. Meanwhile traditional science-backed climate studies will continue to have an uphill fight against the propensities of human nature and the madness of crowds.
Charles Battig, M.D., Piedmont Chapter president, VA-Scientists and Engineers for Energy and Environment (VA-SEEE). His website is www.climateis.com
“AllanJ says:
“But I believe much of the heat in the climate debate stems, not from science, but from this fundamental difference in moral viewpoint. The science debate is fun, but that is not where the decisive battle lies.”
Yup, speaking as a Christian myself that is a pretty good synopsis. The science is very important – it’s more than “fun” – it is crucially important – but, w/r/t CAGW – it can be looked at as – is humanity – all of humanity – truly special, or is humanity nothing but a resource-chewing parasite on the earth? Yes, if you study the history of the population bomb and CAGW movements – it can be that extreme. Most of the people involved in the population bomb and subsequent CAGW movements – entertainers, politicians, media, many of the scientists themselves – are not bad people, they are nothing more than useful idiots, not misanthropes or racists, just clueless. But the people at the very top, – the Ehrlichs, Holdrens, Strongs, Pachauris, etc – are racists and misanthropes – Dear God, may they please come to recognize the error of their ways!
And, as a Christian I see no conflict between science and religion, both are needed, both are necessary, and both should be focused on the truth and nothing else, of course both can be used improperly and perverted.
Funny, I’ve mentioned Brave New World a few times here – I am a Christian , Huxley was an atheist (well, he *was* an atheist, and like Carl Sagan, he no longer is) and I love that book and see it as prophetic – and I see the population bomb and eco freaks trying to create it, through my own personal Christian lens –as these lunatics are bound and determined to take everything from us in the developed countries that makes us truly human and special, our very souls as human beings, and basically turn us into ultra-controlled zombies – and w/r/t the suffering 3rd world, take away a large chunk of humanity itself.
The last witch hunt, alas, was not at Salem. It was across the US and Western Europe in the 80’s and 90’s – the “satanism in our child care centers” hysteria, of which the McMartin case is the most famous.
Don’t have to go that far back to see the madness of crowds, remember Y2K?
I live just outside of Los Angeles, and I see that dome of brown air that frequently covers the city, and you know that it is hurting the quality and length of life for those who live in it. The good news is that brown dome is less brown now it was 30 years ago, so our move to reduce pollution has improved our quality of life, but now that positive movement has turned into almost hysteria with the linking of carbon fuels to catastrophic global warming. A movement I used to support has turned into one I now hate because of all the scam artists making money off of fear and killing our economy.
JimBob:
The last witch hunt, alas, was not at Salem. It was across the US and Western Europe in the 80′s and 90′s – the “satanism in our child care centers” hysteria, of which the McMartin case is the most famous.
Just as an asside, “our case”…from Jordan MN has an interesting twist. Just like the AWG crowd, morphing, changing, ducking…and like certain insects who scurry under the soil if illuminated at night…the “County Attorney” who brought the bogus case in MN, strangely…has “dissapeared”. It is believed she has moved far away and requested and received a NAME CHANGE…!
Perhaps good reason to keep track of our AWG “friends” so that when the weather changes to a
30 years “cold phase” we can hunt them down with spotlights, and give them no place to go!
JohnWho says:
July 11, 2014 at 6:11 am “Al Gore’s contribution to making climate change a co-equal amongst the four horsemen of the apocalypse…I’m somewhat partial to using the word “Clipocalypse”.”
Or the Klepto-calypse? (:
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PS Andy West has found the thinnest pretense to discuss his “religion is a memeplex” hypothesis, and he has done this by equating the “madness of crowds” with religious and folk beliefs. See if you can spot the familiar, historic State memeplex which equates spiritual beliefs and practices with a mental disorder. Stalin, Mao, N. Korea, Cambodia, Germany… History shows this Memeplex of the Eris-tocrats and Intellectuals has released Hell on Earth like no other.
Was thinking a bit more while I was exercising over lunch, just a few more thoughts…
This site is a science site, and should be focused on science. Anthony has done a fantastic job, and he, along with contributors like Dr. Ball and others deserve much praise – we should all digitally shake their hand. I wish I could electronically send a few donuts and a brewski to Anthony, Dr. Ball, and some others – but as everyone knows the DTP (donut transfer protocol) and BTP (brewski transfer protocol) haven’t quite been fleshed out yet – sorry about that.
But even if the efforts of Anthony, Dr Ball, Judith Curry and many others help to stop this CAGW farce – and I do not think people like Gore or Mann will ever admit they were wrong – the main, underlying issue will not go away, and another similar movement (or movements) will start up. The people behind CAGW don’t care about science, they don’t care about a sincere quest for truth, they don’t care about the innate worth and dignity of every single human being on this planet. All they care about is setting up their own personal version of a Utopia – which I believe would end up being an utter disgrace to the dignity of humanity and basically, well – evil. If CAGW isn’t the mechanism to being their “enlightened” society, they will find something else. Before movements like this will ever stop happening, human hearts have to change to understand the innate, immense value of all of human life – without exception. Otherwise, I might be posting on another site 20 years from now that concerns another similar bogus movement.
I care about the innate value of all of humanity – except for Ohio State fans
Its an opinion piece(or “blog” in modern parlance) recognize it as such. Regardless, he points out many good thought promoting relationships, not to be dismissed out of hand
Zeke says: July 11, 2014 at 10:33 am
There are common cognitive mechanisms beneath the effects Mackay describes, and religions.
Memetic theory most certainly supports the position that spiritual beliefs and and practices are NOT a mental disorder, in line with my comment above at 6.01am regarding Dawkins. Not only that, it supports the position that we are *all *subject to cultural influence of one sort of another, and this is *wholly normal*. So I think you are spotting wrong. And I absolutely agree that extremist regimes such as those you quote are tremendouly, horribly damaging. A strong component of their hold is typically via (negative) memetic action that gets out of control, indeed like the madness of crowds, and one of the memes is often that ‘religions are illnesses’, which Dawkins is also veering rather towards.This is clearly nonsense; those who hold religious beliefs are neither ill nor abnormal in any way whatsoever.
Zeke says: July 11, 2014 at 10:33 am
P.S. my 1st comment above and theory at the WUWT post, is not really about religions anyhow. Its about CAGW being a social memeplex, which is independent of anything actually happening in the climate. Religions are just a useful example of other memeplexes for comparative purposes. Its worth noting that while memeplexes such as CAGW can be very negative (and memetic components within extremist regimes as you note, even more so), overall memeplexes have conferred great *net* benefit, which is why we contnue to co-evolve with them. It is speculated for instance, that civilisation would never have arisen without religions. So I would regard them as very positive.
andywest says, “There are common cognitive mechanisms beneath the effects Mackay describes, and religions.”
andywest says, “There’s been a lot of progress since 1841. The overlapping disciplines of cultural evolution, anthropology, neuroscience, psychology and more, can well-describe the social phenomena of self-sustaining cultural entities, which CAGW appears to be, and of which there are many examples throughout history. ‘Religions’ are a subset of these entities…” Your words.
For your benefit Andy West, I will simply point out that there is no Christian who is one through citizenship in a particular European state in Medieval times, or through family heritage, or by attendance in a church. The only Christians are those who have voluntarily accepted the claims of Yshua. It can only be through an act of one’s own volition. An act always involves the free exercise of one’s will.
And so while we can agree that the disciplines of anthropology, comparative mythology, and psychology have some limited application to describing human behavior in the past and now – esp. that of Empires and Authoritarian States – these soft sciences are, as positivism or scientism always are, applied selectively, abounding in confirmation bias, and meant to conform to current academic paradigms. And that is also a kind of insanity that the understanding of spiritual truth is meant to help the individual believer evaluate and keep out of. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding.” Also psa 1. Thank you for your response and perhaps we can agree that Experts, Intellectuals, Professional Social Critics, and Academics have provided the richest field for the study of the insanity, obsession, and manias of crowds available, in the 1900’s. And this decade, as Charles Battig has concisely shown.
@andywest2012
High Priest of Climatism, Mike (Aesop) Hulme continues playing like jazz : )
Climate Change and Virtue: An Apologetic” (Mike Hulme)
http://klimazwiebel.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/mike-hulme-is-one-of-most-innovative.html
“It is speculated for instance, that civilisation would never have arisen without religions. So I would regard them as very positive.” ~andy west
I do not regard the current definition of “civilization” as positive andywest – if by civilization you mean highly centralized economies, aggressive expansion of Empire, outrageously expensive monumental buildings, and separate laws for separate classes – for example, as in Rome, Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, and other Empires.
Civilization is a quality of local communities and economies and folk beliefs, which are routinely destroyed by Empires who subsume and enslave them through treachery or through force.
So we do not share definitions or paradigms. Maybe we can talk another time. However, I do believe it to be pertinent to what Battig has written here: “Sustainability, population control, and redistributive-based social justice were offered as moral justifications for the one-world governance needed to solve one-world problems, as posited by the UK’s Barbara Ward.”
This world empire is not going to be very civilized, IMHO.
johanna says:
July 11, 2014 at 1:09 am
pat, your long and irrelevant interpolations when people are having a discussion are a pain in the ar**.
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I hear ya, but Pat certainly is engaged.
Is it so hard to scroll down ?
Actually, Lemmings go en masse across rivers to find better feeding – but they do not know the big picture so do not know that there are rivers to wide for them to swim (we call those “oceans”).
Zeke says: July 11, 2014 at 11:54 am
Well I think we certainly have solid agreement regarding your last post of the timestamp above.
And regarding civilisation (however defined), I also agree that it has some major downsides such as those you list. Maybe that’s the price of symphonies and Lynryd Skynrd and sewage systems and Mozart and the Mona Lisa and fantastic medical advances and The Bible, The Koran, Confucianism and popcorn and democracy and real-ale and Shakespeare and fun-fairs and engineering miracles. But I’d certainly regard the enterprise as *net* positive, and it’s not like we (humans) ever had a choice to stop civilisation arising anyhow. Plus had it not arisen, no conversation like this could have taken place 🙂
brent says: July 11, 2014 at 11:47 am
Thanks brent, I bookmarked that. Yet more classic climato-religious shape-shifting from the great artiste himself.
Theo, Y2K wasn’t quite the nonissue you seem to think. I visited the site of the National Observatory on 1 January 2000, and it was reporting the current date as “1 Jan 19100.”
Luckily nothing important depended on that particular clock, but it was a solid demonstration of the problem “in the wild.”
Still, the madness that was Y2K did turn out to be a “wet firecracker”
andywest, sucking up like a college professor hoping to get good ratings from students doesn’t work around here.
Zeke asked you some questions, which you have not answered.
I called your lumpy porridge put through a blender “prose” for what it is, junk, and the best you could do was to claim that you also like Ian Dury.
Let’s just recap the wisdom posted by Mr West:
“The overlapping disciplines of cultural evolution, anthropology, neuroscience, psychology and more, can well-describe the social phenomena of self-sustaining cultural entities, which CAGW appears to be, and of which there are many examples throughout history. ‘Religions’ are a subset of these entities, …”
Cultural evolution is a “discipline” rather like preferring to be beaten with birch twigs rather than leather from lambs tails is a “discipline.”
I won’t go down the list, but with the exception of anthropology, where sound scientific work has been done (along with a lot of cobblers) – my suggestion is that you go back to Huffington, where your fantasies are unquestioningly accepted as fact.
Still love this old poetic piece taking the mickey out of doomsayers. Good old Aussie poetry too
http://alldownunder.com/australian-authors/john-obrien/said-hanrahan.htm
The refrain would resonate with many –
We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan
In accents most forlorn
johanna says: July 11, 2014 at 8:19 pm
Hmmm… so I let pass your first ill-mannered post and ask you a perfectly reasonable and polite question. Your response is to completely ignore this question and become still more ill-mannered, without any justification except to say that you wholly write off several entire disciplines of study, with no evidence or reasoning as to why. Even if you have well-researched and sound reasons to make such an exceptional claim, this is no reason whatever to be so rude. Just present your reasoning. For my part I make no claim that everything in those domains, or any domain, is good, but that doesn’t prevent progress. Your colourful descriptors of porridge and birch twigs convery nothing except that you appear to be angry. It seems however that you’ve let anthropology scrape through on a pass, I guess this is a start.
I don’t read Huffington. I’ve read WUWT regularly almost from the begining, Climate Etc from the day it started, and other blogs long-term too. Good ratings is not what it’s about here. Contributing is. I’ve responded to Zeke’s posts, and while we’re coming from very different places he has the courtesy to exchange properly and even to acknowledge some common ground and offer possible opportunity for further talk. Maybe you could learn from his example. As to Pat, he has made a positive contribution, which is a lot more than can be said for your intemperate interruptions, so it’s rather ironic you blowing him off.
My view on those who hurl what effectively amounts to meaningless insult from the safety of anonimity, aligns with those of Willis. There are good reasons for skeptics to remain anonymous sometimes, but this sharpens their responsibilities. Even setting aside anonimity, you are not contributing in this thread beyond your first post, you are just yelling yah-boo. Assuming you’re the same Johanna, I note you have made genuine contributions elsewhere; why spoil that with such shallow and negative behaviour?
The article is wrong in claiming that the public who downplay CAGW (this part is true) elect politicians who are dedicated to promulgating CAGW.
How could it possibly be true that the public who don’t give a flying fig about climate doomsday will elect such politicians? The answer is simple – they elect politicians/parties for other reasons, but (and here is the rub) all mainstream parties are in thrall to climate doomsday.
It is almost certainly true that the converse is the case – politicians parade their climate awareness badges in the belief that this is what the public want to hear. This is in itself strange, since poll after poll has demonstrated precisely that they don’t give a flying fig, but maybe they never read these polls, or they are advised by their PR men that they have to “detoxify” their brand, show leadership, compassion and out and out uber coolness.
The third force in this dynamic cannot be ignored either, as it is the most powerful. I refer to those NGOs who are paid by governments to lobby governments into believing ever so hard in the climate doomsday. They, plus a small cadre of “authorised” scientists whose views are the only ones that can be sanctioned make it nearly impossible for any political leader to dissent. No leader or senior politician is going to say global warming is nonsense. Can you imagine the fallout from such a position? He might as well come out and say the world is flat. The media would be on it so fast that the public who don’t give a flying fig about climate doomsday would nonetheless be seriously doubting the sanity of the politician since the authorised scientists would be weighing in, finger wagging their “settled science.”
If this sounds bleak, the one ray of hope is that politicians are good at dodging and prevaricating, and just maybe will delay or reduce expensive mitigation policies. In fact they will probably have to in the end, in order to stave off economic destruction. And then, one day in the distant future, when new generations of scientists unburdened with lifelong theories to defend will see reality for what it is, and climate doomsday will be consigned to the dustbin of history.
Vince Causey says:
July 12, 2014 at 9:38 am “The article is wrong in claiming that the public who downplay CAGW (this part is true) elect politicians who are dedicated to promulgating CAGW.”
This brings up the issue of having National Committees who choose the candidates for the national and state elections, and throw their millions behind them. The national committees are getting very out of touch. If you want to support a candidate, I think every person here should consider supporting the candidate individually, and sending ZERO to the NRCC. Otherwise you will get an AGW candidate, who will be most likely already invested in the sale of Smart meters, and who will love the use of government mandates to sell products such as worthless wind turbines, health plans, light bulbs, and electric cars. Yes, it really could happen.
ps thanks again andywest!
But do these doomed days dawn when you do crow?
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