Psychological Problems faced by disappointed alarmists
Story submitted by Eric Worrall
The Sydney Morning Herald has published an article describing the psychological problems alarmists are experiencing, in the wake of their Copenhagen 2009 disappointment.
Ask most alarmists and they will insist they are winning the debate – that the world is about to embrace green orthodoxy, that carbon trading schemes are rising, that “deniers” are more marginalised than ever before.
The article in the SMH tells a very different story – rising despair, despondency, disengagement, and in some cases delusional behaviour, in the wake of serial climate disappointments.
According to environmental scientist Nicole Thornton;
““It’s strange. Sometimes you just don’t feel you’re making headway in the time you’ve got, before it’s too late for the planet,” Thornton says. “All these little things weigh you down, and then the big stuff breaks you.”
The article goes on to describe more serious cases – for example, “Six years ago, a dehydrated 17-year-old boy was brought into the Royal Children’s Hospital, refusing to drink water. He believed having a drink would somehow contribute to the global shortage of potable water, and became the first diagnosed case of “climate change delusion”.
Personally I’ve always wondered if their is a correspondence between promotion of green ideas, and poor life choices made by far too many of our children – if you tell a child they have no future, that the world is about to be destroyed, that its all their parent’s fault, and that there is nothing they can do about it, don’t expect them to be enthusiastic about doing their homework.
However there is an even darker side to green despair. A while ago, Osama Bin Laden attempted to recruit frustrated environmentalists into his global Jihad – http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/29/strange-but-true-bin-laden-on-global-warming/
Bin Laden ultimately failed in his effort to recruit frustrated greens to his campaign of mass murder, but if we don’t find a way to pull back from this green brink of societal self hatred, next time we might not be so lucky.
h/t WUWT reader “berniel” for the SMH article
The problem with the green delusion is that it is wrong.
There is no need to link it to international terrorism. That is mere guilt by association.
There is no need to link it to extreme depressives who would have suffered anyway, sadly.
What is interesting here is that Aussie psychologists have jumped on the Green Bandwagon.
It ain’t just Lew.
Let’s slip down the slippery slope into religion for just a moment, and attempt an analogy. I’ll use Christianity, because that’s easy and won’t result in calls for my head.
The problem with the Christ delusion is that it is wrong.
There is no need to link it to international missionaries. That is mere guilt by association.
There is no need to link it to extreme fundamentalists who would have persecuted anyway, sadly.
What is interesting here is that anonymous bloggers have jumped on the apologist bandwagon.
¿Comprende?
Did I miss the link to the article? If so, here it is:
http://www.smh.com.au/national/a-climate-of-despair-20140813-102r1w.html
The First? I would say it is an epidemic now. Thankfully it seems to be subsiding a bit.
The pause that depresses.
When:
1. you have a dogma that is the meaning of your life and that you try to force the facts to adhere to, and
2. the facts simply remain recalcitrant and non-compliant, and
3. you can’t get the layman to agree with your dogma,
…then you get very depressed.
“and became the first diagnosed case of climate change delusion”. I think this affliction is drastically under diagnosed. I would consider nearly all Alarmists to be climate change delusional.
The Green Delusion “is consistent with” [TM-Climate Science] the religious faith and devotion of its practitioners.
This is standard “World is Coming to an END” moonbattery when reality undermines the basis of the faith.
It’s not pretty to watch, but it will be entertaining
It’s all about classic religion-based fear marketing. People give $$ because of the fear of going to hell. Therefore, the religion markets hell. A religion based on “don’t worry, all is fine” would be broke.
I find it utterly amazing that hard core alarmists will not accept data and science that show that apocalypse is not nigh, but would rather cling to their religion of catastrophe. Illogical, but such are the vagaries of faith.
“But the reality was a massive, epic failure of political will. It broke me,” she says. “The trigger point was actually watching grown men cry. They were senior diplomats from small islands, begging larger countries to take action so that their nations would not drown with the rising seas.”
No doubt while encouraging investment in sea-front property…
“if you tell a child they have no future, that the world is about to be destroyed, that its all their parent’s fault, and that there is nothing they can do about it, don’t expect them to be enthusiastic about doing their homework.” – Good point! All this negativity and alarmism breeds fear into our children. But that is their goal, is it not – to garner buy-in on all-things ‘green’. Fear works.
“I lost hope that we were able to save ourselves from self-destruction”
“I feel like I…can…have an impact in the world.”
It’s not science. It’s a tool for changing the world, self-aggrandizement. It’s a narcissistic fetish. If the evidence for alarmism were good, it might be otherwise, but it is not reasonable to believe that the evidence is good so we may resort to a psychological explanation for the despair rather than a rational one.
The closest phenomenon I can think of occurred during the 19th century, when religious doomsayers had convinced a fairly substantial portion of the population that doom was about to arrive, and actually gave a time and place. So many believers went there and waited. And nothing happened. But many still continued to believe – they just altered the time of doom to a rather vague indefinite future point in time. They chose to alter that portion of their belief that was
easiest to assimulate – the time and place of the doom, rather than the fact of its coming.
Hummmmm,,,,, reminiscent of the “What do you mean there is no Santa Clause” syndrome……
Just sayin,,,,,
SMH, Sidney Morning Herald and also an acronym for ‘shake my head’ or ‘shaking my head.’ Usually used when someone finds something so stupid, no words can do it justice. Very apropos acronym.
Ralph Kramden says:
August 15, 2014 at 7:30 am
““and became the first diagnosed case of climate change delusion”. I think this affliction is drastically under diagnosed. I would consider nearly all Alarmists to be climate change delusional.”
Transition Town Bielefeld, an ICLEI/Agenda21 organisation, has self-help groups for their depressed members.
http://notrickszone.com/2013/10/31/green-psychologists-confirm-climate-alarmists-are-making-themselves-mentally-sick-doomer-depression/
I checked…..nope, I don’t have one single little bitty bit of sympathy
“It’s strange. Sometimes you just don’t feel you’re making headway in the time you’ve got, before it’s too late for the planet,” Thornton says. “All these little things weigh you down, and then the big stuff breaks you.”
I don’t know whether to laugh or feel sorry for this person. Must be crushing indeed, laboring under the delusion that you’re personally responsible for the fate of the planet. I recommend a good psychiatrist.
Stop scaring children. It’s criminal and hugely counter-productive. My kids (who are now in their mid 20s) first had their teachers winding them up about “the rainforest” and then later AGW. The teachers think that they’re developing “global citizens” who will go on to change the world for the better, when in reality most of the kids just adopt a nihilistic attitude that the world is screwed, there’s nothing to be done and they might as well enjoy it while it lasts. It took work on my part to disavow my kids of that, but after a few generations… We need optimistic problem solvers in the generations that follow, not angry cynics who blame prior generations for handing them a world without solutions.
Just how edo you think the followers of Bill McKibben will react when they discover he has been intentionally lying to them the whole time? For Bill its about Bill, it is not environmentalism, not climate change, not science, but Bill just wants a cause to fill his empty life. Think about it, Bill has never produced anything of value to improve anyones life but his own, all his books are about him and his causes, nothing more. It is sad that this self deluded man child who is all about self guilt, (white privledge garbage and social justice) is dragging the wholly misinformed and uneducated into his personnel hell hole. Bill has been on the tit too long and it’s time we all did what we could to provide him an intervention and expose him for the fraud he is, maybe he could get a greeter job at Walmart. A productive application of all his talent and knowledge, he can help the elderly to shop all while asking for forgivness for his life of privledge and for not being a minority.
If UBL had been serious about destroying Western Civ he would have been better off joining the Sierra Club.
You have to be free from vested interests in order to be objective. You can’t be delivering a product for your boss to sell. You can’t be feeding your own ego or riding some pie-in-the sky gravy train. You have to be able to recognize when you’ve been fooled.
As a result of this “Climate Camps” might mean something quite different in a decade. Think “Alcoholics Anonymous”….
How long before a Pied Piper arrives on the scene and convinces the flock that Guyana is a nice place to get away from it all?
So, they are all depressed that we are not doing enough to stop the coming thermageden. Do you think, when the world fails to end in the next 20 years as they expect, will that make them less depresed or more?
Thornton: ”That’s when I lost hope that we would survive as a species.”
Drama Queen Alert! Oh come on. There’s no plausible scenario where a little climate change or even a lot of climate change kills enough of the population to take out the species. Yes, eventually something is going to completely wipe life off of the entire planet but it’s not AGW and its more than likely billions of years from now when our species and those we decide to save and those that manage to stow away with us will hopefully be spread among several planets if not several million.
Worst case scenario for CAGW if all their worst fears were true would be a world like that of about 56 million years ago which life did just fine in and I’m sure humans would be able to cope with if not flourish.
Might explain the SkS bunch. Don’t they have some psychologist who should see all of this?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/argentina/7344329/Baby-survives-parents-global-warming-suicide-pact.html
Baby survives parents’ global warming suicide pact
A seven-month-old girl survived for three days alone with a bullet in her chest after being shot by her parents as part of a suicide pact over their fears about global warming.
01 Mar 2010
Francisco Lotero, 56, and Miriam Coletti, 23, shot their daughter and her toddler brother before killing themselves.
Their son Francisco, two, died instantly after being hit in the back.
However, their unnamed daughter cheated death after the bullet from her father’s handgun missed her vital organs.
Police were alerted by worried neighbours who discovered the massacre three days after the shooting and the girl was taken to hospital.
The youngster is recovering in hospital in the town of Goya in the northern Argentine province of Corrientes, where doctors say she is out of danger.
Her parents said they feared the effects of global warming in a suicide note discovered by police.
Anthropogenic Global Warming has become quite a joke. During President Obama’s 2010 State of the Union address, when he referred to “the overwhelming scientific evidence on climate change,” everybody laughed! Even Pelosi & Biden giggled:
But it’s not funny when climate-change-obsessed environmentalists turn violent, as when James Lee seized hostages and issued his demands at Discovery, Inc. ( http://tinyurl.com/WPjjlee ), or when Francisco Lotero & Miriam Coletti shot their children and themselves because of their despair over the prospect of global warming ( http://tinyurl.com/LoteroColetti ), or when environmentalists abort their babies to reduce their carbon footprints ( http://tinyurl.com/abortAGW ).
Oops, that last one’s a dead link. Here it is in the WayBack Machine:
https://web.archive.org/web/20101008143429/http://www.morethancake.org/2007/12/sacrificing-babies-to-the-gods-of-global-warming.html
Help is at hand :: ))
Group therapy tackles climate change anxiety
Psychotherapist Rosemary Randall counsels people on their feelings of powerlessness and anxiety around climate change issues. In this interview with DW, she explains how this can contribute to a neccesary transformation.
http://www.dw.de/group-therapy-tackles-climate-change-anxiety/a-17853991
A Nick Surgey, “Research” Director at The Progressive Inc. wrote a disgusting example of hate speak against “deniers” and “polluters” in yesterday’s Huffington Post. This is a way to denounce people with a different opinion I have only seen in communist countries before. Disgusting.
Reblogged this on Centinel2012 and commented:
To the progressives the belief in man made climate change is nothing more than their “religion” as most of them are secularists!
I second the stop scaring the children sentiment. Whatever ill fortunes befall the purveyors of the doom is hardly sufficient punishment for the wrong they have done.
Well PsychoClimastrology is right up there with CAGW communication. Whatever the problem is, I’m sure it can be cured by Surveys & studies, Carbon-Indulgences and more government regulation.
Shoshin says:
August 15, 2014 at 7:31 am
It’s all about classic religion-based fear marketing. People give $$ because of the fear of going to hell. Therefore, the religion markets hell. A religion based on “don’t worry, all is fine” would be broke.
I find it utterly amazing that hard core alarmists will not accept data and science that show that apocalypse is not nigh, but would rather cling to their religion of catastrophe. Illogical, but such are the vagaries of faith.
_______________________________________
One could argue that believers in the more traditional religions have a better awareness of the difference between what is believed on faith and what is scientifically determined fact than those who claim no faith. The rise of CAGWism at the same time as Atheism may not be coincidental.
People will always worry about something. It’s human nature. Climate alarmists must have pretty good lives if climate change is the worst thing they have to worry about.
And then there is “the other side of the coin”. I remember the sense of relief and happiness I felt when I first came to understand that carbon dioxide and human activity played a very minor role in climate forcing. The worry that we were somehow responsible for climate in some way was gone and the pressure to ‘do something’ alleviated. I’ve become a much happier person since then and I’ve learned to laugh at Al Gore, not get angry at him. 🙂
These people would not be deluded if not for the efforts of climate change charlatans so I’d rather imply some pity for them as being “duped”. As Mark Twain almost said, “It’s easier to dupe a person than to convince them they’ve been duped.”
Imagine a world that is divided between the “haves” and the “have nots.” Imagine that the haves control power AND people through money and media. Imagine that the haves actually feel like they don’t have enough, and the have nots stand in the way of their ultimate goal of cornering all the wealth in the world.
Now imagine the frustration of those “haves” when they see the “have nots” enjoying their world and having children to share their world with. Now imagine that the cyclic nature of “nature” is moving in a direction where they can utilize that natural cycle to eliminate some of these troublesome “have nots” and their children.
The first step is to hire a bunch of “chicken littles” to create a diversion from reality, so that the “have nots” would not realize what was coming. You create a great green sham of “AGW” to scare them into giving up their future and their children’s future so that there would be “something” for their grandchildren and beyond. Simultaneously, you take over the education of the children and turn them against the society and family that gave them life, liberty, and the ability to pursue that which might bring happiness into their lives. And they now not only hate their families and their society for destroying the future for them, they also hate themselves since they are trapped in the perceived matrix of destroying Gaia.
So now you have the “haves” and their minions merrily pursuing their lives, you have the bulk of the current “have nots” set up to die off in the coming natural cycle, and the bridging generation of children already sacrificing themselves and THEIR potential children for the sake of saving Gaia. Yes, it will take some bullets, too, as the “have nots” fight to the death over the scraps left by the onsetting ice age, be it mini or more, and the “haves” and their minions will ride our the interim time while the vast majority of humanity – actually all of the race that the word “humanity” applies to – die out. And now you have Ted Turner’s 700 million or so left, which, as he said, is all that the planet needs.
The “AGW” people fight on to support their future with the “haves,” not because it is “religious” with them. You are mistaking greed for religious zeal. I’m not talking about the brain washed “foot soldiers” in the this war on humanity, I am talking about the leaders – the Gores, Obamas, etc., and their true high level minions such as Mann, Jones, et al. Those lesser luminaries that crank out the daffy papers tying increased cases of measles to climate change, or other such silly crap, these are the expendables, and they will be left unprotected when the remnants or the race are fighting over scraps. If you can imagine this, I think you can then understand why facts and data do not change the argument.
Just don’t call it science. If you want a real dose of science, look up Leonard Guarante at MIT. He was reluctant to pursue a career in biology because of its soft side, but excelled at it in the then-emerging field of molecular biology.
And yet— Almost all their real programs are working as desired.
John Kerry wants African parents let their children die because more reliable energy would be a bad thing for the ENVIRONMENT. That is almost criminal stupidity, or, could it be part of a plan to reduce the earth’s population of those nasty humans?
My diagnosis.
It’s like a psychological Green Gangrene which rots away the mental capacity to recognize and measure significance which relieves the afflicted of the burden of applying honest judgement.
The petty becomes critical, the most germane is missed entirely while a limitless need to see what is believed propagates a steady stream of imaginary evils to justify their disability as an advantage
of superiority.
Compounding this severe problem is what I call Yabutosis. This is the very common impulsive reaction to being confronted with reality where all sorts of ya but this and ya but that are offered up as secondary considerations to add false value to the preceding misjudgment in hopes of turning the bad idea into a good one anyway.
There may be no cure for the combined Green Gangrene-Yabutosis. The loss of mental capacity may be too severe.This may be why so may refuse to admit the wrongness of their beliefs.
It is just too scary to imagine they have what may be a permanently debilitating disorder.
However, it may be they simply need to be sat down and scolded for being such a dumb ass and they’ll snap out of it. If that is the case I volunteer to verbally abuse as many of them as possible.
For medicinal purposes, their mental well being and the betterment of the human race and planet.
If the True Climate Believers didn’t give off such a strong whiff of nihilistic misanthropic angst, maybe they’d be able to sell things a little better.
Eric Worrall said
“Osama Bin Laden attempted to recruit frustrated environmentalists into his global Jihad”
I made this video back then in response to that.
Dr: “Great news Mr Smith your terminal cancer was a complete misdiagnosis, you’re going to be fine with a long and healthy life ahead!”
Patient: “You denier! Shant believe you! I’m depressed now. Why won’t I die? Boohoo”
Eric Worrall said
“Osama Bin Laden attempted to recruit frustrated environmentalists into his global Jihad”
I made this video back then in response to that.
oops I meant to post this video.
The understanding that you have been wrong for an extended period of time is often depressing. Nothing new here
It’s not necessary to psychoanalyze this phenomenon. Climate Change/Weirding is a profitable undertaking so long as government pours money into it. Without massive infusion of public funds the “market” for solar, wind, electric cars and other dubious enterprises will vanish. Alarmism has been its own worst enemy, as evidence of Mannian shenanigans comes to light. But simply exposing such academic malfeasance is not enough: political force must pressure politicians to cut off the spigot.
CAGW people are modern day apocalyptics – “only a few years left to save the planet”! My favorite apocalyptics were the Millerites, who followed the precepts of preacher William Miller. Based on his study of the Bible, he predicted the end of the world in 1843. When that didn’t happen, he took a Mulligan and said the new date was actually 1844. When that didn’t happen, it left his followers “disillusioned, bewildered, and despaired”. Precisely what is happening now to the CAGW crowd, who are suffering from what psychologists call the “True Believer” syndrome. Pathetic and sad, but not without historical precedent.
John Kerry was “criminally stupid” when I knew him in Vietnam Nam, and he is criminally stupid still.
M Courtney says:
August 15, 2014 at 7:16 am
—–
Earth Liberation Front may not be international terrorism, but it’s no stretch of the imagination to refer to them as terrorists.
There is an element of the environmentalist movement that is more than willing to use violence to achieve their goals.
Does anyone doubt that Sea Shepherds would sink whalers if they could?
“Chris B says:
August 15, 2014 at 8:34 am
One could argue that…”
One can most assuredly not argue this about the many acquaintances in my world.
Is there an official disability classification for climate despair? I’m thinking of signing up for it.
Perhaps AGW will merge with the Westboro Baptists and will picket Congress with signs saying: “God hates Deniers” and “Carbon will send you to hell”.
The greens have other plans, much more effective than Bin Laden’s. Mass global energy deprivation can only mean one thing. Here are a few snippets from a small island.
GeologyJim says:
August 15, 2014 at 7:30 am
The Green Delusion “is consistent with” [TM-Climate Science] the religious faith and devotion of its practitioners.
This is standard “World is Coming to an END” moonbattery when reality undermines the basis of the faith.
It’s not pretty to watch, but it will be entertaining
………………….
HUGELY Entertaining!!!
Akin to those religions who predict the end of the world on a particular day and then the look on their respective faces when all carries on as normal.
The Green delusion is precisely the same – just drawn out and all the more entertaining and funny for that.
Chris B says:
The rise of CAGWism at the same time as Atheism may not be coincidental.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I find that the way that your Atheists don’t believe is wrong. Only my Atheists don’t believe in the proper way. 😉
It used to be that one would try to correspond him or her self to realty and that was considered a virtue. Now we think we can correspond really to ourselves somehow by the use of technology and that is called a delusion.
Having a vasectomy seems to cheer some up.
Also, eschewing air travel. On the other hand, many seem to be positively cheered by jetting across the world to commiserate.
One is tempted to re-watch On the Beach, and, instead of nuclear holocaust, imagine the cause to be a climate-fried globe. That pretty much captures the melancholy.
I have just finished watching a show with moro^Wpeople from Meteo France.
http://www.france5.fr/emissions/c-dans-l-air/diffusions/15-08-2014_255869
They didn’t seem depressed AT ALL; the sea is going up by 50 cm (“don’t buy near the coast”), so all is good.
God bless IPCC predict^Wproject^Wwhatever.
I have the perfect cure for this: at least for the men. There is an anti-depressant, the generic of which is called Citalopram. How do I know this? Well, I take it. And, I’m one of those anal people who actually reads the info sheets that comes with the prescriptions. So I know what the side effects of Citalopram are. Most of those side effects are fairly ho hum. But there’s one side effect that’s a real humdinger. What is that side effect you ask? Ready? It’s a prolonged and painful erection. Got that? An antidepressant can cause a prolonged and painful erection that if not treated immediately it can lead to impotency. And I’m not making this up. Check it out if you don’t believe me. How an antidepressant can cause such a thing and alleviate depression I’ll never know. Forever more a pleasant erotic dream causes me to wake up into a nightmare.
Anyway, threaten all those who are depressed about global warming that their depression will have to be treated with Citalopram. Voila, the CAGW nonsense will cease to exist.
Guaranteed.
@Tom J – Actually I found a beautiful woman to be the cure for me. And the side effect is not nearly as long term (sadly). 😉
Shoshin:
At August 15, 2014 at 9:48 am you say
Yes, as you say, Atheism has several denominations. But they all believe there is no God which is a belief that makes Atheism a rather foolish religion.
Having clarified that, please now return to the subject of the thread.
Richard
Brent @ 8.15 am
‘Psychotherapist Rosemary Randall counsels people on their feelings of powerlessness and anxiety around climate change issues’.
Perhaps she can help me. I have very strong feelings of powerlessness and anxiety over the UK’s slow motion train crash of a Green energy policy that is lining landowners pockets, raising energy costs and is now unlikely to even keep the lights on. Also, about our cash strapped health service and other institutions that are spending €millions on needlessly reducing their infinitesimally small ( in both National and Global terms) carbon footprints. Also the mindless anti fracking rent-a-mob that is hell bent on preventing the release of the vast national wealth that our shale gas reserves represent…………Powerlessness, the alarmists don’t know what it feels like!
Sorry, wrong currency: £millions
“if you tell a child they have no future, that the world is about to be destroyed, that its all their parent’s fault, and that there is nothing they can do about it, …”
Its true. Even today at my kids school, every fall like clockwork they are still forced to watch ‘Inconvenient Truth’. They discuss the misery of human caused climate change and they are still being told how their future holds nothing but climate apocalypse. Whenever my kids tell me about this, I have to sit them down with world maps and climate records to ‘debrief’ my children. I have to do this multiple times per year.
I’m trying to keep them from becoming depressed self-loathers, and to see a bright and prosperous future. Is this too much to ask?
Chris B says:
August 15, 2014 at 8:34 am
The rise of CAGWism at the same time as Atheism may not be coincidental.
=====
Just swapping one for the other….people gotta believe
Best laugh I’ve had all week.
And no, I shan’t be contributing to the ‘Save Your Local Eco-Loony’ campaign.
The problem with misanthropy is that eventually the hatred of mankind comes home to roost.
klem:
I write to support your post at August 15, 2014 at 10:14 am.
I have repeatedly pointed out that this global warming propaganda aimed at children is child abuse.
At the time of the 2009 IPCC Copenhagen Conference the BBC broadcast a video showing childrens’ homes being flooded and their pets drowned. The Conference itself showed a video with children running from expanding desert. When I was interviewed about it on BBC Radio Devon the interviewer asserted that I had said “explaining global warming is child abuse” and I had to point out that there is a difference between
(a) the subject of an advert.
and
(b) the nature of that advert.
(a pornographic advert. having been made for baked beans does not mean that baked beans are pornographic)
but the interviewer refused to accept the difference.
However, please take heart. This thread is about alarmists starting to notice that ‘The End Is Nigh’ for the AGW-scare. The scare was killed at Copenhagen in 2009 and even the alarmists are noticing it is in its death throes.
Richard
James the Elder says:
August 15, 2014 at 7:58 am
“How long before a Pied Piper arrives on the scene and convinces the flock that Guyana is a nice place to get away from it all?”
How about a nice Hawaiian Punch?
On the issue of child brainwashing, the Guardian is now talking about including children in the policy making process regarding climate change:
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2014/aug/15/children-climate-change-talks-unicef-report-2014
You know, if I’m ever asked on my deathbed what my biggest regret was I’m starting to think it will be that I was told so many lies, especially in my formative years, that then took decades to unpick.
climate change delusion , despairing and despondent alarmists you say http://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,778.0.html
a whole thread full of them with one or two exceptions.
I am especially concerned with the effect of AGW propaganda in the children’s classrooms. The legal processes in the UK rather effectively took down at least some of Gore’s tripe but I haven’t seen much similar action elsewhere. Whatever happened to the UN’s Convention on the Rights of the Child? It emphasizes “…..the right to survival, development, and protection against abuse, neglect and exploitation” of children. Oh, wait. Somalia and my country, the USA, were the last to sign the Convention. Somalia has signed. The USA hasn’t. Not that anything the UN produces is worth the paper it’s written on but the idea is noteworthy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._ratification_of_the_Convention_on_the_Rights_of_the_Child
Perhaps someone has already noted this (please forgive my apparent lack of diligence; I’m on my ‘droid), but if the poor brainwashed kid in the article was only 6years ago, it’s impossible he was th first case of dellusion related to Global Warming aka climate change.: that would have to be Stephen Schneider, right? With James Hansen & Algore hot (or perhaps I should say, “warm”) on his heels…
Did anyone else think it was funny that “ballsbounce” was talking about vasectomies?
Richard, I think shoshin was just being clever. Regardless of his/her beliefs, it was a really funny comment…just sayin’.
Tom J, LOL. Are you sure you haven’t confused your citalopram with your viagra?
rip
<“Every time I talked about environmental issues, I would start crying, which I think is a really unusual response,” she says. “I’m a scientist, so I like to break things down – to drivers and causes – but I was confused. I had never heard of anyone who had something like this. I tried talking to some of my colleagues and friends, and I felt like an idiot. I felt quite stupid talking about it. It was a lonely and steep, frustrating learning curve.”
Susie Burke, a senior psychologist with the Australian Psychological Society, has done extensive work on the mental impact of climate change. Burke understands Thornton’s confusion, but also points out that she is by no means alone.
Only last month, Burke made a presentation on mental health and the environment as part of the Climate Reality Project, hosted by former US vice-president Al Gore at Rod Laver Arena and attended by hundreds of committed by weary campaigners.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/a-climate-of-espair-20140813-102r1w.html#ixzz3AUBkGyT7
Go with your feelings, you are an idiot and quite stupid.
Since Rod Laver Areana seats 15,000, those 100’s must have felt quite lonely.
the article is a wordy “woe is me” human interest story – a desperate bid for sympathy could be the propaganda technique of last resort
The thing that amazed me most about climategate was the absolute refusal of warmists to acknowledge even that any particular part was shady. What says “science” better than shredding data rather than let another person have it? What says “science” better than “hiding behind” things. What says “science” better than publicly saying the end is nigh, but privately saying that it is a travesty. What says “science” better than…hey, let’s change the data for the 1940s mmmkay. Can “science” be better said by going to town on other manuscript submissions? What says unbiased science better than hiding the decline.
Imagine that all those same things had happened, except it wasn’t Trenberth and Mann and Jones, but instead Exxon-Mobil, Halliburton, and Wal-Mart.
Warmists response: oh, I can’t notice that Phil Jones said “if this lack of warming continues” over the deafening sound of my cognitive dissonance.
If these Psychologists were on the up & up they would have long ago classified Climate Alarmism as a phobia. An unreasoned fear describes it exactly.
“except it wasn’t Trenberth and Mann and Jones, but instead Exxon-Mobil, Halliburton, and Wal-Mart”
monsanta/to/satan
“Climate Alarmism as a phobia”
coming soon in DSM VI.
(They are already rebranding some old drug for that.)
I have stated before that environmentalists have it exactly backwards. It is civilization that is tenuous, not the environment. Blinded by emotion, they cannot step back and understand humanity’s place in history and on the earth.
What could open their eyes to this perspective?
klem says:
August 15, 2014 at 10:14 am
“I’m trying to keep them from becoming depressed self-loathers, and to see a bright and prosperous future. Is this too much to ask?”
I pre-empted the need for recurrent debriefings by informing my kid that his teachers are idiots and that he should answer them whatever they wanted to hear. I actually didn’t know whether his particular teachers would be idiots, but it’s the Null hypothesis in Germany – they’re mostly watermelons.
In Australia much of the very early scary propaganda was marketed directly to schoolchildren and reinforced with television energy adverts showing dramatic black balloons escaping from houses with the connotation that this black pollution was increasing so rapidly that the whole sky became filled with black balloons. It worked so well that children were gravely pointing out to their parents that they were wasters and polluters bent on killing the planet and the combination of school programs aimed at children re-educating their parents, the creation of Eco warriors to fight climate and environmental devastation. The politicians carefully annunciating “dirty black carbon” when describing C02, imprinted a lie on those children’s minds.
No wonder that vulnerable minds suffered from these mental assaults and later we noticed the withdrawal of the worse and most scary of adverts as the propagandists became aware that this mind harnessing could backfire on the alarmists when children realised that they had been lied to by our then leaders, their teachers and lost their warm trust in parents.
Many of those lied too as students in primary school are now young adults graduating from higher education and about to enter the workforce, where people can be brutally honest in their assessment of scams and scammers.
When you are lied to and frightened for most of your growing years and then find that the planet hasn’t been warming for that whole traumatic period, it is reasonable that the liars and promoters of CAGW can expect a backlash as the realisation of being conned by those you were told you could trust, actually sinks in, and if things become colder as some think it may, then expect angry reaction. Be warned they won’t be conned so easily in the future!!
It wont be easy as even now the same propagandists are typecasting Budget job cuts in the C.S.I.R.O science, citing research into combatting Ebola as the most likely effect of budget cuts, when it is the propagandists themselves that should have their jobs threatened, not the Ebola researchers – sack a few of the so called “scientists” who went with the Greens and Tim Flannery climate Commissioner line that it wasn’t going to rain any more due to rapid climate change, therefore don’t build cheap dams as they wont fill. Sack them and the top echelon that permitted that political use of propaganda.
Pluc ca change…
It makes a change from the Mutually Assured Destruction meme that dominated Western paranoia from the 1950s to the end of the 1980s, especially the Cuban missile crisis of November 1982 when we were within 20 minutes of WWIII.
Some people have short memories, it seems.
My last landed in moderation, would appreciate a check please..
Many great articles and threads on using children as “climate pawns”;
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/30/the-worst-kind-of-ugly-propaganda-david-suzuki-targets-kids-at-christmas-in-the-name-of-climate-chnage/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/12/20/more-hot-propaganda/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/06/22/obamas-for-the-children-climate-change-video-announcement-only-a-few-hundred-views/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/05/10/failing-to-make-his-case-james-hansen-uses-children-as-legal-pawns/
I remember that bit of hysteria about potable water. There was a posting on Facebook from some guy saying, “A latte bought in Brooklyn takes up to two gallons of drinkable water to produce! It’s all your fault that people are dying of thirst in the Sudan!” And I was thinking, “How daft does he think people are?”
Well now we know…
Some enviro in France repeat that nuclear plant “consomment de l’eau potable”: nuclear plants use DRINKABLE WATER for cooling according to them. How they came up with this crazy idea I don’t know…
Never mind a few of these are built on the Atlantic ocean, which last time I checked was not so fine for drinking.
These guys cannot get trivial stuff right.
Self-sacrifice to pre-scientific ideology is designed to depress the participants.
John
I feel really sorry for these alarmists who seem to be affected psychologically by the results of their studies. Get another job, forget about environmentalism, actually do some productive work. Become a plumber or an electrician – we need more of them!
P@ Dolan says:
August 15, 2014 at 10:47 am
“was th first case of dellusion related to Global Warming aka climate change.: that would have to be Stephen Schneider, right?”
Schneider was in my opinion the guy who held the warmist movement together – the chief strategist (see his “honest or effective” quote). If there was ever a career opportunist it must have been Schneider. Goes back to the 70ies – he was at the Our Endangered Atmosphere conference in Stanford, with Lovelock, Mead, and that Ecoscience guy John Holdren. HE didn’t care whether it was warming or cooling – they chose CO2 as the villain in 1975 and stuck with it. (Anyone who thinks Lovelock has ever been honest should have his brain checked.)
…”Bin Laden ultimately failed in his effort to recruit frustrated greens to his campaign of mass murder, but if we don’t find a way to pull back from this green brink of societal self hatred, next time we might not be so lucky.”
============
You’re starting to scare me 🙂
The work may be turning – a faint glimmer of light ahead:
“U.S. wildlife officials are withdrawing proposed protections for the snow-loving wolverine in a course reversal announced Tuesday that highlights lingering uncertainties over what a warming climate means for some temperature-sensitive species. … U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe said in an interview with The Associated Press that predictions about climate change’s localized impacts remain ambiguous. Rejecting the conclusions of most outside experts and some of the agency’s own scientists, Ashe said the uncertainty made it impossible to determine whether less snow cover would put wolverines in danger of extinction in coming decades.”
http://timesfreepress.com/news/2014/aug/12/feds-withdrawing-proposed-protection-wolverines/?breakingnews
The “worm” may be turning …
Personally I’ve always wondered if their is a correspondence
==========
typo their there
Climate of despair makes sense to me.
You have to be emotionally unstable to accept the concept of CAGW without demanding evidence.
The tactics of the self proclaimed “Alarmed Ones” have always been emotional knee jerk stuff.
Or attempts at emotional blackmail.
A willingness to ignore history, refuse to check ones “facts’, it all fits.
When your entire self worth is invested in an illusion, you are not going to willingly disillusion yourself.
More evidence the worm is slowly turning: Tom Steyer’s reality check:
http://online.wsj.com/articles/kim-strassel-a-climate-crusaders-comeuppance-1408057542
People give $$ because of the fear of going to hell.
============
legalized extortion.
RobRoy says:
August 15, 2014 at 10:28 am
The problem with misanthropy is that eventually the hatred of mankind … is reciprocated.
FIFY
Shoshin says: “Therefore, the religion markets hell. A religion based on ‘don’t worry, all is fine’ would be broke.”
Slightly O.T. but perhaps worth mentioning as it does relate to “climatism” (dogmatic set of beliefs) and associated money demands distinct from the purity and abstraction of the science of climatology. Needless to say, the purveyors of climatism suggest each that he is an authority on the science, just as a preacher will assert authority on the religion.
But *science* doesn’t need an authority. You can do science. I do science. When properly done you will get the same results as I, and when that’s the case, we nod our heads and agree that we have both done science. Consequently, while consensus is irrelevant to “science”, it is certainly important to whether I am willing to let you spend my money.
So it is with a “religion”. Religion is just a word for a set of beliefs. Your mileage will vary. There can be no “authority” for a religion. Who is permitted to say what is a Christian? Nobody in particular, or everyone each for himself.
But if you set yourself up as an authority, and organize yourself at law as such, now you are a “church” not a religion, and you can demand money from your followers in exchange for whatever benefit accrues to accepting that dogma and taking that name.
So it is with climatism. The benefits of subscribing, at least in public, to the dogmas of climatism include employment at universities, the making of movies such as “A really inconvenient truth” or polar bears falling from the sky, and you get a license to ridicule deniers. You might even get someone to pay for your legal defense for ridiculing deniers.
Underneath all that is the science of climatology, proceeding in whatever direction discovery and truth takes it. It has no authority, it makes no demands, it has no agenda. It is there and it is waiting to be discovered.
“Practical politics …safety from hobgoblins … imaginary,” Mencken, condensed
Most warmists, minus a very tiny but vocal hard core group, are not interested in the science anyway. This is quite secondary to their moral interest in the ‘problem’. If the science is ultimately largely dismissed, they will have moved on by then, to other topics of moral interest to them.
Most warmists are probably recycled Club of Romists. Cheap energy is not running off fast enough, and pollution isn’t killing people fast enough (esp. in developed countries), so they needed another scare story.
“Personally I’ve always wondered if their is a correspondence between promotion of green ideas, and poor life choices made by far too many of our children – if you tell a child they have no future, that the world is about to be destroyed, that its all their parent’s fault, and that there is nothing they can do about it, don’t expect them to be enthusiastic about doing their homework.”
The understatement to end all understatement. The climate doomsayers, which includes all climate scientists with the exception of Dr. Curry and a handful of others, have done incredible harm to the children born after 1975 or so. Too bad that the media will not report that harm. The only report of harm of which I am aware is the action of a British judge to require that showings of “An Inconvenient Truth” must be accompanied by an explanation of the ten or more falsehoods that it purveys.
I agree with those who hold that telling children they have no future is a form of psychological child abuse. I was born in 1950. Those of you in my age bracket may remember all the doomsday talk of nuclear war, nuclear school drills of crouching under our desks, constant stream of disaster movies, neighbors building fall-out shelters, etc. That may explain why I like having a small stockpile of emergency stores. But I shrugged it off and did what I could to live a good life.
In the 1980s, sometime after Reagan was elected President, a neighbor and his family came over for a pool party. As they were leaving I made some comment to their 9 year old son about doing his homework. He very seriously said, “Why bother. We’re all going to die soon in a nuclear war anyway.”
My reply was to laugh and say, “That’s the same thing I was told when I was your age. If I had listen to them I wouldn’t have this nice house with a swimming pool today.” I don’t know how the child grew up, or whether he paid heed to my comment, but if he didn’t, the gloom and doom crowd is responsible for his not reaching his full potential.
Wow, this is an unexpected turn of events. I can only hope that it hasn’t afflicted 97% of us. Thinking back on Weepy Billm the sKs jugend, explodiing children videos, Greenpeace’s santa looking rather like a dungeon-incarcerated maniac ….. It’s one thing for our elected officials to have been scammed by UN CAGW ideol_ogues planning des-truction of civil_ization aided by their useful and well compensated idiots, but if it turns out to have been rather a product of mass pathological hysteria, that is really scary. European and US governments should resign en masse and seek therapy before it is too late. Man, there has never been a riper situation for Republicans to to take advantage of it all if there are any left with the guts to go for it.
The global warming alarmists are admitting they are crazy.
A warning should have been issued about reading that SMH article: “Could induce vomiting.”
In my opinion these people are insane and delusional from birth.
Cheers
Roger http://www.rogerfromnewzealand.wordpress.com
tteclod:
Your post at August 15, 2014 at 8:54 pm you write in total
Yes, I “Comprende”.
Your words I have quoted proclaim you to be an ignorant fool who knows nothing – and understands less than nothing – about Christianity, and who is so stupid that he is willing to display his ignorance and misunderstanding in words, but is not so stupid as to put his name to those words.
What is interesting is that you are an anonymous blogger who claims “anonymous bloggers have jumped on the apologist bandwagon” so it can be concluded that you are a troll whose ignorant and untrue post was intended to start a flame war.
Richard
Got lucky with the timing occurred the same month as Bradley Manning,Julian Assange and Wilki leaks.
If the pause does not go away, there is a real danger that the cult members will commit mass suicide a la Jim Jones.
A climate skeptic should know better than believing in ridiculous claims that “Bin Laden” tried to recruit anyone in 2010. All evidence suggest he was dead since almost a decade by 2010. A notion reinforced by the stupid Abbottasbad fairy-tale. But I understand it is tmpting to suspend belief to ling AGW-belivers to terrorists. But it is not intellectually or morally honest. AGW believers are not terrorists, and AGW sceptics are not funded by big oil.
Jtom says:
August 15, 2014 at 4:53 pm
I agree with those who hold that telling children they have no future is a form of psychological child abuse. … (trim) … I don’t know how the child grew up, or whether he paid heed to my comment, but if he didn’t, the gloom and doom crowd is responsible for his not reaching his full potential.
—
Nailed it. This is not so much about people not being able to covert others to AGW or greenery, but the debilitating feeling of believing it’s all true (data shows only a-causal variability that has occurred numerous times before), and that nothing is even being done about it. The people who taught them to believe that something must be done, rather that taught them to evaluate honestly to see if there really is anything needing to be done, is what’s created this grip of doom-abuse in the minds of people who trusted the hockey schtick toting experts and swallowed it all – hook, line and sinker.
Skepticism is a necessary evil from a young age, because the alternative of feverish ignorant idealism followed by dawning morbid pessimism, followed by doomiersh bleakness cripples people, and completely unnecessarily. None of the ‘outlooks on life’ we are feed are valid, they’re all illusions that we’re lead into unawares early on, which then play out predictably in horrible ways for years. It’s not only child abuse, its abuse of society as a whole.
Björn from Sweden
A climate skeptic should know better than believing in ridiculous claims that “Bin Laden” tried to recruit anyone in 2010. All evidence suggest he was dead since almost a decade by 2010. A notion reinforced by the stupid Abbottasbad fairy-tale. But I understand it is tmpting to suspend belief to ling AGW-belivers to terrorists. But it is not intellectually or morally honest. AGW believers are not terrorists, and AGW sceptics are not funded by big oil.
Al Jazeera says it was Bin Laden. I mean anything is possible – Bin Laden might have died 10 years ago, Obama might have been lying when he claimed to have killed Bin Laden. But thats a pretty way out conspiracy theory – not impossible, but I’d like to see some more evidence.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2010/01/20101277383676587.html
I never said environmentalists in general are terrorists – I specifically said Bin Laden failed to recruit deep greens to his cause. But as every tyrant the world has even known has demonstrated, people who feel utterly frustrated and powerless are easy pickings for those who offer them a false path to hope.
ya, I could have drafted that better
for further comedy..on abc radio national science show sat 16th aug first up was..
naomi orestes touting her new book a fantasy of the world in 2040/50
this “effort”
follows airings on Big Ideas of Clive hamilton earlier in the week
they seem to be having yet another push on to try and scare more people and keep the fear levels raised in the gullible
With the level of corruption demonstrated by Lew and gang that was acceptable to his peers, I don’t really think much if anything produced by his peers is worth a glass of war spit.
In a rational belief system climategate would have been cause to pause and ponder if the path of cliamte catastrophism was the right one. Instead at every opportunity most climate obsessed people have doubled down, denied there are any problems, fabricated more studies, demanded more laws, and sought to silence those few voices that have dared to question their collective delusion.
This study is more of the sort of moral hazard/rent seeking tripe that characterizes the strange mix between soft science and fanatical belief in a non-falsifiable theory. No introspection. No consideration of “could they be wrong?”. Only how these true believers are suffering because they did not get their way.
Truly when fanatical belief trumps ethics and morals these sort of papers pop up like weeds.
“No introspection. No consideration of “could they be wrong?”.”
It’s like there was an horrible accident (manipulation of data, science for sale), with victims on the floor (“homogenized” data), people running away from the crime scene (NASA, IPCC…) with many people watching (the “scientific community”) and nobody (no scientist) calls the police, or does anything.
It is not surprising that trolls are so desperate to derail this thread.
I hope that the one thing that works- ignoring them can continue here.
Do Not Feed The Trolls.
philjourdan
August 15, 2014 at 12:47 pm
I raise a glass of happiness to toast your good fortune. You are a lucky man.
Björn from Sweden says:
August 16, 2014 at 3:15 am
“AGW believers are not terrorists, and AGW sceptics are not funded by big oil.”
As AGW believers are the governments, they don’t need to be terrorists. They can use the taxpayer money they steal to fund terrorism if need be; in all other cases they can use police force and regular military to force the population to worship them.
tteclod says:
August 15, 2014 at 8:54 pm
“Let’s slip down the slippery slope into religion for just a moment, and attempt an analogy. I’ll use Christianity, because that’s easy and won’t result in calls for my head.
¿Comprende?”
Now show us that you have some COJONES and do it again for the OTHER religion, coward.
People like Gore, Flannery et al. are simply the sales team. The Board of Directors are locked in tight and out of range.
They tell us that global warming is the biggest threat that faces mankind.
And yet the one thing they really, really want is for global warming to resume with a vengeance.
You couldn’t make this up….
Chris
Klem: “Whenever my kids tell me about this, I have to sit them down with world maps and climate records to ‘debrief’ my children. I have to do this multiple times per year.”
Maybe not such a good idea. They won’t remember what you say, just that it’s different from what the teachers tell them. They will decide that their Dad is a nut who won’t leave them alone with his crazy ideas.
On the other hand, leave things alone and it will all go out of fashion. Believe me, by the time they are thirty they won’t be able to remember what they believed when they were ten, or why they believed it.
It’s like the video game manufacturers. Certainly, they are trying to turn your kids into a generation of psychopaths, just like the preachers say they are! Do they succeed? Like heck they do.
She was friendly-interviewed on NPR about a week ago.
James the Elder says:
August 15, 2014 at 7:58 am
How long before a Pied Piper arrives on the scene and convinces the flock that Guyana is a nice place to get away from it all?
I say the sooner the better. Being rid of these yahoos once and for all would be a wonderful and prosperous thing for all humankind.
M Courtney says:
August 15, 2014 at 7:16 am
—
Concise, clear and true. Bravo.
As a parting thought on Climate Despair.
Life: Defined as a sexually transmitted terminal disease.
I guess it is all in how you chose to see it.
And, lest we forget, she is talking about fellow ‘scientists’ (peers) here. If one needed any reason for the continual bombardment of gloom then read her words. Hardly a ‘dispassionate scientist’ pursuing ‘truth’. Here is an individual within the ‘scientific community’ who feels that everything is optional when one is ‘saving the world’. She seems to have a lot of ‘associates’ who feel the same way.
Tim Blair does a funny commentary on this article.
http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/timblair/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/repeated_and_uncontrollable_failures/
Just a thought. Back in the 80’s there was a rash of “old hippy” suicides – old, of course, meaning over 40. Sometimes related to too much too bad drugs, but sometimes with a note saying the world just hadn’t turned out like they expected…
Professor Helen Berry, of the University of Canberra, ” certain types of people are drawn to political activism, including people with or prone to mental health problems, ”
You think? I thought that was blatently obvious, in fact the CRU Climategate Emails looked to me like many of the hockey team members were pathologicaly narcissistic, and heavy into a messianic complex
It is the only rational course of action left to them, claiming their mantle of victim-hood. The at least they may receive benefits.
mikelowe2013 says:
August 15, 2014 at 1:16 pm
I feel really sorry for these alarmists who seem to be affected psychologically by the results of their studies. Get another job, forget about environmentalism, actually do some productive work. Become a plumber or an electrician – we need more of them!
=============================================================
The sociobiologist in me perceives yet another coercive strategy in all of this – play on the sympathies of the observer to get what you want if arguing your case didn’t work.
I wonder if the same people will also switch to being overly aggressive if this kind of thing isn’t effective. Like the wife-beater who switches back and forth between violent aggression and pleas for sympathy.
O. Olson says:
August 15, 2014 at 9:15 am
“Chris B says:
August 15, 2014 at 8:34 am
One could argue that…”
One can most assuredly not argue this about the many acquaintances in my world.
——————————
I’m surprised you admitted that.
On reread, this is their get out of responsibility card.
“It was not my fault, I had Climatosis.”
We are all victims here…
It warms my heart to watch the slow agonizing collapse of this cult of calamitous climate.
May the chicken littles enjoy their climate despair.
They have sure earned it.
Chris B says:
August 16, 2014 at 2:29 pm
If you truly didn’t get the gist of what I said, then for once the problem is worse than I thought. If you did, then maybe you might like this:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/08/18/monday-mirthiness-spot-the-troll/