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
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.
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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
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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?