The Huffington Post thinks we’ve all been keeping our climate alarmist views in the closet. Apparently we’re all quietly worried, but we lack the courage to face our friends, and admit our guilty secret.
…if the vast majority of Americans are still not even talking about climate change, we will never break through these obstacles and put irresistible pressure on Congress and every other opponent to stop fighting all reasonable actions to combat climate change and finally take positive action-for the sake of their own children and grandchildren if no one else’s.
So how does this change? How do we change it?
As I have written elsewhere, the model of gay and lesbian Americans “coming out” is a good one. Not perfect but we don’t need perfect. We need action. And what gays and lesbians proved is that one-on-one communication is a deeply powerful tool for creating social change.
The teenager, the mother, the husband, the actress, the Congressman, the Olympian, the football star-all the many people who said simply, “I’m gay,” changed the world. Their world, and our world. By making their issue personal, and taking one small brave step, they moved hearts and minds that may never have opened and changed in any other way.
That is what I believe all of us who are concerned about climate change need to do–in addition to all the other necessary political and practical actions.
For once I’m at a bit of a loss to know what to say. The Huff Post article, which conflates sexual freedom and climate alarmism, has got to be one of the strangest and most desperate theories I have ever read, for why nobody talks about climate change.
I can imagine the conversations now…
“That’s OK Son, we will always love you, but, well, have you tried not being a climate skeptic?”
Sorry, but I was born this way. I have skepticism in my DNA.
You possibly do. We have co-evolved with narratives since language started, and there is a constant arms race between narrative takeovers such as CAGW, which are extremely common throughout history, and narrative resistance. Psychologists know of this resistance and call it ‘innate skepticism’. Even Lewandowsky knows of this effect; he calls it ‘the key to accuracy’. Needless to say he does not think it applies in the climate domain. Only, apparently, everywhere else.
Innate skepticism seems to need no significant knowledge of the topic at hand. It probably works by detecting the narrative style, e.g. things that are presented in too coherent, too certain, too forceful, too emotive and too arrogant a way, are most probably not true. If you think of the narrative as a kind of virus, some folks will be more susceptible than others, but narrative exposure, counter narratives (inoculation), links to allied or opposing cultures etc. will all strengthen or weaken the natural resistance.
You might call it a built in BS detector. But unfortunately one that is not infallible and can be overcome. On average, who is and isn’t affected depends as much on the where you are on the map of narrative spread as it does on natural resistance. A bit like a map of a spreading disease; although one *cannot* use this analogy to imply there is anything at all ‘wrong’ with believers. There is not. We are all subject to narrative influence, and are generally influenced by several at once.
@Louis & andywest
Innate skepticism can be both nature and nurture. As a former regulator, I used to get criticised for telling people the truth, eg I never invoked the “Bluff Act” and if there was a way round their problem I would tell them what it was. Some people can tell they are being lied to. With others it takes longer.
And with CAGW, far too many stupid lies told for them to recover by telling better ones.
Unfortunately large numbers are just unreasoning drones/non-thinking zombies, flocking to whatever cause(s) their peers support and authoritarian masters provide. True skeptics don’t act like this and are much more independent which though usually regarded as anti-social is a good thing when everyone else is running off the cliff.
Actually, Louis, you probably watch less TV than most. We didn’t go to digital TV to free up band width, so we went to it for some other reason – say, writing subliminal messages on the screen in a less easily detectable manner, perhaps at screen brightness -2 or something like that. Yep, another crackpot conspiracy theory, but at least it would explain why you can logically convince a “believer” about the weaknesses of the AGW theory only to find out two days later that they have totally regressed to their original position on the subject without discussion with others at all, and seemingly totally forgotten your logical arguments.
andywest2012 April 21, 2015 at 12:12 pm
Thanks for your comment, and three quick questions, if I may:
Can innate skepticism be quantified? How is it overcome?
Can you recommend any online reading on narrative influence & related issues?
@ Steve P April 21, 2015 at 3:01 pm
Innate skepticism turns up in various psychological studies, but I don’t think it’s quantifiable in an absolute sense, no more than emotions or other such characteristics are currently quantifiable. But their effects can be observed and there is I guess some sense of relative strength in particular study circumstances. It can be overcome by various means, for instance we are social thinkers and if many of our friends and colleagues believe some concept, our own innate skepticism against that concept will likely be lessened. It can also be overcome by formal knowledge. Studies show that the more science literate folks get, the more polarized they are on CAGW. So for folks who are *somewhat* more inclined by worldview towards belief in CAGW, their path to further knowledge will typically be steered and filtered more and more to climate orthodoxy by this small initial bias, and what innate skepticism they had will be eroded. Learning can overcome instinct even where the learning happens to be wrong and the instinct right. But bear in mind these are average effects, people can and have ‘crossed over’.
Most of my reading over the years has been on paper rather than online. Narrative influence typically comes as sections or chapters in books about cultural evolution, rather than being a tidy subject all in it’s own right. Probably best to scan the abstracts for works and see what takes your fancy. However, the strong Darwinian end of cultural evolution includes memetics, which focuses much more on narrative evolution and influence. Have to warn you that the memetic way of viewing things is controversial, even though some of the same concepts described in a different way within cultural evolution, are not. A great primer on memetics is ‘Memetics by Tim Tyler’, because it is geared for the layman and doesn’t require all sorts of assumed knowledge like most of the heavier works. You can find it on Amazon.
My (long!) series below at WUWT has a little bit more about innate skepticism within, and I think one of the Lewandowsky papers referenced shows that this is a significant factor in the resistance to misinformation.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/11/06/wrapped-in-lew-papers-the-psychology-of-climate-psychologization-part1/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/11/08/wrapped-in-lew-papers-the-psychology-of-climate-psychologization-part2/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/11/09/wrapped-in-lew-papers-the-psychology-of-climate-psychologization-part3/
He did reasonable work before he jumped straight off the deep end into climate and conspiracy nonsense.
The answer is in my jeans?
@andywest2012
Always interesting to read you. Thanks for sharing.
andywest2012 April 21, 2015 at 4:50 pm
Andy, thanks again for your interesting comments, and the links.
Innate skepticism seems to need no significant knowledge of the topic at hand. It probably works by detecting the narrative style, e.g. things that are presented in too coherent, too certain, too forceful, too emotive and too arrogant a way.
_____________________________________________
Spot on.
I became a skeptic as soon as I saw UK political ads on prime time TV promoting something I had never heard of – my carbon footprint (with black footprints being left everywhere). Lots of reasons for instantly becoming a skeptic here….
a. The UK Labour party was and still is the most [deceitful] organisation known to man (apart from the BBC). You could guarantee that anything the Labour party said was based upon political spin and [completely divorced from the truth.
b. The UK government rarely puts out information adverts. Even when we have a dire disease problem or the like, we vary rarely have information ads. And suddenly we get prime time ads about something we knew nothing about, let alone being a [problem]. They were obviously talking up a non-problem.
So this had to be either a spoof or a con, and since it was too expensive for a spoof, it had to be a con. And so it proved to be – the innate BS detector was right yet again.
Ralph
Imagine the day your women/man leaves you for a warmista!
Changing teams in the middle of the game, what could be more damaging to a person’s ego and soul?
Progressives have innate cynicism. Innate cynicism, the natural state where one so distrusts their fellow man that one seeks to regulate him.
therefore, stopping climate change must be the same as stopping sex change.
should we pass laws and tax people to prevent sex change as well? Should we all speak out against the dangers of sex change. is sex change a threat to sex itself, even greater than abstinence and other unnatural acts?
An unchanging climate is unnatural. the ice ages and other climate cycles are proof. to remain healthy, the climate must change. It is only natural.
The theory of the Huffington Post piece is that the overwhelming silent majority would support making food, energy and fuel more expensive for no measurable benefit.
Could be the exact opposite.
Perhaps the silent majority are closet skeptics.
Silent Majority
The alarmists get all the media attention. In fact, many media organizations will not give any coverage at all to the sceptical position. It must mean that the silent majority actually support the sceptics.
Leftists consider individuals to be so weak minded, that merely hearing a contrarian position will permanently corrupt them. Which is how leftists justify banning any opinion that they disagree with.
I suspect the silent majority are closet skeptics, and they are so because they’d rather not deal with mentally-ill people attacking them for their non-fealty to the CO2 boogeyman.
Where I post (or re-post) skeptic climate articles, intelligent, logical, Reasoning people (such as myself) are under constant assault from social justice warriors- otherwise known at the mentally ill.
@ Otter…I now think of them as little climate nazis. Their behavior fits that mold. My former father-in-law, last name Mueller, wore a German uniform at the start of the Hitler regime in the mid 1930s. He showed me a picture from back then. He was captured right at the start of the war, and ended up in the POW camp in Chicago. Later he met his wife, a Greek women, and then they moved to California. We had some good conversations. I asked him “Why and How”. His answer can be summed up in two thoughts. One everyone else was going along with it, and two it seemed like the right thing to do. And that is a perfect description for most of those who firmly believe in CAGW. They do not have any understanding of the underlying science even at rudimentary levels. They can only parrot replies, but they are fully committed to the belief that their side is right. So they are now and will always be little climate nazis to me.
PiperPaul,
I’m not sure I would go as far as saying “the silent majority are closet skeptics”, but I do think most people are aware when they are being subjected to moral-preening, praying in public, self-righteous sermonizing, or whatever you want to call it.
At some level, people perceive the holier-than-thou shtick and tune it out a bit.
I like nature shows, and can’t help but notice that the Green Sermons are usually put at the end of the show. It is pretty clear that the shows are organized that way deliberately. If the creators were incautious enough to put the sermons at the beginning, most viewers would turn away in disgust.
Survey after survey reveals public inaction and disengagement, despite many years of persuasion from the highest authorities on downwards. Highly likely that there is indeed a silent majority of ‘innate skeptics’ (see comment to Louis above). But ‘coming out’ means challenging the apparent high moral ground established by consensus authority. Not easy.
Yes, obviously the silent majority (though expressed in polls) doubts catastrophic global warming (CGW). Yes, given the media push in unequivocal favor of fears of CGW, this majority is highly pressured not to doubt and would thus logically be the majority in need of coming out.
I think many do not know what to believe, but the lack of any concrete events to back up the scaremongering crowd is weighing more heavily every day.
We are a five year cooling trend away from warmistas being tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail.
Reblogged this on Catholic Glasses and commented:
CO2 is just pulmonary expiration. These Global Warming GeoEngineered Weather, Whipper-Snappers are bonifide “Nut Jobs!”
I am not gay, just agreeably content. I also can’t say I expend more than a tiny percent of calories in the sexual realm, being a 56 year old married father of three university students. Perhaps that is why I am totally unaware fo the rising heat that so mesmerizes the author of this article and their repressed but climatically worried readers.
“Bizarre Huffington Post Claim…”
This is news? 😉
Exactly
“Bizarre Huffington Post Claim…”
May I suggest tautology?
Their bread and butter these days.
What a ridiculous conflation. On the sexual issue there was and still is in some parts of society a real danger in admitting that you are gay/lesbian. Physical harm or social ostracism may result. I am not aware of any such dangers in coming out of the climate alarmist closet. As you say it is speaks of desperation.
To the liberals it is a danger to come out. Any skeptics among that bunch know they best keep their fat yaps shut on the subject, or be cast out of the in-crowd and bunched in with the “lunatics”.
Which is what many, perhaps most, of them consider anyone who has a conservative bone in their body.
Do you ever read the comment section of the liberal news sites?
Ordinary looking folks say the most hateful things about anyone who even hints at a conservative or even centrist view of anything.
Not only bizarre, but backward. If the socially acceptable answer is agreeing with alarmism, then only skeptics can “come out” by the meaning of the phrase.
That’s my observation too. HuffPo think that the only socially acceptable position is to be sceptical… and they want that to change.
If they are right though, it raises several questions:
1) How did they discover this? Are they just mocked all the time?
2) Why is it socially unacceptable to agree with the President of the USA on this subject? And does it apply to all subjects?
3) Should the will of the majority be ignored? What injustice over rules the democratic will of the majority who favour prioritising other issues for attention an action?
I think they are right, though.
1) Pretty much all surveys presenting a list of priorities place climate change near the bottom or dead last. In the US where support is party polarized, though a clear majority of Dem / Libs claim to believe in climate change caused largely by man, only a clear *minority* place this at high priority. Indeed just a *small* minority of Dem / Libs place it highest. This speaks only to party allegiance, and not to any underlying will to address this ‘the most important issue of our times’, hence there is not in fact a true belief. This is common knowledge, the surveys are public. It has not by any means been accepted that CC should take the priority place that the president demands for it, even among his own supporters let alone the larger US population.
2) No it won’t apply to all subjects. See comment above to Louis about innate skepticism. It will apply only to subjects where innate skepticism keeps the bulk of the public at odds with the presidential narrative, which in this case is the CAGW narrative. And there are different levels of socially acceptable; at the moment everyone still nods to the narrative in public, yet it is socially acceptable to do little in private, and even to wink to each other about that. Yet if the narrative gains strength, there is no guarantee that this get-out clause will remain.
3) The will of the majority has to be expressed for it to be ignored. It has not yet been expressed. The difficulty with innate skepticism is that it occurs at an instinctive level. Most folks won’t know quite why they are doing nothing and disbelieving in private. Judging by the tales of WUWT commenters over the years, it is just such odd feelings that ‘something is not right’ which made many seek deeper, and find sites such as this. Myself included. But the great majority of the public are too busy with their lives to chase the issue, and probably won’t unless it gets much more aggressive.
andywest2012
Points 1 and 2 are well made. I completely agree.
But Point 3 seems alien to me here in the UK.
We have Climate Change mentioned in a news bulletin every day.
It’s called the most important news story of all time by the Guardian – a major newspaper.
We’re building giant wind turbines across our small island to tilt against it.
How can it not be a major discussion point in the USA too?
First comment on HuffPuff article: ‘is a sort of “five stages of grief” when it comes to climate change awareness. It’s real tough to dig into the nitty-gritty and not want to blow your brains out when you find out just how dire the situation really is.’ dire all right, direly psychotic
Sorry Huffington, but the grown-ups, with children and grandchildren have the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus higher on their priority list of talking points …. and rightly so.
I’m genetically predisposed to be a climate skeptic … actually every rational person is … its only the people being brainwashed or have another agenda who refuse to be a skeptic … they are the ones that should “come out” as a skeptic …
If anyone is scared and shaking in the closet it is sceptics.
The growing desparation of warmunists is ever more palpable.
The HuffPo thing is as bizarre as this weeks Obama broadcast claiming climate change is the greatest threat facing the US. Not Russia in the Ukraine or threatening European gas supplies. Not ISIS. Not the Iranian supply convoy to Yemen or its nuclear program. Not China coopting the South China Sea. And those are just the foreign policy issues, not the long list of domestic issues like unsustainable deficits or lack of jobs growth. Obummer, that talk.
Oh all right then, I’m coming out as a AGW disbeliever, how does that sound? I don’t believe there is enough real world evidence to support the claims that 4% of 0.04% is sufficient to cause the climate to “change”! As they say, twice a very small number is a very small number!
I’m sure that what they actually want is for everyone to be required to admit what they think about climate change, so the skeptics can be shamed by the yellers. It’s not politically correct to put a sign in your snow-covered yard that you wish the climate was warmer.
I was at Yosemite last week and noticed that the glacier which polished the granite walls is gone! No denying it…
Yep. The glaciers in Glacier National Park are mostly gone too. However, they were mostly gone back in the ’50s when I first visited the park. I was told back then by a ranger that the name was given to the park because of the landforms left by the glaciers. Even so, alarmists will often point to Glacier Park as an example of what has happened due to (modern) global warming. The message and lies are becoming tedious.
I actually prefer the park without the glaciers – makes it easier to see 😉
Leftists will use any model they think that will win, regardless of morality or fact. That is why you seem them throwing the tobacco wars tactics at groups like Heartland, because they used the power of the government and won. They found a winning narrative and use the template. Now they think they have another winning template with gay marriage, another hammer to use against their opponents. ForecastTheFacts dot com maintains a blog of leftist propaganda tools. On a single page they attack Israel, Conservatives, climate “deniers”, Christianity, ALEC. Their plan is not about debate, it is about shutting down their political opponents.
This is the apex of climate ideology.
And a quite original tool of propaganda and disinformation: let’s repeat this article a few times around the World and it will be a new factual fact that people are afraid of climate warming because they don’t speak about it.
The next step will be a special benediction for marriage between anthropowarmists, the “coming-out” bonus.
What is this Huff article – some sort of psychological media warfare aimed at the non-CO2-obsessed?
Ridiculous premise.
“Coming out” as an alarmist is about as controversial as Hollywood making a pro-abortion or anti-capitalist movie. (And when they do, ironically pat themselves on the back for their “courage”)
There is no social risk at all to being a climate alarmist.
Precisely.
It is outspoken skeptics who use the courage of their convictions, especially outside the friendly confines of WUWT.
It’s a tough trek wading through author Lisa Bennett’s smarmy prose, but it’s a good example of the alarmist hold on our mass media. She describes herself as “author, communications strategist…thought leader,” and so, there you have it.
Gee, I didn’t know science and facts of science were based on touchy-feelies and just wanting to belong and relate to others. But we now live in the artificial world of social media sound-bites. Quite sad really.
I confess. I am proud, but not necessarily loud about my support for the scientific method.
Me too Pat! WUWT is the best forum, short of storming the Capital building, for showing such support. But a Million Person March for the Scientific Method makes for some interesting imagery. 🙂
csanborn,
But a Million Person March for the Scientific Method makes for some interesting imagery. 🙂
Everyone marches with a beaker held aloft?
How about the chants?
“What do we want?” DATA!
“When do we want it?” NOW!
“Hey, hey! Ho, ho! Climate models got to go!”
Megadodo Publications, the fictional publishes of the Guide in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy where well know for allowing anyone to pop in and write a few words for the Guide, no fact checking needed during the quite lunch times .
Huff Puff seems to use the same principle , however they claim to be real , and they are in no way funny .
Yep, although unspoken and unwritten, they are MegaDooDoo Publications.
What’s next? “Outing” secret believers ?
#B^)
The skeptics have come out. However the alarmists do not want to talk to us.
This might back fire. Maybe most people who come out may come out saying: “Shut up already with your war on fossil fuels and get back to doing something useful.”
what utter nonsense from the Huffington Post on climate change. the latest Pew opinion poll puts global warming at the bottom of the public`s concerns about climate change. It is a vote loser! Professor Murry Salby`s latest lecture on atmospheric CO2 given in Westminster London on 17 March this year and now on U-Tube gives conclusive evidence that the entire CO2 in the atmosphere is coming from natural sources such as plant decomposition and ocean de-gassing. The amount coming from the use of fossil fuels he found to be insignificant!. So much for the “experts” in the Huffington Post.
I do not agree the amount is insignificant. Fully 3% of CO2 emissions are anthropogenic, and they are added to a (mostly) closed cycle: Exchanges between atmo and soils/biomass and atmo and oceans, with a chunk lost to calcification. As a result, atmospheric CO2 is increasing by 0.4%, annually. Face it. The CO2 part is for real. The mild lukewarming as a result of raw CO2 forcing is real, too.
As a former global warming believer, the more I found out about climate alarmism, the more I found that it is a political propaganda campaign run by big government interests, crony climate “study” groups, and crony “green” energy companies.
Actually, people need to feel free to come out regarding their skepticism.
The [anthropogenic] trans-climate movement likes to place people in little labeled boxes. They selective exclude people who do not conform to their social and political consensus, who are typically people that are climate normal or agnostic.
Will I be forced to bake a cake for a Greepeace rally?
So long as you don’t use any condiment to make it rise, because that’ll be carbon dioxide that makes it so.
This sort of desperate, raving drivel is increasingly more common and comes from all the usual suspects ( lets face it the Huff n Puff Post is a usual suspect) who are really only truly revealing their essential nature with this sort of fruit loop nonsense. Desperate little wannabe’s who need something to belong to and something that is rebranded to a new improved edition fairly regularly.
If they were not so ludicrous they would be sad and pitiful.
I am so very happy with this Huffington Post article. It feels like a great load has been taken off my chest (and out of my pants). Finally, after reading that article I have found the courage to come out of the closet. Am I homosexual? No. Am I a man trapped in a woman’s body? No (but I am trapped in a crappy body). Am I a transvestite? No. Am I transgendered? No. Am I bisexual? No. I … I … am … an Anthropo Genital Climasexual.
I’m a l3sbian trapped in a man’s body! Can I get victimhood status and special rights? 🙂
So, you’re a meteorosexual instead of a metrosexual?
In the list of possible reasons, for not being more ‘out’ on AWG, she left out the most important one.
Many don’t buy the hype.
Hello, my name is Steve and I’m a climate skeptic…..
where have you been all of my life?
Climate Skeptics Anonymous?
This Huff Pro piece basically shows how deluded these people are. We have been hearing for more than 20 years about how the world will be ending because of global warming. Nothing has happened. People are tired of the message. The lesson of the “Boy Who Cried Wolf” must have been lost on the alarmists as children.
By changing the term from Global Warming to Climate Change, zealots now believe that record cold is caused by the warming from CO2. With most of the major metro centers from the Midwest to DC having experienced two very tough winters in a row, it begs the question, “How much colder must it get to reach optimal temperatures per the IPCC?”
The logic must be:
CO2 causes warming -> Leading to record cold in some places -> Therefore we must eliminate fossil fuels
The results would then be:
Lower CO2 causes cooling -> Leading to an ice age -> Therefore we all freeze to death since fossil fuels are the only reliable source of heat during colder, shorter, winter days.
Pictures of dead people next to their solar panels will be quite the testament by those who have “come out”.
It is bizarre times we live in.
Let’s be honest. Huffpost wants alarmists to ‘kick it up a notch’ and solve the problem, permanently.
[snip]
Anthony: A disgusting image that has no place on your blog – for whatever misguided reason.
The ironic thing about that article is that it really is dangerous to “come out” and say you are a skeptic or question whether or not CO2 emissions will cause long term problems….
What “reasonable actions to combat climate change” are they referring to? Even Hansen admitted that carbon credits won’t work. Sending us back to the stone age by banning fossil fuels might reduce a small amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, but I don’t consider it a “reasonable action.” So what actions are they talking about, and how do they know a change in climate won’t make us better off?
Nature is [their] religion. Any change, if it is caused by man, is by definition evil.
Fossil fuels will only be banned in the US, Canada, Australia and the EU . The rest of the world will carry on with cheaper fuel because there are fewer customers and prices will drop . Also the vast sum of money promised to the rest of the world by Obama, Milliband , etc will pay for a good few coal and gas power stations in India and Africa .
American’s don’t even list climate among their top 14 concerns, according to the latest Gallop Poll…
see: http://www.gallup.com/poll/181946/americans-name-government-no-problem.aspx?utm_source=US%20concerns&utm_medium=search&utm_campaign=tiles
Dissatisfaction with Government is the TOP concern.
It’s also my top concern.
“Dissatisfaction with Government is the TOP concern.”
So there should be no doubt now as to why government says that the climate is the #1 concern…
“The model of gay and lesbian Americans “coming out” is a good one. Not perfect but we don’t need perfect. We need action.”
True. We need to admit that skeptics were mostly right; that our predictions turned out all wrong; that the Big Oil has bribed Mother Nature herself and she now stubbornly disrespects even the best climate models. Action!
I’ve noticed this tendency amongst leftitsts. To assume that everyone agrees with them, but are being suppressed by evil people.
My wife told me about an interview she saw with a famous Hollywood maven from the 1960’s. She talked about how everyone she knew voted against Nixon, but in the back of her mind she knew there were people out there, somewhere, who actually voted for Nixon. Not only a few people, a lot of them, somewhere out there.
There is a tendency to get into insular bubbles where groupthink gets reinforced and people start believing that everyone thinks the same way. Liberals in particular seem at risk of this, due to their perceptions that they have a monopoly on education and scholarly thinking. It’s easy to extrapolate this into the idea that their way of thinking is the only proper way, and that everyone else must agree or would be forced to agree once properly educated.
Of course, they then leave their ivory towers to slum for votes every election, where they jettison all their scholarly thinking to simplify things down to the most basic ‘us against them’ of even just ‘vote us’ propaganda to sway the unwashed masses.
I can feel them in the atmosphere.
========
My comment on the Huffpost article:
So, what we need is more climate alarmist propaganda from the media? Or could it be that the general climate apathy among Americans reflects their growing realization that Earth simply isn’t delivering the extraordinary warming predicted by our very sophisticated, trustworthy, and expensive climate models? Maybe (just maybe) what we really need is a little more accountability from the climate modelers and a little less credulous Chicken Little climate alarmism.
It takes great courage to stand up in support of the massive intergovernmental push to adopt worldwide climate alarmism as a matter of policy… in Bizarro world.
I went ahead and read through the comments. It was interesting to note that the comments were just about evenly split between alarmists and skeptics. I suspect the Huff Post editors are shocked to discover there are skeptics among their readers.
Well, that’s obviously the paid big oil trolls from WUWT and K*ch Br*s ruining things for everybody else! /s
It should be renamed HUFFINGton PAINT.
plus 1
That’s a terrible analogy they chose.
If you tell me you’re gay and you need me to respect that fact and to show a little empathy, fine, I can do that. It costs me nothing, and if it makes your life better, then all is good, some are better off, no one is worse off.
But if you tell me that the entire society must artificially restrict our use of fossil fuels, to artificially jack up the cost of everything that is transported, to, in effect, lower my standard of living (and yours), to no real effect on the climate, but just so YOU can feel better about yourself, well, now I have an objection. When our primary schools send their students home to lecture their parents, they’re saying, “hey, mommy and daddy, look at what a good job the leftist, bureaucratic school system did at brainwashing me.”
Well said Mickey.
Sadly, you will not change the mind of the leftist/socialist with this argument.
They will just call you selfish.
Belief in manmade climate, unlike sexual preference is an illness. It is curable, but they have to want to be cured first. Then, all that is required is a thirst for knowledge and a quest for the truth, no matter how painful that might be. Of course, if they start “coming out”, people may just want to avoid them like the plague. Maybe it would be best if they kept quiet.
I use to read HuffPo occasionally for balance, not wishing to fall into the liberal trap of extreme confirmation bias. However, I must admit they are making it progressively more difficult to swallow some of the ridiculous garbage they are currently preaching.
I was under the impression that they truly believed it was everyone except us skeptics that were running around like Chicken Little. So, at least they aren’t so delusional to think that everyone is a practicing alarmist, just delusional enough to think that everyone is a closet alarmist.
It is actually the reverse. I think some people are afraid to open up about their skeptical viewpoints..
That’s quite so…one can be treated like a social pariah for daring to voice doubts about AGW.
Huffington Post is the worst. You really can’t even get anymore unethical and bias in your journalism. Every climate change article is completely made up and aimed to shame skeptics as a schoolyard bully would. It is a true rag. Its an embarrassment that people would believe anything they type regardless of their political standing.
Forget gays and lesbians; they’re doing fine.
The real closet cases around here are the wusses — physical and intellectual. I don’t know what it’s like for you readers in other countries, but here in the US great swaths of men have become total &%$*#! sissies. It’s absolutely appalling. What happened?
Putting aside their food fussiness, nail polish, three hour bathroom runs, girlie voices, shopping hysteria, I-want-to-be-different-just-like-everyone-else tattoos, manscaping, broga, … (I could go on and on) … American men have become doormats whose only concern is not to upset anyone. Go along to get along. They have a defeatist “Well, what can you do about it?” … “it” being anything that would require them sport a pair.
MEMBERS ONLY.
LEAVE YOUR BALLS
AT THE DOOR.
http://www.capturecommerce.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/instagram-is-down.jpg
I don’t have any data, but I strongly suspect that there is a very strong correlation between climate alarmism and being a fembot, between being a groupthinker and having a bumpersticker that reads: VaGaia!
At some level I really admire the men in the middle east; piss them off and they’re not afraid to mount a .50 cal on a Toyota and come teach you a little respect.
Can you imagine what the “men” at the Huffington Puss are like?
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“At some level I really admire the men in the middle east; piss them off and they’re not afraid to mount a .50 cal on a Toyota and come teach you a little respect.”
Those ones usually get the Toyota and the machine gun from a friendly Western agency. For whom they’re peddling Heroin.
Yikes. Must be bad surf today.
I’ll just shallowly add – and here I thought coming out of the closet was about finding better sex.
Well if HuffPo wants people out of the closet, I’ve never been it the closet. And I have read enough and studied enough about CAGW to know that that crowd of nut jobs should do the world and humanity a favor and crawl back into there hole. And further if they want a piece of me come and try to get it.
What if yoy are a warm-monger in a sceptic’s body? Could you get a ‘sex-change’ kind operation?
What a bunch of kooks. Actually what never occurs to these idiots is that most adults are not alarmists and have a rather measured view about the environment in general and climate change in particular. You have be an immature bonehead to run around screaming “the sky is falling “especially when the overwhelming evidence says it isn’t.
Arrogant, delusional and stupid is no way to go through life (variant on the Animal House line). It’s the ones who are most ignorant about math and science that are the most sure of themselves, and can only fathom that it is another “communication problem”. These people are committed to the cause of world socialism, so sadly I think things have to get much worse before they get better.
I’m in favour of world socialism. A true socialist believes that a society should be designed for the benefit of not just a few of its members. The alternative is international anarchy, which is just what we’ve got. It is held in check only by the realisation that the consequence of all out war could easily be everybody, but especially me and you, dead. It is a comfortable superstition to imagine that to have been born where I was born makes me superior to those born elsewhere.
Literal patriotism is rubbish.
Now for my alarmist piece. Since I was born, world poulation has more than doubled. My fair share of the Sun’s output is therefore less than half what it used to be. Not only is global wrming real, but the solar origin “renewables” cannot cure it.
Here’s the good news, almost. The Chinese People’s Republic, which of course is the world’s biggest capitalist conglomerate, is going to fix the problem with energy from a technology that the USA abandoned in Nixon’s reign.
I’m willing to try it: “Down with global warming! Long live Chairman Pachauri! Paris or bust! Keep the temperature down! … ⛄️
Max, it’s a silent progressive agenda. Emasculate men, and wars & violence will be a thing of the past….
Excellent idea. I have been consumed by the great secret within me. It has been a heavy burden to carry but now I have decided to “come out”. So I’ll just say it…
I’m a skeptic!
[There is a 12-step program for that.
You start by waking up every day in January, living your life, then going to sleep and waking up again the next day.
Then you do the same in February.
Repeat in March.
April, May … until the end of December.
Then you do it all over again. .mod]
Brilliant Mod!
Ah – the henpecking, harpy piranhakeets at the Huffington Post. Or the Yahoo front page – I can’t tell the difference. It’s like listening to the cast of Mean Girls in mid-tantrum.
Wow, they’ve got the Whitehouse, all the university’s, all the NGOs, UN, Royal Society, K-12 brainwashed by their ‘educator’ keepers, all the major multi billion dollar foundations, the Gang Green platoons, Hollywood, nearly all the TV networks, nearly all the newspapers, all the scientific journals, tenure, World Bank, IMF, all but 3 or 4 governments out of 200+,…. They’ve seen us vilified, freedom trampled on and lives and livelihood threatened. What more could the writer at the HUFFPO want?!!? Gee we are only 3% and probably more in need to be part of this “diversity” thingy to recover from the marginalization. It might be becoming safer for gays and lesbians and all the other kinds to come out than it is for the 3%. I guess they could get more. The USSR, China and Burma didn’t have to put up much with dissenters like us. But gee, the climate warming proponents are victims? Surely it isn’t we few holding them up. Go ahead and come out – your safe from me.
Gary, can I use the “Gang Green” line? , good chuckle!
Well, let’s see – The US and Europe are about 1 billion people. Assuming they are all warmers which we know is incorrect, that leave 6 billion who are too busy trying to survive to actually care. I’m thinking the “Green Gang” is pretty small.
Applying the knowledge gained by gender mainstreaming researchers, this makes warmunism a social construct.
I decidedly agree with that.
It’s okay, you can run your Global Warming models if you want to. Just pay for them yourselves.
I’ll just shove this note out the closet door:
Those in authority telling
Of doom (and our “myths” dispelling),
Cast great dispersion
On skeptical version,
But; carbon indulgence they’re selling!
…strike the last line… let me try:
For fear of the public rebelling.
This strikes me as another “shotgun article”. That is, pull the trigger and hope you hit something close to the target.
The article is hoping to elicit “more noise” by identifying the absence of “noise” from the majority with the “noise” generated by the sexual minority. “If you don’t accept what’s wrong with us then there’s something wrong with you.”
I don’t talk about climate much because I have friends who have drunk the coolaide on climate alarm and I don’t want to argue with them. Apart from their irrationality on climate they are good friends.
It is the same reason I avoid talking about the history of the cosmos or evolution near my other friend who believes the world was created in 6000AD and fossils date from the great flood.
There is nothing to be gained by arguing with people holding irrational religious based beliefs.
OT. What happened to the “Daniels”. Haven’t seen them all day. Did they get banned (finally)?
OK, I admit it. I am worried about climate change. I am concerned that future generations might have a low quality of life if another ice age comes. And all historical records of climate through the ages on this planet indicate another ice age will come again. If man truly does have the ability to influence the climate, then for the sake of future generations we ought to at least make some effort to not leave them with a planet covered in a 30 foot thick sheet of ice that extends down to Kansas. If mass production of CO2 is the way we stop, or at least delay, the next ice age, then we ought to consider how we can help future generations live their lives in swim suits rather than in hooded winter coats and ski masks. Electric cars will not make that happen. Gasoline cars with your standard catalytic converter will produce CO2 and help keep pollution down. So come out of your closets, stop saving up to spend a crazy amount of money on a Tesla that will selfishly leave future generations to survive in a world of ice eating seal and walrus blubber, and get in your gas powered car and go cruising. Because you care.
Were the edges of the Laurentide Ice Sheet in the US really only 30 feet thick, when its dome above Canada might well have been over 10,000 feet thick?
Seal and walrus blubber? Oh I forgot there would not be any more polar bears left to eat them, so more for us!
Who has time to read the Huffington Post? I don’t have time for their drivel.
All Huffington Post claims are bizarre. That is because they are the product of mentally ill minds, or “progressives” as they now like to be called…
ROFL….Huff Po is huffing and puffing! I’ll ‘come out’ and confirm that I am a full blown climate sceptic. Thank goodness for one good laugh today!
More evidence that parasitic statism is a progressive disease.
As others have observed, idiocy from the Huff& Puff is not news.
I have found that Huff Po and Yahoo News have both been working overtime cranking out the “global warming” alarmism stories. Because of that, I refuse to read anything from either of these “news” outlet. They’ve taken propagandism to an absurd level.
@gandhi come on now read and comment on Yahoo News I think it is so funny to scroll through the comments and see that even with professional trolls (histories of 8000 comments) the warmists can’t conjure up a majority batch of comment posts. Its refreshing to see that skeptics are posting the more informed, erudite, and civil comments and that they are in the majority if one can trust the little thumbs up or down vote tabulators.
Only 71 comments beneath the original article most from the same 5 people
Yet here on WUWT there are 112 comments.
So there are evidently fewer members of Climate religion, than the author thinks.
Her thinking seems to be “Yes ours is the one true religion, we are not a small band of cranks, magnitudes more secretly believe”
they don’t pay their own people for posting!
Her argument is the public are not vociferous about Climate Change
Yes you can see that from her Huffpo posting history, which is almost entirely about climate change and mostly ignored.
averaging a post every month since 2012 yet averaging only 0, 3, 5 comments
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-bennett/
No need to ‘come out’ on my part. I’ve always been forthcoming, about my requirements for verifiable and reproducible science/physics/engineering claims…. as well as my predilections for the fairer gender, may God bless their curvacious souls!
As for the Huffington Post, it has been reduced to post modern psychobabble. Irrational drivel, ostensibly ‘supporting’ the climate catastrophe meme. I’m not a regular ‘reader’…. and even less likely to be so now.
Reminds me of that classic Honey Boo Boo gem:
‘Ain’t nothing wrong with bein’ a little gay. Everybody’s a little gay.’
Hey, if gay’s your way that’s OK!
That stigma was put to bed decades ago…
I have to admit I was shocked when my daughter came home from college and broke the news that she has come out as a climate change true-believer.
Yes, we are trying reparative therapy with the counselor at our church.
You brainwashed your child in one set of lies and now you’re surprised to find she’s fallen for another set of lies? You americans really don’t get irony.
And it seems non-americans do not uderstand prevailance of false-flag comments on the internet. And love to generalise.
Sometimes I wear Global Warmists underwear.
Gawd, they make you hot!
The Huff and the Grauniad think that everyone has their ‘inner homosexuality’ inside of them.
Perish the thought that 80% odd of the global population are perfectly happy being hetero and it might become the case that 80% of them were also quite climate skeptic also??
Wow… those people are so far removed from reality I’m surprised they can function day to day.
Oceanic Global Warming is real, and it’s caused by reversing the Carboniferous Era’s carbon sequestration and atmospheric oxygenation at a breakneck speed.But even disounting the CO2, the rate of poisonous gas production by both coal and “clean natural gas” justifies replacing all of that, not by puny solar “renewables” that don’t actually get mucjh renewing, but by nuclear
“For once I’m at a bit of a loss to know what to say.”
Because you don’t understand politics. This is why the site recently posted a paper that triangulated against alarmists, skeptics and deniers… despite how dangerous it is to your goals. They are going to rewrite the history of this debate, and you will lose to a subpar team and never understand why.