Same old scare stories, different decade.
By Larry Kummer, Editor of the Fabius Maximus website, from which this is reposted.
Summary: This is the first in a new regular feature on the FM website showing the best of the propaganda headlines that fill our news. Today we have six headlines telling an important story about us and climate change. Post your thoughts about these in the comments. Get your favorite headlines posted (past or present, mocking Left or Right) by emailing them to PropagandaHeadline at G mail dot com (anti-spam spelling). Enjoy!
When we again see the world clearly, we can start the reform of America.
Six years ago began a new chapter in one of the most incompetently run campaigns ever, the preparation for the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference in December 2009. The following snippets show one theme from that massive bombardment of stories intended to arouse people’s fear and so create a stampede for far-reaching public policy measures to save the world. These headlines warned that the end was near and time was running out.
(1) “President ‘has four years to save Earth’” says climate scientist James Hansen in The Guardian, 17 January 2009.
(2) “Global warming has reached a ‘defining moment,’ Prince Charles warns” in The Telegraph, 12 March 2009. “The world has “less than 100 months” to save the planet.
(3) “‘We have hours’ to prevent climate disaster” by Elizabeth May (Member of Parliament and leader of Canada’s Green Party) in The Star (Toronto), 24 March 2009. This was run as news, not an op-ed.
(4) “Just 96 months to save world, says Prince Charles” in The Independent. 9 July 2009. “If the world failed to heed his warnings then we all faced the ‘nightmare that for so many of us now looms on the horizon’.”
(5) “Five years to save world from climate change, says WWF“, Australian Broadcasting Company, 18 October 2009 — Excerpt…
“Karl Mallon, a scientist with Climate Risk and one of the key authors of the report, says 2014 has been calculated as the point at which there is no longer enough time to develop the industries that can deliver a low carbon economy. ‘The point of no return,’ he said.
“’If we wait until past 2014 or that’s what modelling shows, then simply put, it will be impossible for industries to grow to the scale that has to be achieved in the time that is available.’”
(6) “Gordon Brown said negotiators had 50 days to save the world from global warming and break the “impasse”.“, BBC, 19 October 2009. Brown was the UK PM.
The result
It was a fantastic success — for the attendees, most of whom enjoyed an expense-account funded vacation with their peers in picturesque Copenhagen. Here’s the word salad they produced. Three journalists at the Guardian evaluated the Conference in terms of its accomplishments: Low targets, goals dropped: Copenhagen ends in failure.
Typical results from one of the most incompetently conducted campaigns ever.
Flash forward to now
Six years later we’re still in the pause — the hiatus or slowing of the atmosphere’s warming (see papers about its causes) — with most forms of extreme weather at normal levels (details here, more here).
Doubling down on proven failed tactics, climate activists have began a fear bombardment to produce a stampede of panicked people into November’s United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris (Paris! No global climate conferences in Chicago or Birmingham, where events are cheaper). Each week brings new papers confidently predicting that climate change will produce new horrors (odd that it produces not one good thing).
As the cherry on the news we get “His Royal Highness {Prince Charles} warns that we have just 35 years to save the planet from catastrophic climate change.” in the Western Morning News, 18 July 2015.” Nice of Charles to grant us a reprieve from his original June 2017 deadline.
Conclusions
A parallel on the right to this campaign is the series of confident predictions since 1984 that Iran will have nukes in a few years. The common element of info ops by Left and Right: activists understand us. They know we care only for tribal truths, that we seldom learn from experience, and care not that our leaders lie to us.
When we change so that these things are true no longer then we will have begun to regain control of America. For more about this see, these posts about Reforming America: steps to new politics.
For More Information
See all posts about information and disinformation, about The keys to understanding climate change, and My posts about climate change.
The difference between CAGW and Iran Nuke is that Iran is actively pursuing it and openly threatening.
So comparison is quite weak.
It is a totally unnecessary conflict rooted in Anglo-American blunders going back to 1953 and beyond. It is about time our so-called leaders had the courage to admit that. Shiism has been fundamentally on the defensive throughout its history and remains so today. Bluster from a weak adversary is not a portent of imminent doom.
Meanwhile, what are our leaders doing about Saudi Arabia, the heart of the Sunni militancy which actually is a threat to the future of Western civilisation? Selling it bombs for a disastrous attack on Yemen.
Ah yes, the old, everything bad is the fault of the anglo-american argument.
Prince Charles.
The imbecile who chartered an entire train to travel the country preaching about sustainability.
So, shall we all travel about in private trains, henceforth, your highness?
Here is everything that I might wish to say about the involvement of the topmost homeopathy adoring dullard in this debate. Courtesy of Delingpole:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100052540/prince-of-wales-spreads-eco-loon-gospel-on-his-amazing-biofuel-powered-crazy-train/
Khwarizmi
August 9, 2015 at 12:46 am
Mike Morlock,
My country, Australia, does whatever the United States says without question or public debate.
We joined the “coalition of the willing” that destroyed Iraq for the second time on false pretexts, helping to carve it up into ethno-religious warring states according to Oded Yinon’s plan outlined in “A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties” (read it if you haven’t already)
We even joined the unpopular war in Vietnam, unlike most “allies,” because we never say no to Uncle Sam.
PLUS MANY MANY MANY K’s well said 🙂 🙂
frankly with allies/alliances like this..we may as well go back to colony days n let the poms screw us over again.
far better we stand up for ourselves and say NO!!!! F off a LOT more often!
There were no false pretenses, but a lot of liars keep trying to claim that there were.
A better analogy for climate is probably the mostly right wing preoccupation with unfunded government liabilities. Certainly better than Iran, even if its scope for media hyping is quite limited. The issue of welfare based on increasing liabilities passed to future generations (who have no say) deserves detailed analysis and debate for sure. But, it is most unlikely to end in some kind of ‘debtonation’. A bidding war on the size of future unfunded liabilities, particularly popular in the US at times, is rather in the Hansen et al climate tradition.
The outlines of the way this particular issue will likely be resolved are already apparent in some European countries. Previously promised entitlements are simply reduced. This, of course, prompts a political backlash and young adults (always likely to be the main losers) flocking to opportunistic politicians. Governments have great power to void entitlements, not available to corporations etc.
It is amusing however that most of those who profess such concern for future generations on climate matters are those most indifferent to those same generations being likely short changed on welfare entitlements (barring dynamic growth from technological advance).
basicmath: Payment on the debt is already the largest single budget item, and that’s with today’s artificially depressed interest rates.
SSI is going to run out of money next year.
SS itself is going to run out of money sometime in the next 20 years.
They are either going to be massive tax increases to pay for these things, or a lot of people are going to have to do with way less than the govt promised them.
Either scenario is going to be a disaster both politically and economically.
Just because the machine hasn’t fallen apart yet, is not evidence that the machine can’t fall apart.
MarkW:
basicstats was talking about unfunded liabilities, not the national debt. Unfunded liabilities are effectively “off the books” in the formal federal budget.
Back in 1976 or so I attended a symposium on “The Economics of Financing Government” where the main draw was Milton Friedman, who had just been awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics. One of the other speakers had formerly been with the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW as it was known, later split into several new Cabinet departments). He related how he an his colleagues there amused themselves by estimating the total unfunded liability for Social Security. The values were in the neighborhood of $800 Billion (USD). Keep in mind this was 1976, when the total federal expenditures were $1.1 Trillion.
I don’t know what the estimates are today, but we also have unfunded liabilities for Medicare, Medicaid, and now Obamacare. A quick search reveals several claims around the figure of $128 Trillion, and I don’t know if that includes pension liabilities for state and local public employees (Detroit teachers for example).
You say:
Quite true. Now lets talk about the need for a carbon tax to save the planet.
Earlier this morning I was reading this:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-bankruptcy-of-the-planet-accelerates-24-nations-are-currently-facing-a-debt-crisis/5463032
If this is true, and I think it is, then the following is also true:
1) Renewable energy, is unreliable and expensive and will hit Western economies badly. GDP’s of all countries who subscribe to a treaty will suffer and suffer badly.
2) Destroying capitalism is the true reason for the AGW scare, any idiot with a brain cell can see that none of the predictions have come true and are highly unlikely to in the future.
3) Look at the organisations who support action on AGW, Our Labour Party (Ed Millband drafted the Climate Change Act), the EU, Obama, Greenpeace, the UN etc. Without exception all are left leaning organisations. Prince Charles has always supported stupid ideas, I don’t think he realises that in the socialist utopia (sarc) that we are heading for, the Royal Family will become only a family.
4) Why are India and China refusing to sign anything and expanding coal fired power stations? Because they are on the list of debtors and they need cheap plentiful energy to strengthen their economy. Why are the Russians keeping very quiet about AGW and at the same time making Europe dependant on their gas?
5) Why is fracking and nuclear power so reviled by the left wing?
In my view the Paris Treaty will be worded to put forward measures that will act as the catalyst for the destruction of capitalism, to be replaced by a whole new socialist world order by driving up energy prices, and national debt, which will precipitate a global stock market clash and make the current situation in Greece, the norm in the Western World.
Parisites indeed!!
” I don’t think he realises that in the socialist utopia (sarc) that we are heading for, the Royal Family will become only a family.”
Or they could end up like the Romanov’s
The reality is the warmers like other shaman actually do not believe their own tripe and there is a high probabability that the predicted sun cycle may cause cooling. If they are unable to get some sort of massive program passed to limit CO2, their real concern is when the cooling starts they will be unable to claim responsibility for stopping the warming.
They are acting like it may be their last chance to bring about their utopian dream.
You can’t make this stuff up,
Defies the imagination,
Yet so many taken in
By this extraordinary exaggeration,
And now Paris is coming,
A chance for another jamboree,
And yet more wild claims,
Yet more hypocrisy.
http://rhymeafterrhyme.net/under-the-shadow-of-the-eiffel/
Somewhat O/T – whatever happened to that Papal Encyclical – Laudato Si?
I think there are some practicing Catholics that post on the site – any insight as to its continuing effect on the faithful? Is it still getting air time at the parish or diocese level?
Apples and Oranges….
The sun/earth complex define our temperature.
Nukes in Iran however are defined by the Mullahs – creating, buying, stealing technology.
In 1984 they may have been years away. Now, they are only a few months if that away.
Keep you apples with the apples and your oranges with the oranges…..
There is a limited amount of time for the politicians of the world to “do something” so they can claim to have “saved the world.”
They should re-name it ‘Move the Goalposts Paris 2015’.
“Con Nuestro Peru” of August, 10, 2015 has the following article:
COLD KILLS ONE MILLION HEADS OF CATTLE
A catastrophe has led to the cold in the herd camels, sheep and cattle in the country. The National Civil Defense Institute (INDECI) reported on 5 August that cold dead animals reach 912 300. At the time of writing can be as one million. Most are fine alpacas. There are also 508 000 sick animals.
This is a disaster unparalleled in our history. Of course, Ollanta Humala and his court seem to have been unaware. The presidential message of July 28 said iota about the tragedy.
Frightening is the situation created by the snowfall that hit especially the poor peasants. The regime cares only for transnational mining poor things.
The problem also affects the national pantry means less meat and less milk for the population. But Palace and the palaces are well supplied.
The eight injured Andean regions makes us see, backlit, what happens in other agricultural regions of the world: Argentina and Chilean Patagonia, Alaska, northern Europe, the Russian Siberia, where frost and snow lasts on average six months, but They do not cause any deaths.
A few years ago, when the television showed children of Puno, just shod with sandals, walking on snow and many of them died of cold, a European friend said: “In Sweden there is a more intense cold in Puno, but no child dies of cold. ”
The secret is food, warm clothing, adequate housing. In other words: the forecast.
But our governments believe enough welfarism. They lack vision and foresight. Do you have ever wondered what it would cost to protective footwear for children height of the cold?
It happens that governments, scientists, technologists, consultants and producers of cold countries have developed strategies that our bureaucrats should study. Before the cold spell in 2013, the magazine Agronoticias recommended:
-Selection and adaptation to extreme cold resistant breeds.
-Improving Massive natural pastures for greater nutritional value, as well as combating parasites that thrive in the cold.
-Reforzamiento Herds with vaccines, vitamin and minerals.
Defence of fodder and water, when snow covers the sources, places the same field.
Special -Refugios for most valuable player.
Attendance permanent technique to farmers.
Lord government: height farmers are not the big mining, but also deserve attention.
http://www.connuestroperu.com/actualidad/punto-de-vista/47404-frio-mata-un-millon-de-cabezas
Reader’s comment: Sorry for the not always correct translation from translate.google.com
Ollante Moises Humala Tasso is since 2011 the president of Peru.
One lion killed in Zimbabwe has got a lot of attention in the Main Stream Media. One million cattle dying from the cold,
“a disaster unparalleled in the history of Peru”, gets no attention at all. Even the President of Peru chooses to ignore this disaster. Because this news might disturb the new Global Warming religion.
in the wake of Paris, after the upcoming elections – scenario:
no one will know who was ‘Obama’. Perhaps
there is a H.Clinton, a A.Merkel.
Wich are overhelmed by the unsolved problems their predecessors left piled up.
Really no time for perpuated climate alarm.
Hans
The UK’s The Guardian published an article by Damian Carrington and Suzanne Goldenberg titled “Gordon Brown Attacks ‘Flat-Earth’ Climate Change Sceptics” (4 December 2009), in which Gordon Brown stated:
“With only days to go before Copenhagen we mustn’t be distracted by the behind-the-times, anti-science, flat-earth climate sceptics…. We know the science. We know what we must do. We must now act and close the 5bn-tonne gap. That will seal the deal.”
and Ed Milliband stated:
“The approach of the climate saboteurs is to misuse data and mislead people. The sceptics are playing politics with science in a dangerous and deceitful manner. There is no easy way out of tackling climate change despite what they would have us believe. The evidence is clear and the time we have to act is short. To abandon this process now would lead to misery and catastrophe for millions.”
and Nick Cleg stated:
“it would be disastrous for the planet if sceptics were able to undermine support for a climate change deal. Ideological dinosaurs, whether in Saudi Arabia or in the Conservative party, who deny climate change must not be allowed to hide behind some leaked correspondence to support their outdated theories.”
Looking back to 2009, the comments by these three British politicians now make them look delusional and insane..
Oooo, headlines of deadlines to doom.