Bjorn Lomborg writes:
Al Gore recently had a telling altercation with a journalist. The Spectator’s Ross Clark wanted to ask him about Miami sea-level rises suggested in the new film, “An Inconvenient Sequel.” The reporter started to explain that he had consulted Florida International University sea-level-rise expert Shimon Wdowinski. Gore’s response: “Never heard of him — is he a denier?” Then he asked the journalist, “Are you a denier?”
When Clark responded that he was sure climate change is a problem but didn’t know how big, Gore declared, “You are a denier.”
I was recently on the receiving end of a similar rebuff from Chile’s environment minister. I’d written an op-ed for a Chilean newspaper that, among other things, quoted UN findings on how little the Paris climate treaty would achieve and argued that vast investment in green energy research and development is a better policy. Marcelo Mena proclaimed, “There is no room for your climate-denying rhetoric in Chile.”
Something odd — and dangerous — is happening when even people who accept the reality of man-made climate change are labeled “deniers.” The unwillingness to discuss which policies work best means we end up with worse choices.
Consider the case of Roger Pielke, Jr, a political scientist who worked extensively on climate change. He believes that climate change is real, human emissions of greenhouse gases justify action and there should be a carbon tax.
But he drew the ire of climate campaigners because his research has shown that the increasing costs from hurricane damage is not caused by storms made more intense by climate-change but by more and pricier property built in vulnerable areas. He took issue with the UN’s influential International Panel for Climate Change over a chart in its 2007 report that seemed to imply causation when there was only circumstantial evidence.
Pielke was proven right, and the IPCC’s subsequent outputs mostly accepted his arguments. Yet, he was the target of a years-long campaign, including a massive but baseless takedown that later turned out to have been coordinated by a climate-campaigning think tank funded by a green billionaire, alongside an investigation launched by a congressman.
Pielke left climate change for other fields where “no one is trying to get me fired.” And sidelining him has made it easier for climate-campaigners to use hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria to argue for carbon-cut policies, even though these will do very little to prevent future hurricane damage.
Pielke finds that we should make relatively cheap investments to reduce vulnerability, like limiting floodplain construction and increasing porous surfaces. Ignoring this means more harm.
Leaving out dissention echoes the worst of the leaked “ClimateGate” e-mails. In 2004, the head of a leading climate-research organization wrote about two inconvenient papers: “Kevin and I will keep them out [of the IPCC report] somehow — even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!”
Journalists also ensure debate “purity.” In Scientific American, climate writer and former CNN producer Peter Dykstra stated baldly that “climate denial extends beyond rejecting climate science,” comparing policy questioners to Holocaust deniers and dismissing my own decade of advocacy for a green energy R&D fund as “minimization.”
This intolerance for discussion is alarming. Believe in climate change but wonder how bad it will be? You’re a “denier,” says Gore. Believe, but argue that today’s policies aren’t the best response? You’re a denier, says Chile’s environment minister. Believe, but point out problematic findings or media reporting? There’s no room for you, say the self-appointed gatekeepers of debate.
‘Something odd — and dangerous — is happening when even people who accept the reality of man-made climate change are labeled “deniers.” ‘
Sounds like Hitler in his bunker during his last days .
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/10/11/the-greens-versus-big-oil/comment-page-1/#comment-2633112
Excerpt:
What is it about the far-left that enables them to simply fabricate huge lies and then repeat them so often that gullible fools believe them and idiot politicians act on them?
Joseph Goebbels would be proud of his successors.
http://www.psywarrior.com/Goebbels.html
AlGore both sounds like and argues like a Scientologist. Say something they disagree with or paint the church in a negative light and they give you a derogatory label and attack you rather than refute your information.
“What is it about the far-left …”
People generally fall into two categories depending on which hemisphere of their brain dominates. If the left hemisphere dominates, then logic drives extrapolation and you are more likely to be a Republican. If the right hemisphere dominates, then emotion drives extrapolation and you are more likely to be a Democrat. If both hemispheres can effectively negotiate with each other, then you are more likely to be in the center and driven towards Libertarianism. To be absolutely clear, there are always exceptions.
In a way, this modifies the threshold for the fight or flight response. Left brained people are more likely to fight if logic tells them they will win while right brained people are more likely to run away and hide if they are afraid enough. To be clear once more, broken logic and misplaced fear are also quite common as they affect decision making by both types of brains.
Read 1984 lately?
It is the result of controlling 90%of the message board Allan. AP, UPI, Reuters, NYTimes, WaPo, ABNBCBS, CNN, MSNBC, Comcast, MSN, Google, HuffPo, Real Climate, Politico, Media Matters…From the gathering to the dissemination and the aggregation the left controls the message
It is easy to drown out reality with propaganda when you can control the news narrative so loudly and for so long that subterranean rock dwellers in northern Nevada receive the propaganda.
Alinsky’s 13 Rules for Radicals comes to mind, too.
Hitler would have been proud of Roe V. Wade, but then again 55,000,000 more souls in the US would have created more global warming, so maybe not.
“AlGore both sounds like and argues like a Scientologist. ”
Nah. I know some Scientologists who are perfectly wonderful people. To me, all religion is wacko…including the Church of Climate. If you insult the Goddess Mother Earth, you shall be stoned to death.
I don’t believe in anything…except data. And a lot of that is bogus these days.
Dinesh D’Souza may have some answers for you : https://youtu.be/bRdxyVkzwbM
Substitute far right in place of far left. This explains Trump.
Kirk,
If you think Trump is far right, you haven’t been paying attention. It only seems that way because the left has gone so far off the rails the Communists felt no need to field a candidate in the last election (they endorsed Sanders). Of the presidential candidates from all sides, Trump was the closest to the center and this is why he won.
Trump could have been a polka dotted porpoise that spoke in limericks and gave birth to unicorns and he would have won.
He didn’t win because of HIS political stances…he won because of HILLARY’S. The American public CHOSE the risk over what Trump might, or might not, do… rather than accept what they KNEW Hillary would/wouldn’t do. It wasn’t “we want Trump”…it was “Hillary??? Oh HAYELL NO!!!
Gore’s science is only skin deep, and therefore it can’t stand a scratch.
(With apologies to Rex Stout).
Any questioning of the gravy train is intolerable, because for many, the gravy train is the whole point.
It is called following the money. If global warming is not an existential threat, these “scientists” and third world dictators will not get much money bled from USA and EU and UK.
They are losing and they know it.
Anthony
One of the reasons I don’t visit here very much is the constant reference to Hitler and the Nazis by people who have no real idea what they are talking about.
Literally the first comment on this well thought out article by Bjorn Lomborg is a reference to Hitler. Then it carries on with yet more references to Hitler and approving right-wing nutjobs.
This blog is far too taken up with political ratcheting of comparing anyone and everything they don’t agree with with Hitler and the policies of the Third Reich
Only when you’ve stood in a concentration camp, talked to survivors and seen the reality of the Holocaust with your own eyes, you would never use such terminology about anyone talking about climate science or the weather ever, even if you vehemently disagree with them.
Your commenters are toxic right now.
Yes, I agree, I think we’ll have to initiate a Godwin’s Law policy.
John A,
“Constant”??? Wow. While the spirit of your post has merit, it’s filled with flawed logic, and in the end, it’s an OPINION. And as far as I know, personal opinions are still accepted here at WUWT.
You might have missed this from the “well thought out article by Lomborg”:
“Journalists also ensure debate “purity.” In Scientific American, climate writer and former CNN producer Peter Dykstra stated baldly that “climate denial extends beyond rejecting climate science,” comparing policy questioners to Holocaust deniers and dismissing my own decade of advocacy for a green energy R&D fund as “minimization.”
Are you oblivious to Lomborg’s euphemism about “purity” and being compared to “Holocaust deniers” or did you just ignore those because they were part of an article you found “thoughtful”, while condemning all of “Anthony’s commenters” to the category of TOXIC (due to the behavior of few) …an incredible irony considering that Lomborg’s entire article was about “the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion.”
If you don’t come here because of the behavior of a few, you miss all of the other amazing truths and things that can be learned through the debates here. Lomborg said that too.
‘This blog is far too taken up with political ratcheting of comparing anyone and everything they don’t agree with with Hitler and the policies of the Third Reich’
Only when appropriate, John – when the mechanics of the Holocaust are being repeated as if with an instruction manual by people who have actually been the ones making all the references to Nazism or the Holocaust – or are unfamiliar with the origin of the term denier? Or calls for modern Nuremberg trials for people they ‘don’t agree with’.
There are a lot of people I disagree with who aren’t mimicking fascism, but your attack is typical among people who don’t seem able to see the stones they throw, or are being thrown at others, and only seem bothered when a few rocks get tossed back in their direction.
Near as I can tell, my generation was the last that was taught the Holocaust in any kind of personal way – and to suggest that I don’t get it, is just posturing snobbery.
I’ve said many times, fascist methods produce fascist results, no matter where you start. They didn’t throw the Jews (or other ‘undesirables’) into the camps on the first day – they spent about ten years justifying it first.
Your perception of ‘toxic’ seems strictly one way. Also typical.
Hear,hear, Well spoken John A. More science, less vitriol.
Sounds like the beginning of the end.
Beware that driven into a corner they even could become more dangerous. 10 : 10 no pressure.
The end has already started for the believers.
Its okay that they are cornered, so much easier to round them up and jail them.
Like rats
When you see just how quickly the dam holding back society from the total creep that is Winestain, you can but hope that Bore’s come-uppance is not too far away. The domino effect of his fall will be a joy to behold, not unlike the emotions that must have been felt by those sitting on a collapsing wall in November 1989.
Speaking of Weinstein, What about David Suzuki?
Unfortunately that collapse released something far worse in the shape of Angela Merkel.
I like Winestain, but the translation of Weinstein is Winestone. I don’t know the symbology of that, if any.
The Goracle is even chubby enough to take on the part of an oversized Humptey Dumptey emulator, don’t you think?
This situation is not really very funny, but what else can you do about such idiocy other than laugh at them and their idiotic dogma?
@John M Ware: “I like Winestain”. Indeed, but the first name that came to my mind was not suitable, I thought for such a family-oriented blog. If I say ‘W***stain’, you may get the idea. 🙂
Harry Passfield, my thought too, like you, I am a bad person!
“I like Winestain, but the translation of Weinstein is Winestone. I don’t know the symbology of that, if any.”
Everyone mispronounces it anyway.
John: You don’t know from what’s a stein?
It sounds to me like the social justice warriors (SJWs) now have enough support that they are emboldened. They will go after anyone who deviates even slightly from the party line, even their supporters.
Harvey Weinstein is probably a criminal. Going after him is fair game. The trouble is the SJWs are going after the victims like Gwyneth Paltrow because they didn’t raise their voices in complaint when the incidents happened.
We now have the Law Society of Upper Canada wants to compel Ontario lawyers to acknowledge systematic racism. Freedom of speech is one of the cornerstones of our society and compelled speech is supposed to be its opposite.
The SJWs are forcing universities to deal with sexual assault on campus. Sexual assault is a police matter but the SJWs don’t like the way the police handle it. The result is kangaroo courts in our schools.
The reason I post anonymously is that I fear SJWs. Once they take control we will look back at the Puritans as being pretty liberal. China was able to squelch the Red Guard. I fear that we will have a harder time getting rid of the SJWs.
Well said, CommieBob! AGW is a political war. The enemy is an unholy alliance of Socialists and eco-loony religionist/absolutists. Neither places the well being of humans anywhere on their scale of importance. The choice we have is that we win this fight and progress to something else ( hopefully better), or we lose- in which case we either go through a dark age for humanity or possibly we fall back into ignorance and poverty so profound that we never again rise out of it.
I think humanity is in a race between progress on one hand and poverty and ignorance on the other. It is not out of the question that we don’t make it.
commieBob, take heart. We know it will be simple. It’s been demonstrated to us by the master twitter troll who plays chess in 3-D while everybody else is playing checkers.
We merely have to reframe the debate. We simply title SJWs as Low Energy SJWs. Or, they become Crooked SJWs. Or, they become Lyin’ SJWs. Or, my favorite; Little SJWs. Or, perhaps, for Grand Master Trolling we reframe them as Little Rocketman SJWs.
Speaking of which…
http://people.com/celebrity/al-gore-accused-of-sexual-assault/
CommieBob
SJW, WTF?
The real name is fascists. Call it what it is. Words matter.
So called Social Justice Warriors are just the foot soldiers of the far left leadership. Stalin called them “useful idiots” and “fellow travelers”. I don’t know what Fat Albert’s goals are, probably just to be in the public limelight and to keep getting rich. We know that he wanted power and being the poster child for CAGW apparently does give him that. However the political left in the west wants nothing more than the destruction of the USA. One reason is it represents capitalism. Some SJW attack the basic foundations of the USA, the founding documents, founding fathers, founding princples, etc. Other attack historically held morals, pushing us to accept relativistic morality. The SJW environmentalists are the stranger of the bunch. They attack and want to bring down the USA, the most environmental country in history by any measure. Of course all segments of the left believe we should be severely punished for all past mistakes. Still what is truly bizarre is to play in their game you need the latest program. If you are a club member and dare deviate from the orthodoxy you are to be shunned and if they ever come to power sent to a re-education farm or worse.
I sense a spiralling out of control. Societies are crumbling, people in what are regarded as civilised societies don’t have enough to eat and can’t afford to heat their homes- let alone the poor buggers who live in third world countries. Money is being sucked up by the new lords of the manor at an alarming rate in pursuit of a computer based model that has been roundly proved to be wrong- I doubt they give s**t anyway since the gravy train is in full swing, don’t want to disturb that income stream. On one level we seem to be living in a hand wringing society where things like political correctness, compliance and personal bubbles are pursued to the detriment of what is really important. People seem to be forgetting Maslows hierarchy of needs, a very dangerous path……
commieBob
“Harvey Weinstein is probably a criminal.”
I haven’t followed the Weinstein case. I believe he has admitted some offences. However, trial by media is never a good thing, and that’s what Weinstein is enduring. Evidently, it’s a ‘just’ crusade as it emboldens other victims to come forward. I’m not so sure.
However, it does strike me as strange, that women allegedly submitted to his demands to promote their careers, yet it seems successful women, free from his influence, didn’t come forward earlier, and the unsuccessful victims didn’t also come forward earlier. In fact Weinstein’s victims with failed careers, arguably, had an even better reason to expose him following the alleged offences, as they had nothing more to lose, and he hadn’t kept up his end of the ‘bargain’ to make them successful.
I’m not defending Weinstein in any way. We had our own sexual predator, Jimmy Savile, in the UK. His case was only revealed following his death, at which point, there was an awful lot of people who came forward with tales of gruesome abuse, including serial child molestation, and more!
We have another post mortem inquiry ongoing with a deceased MP, Cyril Smith, also alleged a serial child molester. His guilt has also already been ‘established’, now it’s a matter of finding the smoking guns. The important thing in their cases is that their ‘trials’ have been conducted with no defence. Their guilt was established as soon as accusations hit the media. The trouble with that is that none of us can ever be confident of their guilt, because they had no right of reply. Except if one is a slave to the media.
Weinstein is being tried in the same manner, the difference is, he’s likely to bite back.
The SJW’s frequently use and manipulate the media because, judged on their own merits in a court of law, their cases would usually never be heard.
I have no time for sexual predators. My solution to their future is probably as distasteful to some as the crimes they committed. But the West’s acceptance of pre trial judgement, with the inevitable media pronouncement of miscarriages of justice by the SJW’s should the accused be acquitted, is an abuse of the criminal justice system. It’s a medieval lynch mob presenting a witch for trial. There is no innocent option.
Once again the media stands front and centre of the debate. And I welcome Trumps threat to the US media on their presentation of his nuclear position. It’s one thing reporting a story, it’s another thing entirely making a story up.
So do we imagine the press are more, or less likely, to target a celebrity, than they are the President with embellished, innuendo strewn accounts, of things said, or done?
I don’t know. But I do know that Weinstein is the least of the problems the Western world faces. But suddenly, he’s front page news.
Should we, perhaps, be examining our own moral and judgemental positions before condemning people presented as guilty by the media.
Bill
Never lose sight of the fact that the world is, right now, a more peaceful and prosperous place than it has ever been in its entire history.
The confusion of Capitalism, despite the intervention of socialism, has ensured substantially fewer people endure poverty than ever before, more people enjoy sophisticated healthcare, more people live outside war zones than ever before, more people have access to clean air and water, agriculture, communications and welfare than in any time in history. And not just by a small margin, by a massive margin.
http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/free-markets-and-free-trade/
A friend of mine calls them SJW howler monkeys because they try to make so much noise that they think they are drowning out the opposition. Not so.
I’m with you Bob. Those things remind me of the mutants in I Am Legend or Tolkien’s Nazgûl. They don’t appear to be human or react to stimuli in any kind of rational way that an animal would recognise. The extremist ideology inherent in the movement appears to be highly contagious and although it’s tempting to think that it’s just so insane it must implode some time soon there are no signs of that actually happening. In fact it appears to be still gaining momentum.
Desperate times call for eating your own.
Help! Help! Micro-aggression!!
Call the ACLU!
I self identify as a skeptic!! And Al Gore says I’m a minority member!
Then he offended me!!
Skeptic lives matter!!
I need a safe space!
Someone get me an SUV and some endangered cocoa!
WHAT do I want? Lawsuit!
When do I want it? Now!!!
Come on over to our place, Aphan. We’ll drive the diesel 4X4 down to STL and demonstrate alongside the rest of the oppressed deplorables.
After we get out on bail (or treated & released at Barnes-Jewish) we can hightail it back to Holler-back Ranch (safe zone) to catch and grill some catfish before they quit biting for this year.
Gore declared, “You are a denier.”
To which my reply would be …
“Mr. Gore I am no more a denier than you are a money-grubbing con-artist!”
Adding after a pause…
“And by the way I know there is no such thing as AGW “
My response would have been,
“What law of physics to you think I’m denying?”
Gore will never evah understand the intellectual challenge disguised in that question.
Why does no one snarl back at him “Who died and made you God, Al?” Why?
I’m hoping for a pleasant and relatively normal winter here in the upper Midwest. I do not mind staying all night shoveling snow. Learned that lesson the hard way. I need the exercise. My biggest concern is that the snows of winter stay longer and fall later in the Spring than they should for my area, and the water temperatures of the Great Lakes are not rising as quickly at winter’s end as they used to.
If there’s another blizzard like 2011, i’ll you guys pictures.
Al Gore has the freedom to his own political views, but seems reluctant to grant the same freedom to others.
“reluctant” is about 10 orders of magnitude too mild.
Of course not – you might have the effrontery to disagree with him. Can’t have that.
The First Amendment gives us the freedom to say what we want, but this does not extend to falsely yelling ‘fire’ in a crowded theater and this is exactly what Gore, the eco-nuts and the ideologically driven media are doing.
Free speech for me, but not for thee, seems to be the credo of Al Gore and his supporters.
Maybe, but as I said, who died and made him God?
Bjorn is being far too kind to these people. When the advocates of a theory or ideology try to shut down any criticism of the ideology and demonise those making the criticism, it invariably means the theory is fundamentally flawed and incapable of dealing with criticism.
Indeed, but there is now an army of ideologues, even my small backwater town has a meeting soon about how to “Combat Climate Change”, complete with discussions about how to deal with “deniers”, and that huge growth industry: climate communication (aka propaganda and brainwashing).
Perhaps Bjorn should draw the logical conclusion of his own observations and stop believing in man-made climate change.
Ed, I totally agree, but it is fun to watch the high priests of the climate faith turn on their own. It shows the depth of stupidity in their extreme positions. Bjorn’s book ‘The skeptical enironmentalist’ was brilliant and clever because it demonstrated a new (to me at least) way of counteracting this idiocy and I thank him for that. So I’ll forgive him his ‘belief’ in this or that which is not based on any logical or rational thought as we all make mistakesand hold views from time to time that are irrational.
That Bjorn believes in manmade climate change is not the point. He draws the right conclusions of the data, and proposes the right answers. No matter what is the cause of global warming if there is any. in my opinion there is a variance in every regional climate, and there is natural variation of global climate.
Gore has ALWAYS been scientifically unhinged.
He just figured out how to SUCK money from the system.
After all, he has spent his whole worthless life doing it. !
Not his whole life.
There were a couple hours in a massage parlor that whats-her-name (his ex-wife) got pretty excited about…
Whats-his-name got rich off of the Scientology religion and Gore, a failed Theology student, took note and decided to form his own religion.
If Al Gore admitted even the slightest fallibility, he’d soon have to admit that he’s not the messiah, he’s just a naughty boy.
It seems the entire political class in the West are only ego driven opportunists. Parasites on the back of our society. Democracy needs some serious reform.It’s attarcting the wrong crowd.
The problem is that the voters have got it into their heads that it’s OK to use government to take money from other people in order to spend it on themselves.
And not only ‘the entire political class in the West’. There’s the UN and all its spawn for a start, there’s the World Bank and all its spawn, there’s NATO, an organisation whose justification for existence ended a quarter of a century ago when the Iron Curtain fell …
We need to jump on politicians who refer to any of these parasites as ‘supranational’ (a word which falsely implies that these entities are above national governments) and insist that they are merely extranational (outside national governments) and have no authority over us.
Those most enthused to lead often prove the least able.
term limits
Bjorn,
Given that oppression and smears are what passes for ‘evidence’ in the climate science world, why do you keep ‘believing’?
It seems obvious to me that the original evidence which seemed fairly compelling should be re-examined in the light of the undoubted fraudulent nature of later climate science activities. And that the inability of climate scientists to show that climatic variation is in any way different from natural variation means that believing in man-made climate change is an act of faith rather than science.
That is why you and all the other scientists are being attacked. Climate Change is about faith. And to question any aspect of the faith is heresy…
Dodgy,
That is an interesting question. I have asked myself that many times. I really like Bjørn’s approach. He escapes the “denier” category because he doesn’t attack the science. He goes after the low hanging fruit, the rank stupidity of some of the “Green” movement’s spokesmen and other published nonsense, pointing out economic fallacy and more.
Nowhere is it more obvious than the bogus “Paris” agreement. Bjørn goes after the provable futility of it all rather than the apparent axiomatic underlying premise, suggesting that we should save our trillions in lost GDP, and use it on something useful – and he has plenty of big-win/low cost suggestions with big positive outcomes and few (no) downsides.
We have plenty of people, incl. a lot of top tier scientists, regularly bringing the entire thesis of CO2 induced Global Climate Change into question. And doing a sterling job at that, to the point where IMHO one needs to be irrational (or politically bent) to think that it is a problem at all.
The cool thing about Bjørn’s approach is that more or less everything he advocates, makes economic and social sense even in the absence of CAGW.
I remain a fan of his approach, because I think in the long run, his insights will be valuable and many of them acted upon.
Here in the UK the Government (for want of a better term) is going to commit the UK to be a zero ‘carbon’ emitter by 2050. No more gas heating; no more gas cookers; and electric transport everywhere (except on haulage and mass transport – or a government minister’s limmo).
This got me thinking, especially in the context of the famous North/South Korean satellite photo of the peninsular at night:
If the UK (and many other western democracies are trying to be ‘carbon-free’ within 35 years, what would be the effect on the planet if North Korea were to become the equal of South Korea in the same time-frame? And wouldn’t any paper written on that subject would be worthy of a few million $/£s in funding from the climate lobby, bearing in mind that climate change would be in the title somewhere?
No more wood pellets?
And think of all the loggers put out of work in the Carolinas.
The UK can get there if they are willing to let their GDP drop to zero …
If the UK wants to get down to zero emissions, all they have to do is copy the way countries like Ethiopia do it. No industry, vanishingly small economic activity, and abject poverty.
Back to the future? The intended redistribution of wealth will make Ethiopia a nice place to live in in 35 years…
Harry,
The problem with being in the socialist political vanguard is that one either has to slam on the political brakes, which socialist politicians never do, or continue with the deception until the brakes are slammed on for them.
Having said that, I don’t see any of our socialist governments (including our current ‘conservative’ government) having any option but to back out of climate support in the next five or ten years.
The scientific case continues with the ‘inconvenient pause’ and the political case is growing with Trump and Abbott, amongst others.
I have said before, and I’ll say again, when the next UK election rolls round, the climate change debate will figure large because ambitious young politicians are sensing the political winds of change and they see the gross sums of money sloshing around in the green coffers. What better a platform to be elected on than saving voters vast amounts of money when there is no evidence of climate change.
That’s the ultimate sin in the eyes of sociopaths!
A different opinion is “bad” and they call you a denier. Being able to proof your point causes them to freak out, really really hate you and justifies to destroy you!
But Al Gore invented the Internet didn’t he? And got a Nobel Prize. /s
A Nobel PISS Prize !!
The astonishing thing is that he really did get half a Nobel peace prize (unlike Michael E. Mann). But then so did these guys; European Union (Ukraine!), Yasser Arafat, UN Peacekeeping Forces, Henry A. Kissinger.
He qualifies for the Goebbels price.
Mitigation costs money, it doesn’t produce tax revenue.
“Mitigation costs money”
Mitigation
noun: “the act of mitigating, or lessening the force or intensity of something unpleasant, as wrath, pain, grief, or extreme circumstances: ”
What are we mitigating?
“What are we mitigating?”
Stupidity, insanity and misinformation.
The term “denier” is weaponized syntax. Allowing opponents to use such weapons unchallenged enables them to frame the discussion/interchange and put you at great disadvantage. Once you try to justify or defend yourself from this kind of attack you’ve lost the fight because you’ve implicitly agreed with the attacker that you are a moral reprobate (because you’ve agreed that his framing of the argument is acceptable).
A way to fight this kind of character assault is to nullify the weaponized syntax by re-framing it and turning it back on the aggressor. This does two things: it nullifies the weaponized syntax and puts the aggressor on the defensive. For example,
Gore: “Is he a denier?”
Reporter: “You’ll have to ask him. I’m a denier in the sense that I deny public figures like yourself the right to make unsubstantiated claims. So let me repeat – your claim contradicts a reputable climate scientist’s research. Whether you know of him or nor is irrelevant. You’re a non-scientist, correct?” [see what I did there? – snicker]
Here’s a fast response to “denier”: “Wolf-Crier”
Or: YOU are a denier! You even deny that you are a denier!
The word “denier” lands me in moderation even on this denier thread.
It has been said before by other commenters, but deserves to be said yet again. To place this in a context many will be able to understand, simply replace “denier” with “heretic”, and it will be much clearer.
IMHO this is the beginning of the Pharisees internecine conflict, and it cannot happen fast enough.
I Came I Saw I Left
Unfortunately, Gore always ensures he is in control of the stage. Therefore, when he proclaims someone as a denier, he then ignores any response and moves on to the next person.
His statement ‘denier’ hangs in the air, never to be denied.
The guy ain’t clever, he couldn’t argue his way out a child’s sand pit, but he is well stage managed.
Why not, “Sir, actions speak louder than words. By your actions you are denying climate change regardless of what your words are. You consume more electricity than a small town. You needlessly fly all around the world. You buy properties along the seacoast. And you consume enough food, including meat, to feed a family of four. Your ‘carbon footprint’ is larger than any other denier.”
You are going far beyond is intellectual capacities.
oops, typo: “his” intellectual capacities
Wow! If Roger Pielke Jr. is a “denier” then what am I? Oh sure, I have made a lot of money practicing science (like drill here, based on a scientific review of the data, and hitting the target more than most), but I keep saying that Sequence Stratigraphy says there is no anthropogenic climate change signal detectable against the variance of a naturally variable background. I’m somewhere below the level of “denier” and apparently sinking fast! Look at the time, I think I will go and play golf becuase the course is unusually green as of late. Just Saying.
The way human societies work is that you are either required to agree, or shut up. This link provides a historical parallel:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_gadfly
Al Gore unhinged? It’s broader than that. Climate Change is just a part of the whole.
EU will decided not to allow debate on the issue. at least if our green party is listened to.
Bans all paticipation if it is not agreeing with the Paris decision or if it is from oil or coal money.
https://www.aktuellhallbarhet.se/dags-att-fossilindustrin-slutar-fororena-klimatpolitiken
How ironic that proportional representation, which is intended to allow all voices to be heard, gives “greens” the ability to be in coalition govts (such as the one with Mutti Merkel, and possibly a new one in NZ), allowing them to shut down voices they don’t like.
Justice Holmes’s Free-Speech Lesson
The more certain you are, the more you should resist the temptation to silence those who disagree.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/justice-holmess-free-speech-lesson-1507847318
That’s a wonderful quote and one I had not seen before. Thank you.
It is the way “debate” is now conducted whether it is about immigration (racist), welfare (heartless and cruel), free markets (capitalist shill), Brexit (racist, ignorant and old) and so on. I cannot think of a serious area in politics where a sensible and rational discussion can be had with much of the Progressive Left. Everything is black and white, and everything they want to do is unconditionally good and will [not] just work but work without any negative effects whatsoever. Until it doesn’t (Venezuela) when it is because evil Right-wingers (see Hillary Clinton’s new book) deliberately sabotaged it.
This is what it must have been like in late Medieval times with the Catholic church and the Inquisition.
There’s no point debating the left. They refuse to change their position, because they know they’re right, and all they can do is point and shriek.
Faith is so often a mountain balanced on a pinpoint. Any threat to that tenuous balance causes terror that the whole thing will crash down. Faith is usually far too fragile to withstand that kind of damage, and it cannot be rebuilt once it is broken.
“they know they’re right”
No. They know, or at least strongly suspect, that they are wrong. Why else would they be so opposed to debate? To admit how wrong they are about CO2 would put the rest of the progressive agenda at risk. If they can be so wrong about something so important, people will definitely question the motives behind the rest of their agenda.
Phoenix44,
One of the things that strikes me about progressives is that they are never happy with the way that things are and want change everything to the way they think they should be. They do this without evidence from historical context that their changes will be an improvement. They do this without benefit of scientific experiment. They may give lip service to the Precautionary Principle with respect to technology, but it never occurs to them to require that their demands for social changes be proven to be without significant unintended consequences. They have the hubris to think that because they can find fault with current circumstances and cultural values, that they are wiser than those who have come before them. They want perfection in an imperfect world.
I’m reminded of the remark by Winston Churchill’s on Democracy: “Many forms of government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried from time to time.”
Phoenix44 and Clyde Spencer
Two of the most profoundly intuitive statements I have seen on Anthony’s blog.
Hot Scot,
Thank you! Some of us do acquire wisdom with age, although most just seem to get wrinkled!
Or in John Calvin,s Geneva. Tyranny knows no bounds,it is endemic
Al Gore is an AGW religion finatic. He is in no way a scientist.
Algore even had a poor record at Vanderbil’s divinity school!
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2000/mar/25/20000325-011032-8259r/
Gore made a fortune by betting all his assets on a future world where crazy projects got billions in subsidies and governments listened to him and spent their citizens money on projects in which he was fully invested. Now his entire fortune is leveraged and at risk and he is reacting as you would expect: hateful, vicious, and insane. He will get worse as margin calls or loan payments come due. Watch for a bankruptcy announcement soon.
He’s a fan of the San Jose Sharks?
“Nice people made the best Nazis. My mom grew up next to them. They got along, refused to make waves, looked the other way when things got ugly and focused on happier things than “politics.” They were lovely people who turned their heads as their neighbors were dragged away. You know who weren’t nice people? Resisters.”
Naomi Shulman
Way too much B.S. in the world to be nice about it. It is dangerous at certain levels.
“They cry “Peace, peace!” when there is no peace.”
Patrick Henry
I think that Patrick Henry wad quoting something said far earlier. Try Jeremiah 6:14
There is no such thing as peace on earth.
We are a global, tribal community, its in our DNA.
Without conflict there is no progress.
That’s why humans are, currently, the dominant species on our planet, because we defend our turf better than any other species.
Aviation has become one of the safest forms of transport in large part by the application of knowledge gained through the study of how humans behave in what is a potentially dangerous environment. That has required a shift from looking for fault in pilots to trying to understand how and why accidents happen. Some well know accidents, such as the 1990 Avianca crash outside New York, were caused by the inability of those other than the captain to speak up and question what is happening and equally the captains inability to listen to the ‘lower ranks’. This is not different to ‘the discussions over’. Then there are accidents such as KAL007 where continuously checking that you are on track did not happen at all. In other words good safety is about maintaining a healthy level of skepticism about any of the decisions made and no matter the seniority.
An analogy which would apply to any business.
barryjo October 13, 2017 at 7:49 am
An analogy which would apply to any business.
…and religion and education and life generally.
and politics, but that’s probably impossible
Just your basic, standard, thought police on patrol.
In a nutshell, it’s the extremist mindset.
Climate change on earth is natural. If you want to remove pollution and co2 then each country can do it with its own money and according to its own rules. We don’t have to send our money to this bul….it Paris Accord. The Paris Accord is nothing other than a propaganda and money stealing bunch of elites.
Excerpted comments from article:
The actions of the aforesaid climate campaigners are pretty much identical to the actions of ”illegal drug” dealers and/or the actions of “prostitution” pimps ……. whenever the “source” of their livelihood is being questioned.
The growing anger they’re showing is a fantastic sign. It used to be condescension, then it was mockery and name calling, now its rage and fury. Next up is…
First they ignore you
Then they laugh at you
Then they fight you
Then you win.
The problem with this syllogism is that it implies that everyone who is ignored, will eventually win.
A lot of people who are ignored, stay ignored.
A lot of people get laughed at, then go back to being ignored.
A lot of time when they fight you, they win.
We’re brought up to believe that the good guys or truth will win out in the end, but I’ve never seen anything as insidious or pervasive as this AGW crap.Too many people who benefit from keeping it alive and moving. We have an 18 year hiatus and their method of dealing with it is to collectively ignore it! And they get away with it! Even on here we forget that it isn’t actually warming now!
john harmsworth
Isn’t the planet warming, just a bit, but not as much as predicted, and certainly not in line with rising CO2?
I think the point is, that the planet is warming, but not in line with predictions and not in line with the alleged fundamental cause, increasing CO2.
But the hiatus is not going unignored by the marginal warmists. Ordinary people are becoming increasingly sceptical of hysterical claims of global catastrophe, when previous claims never manifest themselves.
Politicians eventually must take note. That’s not a hope, that’s a prediction.
The chief problem with this syllogism
is that it is not a syllogism;
at least, not one that Aristotle would recognise as such…
Gandhi, Mandela, Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and similar had success only when they were dealing with Protestant Christians. Try it with Communists or Muslims or historically NAZIs. Between Marxist-Leninist Socialists and National Socialists they murdered some 200 million people. Good luck with non-violent protests. In “The Black Book of Communism”, translated and published by the Harvard University Press, they relate advise that Felix Dzerzhinsky (founder of the Cheka/KGB) gave to his organizers. As I recall, he said something like “we want stout hearted men who know that nothing shuts someone up faster than a bullet in the head.” I suspect that Al Gore, Obama, and the United Nations are closer to Felix than Protestant Christians.
Gandhi and Mandela were political figureheads.
Gandhi was known for sleeping with his family and Mandela, like Martin McGuinness, never denounced terrorism, of which, they were both significant figures.
Whilst all represented unification, they were political puppets protected from their reprehensible past.
Any one of us would have been locked up for good had we conducted ourselves in the manner they did.
Ghandi believed a female couldn’t be raped, her virtue would protect her. If she got raped, it was due to her poor virtue. Which, in any manner, was do to his push of pacifism.
Pacifism, killing more people in history than fascism.
Inspired by another WUWT article, I ask, is Algor a modern day Kronos, devouring his children? Love it when the left eats its own.
Or a modern-day James Forrestall who will leap from the window of his psychiatric unit yelling “we’re all doomed”.
They deserve to be famous so schoolchildren can learn about them.
Colorado Wellington: I like that link, must find out how some time. Meanwhile I recommend this book which deals with the common (and accepted) practice of cannibalism after shipwrecks.
https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/off-the-deep-end-9781472941114/
Quite. As mentioned the other day schoolchildren will know of this sorry episode in mankind’s history as the time of..
FOSSIL FOOLS.
MikeSYR,
The analogy of the story of Kronos might be put to good use when debating the (rare) alarmist willing to debate, rather than engage in personal attacks.
That is, try to frame your debate in such a way that they either have to agree with you or have to eat their own children — i.e. D-Nye the dogma of their position. The internet does not lend itself to Socratic dialogue because of the time delay and the ability for one to go out to Wikipedia and come back and say, “I knew that all along!” However, in a one-on-one, or public panel discussion, a debater has to commit to a position when asked for a response. Although, even in that situation, I have found that many are smart enough to see that they are being led to the slaughter house, and will attempt to evade by changing the subject or resorting to ad hominem attacks.
Weinstein is to Hollywood as Gore is to “climate change”.
It’s all about controlling the message.
From Gardian
“For the moment, (Antarctica) sea ice is increasing and this is a problem …..”
claims Dr. Ropert-Coudert director of research at the CNRS (Centre national de la recherche scientifique)
so what is this about?
“A colony of about 40,000 Adélie penguins in Antarctica has suffered a “catastrophic breeding event” – all but two chicks have died of starvation this year. It is the second time in just four years that such devastation – not previously seen in more than 50 years of observation – has been wrought on the population.”
………..
“For the moment, sea ice is increasing and this is a problem for this species as it pushes the feeding place – the sea ice edge – farther away from their nesting place,” Ropert-Coudert said. “If it shrinks it would help but if it shrinks too much then the food chain they rely on may be impacted. Basically, as a creature of the sea ice they need an optimum sea-ice cover to thrive.”
Dr. Ropert-Coudert , I agree we need Antarctic to be ‘not too hot and not too cold, but just right’ as the baby bear said. Oh, hold on, there are no baby bears in Antarctic, they are all in in the Arctic, but there are no penguins in the Arctic, oh never mind, forget it …
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/12/penguin-catastrophe-leads-to-demands-for-protection-in-east-antarctica
Years ago we had religion telling us that the Earth is exactly as it has always been since creation. Now science is trying, at least to imply the same thing. This is a function of idiots getting university educations and professorships.
University educations? Or merely university credentials?
How is this even possible? After all, the Grauniad keeps telling us the Earth is heating up due to AGW….
You could teach a parrot to say “You’re a denier”. That’s the intellectual level of their argument.
And you could teach the same parrot to say “You’re an alarmist.” So what.
Translation: Al Gore: “You don’t believe strong enough!”
Sounds like a religious proclamation to me.
Stalin had no problem enforcing political orthodoxy without debasing religion.
If Algore could send ‘deniers’ to the Gulag, he’d have an easier time, too.
Substitute the word “heretic” in the place of “denier” and you will understand all.
Bill, my sentiments exactly. If I had scrolled down further in the comments I could have save myself the typing. 🙂
Thank you, Bjorn Lomborg
Ad hominems are the means of escaping debate especially when your beliefs are grounded in fantasy.
did tinkerbelle dieded?
If the tale had been told by the Brothers Grimm, she would have.
I do not understand why anyone is interested in the opinions of Al Gore. He does not appear to be the sharpest tool in the box, and is no scientist.
A recent article discussed on Physics org, suggests that past levels of CO2 may have been much lower than previously thought. Whilst, CO2 lags temperature, it is significant that during very warm periods when the planet may have been as much as 18degC warmer than today, Co2 levels may have been no more than around 1,000 ppm.
Of course, the tectonic plates and distribution of land masses was rather different, but if it is the case that the atmosphere contained only around 1,000 ppm for lengthy periods, it demonstrates how little we know as to what causes warming and what ,if any role, CO2 plays in that. I highlight some of the article.
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-10-carbon-dioxide-thought-super-greenhouse.html#jCp
He speaks science! He must be a denier!!! Burn him! Burn him!
Sorta sarc/?
“I do not understand why anyone is interested in the opinions of Al Gore. He does not appear to be the sharpest tool in the box, and is no scientist”
I exactly agree with that.
If you want to contend with climate science, you would be better off ignoring Gore and engaging directly with the science.
Why, griff, do you know someone on your side of the argument who KNOWS the science?
ITS NOT ABOUT SCIENCE, its about politics.
You know this … that is why you provide misleading information so much and so often.
I’d be glad to Griff, if you could find some.
Agree Griff.
As long as All Gore is no longer the AGW shipmast.
Richard,
You said, “I do not understand why anyone is interested in the opinions of Al Gore. He does not appear to be the sharpest tool in the box, and is no scientist.” Nor is Algo Rythm the brightest bulb on the tree.
In the US, despite constitutional prohibitions against aristocratic titles, people tend to give respect, even adoration, to celebrities out of all proportion to their objective qualifications, such as background in science, wisdom that comes from age, demonstrated intelligence, or even political acumen. Former elected officials (has beens), those blessed with a good voice (e.g. Barbra Streisand), members of the acting guild who have demonstrated the ability to memorize lines in a script, and news ‘anchors,’ are fawned over by the media and have groupies following their pronouncements as though they were actually important. (Admittedly, they do have some power that is related to their wealth.) It seems to be part of the same syndrome that has people addicted to their social media applications and ‘liking’ people. It is a human shallowness that is amplified by technology that allows instant reaction instead of considered reflection.
But then, there are still those in the former colonies who care what the Queen and her children are doing.
‘….Journalists also ensure debate “purity.” In Scientific American, climate writer and former CNN producer Peter Dykstra stated baldly that “climate denial extends beyond rejecting climate science,” comparing policy questioners to Holocaust deniers and dismissing my own decade of advocacy for a green energy R&D fund as “minimization.”
“This intolerance for discussion is alarming…..”
Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four isn’t a fictional novel anymore. It’s morphing into an instruction manual for climate alarmism. The climate thought police are everywhere……
You have to fight and stand up and be counted, it’s just no good moaning on here anonymously and it’s no good justifying keeping quiet because of your job, friends, career or whatever. There are millions of us out here and we just need to grow a pair and CONFRONT the BS at EVERY SINGLE OPPORTUNITY.
It’s our JOB to save the Earth from this madness RIGHT NOW. So get to it guys and gals! We could have a public demo on 4th November if you like, I understand the film crews are booked to be on 24hr standby on that day for some inexplicable reason.
Pro tip: NO silly placards and NO silly hats please.
Reverend,
No “silly hats???” What if it is colored black and blue?
Is it, perhaps, because the catastrophic warming clique don’t believe their claims any more than the most ardent deniers? it’s pretty hard to explain the continued wide spread opposition to nuclear and geothermal power generation of anyone who really believes carbon dioxide is a problem.
Think about it… If they really believed in catastrophic climate change they could have started being honest about nuclear power 30 years ago. By now carbon dioxide emissions would be far lower than the best case scenario of the Paris agreement, just from the gradual replacement of fossil fired generation.
It seems the only conclusion is that Al Gore and his supporters are in fact “Climate Deniers.” If they believed their doomsday scenarios they would be behaving differently. They would be trying to solve the problem instead of trying to silence opposition.
” If they believed their doomsday scenarios they would be behaving differently. …”
I notice this all the time. If they really thought harm was coming to us then wouldn’t good news be welcomed and a massive relief? But no! Any proof that things are not as bad as claimed is met with opposition.
You can tell someone is dysfunctional when they would rather have a global catastrophe than be personally wrong about something.
This is very true and I have noticed it personally in some online debates I have had with members of the flock (sheeple). It is worth bearing in mind because it does look very stupid when exposed and the more you can prod, poke and expose the fallacies the better. I’ve got some stuff into online print which just sits there for months on end and gathers more and more viewers every day (I know as there are counters in some places). Some stuff has reached over 1,000 readers so even if a small percentage are made to think a bit more I feel I am doing some good.
You do have to be careful as much online blog chat etc is moderated and it can get removed. I try to plant a few seeds, have a bit of a chat and then leave it. Often it gets overlooked by the “censors” if the discussion is finished but new readers can come in every day. If you craft it well however it can get readership traction and rise up the google search results.
Reverend,
Yes, I have frequently had things removed from the “Conversation” because the author or another commenter had no good response.
Anything that might threaten the flow of the sweet, sweet taxpayer money must be silenced!
It’s amazing… all of the intelligent people I know, people who make a living through applied science principles, people who do something that requires intellect, all are either what al-Gore calls “deniers”, or at best, lukewarmers.
The strident believers that I know, however, tend to know very little about science, can’t add two 2-digit integers without a calculator, and think a few square feet of solar panels on the roof can run an entire household.
al-Gore can spare me his condescension – I know a con artist when I see one.
I don’t know what an integer is, but I’m damn sure I can smell a warmist when I see one.
A bit of age is all that’s required to remember the global cooling scare, and the conspicuous lack of lifestyle change in the last 40 years, to understand AGW is just a lot of nonsense.
And, to whoever is tasked with moderating today, I apologize. I’m not commenting here as often as I used to, and forgot that the dreaded d word is immediate moderation.
Thick Sea Ice is leading to catastrophic breading failure of Penguins. The real harm comes from global cooling, not warming. Why isn’t this headlne news?
https://www.yahoo.com/news/thousands-penguin-chicks-starve-antarctica-043725803.html
It was featured prominently here:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/12/penguin-catastrophe-leads-to-demands-for-protection-in-east-antarctica
“This year’s event has also been attributed to an unusually large amount of sea ice. Overall, Antarctica has had a record low amount of summer sea ice, but the area around the colony has been an exception.
Ropert-Coudert said the region had been severely affected by the break-up of the Mertz glacier tongue in 2010, when a piece of ice almost the size of Luxembourg – about 80 km long and 40km wide – broke off. That event, which occurred about 250km from Petrels Island, had a big impact on ocean currents and ice formation in the region.”
so not down to cooling, but local conditions and this:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/feb/26/antarctica-iceberg-global-ocean-circulation
Funny, for many years record high ice levels in the antarctic were ignored by Griff.
This is a locally large amount Mark.
Griff,
The point is, people like you get concerned when the ice shelves/pack decrease in size, and others get concerned when an increase has a negative impact on the ecosystem. It is unrealistic to expect that anything related to climate will remain constant. Change is what weather does, and it has impacts on the ocean and land. The real D-Nyers are those who expect weather and the surface of Earth to be static.
Is this the point to ask will the arctic be ice free in 2018? You keep saying it’s going to happen.
I get it now! The ice retreats, it’s caused by global warming. If ice advances, it’s cause by local conditions.
Boy, that makes it clear. For I while I just didn’t know what to think.
Griff,
the expert Guardian link poster, who claims he uses them as merely reference for in depth scientific studies.
But given the opportunity, he posts more Guardian links, with no scientific references whatsoever.
Griff, the only rhetorical skill you have mastered is moving the goal posts.
The guardian and it’s eco biased warriors would never tell a porky just like Griff, they are outstanding at being fair and accurate ./sarc
https://yougov.co.uk/news/2017/03/07/how-left-or-right-wing-are-uks-newspapers/
The most left wing rag in the UK and pretty obvious why he always quotes it.
When your enemy is reduced to “eating its own”, the end-game is near. Thank heavens!!
He can’t answer simple questions, so he just say “denier”
http://crm114.com/algore/images/dunce.jpg
Nice hat! Is he the Pope?
So what about him not graduating from Vanderbilt? The reason he dropped out was because the House seat formerly held by his father opened up due to a retirement. Gore ran for the seat and won it. Wow, the guy’s a failure because he won an election to the House at the age of 28.
That gives clear evidence that
morons / idiotspeople with learning disabilities may still become politicians, but only when backed by their family.Most people graduate high school at 18 or less. Four years of college puts them at 22. SIX years later and he has not completed law school.
If he was working his way through school, he would have a reasonable excuse. The five “F’s”, and the inability to understand the distinction between “leading and lagging” elements in a time series, tells you what his problem was in school. If he was a middle class kid, he would be selling cars.
Cars are far too ambitious for Al, but most probably he might have failed as snake oil peddler or even as hobo.
It must be frustrating to come so close to becoming a trillionaire and missing it because of an inconvenient thing like the facts. Damn!
Bjorn Lomborg is very generous here in using examples of other people being castigated for insufficient fervour. His own experience in Western Australia is one not to be forgotten. The University of Western Australia in Perth was awarded a A$4m grant to host a centre for Lomborg’s consensus conferences which have done a good job debating where is the best place to invest. A group of academics (I use the term generously here – only in that at least some of them had academic positions at UWA) caused a fuss and the university turned down the grant! Think about that – a university turning down money in order to prevent discussion on a topic of high relevance to public policy, just because it was associated with someone deemed not properly on board with the message.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-05-08/bjorn-lomborg-uwa-consensus-centre-contract-cancelled/6456708
The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.
H.L. Mencken
This just confirms my opinion that Al Gore is a religious nut.
Expect DJT to be his nutcracker.
Bjorn, “reality of climate change”. Sorry but you have no evidence to support that claim alongside claiming others said things lacking evidence or evidence to the contrary, how self aware are you 😉
When examining apparently irrational behaviour, such as the absolute refusal of many politicians and academics to even consider the possibility that there is anything to be debated about climate change, it always pays to consider the old adage: follow the money.
The real source of money for the climate change industry is the wind and solar energy industries ($3 trillion dollars since 2000, and counting). The industries are sustained in their turn by the privileged grid access that politicians have obtained for them; whenever the wind blows or the sun shines, grids must accept their energy output, regardless of whether cheaper energy sources are available.
Protesters in the US used to complain about the military/industrial complex during the Cold War. Methinks it’s high time we started to make a fuss about the green energy/political complex which is making money hand over fist for a few privileged insiders while sucking money out of the rest of us.
Roger Graves
Better the devil………….
the military/industrial complex is almost dead in the US. The green climate change campaign is on the way out, so what’s next?
As for this attack on anyone who dissents.
It’s called collectivism Bjorn, can you not smell the marxism, and anyone not in the collective has to be destroyed to “save the collective”
Every different idea is a threat.
From St Gore, no surprise at al.
For the true believer it is not enough to have ‘faith ‘ what matter is that it is off the right ‘type ‘ and unquestioning. Heretics are traditional always had a much hard time from religions, than those that do not believe at all. Why should AGW, given its addiction to ‘faith ‘ be any different?
I agree, Climate change having a huge impact of historical trends. We can see it in half of the world’s coral reefs bleaching. We can see it in losing nearly half of the Arctic Ice in 40 years. If you say you believe it’s a problem, but only acknowledge it as a small problem, then you might as well be a denier.
Half the world’s reefs aren’t bleaching.
The ones that were bleaching were due to the super El Nino, they always bleach during El Ninos.
The ones that did bleach are recovering.
We did not lose half the arctic ice over the last 40 years.
Regardless, 40 years ago arctic ice was the highest it’s been in the last 100 years or so.
Arctic ice has been recovering for the last 5 years.
Even if both of your lies were true, you still haven’t proven it’s a problem, much less a big one.
Please justify your claim. At its peak in March every year, the Arctic sea ice is only 7% below its supposed 30 year “average” (1979-2009) values, and – at -1.0 Mkm^2 anomaly – right in the middle of every recent 10 year sea ice extent. Now, at Arctic sea ice minimums, when there is only 4.0 Mkm^2 of sea, that same -1.0 Mkm^2 anomaly “seems” much greater by playing with the yearly minimum value, but it isn’t “losing nearly half” either. (By the way, for 7 months of the year, less sea ice means greater cooling and more heat released from the Arctic Ocean to space. )
Your recently fired ex-president once threatened his opponents as “bringing a knife to a gunfight.” Please don’t bring mindless CAGW-alarmist claims to a skeptical audience.
Gracen, made a number of UNSUPPORTED claims.
She says:
” Climate change having a huge impact of historical trends.”
No evidence provided,a vague statement that can be misconstrued.
“We can see it in half of the world’s coral reefs bleaching.”
No evidence provided,a misleading claim since CO2 do not promote bleaching.
“We can see it in losing nearly half of the Arctic Ice in 40 years.”
No evidence provided, not relevant to the AGW conjecture because there were far less early in the Holocene,while CO2 levels were around 250 ppm.
” If you say you believe it’s a problem, but only acknowledge it as a small problem, then you might as well be a denier.”
No evidence provided that it is a problem, you then say that disputing YOUR unsupported assertions will make me be a denier. How pathetic can you be, to be castigating people who are not going to accept your evidence free claims?
So far you have made no case to support your claims at all. I doubt you will come back to answer anyone,since your comment has the feel of a drive by, which indicate you have no learning or love of free speech.
I am regretful Chile was slighted in the article. I have been to the country and have visited the majority of its length, from Arica to Punta Arenas.
They are a bunch of lefties, however. I cocked some eyebrows when I said I was not a huge believer in the myth.
Fair disclosure: my girlfriend lives in downtown Santiago, around the corner from Universidad Catolica.
Chile is of course a country where they cancelled planned coal power plants and are installing solar power on a large scale…
They could have very easily had a hydro dam capable of supplying 40% of their needs, griff- but your side scuppered it.
Chile is of course a country that did not subsidize solar and did not waste billions on large-scale demonstration projects or too much rooftop solar. It did the right and obvious thing with privately developed utility scale solar in one of the best insolation locations on earth plus wind projects. They just had to manage the developments in context with transmission planning.
TR,
My wife is a nurse in Valparaiso. Much of Chile is indeed infested with Leftism, but one of the most beautiful parts of the country, Region 9 (capital Temuco), is the only region which voted Yes to retain the Pinochet government. Too bad it’s so rainy in winter. Worse than western Oregon and Washington.
Otter,
Correct. Environmentalists stopped the hydro project. For a country without oil or gas, which it must buy from Bolivia and Argentina, it was idiotic.
Resource Guy,
An American engineer buddy of mine worked on the Atacama project, and it is as you say. Yet, still it has environmental costs which IMO rival those of the cancelled hydro project in the south.
In Region 9, however, the Mapuches are on the war path, setting forest and house fires, killing loggers, farmers and ranchers and blocking Ruta 5 with burning tires. The socialist regime of Bitchelet won’t let the carabineros do anything about the lawlessness.
The unwillingness to engage in thoughtful discussion and exchanges of ideas, and intolerance of dissent is totally characteristic of politics, religion, and other faith-based social belief systems, and is totally inconsistent with science.
What do we expect from these “political scientists” but polemics and constant attempts to stamp out heresy?
Like the scorpion who stings the frog, drowning them both in the raging river, it’s in their nature. That so many lay people are buffaloed by the religiosity of the True Believers is what is forever astounding, but I suppose should not be … because it’s in the nature of tribalistic humans to believe in “us vs. them.”. We see this every day in politics, both left and right, and religion, and all sorts of other social organizations (sports, lifestyle, etc.) and any other mental system based on maintaining the faith rather than willingness to consider that we do not have all the answers to life’s questions..
He should be tested for Hepatic Encephalopathy. Too much of something is causing him to byte the hand that feeds him.
The Gore response is typical of political figures who stake territorial claims on issues that they craft and defend. That includes defense against any new facts, figures, research, data, etc. The same can be seen in Hillary behavior.
Anthony’s piece starts “Bjorn Lomborg writes…” and continues in the first person (presumably Lomborg). Could someone supply a link to the original Lomborg article? Thank you.
http://nypost.com/2017/10/12/now-even-climate-change-believers-count-as-deniers/
Tip for future: Cut a line from the article. Paste into Google or search engine of choice. Hit search. YMMV.
Yes, I have a long standing gentleman’s agreement with Bjorn to use his essays.
Wonder if Gore has taken any precautions against EMP attack? His scam will have been worthless if he hasn’t.
So who are the real den1ers here? Those that think the climate always changes and CO2 is a small player; or those who think they can stop climate change by controlling a minor GHG?
Jim
It’s all a hoax, tax grab.
Maybe we should just start conversing with Gore, or others like him, with the simple question – “Are you a believer?”
What amazes me is that so many people live on a world whose surface is composed of over 70% water, and somehow only a few of these people are able to rule by “logic” that Earth’s climate is dominated and controlled by a gas composing only 0.04% of the atmosphere.
And when you try to point this out, your critics ignore these basic numbers and try to turn your attention to complicated confabulations of numbers that are supposed to impress you as somehow more convincing than the simpler numbers, simply because confabulations appear to be visually more impressive.
Sun — oceans — water phase changes — convection — heat redistribution by convection — mediation by those phase changes — CO2 mostly along for the ride.
Sorry, no mathemagical confabulations today.
the BBC’s very climate concerned environment analyst Roger Harrabin had this treatment by Gore, over a decade ago… Roger expressed some concerns about the Inconvenient Truth in 2007
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7040370.stm
which resulted in..
“And after the interview he [Gore] and his assistant stood over me shouting that my questions had been scurrilous, and implying that I was some sort of climate-sceptic traitor.” BBC- Roger Harrabin, 10 Oct 2007
Oh, I forgot to ask Al, … “Are you a liar?”
Leading with such questions as, “Are you a denier?”, is a passive aggressive ad hominem.
… which should be met with an equally passive aggressive counter-question, such as the one I posed, … “Are you a liar?”
Trying to play nice just makes you play into the attack without addressing it. I would have said, “Let me stop your right there, Al. I will proceed no further in any discussion with you, if you continue to attack me with labels, either directly in declarative sentences or implicitly in suggestive questions that scream your close-mindedness in resounding tones.”
Denier? I barely even know her!
That’s where we are…they don’t have to prove their assertion and any resistance to them is both anti-science and a great moral failing. It’s deem and do.
I’ll just leave this here:
In retrospect, I sure am glad that Al Gore lost the 2000 election. His utter arrogance on AGW climate change issues probably arises from his hostility to losing that election. That arrogance now manifests itself as really fuelling the skeptic debate, and one that he is losing as evidenced by his lashing out now in the death throes of the cult movement he helped establish. It may take 20+ years of a pause in no statistical warming of the planet for the rest of the world to come around to common sense, but I think he knows the jig is up, hence his lashing out at anyone not toeing the line in his presence. A good sign I would say. Keep it up Big Al, we need more of this desperation from the lunatic CAGW movement to prove how unhinged this religion has become.
No, the frat boy arrogance goes farther back and it’s amazing Tipper Gore lasted so long with him.
It’s just a marketing scheme to try to sell the product.
A good example is television commercials. Sponsors that pay for time to advertise, use gimmicks and convincing sounding/looking strategies to plant ideas into the heads of viewers……..which causes them to remember a certain product or think about that product in a way that results in a decision to spend money on it.
Research shows that they are not flushing that money down the toilet because it works. This is well known and used in many fields. A car salesman, for instance is not going to tell you that they will take an offer $1,000 less than what he says is the bottom line…………or real estate agent selling a house.
They are selling something and depending on how honest (or desperate) (or biased) they are, will use everything in their bag of tricks to do it.
With climate science agenda, you have all 3 working in tandem.
1. Dishonesty
2. Bias
3. Desperation
The lack of skill in predicting temperature in global climate models(too warm) can’t be acknowledged and adjusted downward because it would be a major blow to selling the product………..dangerous man made global warming.
Recognizing the complete lack of skill in predicting regional weather in climate models would be a devastating blow.
Instead, insisting that the science is settled, 97% of real climate scientists agree on it and anybody that disagrees is a flat earther, denier that has some underlying motive(ties to big oil) and are doing their best to sabotage the effort of all the Mother Theresa’s trying to save the planet for life and our grandchildren.
Ironically, the last 4 decades have featured the best weather/climate for life on this planet that is massively greening up BECAUSE OF the very thing, increasing beneficial CO2, that their marketing scheme is selling as pollution.
Trillions of dollars worth of agricultural benefits alone in fertilization!!
It would be as if you just won 10 million dollars in the lottery and I tried to convince you that taking it would cause you to go bankrupt.
Fossil fuels, besides being cheap, reliable and abundant, have the added benefit of CO2 emissions that are causing bin busting crops and a greening of the planet.
Is global warming real? Yes, and probably humans are causing around half(we can’t know for sure). The atmosphere holds a tiny bit more moisture and heavy rain events have increased slightly. Heat waves have also increased slightly. Some hurricanes might get a bit stronger…..no trend yet.
However, the coldest places have warmed the most. Violent tornadoes are down. Global drought is down slightly and no, extreme weather has NOT increased, other than heavy rains.
The positives outweigh the negatives by 10 to 1.
Take away 100 parts per million CO2(go back to 305 ppm) and see how many people on this planet starve to death. Billions would have much less food and prices would skyrocket…….that’s the science of photosynthesis and the key role of CO2.
http://www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/csdb/en/
“Global food prices fall in August as cereal output heads for record high – UN”
http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2017/09/global-food-prices-fall-in-august-as-cereal-output-heads-for-record-high-un/
So we have been bombarded the last 2 years with news about the hottest global temperatures ever, along with CO2 soaring to the highest ever.
What we are not hearing about have been the massive benefits to (record smashing) crops based on the real world empirical data above.
Not despite climate change but BECAUSE OF it.
Crop models projected crop growing adversity from drought and heat would offset gains from increasing CO2 over the past decade. They were exactly wrong. They are busted. Time to reconcile the models to reality, not the other way around. Simulations of the atmosphere on a computer using flawed equations, projecting to 2100 that have been wrong for 20 years are still the main selling point and marketing tool to sell this agenda.
“This intolerance for discussion is alarming. ”
Yes. The modern form of socialist fascism is indeed alarming.
What I find incredible is Lomborg’s steadfast insistence that CAGW is real, in spite of the attacks on him and others who Believe, but don’t necessarily toe the line with every aspect of the Belief system. It defies all logic.
The progressive political goal has never really been “stopping climate change”. The goal has been to use climate change as a tool to implement policies that further the interests of “borderless, centrally controlled, one-world-socialism”. Pielke Jr. was attacked, not for denying the tool, but for dulling its cutting edge.
Gore and other alarmists view human prosperity (except their own) as original sin. Here is proof:
1) Virtually all the same claims and demands were made on the first Earth Day (too many people, too much use of fossil fuels, destroying Gaia) in 1970, well before global warming was even an issue.
2) Hydro and nuclear, obvious ways to reduce emissions, are never supported
3) Biofuel is good then bad
4) Oil palm plantations are good then bad
5) The same people rail against capitalism, as if socialist countries (typically dirtier than capitalist) were run on rainbows.
6) Fracking, which reduces both emissions and pollution compared to coal, is always opposed.
7) They oppose development, gentrification, cars, and making money.
You left out craft breweries as their main economic development strategy.
If you study the emergence of Christianity, the early sects thst believed but not fully in the Nicean (think Paris Accord/consensus) Creed were particularly attacked.
The climate cult/abomination is not really behaving differently, attacking and silencing those believers who are not orthodox enough.
More skeptics.
Not to be skeptical is a true climate denier.
The science is crystal clear, a conclusion can’t be made about global weather yet – especially for the long term.
Why does the use of the word “deni*r” get a post sent to moderation in an article about the use of the term?
On a side note, I’ve always found the use of the terms “climate deni@lism” and “climate change deni@lism” rather ludicrous. Does anyone really claim climate isn’t occurring or climate isn’t changing?
I have been predicting for years that one of the symptoms of the collapse of the global warming delusion is that the catastrophists turn upon themselves. The fact that people who like to think of themselves as “moderate” or “lukewarm” adherents of the “consensus” are being targeted for demonization and destruction is part of the predictable process of collapse of this anti-scientific belief system. Expect to see this more and more in the years ahead. Though these people naturally find it uncomfortable, and deserve sympathy, it is, taking the broad historical view, an entirely welcome development.
Well it’s taken 10 years or more but finally, FINALLY the people are coming to their senses, the “Emperor has no clothes.”
A divinity-school flunk-out putting his hypocrisy on a pedestal.
And since all his Progressive leftist friends are pretty much being outed as rapists and molesters, it’s worth reminding everyone that ol Al’ is one too – right here in Portland, OR, where he tried to force himself on a masseuse who actually thought she was there for a back rub. The local cops and press buried it, and it didn’t get mainstream attention until the for-God’s-sake ENQUIERER broke the story – and, by the way, was when Tipper decided to give him his walking papers because there were at least two other incidents.
Locally, the woman victim’s greenie ‘friends’ told her to keep quiet because Gore had to ‘save us all from
Global Warming’.
Remember, these people supporting this failed Priest and False Prophet are the ‘moral high-ground.’
Gives ya a warm fuzzy, doesn’t it?
I believe that the masseuse referred to Al as a crazed sex poodle or a sex crazed poodle. I don’t remember which, if someone could let me know which it was.
It was ‘crazed sex poodle’ – the reference comes from a Steve Martin movie ‘All Of Me’ – and was brief catch-phrase during that particular era.
Is it science based on challenging the status quo? Continued questioning and retesting of all current science, is the foundation of science. The accepted challenge of a current theory and even facts is to be relished not ridiculed, that’s science. Name calling is politics, post truth media propaganda.
If Alarmists had a good case to make, they would be eager to argue their points with anyone and everyone. But they avoid even discussing it.
They don’t have a good case to make.
“When people stop believing in God, the problem is not that they will believe in nothing but that they will believe in anything,” Michael Crichton once said
Rob Iliffe, in his recent book, “The Priest of Nature,” comments that, “[Isaac] Newton frequently noted that there was a natural human tendency to crave superstition, mystery and other idolatrous beliefs and practices.” It hasn’t gone away. Newton compared the belief in relics and statues in his time with the ancient Egyptian provision of animal gods for commoners by the priestly class whose own beliefs were substantially more abstract.
Global warming is the leading faith dissected on this site. But many people in our “modern” era are obsessed by a dark-age fascination with astrology. And witchcraft is not far behind. As often as not they also harbor a dread of hydraulic fracturing, despite its clean bill of health from every scientific investigation ever done. They have an unshakable faith in “organic” foodstuffs and bottled water, while condemning every genetically modified product no matter how nutritious and carefully produced – all while bingeing on the newest designer allergy. I think today it’s gluten intolerance. That does not even address the delusional orthodoxy of environmentalism.
Is it any wonder that the Al Gores see big returns in these fantasies and use them? Does anyone think it is possible to talk “sense” to this crowd? No … no more than chances of “reasoning” with Al Gore, who knows when his cash cow is at risk.
Did you ever ask yourself how he’ll enjoy the taste of dollar bills? Because at some point, the greed that drives his (and others’) cash hoarding will be all that they have left and people who can grow wheat and cabbages and tomatoes and potatoes will be far more valuable and likely to have an audience than the blustering fools like Gore.
I really do think they need their own planet,,, maybe in the Trappist system.
Crichton was paraphrasing a bon mot attributed to G. K. Chesterton, but which he never said in the forms in which he has been so often “quoted”:
https://www.chesterton.org/ceases-to-worship/
Kind of proves it’s a religious cult when your doctrine must line up with theirs point for point.
Thank you Bjorn. A rational voice in the wind tunnel of popular opinion.
Worse for whom?
Isn’t that the whole intention?
Al Gore was not in the best financial shape when he left the WH…..but surely found a way to become filthy rich by exploiting this issue!
The newest tactic to push the AGW fraud – demonize radical allies?
As a journalist you have the responsibility to know the facts. The findings of climate science are readily available. I urge you to be better informed. There are not two sides to this issue. There are those that follow the science and those that don’t. It would appear that you are in the latter category.
Richard Matthews
Journalist and owner of The Green Market Oracle
Richard Matthews
`A question, please.
Are you a journalist? Or a propagandist? Or a scientist?
Does pleasing the government in order to earn money for your “Green Market Oracle” in order that people are harmed, people are killed, and people are starved due to artifically high energy prices and deliberately scarce energy supplies are denied those who need energy to live profitable? Does it feel good to harm people, knowing you are harming people deliberately so you can feel better? (Restricting energy use now will not change the earth’s climate now, nor in the future. Killing people now will definitely do those you kill no “good”. Ever. So your “precautionary policy” guarantees permanent harm to millions over 100 years, in the 5% chance that in 100 years possible harm might be prevented that affects 100’s.)
Propaganda pays well, doesn’t it? Certainly better than researching things as a “journalist” used to do. But you have specifically stated you are not interested in the truth. You merely demand that the government – seeking trillions in new taxes, and the financial markets – seeking tens of trillions in energy futures manipulation, be heard.
Odd that. You. Denying anyone else any freedom of choice. Any freedom of thought, word, or deed. Do you deny some one else a freedom of religion? Or are only those religions and those races who persecute the ones you hate permissible in your state?
There are those who push junk science for profit & control and those who follow the real science. Climategate exposed the blacklist – the real science is suppressed so the ridiculous junk science can dominate.
The nazis were also a green party, funny how gores last climate alarm campaign netted him many millions-4 mil he used to buy a palacial beach house located where He predicted would be submerged decades ago. If he’d believed his own rhetoric wouldn’t he have purchased property inland of there cheaper & Now being oceanside? Don’t be gullible to their forced hoax, the elites care Only for themselves.
Wouldn’t you know that a thoughtful article like this would open up the age-old mindless political debate in the comments section.
Wouldn’t you know that a thoughtful article like this would open up the age-old mindless political debate in the comments section.
This isn’t surprising at all — it’s another symptom of what’s at the heart of the suspicion felt by regular people like me who are trying, despite our limitations, to understand the science. It leaves a huge stain on all those who seem to take the same “side” in the argument as Mr. Gore, and calls into question any assertions they may make.
Only non-truth can self-destruct in this manner.
Great article, the people and businesses promoting climate change are only in it for profits, don’t be fooled,
I’m not sure what this means: “increasing porous surfaces” to prevent more hurricane damage.
Paved surfaces don’t drain well. Was referencing rain/floods (such as poor Houston).
There is a reason that the damage in Poor Houston” was so bad even though Harvey was not particularly unexpected. Actually, the damage AND the prevention was known some 20 years ago. But, the so called ‘leaders” of Houston chose to ignore it. And, for them it was the right decision. They took their money and walked away. Read it and weep for the poor schmucks who lost all in Houston.
https://www.dallasnews.com/news/harvey/2017/09/05/houston-grew-officials-ignored-lifetime-chance-spare-thousands-flooding