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.
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