Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t James Delingpole / Breitbart / Willie Soon – according to climate novelist William T. Vollmann, compulsion and coercion is the only way to convince people to comply with his climate ideals.
“Are we prepared to endure lives with less comfort?”: William T. Vollmann on climate change.
The famous novelist and journalist has a new two-volume tome on climate change.
By Eric Allen Been Apr 19, 2018, 8:40am EDT
“For a long time I was a climate change denier,” says author, journalist, and war correspondent William T. Vollmann. “I didn’t want to be stressed out by something that might someday affect people after I’m dead.”
And yet for Vollmann — a brilliant, idiosyncratic writer whom some have described as a plausible candidate for the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature — the reality of climate change has become a personal obsession. Last week, he released the first volume of a sprawling, two-volume polemic called Carbon Ideologies. Titled No Immediate Danger, it explores in more than 600 pages how our society is bound to the ideology of energy consumption. Addressed to humans living in a “hot dark future,” the book is highly technical, chock-full of tables, studies, and hundreds of Vollmann’s own photos.
Vollmann traveled the globe for years reporting for this project, going so far as to self-finance after his publisher’s patience wore thin. “I spent my own money,” he writes, “and occasionally other people’s, to hike up strip-mined mountains, sniff crude oil, and occasionally tan my face with gamma rays.”
…
There are things that that can be done and maybe won’t be done if somebody says, “Well, it’s going to cost too much money to make that change.” Then what do you say? Do you say, “Well, we’re going to make you do it at a loss”? Or do we say, “All right, we’re going to give you money to help you change”? I can’t pretend to have an answer about stuff like that. All I can do is say, well, there are lots and lots of problems.
It’s not just what some consumer does at home. It’s niggling little issues that add up. In Japan, roughly 50 percent or so of all the methane emissions — and that’s one of the three most dangerous greenhouse gases — are caused by rice growing. All this stuff that seems so innocuous. It seems to me that you have to drag people into some kind of regulatory hell, unfortunately. Maybe there’s a better way to do it, but I don’t see one.
…
Can you imagine what the world would be like with people like Vollmann in charge?
Vollmann is the real deal – according to the VOX article, at one point the police suspected him of being the Unabomber, because of the hardline anti-growth and anti-development themes of Vollmann’s writing.
Vollman asks “Are we prepared to endure lives with less comfort?” This is what in my house is called a “First World Problem”. People down at the bottom of the global economic ladder get shafted by plans like Vollman’s. My take on this elitist sickness is here.
w.
For sure. The poor are already getting shafted, like in the 2008 biofuel riots. It could get a lot worse for them though.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/starving-haitians-riot-as-food-prices-soar-807016.html
Eric, judging by the comments, your except has give a very different view of Vollman than the article does. Do you have good reason for distorting his image? Or is he just a tool to you? Or do you believe your excerpt is a fair summary of his views? That itself would be significant.
Kristi
What part of the following Vollman quote do you not understand? I thought you have an undergraduate degree. I guess it wasn’t in English?
“It seems to me that you have to drag people into some kind of regulatory hell, unfortunately.”
kristi is right.
i read that article.
in the article cited the person makes no demands at all. he is explicitly not making any suggestions.
worral is showing great disrespect to thinking people with this clickbait garbage.
eric- your attempts to elicit the dog-whistle reactions work only on dogs.
is that what you think we are, here?
that is just as if not more obnoxious than any climate psychopath.
your manipulation is crude and implies an estimate of your audience i believe is seriously insulting.
lewandowski is far more adept at this than you are.
you are not in his league. give it up.
It seems to me that you have to drag people into some kind of regulatory hell, unfortunately. Maybe there’s a better way to do it, but I don’t see one. is a demand IMO – but I provided the quote, people are free to form their own opinion.
Kristi Silber;
your except has give a very different view of Vollman than the article does.
I read the article. Putting aside for a moment that climbing strip mined mountains provides exactly zero value in understanding climate change and it a total red herring, let’s examine the main thrust of his position in more detail:
Are we prepared to endure lives with less comfort and maybe less safety? Are we going to be hard-asses and deny people in the Third World the ability to achieve the level of comfort that we’ve achieved? These are very, very powerful inducements to continue the train of behavior that we currently follow. Those are our ideological underpinnings, if you like.
Eric Allen Been
And yet you believe those ideological underpinnings are wrongheaded?
William T. Vollmann
Unfortunately, that’s what I think.
So there you have it. He thinks comfort, safety and allowing the third world to have what we have is “wrongheaded”. He would condemn us to be poor and the poor to be starved. But the most hilarious part of the interview (tough to find humour in such an inhumane point of view, but its there):
One of my Japanese translators gave up writing to me since she sent me six letters in one year and I never got one.
I believe that my mail is still delayed, intercepted, and sometimes not given to me.
Really Kristi? This guy’s claiming someone is intercepting his mail? Do you really think that ANY spy agency is so incompetent that when they intercept someone’s mail they are too stupid to pass it along as if it was untouched so as not to expose the fact that they are intercepting mail? But beyond that Kristi, when was the last time you actually put a personal letter in an envelope, put a stamp on it, and put it in the mail?
The whole interview is full of obvious bull sh*t. A shameless self promoter who thinks less safety and a permanently destitute 3rd world are good things. The notion that we have to destroy humanity to save humanity by dragging humanity into regulatory h*ll is just… wrongheaded.
One of my Japanese translators gave up writing to me since she sent me six letters in one year and I never got one.
Then how did he find out she sent him six letters? She stopped writing to him after all, so how would he know she sent any? Unless of course she told him on the phone or via email. If via email, why was she sending him letters in the first place instead of email? If by phone, why the h*ll would she go six unanswered letters in a row before calling to find out why they weren’t being answered? Wouldn’t she do that after two or at the most three? And how, exactly, was she able to act as a translator without being able to communicate with him? Only non-translation related mail was intercepted? Seriously? And why is he complaining about mail sent to him being intercepted but not mail that HE sent being intercepted? If you were spying on someone because you thought they might be up to no good, which would be more interesting to you? The mail people send to that person, or the things that person said in the mail they sent?
If it looks like bullsh*t, sounds like bullsh*t, smells like bullsh*t, its probably a good idea not to taste it because its probably bullsh*t.
Kristi.
. “I didn’t want to be stressed out by something that might someday affect people after I’m dead
That is not a skeptic, that is a bad person.
Kristi,
Why are you trolling?
I read the article and Vollman comes across as a long winded eco-imperialist kook.
He is explicitly pushing ideology, not science. He seeks, for the best if reasons of course, to impose suffering on others.
The FBI likely followed him because he is a kook, not simoly because he writes similar to the unabomber.
My luggage has also been damaged in travel and it did not require a conspiracy theory to explain why.
You are welcome to intepret this long winded wack job as you wish, but don’t bs yourself by confuding your opinion with fact.
“Carbon ideology” is called “life”, by the way:
All life is based on carbon. To be against carbon is to be against life.
Yeh.. Until he ran short of money. How very enterprising of him.
A little levity:
Thanks, gnomish, i’m glad that other here can see the problem here.
To all you others offering quotes: I have no idea why you see this guy as you do. To me he sounds like he’s thought a lot about this topic, reached some conclusions, and is not really happy about them. He knows it’s asking a sacrifice of people for them to agree to do things differently in the future, and in the case of the third world, develop sustainably rather than follow in the consumption-based economy of America.
“So there you have it. He thinks comfort, safety and allowing the third world to have what we have is ‘wrongheaded’.”
The passage is vague, but here’s what I get from it. He thinks wrong the ideological underpinnings of the idea that it’s too much to ask people to give up a little of their comfort and maybe safety (? I assume he means SUVs?) for the sake of risk avoidance . I don’t claim to know his whole argument – it’s not in the story – but it may revolve around the idea that people have the right to pursue their own maximal comfort level at the expense of others. Or it may refer to the oft-voiced skeptic idea that doing something about CO2 emissions means thousands of lost lives and destruction of the American economy, millions more in poverty, etc. I don’t understand where this came from – sounds like a scare tactic, prop’ganda.
Vollman doesn’t say what kind of regulation he means. He doesn’t say he wants poor people to die, or to make anyone poor. He doesn’t say rice growing should stop. “Dragging” people to “regulatory hell” I interpret as a figure of speech, not a threat.
He found out the FBI was tracking him because he sued under the FOIA, then wrote a story for Harpers about it. He thought it funny at first, until they kept messing with his life. All this because of the content of his books? It’s fiction! It’s like suspecting an author of serial killing because they write about a detective who is an expert on serial killers.
I don’t know the whole FBI story. I have no reason to believe he’s lying. Those who assume so are going to think what they want, creating whole imaginary stories from limited data, believing the worst about people they want to think poorly of. Who knows what other cognitive errors they make.
I have no reason to defend him. I don’t care about his reputation.
My gripe is that people here were “primed” to think badly about this guy based on the way the original excerpt was presented, as well as on their own preconceptions about the character of those who believe “CAGW” is likely.
a little of their comfort
He didn’t say “a little” he said “regulatory hell”. You keep trying to rationalize along the lines of what he might have meant, we just don’t know for sure because everything us a bit vague. Its not vague and the yarns he spins are incredulous.
So as long as the person doesn’t say he wants poor people to die, it’s ok to push policies that ARE going to end up with poor people dying.
How tolerant of you.
gnomish,
Your inability to accept that a deeply disturbed ranter like Vollman, whose prior work compared to the unabomber, just might mean what he pkainly said is deafness.
And claiming those who disagree with you are dog whistling is pretty out of line frankly.
Willis
Your poignant tale says it all….and, yes, access to affordable energy is what the world needs most of all – no ifs, ands, but’s or maybes! Eco-fanatics and those who seek to reverse the amazing progress we have made as a species since the start of the industrial revolution are disconnected from reality.
The modern left is organised denial of reality.
Hence, for example, a pampered lefty can claim that we need ‘Regulatory Hell,’ when people with real jobs in the real world know we already live in it.
If he “traveled the globe for years” working on this project, what is his carbon footprint?
Willis … this is the first I’ve read of you (Guest article linked). And let me say, I would happily purchase anything you’ve published. Your writing is engaging, lucid, and alive … and analytically brilliant.
I will continue to to tell my eco-Leftist elite friends and neighbors here in upper-upper-upper middle class Silicon Valley that … “High Energy costs are THE most regressive taxation on the poor ever imaginable”. Which is usually met with puckered lips, harrumphs and feeble flailing responses.
Amen to that (see my comments below).
That is a very good point.
Kenji – THAT surprised me. I’ve seen you here a lot, and assumed Anthony was writing using his dog’s name! But Willis has been here forever, and frequently as a guest blogger. Yes – his writing and analysis is clear, concise – and spot on.
Now I have to go see if I got his dog’s name wrong. Last I heard, he was a member of the Union of Concerned Scientists or a similar group. Where DID I leave my memory… got to be around here somewhere.
Willis,
“People down at the bottom of the global economic ladder get shafted by plans like Vollman’s.”
What plan is that?
What elitist sickness would that be? Is it contagious? Do all “elitists” have it, and what’s an elitist? Can one have the sickness and not be an elitist?
……………………………………
Eric
The article ends like this:
“Vollmann is the real deal – according to the VOX article, at one point the police suspected him of being the Unabomber, because of the hardline anti-growth and anti-development themes of Vollmann’s writing.”
This is the last word, the message you want to convey? He’s the “real deal” because the FBI made a grievous, foolish error based on the content of his novels (and that is their description, not his)?
You want to make him out to be a nut.
Does he honestly seem like a nut to you, Eric?
He IS a psychotic creature, Kristi Silber. If you can’t see that, you are completely blind. You aren’t paying attention because you choose to ignore what is right under your nose, to your detriment.
K.S.,
Define “nut” and someone will get back to you.
Does he honestly seem like a nut to you, Eric?
No, completely rational – doesn’t everyone sniff petroleum and bathe their face in gamma rays?
Sara, I’m afraid you will have to educate me here. In what ways has Vollman lost touch with reality?
///////////
Oh! I see this post now…
“Rice is THE staple of the diet in Asia, in all the countries included in that nominative. What are those people supposed to live on if that is taken from them? Are they supposed to subsist on air? Or just starve to death because this ignorant fanatic disapproves of rice?”
You, Sara, have absolutely no clue what he’s saying. No wonder you’re making such stupid, blind remarks about him and me. Par for the course, jumping to conclusions and insulting others because you think you know better than anyone who thinks differently, when it’s you who are in the wrong.
Rice farming produces methane. Maybe you think people shouldn’t say so if you find it so offensive, but that doesn’t change the fact that it does. Nor is it equivalent to, “rice farming should end.” Hard to grasp, I know, but people don’t always live up to your hate-filled, disdainful, simplistic view of them.
Here, Kristi, read this, out of his OWN mouth:’
In Japan, roughly 50 percent or so of all the methane emissions — and that’s one of the three most dangerous greenhouse gases — are caused by rice growing. All this stuff that seems so innocuous. It seems to me that you have to drag people into some kind of regulatory hell
So rice produces methane? So?
Rice is a wetland plant. ALL WETLANDS PRODUCE METHANE. ALL OF THEM. There are ZERO exceptions to that rule. It’s part of the process of organic decay, meaning plant matter becomes – oh, my GOD! PEAT! And peat turns to COAL, after many, many millions of years of releasing water vapor and other gases including methane into the atmosphere under enormous pressure.
So is this ignorant quack going to eradicate wetlands, an extremely important part of any healthy ecosystem, because THEY ALL PRODUCE METHANE?????
He disapproves of a wetland plant that is part of a food chain for many other creatures than just humans. In fact, ricelands in the southern US are a mecca for migratory birds when winter comes in the north.
You claim to be a scientist. I’m curious AS TO how something this obvious can escape you. I’m beginning to seriously doubt you.
Eric,
‘No, completely rational – doesn’t everyone sniff petroleum and bathe their face in gamma rays?”
This was done as part of the research for his books. It’s said in passing, we have no idea what the context is. You judge him based on that? Or is that what you want to communicate?
You seem to see what you want, then exaggerate it for the public. No better than the alarmist media.
Sara, you have always doubted me, always insulted me.
Your mistake is in assuming that because rice produces methane, he is arguing that rice farming shouldn’t be done. He didn’t argue that. I know he went on to talk about regulation, but that doesn’t mean anything. We have no idea what he had in mind for regulation. None. Get it?
Kristi: What part of ‘drag people through a regulatory hell’ do you NOT understand????
Those are HIS words. Your refusal to understand what he implies by regulatory hell speaks volumes.
Your mind is closed to anything said that disagrees with your narrow view. That includes the FBI viewing his implied threats as an indicator that he MIGHT be the dangerous psychotic Ted Kazynski.
Sara,
You are not seeing it in context, and not reading it right, and you are INTENTIONALLY misrepresenting him.
“All this stuff that seems so innocuous. It seems to me that you have to drag people into some kind of regulatory hell” That’s where you end the quote, which goes on, “unfortunately. Maybe there’s a better way to do it, but I don’t see one.”
You ignore all he has talked about just previous to this quote.
You have absolutely NO IDEA WHAT HE MEANS BY REGULATORY HELL. Do you understand? The fact that he calls it a “regulatory hell” suggests he’s not a liberal. Get it? People don’t fit your little boxes.
It’s a classic way of distorting the truth in the name of an agenda. ignore what he means, and interpret what he says. If one does so in order to spread a message, it’s propag’nda. The left do it, the right do it – truth means little these days.
Yes he is a stark raving lunatic as are most greenies. It isnt their fault though. Unfortunately our school system brainwashed them into thinking that we should get rid of CO2 which in reality without we would all die. And the school system taught them that the world could be a dream place of only solar and wind energy. Well Kristi the real world is not a land of OZ. I hate pollution as much as you do if not more Kristi but CO2 is not a pollutant and is not warming the atmosphere to a point where we would ever have to worry about it. In fact the whole greenhouse gas theory might not be correct but even if it is, we not going to burn up by adding a little trace gas that is only 410ppm by volume. Worry about the oceans Kristi. We have polluted them to such an extant that there are 5 trillion pieces of plastic floating in the world’s oceans. Yes you read that right. That is the real big problem mankind is facing, NOT the nonexistent problem of too much CO2. We need more CO2 NOT less.
What the hell is a “liberal”, Kristi?
And why wouldn’t a “liberal” love to impose “hell” on others?
He says, “For a long time I was a climate change denier,” says author, journalist, and war correspondent William T. Vollmann. “I didn’t want to be stressed out by something that might someday affect people after I’m dead.”
Then
Which means he was spouting malthusian claptrap circa 1982-87.
No way. He was a clamatista before Hansen made his phoney baloney speech to Congress in 1988.
If he was ever against the AGW political movement it was for a nanosecond, in a temporary moment of clarity.
@ Kristi
Vollman’s “In Japan, roughly 50 percent of all the methane emissions–and that’s one of the three most dangerous greenhouse gases–are caused by rice growing. All this stuff seems so innocuous. It seems to me you have to drag people into some sort of regulatory hell, unfortunately. Maybe there’s a better way to do it, but I don’t see one.”
Read with interest your exchange with Sara, in the sub-thread immediately above, Kristi. Some reflections, for what they might be worth:
-Vollman is a professional writer, of such skill, that “some” apparently consider him a contender for the Nobel Prize, per the Vox interview. So I think we can safely make the assumption that Vollman chooses his words with care, as to their meaning, and configures the ensemble of his words with calculation–possibly even cunning.
-Also sprach Vollman: “It seems to me that you have to drag people into some sort of a regulatory hell.” The image of “dragging people” is clearly one that has someone, with power, physically manhandling others, against their will. And the need to employ brute force becomes clear, as Vollman informs us that the destination, he intends for those, whom he deems to be “in need of a little draggin'”, is a “regulatory hell”.
But it is true, as you rightly point out, Kristi, that Vollman does not provide detail with respect to the specifics of the “hell”, to which he plans to consign those of the “dragee” class. Nevertheless, I think we can be sure–unless, of course, we have a perverse need to “play dumb”–that Vollman did not choose the word, “hell”, because he envisions the end-point of his “modest proposal”, to be a good-fun, quality-time adventure, for those he intends to pitch into his home-brew “fiery pit”. And that’s all we really need to know about Vollman’s potentially Nobel Prize winning, artfully-obscure, “big plan”, as far as any “thinking” person is concerned, I would say.
-But I see I have, with my last musing, just committed Sara’s fatal error, in that I didn’t provide “context”. And just what is that essential context, I neglected? Well, Kristi, thanks to your superior understanding of the matter, we now know that it is of the utmost importance to emphasize Vollman’s “sensitivity” in this whole business. You know, like, we need to appreciate all those anguished regrets, that Vollman so keenly feels, as he contemplates frog-marching multitudes of be-drug and bedraggled wretches off to the Arch Fiend’s sulfurous torments. That Vollman regards their fate to be “unfortunate”, but–poor soul!–he just can’t see “a better way to do it”.
Really, Kristi? Do you truly think such “context” has value? If I understand Sara correctly, I’m with her–when it comes to Vollman’s “final solution”, it is a matter of indifference, to moi, at least, that the great thinker might, encumbered, as he is, by such exquisite sensibilities, suffer a twinge of regret that he must send off so many to be spit-roasted by Beelzebub.
-Last but not least, I think it worth while to highlight that Vollman lives in a typical, hive-bozo, dystopian dream-world where there are those who do the “dragging” (let’s call them our “Philosopher Kings”) and those whom are “drug” (let’s call them coolie-trash, cull-fodder herdling-nobodies–my kind of people, in other words). Some useful intel, that will immediately orient us hoi-polloi, if Vollman ever decides to bestir himself and risk a “walk” of his big-mouth “talk”. Regardless, tends to concentrate the mind, don’t you think, Kristi?
Hey gnomish!–my next comment is for you. If you don’t see it, it’s because it fell victim to the moderator’s zinger-cidal wrath.
apparently mr worral’s judgement is accurate.
i loathe mobs.
especially on days that end in Y
If rice is going to destroy the planet, then I’m for eating meat and potatoes.
Anybody who does not agree that higher energy costs not only increases the cost of energy obviously, but also the cost of basic needs like food, and that these costs affect the poor most, is a denier of basic math, science, and logic. Basically you’re an idiot.
Kristi, let’s be plain and simple here — anyone that wrings their hands and gnashes their teeth over a tiny trace gas like methane is off their rocker. I actually feel sorry for such tormented souls, but only alittle. This is the modern version of ghosts, goblins and witches.
Come on Kristi, you aren’t as dense as you are playing here.
The plans to stop and reverse human development.
The plans to make energy expensive and scarce.
And that’s just for a beginning.
Kristi, yes, rice farming produces methane.
Methane is not and has never been a problem.
And if you stop it, the people who used to eat rice now starve.
Kristi, when you go around insulting others, expect to get some back.
Regardless, when all you can do is repeat propaganda that was disproven decades ago, don’t expect much in the way of respect.
Kristi…..he thinks the problem is carbon…get it?
“It’s carbon that is the central environmental issue of our time.”
His plan?
Same as any scared, unhinged climate worrier: complain, complain, threaten apocalypse, offer no solutions to anything. For example: he says he’s worried about fossil fuel driving climate change, so he writes a non-fiction book hyping the “ongoing nightmare of Fukushima”
Classic idiocy.
Kristi, I may agree with Vollmann on eliminating wetlands – or at least not wasting 40% of Kalifornia’s water to maintain them. Especially during drought years.
Unless they’re producing something useful – like food.
Other than that – yes, he sounds like a certifiable nut job. Quite willing to impose his life style on others. He doesn’t have friends he enjoys quick texts with, so he doesn’t think the rest of us should enjoy that form of communication.
A lot like my mom. She believes alcohol is sinful, and wants Prohibition back. Impose her views on everyone else. Except in her case, she believes God is telling her this. Vollmann doesn’t tell us who the voices in his head are. I suspect it is just an echo chamber.
To the Mods: How on Earth do you examine everything on this site?
It has been said that fully 25% of leftists are on some type of anti-psychotic medicine.
If that’s true (Hi Kristi) that means that 75% of them are walking around untreated.
AH Kristi, how old are you? Have you ever been outside the USA? Have you ever been outside of the Western Democracy? Like many in the west you are a spoiled elitist. You even hint that rice culture is evil because it produces methane. ANY organic soil produces not just methane but also as it decomposes release mercury. Deal ii that has been going on an extremely long time not just at the begin of the Industrial Revolution. Your real problem, assuming you are not a paid troll, is you are either still very young with few real life experiences or you are just spoiled. Try raising ALL your own food, turn off ALL electricity, drink, shower and wash clothes only rainwater that you have captured, make all your own clean materials, do not go to the doctor no matter how sick you might be, have your only mode of transportation be walking not even a bicycle. Do that for a few years then come back and join the debate.
Mike,
That’s quite a rant there. Must be a couple dozen assumptions you made, figuring you have it all worked out.
The enormous hypocrisy is calling this political movement “skepticism” and pretending it’s about science.
“I think we can be sure–unless, of course, we have a perverse need to “play dumb”–that Vollman did not choose the word, “hell”, because he envisions the end-point of his “modest proposal”, to be a good-fun, quality-time adventure, for those he intends to pitch into his home-brew “fiery pit”.”
He said he didn’t know the answer. How do you get any kind of proposal out of that.
Do you not understand what a figure of speech is? Do you imagine…oh, forget it.
“Really, Kristi? Do you truly think such “context” has value?” YES. OF COURSE. THAT IS WHY IT WAS SO EASY TO FOOL PEOPLE ABOUT ‘CLIMATEGATE.’ And they continue to do so.
“-Last but not least, I think it worth while to highlight that Vollman lives in a typical, hive-bozo, dystopian dream-world where there are those who do the “dragging” (let’s call them our “Philosopher Kings”) and those whom are “drug” (let’s call them coolie-trash, cull-fodder herdling-nobodies–my kind of people, in other words). Some useful intel, that will immediately orient us hoi-polloi, …”
Why would you think of your kind of people that way, I wonder? Is it some kind of victimhood thing? Do you think the educated look down on you?
Well, join the club. That’s what it means being in a deeply stratified society based on a free market economy. You think regulations are going to hurt the poor most? How do you know? Someone told you? What if someone had another idea? Possible, do you think?
(I’m a capitalist.)
@Kristi
Yr: April 22, 8:55 pm comment
Thank you for your response, Kristi, to my April 22, 3:14 am comment. You replied with the admirable candor that is your wont and I do you the courtesy of replying with a similar candor.
Your reply, Kristi, opens with two paragraphs:
“Mike
That’s quite a rant there. Must be a couple dozen assumptions you made, figuring you have it all worked out.
The enormous hypocrisy is calling this political movement “skepticism” and pretending it’s about science.”
Kristi, your first paragraph seemed to hold out, to the reader, the promise that you were going to “rip me a new one” by exposing the defects in the foundational assumptions of my little “rant”, and, in such a way, as to take my bumptious, good opinion of myself down a notch. And I was really lookin’ forward to seein’ you work your magic, in that regard, Kristi. So imagine my disappointment, Kristi, when I found that the promise of your opening paragraph, so grandly introduced, went nowhere–not one mention or analysis of my presumably “deplorable” assumptions, and/or hubris, to be found, even once, in the balance of your comment. Hmmm…strange, I’m thinkin’.
Your second paragraph, which, in no way, logically followed from the first, then denounced, grandiosely, a certain “enormous hypocrisy”. But again, you hit the reader with a paragraph that is just nothing but a big, fat, “fake-out” tease–a paragraph that is all razzle-dazzle wind-up, but no pitch. That’s right!–astonishingly, after your urgent, “enormous hypocrisy” attention-gainer, Kristi, and a perfunctory sketch of that hypocrisy, the subject is not pursued anywhere else in your comment.
And in reflecting on the first two paragraphs of your reply, Kristi, I couldn’t help but get the feeling that there just wasn’t something “right” about the whole deal. And upon reading the rest of your reply and remembering other of your comments, I couldn’t shake the notion that there is something bizarre about the character of your discourse:
-Your capacity for educated speech that is not matched by any apparent ability to construct a cogent, logical argument.
-Impulsive, bold assertions that seem somehow pre-fabricated.
-Paragraphs that have a cut-and-paste, strung-together quality.
-Frequent non-sequiturs and irrelevancies.
-Relentless employment of trite, emotive, lefty bromides.
-A machine-like endurance in running exchanges of comments with others on this blog.
So, Kristi, let me ask you straight out–are you a bot?
Yes Kristi, we’ve heard that rant of yours before. Only those who agree with you are doing science.
As to your claim that you are a capitalist, you want the government to regulate pretty much everything.
That isn’t capitalism. Like most of your ilk, you seem to believe that as long as the government doesn’t own everything, you are still doing capitalism.
‘Your mistake is in assuming that because rice produces methane, he is arguing that rice farming shouldn’t be done. He didn’t argue that.’
Kristi – this is ALWAYS your mistake, whether it’s ‘can’t eat meat’ or ‘can’t grow rice’ – No, they don’t SAY that – they just DO it – they just regulate targeted products out of existence, price it out of existence, deliberately bankrupt the industry. Remember Obama? ‘You can build a coal plant but we’ll bankrupt you.’
This is the way Progressives – particularly eco-types – ALWAYS handle things.
Please – drop the deliberate obtuseness, the pretense of innocence, and stop playing the dim watt bulb.
‘You have absolutely NO IDEA WHAT HE MEANS BY REGULATORY HELL. Do you understand? The fact that he calls it a “regulatory hell” suggests he’s not a liberal. Get it? People don’t fit your little boxes.’
Boy, talk about obtuse. That might be the most asinine statement you’ve made on this board.
‘Not a liberal?’ Considering the Progressive left’s first approach to ANYTHING is to whitewash their own dirty hands and cast themselves as the moral high ground, I’d say you have literally become a caricature.
Some people don’t fit into little boxes, but YOU sure do.
I treat everyone with respect until they prove they don’t deserve it.
“Are we prepared to endure lives with less comfort?”
He does not finish the sentence.
The full sentence is “Are we prepared to endure lives with less comfort and let people at the bottom of the heap die?”
Or better still.
“Are we all ready to die and observe, with our last breaths, the “so called Elite” watching us starve?”
Cheers
Roger
http://www.rogerfromnewzealand.wordpress.com
Roger,
Are you reduced to the expediency of making up someone’s views in order to ridicule him? Isn’t that stooping a little low, getting a little desperate?
Kristi Silber,
Not at all. You maybe unaware of the economic facts and of the results if we take Vollmann’s advice which I interpret as being that we must decrease our fossil fuel usage to the point where we have to “Endure” our lives.
The truth is, if you want to know the true economic results of banning or otherwise making fossil fuels unavailable is exactly what I say above. First of all the people at the bottom of the heap will die and then not too long after we will die. The people left will be as described at this website. http://green-agenda.com/index.html
Global warming most likely is a bunch of codswallop and even if it was true, the human cost of any futile attempt to “mitigate” is far to great to even imagine.
Even the UN does not believe what they preach. Check this link. https://thedemiseofchristchurch.wordpress.com/2016/05/06/un-headquarters-and-usd1-2-billion-upgrade-and-rising/
Regards
Roger
Kristi, you come across like a fanatical green loon.
Your ideological hero says this:
” … Do you say, “Well, we’re going to make you do it at a loss”? Or do we say, “All right, we’re going to give you money to help you change”? I can’t pretend to have an answer about stuff like that. … ”
—-
Clever. The guy is at best an ignorant fanatical crackpot with no answers to ‘problems’ that are more or less imaginary, or blown out of all proportion. i.e. a crazy zealot.
“Money talks and bullsh|t walks”. – Bobbi Finkman, This is Spinal Tapp.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=I-BYzaDwNoE
Rogerthesurf,
“You maybe unaware of the economic facts and of the results if we take Vollmann’s advice which I interpret as being that we must decrease our fossil fuel usage to the point where we have to “Endure” our lives.
The truth is, if you want to know the true economic results of banning or otherwise making fossil fuels unavailable is exactly what I say above. ”
This is a very bad logical error. YOU ARE ASSUMING something you have no right or reason to assume. You are “interpreting” based on an idea you have of what “the other side” wants.
I don’t know, some people may want fossil fuel use to end, but I very much doubt most people who want to avoid CAGW think that. There are many routes to lowering net CO2 emissions. Perhaps you might consider that even alarmists are not all heartless idiots, hard as that may be to imagine.
I don’t really care about that. I’m sick of seeing people being manipulated and manipulating others. I’m sick of the rampant false assumptions. I’m sick of the complaining and hatred. And I’m sick of scientists being maligned unquestioningly, mindlessly, reflexively.
Kristi Silber,
“I don’t really care about that. I’m sick of seeing people being manipulated and manipulating others. I’m sick of the rampant false assumptions. I’m sick of the complaining and hatred. And I’m sick of scientists being maligned unquestioningly, mindlessly, reflexively.”
Sorry Kristi,
I “assume” that you are talking about people who are telling your that “Global Warming” is happening and now, plus all the terrible things that are about to happen, but have been somehow delayed.
For your information, these people are not scientists. If they were, they would not be supporting this unproven rubbish. They are not scientists, because they are telling you lies. Why are they telling you lies? Because instead of following proper scientific procedure, they are making up tall stories.
Below I have an example of the proper measures needed to follow if the unproven “Anthropogenic Carbon Dioxide causes global warming” hypothesis.
This shows that all the panic is caused by people who either are ignorant or deliberately avoid proper basic scientific procedure.
No wonder there is a large and growing body of the population opposing the pseudo scientists of which must be doing this for agenda that will not benefit you, me or as much as 99% of the would population.
Here is a simple procedure where AGW fails the true test of science because no proof or reasonable hypothesis supports the colossal rant of Vollman and others..
If you read Karl Popper and if you wish to take it even further, William of Ockham, you can find the basis of the scientific disproof of a hypothesis.
This quick video should help.
Richard Feynman on disproving a hypothesis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OL6-x0modwY
And Dr Roy Spencer Graph showing Models and empirical measurements.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/CMIP5-73-models-vs-obs-20N-20S-MT.png
(The accompanying commentary for the above can be found on Dr Spencer’s website archive Blogs June 2013)
This is a good example of Popper’s disproval of a hypothesis. In this case the models are the hypothesis’, (or law as Feynman describes them) and the actual temperature measurements, some of which are satellites, represent the empirical measurements.
Therefore it is very obvious that the models fall under Feynman’s rejection. There is therefore no scientific evidence that the earth is warming, (or cooling), other than what has already been observed throughout history.
So Kristi, get it together, If you are looking for truth, you are on the wrong side.
If you want to help mankind and the environment you are also on the wrong side.
Vollman is an obsessive compulsive fanatic, narrowly focused on one thing – controlling what other people do.
Rice is a major source of methane? Really?
Rice is THE staple of the diet in Asia, in all the countries included in that nominative. What are those people supposed to live on if that is taken from them? Are they supposed to subsist on air? Or just starve to death because this ignorant fanatic disapproves of rice?
What else pisses him off? I’m sure he has a long list.
He’s as close to psychotic as you can get. I thought I had seen everything, with the charlatan sideshow promos by Al Gore and noxious twits like da Caprio puffing themselves off as experts on anything at all. But this guy just takes the cake.
I’m sure that if he had the chance, he’d send everyone to their deaths.
Until now, I hadn’t heard of him but if he’s made threats in the past, it’s no wonder the Feebies thought he was the Unabomber.
Sara, “threats”? You have quite an imagination. Did you even bother reading the Vox article in its entirety?
And this, “I’m sure that if he had the chance, he’d send everyone to their deaths.” – that is just despicable to say about someone based on the little you know of him. This says more about you than him.
“Vollman is an obsessive compulsive fanatic, narrowly focused on one thing – controlling what other people do.” Wow.
Kristi, you really do have some serious issues with people who don’t kowtow to your view]
Here: It seems to me that you have to drag people into some kind of regulatory hell…
Those are HIS words. That’s as explicit as you can get. A regulatory hell???
If that is NOT about controlling other people, then what is it? Define it. Explain how it is NOT indicative of a strong need to control what other people do. If he has made clear threats in what he’s published, clear enough to be investigated by the FBI, how can you even vaguely refuse to believe that he is NOT mentally ill? How?
You don’t make any sense. And I don’t care if you object to what I say. You have the right to do so. It’s called free speech. But I’d appreciate it if you’d realize that not even has your narrow point of view.
Sara,
“Kristi, you really do have some serious issues with people who don’t kowtow to your view]”
See? Here again you are making false assumptions, and THAT is what i don’t like – you JUDGE OTHERS CONSTANTLY without knowing what you’re talking about. My best friend is a staunch conservative Catholic who for years was also a skeptic. We have argued, too, we are not the kind to avoid discussion about such topics, we like it. So I don’t know what “serious issues” you mean, but you are way over your head in believing you know anything about me, toots.
” It seems to me that you have to drag people into some kind of regulatory hell, unfortunately. Maybe there’s a better way to do it, but I don’t see one.”
This says to me that he doesn’t want to go the way of regulation, which he considers hellish, but he doesn’t know another way.
Crazy, messed up, biased commie psycho interpretation you may call it, but in the context of the rest of the interview (the full version), that’s what I see.
sara – he is a nutcase but the article in question is misrepresented by the clickbait title so get off your gish.galloping steed. your agument from intimidation is crude and ignorant.
you have not made full quotes- which is tantamount to lying about it.
either you read the article and deliberately chopped the quote to suit your tribal fealties or you did not read the article and are just the dog eric means to appeal to.
which is it? are you scary stupid or scary evil?
You’re right Sara, like most “Greenies” he is psychotic, a modern day version of the 20’s progressive that unleashed Hell on earth. How History repeats itself.
Are endless nitpicks and diehard delusions of neutrality all that you two have?
@gnomish
Where to begin with you, gnomish?
Let’s start with the question you posed to Sara, “which is it? are you scary stupid or scary evil?” So where does a way-over-confident, jumped-up, little, mouth-off, boorish lout, like you, gnomish, get off directing such language at Sara? But to answer your goof-ball, impertinent, snot-nosed query–Sara is neither “scary stupid” nor “scary evil”.
Quite the contrary–a fair-minded read of Sara’s comments instantly reveals someone with a skill at cogent discourse, that vasty outclasses your own, gnomish (and Kristi’s, as well, I might add), and someone who is equally possessed of a wholesome, intellectual integrity that is a moral force for good. Contrast Sara’s skills and qualities, then, gnomish, with the Pavlovian-reflex, party-line, festering group-think, that forms the the very essence of the real “you”, and from which your last, little, hive-tool, hack-work, pathetically-failed attempt at a hatchet-job slithered (some advice you can profit from, gnomish–despite the name, only a skillfully wielded “stilleto” produces an effective “hatchet-job”).
And then, gnomish, we have your, “you have not made full quotes–which is tantamount to lying about it.”
So what is a “full quote”, gnomish–nothing less than the whole interview? Not that it matters, gnomish sine less than “full-quotes” are not objectionable, unless they fail to provide all that is relevant to their ethical use. And, even if objectionable, a less than full quote is a “lie” only if it involves an intentional misquote, or is left intentionally incomplete in a way that untruthfully represents the quoted individual’s meaning. On that basis, Sara’s less than full quotes are not objectionable in any way and, most certainly, they are not lies (see my 3:14 am comment, on this thread, for more on this subject).
But I’m not in the least concerned with convincing you, gnomish, of Sara’s virtuous use of less than full quotes. Rather, I simply draw attention to Sara’s quotes so that interest readers can read them and decide for themselves if your criticism of them has merit–secure in the knowledge that you will be universally adjudged a complete ass, for all your troubles, and will become, in the process, a blogospheric, laughing-stock sensation, as well, when this comment goes “viral”.
And let’s conclude, gnomish, with some observations on that truly oafish, over-the-top, what-a-freakin’-jerk! “dog” crack that you directed at Sara. Let me put it to you simply, gnomish, the only “dog-like” behavior, on this thread, has been your own: your dog-breath-normative, attention-seeking yips; your infected-gums, toothless ankle-biting; and your embrassing, premature-ejaculation-plagued leg-humps. I mean, like, the only proper response to your comments, gnomish, is to be found a the working end of a “pooper-scooper” and the open end of a bio-hazard burn-bag.
Hey hive-bozos! Could you please exercise a little responsibility as pet-owners, and keep gnomish on a leash and clean-up after him, yourselves?
drednicolson,
I never claimed to be neutral. I try to use reason, but I err, too.
The point I’m making is important. It’s about manipulation of public opinion to believe something that is untrue. It happens repeatedly here, and to me that’s a problem. I would think to a bunch of skeptics it would be an issue worth examining. Skepticism is not just about challenging others’ ideas, but the harder task of challenging one’s own and where they come from.
Of course Kristi is the sole judge of what is true or not.
Of course all the “scientists” that Kristi agrees with, also agree with her, which is further proof of her infallibility.
“The point I’m making is important. It’s about manipulation of public opinion to believe something that is untrue. It happens repeatedly here, and to me that’s a problem.”
It happens everywhere, not just here, Kristi. Society is awash in misinformation and disinformation. It is our job to sort through the chaff and find the wheat.
Arguments are part of the sorting process. My hope is that we can minimize the personal attacks, which only distract from the sorting process.
Wow, I read your 2013 article, and it was amazing! You’ve led an incredibly interesting life, and write about it beautifully. Thank you for including it.
I remember reading your 3 short stories over 5 years ago and shedding some tears. And after re-reading them I shed some more tears, I was stationed in the Philippines (Subic Bay) while in the Navy when we still had a US base there, I saw some of those slums and knew some of the same “hostesses” and bartenders…yes they all thought we were rich Americans.
From what I saw on the back streets, they lived in similar places that you described so well.
Cheap energy would surely be a good start, along with other factors to reduce the world’s poor…we are the worlds 1% – probably most who are posting on this site…
Thanks for posting that important link Willis…!!!
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/13/we-have-met-the-1-and-he-is-us/
Maybe a bit o/t but on Jonova’s site today
http://joannenova.com.au/2018/04/weekend-unthreaded-207/#comments
there is a comment, #14, about the BBC reporting that the Solomon Islands are visibly disappearing below the waves due of course to global warming.
Your name then popped into my head as perhaps someone who from personal experience might be able to assess the reported demise of the Solomon Islands from a more sceptical position than the BBC can bring itself to take.
Sorry if anyone is confused , my question of course was addressed to Willis , my bad manners.
Sounds serious … but the highest peak in the Solomons 8,130 ft high. Is the BBC aware the Solomon Islands has mountains? Maybe they got an email from some filthy greenie ratbag who wasn’t too concerned with stuff like topography?
Willis your YouTube presentation at the 2015 DDP Meeting has much more of an impact than your synopsis which you link. Very powerful. The problem is the GREEN SHIRT extremists are so indoctrinated they want to achieve their Population Mantra and these poor which you site are first on the list of extinctions. SO SAD.
Willis this might be the wrong video was the correct one removed from YouTube? This is also a great video by the way.
Kristi, Worrall is a heckling, click-bating troll who is paid or encouraged to write this trash to support the WUWT enterprise, to rile and defame scientists and to feed the groupthink club that this site is. They push the boundaries of libel until someone takes them to court and then they scream like stuck pigs and yell “freedom of speech” when they are sued.
Let the children play.
In other words, he’s effective and accurate and you can’t refute a thing he writes. So instead you’ll claim the moral high ground and just attack the author instead.
Don: I wonder what kind of education you received in science and logic. To complain that scientists are defamed by scientific disagreements is so…anti-science. The history of science is built upon theories that are posited for consideration and…if possible…refutation. CAGW has made a lot of predictions that have simply not come true. For example, Hansen predicted that the Major Deagan expressway would be under water by now. Is it?
Either projection or sarcasm.
Donald,
While some of what you say may be true, that doesn’t mean it can’t change. I know that it’s probably a lost cause to point out sources of manipulation…but maybe not. Once people become attuned to them, they are easier to see. I don’t expect to be aware of making a difference.
I don’t think this site is full of groupthink. There are a lot of different beliefs about climate change voiced here. There are also commonalities that may tend to get reinforced, such as the idea that policy shouldn’t reflect the possibility of climate change, and a distrust of “mainstream” science. Hatred of progressive liberals and alarmists gets reinforced; I see the bias and logical error regularly when people try to insult me. But that’s not everyone.
“Let the children play.” I don’t like this statement, it is the same kind of generalization that I don’t like generally. We are adults, we ought to be able to converse as adults. I have been consciously juvenile lately in response to a couple people who have made a point of consistently insulting me, if only to show people that I could easily bite back habitually, but try to keep my comments impersonal, objecting to actions and lines of reasoning rather than personal attacks. It’s hard, though, and I realize that’s true for everyone. These days there is a lot of anger, frustration, blaming, playing victim, and sense of entitlement all through American society. It’s common to converse more with people we’ve never seen than with our neighbors, especially if they think differently from us. It’s a strange new world, and it’s not always good.
texasjimbrock,
It’s not scientific arguments that are being used to defame people, it’s the choice of content, title, excerpt and the little comments that go along with them that are intended to send thinking in a particular direction. It seems almost formulaic sometimes.
MarkW,
“In other words, he’s effective and accurate and you can’t refute a thing he writes. ”
Actually, this is an important point. The best propag’nda makes assertions that one can’t refute. It does things like make vague suggestions that imply an idea without asserting something. “He’s the real deal…” then abbreviated FBI story gives the impression that this guy really could be the Unabomber, or is as much a danger and a kook as he was. So people see that in what they read. They want to see it.
You’re right, one can’t refute opinion, suggestion, implication. Neither can one refute the fact that climate models don’t tell the future. When people think the data are BS, there is absolutely no argument one can make about climate. It’s a brilliant strategy: kill trust in science. Make conversation impossible.
@Kristi
Yr: April 22 11:58 am comment
A very thoughtful and thought-provoking comment–thank you, Kristi.
Kristi, the ones who killed trust in science were those who demanded that the world be rebuilt according to their desires based on nothing more than a handful of models. Models that were absolute failures in trying to predict the past, much less the future.
lol, the subject of this blog post is a mentally deranged over rated writer and you count him with “real scientists”. lol.
That you dodge the issue by dismissing the source is not actuslly surprising.
Climate extremists actually cannot deal with actual issues, very often at all.
Kristi: Stop a moment and consider where we are in a cycle. We are in the midst of a warming period in a cycle between ice ages. The earth is certainly warming, but the question is whether it will be catastrophic and whether or how much of the warming is caused by human activity. It has been said that “extreme claims require extreme proof” and the CAGW claims are certainly extreme with only theoretical proof. Note that “global warming” has not shot up exponentially as per the Mann hockey stick. The oceans have not invaded the lands of the earth. Local flooding as we had here in Houston is not unprecedented and is in large part due government errors in preparing for runoff. (God help us if the Ike Dike had been in place!)
Interglacial periods always end in an ice age. Now THERE is something to worry about.
“When people think the data are BS, there is absolutely no argument one can make about climate. It’s a brilliant strategy: kill trust in science. Make conversation impossible.”
One thing about “the Data” (I assume you mean the temperature data) is we *know* the official temperature data is BS because we have the old temperature data to compare it to, before it was manipulated to make the temperature profile look like a Hockey Stick and mimic CO2’s climb on its chart to create a false correlation.
I have lots of “before and after” temperature charts, if you are interested. Sometimes they really are out to tamper with the temperature data.
Willis……………..another 5 years has passed…………………CAN WE PLEASE HAVE ANOTHER UPDATE ?
I can’t stand people that clearly do not understand that cheap energy is how countries drag themselves out of poverty. Vollman clearly doesn’t care about that or the suffering of those people desperately trying to improve their standard of living.
hunter, you grossly mischaracterize what i said and i know why.
you want to disapprove of me because i’m not barking with the rest for eric’s 5 minute hate.
but let me say it in simpler terms so that you have something to really gnaw on:
i think wuwt is not well serve by you or your tribal signalling and i find eric’s attempt to be wuwt’s rachel maddow disgusting.
you are too.
you wanna be miss hotwhopper of the site- heave ho.
Bringing up Sou’s Hotwhopper site in a thread filled with posts by ‘Kristi’
The irony is too delicious to pass up.
~¿~
Thank you Kristi. i make a statement that what this guy says means he’s a bad person and you ignore it. Now we know what kind of person you are.
“occasionally tan my face with gamma rays.””
Oh my.
Tom, nutty though Vollmann clearly is, his crack about gamma rays may be an attempt at being witty – spending time up in the mountains in thin atmosphere.
I’m not suggesting that this antidevelopment whackjob deserves any respect, just condemn his actual nonsensical views.
The problem with being scientifically “witty” to an non-science audience is that they will now believe it is gamma rays that give you a tan. And they will take that to their grave.
Actually, he apparently wrote a book about the ‘ongoing disaster of Fukushima’, and has spent time in Japan. So he may have soaked up a few banana equivalents to make the quote ‘true’.
~¿~
My opinion of him as well. http://www.litkicks.com/OverratedVollmann
The plan for regulatory hell is now clear 🙂
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/01/18/sponsored-poetry-the-latest-un-initiative-to-make-us-act-on-climate-change/
Please NO VOGON POETRY!!!! Please, I’m begging you, with tears in my eyes!
Postmodernist says it all. “Postmodern” is shorthand for pretentious, pointlessly cryptic logorrhea. It should be no surprise that a “Postmodernist” has cranked out a world-class piece of academic stupidity.
Thanks, David Johnson. Your link shows his “fear” about methane is in keeping w/his writing — much ado about nothing.
Regulatory hell could easily start a revolt leading to a worse hell.
Vollman does seem to be as much of a yahoo as Ted Kaszinsky.
Just as crazy! Nowhere near as smart. And not the kind to possess “skills”I’m thinking. But even more dangerous given the scale of what he wants.
This common inability to see that the world is getting better is actually a reflection of the troubled state of mind of these eco-worriers. They are unwell.
Only the completely insane are completely convinced of their own sanity.
Speaking of getting better: gapminder.org
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2015/11/30/new-variety-of-rice-fights-global-warming-and-global-hunger/#234403e632cf elimination of methane emissions from this source us in site. This one simple genetic change makes the CO2 reduction efforts a bit redundant. He needs to get up to date.
I fearlessly predict that this will affect global temps by 0.00000000000? degrees. Feel free to add whichever digit you like on the end.
Can’t use that, it’s a GMO. Just kidding.
Won’t work. Eco loons hate GMO’s.
A day late and a dollar short. Sigh…
not an ecoloon, but the GMO idea is as big a scam as warming is, the fact all the aggrobiz push it as a solution oughta ring your bells.
if the rice wasnt polished to white there’d be enough vit A to not need the gmo crap “solution”
better yet they could eat some carrots with brown rice
we in America eat “gmo” food everyday. We don’t notice a difference, except we have more food to eat.
RE: “It seems to me that you have to drag people into some kind of regulatory hell, unfortunately.”
We are already in regulatory hell, here in the People’s Republic of Washington State.
As for ‘dragging’ citizens anywhere, I’d advise rethinking that really ill-conceived proposal…..
If you open the door to violence, do not complain if it gets too rough for you.
U.S. Global Change Research Program
U.S. Dept. of State
Submission to the UNFCCC
‘2014 CAR United States Climate Action Report’
More than one report included and some 300 pages.
At:
http://www.globalchange.gov/browse/reports/us-climate-action-report-2014
Click on report to download.
As a sojourner for too long in the People’s Republic of Washington State, I agree with the bit about living in regulatory hell.
J Mac, OK, but it could get FAR worse…..
No doubt, beng135!
We have barely-above-room-temperature Jay Inslee for governor and his socialist democrats control both house of the state congress. Can you say ‘Carbon Shake Down Tax’?
I’m all for free speech, but this guy’s ideas are feeling very much like his fist has intruded past the end of my nose.
He is a weirdo all right. Probably has a higher ratio of favorable reviews in “intellectual” journals to books sold than any author alive today. He once wrote a multi-volume book on violence. I don’t think anyone has either bought or read the whole thing. The following, which pooped up second on a Google search of his name is perfect:
Paris Review – William T. Vollmann, The Art of Fiction No. 163 — “William T. Vollmann, the author of eleven books, all published since 1987, has become known for his highly unusual prolificity, for his extraordinary stylistic pyrotechnics, for the unique engagement of his own personality with his work, and for the quite staggering ambition of his literary projects.”
Okay, so in other words, he’s a narcissism-driven, impertinant protagonist who has attained a notable following.
What? Not even my UC Berkeley education equipped me to untangle THAT kind of a verbal kudzu vine …
Das Kapital and Mein Kampf come to mind. Good books to keep you warm on the fire at night. (When Global Warming just isn’t enough)
If Vollman didn’t use electricity, gasoline, oil, Nat. Gas/Propane directly or indirectly, one might tend to lend more credence to his views, Or if he did live to that extreme, he would be considered mentally ill, which is not too far from his current place in Hell.
“And yet for Vollmann — a brilliant, idiosyncratic writer whom some have described as a plausible candidate for the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature —”
“It’s carbon that is the central environmental issue of our time.”
….there’s a slight disconnect here
He’s a meagre mind with an outsized ego looking to achieve notoriety via big ideas. The ideas don’t even have to be good ideas. It’s pathological. I’d bet a hundred bucks he had something to do with generating the Nobel talk. It just fits.
His Wikipedia page portrays a brilliant mind driven by various internal demons:
A creepster … worshipped by creepsters. No thanks. I prefer SANE humans
@ 6:21 Pop Piasa used the term “notable” and I wondered what that meant.
Thanks for explaining.
Never heard of him until this evening, but this confirms what I thought. He’s at least a borderline psychotic, definitely obsessive compulsive, and probably hears voices from those personalities he’s invented. If he describes himself (as up above) as Nobel laureate level, the narcissism is glaringly obvious.
How many more of these creatures are hiding in the shadows?
If he wants to live in a pre-industrial environment, then drop him off on an island where he won’t disturb the rest of us. I doubt he’d last more than 15 minutes.
Big odds that he is a schizophrenic because of his alter ego cross dressing character. I had a 1st cousin that was schizo and his nephew was too. I also knew a friend of the family that was schizo.. It is not their fault because they were born with it. However there are modern drugs that completely control it and prevent alter egos from surfacing. He needs help to get these drugs. The side effect of being schizophrenic is that many of them are brilliant. Somehow the brain that is missing certain chemicals that causes schizophrenia also enables their synapses to function better. Weird how that works.
@Sara,
Yepster, the “Rainbow Six” opportunity. Or maybe be a partner on “Naked and Afraid” with some well-trained ex-U.S. Marine “amazon”. Yeah, that’s it.
No thermostat to fiddle with, no nearby Starbucks, no gasoline because no autos, and no electric autos because no charging receptacle, and no……
But best “no” is no other people’s money.
Gums sends…
P.S. He is welcome to my cabin on the mountains , and will have a luxury cot under a roof and even electricity when the “regulations” permit ( I AM THE REGULATOR).. But he would have to hunt and fish for protien and figure out native vegetation for that part of his diet. Plenty of trees to cut down and use for fuel, as I have no gas supply and the electricity is controlled by the “regulator”. Oh yeah, cell phones don’t work there, nor does DSL internet via the phone line we now have, so try to get by on a 56K landline modem.
The biggie wull be in January when it might get down to 10 or 15 degrees below zero. Would be interesting.
Gums, try using a non-electric typewriter. It is still possible to find manual typewriters. There are people who collect them and restore them to usefulness. There is also pen and ink. A few crow feathers, properly trimmed and the reed split just so make fine crow quill pens, and ink is merely dried pigment, so maybe a sumi-e ink block could be used.
I hope you have a copy of Hannah Glasse’s “Cookery”. If you live in a primitive environment, it’s meant for you.
@Sara
My partner of 54 years and I have a Smith-Corona “laptop” equivalent that was likely made in the 1930’s. No batteries, one font, inked ribbons for the print, works like a charm. Sucker folds up nicely and we have kept it after her Dad gave it to us back in late 60’s. Wrote my first war story on that thing for a fraternal newsletter, or maybe Reader’s Digest first person segment.
Having been thru over a half dozen “survival” schools, and finally learning to cook once semi-retired, I am O.K. with”living off the land’ except in winter up north. Down here in the Panhandle there is always something sprouting or snorting or rising in the pond or bayou or forest.
Thanks for the advice, and the couch potatoes and yutes here should think about such.
Gums sends…
So is “Kristi” one of Vollman’s sock puppets?
A sock puppet? Wouldn’t that make it a little hard to type?
Nope, one of Sou’s socks.
Another SICKO .
Hope he does not harm anyone else .
Really? Used to be a skeptic? But got all emotional after peer pressure from colleagues?
He’s been anti-development, anti-technology and anti-people for a long time.
It’s a short step from there to a desire to believe that anti-CO2 is the vehicle to bring all his other dreams to fruition.
I don’t suppose he ever WROTE anything during this skeptical phase?
The scary thing is there are a significant number other twits as out of touch with reality as this twit.
There are just some people that you feel like handing a gas can and a Bic.
One resists, though. Looking at them, you just know that they’re going to find them on their own.
I couldn’t leave it to chance … but would be tempted to empty the accelerant over his head and help him flick his bic
Well, it’s a welcome change to see the question actually being asked, though I suspect it is really only a rhetorical question.
Why? Because for most global warming-based environmental alarmists it is a fundamental tenet that you shall endure a life with less comfort. You don’t get any choice in the matter. Obviously, when they are honest with themselves, they know that a lot more than 97% of people will say “No” if given the choice.
In any case, planet savers generally tend to be bigly into telling other people things, not asking them things. “Please” is not a word in the environmentalists lexicon.
“Can you imagine what the world would be like with people like Vollmann in charge?”
Don’t need to imagine it. I studied the history of totalitarianism in the 20th century. Unfortunately, most people don’t study much of anything, they just vote for what “sounds like a good idea” and then regret it later, then do it again.
Most people vote for the politician that promises them the most free stuff, because that is what sounds good to them.
they just vote for what “sounds like a good idea
===========
Unfortunately the two most important candidates are never on the ballot.
To be added to the end of every ballot. Mark with an X.
_____None of the above
_____Hang them all.
I hope he isn’t allowed to purchase firearms.
I was going to put that in my earlier comment. Decided it might poison the rest of what I said. But I still hope he doesn’t have any – and can’t get any. At least, as a Kalifornian, it is not easy to get one, unless you’re willing to deal with unsavory types. Of course, that is his type.
It’s straightforward to purchase firearms in California. You just need to purchase it through an FFL licensee, pass a written test on firearms and relevant laws, physically demonstrate to the dealer that you know how to load and unload it, fill out a bunch of forms, testify to not having drug, alcohol or domestic abuse problems, pass an FBI background check, prove current state residency, prove your identity and age, pay a bunch of fees, and then wait 10 days. You run into trouble if you attempt to purchase more than two firearms within 30 days (doing so imposes a temporary ban of firearms purchases) or have been hospitalized on a 5150 psychiatric hold (this bans you from firearm ownership or purchase for five years.) Of course your selection of firearm accessories and magazines is limited.
When someone starts talking about coercing, compelling or dragging people to do something, then you know they’re totalitarian a-holes who are just control freaks who want to ensure that as many people as possible are as miserable as they are themselves – or preferably that everyone else is even more miserable than they are themselves.
That this clown was once considered as a candidate to be the Unabomber speaks volumes.
The only intelligent thing I’ve ever heard Phillip Adams (of ABC Late Night Live infamy) say is that when someone claims to be on a mission from God (or a zealot of any kind), run way as fast as you can in the opposite direction. Of course, that means one should run away from Phillip Adams as fast as you can too, but I don’t think he actually understands that.
It’s interesting how obvious it is that people make fatuous, ignorant claims without even bothering to read the article the carefully selected excerpt came from. Heaven forbid they see something closer to reality that the BS that’s served them.
I don’t think the excerpt is unreasonable (and you can have copyright issues for reproducing all of an article).
Even when trying to be reasonable, he still blows it with:
Yet he still uses the D-word pejoratively, even if he does also refer to himself as previously have been one.
In my experience, on this blog and elsewhere, you have to go a long way to find a person who actually denies that climate changes. Is he really so inept at using the English language? Or is he just deliberately mis-characterizing people who question the magnitude, rate, and significance of human-caused climate change? Either way, he doesn’t deserve to be taken seriously.
Kristi, most of us have read 100s of articles like this already predicting all manners of global warming hells to come.
A person has to fully believe it really will happen to keep reading any more of these. We don’t believe in “writings” however, we believe in “facts and proof”.
without even bothering to read the article
==========
Nope. I read the article. You are complaining that we didn’t understand what he was saying.
But you haven’t told us what solution he is proposing.
What I read is his proposal is that we all wear a hair shirt. His is sorry about this but he can’t think of a better solution.
Left unsaid is that there cannot be a better solution because he travelled the world and if there was a better solution he would have found it.
For my part I’m skeptical that his proposed solution is better for me and my family. I don’t believe trading one hell for another hell solves anything. I’m going with plan B instead.
What temperature of earth is the correct temperature and why?
TY, Tom. I was wondering the same thing.
Bill Illis,
I don’t think you should speak for everyone here.
“Kristi, most of us have read 100s of articles like this already predicting all manners of global warming hells to come.
A person has to fully believe it really will happen to keep reading any more of these. We don’t believe in “writings” however, we believe in “facts and proof”.”
Well, this one doesn’t make any predictions at all. You are wrong about your assumptions, based on an excerpt and comments.
You have read 100s of articles like this? Where? Why?
I don’t know if bill speaks for everyone here, but he sure speaks for me.
I too have read 100’s of articles like this one. And I’ve read hundreds more that where based on the previous Scares. Peak Oil. The Ozone Hole. The Population Bomb.
That’s the reason I’m skeptical of CAGW. Not because I think I know more then ‘Scientists’, but because I’ve been through all this before as one of the believers. I truly believed back in the 80’s and early 90’s that civilization was doomed unless we switched over to renewables and Hydrogen like Popular Science always promoted before the Oil ran out.
But guess what. The Oil didn’t run out by 2000 like they predicted. It still hasn’t almost 2 decades later. And the world hasn’t starved either.
So forgive me if I’m not first in line to join the new ‘sustainable’ world, and live in misery on the off chance it will somehow stop a possible miserable future.
~¿~
after 20+yrs of LNL n Adams i heartily agree re the run away bit
typical ABC govvy funded wont boot him off or retire him, same as Williams on the “science” show
personal agenda and full on warmist only views allowed expression
they took a swipe at our Reef chap sat on his daring to speak up and the lawsuit upcoming.
ABC radio national 12pm sat show for those who might want to hear it.
Hate to sound like a cynic but I’m quite sure he doesn’t mean HE has to do without.
If I’m wrong I apologise.
Jones, i think you are absolutely spot on . They, like this drill Vollmann, when talking about regulation to make us less polluting and more pro-global warming are using the royal we, meaning us not them!
Yup and until proven otherwise I’ll stick to my view.
They display their authoritarian streak by their proclamations.
I don’t follow his logic. He’s saying we should embrace one uncomfortable life (lower standard of living, dictatorial policies) in order to avoid another uncomfortable life (climate change, whatever that entails, and that’s going to happen anyway).
In order to get people on board with your ideas, you have to leave them something to lose.
Good point! Come on over to my Hell! Yeah, I know. It’s worse than your Hell, but I made it special for you. Just ’cause I hate ‘ya!
Lol!
+10
Did you read the article?
Yes, Kristi, I read the article. He’s psychotic, and you are blind to it.
People *do* read things in full and come up with conclusions different from your own.
Shocking, I know.
Yes. Vollman is a Captain Queeg:
A mediocre, long winded, paranoid wackjob.
Sara, she’s not blind to it. She’s in favor of it.
MarkW, you could be quite right.
Mark and Sara, you guys are so funny! In favor of what? There’s no proposal.
How nice of you to slander me together, so I can address you at the same time. I appreciate it, really.
Kristi this man is a would be if he could be, nothing more and nothing less, he is a nobody trying to be a famous somebody without the nous.
Not only does Kristi not read the article she is defending, she doesn’t even read the posts she is responding to.
At least she’s consistent.
Yeah, and because of history we know exactly what lower standards of living and dictatorial policies cause. Poverty, misery, violence and, ironically, making people care less about the environment (they have other things to worry about). Climate change on the other hand is still big IF.
+1. Excellent observation.
If he was suspected of being the Unabomber, then he’s been a nut case for a long time.
Pardon Me While I Burst Into Flames
One of my favorites. Who knew it was all about our ultimate warmist fate …?
And no AutoTune!
Incidentally, did you ever see the South Park episode where Stan learns his dad is the singer Lorde?
From the article: “For a long time I was a climate change denier,” says author, journalist, and war correspondent William T. Vollmann. “I didn’t want to be stressed out by something that might someday affect people after I’m dead.”
He’s not really a skeptic, he wants to ignore the Climate Change debate entirely. He just wants to put it out of his mind. That will work for a lot of complicated things, although you don’t get many answers when you refuse to think about things.
Ya a real skeptic studies the problem in real depth and comes to a conclusion based on valid evidence. He never did that , so he cant claim to have been a skeptic.
Most alarmists are convinced that everyone who disagrees with them is doing so for invalid motives.
Vollman assumes that people just don’t want to deal with the consequences, so they ignore the whole issue of global warming.
Kristi is always accusing those who disagree with her of being in the pay of either the Koch brothers or big oil.
That, and/or anyone who doesn’t agree with her is insulting her and engaging in hate speech.
She’s got a degree in ecology and environment.
Doesn’t that mean she’s an expert in everything to do with climate?
MarkW,
“Kristi is always accusing those who disagree with her of being in the pay of either the Koch brothers or big oil.”
You lie. That’s how low you go, you flat out lie.
Apart from that, my Master’s is in ecology and evolution, not environment.
Sara,
“That, and/or anyone who doesn’t agree with her is insulting her and engaging in hate speech.”
More lies. “Hate speech”????
I say you insult me because you do, very consistently and personally, from the beginning. Few others do in quite the same way.
Not only does Kristi not read the posts she is responding to, she doesn’t read her own posts as well.
Now that’s university class consistency.
As to your degree, what’s the difference between one made up degree and another?
It probably shouldn’t be all that surprising that Vollmann’s father was a university professor. Back when Vollmann was 9 years old his parents gave him supervisory duty over his 6 year old sister when she drowned while swimming. For parents to expect a 9 year old to babysit a 6 year old is the height of irresponsibility. (Heck, I wouldn’t trust a lot of 25 year old males to babysit a 6 year old.) Vollmann seems to have spent a lifetime immersed in unimaginable guilt over it. He should stop listening to the guilt and recognize that the grownups should’ve been in charge that day. But there’s no reason to allow him to attempt to transfer that torment onto us.
Sorry what?
Famous Author?
Novelist?
I have been a voracious reader for 50 years,never heard of this loon.
So what is his claim to fame?
Unreadable works of navel gazing,with ear lint festooned rants?
However I will mark the name,do not finance this nutjob. Check.
He writes Postmodern felgercarb. Unless you’re into masochism, you’ve not read much of that, if any. I hope he and Dolores will find help.
Good one, JR!
After reading a review of Vollman’s work in early 1990’s, I tried to wade through “The Ice Shirts”. Bad idea. I’ve made worse mistakes, but at least with Vollman’s books I am allowed the luxury of placing them in the trash, and the added pleasure of watching the garbage truck pull up at the curb, grab the trash-container, lifting it up, tilting, tipping and woosh! Gone.
Don’t waste your time with this clown.
There is a particular kind of hubris in which very accomplished people imagine they can do the impossible.
Prescribing how people should conduct their affairs presupposes that the prescriber knows how the prescribed behaviour will turn out. There is ample evidence that experts can’t predict the future. That means they should not prescribe.
A study of history shows that totalitarians who attempt to impose their utopias always fail … miserably … and lots of people die in the process.
I think this is different, Bob. This is an emotionally disfunctional human being thinking he can do something worthwhile. His sole talent appears to be wordsmithing. What you actually write has to be at least as relevant and important as how well you write it
He’s just a cheerleader at the death bed of Western Civilization.
If you want to be considered “brilliant” or whatever as an author, clarity is as important as content and turn of phrase.
I found ‘The Ice Shirt’ on Amazon. I read several pages. It is babbledygook. It is drivel. He has no story there. It is twaddle. His misuse of vocabulary is a blatant attempt to obscure the fact that he can’t create a story.
The Vikings were damned fine story tellers. Their bardic tradition demanded it. He can’t hold a candle to them.
Have something to say and say it as clearly as you can. That’s the only secret of style.
Somebody said that, I forget who. Anyway, from what I’ve seen, Mr. Vollsman doesn’t get passing marks for either.
The experts and cultural gatekeepers have foisted a lot of crap on us. When we complain, they put us down as stupid and uncultured. Hans Christian Anderson described the process in ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’. We all heard the story as children. It’s sad that most people didn’t retain the lesson into adulthood.
Anis Shivani has compiled a list of the 15 most overrated contemporary American writers. William T. Vollmann is first on the list. link
I suspect that Vollmann would consider it a badge of honour that his writing is incomprehensible to the reading public. His lack of clarity is deliberate. It’s what’s demanded by the academy. Modern literature is mostly word salad … not very good and not very nourishing.
Abusing a lexicon’s contents does not infer that the abuser is a wordsmith. It may, however, indicate that because the writer really has nothing to say, he chooses to confuse the reader by using and/or misusing obscure terms and sloppy structure.
(Translation: Just because you have a copy of the Oxford Unabridged, it doesn’t mean you can fool the public into thinking you’re the next Plato or Hemingway.)
So if he get’s a Nobel Prize in literature, what’s it really for?
In recent years, it means you write stuff that the self styled elite want to hear.
“…occasionally tan my face with gamma rays.”
Huh? Maybe chop up your chromosomes into many fragments, induce many genetic DNA lesions, and deeply burn tissues and organs at high flux levels…. but tan with gamma rays… uh no. Photon energy is far too high to induce the tanning (melanin) response in melanocytes, it simply kills them.
This guy is simply an off-the-deep end mental illness case.
Not to mention scientific illiterate.
Good riddance to bad rubbish. He did the world a great favor by removing himself from it.
His fellow CACA criminals should only have his honesty.
What a lot of assumptions and assertions have been made about this guy.
This, from Tom Judd, is about the most disgusting and shameful I’ve read,
“Vollmann seems to have spent a lifetime immersed in unimaginable guilt over it. …But there’s no reason to allow him to attempt to transfer that torment onto us.”
You use a childhood tragedy as a tool against him in an argument about policy? That’s just messed up.
Snap out of it, Kristi. He’s claiming a “split personality” named Dolores. He refuses to recognize the reality of rice as a staple of diet for over two billion people.
He’s psychotic and you are blind to it.
Stop defending someone who would just as soon see you dead as look at you. He says that in his article. Apparently that escaped your notice.
Get over yourself.
+10
Well said, Sara!
I’ve had my fill of ‘babbledygook’ today from Vollman, alt-Dolores, and Kristi today!
PS: Thanks for ‘babbledygook’ – Love It!
I’d bet the cost of a nice dinner that alt-Dolores is the “ghost” of his dead 6-year-old sister. Hey, it happens!
Tom, go to your room.
+1 … but go to your room.
“Vollmann seems to have spent a lifetime immersed in unimaginable guilt over it. …But there’s no reason to allow him to attempt to transfer that torment onto us.”
Kristi, I’ve been analyzing Tom’s comment using a scanning electron microscope with the dial set to 11, and I can’t find a trace of anything disgusting or shameful.
Am I missing something?
“Kristi” could be one of Vollman’s sock puppets on a trolling expedition.
Kristi,
Vollman is extremely childish:
He refuses to use a cellphone. Why? What point does that prove? How does he think the journalists who come to interview him and give him the oxygen of publicity contact his agent/publisher?
He refuses to use email. Why? How does he think his publisher contacts the printers to arrange for his over-worthy tomes to be published?
In the same way that he rails against the fossil-fuels that power the printers and vehicles that get his books into the bookstores, the bog-standard and harmless technology that he obstinately refuses to use is still supporting his career. His luddism is pointless and achieves nothing, apart from making life for those around him that he relies on more difficult.
My acid test about anybody is would I want to share a pint with someone in the pub. When it comes to Vollman I think I’d rather slit my wrists.
Don’t know about staying long enough to drink a pint (though I am very fast at it), but I would like to see the look on his face when I tell him he has done less for Mankind than a worker in a rice paddy. Except for leaving a huge (beneficial) carbon footprint, he seems to have done little to help the world.
What business is it of yours why he doesn’t use email or have a cell phone? Now who’s trying to dictate how others live? It’s astounding how judgmental people are.
Kristi,
Are you really so deaf to reality as not to realize that those most judgmental are the CACA advocates who want to imprison and kill climate skeptics?
None of her professors told her about that stuff, therefore it didn’t happen.
Chimp,
“Are you really so deaf to reality as not to realize that those most judgmental are the CACA advocates who want to imprison and kill climate skeptics?”
That’s pretty judgmental, for sure, but those strategies have also been suggested around here to control the CAGW crowd. Are you deaf to that? There are extremists, fanatics on both sides. So what?
What does CACA stand for?
I’m not trying to dictate to Vollman what he should do. He can do whatever he likes. I’m just pointing out that what he does do is extremely childish. Hence, I’ve got no time for the daft little wally.
Speculating reasonably about facts is not personally attacking someone.
Vollman deserves no less.
Yet he gets press while skeptics do not. Tell me I’m a conspiracy theorist.
Vollman is just another sick pr!ck Groucho Marxist.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/12/25/al-gore-bilks-people-at-christmas-asking-for-climate-crisis-money/comment-page-1/#comment-2701695
[excerpt]
Marxism made simple!
The Groucho Marxists are the leaders – they want power for its own sake at any cost, and typically are sociopaths or psychopaths. The great killers of recent history, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot. etc. were of this odious ilk – first they get power, then they implement their crazy schemes that do not work and too often kill everyone who opposes them.
The Harpo Marxists are the followers – the “sheeple” – these are people of less-than-average intelligence who are easily duped and follow the Groucho’s until it is too late, their rights are lost and their society destroyed. They are attracted to simplistic concepts that “feel good” but rarely “do good”.
George Carlin said: “You know how stupid the average person is, right? Well, half of them are stupider than that!”
One can easily identify many members of these two groups in the global warming debate – and none of them are ”climate skeptics”.
Allan,
I don’t think intelligence (or lack of it) is Vollman’s problem. He needs to be dropped into a straight jacket and committed to a facility that can treat his multiple personalities as well as his schizophrenic violent delusions.
J Mac:
This guy is probably a sociopath or psychopath – if he had power he would probably follow in the steps of the great killers of the 20th Century. Between them, these psychos (Mao, Hitler, Stalin, etc.) killed about 200 million people.
Repeating from above:
“The Groucho Marxists are the leaders – they want power for its own sake at any cost, and typically are sociopaths or psychopaths. The great killers of recent history, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot. etc. were of this odious ilk – first they get power, then they implement their crazy schemes that do not work and too often kill everyone who opposes them.”
“The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic.”
– attributed to Josef Stalin
+10
Rewatch the 10:10 video where environmentalists blow up little children
https://youtu.be/5-Mw5_EBk0g
I wonder if Vollman/Dolores ws disappointed that the video was not more popular?
I wonder if he has also hiked through the woods that Apple bulldozed in install solar panels? Or hiked on the hills and mountains whose tops have been flattened to install wind turbines?
Wind turbines?
If I understand this individual correctly there would be no means of generating electricity in his glorious peoples’ utopia.
Except for his electronic devices in order to be able to spread the good message.
And surveillance systems of course to monitor the people’s filthy carbon production. Those still alive that is. Any who transgress can presumably be despatched by carbon-neutral means. Stoning and that kind of thing.
Am I being unkind or mischaracterising?
If you give me a choice between Vollmann’s self-inflicted “regulatory hell” (which may or may not do anything at all to prevent climate change) or a possible climate hell in the future, I’ll take the climate hell any day. We have a good chance of adapting to climate change. But you can never get ahead of regulations because they continually evolve from bad to worse (exhibit A: California). And to top it off, the self-proclaimed elites who impose ever-more-burdensome regulations on the populous believe it is their moral duty to make the masses suffer for the mere sin of being born as a carbon entity.
At the core of Leftist’s socio-economic philosophy is the necessity to initiate force against the will of the people through: theft, coercion, compulsion, corruption, and the implantation of onerous, and carpricious: rules, taxes, regulations and mandates.
CAGW is the one of most expensive and extensive manifestations of Leftist tyrannical rule, and will initiate any force necessary to assure its goals are achieved.
Unfortunately for Leftists, CAGW has already been disconfirmed under the rules of the scientific method and NONE of their dire hypothetical CAGW predictions are even close to reflecting reality.
My hope is that the inevitable demise of CAGW will enlighten people to the failure and nefarious nature of Leftism and will demand their governments only fulfil their duties to protect individuals’ inalienable rights of life, freedom from government oppression and individual property rights— without the initiation of force…
We’ll see if my hopes become a reality, which I, knowing history, serious doubt…
All democracies eventually self destruct because of either some strongman takes over whether on the left or right OR the bureaucracy takes over and the people eventually get so sick of the bureaucracy that they vote in a strongman who isnt really what he says he was. Modern examples Zimbabwe, Venezuela …Turkey……The Phillipines…….etc.. It just takes longer for more advanced democracies but they too eventually succumb to socialist ideas because of the one man/woman one vote principal. Any democracy that has any party that believes in a religion as its core belief Ex: Muslim parties like the Muslim Brotherhood or the Green parties with climate change or green utopia as their core religion eventually either get enough votes to hold the legislature hostage (as is happening in British Columbia Canada ) OR eventually win power through enough votes. It happened in Chile once with Allende until the CIA toppled him. It will happen again to every present democracy. My only saving grace is since I am old I wont live to see it. i will end this rant with a new idea that I came up with last month and which I posted about. THAT IS Believing in any religion be it a God or AGW actually makes you dumber. I think there could be tests for this . I would like to see a scientific study about it. Of course it wouldn’t be valid if an alarmist climate scientist or a skeptic climate scientist was doing the study. Unfortunately there arent too many scientists who are in exactly the middle. The debate has become too polarized.
Double blind methodology can eliminate bias. What you are looking for is àn honest researcher. Diogenes might has something to say on the subject.
Alan-San:
I agree that democracies will always fail once citizens realize they can vote themselves more of other peoples’ money stolen on their behalf by Leftist government hacks.
Our Founding Fathers loathed democracies for the aforementioned reason, which is why they originally established a Limited Government Constitutional Republic where the government is ONLY allowed to spend money on tasks Constitutionally enumerated, regardless of whether 51% of elected officials wish buy votes with wealth redistribution nonsense stolen from hard working Americans.
Granted, after Wilson’s and FDR’s presidencies, along with some atrocious SCOTUS rulings under their terms in office, the US Constitution now basically reads, “The Government can do whatever the hell it wants.”
Prior to Wilson, US State and Federal governments only wasted around 7% of GDP, whereas now, they devour close to 50% (including $2 trillion/yr in rule/regulation compliance costs).
Because the US trashed their Constitution, the US now has $20+ trillion in national debt (growing @ $1 trillion/yr) and has $200 trillion in unfundead liabilities….
We’ve become the world’s soup kitchen, ATM, and policeman, which has got to stop.
Cheers, Alan.
The record seems to imply that not all relgions produce the sort of dumbing down and misanthropy that is so notable in the climate consensus.
Miserable, self absorbed people love trying to make everyone else miserable. Can you imagine sitting down at a bar relaxing and having a beer and having this guy sit down next to you? Most sane people would either get up and move or finish up and get out.
For a Change:
The Guadian dated 22nd April 2018 presented a report “Mozambique prays for rain as water shortage hit country’s poor”. [as they don’t accept my comments, I presenting my opinion here].
It states that — Jonathan Farr, a senior policy analyst at Wateraid, said climate change was “eating up the world’s water”, while also making it harder to find a solution. “Things that have worked in the past are no longer enough. Climate change makes everything considerably more serious. Cape Town was something you wouldn’t expect to happen. We are now seeing it potentially in Maputo.”
An hour’s drive west from Maputo is the vast Pequenos Libombos dam, which feeds into the Umbeluzi river, the main source of water supply to Greater Maputo. Completed in 1987, the dam has a capacity of 400 million square metres. But in the last two years, the water level has dropped dramatically. Standing on the bridge above the reservoir, Jaime Timba, the dam’s director, points to a series of yellow guages on the dam’s wall, well above the current water level.
In early 80s I worked in Mozambique for FAO as Expert/Dy. Team Leader — agro-ecological zones project & crop early warning project.
I collected and analysed the rainfall data of Mozambique. They were presented in books form and available in the National Institute of Agriculture [library]. Catuane is a location closer to the dam. It presented a 54 year cycle. It followed similar to Durban in South Africa with 66 year cycle followed W followed by M shaped pattern. W is in the below the average 33 year period and M is in the above the average pattern. The Catuane 54 year cycle also presented W followed by M pattern [instead of 33 years, it is 27 years period]. The current W [below the average 27 year period] started in 1997 and will be continuing upto around 2024 [in between around 3 years above the average rainfall].
However, these cyclic patterns change as we move from south to north & east to west in Mozambique.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
Dr. Reddy, please consider sending your view of what went wrong to Anthony via Submit a story – you’ve actually been on the ground in Mozambique, we’d love to learn from your experience.
Dr. Reddy,
Fascinsting study. I hope you do write an article on this.
We should all pitch in and buy him a little cheer-me-up.
I think that’s his size.
If it isn’t his size, it might fit Dolores.
And, in the ultimate irony of the endless stupidity of sheeple, the ignorant version of the same t-shirt: (GoatGuy)
https://www.cafepress.com/mf/30233172/i-love-co2_tshirt?desired_product_type=1398
Superscript? Really? Some designer is woefully unaware of chemistry notation. It is like what I just (astoundingly) encountered: I gave a 24 year-old millennial a birthday card. Wrote a half page long birthday wish. I used my very best Spencerian connected handwriting (its taken 50 years to develop a ‘beautiful hand’) to write the birthday cheer. Now, understand that if you read handwriting at all, this hand is the epitome of clarity. The fellow claimed an inability to read the connected handwriting at all. Gave the card to his girlfriend, who also couldn’t read it. One of the dozen adults took a look and easily read it off to them. The card was passed around, and as always happens, I got many accolades per the penmanship.
The point? The point is that the modern generation is FULL of otherwise (one would think) educated people who are woefully ignorant of a remarkable swathe of things. Ignorant of science, ignorant of literature, ignorant of nominal duties and tasks of living. Ignorant of the law, ignorant of self-care, ignorant of behavioral expected norms in social settings. Ignorant of causality, ignorant of the rigor of correct attribution, ignorant of rhetoric, ignorant of free speech, ignorant of history, ignorant of geography and geopolitical ideologies.
Just saying.
Ignorance in the next generation is profound.
Thank you “smart phone”.
GoatGuy
I too love the pen and penmanship, so I appreciate your gift.
When I was in about 4th grade, my teacher, a nun, told us to always celebrate our handwriting, as it is the very sign — the pulse — of our being alive.
That made a HUGE impact on me, and I have always loved and enjoyed my penmanship ever since. This really amplified in college physics and math courses; I took great pride in making all of the formulae as beautiful as possible.
I think it is an absolute abomination that cursive has been erased from following generations. Much more is lost than people realize.
Vollmann adds to my discomfort, knowing how much must be done to bring real world perspectives to the different problems that must be handled to create an ever-advancing civilisation.
Strip mining is one way to ‘manage’ mining. How that is done has nothing to do with whether or not CO2 greatly raises the global temperature. It is the conflation of pollution with methane and CO2 emissions that lies at the root of his fanaticism.
The very sensible ship fighting against pollution has been hijacked by uninvited stowaways.
Vollmann adds to my discomfort, knowing how much must be done to bring real world perspectives to the different problems that must be handled to create an ever-advancing civilisation.
Strip mining is one way to ‘manage’ mining. How that is done has nothing to do with whether or not CO2 greatly raises the global temperature. It is the conflation of pollution with methane and CO2 emissions that lies at the root of his fanaticism.
The very sensible ship fighting against pollution has been hijacked by uninvited stowaways.
Anyone who thinks “energy consumption” is an “ideology” is sick in the head. Has he tried going without it?
Oh, I forgot to ask what his living accommodations look like. Someone needs to start keeping track of how the hypocrites live so we can show them exactly who it is that needs to reduce their carbon footprint.
4Times,
You forget, THEIR carbon footprint is virtuous and for OUR good.
4times: this was his living arrangement in 2009 (easy enough to find out in the information age)
but then, something that might make him appealing to some of the conservative-minded of those who hang out at WUWT:
and then again, he:
He appears, on a quick stroll through the internet, to be a very intelligent eccentric, who spends a lot of time observing, thinking and writing (at interminable length) about what he perceives as the ills of the 21st century world. But not so much about offering solutions to the problems he sees.
Although the head-post article suggests he has belatedly discovered global warming/climate change and latched on to the alarmist worldview that posits:
■ global warming is happening (or if it isn’t, climate change, whatever that means, is)
■ it must be bad
■ it must be caused by human activity
■ it must be stopped by modifying human activity
■ if humans won’t modify their behaviour voluntarily, they must be coerced into it
Reading about his lifestyle suggests that he is the kind of person who doesn’t like regulations at all, but the quote about “regulatory hell” implies that he might reluctantly accept them to force an outcome that he favours.
The above quotes are from a NYT article at:
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/29/books/29vollman.html
Eric’s title that calls him a fanatic is a bit simplistic IMHO, unless “fanatic” is synonymous with “a very complex individual, some of whose opinions I don’t like very much”. Sorry, Eric, I’m getting carried away with my own verbosity. Tell me to shut up.
“Mr. Vollmann collects pistols and likes to shoot them”
The pistols or the homeless he lets camp out in the parking lot?
Thanks for the info. A very….strange person to say the least.
Thank you, Smart Rock, for the sensible comment. Eccentric is much more apt than psychopath. (He doesn’t have a split personality, either. Where did that lie originate?)
The article in Harper’s is interesting, too. That’s the one in which he describes what’s in his FBI file – what he got of it. Those who appreciate freedom and privacy should feel for the guy. Someone turned him, thought there was a case based the content of his books. Weird story.
Pol Pot was an eccentric as well.
He was disturbed that so many people relied on things like eye glasses and dentures. Or liked things such as make up.
They were not authentic Pol Pot thought, and in fact cities were not authentic either. He convinced a dedicated group to join him to pursue his pastoralist vision in Cambodia and took power. About half of Cambodia was murdered by him and his band of true believers.
As to the NYT white wash, that faux paper never meets a “progressive” thug or wack job it dorsn’t praise. Its proud tradition of making evil people look good includes Stalin, Castro, Chavez, Maduro, Ho Chi Min, Pol Pot, and now this long winded over rated outz.
Vollmann says “I think that people can deny climate change in good faith, and that a lot of people do. It takes a certain familiarity with numbers, with the scientific method, and a trust in experts to begin to say, ‘All right, yeah, this is a serious problem.’ ”
This is pretty much the nub of what every catastrophic anthropogenic climate change warrior says–“Trust the experts we like because yours are no good.”
Being a windbag doesn’t indicate idiosyncracy and brilliance. He’s just some guy in awe of himself.
He’s not into nuclear as a solution either (not that a “solution” is needed)
That’s because nuclear works. Greenies don’t like things that actually work – it gives them nothing to complain about.
Eric, I have to respectfully disagree with your assessment of Volmann. He plainly isn’t living a life of misery. He is wealthy enough to tour the world to reinforce his prejudices and push his far-left agenda. What he actually wants is for us plebs to live in misery while he continues to swan about showing how much better he is than us.
I must be reading it wrong because he clearly states that we must burn more oil and coal and grow more rice to feed the hungry .
It’s a Baldrick cunning plan because after all the coal and oil are burnt we then have to have windmills and solar panels but no batteries they are too polluting . Must dash the men with the white coat are here .
And I bet you he didn’t travel the world on a bicycle…
Many wealthy people are quite miserable.
The influential wealthy can impose their misery on many.
Think of George Soros, busy dismantling the West in a bizarre pathetic attempt to compensate for the misery of his youth.
The guy believes his own fairy tales. In other words, this know-it-all thinks he is god. I seem to remember that the bible says something about that level of arrogance. No wonder evangelicals don’t buy into the climate change nonsense.
Found , the only one , THE `climate change denier` !!
As Mr Vollmann states “I was a climate change denier” , but then stupidly explains that by stating “I had other things to worry about” (which is not how one `denies` ) it seems like he misses the fact that no one denies climate change, just that the current modus operandi may not lead to gobal catastrophy which he obviously does as in his hot dark future.
His simplistic statements indicates he has little tenure on his subject from `equipment smoke affecting trees` to NASA`s photos showing the sun doesnt move.
I find it difficult to find a straight line thru this guy, he got a job as a computer programmer even though he new very little about programming “hates cars” doesnt use the internet, cell phones,credit cards or email “bullshit” but then has thousands of books physically printed (from chopped down trees) and flies all over the country to publicize them, and also `drifts` all over the world with only cash in pocket.
I guess his japanese translator probably got fed-up that Bill had never heard of a landline phone (maybe they dont have those in american houses anymore).
My advice Bill, just stick to fiction sounds like you are good at it.
How creepy.
He is doing in written form a sort of self-immolation like that self absorbed tragic lawyer.
Philip K. Dick, another famous eccentric author, spent much of his last years writing out of the increasingly insane obsessions that became darker and more bizarre.
Vollman is well along that same path.
But before PK Dick lost his mind, he wrote some of the best Science Fiction of his generation.
Vollman seems to going straight to the madness part, with no detour through brilliance.
Well, sure, why not? That’s was the NKVD (pre-KGB) did in the 1930s through 1950s. They found dupes they could use in celebrities in Hollywood, and prominent authors like Ernest Hemingway, people who were acceptable to the US establishment but leaned somewhat leftish until the McCarthy stuff took place. The pattern that emerged 80 years ago is underway again now. So is Putin funding this? Why not? He and that obnoxious person Soros have their own agendas, although I think Vlad’s is more oriented toward getting cash for his gas and oil products.
Sara, Putin has made it clear to anyone paying attention what he desires. He believes one of the great tragedies in all of history was the dismantling of the Soviet Union. Few people know enough history to know that many of the Soviet states were a part of Czarist Russia, e.g., Ukraine. He blames the USA for the split up happening. He sees himself as a great Russian patriot so to disrupt the USA anyway he can is what he is going to do until they put him in a box. The KGB funded both radical political groups in the USA as well as radical environmental groups in Europe up until the Soviet Union rebranded itself and the SW states split off. He cares about oil and gas only as it funds those that keep him in power and as a weapon if and when the EU get out of line.
The reality is that, based on the paleoclimate record and the work done with models, one can conclude that the climate change we have been experiencing is caused by the sun and the oceans over which mankind has no control. There is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on climate and plenty of scientific rational to support the idea that the climate sensitivity of CO2 is really zero. If you really want to get rid of methane you have to get rid of all hydrocarbon compounds that might produce NH4 when they decay and those compounds include us. The AGW conjecture is based on only partial science. The AGW conjecture depends upon the existence of a radiant greenhouse effect that has not been observed anywhere in the solar system. The radiant greenhouse effect is science fiction so hence the AGW conjecture is science fiction. All the regulation in the world will have no effect on the Earth’s climate. It is all a matter of science.
So, he’s pumping out enough ecobabble by the early 90s to figure prominently in the FBI’s Unabomber case , by his own claim, but at the same time declares himself a “long time climate denier.” So, like, that six weeks in his late 20s between Hansen’s Senate Circus and his emergence as an ecotwit classifies him as a “long time climate denier?” A designation which is supposed to lend some added credibility to his claims?
Rice and natural gas.
Natural gas upwells from the deep earth. When rice paddies are
drained, the soil culture can digest it, converting it to CO2.
When the paddies are flooded, the gas is forced to the surface
quicker than the aerobic microbes can digest it. Rice does not
produce Natural gas.
The CH4 emitted from rice paddies is produced by the decay of organic matter in the soil. It is not coming from “up welling hydrocarbons”
He’s a novelist and journalist? Meh. Why would I be even slightly interested in his opinion on this matter?
“occasionally tan my face with gamma rays.
======
Nonsense. Only a scientific illiterate would think this true.
Gamma rays are high energy protons. In effect you are trying to get a tan from very tiny high speed bullets passing through your body. Good luck with that.
I believe the scientific term for this is “fruitcake”.
“Gamma rays are high energy protons.” Photons, not protons. Don’t get suck too deep into his work of literary fiction.
I should sue him for … um … depramation.
And yes, gamma rays are high-energy photon; cosmic rays are mostly high-energy protons, with some heavier nuclei sprinkled in to add a little crunch.
Are we prepared to allow Progressives to weaponize government to impose their policies? We are allowing them to destroy the basic mechanism of peacefully resolving contentious issues if we do.
What is notable is not the science, but the socialistic demands of those who are attempting to use climate scaremongering as an excuse to usher in the long sought, but totally unsustainable, Progressive Utopia. This is ironic since the very same Progressives scold the rest of us on the topic of “sustainability.”
The science is settled: the climate is changing and always will be changing. In fact, something would be very wrong if the climate stopped changing. The issue was never really change, but the extent to which the change was going to harm our biosphere.
I don’t deny that less than 25,000 years ago northern Illinois was covered by more than mile of glacial ice. I don’t deny that green plants must have at least 160 ppm of CO2 to live. I don’t deny that at the peak of that last period of glaciation that the level of CO2 in the atmosphere bottomed out at about 180 ppm of CO2. I don’t deny that green plants almost ceased to exist.
I don’t deny that less than 12,000 years ago mammoths were flash frozen in Siberia with fresh grasses still in their stomachs. I don’t deny that 1,000 years ago Vikings in Greenland were cropping barley so they could use the grain to make beer. I don’t deny that millions of Europeans died in the Great Famine of 1315–17, caused by cold and wet conditions. I don’t deny that the Thames River froze solid to such an extent that during 26 separate winters from 1408 until 1814, Londoners were able to hold a Frost Fair on the ice.
Up until now, advocates of “climate change” demand solutions that converge far more on socialism than on anything else. This is a means to an ideological ends having nothing at all do do with protecting the biosphere. It is intended to advance the long awaited secular Utopia.
It seems with every passing day the one constant in the debate about this issue is far more about how socialistic the policy solutions must be than any other factor. That tells me that the “settled science” involved is far more Scientific Socialism than any real science.
He says he was a climate change denier for the wrong reasons:
“William T. Vollmann. “I didn’t want to be stressed out by something that might someday affect people after I’m dead.””
Basically he believed in ‘climate change’ but wanted to ignore it as ‘it would not affect him’.
This shows a certain – not nice – trait of character, but it does not qualify him as ‘climate change denier’, it disqualifies him for it.
To be a qualified ‘climate change denier’ one needs to look into ‘the science’ and to understand the arguments by himself – what he obviously did not do.
As a member of the climate change denier community I contest his pretence to have belonged to this very special community.
As I said earlier, rice is a wetland plant. Like wheat, it is a grass that was long ago domesticated by humans for food. There are two kinds of rice that humans use, the long grain rice from Asia, with which most of us are familiar, and the short grain rice from Africa, which is used in puddings and risottos, among other things. Grain domestication started about 18,000 years ago, when the ice sheets began to recede.
As I also said, wetlands – which are everywhere – give off methane as part of the decay process. They support multitudinal species of wildlife from insects no larger than the head of a pin to wading birds and diving birds and the aquatic critters they live on. They are part and parcel of any healthy ecosystem. They take runoff from flooded creeks and rivers, absorb and hold millions of gallons of water that trickles down into aquifers, and since things change over prolonged periods of time, they may eventually dry up, turn to peat, and eventually, peat becomes coal – a naturally occurring fossil fuel that is useful in many, many ways. (Yeah, I’m generalizing here, so just deal with it.)
If you don’t understand how much things change over prolonged periods of time, then spend some time watching ‘Winged Flight’, a film that followed migrating birds from northern Europe south ward to the African deserts. Why in the blue-eyed, blinking world would water birds like geese, ducks and pelicans migrate to a desert, if the desert had not at some time in the distant past been wet and green? Since there are pictographs in caves in the Sahara that show it was once flush with wildlife, lakes, trees and grasses to graze, the pictographs show that the CLIMATE of the Sahara was once wet and green and that means that it will change back to wet and green in the future. Nothing is static on this planet. NOTHING.
So how does acknowledging this natural process make anyone at all a climate ‘denier’, whatever that is?
What this ignorant man Vollman infers – without EXACTLY saying so – is that anything done by humans, including cultivating a domesticated grass that feeds people, is anathema somehow and should be obliterated. If this is not indicative of psychosis, or close to it, then what is it? And if he doesn’t like what humans do, and wants to obliterate the species, then how does he expect to make a living?
Oh, yeah: regarding climate change, out of curiosity some time ago, I did an Excel bar chart to find out for myself how often the climate goes from cold to warm to cold and back and forth like that, and what I found with this very rough chart is that the warm periods were considerably shorter than the prolonged cold periods. Going back 600,000 years on that chart, the shortest warm period lasted about 35.000 years and at this point, we’re more than halfway through that. I probably should have gone back a full 1,000,000 years, but I saw enough in that 600KYR timeframe to realize that there is a glaring difference in the length of time between warm periods and cold periods. We may be coming to a blip in this warming period – don’t know, but these warm and cold periods follow a wave pattern just like those temperature charts you all love so much.
Essentially, my chart shows plainly that the climate cycles change on a constant basis and it is part of the natural processes of this little blue marble we live on, and no one, including the ecohippies and eco-celebrities, can do any thing at all to alter these natural processes.
This Vollman person is just jumping on the wagon so that he won’t be left out in the cold if things go sour.
Okay, rant over.
I almost forgot to add this: If what I posted in this rant of mine makes me a “denier”, then the people who make such claims have interest only in getting your attention, your cash, and control of you.
Maybe we’ll get lucky and a new ice-up will send the snow line creeping south and smash their private jets to flattened pancakes. Now that would be awesome.
If I ever meet this miscreant, I’ll be sure to spit on his shoes.
Clearly, Vollmann needs to go live in the woods, in a yurt or teepee, living off the land, or maybe a cabin he builds himself using hand tools, and scrap lumber. He could be like a modern-day Thoreau, only dumber. Maybe, just maybe, after a year or two of that, he’d wise up. But I doubt it. It’d be good for his obviously-tortured soul though.
I would happily support something that requires ALL these clever and obviously Superior Beings to spend a minimum of two years – 24 full months – living entirely without any kind of modern support net.
No food, except what they can obtain by foraging and hunting.
No clothing, unless they make it themselves from hides and plants,
No medicine, unless it is so-called “natural” medicine, meaning herbal stuff.
No power utilities, no electronic comm stuff, no pumped water.
Dig a well, test it themselves. Or carry water in a bucket.
And above all: (my favorite): NO MODERN PLUMBING. Dig a cesspit, get some lime to keep the smell down and build their own outhouses.
And certainly most important, drop them off some place in winter, before a blizzard strikes, and wish them good luck.
They already have a “challenge” like that, Sara.
Try “Naked and Afraid” on one of the satellite or cable channels. The warmistas can apply for the challenge, then see what they are asking for.
Most teams don’t even make 21 days.
I watch the series because I earned a degree concerning human behaviour and group dynamics to provide a real diploma besides the one I already had from “real world” group dynamics. I watch and am always fascinated by the dynamic, but I also learn a new way to get a fire going, catch a fish, trap a rat or use the vegetation for building and eating.
Gums sends…
Thank you, Gums, however, I do not have a working TV and perhaps it’s best i do not. Considering that watching ecohippies trying to live ‘Garden of Eden’ style would destroy my appetite, the prospect of watching a bunch of idealistic nitwits caving into defeat at the hands of Mom Nature & Company might be tempting, but I want to keep my lunch down. 🙂
I thought that even Thoreau only lasted 2 years at Walden Pond .
The point of my above comment is that the upwelling natural
gas is converted to CO2 by microbes if the paddies are not
flooded. The natural gas becomes CO2 over time in the
atmosphere if not eaten by microbes,
Sarah, most swamps are anoxic, therefore the natural gas
read at the surface is caused by the lack of oxygen to support
the aerobic microbes which otherwise would reduce the
up welling hydrocarbons to CO2.
Yes, but I was trying to be brief, Jerry. Methane is a byproduct of digestion, whether it’s animal (which includes humans) or plants. Doesn’t matter. I just wanted to get to the point, that’s all.
In fact, a phenomenon like will-o-the-wisp/Ignis fatuus, is a phosphorescent flame that feeds off gases from swamps and marshes. Adding something like that is valid, but I wasn’t going after such natural phenomena, simply discussing the silliness of Vollman’s attitude.
Jerry,
You are wrong about where methane in wetlands comes from.
Unfortunately, people like Vollmann are all too common in the world—bullies, intent on coercively imposing their own views on everyone else . . . and “by any means necessary”.
Our federal governments, or state governments, and even many local governments draw these people into so-called “service” (really self-serving activities). One of the reasons governments tend to grow in power and authoritarian tone is because only government has the legitimate authority to use force to impose policies, and bullies like to have a monopoly on the use of force—they love to make people do as they say. So it’s natural that one might expect those will a bullying nature to fill up government roles. True classical liberals are disgusted by this kind of behavior, and tend to have a live and let live attitude, plus most classical liberals (non-bullies) have better things to do with their lives. It was the knowledge of this power magnate for bullies that was the impetus for writing our constitution as it was created—to greatly limit power. But, of course, no piece of paper will stop the bullying by itself.
“Climate XXXX” (X=change, disruption, ..) neatly fits into the tool belt of bullies, much as blaming things on evil spirits (without the need for proof) fit into the tool belts of people in institutions like the Inquisition in bygone days.
Should we be surprised?
The plant life was never in danger of lack of CO2. The production of
CO2 from the upwelling natural gas puts CO2 at or near the plants.
The ice cores being a great distance from soil production of CO2 in
ice age periods means that the cores were probably capturing only
or mostly capturing volcanic production of CO2.
I suggest you read a textbook on diffusion physics.
There is no “upwelling natural gas”.
There is methane from rotting vegetation, and that’s pretty much it.
Jerry,
Take the good advice being offered and study the topic a lot more.
From a fact-based perspective.
It will help you.
In essence it just boils down to neomalthusian doomthought. I’m not buying it. Malthus was wrong, Ehrlich was wrong.
“going so far as to self-finance after his publisher’s patience wore thin. “I spent my own money,” he writes, “and occasionally other people’s,”
I spend my own money every day……only an elitist would report that they are to be famed for their sacrifices by spending their “own” money.
“It’s niggling little issues that add up. In Japan, roughly 50 percent or so of all the methane emissions — ”
50% is a niggling little bit that adds up? Wha…?
That’s all I needed to read to tell me this idiot is a self possessed class A asshat that needs to extract his own melon from his posterior and take a look around once while.
What does this man have against rice anyway? Seriously the diet staple of billions of people and it’s “bad” now? Heck, he could have looked at corn or wheat too…but nope–just rice. Rice is bad because it’s individual GRAINS and individuality is bad. Look at corn or wheat flour–all the grains are mixed up, like a good society should be–forced to break down and become powder under the grinding wheel of regulation. It’s RICE and RICE ALONE that will kill us all people! Don’t you get it? Let me break it down for you again…oh wait….I need to go suntan ontop of a mountain while my Sherpa who I don’t pay very well lugs my laptop up 20K feet and brings me my freshly ground, freshly brewed Kenyan coffee. I’ll get back to you on the importance of the evils of rice after my nice warm bath.”
Elitist fish wrap. I say.
As is so often the case with the “we know best” progressives, they are on higher missions placing them above the law, giving them licence to take whatever measures they deem necessary and obligates them to take fascist control in order to impose what is for our own good.
Countless activist bureaucrats at every level of governance possess varying degrees of this attitude while simultaneously making sure they take no responsibility for anything that goes wrong.
Mostly by mendaciously concealing what they can to prevent facing consequences for their progressive missions of insanity.
Global Warming/Climate Change is Earth Day with confiscatory taxes.
Hans,
The paradigm in western thought is wrong. Hydrocarbons are not fossils.
I realized that the idea that hydrocarbons on earth were only artifacts of
biological life when in 1958 my gen science teacher told us that the outer
planets contained methane was wrong.
Since then the pictures of Titans’ oceans of hydrocarbons, analysis of the
atmosphere of exoplanets all showing hydrocarbons convinced me that
claiming that claiming that earth’s hydrocarbons were fossils defies logic.
Then I read about Russia’s petroleum teaching and Dr. Gold’s book.
I then saw Dr. William Woods video about the jungle soil in Brazil called
Tera Preta growing back after the top third of the soil was mined for garden
soil, at a rate of appx 1/2 inch per year. I realized that that process required
an enormous amount of energy.
My hypothesis was that Trera Preta was over a plume of natural gas.
I tested my theory, first in Kansas, then on East Tennessee farm land,
then on my own property in East Tennessee. The amount of upwelling
natural gas, in the presence of adequate moisture, is related to the
richness of the topsoil.
In the Atlanta, Georgia, the shield is at or near the surface.The shield
blocks most to all of the of the upwelling gas, and the soil is very poor.
I have described the test in previous comments on thus blog.
I realize that a retired business man who has been self employed
for the last 45 years lacks credentials in the scientific world, but
a lack of a paradigm frees me to make connections that other
people do not see.
My test is simple. My daughter tells me that it is too simple, therefore
people think I cannot possibly be right. My discovery proves, with a
little thought that my statement about rice paddies is correct.
I am proving Dr. Gold was correct.
More later. My flight is being called.
Perhaps also reading geohydrology textbooks would be useful. Are you familiar with the physics of permeability measurements?
Let me see if I have this right. There is methane on Titan, therefore all methane on the Earth is from cosmic sources.
Is that really the story you want to hang your reputation on?
You found ground that was rich in organic material, found that methane was coming from it. And this proved that all methane came from primordial sources?????
No, the methane was coming from anaerobic bacterial breaking down the organic material in the soil.
Jerry,
Your “test” does not explain the documented evidence that biological processes produce methane in the abundance you detected.
Additionally, the tests of caron isotopic sourcing shows you are incorrect.
Also, methane, like H2O, CO2 and other molecules have both biological and non-biological pathways for their generation.
Why limit the experiment to three weeks? Let’s just strand these sanctimonious idiots on some South Pacific island for the rest of their lives. They can pass whatever laws they want there.
Interesting to see he mentions strip mined mountains. In Kentucky rehabilitation of mines that have cleared vegetation off the sides of hills (contour mining) call for the land to be planted with grasses and not the original trees. Why? There so little land for cattle and new housing the state mandates no trees.
There’s nothing wrong in principle with “regulatory hell” to motivate social compliance. The challrnge just has to be big enough – as a war would be for rationing, the closure of non-essential industries, lights out at night etc.
We already use regulatory hell for the common good. Previous industries would br horrified at current regulaions on safety, pollution and quality control. Many today would agree – think pipelines for one!
What should be unacceptable – but what I think the writer is describing and recommending are ever changing, impossible to fulfill rules. The purpose of this is to impose an elite agenda unsupported by the majority, one doomed to legislative control.
In Canada, the socialist government of British Columbia is following te “hell” tactic to stop the Kinder-Morgan pipeline. As the Greens are still doing with the Keystone XL pipeline.
The EcoGreenWarmists consider CO2 to be a planetary cause greater than any conventional conflict. From their view, the nuclear option is a solid option. What we need are courts and legislators who simply say, “We’ve heard and considered your opinions. The answer is ‘no’. Go away.”
Good governance can’t always satisfy all positions of the citizenry. Where are our leaders willing to admit this and act on it?
How much money would it take to stop the warming of the planet?
Depends. How much you got?
Vollmann has a point. Why produce rice when it contributes such a high percentage of methane emissions. What use does rice serve? Is it really worth placing the planet at risk in order to produce lovely landscape photo opportunities?
What a numb it.
Kristi Silber and Timg56
Rice paddies release Methane ‘What is the problem ,
Methane breaks down into CO2 and HO2 in ten years .
Methane is so small a fraction of the atmosphere that it has to be measured in billionths..
Get over it
Methane is a non problem .Find some thing else to worry your little heads about
Timg56, just how ignorant are you? Aren’t you aware that rice is a major food source for much of the world’s population.
Aren’t you aware that many of the places where rice is grown, nothing else will grow?
Are you so sheltered and ignorant that you actually believe that the only reason rice is grown is so that rich westerners can take pictures.
I would advise you to grow up, but I doubt that is still possible.
PS: Only people who know nothing about physics believe that methane posses a problem.
Wow. I have seen some dumb things posted on the internet, but Timg56 takes the cake.
Methane is a byproduct of plant and animal tissue decay. It’s part of the natural processes that keep this little old planet of ours habitable.
What use does rice serve? It’s a staple of the diet of several billion human beings, which obviously has no value to YOU, Timg56, and it also, as I have indicated in a prior comment further up the page, provides food for migrating birds. Rice, like corn and wheat, is a domesticated plant that has been grown for thousands of years by humans.
Since you have no concept of what the natural world consists of, and that what I said is way outside the boundaries of your information zone, but I strongly suggest you become informed before you make statements such as ‘what use does rice serve’.
Most of the unstable energy-rich (the two go hand in hand) methane on our planet comes from a rock-water reaction called “serpentinisation”. Methane contains carbon and energy, making it an ideal substrate for life in places where the sun doesn’t shine. It is not the end stage of life, but the beginning.
http://living-petrol.blogspot.com
If that were true, the source rock for this reaction would have been consumed billions of years ago.
That something can happen is not evidence that it is the only thing that is happening.
MarkW,
if that were true, the source rock for this reaction would have been consumed billions of years ago.
====
glib (adjective)
readily fluent, often thoughtlessly, superficially, or insincerely so:
e.g., a glib talker; glib answers.
(dictionary.com)
A) “Why is the seafloor so recent and the continental crust so old?
The oldest oceanic crust is about 260 million years old. This sounds old, but is actually very young compared to the oldest continental rocks, which are 4 billion years old. Why is the seafloor so young? It is because of subduction: oceanic crust tends to get colder and denser with age as it spreads off the mid-ocean ridges.” – NASA Earth Observatory
b)
“Radiogenic carbon age dating of the carbonate structures and overlying sediments indicates that the Lost City hydrothermal system has been ongoing for at least 30,000 years. This is at least two orders of magnitude longer that most of the known black smoker systems. Geophysical data also suggests that there is a significant amount of fresh peridotite at depth in the massif that can still be altered, and thus the serpentinization processes in the basement rocks have the potential to drive the Lost City system for hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of years.
https://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations/05lostcity/background/serp/serpentinization.html
MarkW doesn’t want to see any evidence sdemonstrating that methane is a product of rock-water reactions.
There are none so blind as those who refuse to see.
Of course, oil comes from the same abiotic source.
Saturn’s moon Titan has an ocean of liquid methane. Obviously not of organic origin.
https://www.space.com/28957-titan-methane-alien-life-search.html
That stars produce carbon, and that hydrogen is plentiful in this universe is not in question.
Our atmosphere may well have had a lot of methane in it as well when the earth was young.
However once plants started photosynthesizing, that methane disappeared. Completely.
That these hydrocarbons can come from an abiotic source is not evidence that all hydrocarbons come from abiotic sources.
The problem is that if your theory was correct, it could be proven by finding oil and natural gas in large quantities in places were biotic could not have created it.
Unfortunately, despite years of trying, such searches have always come up empty.
My understanding is that long chain hydrocarbons must be organic in nature…and that abiotic hydrocarbons are much simpler molecules. Thus, I’d agree MarkW…
rip
This sounds like the dawn of a new form of communism. Just that its not about owning the production but owning nature, same result everyone has to suffer for the higher purpose.
Beside the fact that poverty is the strogest source of pollution and progress in return is the only way to a better and cleaner future, its a hubris to think you can MAKE man do and believe things.
Every action is born out of the own egoism, good politics gives a frame to create progress for all out of that egoism. If politics suppress the force from the ego the result is war, poverty and revolution.
So what is Vollmann’s ego about? He believe he is smarter and more worthy than other (psychopath behavior). Why? keeping the 3rd world in poverty and lower our standards means death for billions (the poorest countries have the fastest growing population due to the war index. 90% of the plastic infusion into the sea comes from the poorest regions. just 2 examples).
Having clean water needs energy. Having water and energy is an enabler for progress. Progress means less human population without war.
Vollman, like most Greenies, conflates Climate Change with other issues (strip mining, industrial air pollution (SO2), etc…). His real beef is with rising living standards. Like the aristocrats of old, he and his ilk just do not want the masses to benefit from anything. The masses should be living in huts, working the fields, and be happy with any scraps thrown their way (preferably Kale, and organic witch grass).
Folks, while I appreciate all of your comments, even those with whom I don’t fully agree; can we recognize the personality that has infiltrated this comment section? Kristi is a combative type whose desire to “win” an argument trumps her desire to learn. But, in reality, it is obvious she is not here to learn. She is here to instigate and push buttons to illicit negative reactions, so she can reinforce her religious bias. She operates no different than any other fundamentally religious type and because of that, no amount of logic, reason, polite discourse, anything along those lines, will shake her of her worldview.
So why engage? So that we can “win” the argument? There is no winning with these types. There is no educating. There is no genuine discourse because she refuses to accept reality. It is evident she suffers from worldview poisoning of moral relativism, wherein she is the sole arbiter of truth. Otherwise, she would cast aside her religious ferver and look at the evidence. I bet though, she scoffs at Christians who believe in the fairy-tale of a virgin birth. Pot meet kettle.
This is unfortunately the situation we find ourselves in today. If you are a moral absolutist (Truth is objective, knowable and only our perception of reality changes, not reality itself) then you will believe in a higher power than man (we didn’t create this universe, obviously, so something greater than thou did) and likely value human life, understand the necessity for non-violence as a foundation of society, etc… On the other hand, moral relativism is diametrically opposed to the rigidity of absolute moral law (theft is wrong). It is legitimately that simple. You either believe that it is wrong to steal, or you justify your actions to feel better about stealing.
This is why the left always advocates bigger government, stronger regulations, higher taxes, etc. etc.
It is because they do not like reductionism. They are what amounts to a petulent child who was not given that toy in the market, even though said child has 100’s of similar toys at home. They need constant positive feedback, they rely on external sources for authority, and refuse to recognize they are bound by simple moral laws. DO NOT STEAL. Once you recognize the foundation of a persons worldview, it becomes evident whether discourse is a worthy endeavor. In the case of this broad, it is not a worthy endeavor. There is nothing you can say or do, no matter how genuine or polite, that would ever change her worldview. The only way for her to understand her internal conflicts is to decide to genuinely question herself in that regard, and then genuinely desire to eliminate internal conflict. It isn’t easy and most people refuse to do that hard work. I have little regard for weakness, so I’m not polite to such people because coddling children (whether actual children or adults suffering from emotional immaturity (grown children) only creates entitlement. She has to WANT to be a truly undivided individual. Until then, she’s only going to come on here spouting post-modernist, Neo-Marxist horsehockey couched in some sense of saving the planet, and she’s going to do it like she always has, with derision and intransigence.
In my case, having a child and discovering Natural Law was what opened my eyes from the immense suffering of the aforementioned amoral worldview. It is amazing how the wonder of raising a child changes so much. Many of these relativists don’t have children; they have pets. They praise Marx because they don’t know what they don’t know, so they need to pretend they are gods unto themselves to hide their insecurity of being just another human. It is so glaringly obvious yet I see many people continuing to engage. Why? It is a waste of your precious energy, much like my writing this ridiculously long mini-essay post.
A favorite wordplay I’ve learned is the word Ignorance, which is quite different from nescience. IGNORE-ance is always willful. One must IGNORE information in order to remain ignorant. It is quite obvious Kristi suffers from personally inflicted, willful IGNORE-ance.
@honestliberty
Please see my April 23 3:36 response to one of Kristi’s own comments (addressed to moi, no less).
I have a little different take on Kristi, and suspect she is not what she seems–hence the question I posed to her in my April 23 comment, along with the analysis of her commentary that prompted my question. Kristi has yet to answer my question (no obligation on her part to do so, of course), but I see she is back on this thread, and hope she will choose to answer my question and the follow-up questions I intend to pose to her, as well.
Just maybe “someone” is havin’ a little “bad-faith”, impish, prankish good time at our expense, but my suspicions could turn out to be unfounded.
Indeed. Excellent post. I’m running out of patience for the left, and I’m an anarchist. sheesh. Weren’t the left the folks that claimed they loved freedom?
As I said above, I have been traveling and did not have electronic access.
Dmitri Mendeleev is credited with being the first to hypothesize that
hydrocarbons are created deep in the earth. For another example of
his thinking, look up his table. Methane has been created on the bench.
See article below.
file:///C:/Users/jerry/Documents/Lab%20created%20methane.html
The belief that hydrocarbons are only created bioitacly on earth is similar
to thinking that humans control weather. There is a huge body of work that
says that so, Of course, some is fossil, but the vast majority of the part that
we call oil and natural gas (not just methane-the terms are not
interchangeable). The vast layers of carbon containing rock being lain
down for millions of years give visual evidence of the massive continuous
cycle of hydrocarbons being created, rising to the surface, being
oxidized by microbes or by the atmosphere, being mostly absorbed
by the oceans, being deposited as layers on the ocean floor, then
to be taken back deep in the earth by subduction, continuing the
process.
When the hydrocarbons rise and hit layers of shale that is impermeable,
it is trapped there, becoming what is erroneously described as “source
rock rock” by western geology, or called shale oil and gas currently.
I started my research into topsoil formation after seeing the ’07 video,
part of which is linked below.
The part which convinced me that upland topsoil is powered by natural
gas occurs about 2;30 into the video.
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=the+secret+of+el+dorado&&view=detail&mid=10AC45CC2C27D8B5271710AC45CC2C27D8B52717&&FORM=VRDGAR
I met with Dr. Bill Woods shortly before his death at KU, Lawrence, Kansas.
It took me about 30 min to explain the errors of the original video, no longer
available on youtube, and convince him that the soil is powered by
hydrocarbons.
Nor all layers of shale are impermeable. Some are semi-permeable, which
means that the smaller molecules escape and rise to the surface, and if
there is adequate moisture, the aerobic microbial culture consumes the gas,
enriching the topsoil in relation to the amount of “food” available.
The hydrocarbons rise all around the earth, but are not evenly distributed.
They tend to rise along fault lines and continental plates. If the shield is near
the surface, as it is in the Atlanta, Ga area, the gas is mostly blocked, and
and the soil is very poor.
In areas where a great amount of hydrocarbons are rising, and the rock
layers are impermeable or nearly so, the result is Arabian light crude.
In areas where a large amount rises but has a poor cap, the lighter
hydrocarbons evaporate, leaving tar, as in Canada.
The Russians know how the carbon cycle works, and have been the
largest producer of hydrocarbons for a long time. Their teaching of
petroleum geology is more nearly correct then in the West, but as
far as I have been able to discover, no one else has credited top
soil richness to rising hydrocarbons but me.
I have proved that hydrocarbons rise continuously and are a renewable
resource. As the pressure is relieved above, more can rise.
My findings also predict that where ever there has been a blocking
layer of stone which blocks the upward flow of hydrocarbons, gas
and oil will be found in that area.
For some reason, my link to lab created methane didn’t work-try
again.
file:///C:/Users/jerry/Documents/Lab%20created%20methane.html
Try again
http://www.wnd.com/2005/11/33476/