Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t ivankinsman – according to doomsday futurist Mayer Hillman, wealthy survivors of the inevitable collapse of civilisation might have a chance if they embrace love of music and prevent climate refugees from entering their northern enclaves.
‘We’re doomed’: Mayer Hillman on the climate reality no one else will dare mention
By Patrick Barkham
The 86-year-old social scientist says accepting the impending end of most life on Earth might be the very thing needed to help us prolong it
“We’re doomed,” says Mayer Hillman with such a beaming smile that it takes a moment for the words to sink in. “The outcome is death, and it’s the end of most life on the planet because we’re so dependent on the burning of fossil fuels. There are no means of reversing the process which is melting the polar ice caps. And very few appear to be prepared to say so.”
Hillman, an 86-year-old social scientist and senior fellow emeritus of the Policy Studies Institute, does say so. His bleak forecast of the consequence of runaway climate change, he says without fanfare, is his “last will and testament”. His last intervention in public life. “I’m not going to write anymore because there’s nothing more that can be said,” he says when I first hear him speak to a stunned audience at the University of East Anglia late last year.
…
“With doom ahead, making a case for cycling as the primary mode of transport is almost irrelevant,” he says. “We’ve got to stop burning fossil fuels. So many aspects of life depend on fossil fuels, except for music and love and education and happiness. These things, which hardly use fossil fuels, are what we must focus on.”
…
Although Hillman has not flown for more than 20 years as part of a personal commitment to reducing carbon emissions, he is now scornful of individual action which he describes as “as good as futile”. By the same logic, says Hillman, national action is also irrelevant “because Britain’s contribution is minute. Even if the government were to go to zero carbon it would make almost no difference.”
Instead, says Hillman, the world’s population must globally move to zero emissions across agriculture, air travel, shipping, heating homes – every aspect of our economy – and reduce our human population too. Can it be done without a collapse of civilisation? “I don’t think so,” says Hillman. “Can you see everyone in a democracy volunteering to give up flying? Can you see the majority of the population becoming vegan? Can you see the majority agreeing to restrict the size of their families?”
Hillman doubts that human ingenuity can find a fix and says there is no evidence that greenhouse gases can be safely buried. But if we adapt to a future with less – focusing on Hillman’s love and music – it might be good for us. “And who is ‘we’?” asks Hillman with a typically impish smile. “Wealthy people will be better able to adapt but the world’s population will head to regions of the planet such as northern Europe which will be temporarily spared the extreme effects of climate change. How are these regions going to respond? We see it now. Migrants will be prevented from arriving. We will let them drown.”
…
Sadly Hillman’s prediction doesn’t seem to be very specific on timescale, which effectively makes his claims untestable.
But I’m sure you will join me in expressing appreciation of the Guardian’s tireless efforts, to entertain us with the colorful predictions of their parade of increasingly eccentric climate doomsday prophets.
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Social scientist = deadbeat?
Downbeat, clearly. ;->
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qnlqIc_DeWE
Offbeat.
Indeed this is the, so called, scientific discipline from which the failure to replicate issue first emerged.
There really is nothing more to be said.
Q:- Social scientist?
A:- Oxymoron
As for stunning an audience at UEA, home of the Nature tricksters and decline hiders, being stunned like a mullet or a lamb just before slaughter is a prerequisite for entry isn’t it?
PhD candidates in ANY discipline should be required to demonstrate minimal competence in math, chemistry, physics, and biology. With proof of continued competence every 2-3 years. This just might keep them from saying incredibly stupid things.
Especially the (oxy)moron part.
Most often, I ask myself if people (those giving their opinion on the media) can still multiply and divide. Not just compute a result, but use the correct parameters, correct unit, correct operation, express the result with the correct unit, and have the inspiration that such operation could be useful in real life.
For example (real life example), an article might indicate the price tag of a nuclear plant, but the author of the “news” article wouldn’t have the idea of indicating the power rating of such, so the reader couldn’t make a division and compute a price per megawatt. (The reader can lookup such data, but then he might be even less inclined to disable his adblocker on the “news” website.) Only people inclined to do divisions would find such information essential. I guess many readers just want to be hit with big numbers that they cannot interpret or compare.
Social scientist has to be a contradiction of terms!
Try socialist scientologist instead, That should fix it fer ya.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xwtdhWltSIg
Look for the version by Gregorian. It is great as all of their music is.
Let’s see now, everybody’s favorite “futurist”, Mayer Hillman, has found the ultimate secret of the “good life”–the fossil-fuel-free pursuit of love, music, education, and veganism. O. K., so why, then, isn’t our “thought-leader” lover-boy traipsing about some virgin wilderness, even as we speak, with his “significant other”, both in their birthday-suits, foraging for vegan sustenance, and bearing up heroically under the life-time-supply load of all those text-books, that he and his beloved would surely be humpin’, and groovin’ on the life-enchancing strains of many a merry, oaten-reed-genic, tune-wanking, contrapuntal riff? I mean, like, Hillman could be livin’ this quality-time, life-style option, like, right now, even, if he wanted to!
But no!–instead, we get Hillman runnin’ his “Cassandra-wannabe” pie-hole, at the cyclic rate, in front of some “stunned” audience. An audience that we can well imagine is largely, if not exclusively, made up of “stunned”, tenured, ivory-tower, trough-centric parasites, in on the deal, and their “stunned”, impressionable-adolescent, “woke”, spoiled-brat, captive-audience, brain-washed charges–safe-space-normative dumb-kids, in other words, oblivious to the consequences of the crushing, student-loan debt, that they are accumulating, to the benefit of their youth-master exploiters. So what else is new, right? Honestly, how can anyone take this crap seriously?
He’s not my favorite futurist. I never heard of him. Now that I know of him, he has rocketed to the bottom of my favorites list. He’s behind Yogi Berra as a futurist. ” It’s hard to make predictions. Especially about the future”.
Great stuff Mike, but maybe a teensy bit more periods.
I had to re-read it, like, three times to follow that groovalicious riffin’ you was laying down, just to be sure I was pickin’ it up, you know, correctamundo-style.
I have decided, John, that predictions are easy.
It is accurate predictions that are hard.
Predictions that are worth the wasted breath it takes to utter them, that are difficult.
Impossible, really…when the central premise of said worthless utterances is a steaming pile of rancid horseshit.
@ur momisugly menicholas
Supremely good advice menicholas, unfortunately, totally wasted on the likes of moi. Sadly, I suffer from incurable PWS (Proust Wannabe Syndrome), and that, together with my bumptious, self-indulgent, attention-seeking, self-absorbed immaturity, compels me to take up WUWT’s precious blog-space with my rant-normative, feeble imitations of the master.
But on a more positive note, I also like to think, that the “period”-phobic, street-theater product of my digitally-enabled, keyboard stage-craft, just might be so off-beat as to really “screw” with the AU (Artificial Un-intelligence) algorithms of certain, imitation-dumb-kid, passive-agressive-goody-goody, “crusher crew” wrecker-bots (note: I am not referring to Kristi, here!–even though I did once ask her, in a complete, non-sequitur, after-thought, closing aside to an otherwise, indignant welter of exclamation-point-friendly, run-on sentences, wherein I, most assuredly, did not “bully” Kristi (and no!–I am not suggesting any “dog-whistle”, invidious comparisons with Willis, here), if she was a “bot” (please see my Apr 23, 2018 at 3:36 am comment, appended to WUWT’s “Climate Fanatic Demands…” of April 21, 2018)).
Evidenced by your writing, Mike, your PWS hasn’t any foundation for moving ahead.
@ur momisugly Dave Fair
Hey Dave! What’s the deal with your comment, anyway? A good-natured, regular-guy “needle”, maybe? Or a not so friendly, drive-by, zinger put-down, maybe?
I’m kinda leaning to the view, Dave, that my “PWS” writing-style has “triggered” you in some way. And, in response, you’ve chosen to address me with a quip that is weighed-down with faintly nerdy and stuffy flourishes of “educated” speech like “Evidenced by” and “your writings” and “lack a foundation for moving on” (whatever that might mean). You know, Dave, the sort of pretentious locutions someone suffering from a parvenu’s status-anxiety self-doubts might employ.
And your above comment is especially curious in that the language you employ, in your other comments on this thread, feature rather crude, inelegant language of the “my ass” and “mental masturbation” persuasion (that last, an apparent favorite of yours, Dave, since one finds it in two of your comments).
So again, Dave, help me out here–was your last just some good-buddy joshin’-around, or were you tryin’ to take me down a notch? Be honest.
Many deadbeats can at least think clearly. This guy is too stupid to scrounge for a living.
Indeed, to survive while scrounging requires invention, attention, boldness, tact and fortitude. This bloke is at the bottom of the social food chain, engrossed in fantasy.
But he can make a lot of money using mental masturbation to pontificate about a future none of us will be around to experience. Great gig, if you can get it. Academic rigor, my ass.
Pretty much like social justice.
h/t ivankinsman for giving me another opportunity to post this…
https://youtu.be/LQCU36pkH7c
David
If Hillman believes music is CO2 free, he’s obviously never been to an Iron Maiden concert!
Only “unplugged” songs should be considered green, recorded with a cell phone that was charged by renewables.
Music! Sing about happiness from burning fossil fuels! From “My Fair Lady”, we have the song “Wouldn’t it be loverly”…In one’s own HEATED room, “Lots of chocolates for me to eat; Lots of COAL making lots of heat; With one enormous chair, now wouldn’t that be loverly.”
In England in the winter, I expect being in an unheated room would cause unhappiness.
Love those central heating and cooling systems provided by our industrial society.
If you think a bunch of UN SJW-ers are going to provide for your reliable energy systems, you are a fool.
Mayor of Venus
“In England in the winter, I expect being in an unheated room would cause unhappiness.”
Never mind Scotland……… 🙂
I own over 2,000 compact discs
because I’m an audiophile who loves
listening to music, but don’t have
the skills to create my own music,
like most people.
CDs made of plastic, in plastic cases.
So how are plastics carbon free?
Prof. Hillman is evidence that leftists
don’t get wiser with age.
Hillman is exactly right, just is timing is off a bit. In the next billion years the sun’s output will increase by a full 10%. This should be enough to evaporate the world’s oceans, and the surface of the earth will be all but inhabitable.
On the other hand, a billion years gives us plenty of time to find a way to increase the earth’s orbit by a few percent which should add a billion years, give or take, before the oceans boil away.
That Earth orbit alteration has already been studied and there is a relatively straightforward way to do it.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14983-moving-the-earth-a-planetary-survival-guide/
How to move Earth has already been figured out. Change the orbit of Ceres, so that it traverses around between Jupiter and Earth.
Angular momentum of Jupiter is transferred to Earth, which obligingly increases its orbital velocity and moves gradually further from the sun. Problem of solar heating while the sun slowly leaves the main sequence: solved.
My science fiction forecast is in a million years, our descendants will be living in virtual reality like The Matrix but without those clumsy bodies attached to the computer. No human bodies, it’s all microchips. The monolith in the 2001 Space Odyssey is a big microchip, the world of virtual intelligent beings. They will put these on Mars or the moons of Jupiter and Saturn away from the red giant sun. Arthur Clarke had figured it all out in 1968.
The major uncertainty though is how Mars and Venus orbits might evolve into chaos after the mutibillion year gravitational resonances of the inner planets are disrupted. The result could be further chaos from the asteroid belt… unleashing a planet-killing hailstorm on the inner planets.
Solve one problem at a time.
Compared to moving whole planets, a couple of asteroids is not a big deal.
@Strangelove, saying that in a million years the world will be run my microchips is as misguided as people sitting around a million years ago saying that a million years from now the world will be run by pointed sticks and really sharp bone knives. /humor
“Migrants will be prevented from arriving. We will let them drown.” — Mayer Hillman
If Hillman is “exactly” right, Tom, how will migrants manage to drown after the world’s oceans have evaporated?
Louis
He actually said that?!!!!!!!!
The Policy Studies Institute “combines the rigour of academic research with expert knowledge.”
“combines the rigour of academic research with expert knowledge.”That just has to be true cos like its too inane to actually be just marketing spin, isn’t it….?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=byEGjLU2egA&itct=CAwQpDAYCiITCPO0gKmI29oCFQGVWAodINYNYTIHcmVsYXRlZEiY1OCkwpz5t2Q%3D
Here I thought that most of the warming was taking place in the Arctic and at night and in the Winter. Daytime warming at lower latitudes seems to be minimal, so why would people be migrating? Reporting average global temperatures doesn’t give the public the real picture. Hillman probably doesn’t understand the ‘problem.’ That being the case, how can we put any stock in his solution to the ‘problem?’
Excellent comment, I can’t improve upon it (-:
Clyde
Well, as a non scientist, I reckon that if the planet warmed up just a little more, people would start migrating, to the then unfrozen, now wastelands of Siberia and northern Canada where a vast acreage of agricultural land will be released from the grip of permafrost.
Imagine all the food production from these two areas alone with modern agricultural methods.
As for sea level rise, frankly, I don’t give a monkeys. If people are stupid enough to buy £5M dwelling on the River Thames, or beach front properties in Florida, then hell slap it into them, they took the risk. Mind you, insurance companies don’t seem to take this AGW nonsense seriously as they are still insuring both!
And don’t forget, he’s so old he likes it to be above 90F all the time now. Lol!
He wears his pants so high he has to pull the zipper down to breathe. That’s why he thinks it’s so warm. Lol!
” must globally move to zero emissions”….so we’re supposed to consume huge quantities of CO2….and not replace it
These types of “predictions” seem to have one thing in common…..there’s a very sad pathetic person behind them
“L’attitude ” Vous ne comprenez pas !
Sorry…….that was my feeble attempt at humour !
Hillman is a FAILURE ! Obviously he hates people as he thinks they have given
him a hard life…………….and he STILL can’t afford a MOTOR CAR !
This is HIS ” LAST GASP SOLUTION ” !!
WHAT HE ACTUALLY WANTS IS FOR YOU TO STOP BREATHING !
This will prevent you producing any more CO2 ….and ALSO lower the World’s population !!
It is a truly beautiful , but totally malevolent , solution .
Think of it this way : He’s 86 , on his push-bike these HILLs are killing him MAN ( Hence: Hillman )
He is far more likely than you to “snuff it” soon…………………probably !
That gives us ALL something to look forward to in future ! Keep me posted !
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZG_k5CSYKhg
We could stop breathing. Then of course we’d all die. Perhaps that is what he means. What a t????r
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JSUIQgEVDM4
@WXcycles – Thanks for posting this – all that is old is new again. So appropriate for today. Not to mention its brilliant use as the intro and conclusion music for Apocalypse Now.
This is the end
My only friend the end
It hurts to set you free
But you never follow me
The end of laughter and soft lies
The end of nights we tried to die
This is the end
I do not understand why he thinks we should bother doing all of those things, if we are really “doomed” and the process causing the ice caps is “irreversible”. What good is it to take “action” if those actions will not make a difference, other than decreasing quality of life?
At last, a reply appropriate to his actual statements! And I’ll even give him credit, about one thing he is correct, WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!!! Research has shown 100% of all people ever born will eventually die! Some have kicked the bucket already! A quick Duck-Duck-Go search, and selecting the first answer, suggests 94% of all people ever born are already dead! Given those odds, how can he go wrong in his startling prediction? And while I employ all facts in a sarcastic manner, I believe everything I say is 100% factual! So, no need for
…not sure if I should blame WordPress or html, but it disposed of my at the very end.
Hunh… I can’t use the less-than and greater-than signs without them turning into html symbols and disappearing? I was trying to indicate htmlmarkup /sarc htmlclose.
And the answer to the problem of “people gonna die”, is never let them be born in the first place?
None of the rantings of these Chicken Little’s make the lightest bit of logical sense, starting with how melting some ice is gonna doom the planet, considering that the icecaps forming was a recent event, and by itself was a life and habitat destroying catastrophe with few parallels in Earth history.
We are in an ice age, the planet is far too cold for most living things to survive over a vast percentage of the surface, and warmer conditions are a remedy, not a problem.
All that really ought to matter to the sane people who know how to think logically is how to prevent these jackasses from doing any more damage.
The only questions are when, where, and whether those still living will respond to your demise with sympathy or schadenfreude.
I guess this will help sell newspapers and get folks to watch the Telly!
tomwys
I have bought, nor watched either, since Al Gore kindly invented the internet for me.
Mind you, he invented it specifically for me, so careful what you say.
🙂
” nor watched either”
OK, I was going to go pedantic grammar Nazi here…but why bother.
Menicholas
I hope I’m allowed the occasional transgression considering I frequently use a tablet with a dire touchscreen keyboard and predictive text that refuses to stay switched off.
I’ll duly write out “Must try harder” x 100.
🙂
Menicholas
PS your quotation marks are not correct. Ahem.
🙂
LOL, just messin’ wit cha meng!
Social science – example of an oxymoron.
‘Carbon Pollution’ is another example of an oxymoron.
It translates to: Carbon is harmful to Carbon Based Life Forms.
And carbon dioxide = carbon
Thomas Homer
Launch a big enough diamond at my head hard enough, and yes, it’s likely to be harmful to me.
Miss, and you’re gonna have to catch me with your diamond.
🙂
Diamonds…waste of good carbon.
Cannot burn it or make a pencil.
It does make some great saw blades, so there is that.
Menicholas diamonds will burn: https://io9.gizmodo.com/how-and-why-to-make-a-diamond-burn-637183425
True, and so will iron and most metals and lots of stuff considered not to be flammable.
But saying “They will not burn except under special conditions and with considerable effort that will likely take more energy than is released by the burning diamonds” would not have sounded as catchy.
The difference between “possible to do it” and “having a good reason to do it”.
Even if we assume that the “worse case model output” is going to happen if AGW mythology is correct, it is not going to lead in the next several hundred years to the death of most life on earth. Though it is probably true that the rich leftist billionaires are going to have to wall themselves inside their enclaves to keep us peons from breaching their castle walls, especially if they get their way today. I can make a good case that if the AGW crowd get their way that the third world nations, prevented from having basic modern technology, will rise up in revolt.
Edwin
According to some, it’s already happened in Egypt, and is happening in Syria. Then there’s Brexit, and of course Trump. Now it looks like N. Korea is getting in on the game (a bit tenuous, I know).
And it’s not like AGW crowd are going to turn China, Russia and India from their current paths.
But Ivan says they have special circumstances, JCR. Whatever that has to do with the rest of us, I don’t know.
Thanks for posting Eric. I am glad you are slowly coming round to my way of thinking that AGW is here and mankind is facing one of the biggest threats in human history. We should all praise The Guardian and The New York Times for their unrelenting efforts in highlighting the climate change crisis.
You forgot the sarc tag
C’mon Greg … The probably of AGW not happening is equal to the probability of it happening and I prefer to err on the cautious side. No sarc tag needed here my friend. I am cautious by nature.
“But I’m sure you will join me in expressing appreciation of the Guardian’s tireless efforts, to entertain us with the colorful predictions of their parade of increasingly eccentric climate doomsday prophets.”
Climate change is definitely happening, and it’s 100% a good thing.
@ivankinsman;
Clearly you have no grasp of probability. Very few things in this world are a binary solution set. Not everything is a coin toss.
Ivankinsman, you’re mistaking someone’s action for your intention. I suggest a nice, cold beer, a ham sandwich with lettuce and mustard, and some chips, and a good book that doesn’t take more than three years to read.
Ivanskman You mean it is 50%? If you really think that then no amount of evidence would ever persuade you that global warming is one BIG hoax.
Even a coin toss has a small (very, very small) chance of landing on the edge.
Sarcasm is waisted on religious people. QED….
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7lvMNLhJrb0
In the spirit of Ivankinsman’s warning I have just signed on for way more insurance than I can really afford. I will have to forego eating decent food and having a roof over my head but , my long term future is secure! Hooray!! Thank God for The Precautionary Principle!
The trees will all die! The Guardian should buy up all the paper in existence. Right Now! You know, to secure its future!
Even if we accept Ivankinsman’s 50/50 split for Climate Armageddon, how is a 50% chance of DOOOOOM worse then the 100% chance that the ‘final solution’ of the Climate Faithful would require the elimination of 95% of the Global Population, and for the vast majority of those remaining to live like Amish at best or (more likely) like medieval Serfs?
~¿~
When I go out to the store, there is a chance my house could burn down, or it might not.
So it is 50-50.
To be on the safe side, I am going to call the fire department everytime I leave and have them soak my house and everything in it.
I am gonna have my electric service disconnected and rip all the wiring out.
And I am gonna start insisting on paying triple or quadruple for anything that has anything to do with fire or burning or heating, just to be on the safe side.
Then I can go to the store without worrying.
Every probability is 50/50; it either happens or it doesn’t.
NorwegianSceptic, obviously you have never met many religious people.
Ivankinsman, you keep conflating AGW with CAGW. The vast majority of climate skeptics believe in AGW but not CAGW. I notice that you very carefully only mention AGW because you are unable to defend CAGW.
There are a lot of environmentalists who are convinced that the planets ecology is a fragile thing.
Any change, no matter how tiny will inevitably bring about it’s utter collapse.
I am glad you are slowly coming round to my way of thinking that AGW is
herefake and mankind is facing one of the biggestthreatsfrauds in human history.There, fixed it for ya.
“mankind is facing one of the biggest threats in human history.”…
It’s been warmer…..it’s been colder
You do realize if the “average” temp was normally 10 degrees warmer…….everyone would look really stupid complaining about a 2 degree increase in today’s temp
I like this Hillman guy. He’s hilarious. I mean, I know he isn’t intending to be but he is just plain funny. I felt like I was reading an Onion article.
Of course, his reaction is predictable, as was the man who immolated himself in Central Park. And the direction of his talk is also quite predictable. Notice how the strongest premise of his discussion is overpopulation and the belief that self determination will always stop the necessary actions to prevent climate change from happening.
It is obvious to anyone with intelligence and the capability to follow logic what the unspoken end game is for all CAGW true believers. Tyranny and depopulation.
So tell me Ivankinsman, which solution do you think will end up being pursued? Tyranny or depopulation?
Technology may allow for absolute tyranny…..call it Technotyranny, but my personal suspicion is that some evil nutbag will go for depopulation. It would be for the greater good after all, wouldn’t it?
250 babies are being born eac mi ute. Forecast is for population of 11 billion by 2100. Yes I think measures need to be taken via contraceception iniatives, restricting the number of children per family via financial incentives etc. https://mankindsdegradationofplanetearth.com/2018/04/24/with-250-babies-born-each-minute-how-many-people-can-the-earth-sustain-lucy-lamble-global-development-the-guardian/
here, ivan. there are loads of other sites discussing facts. you know, those things your types consider perspective. Newflash. truth is absolute. you are not the arbiter of truth.
https://overpopulationisamyth.com/
The number is dropping, as is the rate of increase in the population.
Regardless, the earth can easily support 11 billion humans, and a lot more.
Nice avoidance, Ivankinsman. You have read what the gentleman in question said, correct? Notice, he did not say, “Population Control”. He said, at least according to the person who was there, “Reduce Our Population.”
Not ‘reduce our increase’, but ‘reduce our population’. You AGW lot have been talking about reduce our increase for a while now. It is a main stream thought although utterly unnecessary, as the only major growth now occurring is happening in Africa. As you are well aware, the majority of the world is falling below replacement.
But this ‘reduce our population’. Now that means something different.
So which is it Ivankinsman? Tyranny or Depopulation? The CAGW crew is already trying to establish a moral necessity for Tyranny, but I think that in just a few more years we will begin to hear the “moral” case for Depopulation. You know……legal murder.
Come now…don’t try to avoid what this old fellow is saying. Hint, hint…nudge, nudge.
if ivan truly wanted to curb the population growth of the planet, he’d support the use of more fossil fuels, not less. Cheap energy is the gateway to prosperity. It’s in the third world, where Ivan’s preferred restrictions on fossil fuels leaves the populace in energy poverty, that the population is increasing the greatest. In the first world, where we have prosperity due to our use of cheap energy, population is actually decreasing.
We will have a population problem as long as sex is more popular than dying.
Electrification and TV tends to reduce the birthrate. I wonder why?
Do You choose sex or death?
Who’s the sex with?
Hillary Clinton!
Just shoot me!
Lol!
~¿~
Ivan==>Just how much will it have to warm to reach the Holocene Climatic Optimum? And why, pray tell, was it named that?
As clueless as always ivanski. The article was posted so that the rest of us can laugh at it, and you.
Laugh away Markski. I always have a good chuckle whenever I see any reference to a greening planet as a result of man-made CO2 emissions.
So reality amuses you.
How quaint.
I’m guessing that ivanski doesn’t know the first thing about biology.
@MarkW
invankinsman considers Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” to be a “how to” manual. Or “how not to”.
MarkW, you can add that to the long lists of things he is clueless about that he’s posted just in the past few days.
Ivan,
Those laughable CACA skeptics at NASA are laughing at you:
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fertilization-greening-earth
The Guardian disagrees with NASA, therefore NASA is wrong.
Laughing derisively at those who say the sky is blue will not cause the sky to turn pink with purple polka-dots.
We laugh at people who assert that a 1% difference in total earth energy flows will lead to climate Armageddon.
dred, actually we are laughing hysterically at people who are claiming that the sky is pink with purple polka-dots.
I am glad you are slowly coming around to the idea that mankind is facing one of the biggest threats in human history: the Big Lie that CO2, which is completely beneficial to mankind and to all life is somehow “destroying the planet”. Kudos.
ivankinsman
I’m now of the opinion that you are a double agent sceptic.
Anthony has given you the task of testing the resolve of everyone on this site ~cunning Anthony, very cunning~.
We know there is enough scientific evidence presented on WUWT to have even the most hardened alarmist scientist question AGW if they visit this site as often as you do.
Anthony has instructed you to use the Guardian as a means of testing the science on here with, the most illogical, left wing propaganda currently available. So far, WUWT has passed with flying colours.
Keep it up mate, science loves being tested, even by the Guardian.
What happened to Griff anyway…………Ahhhhhh………….Anthony, I get it now. He served his purpose as the WUWT clown and you replaced him with ivankinsman. Like I said, very cunning.
Not that I think your a clown ivankinsman, ~ nudge, nudge, a nod’s as good as a wink, as they say.~
I’m the soul of discretion, I won’t tell anyone.
HotScot you are coming out with the same old cliches e.g. correlating climate change with left wing propaganda when there us no connection between the two. How can scientific fact be either ‘right wing’ or ‘left wing’. What has the large amounts of man-made CO2 in the atmosphere and it’s detrimental impact got to do with politics. You surely either accept or refute the science-based evidence. I accept it and it seems you reject it. For Christ’s sake keep politics out of it. Politics is not science (only Pruitt sees to think the two are one and the same thing and look what a complete disaster he has turned out to be).
Ivan,
Consensus climate science isn’t science but politics.
The facts, ie scientific observations, have repeatedly falsified the baseless conjecture of CACA.
ivankinsman
I like this game, you’re testing our resolve again. Good one Anthony, the force is strong with this one.
It would be Maurice Strong and that awful woman Christiana Figueres who presented the political case of the climate change scam objective, to destroy industrialisation, not climate sceptics.
Or has that little nugget entirely passed you by?
You will also, of course note, that the ONLY observed manifestation of increased atmospheric CO2 is that the planet has greened by 14% over the past 30 years of satellite observations, directly attributed to increased atmospheric CO2, according to NASA.
The Maldives aren’t under water now as predicted 20 years ago, nor New York or London.
Whilst the planet wallows in 400 ppm atmospheric CO2, it is only 250 ppm away from the destruction of all meaningful life at 150 ppm CO2, and we flirted with 180 ppm in the not too distant past.
So sea level rises as the poles melt, but the north pole is largely sea ice anyway so it won’t make a jot of difference, and the Antarctic is doing pretty well considering it’s pock marked with newly discovered volcanoes beneath it.
And who does sea level threaten? The wealthy individuals with properties in London, a city built on the banks of a river. Or wealthy western communities like Florida, a city built on a swamp. So who would sea rise affect the most, yep, the wealthy.
What does the developing world do when threatened with sea level rise? When it actually happens, which it hasn’t, they pick up their meagre belongings and move to higher ground.
Perhaps we are doing the developing world a favour, if sea levels rise, the wealthy western world will be worst affected, whilst the developing world will just shrug it off and move on.
However, that’s no excuse for actively depriving them of the right to move from developing world, to developed world by denying them access to funding for the very fossil fuels the west has profited massively from.
But thankfully, there’s China. I believe It’s building/financing around 1,200 fossil fuelled (coal) fired power stations around the world as we speak. Their solar arrays and wind turbines complexes pale by comparison, no matter how big. Put pen to paper mate and figure out how much energy is produced by 1,200 coal fired power stations Vs acres of solar and turbines.
Meanwhile, the paltry 2 ppm humanity contributes to atmospheric CO2 is statistically inconsequential. Under any other circumstances, 2 cents in a million cents will not make a difference. Would you invest in a company that offered you a return of 2 cents in 1,000,000? “Invest 1,000,000 cents in us and get 2 cents interest”.
Seriously?
Have I passed Anthony?
Like most trolls, ivanski is completely imprevious to fact and reason.
He continues to believe that CO2 is 100% evil because that’s what his handlers have paid him to believe.
I like this game, you’re testing our resolve again. Good one Anthony, the farce is strong with this one.
Fixed that typo for you HotScot
I think Griff gradually realized he was playing for the wrong team and slunk off in shame.
Would not be surprised if he is here in a skeptical role under another handle.
You could see in his writing Griff was agreeing more and more with the WUWT regulars.
“hat the ONLY observed manifestation of increased atmospheric CO2 is that the planet has greened by 14% ”
No, there are others, such as steadily increasing crop yields even under identical conditions and with identical seeds and methods.
Menicholas
My point is that they are observable and measurable. No one to date to my belief, has demonstrated that increased atmospheric CO2 is melting the polar ice caps, other than by some convoluted, dubious science.
Regarding the ice at the poles, that is for sure.
The one at the South Pole is not even thought to be losing ice, but gaining.
The sea ice around it waxes and wanes but shows no sign or shrinking away to nothing.
The sea ice in the Arctic is well known to have waxed and waned on a cycle with a period of somewhere around 60 years.
It is pure warmista lie-mongering that suggest otherwise, from the assertion that no satellites existed prior to 1980, to the notion that prior to this time insufficient information exists to draw any conclusions regarding ice extent.
Many news outlets, notably the NYT, have baldly asserted such nonsensical and patently false claims as that the north pole has been continuously covered in deep ice for hundreds of thousands and even millions of years, until this past decade.
In fact, their own reportage on the subject goes back well over 150 years and the things they assert these days is amply contradicted by their own prior stories and article.
In short, it is a web of lies and garbage non-science from pole to pole and as far as the eye can see.
Menicholas
My belief is that the planet has operated rather well for 80% of its existence without frozen poles.
… I am glad you are slowly coming round to my way of thinking that AGW is here and mankind is facing one of the biggest threats in human history …
Yep, moved my family from Britain to the tropical shores of the Coral Sea a few years ago, because I was worried about global warming.
+1
Likewise, here in the US, a huge percentage of the population has relocated much further south over the past 50 years, to the southern tier of states that are tens of degrees warmer than where they came from.
The migration continues, as does the increase in shoreline and riverfront housing.
Actions speak louder than words, and whether it is the profligate consumption and consequent emmissions of CO2 of the likes of Algore and that Leonardo di Jackasso, or the fact that none of the green elite are living in tents and eating foraged food and wearing animal skins, the actions of those doing the complaining and virtue signalling tell us all loudly and clearly that none of them actually believes a word of the nonsense they spew.
People do not engage in behavior they truly believe is wrong.
Liberals like to pretend that words are more important than actions, which is simply how they hypocritically except and forgive themselves for doing the same things as those they condemn.
He’s right for the wrong reason. The question could be read as: Could we quickly reduce anthropogenic CO2 emissions to zero without collapsing civilization? No. Quickly reducing our CO2 emissions to zero would cause the collapse of civilization.
The reason we haven’t run out of vital materials is that we keep improving our technology. In that regard, we have a tiger by the tail. We have to keep improving our technology. link Wrecking our economy by insisting on nonviable renewable energy would certainly stall technological progress and lead to global cataclysm.
commieBob
I think you’re aware of my opinion of CO2 at 400 ppm as it stands now. Far too close to the destruction of mankind of 150 ppm for comfort. I’ll be happy when CO2 reaches 1,500 ppm so we have a little wriggle room.
+97
Eric
I like to think that just once in a while I contribute something. Your response is much appreciated.
Future historians will look back on this madness, and wonder how their ancestors could ever work themselves up into such a frenzy over plant food.
Eric
Were it not so tragic, it would be funny……….or will be.
Personally, I do not think it will be very long into the future that this occurs.
People hate being lied to, and you cannot fool people for long.
The USSR was able to prevent people from acting on what they believed by intimidation and coercion, but they were not able to make people believe the party line was true.
The proof of this is how quickly and completely that country changed once the totalitarians were removed.
I do not think communists are much tolerated over there.
Humans are extremely adaptable and will rise to the occasion of “peak oil” by adapting to other sources of energy. We will find a way. We always have.
We have several hundred years (at the very least) in order to find or invent the next best thing.
I would bet on thousands of years of buried carbon based fuel.
This should cheer him up …
LOVE
by Strapping Young Lad
Nice.
Isn’t that the plan?
Steve Case
“Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?”
Funny that, a quote by an old, white, westernised, wealthy male, endorsed by the greens who hate old, white, westernised, wealthy males.
Double standards?
Or is it just me, as an old, white, westernised, wealthy male?
“Or is it just me, as an old, white, westernised, wealthy male?”
In the spirit of income equality, and to ease your suffering, I’m willing to make the ultimate sacrifice and take a fair portion of wealth off your hands. I’ve got the old, white, and westernized part down pat, still working on the wealthy. 🙂
Jeff
I consider my ‘wealth’ well invested in my family. Financially, I’m no better off than you, and probably much worse.
“Can you see everyone in a democracy volunteering to give up flying? Can you see the majority of the population becoming vegan? Can you see the majority agreeing to restrict the size of their families?”
The implication is that the “enlightened” elites need to impose a solution… sounds like a typical advocate for totalitarian socialism, aka. communism. Means he’s just another watermelon.
Nah, he rejects his own conclusion. Besides, communism wont fix the problem, it would actually make it worse. The only real solutions are tyranny through technology (think like the Chinese Social Score) or through depopulation.
Upon further reflection, I believe that Mayer Hillman is lamenting the death of “globalism.”
He’s seeing that that Agenda 21 folk (of which he is one) couldn’t pull it off, and he will not participate in the glorious control of the commoners.
Exactly.
There is no social scientist, just socialists. But music does make me feel better, if you can find any real music since about the 1970s, and damn little after the 60s, if you don’t count movie scores.
Look up Midnight Black by the Temperance Movement, it’s really rather good.
https://www.google.com/search?q=johnny+b+goode&oq=johnie+b+goo&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0l3.15451j0j9&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8
This is music. And this.
https://www.google.com/search?q=creedence+clearwater+revival+cotton+fields&stick=H4sIAAAAAAAAAONgFuLUz9U3MDTKSStS4tFP1zcsNjAtN0zJLdAS9C0tzkx2LCrJLC4JyQ_Oz0sHANSeaQIuAAAA&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi93uKHkdvaAhXD7oMKHdmEAp8Qri4IeTAD&biw=1280&bih=752
Great music in large quantity did not die until the early 1990s, around the time of the advent of napster.
When it became nearly impossible to make a living from music, it was hard to get huge numbers of people to devote their lives to it.
I would argue the exact opposite, Menicholas. There is all kinds of great music our there, and the advent of Napster, Youtube, and many other internet based means of distribution have only increased how much is produced.
The real difference is that the record companies no longer have sole control of what gets produced and played. So some of the best stuff isn’t going to show up in the top 40 countdown, or get endlessly repeated on the radio.
That does mean you need to dig a little more for the good stuff, as there’s plenty of crap being produced as well. But that only makes the diamonds shine more when you find them.
~¿~
Every decade has its gold/platinum artists, its one-hit wonders, and its big steaming pile of forgettable tripe that nobody bothered to document for posterity.
The big difference nowadays is that the tripe pile grows faster than ever, but we also sort through and discard it faster than ever. And that record companies can’t get away with charging you an album price for what amounts to one hit single and 8-9 tracks of tripe.
schitzree; you can shortcut the search a little by looking through SXSW. There are bittorrent files available under the SXSW moniker. (I can advertise the torrent files because these are demo songs provided to SXSW by the artists for advertising [demo] purposes). PS: not much classical among them.
https://www.sxsw.com/
If a 2C increase in temperatures is going to end life on earth, how the heck did the world survive when temperatures were 5C warmer about 20K years ago?
MarkW
Awwwww…..Mark, come on!
The Guardian didn’t exist 20K years ago so how could people possibly understand a 5C cooling was going to mean the end of humanity.
I mean. seriously, get with the program!
🙂
I think you have the timeline wrong
HCO was 8k years ago.
20k years ago, the ice age was in full advance mode and going strong.
But, it is undeniable that for hundreds of millions of years CO2 and temperatures were not a little but very much higher, and life did not merely prosper but exploded in a riotous profusion from pole to pole.
“Warmth is a lethal threat to life” is as patently absurd as anything it is possible to believe could be.
(Lack of) Warmth is a lethal threat to life.
Public intellectuals–sheesh what nonsense!
But his “collapse of civilization” is worth exploring. There is a long history of governments becoming ambitious and eventually going full authoritarian. Then the public sees the excesses of the governing classes, their living well and compared to not living well, the imbalance prompts a popular uprising. In the 1970s, Barbara Bell published that such uprisings in Ancient Egypt forced changes in dynasties. As in changing the pharoahs, then the priesthoods.
In recent times, the last such successful uprising ordinary folk took down the Berlin Wall and Communism. No mean feat. Especially in the face of governing classes that had used machine guns and tanks to murderously quell the uprisings in Hungary in 1956 and in Prague in 1968.
All today’s governing classes have is propaganda. That and even with a remarkably strong will to continue to impose their power won’t be enough to prevail.
Their main boasts have been the ability to “manage” the economy and (audacities of audacities) to “manage” the temperature of a planet.
The next recession will end the tout about the economy and as this cooling trend continues it will end the tout about controlling the climate.
I guess I’m an optimist.
The last great reformation began to be successful in the early 1600’s when practical merchants in London described government policies as “Tyrannical Duncery”.
Enough of the latter going around these days to prompt another Great Reformation.
That could be considered as a “collapse” of the worst parts of grand government edifices and superstitions.
((Tony–I have essays that expand this theme. Let me know if you would be interested in reading them))
bobhoye@ahaw.ca
subtle2
We have our western uprising right now.
Brexit and Trump. Make no mistake, as bloodless and peaceful as they are, they represent a paradigm shift from open revolt, to demonstrating the power of the ballot box.
Both will only be recognised as such if the opportunities both present are seized, but wont manifest themselves for generations.
Both events should be celebrated for their exhibition of the rights of the common man. Instead, the wealthy, westernised liberal left condemn them. They threaten their comfortable equilibrium, yet mankind has historically thrived on change.
To keep mankind on it’s toes, there must be change. And it’s such a pity that, to prove to alarmist’s global warming isn’t bad, we sceptics must wish for far worse, global cooling.
Any opportunity to capitalise on even minute warming, and the greening of the planet thanks to increased atmospheric CO2, is being squandered in the ridiculous bun fight that is CAGW.
I almost don’t get the human capacity for pessimism, other than courageous people profit from their optimism; the Wright brothers (utterly staggering the progress humankind has made since them), Alexander Graham Bell, Newton, Columbus……….name your pioneer.
Even if not financially, many have left an indelible mark on humanity, thanks to optimism.
Yeah, that stupid Trump. It was Obama that brought Korea together.
Dave
It remains to be seen whether N. Korea is serious.
Me? I suspect N. Korea want’s to move on, they just don’t know how with China as their paymaster.
But what a coup for Trump if it works out. And I’m fairly certain the the ‘momentous’ meeting between north and south will pale by comparison to the ultimate Capitalism meets communism, when Trump welcomes Kim Jong whattsit to the USA (insert successive future POTUS who will eventually do so) and finally ends this particularly pathetic stand off Trump has exposed for what it is, penknife Vs sabre rattling.
“N. Korea threatens global destruction”. Oh!……please, give me peace, what a preposterous proposition. A single cat 5 hurricane generates as much energy per minute as mankind has nuclear weapons.
Nuclear war, another media fantasy!
Sorry, long response to a short comment.
Without pessimism there is no cogent argument why we should need the All-Wise to rescue us. Their power is dependent on the existence of a crisis.The greater the crisis the greater the scope for their power to be exercised.
That’s what it is all about. They just want power and status., and they don’t want to work for it or have to make actual contributions or learn to allocate Capital intelligently. They just know they need it and for some reason they deserve to have it! Us peasants are just in the way. T’was ever thuis.
First thing we do let’s hang all the lawyers-French Revolution.
Who will be blamed when the next collapse comes?
John
I understand what your saying, I’m not sure it’s entirely true though.
Personally, I largely blame we ‘underlings’ for our own fate.
Whilst we watch our ‘superiors’ roll over us with manifest impunity, the only reason is we can’t be bothered to inform ourselves of our lawful rights.
And whilst I never thought I would say it as a big picture kind of bloke, the detail matters.
If we don’t stand up for day to day rights, the big picture can’t come into focus.
For example, when Anthony started this blog, it was largely founded on the concept of the ridiculous proposition of AGW. Then he started examining the practicalities, urban heat island effects on temperature measurement etc. Now the site is focussed on the scientific detail of climate change.
We drill deeper into the detail.
Now, had all scientists who had an objection to the detail of the concept of AGW actually vocalised their objection in the early days, we wouldn’t be where we are now.
But they didn’t, they just followed the herd, knowing it was wrong, but fearing for their job.
And whilst it’s difficult as a young man/woman to voice objection, that’s what employment, especially scientific employment is about. We should all be testing the chinks in the armour of authority. All too frequently examination of an entrenched process is found wanting, after the fact.
I’m incredibly humbled to be on WUWT, watching clever people question the scientific establishment holding their feet to the fire on climate change.
Our sceptical intervention is more important than the AGW proposition itself.
And that goes for every level of employment or intervention.
If we don’t challenge established authority, we are all lost.
From everything I have read, it seems that China is getting pretty fed up with having to foot most of N. Korea’s bills.
On the subject of authoritarian government, and the jarring juxtaposition of the privileged class, we have these strikingly awful and horrifying images to witness on the very same day in the very same place:
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/newpix/2018/04/27/17/4B9E8B1D00000578-0-image-a-5_1524844836714.jpg
“Alfie dies”, say the headlines.
Yes, he is dead, but he died the same way people died in the gas chambers…they were murdered.
They did not “die”.
Being killed is not dying, it is being killed.
Does anyone think the same fate would have been in store for a child of the privileged class, or by a royal?
Ridiculous to even ask.
It was so important this baby die they would not even let him be taken to another country for treatment, even though a plane was waiting and doctors in Italy standing ready.
But that would have exposed the evil penny-pinchers for the monsters they are, and so it could not be allowed, especially, rather than in spite of, worldwide attention and condemnation.
The inevitable result of turning health care decisions over to the state.
The Guardian is almost unreadable at the moment. It is full of articles such as this, unbalanced moronic drivel based on an interview with someone in whom senility has replaced intellectual curiosity. The glorious days of Harry Whewell, Jack Trevor Storey and, of course, James Cameron are long gone – intelligent writing, forensic journalism and northern wit have been replaced by endless diatribes about the vagina and leftie scribblers with no knowledge of life beyond their antiseptically-wiped keyboards. The only wit remaining in the Guardian is to be found in its engaging, clever and deceptive clues in the daily cryptic crossword.
John V. Wright
On my first day in a new job in central London in 1988, I bought a newspaper at Waterloo station, The Daily Telegraph, so I might appear ‘on the ball’ when I first presented myself. I was fresh off the boat from deepest, darkest Glasgow, so knew little.
It was a relaxed environment, I was in sales and marketing so no one cared what we did. My colleague and ‘mentor’ (ahem) showed me the comfortable kitchen where he poured his coffee and sat down with his newspaper, the Guardian.
I opened my Telegraph and he accused me of being a fascist. I had never read The Telegraph, nor the Guardian, so I hadn’t a clue what he was talking about. In fact, to be honest, then in my 30’s, I had barely read a newspaper as I found them utterly boring and prescriptive. I only bought the damn Telegraph because my father in law (former UN forester) read it, and I recognised it.
What struck me some years later when I was a bit wiser, is that the Guardian reader was a socialist, with a millionaire father. He and I left the company a year later (actually, we were both fired) and I persuaded him to start a business in competition with our former employers, which was a roaring success for a few years until the early 90’s recession when we went under.
Looking back, what struck me was that this ‘socialist’ was entirely focussed on profit during our business relationship. Our first company car was his Ford Fiesta, our next, a rather nice Mercedes. He never refused his turn at driving the Mercedes.
I rather resent him these days for his distorted politics.
The 86-year-old social scientist, Mayer Hillman, says a lot of things and is quoted a bunch for this blog post.
It doesn’t matter what he says … it is all a type of rationalization. Basically the guy now knows he has wasted his life and this last bunch of BS is his attempt to to further bury his subconscious realization that he was just a societal parasite.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qOwFVowEugQ
There’s a special area if Hell reserved for people who post nothing more than YouTube clips as comments. You know who you are.
Would that be right next to the place there for the people who only ever criticize and offer nothing constructive, helpful, illuminating, entertaining, or funny?
Your version of Hell must be brimful at this point…they best be working on a large expansion wing.
I know that corner of Hell! It’s right next to the Pop Machine that’s always out of everything but Sierra Mist.
~¿~
I’m with Andrew on this one. Once is ok, twice is meh, but this is ridiculous.
Oh, it is a rationalization alright. A rationalization for the introduction of the concept that Depopulation is a “moral” answer to the problem.
Don M,
Nail on head.
“It’s never too late to be what you could have been.” – George Eliot
Sadly, Mr. Hillman seems content to be what he always has been.
“I’m not going to write anymore because there’s nothing more that can be said,”
Translation: “I’m out of ideas so obviously the world is ending.”
Music for an immolation leaning greenie.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=deB_u-to-IE
A Senile social “scientist”.
How do you tell the difference?