Guest Opinion: Dr. Tim Ball
These opening comments will trigger knee-jerk responses from proponents of the human-caused global warming deception. Just saying President Trump is sufficient to trigger them. However, when I add that he handled the Lesley Stahl CBS interview well, the comments will appear without them reading any further. Poke them, and they blindly respond triggered by the tunnel-vision of political ideology and the source of their funding.
This article is a response to an interesting experience involving an article I wrote for WUWT. As most readers know, I rarely reply to comments and almost never go back to read my earlier articles. While preparing to produce another article I needed to confirm something from one of these articles. I was astonished to read that in response to a complaint from two researchers Anthony added a foreword to the article.
It is Anthony’s website, and he is entitled to control it however he chooses. Over the years there were several cases when he questioned, challenged, ask for a revision, or simply would not publish a comment. However, we always worked these out to our mutual satisfaction. One of the things I did to offset many of Anthony’s concerns was to place the qualifier “Guest Opinion” after each headline. Again, I am not challenging Anthony’s right to add the qualifier to the article in question. My concern is what triggered his action. I immediately recognized the technique used by the perpetrators and believe that everyone should understand what was done. Problems are only problems if you are unaware of them. That is also true about biases.
I am more than qualified to speak about this topic after 40 years of dealing with all types of media and people on all sides of an issue in a variety of formats from all over the world. Besides this university of the real world, I took courses in communication and media as part of officer training in the military and continued as a student and practitioner ever since. Clear patterns emerge, a few of which I discuss here, however, the overall pattern is that the mainstream media was unchanged for at least 236 years. It was and remains a vehicle for the power elite, as William Cowper’s 1782 poem The Progress of Error reveals.
How shall I speak of thee or thy power address,
The God of our idolatry, the press?
By thee, religion, liberty and laws
Exert their influence and advance their cause;
By thee worse plagues than Pharaoh’s land befell,
Diffused, make Earth the vestibule of Hell:
Thou fountain, at which drink the good and wise;
Thou ever-bubbling spring of endless lies;
Like Eden’s dead probationary tree,
Knowledge of good and evil is from thee!
What changed was the advent of the Internet that bypassed the mainstream media and gave ordinary citizens access to more information than many governments had in the past. It meant that people using the Internet developed the methods and tricks of the mainstream media. Change the word “press” in Cowper’s poem to the Internet, and you see what I mean.
I was part of a group gathered in Washington in November 2015 to talk about policy for climate and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) during a Trump Presidency. The consensus was that he should avoid making decisions based on bad science. It is bad science, but at least 80% of the public don’t understand any science; therefore, they cannot identify bad science. In addition, no matter how much you prepare, somebody will ask a question you can’t answer, and it only needs one. Instead, he should exit the Paris Climate Agreement because it is a bad deal and fits his main theme of improving or expunging them.
As the media loses its power and control over the information the people access most, they chose to become aggressive, uncivil, devious, and biased. I experienced it as they changed. It is telling that the FOX news slogan is “Fair and Balanced.” They did it because the competition was no longer fair and balanced. Of course, FOX only pays lip service to the idea by having a few token liberals in what are, from my observations, contrived and stupid.
The technique of mainstream media interviews was on full display in the Stahl interview. The interviewer begins by establishing a false premise, with a false fact, or a quote from a person who doesn’t know the subject. Stahl did it with the information about Greenland ice chunks breaking off and raising sea level. It is a technique used throughout the environmental and the human-caused global warming hysteria.
For example, Paul Ehrlich already established the false premise of overpopulation in his 1968 book The Population Bomb. In 1977, he followed it up in a book, “Ecoscience,” co-authored with John Holdren, Obama’s Science Advisor with proposals for mitigating the false problem. One proposal said,
Indeed, it has been concluded that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society.
That sounds reasonable on the face of it. However, you understand the deception when you ask questions that expose the technique.
- Who concluded that such laws were sustainable?
- Who decides there is a population crisis?
- Who decides when it endangers society.
In each case, the answer is, they do.
Maurice Strong and the creators of Agenda 21 introduced a similar technique when listing the Principles for that global policy document. It incorporated the most popular justification for action by environmentalists, namely the precautionary principle. If the facts are not available, then argue that we should act ‘just in case.’ Here it is as Principle 15.
In order to protect the environment, the precautionary approach shall be widely applied by States according to their capabilities. Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.
Again, it sounds reasonable, especially tot eh casual reader. The questions are
- Who decides the environment needs ‘protecting?’
- Who decides how to protect the environment?
- Who decides which States are capable?
- Who decides the level of capability?
- Who decides what are “serious threats”?
- Who decides when the damage is approaching an ability to reverse it?
- Who decides what is an appropriate level of “scientific certainty”?
- Who decides what “cost-effective” measures are?
Again, the answer is they do.
I quickly learned that the first thing you must do is question the false premise. This brings me to the issue that triggered this article. I went back to an article on the need to address the motive behind the AGW deception. I argued that once you get the public accepting that the idea that science was corrupted to produce a predetermined outcome. This involved narrowing the science through definitions and limitations of variables to a focus on CO2. After they accept these ideas, the next logical question is to ask about the motive? I pointed out in the article that in many recent media interviews this was one of the first questions.
Anybody who reads the comments about articles on WUWT knows the pattern of responses and the core of people and their positions. I know the comments that topics will elicit. The most predictable responses are whenever the question of motive is raised. The perpetrators and ongoing supporters of the AGW deception used it to push a socialist agenda.
The complaint from the two people appeared as an article titled “A big goose-step backward” and was referenced by Anthony at the beginning of my original article. I will not repeat their names, suffice to comment on the obvious bias because of their positions and funding, identified by several people in their comments. As Upton Sinclair said,
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” (I know it is sexist as stated but still applicable to all with salaries).
Their complaint was about the use of the word denier to describe those who questioned the IPCC science. It was in the context of the change from global warming skeptics to climate change deniers. I added, the phrase, with all the holocaust connotations of the word, hence the reference to goose-stepping. They began their complaint with establishing a false and emotional premise designed to marginalize any who might question their charge. They introduced the word “Nazi” followed by the claim I was debasing the entire debate. I never used the word “Nazi.” I referred to the use of the term because I lived through the evolution of the word denier in the climate debate. The term was deliberately and carefully chosen for precisely the connotation I gave it.
To understand the tenor and tone of what went on, consider Michael Mann’s comment in a 2004 email about the RealClimate website,
“…the important thing is to make sure they’re loosing (sic) the PR battle. That’s what the site is about.”
On that website, a 16 December 2004 entry asks,
“Is there really “consensus” in the scientific community on the reality of anthropogenic climate change?”
They provided their answer on 22 December 2004.
We’ve used the term “consensus” here a bit recently without ever really defining what we mean by it. In normal practice, there is no great need to define it – no science depends on it. But it’s useful to record the core that most scientists agree on, for public presentation. The consensus that exists is that of the IPCC reports, in particular the working group I report (there are three WG’s. By “IPCC”, people tend to mean WG I).
The second sentence is the key to their deceptive practices. They acknowledge that consensus does not apply to science, but then use it because it will deceive the public. And what is the consensus, on which they agree? The scientists at the IPCC agree, therefore there is a consensus.
In the same year, 2004, emails between “Nick” at the Minns/Tyndall Centre, the group involved in handling PR for the people at the Climatic Research Unit (CRU), identified their dilemma. He wrote,
“In my experience, global warming freezing is already a bit of a public relations problem with the media.”
Swedish alarmist and climate expert on the IPCC, Bo Kjellen replied,
“I agree with Nick that climate change might be a better labelling than global warming.”
In that year, across the media, the term global warming was replaced by the term climate change, when talking about the work of the IPCC and the threat to the world. However, they didn’t leave it there. Global Warming Skeptics became Climate Change Deniers. Why make that change? The switch from Global Warming was necessary to hide the fact that their theory no longer matched the evidence. It would have been reasonable to simply call those who continued to question the science, Climate Change Skeptics, but they decided not to do that.
The answer to that question involves the nature of another debate on the front page at the time, namely the battles with David Irving, renowned Holocaust denier. He went to trial in 2001 and was sentenced and jailed in 2006. If you are interested, the recreation of the events and entire trial were portrayed in a movie called “Denial.”
The motive behind the entire misuse of climate for a political agenda was to create a world government. Maurice Strong made that clear to Elaine Dewar who concluded after five days with him at the UN and hearing him explain his goals that,
“Strong was using the U.N. as a platform to sell a global environment crisis and the Global Governance Agenda.”
If you are not convinced that the people at the CRU would connive and manipulate both the science and the people, go and read the leaked emails. On the back of their book, Crutapes” Mosher and Fuller summarized them for you,
- Actively worked to evade (Steve) Mcintyre’s Freedom of Information requests, deleting emails, documents, and even climate data
- Tried to corrupt the peer-review principles that are the mainstay of modern science, reviewing each other’s’ work, sabotaging efforts of opponents trying to publish their own work, and threatening editors of journals who didn’t bow to their demands
- Changed the shape of their own data in materials shown to politicians charged with changing the shape of our world, ‘hiding the decline’ that showed their data could not be trusted.
If you don’t think the fight is political with all the accompanying nastiness, lies, and deceits, then ask yourself why, if you accept the theory of AGW you are liberal and informed. However, if you question at all, you are conservative and uninformed, regardless of your actual political views. It is the nature of the left to attack the individual in the vilest ways possible and without any evidence. It is their nature to isolate those who dare to question their orthodoxy.
No, I will not be bullied by those with a political agenda and vested interests. I stand by my comment about the connotations of the use of the phrase holocaust deniers. Besides, I lived through the war in England and know what the Germans did.
I suggest replacing the header cartoon with this video. It more accurately portrays the warmist methodology.
Well I read Tim’s original article and the rebuttal from Betts and Edwards, and I couldn’t see anywhere where he was comparing Cagwaggers to Nazis. He was comparing their use of propaganda, which is not the same thing. At all.
The Third Reich was the first to use audio and visual propaganda (radio and cinema) in a serious way, and look how effective it was. They were certainly not the last, although they were definitely near the top of the list in terms of using it to control a whole population. The ruling dynasty in Pyonyang has manged to bamboozle an entire nation for decades, even in the era of internet and mobile phones.
What makes the climate industry so unique is that they don’t actually control the media. They don’t need to. The media are controlled by fellow travellers. The bulk of media outlets in print, TV and radio just lap up the propaganda and have even invented a new twist (all by their very own selves!) on climate hype – using predictions from anyone claiming to be an expert, about temperatures, wind speeds etc. that MIGHT happen in the near future (“50°C is predicted for Spain next Saturday” or “Hurricane Michael might be a Cat 6 when it hits” – you recall those, right?). Thereby making sure the “unprecedented” and “extreme weather” numbers are imprinted in the public’s minds even when Ma Nature doesn’t collaborate.
And politicians suck it up too, and jump on the band waggon. The juggernaut rolls on relentlessly. The only thing standing in its way now is public apathy as the warnings get more dire and the “remedies” get more extreme – while they look out the window and it doesn’t look much different from the way it did in 1968. And the present U.S. administration of course, bless his tiny heart.
Tim – Dr. Ball – please proof read your next article before you post it. Printing it on paper and reading through it – the next day – is a great way to find errors in wording and gaps in your argument. I say this as a great admirer. And a former Manitoban to boot!
Great comment Smart Rock.
From the article: “In the same year, 2004, emails between “Nick” at the Minns/Tyndall Centre, the group involved in handling PR for the people at the Climatic Research Unit (CRU), identified their dilemma. He wrote,
“In my experience, global warming freezing is already a bit of a public relations problem with the media.”
Swedish alarmist and climate expert on the IPCC, Bo Kjellen replied,
“I agree with Nick that climate change might be a better labelling than global warming.”
In that year, across the media, the term global warming was replaced by the term climate change,”
I found this interesting. That’s the first time I have seen a date put on the name usage change. I’m not saying I doubt it, I’ve just never seen a specific date ascribed to it.
“It is the nature of the left to attack the individual in the vilest ways possible and without any evidence.”
It is the nature of Dr. Ball to make sweeping generalizations about those on the left and support his blanket vilification of them with a few tired old stories. A remark about Maurice Strong proves that all liberals want a global socialist government. Climategate (and the accompanying misinterpretation of the emails) proves that all climate scientists are liars and frauds. Paul Ehrlich proves that the left will do anything to control population. (Come on, really? Paul Ehrlich? How many times do we have to hear about his 50-year-old ideas? Dr. Ball must have forgotten to include Rachel Carson and the DDT ban.)
Dr. Ball’s pervasive, persistent bias should itself be a warning sign that he thinks emotionally rather than rationally and cannot conceive of individual variation in ideas, integrity and motives. His rants are simply the flip side of liberal propaganda about the right. Those who can’t see this are being sucked in, just as alarmists are sucked in by Al Gore’s propaganda.
All people are subject to bias and manipulation. All of us! Myself included! It takes being aware of this to try to combat it. It’s hard, I know from personal experience, especially because so much of it affects our unconscious. I call on all of us to try to be aware of attempts to manipulate. Be skeptical of generalizations and assumptions about groups of people and their motives.
Ask yourself, what is Dr. Ball’s point in writing all this?
“The perpetrators and ongoing supporters of the AGW deception used it to push a socialist agenda.” This is just a flat-out lie. There is no evidence. Maurice Strong, whatever his views, does not speak for the hundreds of thousands who believe that AGW is a threat.
“Socialism” has lost all meaning in the post-Soviet world. Wanting coal emissions regulated does not make one a socialist. Saying there is an enormous and unhealthy disparity in wealth and income in the U.S. does not make one a socialist. Wanting to help people in developing world increase their resilience to extreme weather does not make one a socialist.
Wanting state ownership of production makes one a socialist. Who is pushing for that?
Kristi Silber wrote:
“Wanting state ownership of production makes one a socialist. Who is pushing for that?”
Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Waters:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_93SldBytjE
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ND_0gDTKidc
If “capitalism will not always exist in the world”, per Ocasio-Cortez… what are they planning on replacing it with? Hmmm?
Democrat Barack Hussein Obama (who endorsed socialist Ocasio-Cortez):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70IV0FyGgrY
51% of ALL Democrats aged 18-29, per the Gallup Poll:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRNUfpoq0-M
You democrats are playing with fire, and you’re too naive and uneducated to understand that you’re standing on a massive powder-keg while doing so. We have real-time examples of the horrors that socialism wreaks upon a society in the form of North Korea and Venezuela. We’ll soon have a similar example from South Africa, if the ruling party actually carries through with its cull.
We’ve fought world wars to stop this kind of madness, yet you simpletons cheerfully embrace it… that says something about you, none of it good.
Think about it… even in a fully socialist society, they still have what? MONEY. Because socialism merely preys upon the capitalism which underlies a functional society. It does so by exploiting a resource abundance built up via capitalism (whatever that abundance may be… some countries got rich via capitalism because of a resource abundance of wood, some of oil, some of technology, some of cropland)… and socialism always implodes when that resource abundance runs out, whereupon in the vast majority of cases, the socialists turn to exploiting the one resource which never runs out… the people.
Now think about it, Kristi… what “resource abundance” does the US currently have? We’ve got unfunded liabilities of $115,207,888,781,720 ($115 trillion) and counting; we’ve nearly depleted our oil fields, the majority of coal is mined elsewhere, the majority of rare earth and other scarce metals are mined elsewhere, we currently have a lot of natural gas but that’s not easily shipped… what “resource abundance” other than the people are the US socialists going to exploit?
Socialists seek to establish a two-tiered society… the rich and untouchable leaders, and the hoi-polloi who suffer destitution and enslavement by their leaders.
Of course, to accomplish that, it must be done at the barrel of a gun. Which is why socialism has killed more than 100 million people in the past century alone.
USSR: 20 million deaths
China: 65 million deaths
Vietnam: 1 million deaths
North Korea: 2 million deaths
Cambodia: 2 million deaths
Eastern Europe: 1 million deaths
Latin America: 150,000 deaths
Africa: 1.7 million deaths
Afghanistan: 1.5 million deaths
The international Communist movement and Communist parties not in power: about 10,000 deaths.
“Socialism” has NOT “lost all meaning in the post-Soviet world”… it gained a very clear meaning. Socialism is the precursor to communism, socialism is incrementally advanced by deception and subterfuge, whereas communism is advanced at the barrel of a gun.
Why do you think your socialist comrades are trying so hard to get the 2nd amendment repealed? Because one cannot enslave an armed populace.
“The difference between communism and socialism is that under socialism central planning ends with a gun in your face, whereas under communism central planning begins with a gun in your face.” – Kevin D. Williamson, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Socialism
“The goal of socialism is communism.” – Vladimir Lenin
Grow up and stop drinking the libtard Kool-Ade. You’re part of the problem, and your ilk are leading the world toward a very dangerous place.
“Socialists seek to establish a two-tiered society… the rich and untouchable leaders, and the hoi-polloi who suffer destitution and enslavement by their leaders.”
Get a clue, Kook, the US already has a 2 tier society. What rock have you been living under?
Chris, your tone suggests you (and probably Kristi) are millennials whose frame of reference is the “History of Now.”
Yes, there are two tiers in a Capitalist society. What differentiates millionaires and billionaires in the US vs those in Cuba or Venezuela is that many (Zuckerberg, Gates et al) were at the bottom rung 10 or 20 years ago. The ability for anyone to rise to the top is a feature of a capitalist society.
My guess is that it is probably useless to explain to you that Bill Gates accumulating another million has absolutely no negative impact on me; there is not a corresponding group of people who are suddenly a million dollars poorer. The corollary is that there is nothing inherently wrong with a disparity of wealth and income; other than the emotional response of “….it’s so UNFAIR!!”
It is only a “2 tier society” to those such as yourself who tacitly admit you don’t have the drive, education and vision to go out and do for yourself.
That’s why the progressives of the democrat party attract such blatantly obvious losers. They know they can’t stand on their own, so they want a nanny-state to take care of them. {spit}
Grow up, grow a pair, stand up and start taking care of yourself, SnowFlake. Life’s not fair, deal with that reality as you will… but don’t expect those who produce to carry your mooching lazy bum ilk.
Our fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers didn’t work, fight, bleed and die just so you useless lot could throw it all away on an already-tried and utterly-failed political ideology which will only end up putting those clamoring for it in such a destitute condition that they’ll never get out of it, even if they ever grew up enough to want to.
Have you traveled to Venezuela to get a first-hand take on exactly what you idiots are cheering for? I suggest you do so before you spout more nonsense.
From Chris: “the US already has a 2 tier society”
The tiers you refer to are Democrat politicians, who are above the law, and the rest of us, who are not?
Chris wrote “the US already has a 2 tier society.”
Would you be referring to above-the-law Democrat politicians as one tier, and the rest of us as the other tier?
“Which is why socialism has killed more than 100 million people in the past century alone.”
You forgot the millions of people (mostly children (where’s Nancy Pelosi when you need her?)) who died from Malaria as a direct result of Socialist junk science banning the use of DDT.
I also didn’t mention the 50 some-odd million who’ve been aborted, the abortion industry started by, currently funded (via taxpayer funds) by and shilled for by the democrats… and that’s just in the US… worldwide you’re looking at nearly a quarter billion.
The modern abortion industry was started by Margaret Sanger (the America Birth Control League, which was forced to change its name to Planned Parenthood after its ties to Nazi Germany’s vicious eugenics programs against Jews were revealed), a racist kook who gave speeches at KKK rallies (the KKK being the paramilitary arm of the Democrat party at the time to violently oppose the civil rights laws being put forth by the Republicans) and spoke frequently about “race improvement” by the elimination of those races she deemed to be “human weeds”.
Eugenic Scientists from Nazi Germany wrote articles for Sanger’s ‘Birth Control Review’ newsletter, and members of Sanger’s American Birth Control League visited Nazi Germany, sat in on sessions of the Supreme Eugenics Court, and returned with glowing reports of how the Sterilization Law was “weeding out the worst strains in the Germanic stock in a scientific and truly humanitarian way”.
“We don’t want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population…”
— Letter to eugenicist Dr. Clarence J. Gamble, December 10, 1939, p. 2
“I accepted an invitation to talk to the women’s branch of the Ku Klux Klan… I was escorted to the platform, was introduced, and began to speak…In the end, through simple illustrations I believed I had accomplished my purpose. A dozen invitations to speak to similar groups were proffered.” — Margaret Sanger, An Autobiography, published in 1938, p. 366
These are the same kinds of kooks we’re still dealing with today, except they’ve glommed onto the CAGW scam as the vehicle to push their insanity because no one would stand for the outright racism they used in the past.
It isn’t necessary for the state to own the means of production to achieve a quasi-socialist state. The US left employs a kind of approach similar to Italian fascism. Mussolini—a dedicated socialist—changed his approach and adapted fascism to the Italian nation in the 20’s.
Fascism retains the illusion of private ownership while utterly controlling and milking businesses and even private property through excessive regulation and taxation. The end result is the same—a collectivism where real private property rights are trampled and the state is all powerful.
In the 20’s Mussolini employed a kind of militaristic nationalism, focused on Ethiopia, and on domestic deniers of the truth, as defined by Mussolini. He also attacked socialists and communists, but that was only because they were a threat, being competitors in the same arena.
“A difference which makes no difference is no difference”
“accompanying misinterpretation of the emails” Haha!
Okay, tell me how the following was ‘misinterpreted:
– “I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow — even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!”
– “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t… Our observing system is inadequate”
– “I will be emailing the journal to tell them I’m having nothing more to do with it until they rid themselves of this troublesome editor.”
– “Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4? Keith will do likewise.”
Andrew,
No, I will not waste my time getting involved in a debate about Climategate. There is plenty of evidence online about how many of the emails have been misinterpreted if you’re willing to look.
And by the way, I’m not saying that all of them were misinterpreted. Some were very unprofessional.
If by “were very unprofessional” you mean “displayed a callous disregard for the truth and the scientific method, exhibited blatantly obvious manipulation of the data, used outright lies to fraudulently obtain public grant money, attempted to hide any evidence of their wrongdoing, and attempted to shield their manipulated ‘data’ from public scrutiny which resulted in them discarding reams of raw data rather than cop to their scam”.
ClimateGate 1.0, ClimateGate 2.0 and ClimateGate 3.0 has really set you Klimate Katastrophe Kooks back on your heels, eh? Even you have to backpedal a bit and admit (in as minimizing a manner as you’re able) to the scam.
Not necessarily, but wanting EVERYTHING regulated does make you a socialist.
Actually, it does.
That depends on how you propose to “increase their resilience.” If you propose to do that by regulation and other forms of state control, then, YES, it does make you a socialist. If you propose to do that by increasing their standard of living so that they can afford better housing and better transportation of their choice, then it does not make you a socialist.
That is a straw man. Socialists are quite flexible. They will permit the ilusion of ownership of production as long as they retain CONTROL of production. It is all about central control. I would also make reference to the comment of others about this statement.
Didn’t Paul Ehrlich and his 50 year old ideas recently get inducted into the Royal Society?
Didn’t Obama pick his Ehrlich’s co-author to be his Science Advisor?
Look at any picture of a rally in favor of Combating Climate change (or the recent “Marches for Science”). See the posters and banners in the background? Who are the “sister groups” who arrive in support of that rally? Who is PAYING for those demonstrations? (Hint: they are not Conservatives.)
We have always had “extreme weather” across the Globe and it has been the developed nations who have historically provided disaster relief to those areas. Nothing whatsoever to do with provably false assertions that floods, hurricanes, wildfire are caused by anthropogenic driven CO2.
Paul Ehrlich did some very influential work on population biology, and it is for that he was inducted into the Royal Society. But the only thing most laymen know about him was for his extreme views about human population growth, and that is used endlessly to cast scientists as kooks.
“Didn’t Obama pick his Ehrlich’s co-author to be his Science Advisor?”
I don’t know, did he? So what?
There’s funding for demonstrations? Really? Amazing. Heritage Foundation, CEI, Marshall Institute etc. and their talks, conferences, papers, spokesmen and lobbying are paid for by passing the hat, I suppose?
Kristi, John Holdren was both Erhlich’s co-author and Obama’s science adviser. Obama showed rather bad judgement in choosing someone who had made ridiculously wrong predictions and never apologized for his errors.
All of you,
I’m not a millennial.
I’m a capitalist.
The “socialism” of today’s Americans is washed-out pseudo-socialism that is nothing like real Marxist-Leninist socialism. People call is socialism because there is no proper term for what they want. They just reject capitalism…for now. Give them a chance to climb the economic ladder and most of them will abandon their rebellious ways.
I know plenty of liberals, and none of them are socialists. It’s pathetic to equate liberalism with socialism.
Kristi, one issue is that Marx did not originate socialism, but Marxists act as if he did. Socialism has been around as an organized philosophy since the French Revolution.
Most “progressives” act as if they are using neo-Marxist models of economics and society, reifiing social/economic classes.
Most of the Nordic countries are socialist, it has a very specific meaning which you seem ill informed on you equate it to communism .. here try reading and learning because you are very naive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_model
This is relevant to your comment above
So do you see above someone called you a socialist, you claimed you weren’t as someone pointed out sorry your statement makes you one. Now above you were also okay with democracy so now we can put you in a precise group.
You believe in a social democracy from your statements, that is your political leaning.
Kristi Silber wrote:
“Give them a chance to climb the economic ladder and most of them will abandon their rebellious ways.”
One is not “given” a chance to climb the economic ladder… one TAKES the chance to climb the economic ladder.
You’ve tacitly shown your true colors, Kristi. You are no capitalist. Stop attempting to mind-herd the sheeple to the shearing station by pretending to be ‘lead sheep’… no one is buying it.
And your claim that you are not a Millennial means you should be old enough (and therefore wise enough) to know better than to defend the insanity on the left, yet here you are.
On several occassions on the web and as well in my books and articles, I requested the authors not to use climate change as proxy of global warming. When you are talking of temperature, refer it as global warming, when you are referring climate — rainfall, trend in temperature [global warming is only a part of the trend]., refer it by climate change. However, hundreds of papers speeches refer climate change as an adjective only as the subject matter is not really relevant to climate or climate change. High prifile scientists, politicians followed this path.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
You should also keep in mind that another of the tactics of the socialists is to appear to be appeasing toward dissension, which is why they agreed to that “productive dinner at Nic Lewis’s place” and “agreed on the need to depolarise and detoxify the climate discussion”… they have no intention on halting their shilling for enslavement of the world populace, they merely want the other side to agree to take it a bit easier on how they word the process of enslavement.
Give them no quarter, spare them no mercy. All socialists should be weak, broke and running scared. They’ve killed hundreds of millions of people over just the past century, their ideas have never worked anywhere they’ve been attempted, and they’re just insane and stupid enough to think that if they just get the ‘right people’ in power, that those ‘right people’ will somehow buck the odds and resist the old adage “Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely”.
Barack Hussein Obama, a member of the New Party Socialists (an offshoot of the Democratic Socialists of America party) during his 1996 Senate run:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EujKIRsFS54
Democratic Socialists used to be known as communists before they ‘re-branded’.
socialism, communism, fascism, progressivism are all collectivist approaches to government. They all minimize or completely eliminate the concept of individual liberty in the name of the ‘people’. Of course they are little different than an openly self-centered dictator in practice. But they build in a kind of sanctimony by pretending what they do is for the people.
Excellent explanation, M_S_.
No matter what you call it, we have to guard against the Elites taking over our society and running it the way *they* want it run, regardless of what the people want. Authoritarianism.
The Socialists in the United States like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and their minions want a Chinese-style government, where a small percentage of rich, and elite people run the country and the rest of the population goes along with it, or else.
Conservatives want to be governed by the U.S. Constitution, not by thoroughly deluded Democrat authoritarian elites who think they know better than everyone else. Democracy is an impediment to them. As demonstrated by their recent attempts to smear Trump before he was elected and to oust or neutralize Trump now that he is elected, and used the Power of the State to go after Trump and undermine the democratic process. This is what dictators and authoritarians do. They will take away our free speech and eventually our freedoms if they are given the power to do so.
Don’t vote for a Democrat if you value your freedom..
The history of AGW has gone from maybe they are wrong to outright fraud in many people’s minds. AGW in their arguments have cemented very firmly that, it’s not just bad science, AGW is using bad science in a fraudulent way. It’s a big change. AGW has become the big lie.
Further the American party ( the Democratic party) that endorses the objectives of AGW has on a wide scale basis become known as ‘ you vote for them, you’re voting for communism ‘. They might say, ‘well that’s just where you are or your small circle of friends’ … much like any weather event proves global warming, ‘ it’s only where you are that’s its cold, the rest of the planet has a fever’ …… no it’s something I overhear everywhere.
Hopefully enough people won’t be deluded by AGW propaganda when a mainstream American party embraces communism. Communists purge their own party first. The so called scientists pushing this agenda, unless they become Chairman, will be discredited in some way and eliminated. Are you listening Mann, Hansen or Gore? Or the multitude of hangers ons that have absolutely no hope of achieving any status whatsoever. Read Mao’s little red book? Before you are eliminated you’ll have to write a 50 page confession of your sins, because we all know there is a little denier in us all. Driving that car? Flying off to a meeting in your private jet? Using fossil fuel to heat your house? …. Communism is hell on earth……
lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.
It could be turned 180 degreees, asking if the measures they plan could do any harm.
None of the proposed measures are cost effective.
Let me play devil’s advocate for a second regarding the so-called Precautionary Principle:
Would a reasonable person purchase insurance against a theoretical threat? If the premium is very low, then a reasonable person might very well do so without weighing the cost of the premium vs the expected cost of the theoretical risk. If the premium is not very low, then a reasonable person would weigh the cost of the premium vs. the real expected cost of the risk. I would argue that requiring the wealthy of the world to invest many trillions of dollars on purely theoretical grounds to mitigate or avoid a risk that is not certain to exist is NOT the application of the Precautionary Principal. If I can purchase a car that emits far less CO2 for a very similar amount than a car that emits far more CO2, why not? That is the proper application of the Precautionary Principle. However, when the car that supposedly emits far less CO2 is much more costly than similarly performing vehicles (i.e. a Tesla), why would a reasonable person do that? A reasonable person wouldn’t. Hence, the totalitarian approach of forcing people to do so, because otherwise they wouldn’t.
Phil,
If environmentalists and, by extension, climate alarmists were really supportive of the Precautionary Principle, they would be demanding that an all-out, Apollo-like program, to neutralize large asteroids, be instituted. The fact that they are not, shows how logically inconsistent they are. After all, an impact by a large asteroid is a small-probability event, with uncertain but potentially high-impact consequences, just like catastrophic global warming.
Phil. You are not using the “Precautionary Principle” but plain old utilitarian benefit-cost calculation.
“Sustainability” is a buzzwork the Moronial Gen loves. But in reality, environmental science has not progressed beyond old-fashioned utilitarian economic practices. Thus, QED.
You are correct, but not the reasons you have claimed.
Excellent column.
The wonderful marketplace of ideas that WUWT represents is quite rare. There is a risk that this marketplace of ideas will degenerate into a chaotic system with two attractors: Democrats vs. Republicans or Conservatives vs Liberals or similar. These characterizations are sometimes not accurate or no longer represent what they once did. Members of the Democrat Party are often characterized as liberal, yet repudiating the concept of the presumption of innocence, for example, is quite illiberal. The United States has distinguished itself as opposing totalitarianism without regard to origin: Monarchism (the Revolutionary War), Totalitarianism of the Right (WW2), Totalitarianism of the Left (The Cold War), and so on. It is clear now that the IPCC and others belonging to the Climate Change orthodoxy have a very totalitarian approach to dissent. Maintaining an anti-totalitarian approach to those with whom one may disagree I would suggest is the best way to oppose this form of totalitarianism.
The precautionary principle would have you cut off the leg to save the foot.
The precautionary principle would have you treat everyone with a mole for cancer, in case the mole becomes cancerous.
The precautionary principle is a classic scam/fallacy that takes on many forms.
“Fire Insurance” . Go to church (and give them money) even if you are an atheist. A few thousand dollars saved in this life are not worth an eternity of damnation if you happen to be wrong.
“Chain Letter” . Please send $10 to the address below and forward this letter to 5 other people. Be warned that several people who have fails to do this have died unexpectedly.
“Lottery”. I don’t mind paying $5 for a (losing) lottery ticket if I have the chance to win $10 million (on a lottery that pays out 50%
“Angelina Jolie”. No need to elaborate any further.
“I agree with Nick that climate change might be a better labelling than global warming.” This is why I respond: “Do you mean Co2 induced climate change?” Or: “Do you mean Co2 induced Global warming?” Then I ask “Do you understand the hypotheses?” Next: I ask “Please explain it to me.”
The key problem is that going from AGW skeptic to Climate Change Denier is a new pernicious for of the Straw man Fallacy.
As an AGW sceptic, I am willing to entertain that CO2 emissions may cause an increase in temperature. However, as Freeman Dyson puts it, the point is a) how much b) is it beneficial or harmful.
The problem with replacing AGW sceptic with Climate Change Denier is problematical. Whereas AGW is a clearly defined scientific concept, Climate Change Denier is not.
What part of Climate Change is being denied? Climate changes occur naturally. It has yet to established that CO2 emissions cause any climate change.
The set of Climate Change deniers on this site is the empty set.
The precautionary principle as a fundamental legal principle, was promoted by former French President Nicolas Sarkozy (UMP = “conservative” party).
Now it’s a “constitutional” principle. I could be invoked to force the State to do stuff. I have no f… idea how that would WORK in PRACTICE.
Just been reading the comments. There was talk about Liberal policy basically destroying lower socio- economic society thru the use of becoming a VICTIM. Fascinating how this mindset trashed DETROIT from one of the most liveable cities in the world to the ghetto it is now. You would think some of the imbeciles running the show must have heard Elvis singing “In the Ghetto”. A rather moving song that obviously didn’t resonate in Detroit!
In Australia we call our two useless major political parties Liberal and Labor. (Republican and Democrat). As you get older and more cynical you begin to realise that the main game is about them – media, polling etc. Our local Labor (working/socialist) Party has systematically stuffed up the Public Health system, let our mental folk walk the streets, destroyed social housing, blew up the last Coal Fired (cheap electricity) Power station – causing 50,000 poorer families to have their power cut off and yes live in the dark . This is South Australia a first world city with fine dining , coffee and cafes everywhere, magnificent golden sandy beaches, clean air, so many wineries I’ve lost track, bike tracks that go for miles, rolling green hills – a Central Market in the middle of the city chock full of fresh food and cheap delicious food. Yet due to the incompetence of our elected elite ( with a weird social or antisocial agenda all about saving the planet) we have the most expensive electricity (and Gas) in the world. Not to mention we are the Meth capital of the world. Go Adelaide!!!!
All this goes on because downunder few people give a shit or say there is nothing I can do. This is because we are or were the lucky country. As someone said in a post that the developing countries are all coal fired power (Aussie coal) and seem exempt from the CO2 nonsense let me say there is nothing developing about China. They are buying anything in Australia that isn’t nailed down. They also send in thousands of shipping containers of crap (wiring that catches on fire. cladding that burns people to death and shit loads of shoes and clothes and toasters etc.)
John of Adelaide
PS I’m learning Mandarin or moving to somewhere like Zanzibar that everyone has heard of but no-one knows exactly where it is!
“In conclusion, it must be acknowledged that green is the new red. Oh yes, without any doubt. And that is why the General Secretary of the Communist Party Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, has become the head of Green Cross International. It is why the most highly placed Kremlin agents in America support global warming.”
http://jrnyquist.com/green-is-the-new-red.html
What I really like is how 99.99% of college graduates don’t know where oxygen comes from. Virtually everyone answers “from plants”.
The same people complaing there is too much carbon dioxide, don’t know that oxygen comes from carbon dioxide, which comes (mostly) from volcanic activity. If you reduce carbon dioxide, you also reduce oxygen. The more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the faster plants grow, and the more oxygen is produced.
Why do we need more oxygen (and carbon dioxide)? Because every year the solar wind blows away tons of Earth’s atmosphere. Ultimately, carbon dioxide emissions is what sustains life on this planet.
The same scientists telling us carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas are also telling us vehicle emissions through hydrogen use, (and more efficient hydrocarbon use) should be water vapor.
You know what the most powerful greenhouse gas on the planet is? Water vapor.
So the scientists howling about carbon dioxide emissions “changing the climate” want to replace it with the much more powerful greenhouse gas water vapor.
And they call the people questioning their junk science “climate change deniers”.
I have never once run across a hard core global warming advocate that knew where oxygen came from when asked, and I ask every time.
That’s a very good point… mind if I steal that for the next time I get into a contentious (because they’re always contentious) ‘discussion’ with a science-denying Klimate Katastrophe Kook?
{Yes, the three ‘K’s are a double entendre… historically accurate given that the KKK was the paramilitary arm of the democrat party for use in violently opposing the civil rights legislation being put forth at that time by the Republicans… today’s democrats are just as exclusionary and elitist as their forebears, they’re just better at hiding it behind a veil of well-intentioned-sounding verbiage. They went from exploiting blacks on plantations to exploiting black on “The Farm” (what the democrats call their vote-pandering machine because calling it “The Plantation” would have been too obvious).}