Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Guardian environment editor Damian Carrington wants to pin nasty labels on people who disagree with his views on climate change. But in my opinion Carrington is doing a disservice to his readers, by leaving out a few inconvenient truths.
The four types of climate denier, and why you should ignore them all
Damian Carrington @dpcarrington
Thu 30 Jul 2020 21.10 AESTThe shill, the grifter, the egomaniac and the ideological fool: each distorts the urgent global debate in their own way.
Anew book, described as “deeply and fatally flawed” by an expert reviewer, recently reached the top of Amazon’s bestseller list for environmental science and made it into a weekly top 10 list for all nonfiction titles.
How did this happen? Because, as Brendan Behan put it, “there’s no such thing as bad publicity”. In an article promoting his book, Michael Shellenberger – with jaw-dropping hubris – apologises on behalf of all environmentalists for the “climate scare we created over the last 30 years”.
…
But the deniers are not all the same. They tend to fit into one of four different categories: the shill, the grifter, the egomaniac and the ideological fool.
The shill is the easiest to understand. He, and it almost always is he, is paid by vested interests to emit clouds of confusion about the science or economics of climate action. This uncertainty creates a smokescreen behind which polluters can lobby against measures that cut their profits.
A sadder case is that of the grifters. They have found themselves earning a living by grinding out contrarian articles for rightwing media outlets. Do they actually believe the guff they write? It doesn’t matter: they just warm their hands on the outrage, count the clicks and wait for the pay cheque.
The egomaniacs are also tragic figures. They are disappointed, frustrated people whose careers have stalled and who can’t understand why the world refuses to give full reverence to their brilliance. They are desperate for recognition, and, when it stubbornly refuses to arrive, they are drawn to make increasingly extreme pronouncements, in the hope of finally being proved a dogma-busting, 21st-century Galileo.
The ideological fool is the fourth type of climate denier, and they can be intelligent. But they are utterly blinded by their inane, no-limits version of the free-market creed. The climate emergency requires coordinated global action, they observe, and that looks horribly like communism in disguise.
…
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/30/climate-denier-shill-global-debate
Guardian Environment Editor Damian Carrington likely hopes if you accept his caricatures, you will ignore what climate skeptics have to say. Because there are climate skeptics who make alarmists really uncomfortable;
The scientists – people like solar physicist Dr. Willie Soon, award winning meteorologist Dr. Fred Singer, Dr. Roy Spencer and Dr. John Christy, who received NASA’s Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal for their global temperature monitoring work with satellites, Freeman Dyson, a polymath and giant of the Quantum Physics world, and Edward Teller, father of the Hydrogen Bomb, one of the greatest physicists of the 20th century, all of whom dismiss the assertion we face any kind of imminent climate crisis.
The geologists – scientists like Ian Plimer, who reveal that rather than facing a CO2 crisis, the Earth is currently in a state of CO2 starvation, as we endure the ongoing Quaternary Ice Age, a period comparable to the Karoo (360–260 Ma), Andean-Saharan (450–420 Ma), Cryogenian (720–635 Ma) and Huronian (2,400–2,100 Ma) ice ages of the distant past.
The engineers – the people who demolish innumerate claims that renewable energy is any kind of answer to the world’s energy needs. Even a top engineering team from über alarmist Google concluded renewables simply won’t work.
And its not just skeptics who criticise the push for renewables; Former NASA GISS Director James Hansen, whose 1988 testimony before Congress pretty much started the modern climate movement, claims renewables cannot solve the world’s energy problems fast enough to avert a climate crisis.
The ecologists – people who are slowly waking up that any serious attempt to switch the world to renewable energy will devastate what remains of the world’s wildernesses.
The film producers – people like Michael Moore, who shocked political fellow travellers with his ground breaking expose of the failures of renewable energy.
The economists – people like Bjørn Lomborg who accept global warming claims, but point out efforts to address the alleged climate crisis would do more damage than the projected harm from unchecked global warming.
The alarmist climate scientists themselves, with their nature tricks and bullying of editors who allowed critical papers to be published, who ignored substantial evidence given to them by colleagues that the past was warmer than today, all revealed in Climategate.
Guardian editor Damian Carrington could have mentioned all these people and many others, and tried to build a reasoned case for why you should ignore them all – an exceptionally difficult case.
But even listing these skeptic groups, let along describing their work, might have raised doubts in the minds of Carrington’s readers. In an age when British Academics demand critics of climate action be silenced, perhaps Carrington feels justified in his own mind only telling his side of the story.
Update (EW): Added geologists (h/t John Karajas).
Oh yeah? There is only one type of Damian Carrington. Know what I mean?
Stupid me. The title to the above article starts with these two words “The Guardian”.
I should have known to stop reading right then and there.
I had my second chance upon seeing the body text begin with “Guardian environment editor Damian Carrington . . .”
Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.
I would break down the “deniers” as such:
1) That that have learned to distrust group think and recognize propaganda when they see it
2) Those that simply deny humans are capable of destroying the world – it’s arrogant to think we could
3) Those that know science intimately and know pseudo-science when they see it
4) Those that know computer modeling intimately and realize what modern day climatologists are trying to do is not possible
5) Those that watch the data collection closely and know how badly it it being manipulated
One can be a hybrid of any of the above. We used to call these people things like Naturalists and Scientists, but now scorn them as impediments to instigating progressive change for the good of the people. This is what usually happens just before a culture collapses into socialism.
We can blame the modern school systems for this – they have transformed from teaching to indoctrination.
Those that know some history…
Here’s a good article on windmills, showing just how costly they are to the public:
https://nypost.com/2020/07/30/offshore-wind-power-vast-boondoggle-that-ny-can-no-longer-afford/
and here’s another:
https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/offshore-wind-power-cheap-subsidies-uk-energy-climate-a9640371.html
Predicting offshore wind power ‘so cheap it could return money to consumers’
Well Griff, I just know that whilst the wholsale value of electricity is around 4p a unit from coal, gas, nuclear or hydro – or even imported from France – somehow my supplier charges me near enough 4 times that.
30 years ago it was only 50% more.
In the climate change business Griff, this is what is known as ‘a good correlation’ – between renewable energy penetration and retail energy costs.
And of course it takes holistic effects into account – the ones the renewable lobby conveniently ignores.
You seem obsessed with wind Griff. Have you considered changing your diet?
Don’t say that, he will eat even more baked beans. !
As it is, all he ever blows is foul air !
Alas, as one grows older the delicious bean wreaks ever more havoc…
I’ll believe that when it happens. Not holding my breath.
If windpower is so cheap, why does it need government subsidy?
In the UK offshore wind no longer requires subsidy…
https://www.taylorhopkinson.com/subsidy-free-uk-offshore-wind/
“The CfD allocation is great news but we recognise the challenge this will bring to the supply chain to support the cost pressures. We don’t under-estimate the important role we play in supporting our clients across the full project life cycle to try and ensure the best value for money and reducing costs where possible.”
From the link. Doesn’t sound terribly confident to me.
How many Solar Power farms said that same thing and how many went bankrupt?
I remember when you used to say the same thing about those solar farms, do you want me to go back and link your comments?
Downer group the largest large scale solar player in Australia has pulled out of the industry this year because of $1.8B in losses.
https://www.pv-magazine-australia.com/2020/02/12/downer-exits-australian-solar-sector-as-risks-pile-up/
If you can’t make large scale solar work in Australia good luck making it work anywhere.
Ignoring the cost of intermittency, the integration into the grid and all the massive environmental degradation in China in their manufacture and mining of the rare earths needed.
Typical of the “we don’t care” attitude of the claytons-environMENTAList, wind non-power shill. !
Sounds Familiar. Back in the 1950s scientists were saying that power from muclear power stations would become so cheap that it wouldn’t be worth metering it… Oh I love predictions!
Yes, Griff, I read the paper from Imperial. Before believing it I want to see their arithmetic. I suspect it might not be accurate but they carefully don’t allow us to check it.
It’s so cheap that they can pay people to use it?
Is there no limit to the type of nonsense griff is eager to believe?
The alarmist griffter makes his appearance!
The Alarmist Griffter: paraphrasing “Does he actually believe the guff he writes? It doesn’t matter: he just warm his hands on the outrage, counts the clicks and waits for the pay cheque.”
Griff you do get people push all these sorts of junk everyday. Sign up for a stockbroker publication if you want to see how much of this tripe gets churned out by people pushing an agenda.
This is the lead author of your first link
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/people/m.jansen/publications.html
He is a wet behind the ears university nobody with no electrical industry experience and no economics experience. About his only claim to fame outside his university studies is he writes articles for some media outlets.
Not remotely believable.
Griff, here is a link which utterly refutes the nonsense that offshore wind power could possibly return money to consumers.
https://www.thegwpf.com/gwpf-calls-for-flawed-paper-on-computer-modelling-of-offshore-wind-costs-to-be-retracted/
https://bgr.com/2020/07/29/coronavirus-recovery-time-heart-symptoms-side-effects/
“The researchers took blood tests and heart tissue biopsies and performed MRIs on all the patients. The data was then compared to readings from 50 healthy volunteers and 57 volunteers that had underlying conditions. The study showed that the people infected with the virus developed heart issues regardless of the other medical conditions they were suffering from, and regardless of the severity of COVID-19.”
Heart issues regardless of the severity of the Wuhan virus infection? That doesn’t sound good.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news but this seems important:
https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-thousands-of-covid-19-survivors-could-be-diagnosed-with-sepsis-charity-warns-12037944
“People are being warned to familiarise themselves with the symptoms of sepsis after a study found that as many as 20,000 COVID-19 survivors could be diagnosed with the condition within a year.
One in five people who receive hospital treatment for the coronavirus are at risk, according to the UK Sepsis Trust.”
end excerpt
The Wuhan virus is not like anything we have seen before.
It would behoove people not to catch it if they can possibly avoid it. A vaccine may fix this problem, but theraputics may not, as they may not rid the body of the virus soon enough before serious damage is done.
The Chicoms released this nasty virus into the world deliberately.
The sepsis probably comes from being in a hospital where Golden Staph is endemic, not from having Covid.
Sepsis is related to inflamation in the body and the Wuhan virus causes inflamation in the body.
I’m not sure what these doctors are making their future predictions on. I don’t know why they think sepsis is in the future for a patient, if it is not a problem for the patient now, but that’s the claim.
We still have a lot to learn about the Wuhan virus and it effects on the body.
The absurdity of the alarmist demands is that they totally ignore the GHG emissions from developing countries. These emissions are the only ones that have grown in 40 years, already make up 2/3 of total GHG emissions, and they are the only countries that have the potential to further increase their emissions, due to their developing status. The absurdity of climate alarmist demands, that are limited to western countries, lies in the UN policy framework that allows developing countries to prioritise economic outcomes above emissions reductions. This exemption or free pass is why GHGs are rapidly increasing in the atmosphere and the impositions on western countries with the stable 1/3 global emissions is only acting to further drive their emissions intensive industry to developing countries, speeding up their development and driving up emissions even faster. Because the developing countries have such enormous populations, you then open up a pandora’s box of GHG potential, which is exactly what we see in the numbers.
Therefore, IMO – It’s no coincidence that GHG emissions have increased more since the 1992 UN Climate Convention agreement than in the 250 years prior, and all coming from developing countries. The truth of the matter is that the UN and the broader climate alarmist community fully understood the consequences of the Climate Convention agreement way back in 1992 and still have no plans to enforce emissions reductions in the developing countries. The only conclusion you can draw from the UN climate conventions, including the most recent Paris agreement, is that the UN is certain CO2 is harmless and climate change doesn’t exist, because the entire premise of the agreement is to drive up GHG in the atmosphere to increase wealth in the developing nations, whilst making the developed countries poorer in the process, by enforcing policies that reduce energy availability whilst driving up cost.
I had hoped the guardian would have self imploded by now after the revelation its founder was a slave trader.
Taylor used profits he made trading cotton that was acquired from plantations that used slave labour to found the newspaper. He never owned or bought or sold slaves.
I still find that unacceptable: but I post it not as an excuse or explanation, but in the interests of accuracy.
Because this website is based on fact and science, not smearing even those long dead, right?
Absolutely, yet he was obviously connected to the slave trade. And it was said tongue in cheek as a dig at the nonsense we are seeing on our streets these days.
“Because this website is based on fact and science, not smearing even those long dead, right?”
That’s right. Just the facts please.
Beware Damian !
Most of the useful idiots of the climate clown show are already fleeing away.
You will be among the last lost in the climate parish.
Carrington should polish up his CV. He’s going to need it pretty soon, not that there’s a huge demand for innumerate Arts graduates like him…
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/jul/15/guardian-announces-plans-to-cut-180-jobs
The Dunning Kruger is strong in Graun. writers.
This guy is a complete tosser.
The alarmists (those that believe) have two strategies in the absence of actual data.
First you call in the children to enforce the theory where there is no evidence to support it.
Second you attack the people who opose you.
With regards
My only conclusion is that the Guardian is so short of useful articles to write that the Editor has chosen to print anything, rather than have blank pages. Surely the Editor can see that this stuff is nonsense? I wonder who pays him to publish it, now that is an interesting question. Follow the money….
The COGS (Constantly Offended Green Socialists) are slowly turning, sadly the Guardian and the BBC aren’t, they continue down their errant path to scientific denial of natural climate variability.
He’s been a spiteful, vindictive b’stard for years and this latest campaign confirms (yet again) the Guardian’s position as the single most repulsive organ on Fleet Street. Debate is central to science yet here they are stifling it for all they’re worth, while sprinkling the whole subject with poison.
A very accurate article . Once you reverse the doublethink to make the alarmists the true deniers..
But the deniers are not all the same. They tend to fit into one of four different categories: the shill, the grifter, the egomaniac and the ideological fool.
The shill is the easiest to understand. He, and it almost always is he, is paid by vested interests to emit clouds of confusion about the science or economics of climate action. This uncertainty creates a smokescreen behind which polluters can lobby against measures that cut their profits.
Exactly so. The renewable lobby maintains a vast army of people whose job is is to lie and lie again on behalf of the rent seeking profiteers of Green.
A sadder case is that of the grifters. They have found themselves earning a living by grinding out contrarian articles for leftwing media outlets. Do they actually believe the guff they write? It doesn’t matter: they just warm their hands on the outrage, count the clicks and wait for the pay cheque.
He should know: It’s what he does.
The egomaniacs are also tragic figures. They are disappointed, frustrated people whose careers have stalled and who can’t understand why the world refuses to give full reverence to their brilliance. They are desperate for recognition, and, when it stubbornly refuses to arrive, they are drawn to make increasingly extreme pronouncements, in the hope of finally being proved a dogma-busting, 21st-century Galileo.
A better description of Michael Mann has never been written…
The ideological fool is the fourth type of climate denier, and they can be intelligent. But they are utterly blinded by their inane, no-limits version of the climate change creed. The climate emergency requires coordinated global action, they observe, and that looks horribly like communism in disguise.
Indeed it does and that is why they support it.
Remember this is the ‘newspaper’ that in classic Leftist fashion re-wrote terms used to refer to ‘climate change’ and ‘global warming’. They did so not to use more accurate terms, but because the public weren’t sufficiently scared by benign ‘global warming’ and ‘climate change’ terms, which had lost their catastrophic allure.
Hence climate ‘crisis’, ’emergency’ and ‘breakdown’ were all imported, as was the absurd ‘global heating’! Fake terms used to describe a fake scare. Entirely in-keeping with the Guardian.
Other kinds of “climate denier”:
Rational people with scientific training
People who aren’t gullible fools that read the Grauniad
But, as I am starting to notice very much, there is another group:
Ordinary people, but especially those in the trades such as electrician, plumber, mechanics.
The Guardian newspaper circulation in January 2020 was 126,879. Most of those copies are probably sold as the in-house paper for the BBC.
The Guardian and its readers are a tiny minority, a bunch of gullible, woke fools who appear not to have had their bullsh!t or common-sense filters installed at birth. Unlike electricians, plumbers and the like.
“The shill, the grifter, the egomaniac and the ideological fool: each distorts the urgent global debate in their own way.”
Debate?
Definition of debate: ‘noun. a discussion, as of a public question in an assembly, involving opposing viewpoints:’
Here’s another word.
Delusion: noun. an idiosyncratic belief or impression maintained despite being contradicted by reality or rational argument, typically as a symptom of mental disorder.
Carrington describes himself perfectly…
“They tend to fit into one of four different categories: the shill, the grifter, the egomaniac and the ideological fool.”
Teh Grauniad.
ITTSG?
I thought it was debunked aeons ago.
It’s only the Guardian, never knowingly sensible.
JF
The Climate Alarmist genus, aka Caeli Clamitor divide roughly into four species, recognizing that there is a great deal of hybridization: 1) the Idiot, or Stultus, 2) the Profiteer, or Praedator, 3) the Ideologue, or Ideologus, and 4) the Comrade, or Socius. Of course, there are also sub-species, but we don’t want to get bogged down in those. However, Mr. Carrington happens to inhabit a very special sub-species – the Fake Journalist, or Fictus Diurnarius. He is also a hybrid, appearing to inhabit all four species. This would put him into the category of Caeli Clamitor Stultus Praedator Ideologus Socius Fictus Diurnius. A very special category indeed.
There is only one type of climate denier: People who think that destroying the natural environment isn’t the cause of everything going wrong.
I see he failed to mention the Chinese Communist Party. Not that surprising!
The Guardian, I wouldn’t even wipe my arse with it.
Their readership are just the most awful “petty bourgeoisie” imaginable.
They love to swan around screeching to anyone unfortunate enough to be in earshot of their insufferable diatribes.
These people are despised for their arrogance and flagrant hypocrisy in all matters.
From their own readership profile page, it states that 95% of their readers read nothing else but the Guardian!!
Says it all really.
85% of their readers are ABC1 social grade, that means no working class/skilled working class read their crap. Wonder why?
60% define themselves as progressive, or as the Guardian sees them “….. a valuable audience for advertisers representing a more affluent, upmarket, socially conscious and digitally savvy consumer”
So total mugs in fact willing to buy anything as long as the Wilsons at N°14 can see it from their garden, and they just love to travel, on average 3 trips a year on big jet planes, in cars, on trains…. but oh the climate!
What they never understand these unimportant “bien pensants” is that come the revolution they’ll be the first up against the wall.