Essay by Eric Worrall
A Sydney Morning Herald reporter has noticed that blocking roads and disrupting trains just annoys people.
‘Disruptive action’ on climate only preaches to the converted
Rebecca Huntley
Researcher and author March 28, 2022 — 3.30pmTruly held passion for a cause can lead to extreme behaviour. But if the goal is to change hearts and minds, should protesters taking drastic action consider whether their conduct is attracting the interest and admiration of those who remain to be convinced, or merely preaching to the converted?
Last week a climate activist group Blockade Australia conducted protests in Sydney’s Botany Bay, climbing cranes and disrupting peak-hour traffic day after day. One was jailed for four months today. The group uses what it calls “disruptive action” to try to disrupt, if only momentarily, the transport infrastructure around the coal industry. Burning coal and gas is the major cause of climate change and the major contributor to our country’s emissions.
…
But my research, and other research on public attitudes to climate, shows that the people the climate movement needs to win over are the kinds of people turned off by events such as those at Botany Bay. The survey data shows Australians who are alarmed on climate – who describe it as a crisis and are voting and consuming with climate in mind – are mostly progressive in their politics. Only a small percentage are conservative.
…
We need to stop burning coal and gas if we are to have any hope of curbing the pollution that drives dangerous climate change. But we need that message coming from those that people who aren’t yet alarmed on climate listen to and trust – whether its healthcare professionals, firefighters, farmers, business leaders, teachers, football players, local mayors, vets or members of the armed forces. If politicians, climate scientists and “greenies” were the only people who could get this job done, well, we would already be there.
Dr Rebecca Huntley is a researcher, author of How To Talk About Climate Change in a Way That Makes a Difference and chairs the Advisory Board of Parents for Climate Action. She is a member of the ALP and sits on the NSW state executive.
Read more: https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/destructive-action-on-climate-only-preaches-to-the-converted-20220327-p5a8ej.html
If you want to convince people like me, Dr. Huntley, stop trying to mess with my emotions, and come up with a plan which makes sense.
Engineering types like me are fed up with math challenged politicians and activists, who think insurmountable renewable energy engineering issues can be solved by more public engagement. But Aussie politics is dominated by humanities types, engineering dyslexics who are all to easily beguiled by the empty claims of renewable snake oil salesmen, even when some of their own are trying to urge caution.
“They don’t listen to me, I tell them it wont work, they tell me I am wrong. But this is my area of expertise.” – the words of a frustrated Aussie federal politician, one of the few people in Aussie politics with an engineering background, after I asked when they would let him get rid of all the wind turbines.
I don’t have a problem with zero carbon power. I couldn’t care less what is on the other side of my wall socket, so long as it is reliable and affordable. What I have a problem with is proposals to waste my tax money, money which could be used to fund better schools or hospitals, or better national defence capability, on energy ideas whose numbers don’t add up, ideas which cannot possibly work.
“Rebecca Huntley is an Australian author and researcher on social trends. She holds degrees in law and film studies and a PhD in gender studies.”
’nuff said.
In other words, her/its degrees are in totally useless and unproductive fields where she couldn’t make a dime unless it was funded by grants and lawsuits. Another useful idiot.
Of course, the US has Gina McCarthy, whose degrees should be read off her own webpage, as they come across as a bad parody of degrees granted to star athletes and bureaucratic drones.She may have never taken one rigorous course, ever.
Exactly. Government and academia have long since become employment rackets for the over-credentialed that the private economy has no practical use for. Now that government and academia have become over-saturated with these people, they now must be inflected upon the private economy.
She actually did get the part about activists ticking off people who aren’t
True Believers™ by actually doing research- taking surveys- instead of
relying on models. I think that’s a high water mark for any Green so far.
Well done! Now if only one of them would actually do real research on
climate change instead of relying on models they might get red pilled
& figure out it’s all a scam. One miracle in a lifetime is probably all we’ll get!
If you’re looking for a radical left-wing propagandist, her academic background is first-rate.
Is her Law degree one in Blood-Sucking or just an ordinary useless Law degree??? As for film studies, that would be a real boondoggle if you’re stuck on a desert island, especially if stuck with a bunch of lawyers!!!
Or even telephone sanitizer’s:-)
You have read ‘The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe’?
I don’t think you understand the principal of logical debate in which it is irrelevant about one’s credentials in a particular subject, when the facts and arguments themselves are correct.
It’s similar to, and as ineffective and useless as, tarring and feathering a ship captain as “unqualified” who writes scientifically and factually about clouds, which would appear to be outside his areas of expertise. The fact is, YOU DON’T KNOW what his expertise in clouds is, you only know what his expertise on shipping is. THAT expertise DOESN’T negate his expertise in any other area.
Typically, credentials are expressed at the beginning of her presentation in order to impress an audience and prepare them for the likelihood of knowledge in a particular subject. The lack of credentials in that subject may have exactly nothing to do with the amount of knowledge and expertise the presenter has in that subject.
“‘Nuff said’ means YOU are clueless.
Another pointless and useless comment by an OBSOLETE tDUMPist CONNEDservative.
Incoherent.
Michael,
You are being generous.
For someone spouting off about logical fallacies, you’re sure full of them yourself. That applies to everything I’ve seen from you.
Is that you Joe Biden? Your incoherent rants certainly sound like you.
Rebecca Huntley’s article is rather short on knowledge & expertise & rather more full of ‘group think’. Her thoughts are precisely what you would expect from a person of her ‘group’, that is left wing progressive.
You might be a moron, but this is correct.
G’Day Tee,
“The lack of credentials in that subject may have exactly nothing to do with the amount of knowledge and expertise the presenter has in that subject.”
Example: Willis Eschenbach?
If some of the folks who gave your post a ‘negative’ rely only on “credentials – qualifications” of an author/researcher then they’re missing out on some of the most original and thought provoking articles submitted to and posted on WUWT over the past 15 years.
It is amusing how know-nothing bullies gang together to poke fun at people whose talents and expertise they are completely unaware of, thereby revealing thei almost unimaginable ignorance and stupidity.
I’ll bet you are totally unaware of the Dunning-Kruger effect and how your drive for undue attention to “prove” your over-highly self-assessed, poorly estimated level of intelligence fits in! I’m laughing–but you might not be smart enough to see why! 🤣🤣🤣😅
You sure got noticed, but not for the reasons it’s you likely did it for.
NO “props” here or much of anywhere, in other words.
Will the only-to-be-imagined laughter ringing out in any number of locales by those many, smarter readers dissuade you from posting again? I doubt it. That’s the nature of those trudging almost mindlessly around around on the bottom of Dunning-Kruger’s heap of, to put it not kindly, but avoiding those very-disapproved-of (or “not PC”) synonyms for individuals with a comparatively pronounced lack of mental abilities; viz., “people much less smart than most.”
You really should not post things while drunk the word salad you posted is almost to the Billy Madison level so we award you no points
Why are you on this site? Perhaps your real reason for posting here is that you are an attention seeking, self- glorifying individual who just likes to look good & upset people by trying to get one up on them.
Eh?
Can you do that again so that we can understand what on earth the point you’re trying to make is?
Ta muchly.
About as successful as someone seeking to save the lost by holding a sign saying “God hates Sin” while screaming in someone’s face that they are a sinner and are going to Hades.
You miss the point.
Angering everybody around you is a novel new technique to advance your cause.
We suspect it will work just as well as using windmills to supply electric grid base capacity.
Here we note for the record that the greenies have lots of experience with this kind of success. They are very optimistic about the outcome.
Activists: angry, misinformed, attention-seeking, self-glorifying individuals who are searching for other angry, misinformed, attention-seeking, self-glorifying individuals with whom they can socialize and to whom they can constantly complain.
Regards,
Bob
I can imagine what Activist speed dating events are like. Ugh!
Yes, they get quite boring after listening to them for a while. It’s as if everything must be just exactly perfect according to them, or the whining is endless.
Are you sure about that? I always found they tend to want people/fellow activists who they can manipulate & control & get to do what the Activists want them to do, because they don’t want to get their hands dirty, now what was it that Vladimir Illyich Ulianov used to call them………..ah yes, Useful Idiots!!!
Thanks, Bob.
I’ve often wondered what it meant, but never CBA to look it up, on the grounds of ‘too annoying’.
“Activists: angry, misinformed, attention-seeking…..”
Bob,
I’ve been of the opinion that activism and war have one thing in common: The first casualty of both of them is the truth.
I don’t get as upset with the knuckle dragging protesters as I do with judges, juries, mayors, city councils, prosecutors, county attorneys and all other officials who don’t take these disruptions seriously. I think those guilty of disruption and demonstrations that put others at risk of harm should spend serious time in jail. If they knew they were going to jail for a good long time this nonsense would stop. On the other hand if they are prepared to do serious jail time I’ll give them a ride to the protest.
Did Kamala Harris praise rioters or did she not? That person is within a heart beat of being the leader of the free world. I look forward to the midterms.
Right now the free world doesn’t have a leader.
What makes you think that you live in a free world?
My old buddy, Vlad Putin, and I were both surprised at the free world’s response to the invasion of the Ukraine. 🙂
No matter what else I think of him, as long as Biden keeps the aid and intelligence flowing, he’s doing the right thing. Am I missing something?
Vlad has really hurt the Russian people a greatly unintended consequence. The ruble is in a free fall and inflation is rising rapidly. Russian media is all the people see and hear and so they have no idea how much destruction has occurred in Ukraine.
Mac Russia has resources the world needs. The US dollar, I fear, is at risk 😔
I saw a video of a reporter asking Russian people if they should drop an atomic bomb on the United States. The vast majority of them were horrified at the idea.
As far as I can tell, they’re decent folks like us. I’m sad that more misery will be dumped on them.
We are paying for it indeed.
It has a leader but that leader has dementia and can only work off cue cards.
I look forward to the midterms.
______________________________________
The democrats are going to use the same techniques that worked so well in the 2020 elections. You can be sure that they have been working on improvements. Here in Wisconsin I will be surprised if Senator Ron Johnson manages to win after the barrage of negative ads over the last two years. The mail-in envelopes are already prepared with phony names and signatures, ready to be stuffed with phony ballots as soon as the slate of candidates are known.
Good point. Juries included. Here in the UK BLM activists who took down a statue in Bristol were acquitted by a jury.
“Preaching” and “converted” sound like religion, not science or engineering.
The disruptions caused by climate activists typically INCREASE CO2 emissions. Emergency services have to travel to the site, extra equipment like a cherry picker or cutting equipment, fire engine keeps light & generator running etc. Vehicles in traffic jams, driving slower and/or taking detours increase fuel usage. People having to take cars & buses if trains are blocked. Trucks & containers need to keep refrigerated cargo cold during transit so fuel is used to power them. Ships waiting to unload/load at ports then use more fuel because the port/trucks/trains were blocked. News reporters travel there by car, van or helicopter. In Brisbane a protest prevented patients reaching medical appointments including tests & treatment. These activists are not caring of other people & businesses. Their methods do nothing to improve the environment & in reality do more short term harm.
For a taste of the delusions that drive groups like Blockade Australia have a look at the comments to Dr [gender studies] Rebecca’s article, for instance:
“… we need more like them to shock people out of their ignorance. We have unprecedented global temperatures, unprecedented bushfires, unprecedented flash flooding, unprecedented coral bleaching, we have lost the southern kelp forests, and now unprecedented melting of the ice caps …”.
People like that are impervious to facts.
Like even our own site greentards they also fail to grasp even if the whole of Australia went zero emission this moment, today nothing would change. They want to do all this risky actions on a plan that achieves nothing.
All you are doing is virtue signalling and hoping other countries follow suit and as Russia has shown that is not remotely a given.
Not to mention China and India, neither of which is stupid enough to shoot itself in the foot just before the big race.
Ain’t nothing wrong with shooting yourself in the foot, the free democratic West has been doing so for over 30 years!!!
“We have unprecedented global temperatures, unprecedented bushfires, unprecedented flash flooding, unprecedented”.
All it needs is for Dr Rebecca to prove it!!!
Last time I checked the previous four Inter-glacials were a lot warmer than today!!! Or perhaps she really is over 2 million years old & speaks from experience!!!
Her level of Stupid is certainly unprecedented!
It amuses me that way Huntley actually stumbles over some valid observations and then keeps walking as if nothing has happened.
…are mostly progressive in their politics. Only a small percentage are conservative.
There is actually a LOT to be learnt from that statement.
Progressives believe the system is wrong and want to ‘progress’ into something new/better. They believe that if only everyone worked together for the greater good then everything would be fine. There is a single ‘right’ answer to everything.
Conservatives consider the system to be what it is and the best way to succeed is to change how you act within the system. Don’t change the rules of the game, change your playing style. They don’t feel an immediate need to work for the group over the individual and tend to ‘shop around’ to work out what is best for their family and loved ones. There is no single ‘right’ answer, only the answer that currently provides the best current result.
Progressives will come to a solution and stick to it, because to change their mind is to admit they were wrong in the first place.
Conservatives are more flexible. Making a mistake is not the end of the world.
So… Progressives are Climate Change(tm) groupies and Conservatives are not?
Geee… I wonder why.
Learning is a process of change.
If you don’t change, you don’t learn.
The problem is that the useful idiots recruited by the neo Marxists don’t understand the fundamental problems of neo Marxism.
The goal is to convince the public that a perpetrator has cause suffering to a victim, and the perpetrator must be punished.
Eager useful idiots protesters ( who may actually be true believers) don’t understand that punishing the public significantly reduces public support.
Punish the oil companies, not the mums with SUVs.
Yes! They should get rid of and refuse to buy anything that’s a product of fossil fuel.
That’ll show the oil companies that they mean business.
“Punish the oil companies, not the mums with SUVs”.
Surely that just punishes the Mum’s & their families in the long-term???
“Punish the oil companies”
Why?
“Punish the oil companies, not the mums with SUVs.“
That’s the neo Marxist goal, not mine.
It’s related to Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals.
They need a common enemy to rally the public. The cause doesn’t get up if the public think they are being accused as well.
I don’t have a problem with zero carbon power. I couldn’t care less what is on the other side of my wall socket, so long as it is reliable and affordable. What I have a problem with is proposals to waste my tax money, money which could be used to fund better schools or hospitals, or better national defence capability, on energy ideas whose numbers don’t add up, ideas which cannot possibly work.
Amen to that brother… My sentiments exactly and I am sure that many other sensible, practical, business minded people agree.
The reality is we have all been too comfortable for too long… Unfortunately, We need another world war to once again highlight the foolishness of the West and to refocus peoples attention on the global realities and necessities of life, not the fanciful imaginations and wishful thinking of those with an arts degree.
I seem to recall that one of the UN’s goals/objectives was to put an end to all wars, that was around 70 years ago, I wonder how that’s going!!!
Some data would be in order from Rebecca Huntley.
What is the daily membership growth of Blockade Australia?
How many new members, not affiliated with any other green group, sign on after one of their demonstrations?
How many Blockade Australia members are members of other protest groups?
How many members have jobs?
After a demonstration, how many people would like to take some Blockade Australia members into a back alley for an attitude adjustment with cricket bats?
The answers to the above would indicate how effective their demonstrations really are.
Maybe they just shut down all fossil fuel electricity production for 2 weeks and see how the public reacts.
Which is why the politicians won’t and the courts jailed one of the losers.
Eric:
I’m going to steal your term “engineering dyslexics”.
I hope you don’t expect royalties.😜
You buy the first round… 🙂
Although now thankfully retired, it still depresses me as a structural engineer when I get asked if I know anything about computers/electrics/plumbing because here in the UK, the ignorance about “engineers” is almost beyond belief, & sadly peeps here still think of Casey Jones (yes I’m that old) when the word engineer is mentioned, we should walk around in overalls/coveralls carrying an oily rag in one hand & a spanner/wrench in the other!!!
For a change, think about Fred Dibnah.
”…the people the climate movement needs to win over are the kinds of people turned off by events such as those at Botany Bay.”
The same ”people” are mostly like WUWT readers. They don’t like being fed lies so they will always be turned off. And would only too gladly cut the rope and let them swim.
“I couldn’t care less what is on the other side of my wall socket, so long as it is reliable and affordable. What I have a problem with is proposals to waste my tax money…”
THAT admission, inadvertent but 100% telling, is the crux of The Conservative Problem. The problem (not to confuse it with being a conservative problem that’s conservative in nature somehow, but a problem *key to* conservatives):
They are troglodytes. Some troglodytes may be, like the author appears, potentially relative geniuses (within their troglodyte tribe) such as self-professed engineers and climate experts. BUT they are still troglodytes compared to real geniuses among real scientists, real experts, real liberals — in other words, those who are in general much smarter than conservatives, even “geniuses” amongst troglodyte conservatives.
Cons are, in the simple words that must be used for them to understand, too dumb, too selfish and too ignorant in general to CARE about the problems of other people, or the fish and wildlife and plants upon which his VERY EXISTENCE his depends. Their selfish, narrow tribalism, their firmly amygdala-controlled brains, so firmly rooted in “I, Me, Mine,” makes them outmoded subhumans. The ONLY reason they exist is the interruption in Natural Selection created by human evoluton into liberal, civilized intelligence, viz., the tendency to preserve those damaged and less capable who might otherwise die, such as the blind, handicapped, deliabetic — and mentally defective.
In other words, the evolution of liberalism has kept them within our society!
AND THEY ARE BREAKING US.
STAND DOWN, DUMMIES. Yes, just like you did in school when teacher told you to. And in a few hours or days you’ll be let out of detention for your stupidity-based bullying (and concomitant insults, and troublemaking), only to make trouble for everyone else AGAIN, as soon as there’s something pretty obvious that you don’t understand and therefore I must fear and oppose.
Troglodyte. The fact that you keep repeating that word suggests that you just now discovered it.
Please, do us all a favour, and shut up.
Context is important.
The requirements and constraints appear quite reasonable (a requirement of electricity available as required at reasonable cost, with a constraint of zero CO2 emissions). Business requirements shouldn’t attempt to define the technical solution; that is up to the solution provider.
In a similar vein, if my requirement is for a certain amount of Internet data volume at a minimum bandwidth and maximum latency, it is not relevant if this is provided by copper land line, fibre, terrestrial wireless, or satellite. Or a fleet of dirigibles, for that matter.
I have a good friend in medicine whom has a pretty much opposite view to me about the battle for climate control by changing the amount of a gas.
We were discussing batteries recently and he was sure they would work, quoting X MW capacity batteries.
I told him that believing someone who is telling you how an electrical grid will work and uses GW as the unit for battery capacity is like trusting a doctor who asks for your weight in centimetres.
First time I have heard him express doubt about how renewables might work.
I guess the excuse must be being down under. But we’ve known it’s annoying for some time.
From 2019…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHOr2WH7V1k
And yes, they got a suitably good kicking from those they annoyed.
Trebles all round.
This is a variation on my old observation from the Vietnam days that you can’t bomb the crap out of people and win their hearts and minds. Or more succinctly, you can’t kill people into loving you.
if you want people to follow you, you have to show them a positive return on their actions – and soon, like next week, not maybe 100 years from now. Putin’s failure is not playing win win. Instead even if he crushes Ukraine, he is facing an unending insurgency.
The same applies to forced sacrifice in the name of climate change. Until there is an energy source that provides 10 times more energy and/or 10 times cheaper, forget it. But when that happens, everyone will jump on board and the activists will have find a new way to vent their impotent anger.
Here’s a wacky idea – how about you try to convince skeptics with logic, reason and debate instead of histrionics and more hilariously wrong doomsday predictions that destroy any shred of credibility from your argument?
Suppose they had a “truth and justice” power? The problem with that, and “zero carbon” power, is that you can’t serve two masters. Power is power. Any qualifier, by definition is going to take away affordability and reliability.
You want us to catch the climate alarm psychosis? Most people are not convinced by climate extremists because they know that they are talking a lot of rubbish & their protests are stupid & pointless. They’re just like religious zealots.
Well said. Same pretty much for the entire western world.