The climate scaremongers are losing the public relations battle on global warming—and it’s driving them absolutely batty.
Take eco-warrior Steve Zwick. Writing for FORBES Zwick calls on so-called “climate deniers” to be treated like war criminals:
Let’s take a page from those Tennessee firemen we heard about a few times last year—the ones who stood idly by as houses burned to the ground because their owners had refused to pay a measly $75 fee. We can apply this same logic to climate change.
We know who the active denialists are—not the people who buy the lies, mind you, but the people who create the lies. Let’s start keeping track of them now, and when the famines come, let’s make them pay. Let’s let their houses burn until the innocent are rescued. Let’s swap their safe land for submerged islands. Let’s force them to bear the cost of rising food prices. They broke the climate. Why should the rest of us have to pay for it?
Notice that arguments contrary to what Zwick believes are not honest differences of opinion—they are “lies.” Those who disagree with him are not merely mistaken, they are malevolent. They are not worthy of being converted to his point of view via honest debate; they deserve only to have their homes razed.
This is fascism, pure and simple, and it is more and more a feature of environmentalist rhetoric.
The violent imagery has even seeped into the pronouncements of the eco-priests at the Environmental Protection Agency. Recently a video surfaced of EPA Region VI Administrator Al Armendariz admitting that his agency’s philosophy is to “crucify” oil a gas companies:
I was in a meeting once and I gave an analogy to my staff about my philosophy of enforcement, and I think it was probably a little crude and maybe not appropriate for the meeting, but I’ll go ahead and tell you what I said:
It was kind of like how the Romans used to, you know, conquer villages in the Mediterranean. They’d go in to a little Turkish town somewhere, they’d find the first five guys they saw and they’d crucify them. Then, you know, that town was really easy to manage for the next few years.
How can anyone, whether on the Left or the Right, not be chilled to the bone to hear a government official talk in such a manner about private companies and individuals?
The desperation the eco-crowd feels is driven by a simple fact—the Earth is not melting. The disastrous consequences of carbon emissions we were warned about have simply not come to pass, as even some environmentalists are at last admitting. James Lovelock, for example, influential author of the “Gaia” theory that the whole planet is a single, living organism, has recently recanted some of his most egregious climate doomsaying. Lovelock, who once claimed that, “before this century is over billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable,” now concedes that things may be OK after all.
“[W] don’t know what the climate is doing,” Lovelock recently told MSNBC. “We thought we knew 20 years ago. That led to some alarmist books—mine included—because it looked clear-cut, but it hasn’t happened.” Specifically, the warming Lovelock and others warned about hasn’t happened. “The world has not warmed up very much since the millennium. Twelve years is a reasonable time,” he admitted, though the global temperature “has stayed almost constant, whereas it should have been rising—carbon dioxide is rising, no question about that.”
Kudos to Lovelock for having the guts to admit the truth, and for changing his mind in the face of new facts. It is an admirable quality so little found on the political Left, a cesspool of hate and ignorance where hack journalists and bureaucrats can openly fantasize about violently punishing their political and intellectual adversaries.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, global warming was the Left’s last, best chance to institute a world-wide redistributive regime. What happens when global warming, too, collapses?
I fear they will not go gently into that good night.
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The problem with your little story is that climate change is not an opinion. The people you mention do not just disagree with you. Climate change is a fact and every serious scientist agrees. You cannot disagree with a fact. Which is why they are right to call your arguments “lies.” To “disagree” with a fact is the same as “lying,” or, plainly, being delusional. You basically make fools of yourselves because you have no facts on you side. And shame on you for trying to convince people to buy into your delusional theory.
Paatrick, of course the climate changes – it always has. At the moment it’s getting cooler. Did you know that in the 116 years since 1896 when Arrhenius invented “greenhouse gases” no-one any where has found any evidence to support it and the evidence against it is incontravertible> So anyone stating it’s proven is telling a lie.
The so-called “greenhouse gas” theory is a superstition and simply untrue. Man-made global warming is a fraud, from which many peo0ple are making big money.
Ahem, Patrick, there are over 31,000 scientists in the U.S. alone that do not agree with the so called “facts” of the AGW hypothesis, including a Nobel Prize winner, and they are very serious. The debate is not over, there never was one to start with. Your are correct in saying climate change is a fact, the fallacy lies in what you believe is the cause, and the social agenda behind this at best, ersatz field of study. You might try to use some facts yourself, instead of self serving rhetoric and misinformation.
Ecology has been a political organizing center at least since former terrorists became the green party in Europe. The supporters of McGovern have neever given up. The 1992 conference in Rio was a launching pad for Al Gore. The political focus has generated so much advocacy instead of honest discussion that it is almost impossible counter the endless distortions that regularly appear in the N Y Times, the New Yorker and say the Nation.
Some years ago the Nation Cimate Data Center made some almost straitforward data showing statikon records since about 1870 for hundrds of weather stations in the US and around the world. That data showed clearly that there had been no warming in the time since temperature records have bdeen available. (I say almost because even then the data was jiggered by increasing temperatures for stations beyond the urban heat bubble – if corrections were warranted it seems to me that urban temperatures should have been lowered because urban centers only cover a small fraction of the earths surface). I have not been able to find that data recently. Instead I find data that shows global warming.
The paleolithic record indicates millenial swings between icde ages and warm periods with temperature fluctiations a constant feature. Matching the paleolithic record with actual measured temperatures can be sub jecgtive and I suspect you can make it come out to support whatever point of view you wish. However the medieval warm period is clearly supported by historic records and certainly we know that there was farming in Greenland the (it seems the polar bears survived). last summer ther was a report of melting glaciers in Canada uncovering ancent conifer forests. There was the usual alarm but no opne seemed to notice that that was clear evidence of a much warmer climate befor those glciers were formed and long befor any any anthropomorphic greenhouse gas generation (Unless you want to count respifration of aerobes.)
The climate alarmists often like to start counting from the last ice age instead of the earlier warm period. Most of my liberal friends prefer to get their information from polititions and journalists like Thomas Friedman instead of legitimate climate scientists. Some of my liberal friends may have heard of entropy but its implications are beyond their understanding. Ethanol was to save the world (see T. Friedman and Al Gore) but the energy required to produce ethanol exceeds the energy you can extract from it. Electric cars are going to save the world but where will the energy come from to charge theifr batteries and where will the investment come from to expand the electric generating and distribution systems needed if electric cars are going to make a significant reduction in emissions. The EPA has the effrotery to declare CO2 that is essential to sustainable life on earth a pollutant. An EPA that is run by people appointed by an administration that claims to be science based. Crucify the non-believers.
No doubt history will describe the present eco-terrorism and AGW fraud as mass hysteria as yet another bubble bursts. The losers will include tax payers that have been robbed by governments intent on redistributing income to gain power. But worst, many scientists, academics, industry leaders and other professionals will lose all their credibility when it is shown how they betrayed their followers in order to keep feeding from governments’ boundless troughs. Shame on them.
I’m glad all of you are starting to wake up to this. No, they won’t go quietly. Zwick, Gleick, what more do you need to know?
This was never about “global warming” or “climate change”. In fact, the nomenclature 3 card mickey – from the former term to the latter when statistically significant warming stopped in 1999 – was proof in and of itself. When history on this sad chapter for post-modern science is written, I will predict that will be seen as the turning point, when the insanity began to slowly unravel.
By the end of the 20th century, when the wreckage of collectivism and fascism was left all over the planet for all to see, human GHG emissions became the “aha” moment for the remaining hard core left. They figured out two things (I give them credit. they almost worked):
1) if you control energy, you control capitalism, industrialization, prosperity, true economic freedom – and the correlated consumption, all of which they hate. It has left those without (what’s left of) our system pining for a way to put a leash on us, to punish our success, and to redistribute/let catch up/ensure equality of outcome for/to the rest of the world. The UN and the left are aligned with this, clearly. The “green” angle is/was genious because it’s teflon. Who’s going to argue with wanting a clean environment and “healthy planet” (however you define that, what with asbestos, anthrax, tectonic shifts, etc. all occuring with no help from our SUVs or LCD TVs)
2) to do so, you have to make some “externality” an existential threat to everything on the planet (or, if James Lovelock prefers, the planet itself). But (here’s the kicker), It has to be one that can neither be proved or disproved given the present level of science. Having found fossil fuels to be the boogey man that fits the bill, all that was needed was complex geophysical fluid dynamic modeling experts to develop coupled atmosphere ocean general circulation models that could be tuned to portray Thermageddon, then constantly tuned to get within shouting distance of predicting recent history as a confirmation the models were “right”. Add 3 parts enormous research funding to university researchers and the UN, 2 parts environmental non-profits, 1 part politicians wanting to look green for re-election purposes, 1 part a liberal biased media who loves a good scare and to advance collectivism in any form, 1 part influential Hollywood celebrities. Shake vigorously. Lather, rinse, repeat, over and over.
They were too smart by half.
Regarding the former, we have begun to get the message across that like them or not, the developed world is not running even at present living standards, and more importantly the 1-2 billion people living in the developing world in abject poverty aren’t emerging from that poverty without fossil fuels in the short term.
The empirical evidence (UAH and RSS satellite dataset, ARGO buoy data, surface temp measurements, breaking the consecutive days without a major Atlantic basin hurricane hitting US coast, and on and on and on….), new science (CERN experiment), and time are all 3 taking care of the latter.
I suggest those who doubt this familiarize themselves with the story of Copernicus, Galileo, and the earth-centric theory of the universe. It is instructive in this case, particularly for how it ends.
Except, I hope, for the part where we got to jail and then are placed under house arrest simply for proving that the prevailing “science/scientific consensus” is wrong.
Sure, Lovelock is game enough to admit he was in error. How about you admitting that the world DOES need a redistributive scheme based on justice for all, not wealth for a few? That’s not communism, that’s fair play.
Fair play, eh? Let see. You’ve had some education, at least you can spell redistributive — that’s not fair. You probably can afford a PC or a tablet and a broadband connection — that’s not fair. You eat 1200 or more Calories a day — that’s not fair. You’d better pray life things don’t get fair for you.
“How about you admitting that the world DOES need a redistributive scheme based on justice for all, not wealth for a few?” Lovelock has admitted his errors because the observed state of nature doesn’t support the AGW theory, that’s real science, not ManBearPig’s bid for power. Simple fact: if you theory makes a prediction and it doesn’t pan out you revise the theory or junk it, otherwise you’re no scientist. We “deniers” have been telling you all along that the AGW hysterics were full of crap, so whose theory has predictive power? Not AGW, evidently. We deniers are the real scientists. As for your notion about “fair play,” besides being a non sequitur in this context (Lovelock’s admission is not logically connected to your premise) it is also jejune beyond words. Get some more education, become an entrepreneur, meet a payroll, then get back to us on this fair play business.
Robert, the world needs a redistributive scheme to redistribute what? The fallacy of your thinking is the governments that do the redistributing don’t generate any wealth to redistribute.
It is a apparent that you’ve never studied history which documents that every iteration of communism and it’s close cousin, socialism, has failed miserably in very short order. Why? Because such ideologies rely on redistribution schemes. When the collective productivity output of its disincentivized citizens drops below the massive cost of micromanaging the scheme, the government runs out of money and collapses.
People like you champion sustainability as the ultimate goal. Communism and other redistribution ideologies are proven as unsustainable. So, why do you champion them?
THE WHOLE WORLD IS GOING NUTS! I CAN ASSUME, NONE OD THESE DEMONSTARTORS HAVE A JOB?
Ray Smith
As I read the various commentators above, I can only conclude that a few have honest interest to address the real issue regarding Climate Change, or Global warming, ,or whatever you like to use to describe the issue. I can only say the following. Some 50 to 75 years ago, without sattelites and only limited observations, I can understand that some well intended scientist theorized that CO2 could well be the culprit of Global Warming. But such a hypothesis must be proven by incontrovertible experiment or utterly sound science. Then it became clear that far too little was known or understood about the phenomena of climate, and that unfortunately didn’t sit well with those who postulated the Big Theory. It then became almost entirely political, and that, dear readers, is what it became. And it was their downfall, as will ultimately become clear. But also, if so much money was poured into the AGW cause, it has become a totally irrational debate form the point of view of the true believers. The good scientists that were willing to risk their reputation and well being, predicted and reasoned that the whole issue whad become a hoax, as we all know. Of course, non-scientists like Gore etc. just don’t have the capacity to understand the course of events, and so he and others will keep on preaching doom due to AGW. But be assured, he and others will ultimately become old and decrepit, and just fade away, while true science will prevail. So my advice to the real scientists among my reeaders, it will all come to fruition what you have said and done in the name of true science. Mark my words, because I will not see it happen in my life time. But if you are young, you will be experiencing it.
Patrick is right climate change is not an opinion but fact. Has anyone every heard a skepitic deny climate change? Has anyone pointed to a quote by a skeptic that says co2 is not a greenhouse gas? Can anyone point to a skeptic that says that the earth has not wamed in the last 150 years? The debate which alarmists say is over is not about co2, global warming, or climate change. Any serious person will accept these facts as true. I do. Am I a skeptic? Yes. Skeptical of what? I am skeptical of CATASTROPHIC MAN MADE GLOBAL WARMING.
LOL, the eco crowd is also incredibly dumb and ignorant. There was no turkish town by roman times.
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