We all know about power. It is said to be an aphrodisiac. It tends to corrupt (and absolute power corrupts absolutely). Most people want power in at least some areas of their lives. To be powerless - helpless - is a bad feeling. To feel powerful is intoxicating, addictive.
The temptations of power have been well understood for centuries. They were known to the writers of the synoptic gospels, who included worldly power among the snares Satan offered Jesus.
Again, the devil took [Jesus] to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.” (Matthew 4:8,9)
One of the most pernicious strategies of power-seekers is to suppress thought. To stamp out unwelcome ideas, to force the whole world into uniformity of opinion, is the dream of all dictators and petty tyrants, from Mao and Hitler to the office manager who won't tolerate any disagreement.
On a political level, the motive is pretty straightforward; if no opinions contrary to those voiced by the controlling authorities are permitted, obedience to the regime is likely to follow. (See North Korea.) On a psychological level, the motive seems to involve an extreme aversion to cognitive dissonance. While few of us relish hearing contrary opinions, most people can handle it with relative equanimity. A minority, however, seem to find it intolerable to know that other views even exist, and still more unbearable that such views are allowed a hearing.
In both cases (political and personal), the unwelcome ideas are characterized as dangerous, destabilizing, deceitful. The intentions of those promulgating these ideas are savaged: they seek to undermine society, tear down the established order, create anarchy, drive us back to the Dark Ages. Those who persist in saying and thinking the wrong things are not just misguided but malicious; they are a cancer on society, rotting us from within. It is only good sense that cancer cells must be eradicated if the host organism is to survive. Suppressing bad ideas is necessary to maintain the health of the community.
In politics, censorship targets dissidents. In personal relations, it targets dissonance.
The alternative is the free and open exchange of ideas, in which people can argue whatever position they like without being shouted down. This approach has two drawbacks for the power-seekers. First, it deprives them of power. Second, it leaves open the possibility that the bad ideas may win out.
It's safer, and more emotionally reassuring, to squelch the offending ideas before they can gain a foothold. After all, you can't trust most people to think for themselves. People are fools, easily duped; they need to be led by the hand and told what to think - for their own good, naturally.
It's well known that people in general suffer from deficiencies in critical reasoning. They're prone to confirmation bias. They draw faulty inferences. They fail to do adequate reality testing. They misunderstand the scientific method. They commit logical fallacies. Letting them think for themselves on important issues is like handing a loaded pistol to a baby. The masses aren't equipped to handle such responsibility. It's unwise, even reckless, to entrust it to them.
None of these caveats apply to the enforcers of correct opinion, of course. Unlike the rest of humanity, they see the truth without distortion. Their faculty of critical reasoning works impeccably. They never exhibit confirmation bias or the other frailties of ordinary people. They're special.
They know The Truth.
While it's possible to differentiate between the large (political) and small (personal) power-seekers, there's no clear-cut division between them. The one group tends to blur into the other. The individual who spends all his time on the Internet trying to shout out or shut down competing opinions is not unlikely to be sympathetic to a political program that promises a crackdown on the same unacceptable thoughts. For instance, some believers in global warming are not satisfied merely to sanitize Wikipedia of demurring opinions; they want the "wrong" opinions to be answered with criminal charges.* Certainly not all zealots are willing to go that far; but some are. From trying to control the content of public web pages to trying to enforce that control through the mechanisms of legal authority need not be a long step.
I thought of this today, in connection with my last post. It was about the "guerrilla skepticism" movement, which tries to erase pro-psi material from Wikipedia. The founder of this movement is quoted as saying:
I enjoy finding pages that look like the “psychic” wrote it themselves and then I come in with the delete button. It is really a powerful feeling.
Yes. The power to delete whole pages of information is, I'm sure, quite a rush.
In this connection, I couldn't help but think of Will Storr's combative interview with James Randi, reproduced in Storr's book The Heretics, and quoted in one of my older posts.
Randi was on record as saying that he would be fine with drug legalization, even if it meant that some users died of overdoses, because such people are a drag on society anyway. Questioned by Storr, Randi reiterated his opinion, leading to this exchange:
[Storr says,] “These are quite extreme views.” ...
[Randi replies,] “I don’t think so.”
“But it’s social Darwinism.”
“The survival of the fittest, yes,” he says, approvingly. “The strong survive.”
“But this is the foundation of fascism.”
“Oh yes, yes,” he says, perfectly satisfied. “It could be inferred that way, yes. I think people should be allowed to do themselves in.” [p. 367]
Shortly afterward, Randi was asked if he has been wrong about anything in his life. He was unable to come up with any items of significance. He is apparently always right. He is the Right Man.
Put all this together, and what do we have? Some people seek the power to control public debate. They rationalize their efforts in terms of protecting the public and saving society, but their actual motives are less attractive. They do it partly because power is addictive ("a really powerful feeling") and partly because they're unusually uncomfortable with cognitive dissonance. They use a variety of strategies to enforce the right ideas, which, of course, are their ideas; unlike other people, they can see reality clearly and are never wrong.
And when it's pointed out that their mindset may be placing them on the road to fascism, they aren't disturbed. ("Oh yes, yes. It could be inferred that way, yes.") Presumably, they believe that if such a government ever does arise, they themselves will be running things. They're the best and the brightest, aren't they? And what's so bad about fascism if it's enforced by the wisest and most cognitively unimpaired among us? It's the rule of the Airmen. Let the most rational and intelligent reign over all the dupes and fools. (“The survival of the fittest, yes. The strong survive.”)
See? Not a very long step at all.
----
* "We have good reason to consider the funding of climate denial to be criminally and morally negligent. The charge of criminal and moral negligence ought to extend to all activities of the climate deniers who receive funding as part of a sustained campaign to undermine the public’s understanding of scientific consensus." Quoted here.
An important point, Michael, well made.
"Shortly afterward, Randi was asked if he has been wrong about anything in his life. He was unable to come up with any items of significance."
It's a fascinating claim, equivalent to saying "I've never gone through any real changes. I knew it all from the start, and have never been surprised by anything in my whole life."
Can you imagine a more boring scenario?
As I see it, the universe is a system designed by consciousness for the purpose of surprising itself, in an infinite variety of ways, throughout eternity. And is there any real difference between being surprised and being wrong?
Posted by: Bruce Siegel | May 05, 2014 at 04:13 AM
This reminds me of Plato's "Noble Lie"
"In "The Republic," Plato described a city whose inhabitant were
organized into categories: The Rulers, Auxiliaries, Farmers, etc. The
Rulers, he said, would be chosen from the military elite (called
Guardians) because they were good at shepherding and caring for the
interest of the community. The Auxiliaries would be Guardians in
training.
The Rulers, Plato said, must tell the people of the city “The Noble
Lie“--that the categories of Rules, Auxiliaries, Farmers, etc. was not
due to circumstances within the people's control, upbringing, or
education, but because of God's intervention. God, the Lie went, had
put gold, silver, and iron into each person’s soul, and those metals
determined where a person's station was in life was.
The Rulers told the people of the city that if their own children were
found with bronze or iron in their soul, the child would drop down the
ranks accordingly. And if a farmer’s child was born with gold in his
soul, he would rise up to the Guardian level. The Rulers also said,
people had different metals in their bloodstream, and therefore could
not intermarry.
The Lie is necessary, Plato argues, in order to keep a stable social
structure. In Plato’s mind, The Noble Lie is a religious lie that’s
fed to the masses to keep them under control and happy with their
situation in life.
Plato did not believe most people were smart enough to look after
their own and society’s best interest. The few smart people of the
world needed to lead the rest of the flock, Plato said. And The Noble
Lie had to continue."
The basic idea is that most people can't be trusted to have any power and need superior folks to run things. This same thinking applies to spiritual teaching as well. Didn't Jesus say "don't cast your pearls before swine?" Mystics have always kept secrets away from those not ready for them.
Posted by: Steven Smith | May 05, 2014 at 11:37 AM
I think you chose the worst possible example with global warming. Since effectively all climate scientists say it is happening, then using one’s position of power or influence or authority to mislead the public into thinking that continued fossil fuel emissions is hunky-dory is probably the worst criminal action possible. What could be worse? (OK, leaving unshielded high-level nuclear waste in the middle of a city might be).
It’s similar to the way the tobacco companies denied any connection of smoking with cancer: that was certainly criminal. It’s just that denying global warming is several orders of magnitude worse, because it threatens the survival of everyone on the planet, and a huge number of other species too.
Posted by: Barbara | May 05, 2014 at 01:12 PM
This is a very insightful, potent and definitive post with ramifications far beyond our interest in the paranormal.
I've been engaged in some interesting discussions lately wherein we've examined the hows and whys of US foreign policy over the last three decades or so; particularly with regards to those instances where the military has become involved or the CIA has run extensive covert op.s. The people I have been discussing with are retired from fairly high level positions in the intelligence community; whether it be military, state dept,etc.
The invasion of Iraq is just one of the examples we look at primarily because it was an expensive strategic blunder of colossal scale and because it was part of a much larger more ambitious plan that never jumped off, fortunately, due to phase 1 failure. The various members of the discussion group, like myself, knew that the reasons given publicly (WMD, links to al Qaeda, Saddam worse that Hitler) were bogus long before the invasion.
My opinion based on very limited experience has always been that those in power do what they do (e.g. invade countries, overthrow governments) simply because *they can* and this is being confirmed by others who know better than I.
I know that some people - usually of liberal persuasion - think that wars are started because rich people are seeking to get richer. All kinds of conspiracy theories developed around Dick Cheney and oil deals, secret pipelines in Afghanistan, security and engineering contracts. True, some minority of oligarchs in certain industry sectors do make money off war, but this is not the primary reasons we go to war these days. The primary reason is that those in power are a) ideologues who are convinced that they are right (right man syndrome) and b) being in power is no fun unless you get to use it to do something really big. How much of a rush must it be for a right man to overthrow a government or to launch the world's most powerful military into a region changing invasion?!!!? Orders of magnitude more exciting to delete a government or country than a mere internet post.
I am being told that the way it works is that an outsider (an outsider being in the IC, but just a replaceable working Joe/Jane) can say whatever he wants concerning intelligence analysis, but nobody in power will listen. If an outsider attracts too much attention and thereby threatens whatever paradigm is favored by insiders, then the outsider is deleted - perhaps he is found soliciting an underage girl, perhaps it is revealed that he is an alcoholic and he is fired and discredited, perhaps it is revealed he embezzled operation funds, perhaps he has a car accident....
Now, one can become an insider fairly easily. However, an insider must a) recognize and respect the insider pecking order at all times and most importantly b) an insider NEVER questions another insider; especially an insider up the pecking order.
The insiders get to advice elected leaders and thus create policy and, most importantly, enjoy wielding power. Power is an objective in and of itself. This is a fact not well understood, if at all, by the typical citizen. I don't understand myself. It seems irrational - perhaps even insane - and just plain not cool. I only recognize that it is how some people operate and that those are the people that seem to always end up in charge of the rest of us. I think this bodes badly for the concept of democracy.
So, there you have it. National and international policy created by the same mind set that deletes stuff on the wiki; only writ gargantuan.
Contra all of that is the virtue of being humble. I once had a martial arts instructor tell me that I would never achieve anything even approaching mastery until I learned humility. I didn't like hearing that at the time. Now it makes sense. A spiritual mentor once said something similar to me and he was right too, of course. The forces of darkness thrive on vanity and the quest for power. In fact, these were the character flaws that brought about satan's downfall.
Posted by: no one | May 05, 2014 at 02:15 PM
Barbara, it's not at all true that virtually all scientists believe in global warming – at least not in the sense of anthropogenic global warming that threatens our future. But even if it were true, nothing is ever gained by imposing criminal penalties on speech you dislike. Unfortunately we in the West seem to be losing this very basic understanding; hence the attempts to criminalize all sorts of speech that might offend minorities, Muslims, atheists, etc. As the realm of acceptable speech shrinks ever further, we find our public debate more and more restricted.
Posted by: Michael Prescott | May 05, 2014 at 03:44 PM
Michael, "Unfortunately we in the West seem to be losing this very basic understanding; hence the attempts to criminalize all sorts of speech that might offend minorities, Muslims, atheists, etc. ...."
This is absolutely troubling. Look at how that Clippers owner was deleted from B-ball. I don't think he is the kind of guy I'd want to hang out with, but really? For expressing a mere opinion in private (as opposed to actually committing a discriminatory act).
The thought police are every where and they are hyper active. Just remember when you applaud the deletion of something or someone that offends you that, for sure, something you think or believe or do offends someone else. As soon as they are in power and find out about you.....poof! you're gone too.
Deleting thoughts and thinkers is fascism in action and it is a dangerous precedent.
Barbara, Global warming is a religion to many. An article of faith. Much good science does not support the idea, as Michael says. I remember when I was in middle school scientists were convinced we were on the threshold of a new ice age.
Posted by: no one | May 05, 2014 at 04:24 PM
Michael said: “Barbara, it's not at all true that virtually all scientists believe in global warming – at least not in the sense of anthropogenic global warming that threatens our future”
It’s not what I think that’s important –it’s what the experts say (and note that I wrote “climate scientists”, not just “scientists”): NASA says 97%. That’s as high as could be expected for any human forum: http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus
Michael also said: “ nothing is ever gained by imposing criminal penalties on speech you dislike.”
The criminality arises when someone accepts a position of power or authority over others (or seeks to exercise influence) and misuses his position to spout negligent or fraudulent views: negligent, if he does not take the trouble to inform himself of expert opinion before getting on his soapbox, and fraudulent if he deliberately seeks to promote vested interests for short-term gain.
People in power or authority must be held fully accountable for their statements, especially when vital global issues are at stake.
Posted by: Barbara | May 05, 2014 at 05:46 PM
The 97% figure is dubious.
"... a Canada-based group calling itself Friends of Science has just completed a review of the four main studies used to document the alleged consensus and found that only 1 - 3% of respondents 'explicitly stated agreement with the IPCC declarations on global warming,' and that there was 'no agreement with a catastrophic view.'"
http://tinyurl.com/lgw5gtl
However, even if there was a consensus, disagreeing with it should not be a criminal act.
I'll bet there is something close to a 97% consensus among neuroscientists that the brain produces the mind and that immortality (in the sense of an afterlife) is impossible. Must we agree? Is it criminally negligent to differ?
Science makes progress in many cases by challenging the consensus. There once was a consensus that the Sun revolved around the Earth ... that the Earth was only a few thousand years old ... that continental drift was impossible ... that microscopic germs could not cause disease ... that organisms could arise via spontaneous generation ... that people of nonwhite races were inherently inferior ... that the shape of the skull, or the locations of lumps on the scalp, could determine a person's intelligence and propensities ...
More recently we've had a consensus that ulcers are caused by diet and stress, not by infection ... that the adult brain lacks the plasticity to repair itself ... that a diet rich in carbohydrates is the best way to lose weight ...
The history of progress is the history of overturning one consensus after another. When disagreement is criminalized, progress stops.
Posted by: Michael Prescott | May 05, 2014 at 06:44 PM
So does this guy deleting Wiki pages think he's deleting NDEs, After Death Communications, and PSI? Because people will still experience them, write books about them, discuss them online, etc. What a waste of time.
No One, I agree with your first comment, this is how it is. I don't agree with your comments about the Clippers owner though. The government didn't take any action at all against him, as of course, he wasn't breaking the law. Only a private organization took action against him - the NBA - and I'm sure it was in their legal bounds to so as part of some legal contract he had with him. If it wasn't, he can sue them.
Getting back to Michael's original point, yes, there are just some personality types who can never ever be wrong. I think the Buddists' advice is best: have your opinions, but be ready at a moment's notice to change them when new evidence comes along showing you you're wrong.
Posted by: Kathleen | May 05, 2014 at 07:36 PM
"So does this guy deleting Wiki pages think he's deleting NDEs, After Death Communications, and PSI? Because people will still experience them, write books about them, discuss them online, etc."
Right Kathleen. Just as, inevitably, Iraqi WMD were not found.
"What a waste of time."
Well I agree, but that is a rational assessment by people that aren't interested in being politically powerful. For those interested in wielding political power, it's mission accomplished. Power for it own sake doesn't make sense to us. As Michael says, accurately, IMO, it's all about the rush. Then the rush reinforces the idea that one is all powerful and whatever the consequences or competing realities that keep leaking through (damn it!) one can deal with those by doubling down on projection of power. I imagine that it is a god like sensation for those given to such megalomaniacal proclivities. It's as irrational as the crack addict lighting up another hit.
As for that Clippers fellow, I'm just saying that I don't like the societal attitude that people can be deleted for wrong think because, as I said, tomorrow you might find yourself to be the one thinking incorrectly. Personally, I don't want my thoughts to be controlled, or at least under supervision, by either an "enlightened" committee or by a mob. I have other problems as well that case, like what if we heard what the players have to say in private about racial issues? Perhaps about the owner and his ethnicity, as I am sure has happened and is, no doubt, happening. It's a dangerous trend, whether enforced by government or by private associations or by pitchfork waving mobs. However, this is not the place for those aspects of that topic.
Posted by: no one | May 05, 2014 at 10:50 PM
Kathleen,
“I think the Buddists' advice is best” Buddhists like all religions follow their own beliefs in spite of evidence. But I agree the Buddha’s advice is good advice, but few, very few, in the world follow other's advice.
Example: Buddhists believe that life started from a sea of ignorance. There is no evidence to support that claim.
Beliefs are much more powerful than evidence with a few exceptions of course.
Example: most scientists believe materialism to be an absolute not to be questioned in spite of the overwhelming evidence otherwise.
These are scientists that claim to understand the very tenets of science.
The human species is still at a very low level of consciousness development in spite of what they think of themselves.
Politics and religion (also atheism) and even materialistic science are examples of this low level of consciousness development.
We must always remember, “Yogi’s” profound quote of wisdom, “if the world were perfect it wouldn’t be”. Unawareness is a necessity in a relative phenomenal world of expression.
Posted by: william | May 05, 2014 at 10:53 PM
Barbara, "People in power or authority must be held fully accountable for their statements, especially when vital global issues are at stake."
Deciding what is "vital" and what should be done to address what is vital falls in the realm of Power. He who decides these things is powerful. So from the perspective of The Decider all that counts is that is his issue and that he is The Decider. Once he has obtained Decider status, the "experts" will fall in line with his perspective either because they want to be insiders and have a taste of power or because they are bribed (e.g. research/program development $s for global warming) or because they are threatened. Else, they are deleted.
I read something somewhere by an expert that estimated that something like 86.723% of experts are wrong.
Posted by: no one | May 05, 2014 at 11:04 PM
Posted by: Roger Knights | May 06, 2014 at 12:33 AM
“I read something somewhere by an expert that estimated that something like 86.723% of experts are wrong.”
Yes an expert would estimate something to three decimal places. :-)
William Gladstone (1809-1898) said: "We look forward to the time when the Power of Love will replace the Love of Power.
Posted by: william | May 06, 2014 at 02:15 AM
Posted by: Roger Knights | May 06, 2014 at 04:54 AM
Tobacco industry leaders and their bought-paid "scientists" were, in my opinion, criminals and mass murderers who should have been locked up.
I agree with Michael's overall points about the cult of the expert and guerrilla skeptics. I am also not in favor of "criminalizing speech," but I think it is suspicious that some of the same people who are "climate change skeptics" have links to, or in some cases are the actual same people, who worked hard to protect the tobacco industry and obscure the link between smoking and cancer.
That's all I'm going to say on the climate change topic. I would much rather talk about NDEs and other evidence of after-life communication.
Posted by: FDRLincoln | May 06, 2014 at 10:44 AM
Michael said, “Must we agree? Is it criminally negligent to differ?”
No, you and I don’t need to agree. As I said, the problem arises with people in power. Power confers responsibility. Ordinary people can differ because they have no power or influence over others. Uneducated opinions held by ordinary people don’t, by themselves, have much affect on other peoples’ lives. (But if they act on their uneducated opinions, they might well break the law, which will then be used to curb their behaviour.) Can you imagine Plato’s philosopher king ignoring climate change? As Russell Brand said of those in power now –just look at them, these men are not meant to be our leaders!
I said your example of disagreeing with climate science was poor, because it is an area where only the experts can have a valid view –I could also take into account what field ecologists say about the effects of climate on ecosystems they are studying, biologists and botanists telling me that many species are becoming extinct, farmers on crops that are suffering from floods or droughts (I’ve read that farmers without subsidies are committing suicide in huge numbers –though I haven’t yet studied why.) Earth’s climate is clearly too big an area for Barbara in Bohemia to have a valid view on by holding up her finger to the wind.
When I wonder whether climate is changing, I start by looking at high and ever rising CO2 levels, read about CO2 being a greenhouse gas – and take it from there. But all my research originates from experts – scientists in their field. It’s exactly the same as when you study mediums and ignore what skeptics say who have not studied them.
You say experts can be wrong. True, but the more data and experience they have, the more likely they are to be right. That’s scientific progress. The early climate models were quite poor, but they have improved, and their computers have too -just as (say) we would all agree that Windows 7 is a vastly better operating system than Windows 95. Climate models are still wrong, that is to say, far from perfect. But they now take into account hundreds of factors, equations and data points, and are have therefore become increasingly accurate at modelling the future probabilities. It’s all about probabilities. So I understand.
Your example of neuroscientists and the brain is not equivalent, in this context, because it is possible to have the alternative view that consciousness arises outside the brain and the brain is a receiver or transducer. That is not an area that neuroscientists look at, so we can say that their science may have rather a large gap in it. But how could you say the same thing about what climate scientists conclude? Where is the deus ex machina or god of the gaps to call upon there?
Posted by: Barbara | May 06, 2014 at 11:55 AM
Never being wrong would almost be a paranormal power, don't you think? Maybe he won his own prize.
Posted by: Matt | May 06, 2014 at 12:00 PM
"The basic idea is that most people can't be trusted to have any power and need superior folks to run things. This same thinking applies to spiritual teaching as well. Didn't Jesus say "don't cast your pearls before swine?" Mystics have always kept secrets away from those not ready for them."
I think you misunderstand the meaning of the quote. It was not about keeping the truth from anybody (indeed, his last commandment to his followers was to "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation") - it was more about "don't kill yourself trying to convince somebody who has already made up his mind against you and won't listen". Something believers in Psi and other unconventional beleifs would do well to take heed of...
Posted by: jimbo | May 06, 2014 at 12:54 PM
Great post!
Actually, global warming is the *perfect* example.
Scientists are now going to have to genetically engineer a tremendous chicken to lay a tremendous egg to supply the egg that will go on the collective face of all the scientists supporting this moronic belief system.
It is one of the biggest cases of groupthink in the history of the species. The 97% figure, to the extent that it is true, is due to the fact that anyone disagreeing with the consensus is shamed and ostracized.
I also read an interesting critique of that figure: Who talks about a percentage consensus about the theory of relativity, the germ theory of disease, etc.? No one. They are just accepted as true, and that's that. To talk about percentages would be to imply that anything is in doubt.
OK, off my soapbox...
Posted by: Matt Rouge | May 06, 2014 at 01:52 PM
"It is one of the biggest cases of groupthink in the history of the species."
It’s a tricky one. Who should I trust? Moronic climate scientists who have devoted their lives to the subject, or the independent genius Matt Rouge? Umm…
Posted by: Barbara | May 06, 2014 at 05:36 PM
"I think you misunderstand the meaning of the quote. It was not about keeping the truth from anybody (indeed, his last commandment to his followers was to "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation") - it was more about "don't kill yourself trying to convince somebody who has already made up his mind against you and won't listen""
Remember Jesus also said something to the effect that he spoke in parables, so that those who were not ready to understand wouldn't. I have a different view of Jesus than most. I believe he was way more in the gnostic tradition than conventionally thought.
Posted by: Steven Smith | May 06, 2014 at 08:16 PM
On the climate science example. I'm sorry, but like in the case with the tobacco companies, money buys the science it wants and energy companies don't want science to say global warming is true.
Posted by: Steven Smith | May 06, 2014 at 08:20 PM
Matt, "Never being wrong would almost be a paranormal power, don't you think?"
Hey, That's pretty good. I like that!
Barbara and other GW proponents, You know that there are mountains in the middle of the SW desert (I've seen this myself) on which, if you hike up them, you will find fossils of prehistoric fish. Get it? Dry dry desert far from water now, but used to be a deep wet wet ocean. Ok? Is the climate changing? No doubt about it. It always has changed and always will change; dramatically over time. It's been constantly in flux since the beginning of time.
Who needs a computer model to know what is already known and should be obvious?
All the Styrofoam recycling, carbon taxes and even an army of steroid fed genetically altered 10 foot tall super Al Gores can't alter the reality that extreme climate change is the norm.
Global warming "science" is a cult bent on hysteria.
Posted by: no one | May 06, 2014 at 09:36 PM
And, while I'm still on my soapbox.....the whole tobacco = death thing is yet another example of cultish science leading to political power plays with the result being anyone speaking against the politicized cult being ostracized as a shill for the tobacco industry even if they haven't actually accepted funds from that industry.
http://www.forces.org/Scientific_Portal/
http://www.forces.org/static_page/faq.php#9
Sure, smoking isn't a "healthy" thing to do and yes smoking in combination with other risk factors *can* increase the risk of fatal disease in *some* individuals and maybe even there was a time when people were not aware of the increased risk and needed to be educated, but this is far from the message of the anti-tobacco activists in our society.
The current meme is that smoking is one of the leading causes of preventable death. Does that even make sense? If I stop smoking (I am a smoker and enjoy it - have been for 30 years)I am going to live forever? Death is preventable? Come on, this is lunatic thinking on its very surface.
Furthermore many people smoke their entire lives and live to a ripe old age. If smoking is so positively lethal, how do they do that?
Well, the anti-smoking "science" is junk. For example, if a person has ever smoked and then dies of a disease, smoking is considered a factor in causing the disease. Why not attribute the disease to potato chips? Or hot dogs?
2/3 of cancer occurs in non-smokers. Smoking alone is not a significant variable in heart disease rates. Smoking is a statistically significant variable (but not the only one) for the development of lung cancer after age 75 - and that's about it. You're not going to hear this from the fascist state and pharmaceutical industry supported anti-tobacco activists.
The company I work for, which is actually a really good company in terms of how they treat employees, recently put out a new policy that they would no longer hire smokers (already hired are grandfathered in, for now) because a) it's a bad imagine for a healthcare insurance company to have smoking emloyees and b)the allegedly increased healthcare costs. BS! When I go to company HQ I see plenty of sedentary obese employees and we know from our own data that obesity is associated with far greater health care costs and far more loss of quality of life than smoking. *But it's not politically viable to discriminate against fat people*.
So science takes a back seat to power politics, again, and the Deciders get their target population to push around and, thus, feel the rush.
From this link there is a nice summation that is relevant: http://www.forces.org/Scientific_Portal/evidence_viewer/179-The+Smoking+Epidemic+Death+and+Sickness+among+Australian+Smokers.html
"The conclusions are staggering: none of the claims and numbers of the antitobacco propaganda against active smoking can be verified, and they are largely created with statistical tricks and artifice. In short, it can be extrapolated that a perverse philosophy of vague pursuit of semi-immortality makes use of a vague para-science (multifactorial epidemiology), which in turn resorts to a large variety of statistical manipulations to support ("demonstrate") the ideology that employed it in the first place."
And finally;
"There is nothing new in missionaries telling people how they should behave. There is nothing new in the suppression of relevant information and the use of propaganda to persuade people to believe what you want them to believe. Nor is there anything new in large sections of the scientific establishment putting aside the uncertainties of pure science to support dominant sectarian views on how science should be put to use in practical affairs. […] It is perhaps an oblique comment on the interface between present-day scientific enquiry and public policy that we feel obliged to emphasise that the findings reported here have been pursued in the Baconian spirit of merely wanting to know just what it is that the Muses are telling us when they give us the anti-smoking movement‘s own figures."
Posted by: no one | May 06, 2014 at 11:01 PM
Barbara,
||"It is one of the biggest cases of groupthink in the history of the species."
It’s a tricky one. Who should I trust? Moronic climate scientists who have devoted their lives to the subject, or the independent genius Matt Rouge? Umm…||
This is cool, because in your sarcastic response, you show exactly how the groupthink dynamic works: you insist that *everyone* has to believe what the group of scientists believe because they're so smart and numerous. If you don't believe, you're worthy of sarcasm, shaming, ostracism, or worse (you stopped with sarcasm with me, but Michael cited someone who wants to do worse).
Note that you also distorted what I said: I did not call the scientists "morons." I called the CAGW belief system moronic, which I think it is--*even if* the science is technically correct.
The debate over climate change is the most tangled and problematic in our society today. The key problem, in my view, is that CAGW proponents are trying to represent a political debate as a scientific debate, and those who disagree with them as anti-science, uneducated, "deniers," etc.
It is a political debate because there is always a panicked "and we've got to do something about it!" attached to the scientific conclusions. When the Higgs boson was discovered, no one said, "And we've got to do something about it." With respect to evolution as well, even though it's divisive due to conflicting belief systems, there is no "and we've got to do something about it!" involved.
The further problem is that, despite shouting, "And we've got to do something about it!" in the most emphatic screech they can muster, the CAGW proponents have no plan. No solution. At least, there is no consensus on a solution. There is *nothing* presented to the average person: "Hey, if the government simply required all cars to get 10 mpg more, that would solve the problem. We can do this, so please write your Congressperson."
Nope. Doomsday scenarios are screeched. It is implied that we must drastically cut carbon emissions across the board in a very short period of time, even though this is clearly impossible. In fact, although there is an inconsistent jumble of opinions out there from the CAGW proponents, one thing we hear pretty consistently is that it's too late anyway. Humanity was bad and is now going to pay the price.
So, in the aggregate, the CAGW side really is managing its side of the debate in a terrible fashion. It seems more interested in spreading fear and shaming its opponents than proposing a feasible solution that countries can actually implement.
And I feel I can say all of the above in confidence without even getting into the science. I am not, in fact, a "denier," and most people of a scientific bent who do not agree with the CAGW worldview do not deny that warming has taken place or even that CO2 emissions by humans have influenced it. The opposition usually comes in the form of doubting whether the models can predict the future, doubting whether all of the ills attributed to climate change are correctly attributed ("extreme whether" and seemingly any bad thing that is happening), whether warming is actually a bad thing, and whether we can really do anything about it even if it's true.
Off my soapbox again...
Posted by: Matt Rouge | May 06, 2014 at 11:16 PM
Oh, and one more thing: you should *not* trust "independent genius Matt Rouge" on this. You should not *trust* the climate scientists either. You should look at the science yourself, think for yourself, and come to your own conclusions. I think it's interesting that you framed the issue as though trusting *someone* were necessary. The insistence on trust is part of the groupthink dynamic.
Posted by: Matt Rouge | May 06, 2014 at 11:21 PM
I'm sorry but I side with Barbara on this. I really think the global warming example is a bad example. In the case of parapsychology, there is strong pro-psi consensus among the scientists who do the experiments and are familiar with the data. The anti-psi attackers are almost always ignorant of the data - you could probably count the psi-skeptics familiar with parapsychology data on one hand (Blackmore [though she stopped reading new research a while ago], Wiseman, Alcock, Shermer... and that's about it - an important point: no one on this list is familiar with quantum mechanics). Almost everyone who familiarizes themselves with psi data believes there is a legitimate effect.
The fact that skeptics of serious, anthropogenic global warming are failing to win over most people who familiarize themselves with the data and the active researchers in the climate field (as well as related fields like ecology) is, I think, very telling. Also, unlike with being pro-psi, you can actually get very generous funding for being a climate change skeptic. I'm jealous. If parapsychology weren't so starved for funding that it is near impossible to make a living doing it, there would be a rush of scientists to work in it.
I agree with Michael's point that suppression of the free speech of climate change skeptics is bad - your arguments should in any case be able to stand on their own if they have merit, without shutting up the opposition or resorting to ad hominem attacks.
Posted by: Stephen Baumgart | May 07, 2014 at 12:44 AM
Steven said, "money buys the science it wants and energy companies don't want science to say global warming is true."
In the case of climate change, it doesn't buy the science at all, though governments do force amendments to the conclusions of the IPCC reports. The science itself is untrammelled. Mosey over to http://realclimate.org/ for an hour and then come back and tell me these climate scientists are groupthinking morons.
Posted by: Barbara | May 07, 2014 at 04:02 AM
What it tells me is that those in and near the field are largely biased and crusading tree-huggers (funded hugely by a biased govt. and NSF captured by people like VP Gore)--that's why they went into climatology and ecology in the first place. Climatology is virtually rooted in an ecological mind-set that views man's impact on the natural world as prima facie disruptive and destructive. The people who went into climatology have been marinated in that attitude from grad school through faculty lounge through conference through peer review. Of course CO2 is Presumed Guilty to them.
There are a few who are getting six-figure salaries as heads of contrarian foundations or as scientists at free-market think tanks who occasionally publish papers. (Pat Michaels is one, at Cato--but he moved there only after he was virtually forced out of the U of VA for not believing in global warming, as the UVA president expressed it.) Contrarian journalists aren't getting more money than they would if they toed the party line. There is little funding available for contrarian scientists. Publishing explicitly contrarian research is bad for one's career. There's no funding for contrarian bloggers, who are the ones having the greatest effect on the debate.
Posted by: Roger Knights | May 07, 2014 at 11:37 PM
The tone of Roger’s arguments demonstrates precisely why science needs to be objective and how easily it can be hijacked by politics.
Wherever funding comes from, proper science does not have an “opinion”. It must take into account all the known facts and predict likely outcomes. You cannot have “alarmist” or “contrarian” scientists. That implies a point of view using cherry-picked arguments. It’s politics.
On this blog, it is understood that scientists who do not take into account paranormal evidence when talking about the Mind are not being scientific. They are omitting evidence and not looking at the Big Picture.
As far as I have been able to ascertain, only one piece of evidence is omitted or downplayed by the IPCC climate predictions - the release of methane from clathrates because the effect so far is small. Research is going into this, because methane levels in the atmosphere have only recently started to rise and could potentially become an important factor.
Posted by: Ben | May 08, 2014 at 05:15 AM
Barbara, "Mosey over to http://realclimate.org/ for an hour and then come back and tell me these climate scientists are groupthinking morons."
OK. I went and read for a little more than an hour and I remain unconvinced and I saw what is, IMO, a lot of group think.
This kind of reminds me all the economic schools of thought with all the warring factions all armed with charts, graphs and statistics that prove their opposing positions.
It's just a bunch of people in geeky roles in life seizing a rare opportunity at power.
I'll reiterate that whenever power becomes involved science and other rational motivations go out the window. As Michael said, power is addictively intoxicating. An addict will say or do anything to keep the fix coming. Addicts are very manipulative and without self respect or respect for others.
Posted by: no one | May 08, 2014 at 09:04 AM
no one said, "OK. I went and read for a little more than an hour and I remain unconvinced and I saw what is, IMO, a lot of group think."
Bravo for looking. Did you not read the section which demolishes all the contrarian arguments?
That explains why they are of the same mind -that is, why they are not contrarians!
Posted by: Barbara | May 08, 2014 at 12:33 PM
Rule by the cognoscenti, or the scientific illuminati, or whatever you want to call them, is one of the main themes of C.S. Lewis's That Hideous Strength, the third book of his "space trilogy." I first read it in college, many years ago, without having read the first two books (they're not necessary anyway, but worth reading).
Lewis's book affected me, although not in a way that I was able to understand for a long time. It planted a seed of skepticism. In a naturalistic worldview, the only moral philosophy that is left standing is utilitarianism, and in utilitarianism the end always justifies the means.
Posted by: Todd | May 08, 2014 at 02:51 PM
At my age, I don't really have a dog in this fight. I only really know what I have experienced in weather for the past 75 years in Illinois. Over those years, where I live, depending on the position of the jet stream coming down from Canada over the Midwest, there have been alternating mild winters and very cold winters with last winter being especially cold; a lot of snow and little snow; drought years and rainy years and years where rainfall was has been perfect for corn and beans; early Springs and late Springs. There have been years with many tornados and years when few tornadoes were reported and years when flash floods were reported---but I have not experienced a trend in any direction. One of the hottest years for me was 1952 or 53 when the temperature in July got to 115 F. I haven't experienced a summer that hot since then.
An increase in carbon dioxide doesn't alarm me as I know that plants use it to turn energy from sunlight into carbohydrates and in the process release more oxygen into the atmosphere. I know that much of the earth and its oceans are covered over with green plants all needing carbon dioxide to live. I know that animals that breath, including man, all exhale carbon dioxide. I know that parts of the world that are very dry now were at one time wet and areas that are very cold now at one time must have been very warm since tropical plant fossils have been found there. I haven't seen evidence that the level of the ocean is higher now that in the past and I would think that any small---measured in inches or centimeters---increase or decrease in the ocean level would be very difficult to document and local thereby producing dubious world data. Over the ages, shorelines have been observed to rise and fall as do whole land masses.
I guess that because of my observations of weather where I live during the past 75 years, I am not convinced that global warming is occurring because of increased carbon dioxide emissions. Are climates of the world slowly changing? Yes, but that has happened for millions of years sometimes with dire outcomes. Statistical charts and graphs don't impress me as Mark Twain commented that "There are lies, damn lies and statistics." (Yes, I know, I have not had a career in climatology.) I guess the bottom line question is, "Are temperatures of the world increasing because of human activities that produce carbon dioxide? My man-on-the-street experiential opinion is, "probably not". That is not to say that we needn't pay attention to the atmosphere of the earth. Other contaminants, released into the air, for example particulate matter , petro chemicals and agricultural chemicals, probably are degrading the quality of the air we breathe and contributing to other unknown problems more than an increase in carbon dioxide. It's like peeing into the municipal water tower. Everyone connected to the municipal water system has to drink a little pee. - AOD
Posted by: Amos Oliver Doyle | May 08, 2014 at 04:18 PM
"Did you not read the section which demolishes all the contrarian arguments?"
I saw the section where a bunch of straw men not representing the ant-warmists true arguments were attacked and demolished.
Another thing, many of the warmists are hangovers from the radical eco- movement of the 60's and 70s. So, let's not pretend that these people aren't somehow invested in telling a particular story. They're idealists; radical ones at that. Now that I have hijacked a murky "science" to get their point across. They're point being that industry and technology and anything arising from capitalism generally, is evil.
Now I'm all about getting back to the earth and I see serious problems with the way capitalism has worked in our society as of late, but I'm not going to support tearing the whole system down; especially if the tearing down is done by people who are ok with subverting truth and freedom to achieve the end. Welcome to the new boss.....
Posted by: no one | May 08, 2014 at 05:39 PM
Contrarians will be viewed by the field's gatekeepers as party poopers. Their papers will have a hard time getting published. Peer reviewers will tone them down and make them include genuflections to warmism, such as the ritualistic statement found in many papers, "Nothing in our findings should be taken to mean that there isn't a climate crisis"--even though their findings actually do weaken the case for alarmism. Alarmism will be inculcated everywhere. Contrarian-minded students will tend to be converted or repelled.
Not necessarily. Having a POV can be the result of one's investigations, or it can be something inculcated by the paradigm of the field. Hardly any scientific field can exist without all sorts of POVs. It's not deliberately deceptive; i.e., it's a social outcome rather than the result of political conspiracy or a political commitment. "It is not necessary to posit a conspiracy where a carrot would suffice."When "wrong" paradigms exist and persist, it's because science is a social process--it's not nearly as pure as is thought to be and as it advertises itself to be. The individuals involved in the paradigm THINK they're being objective, just like a sports team's fans think they're being objective. That's because in some fields there is no clear black/white answer in certain fields to what the data means. It's hard to get and it's fuzzy. It points in different directions, and/or it's a matter of interpretation. So it's easy for those involved to fool themselves about what it all means--often because they want to be fooled. (E.g., they want to believe that the West is to blame for the world's woes, and/or that more regulation is the cure for the world's woes, and/or that the byproducts of man's industrial activities almost certainly have a woeful effect, and/or that Scientists like themselves should have a bigger voice in policy-making, and/or that their field is dealing with a crucial issue and needs more funding.)
They are mostly unaware of what they're doing, because being actually objective and going against the crowd doesn't come naturally to humans. (Mencken said that actual truth-seekers are rare, inhuman, anti-social freaks and cranks.)
Lots of scientific fields have dominant paradigms that are resistant, sometimes disgracefully so, to strong evidence to the contrary, and that marginalize dissenters. That's how "science-as-practiced" sometimes works. The latest example is the disgraceful insistence by mainstream nutritionists that animal fats were bad and carbohydrates good. Dissenters were marginalized as minions of Big Butter. So it isn't crazy to say that the same thing can be happening with ClimeSci.
Posted by: Roger Knights | May 09, 2014 at 12:32 PM
Oops--my first argument DID have a "tone," because it contained the phrase "Stanford's CACA Cult Coven."
Posted by: Roger Knights | May 09, 2014 at 12:50 PM
"but I'm not going to support tearing the whole system down"
You don't need to, it will tear itself apart soon enough economic collapse will occur as oil gets more expensive to extract
Posted by: Doug | May 09, 2014 at 02:21 PM
no one said, "So, let's not pretend that these people aren't somehow invested in telling a particular story. They're idealists; radical ones at that."
Strange how we can see it so differently! I see them as honest scientists who take everything they can into account, trying not to omit any data which might have a bearing on their predictions.
Unfortunately, their predictions threaten a way of life, including, of course, their own, and it’s understandable why people lash out in denial.
Posted by: Barbara | May 09, 2014 at 03:31 PM
I'm not familiar enough with climate studies to say much about them and their reliability, but I used to study geology (before global warming had become an universally accepted idea, although it was on its way then). First of all, fossil fuels are called 'fossil' because they are, that carbon was in circulation once. Second, there are fairly good indications that the CO2 concentration in atmosphere has been maybe as high as 20 times what it is now, in some geological eras, and that did not lead to any kind of runaway greenhouse situation - if it had we would not be here now.
And climate change, completely natural climate change, is something inevitable. Even without any human influences Earth's climate has been changing, sometimes catastrophically fast, during the eras.
So, maybe there is now human influenced climate change happening. Maybe it's natural change but with a human component. And maybe there isn't. So far none of the early predictions have come true so I am somewhat skeptical. Maybe there is something to those studies, but until they start to yield accurate predictions pouring money on attempts to control this climate change thing seems like boondoggle.
Might make much more sense to try and figure out ways to adjust to whatever changes the climate may go through. The one sure thing is that there will be changes whether humans have a hand in the mix or not.
And when it comes to human history and prehistory - we seem to have always done way better during the warmer periods than during the colder ones. So if it is actually warming, is that necessarily a bad thing?
Posted by: Marja | May 09, 2014 at 05:39 PM
Marja wrote, "So far none of the early predictions have come true so I am somewhat skeptical."
That's basically how I feel. The predictions are based on computer models that so far have not panned out. Normally, if predictions fail, a theory is modified or discarded; the global warming alarmists seem to be doubling down. And some people are getting downright hysterical about it. See this bizarre rant:
http://witchwind.wordpress.com/2014/05/06/it-seems-the-end-is-to-come/
The blogger who wrote this is not a scientist, but her over-the-top reaction unfortunately is a predictable result of media and political hype on this topic.
Posted by: Michael Prescott | May 09, 2014 at 07:24 PM
"It's like peeing into the municipal water tower. Everyone connected to the municipal water system has to drink a little pee. "
Actually, that depends on where you live. If someone pees into an Oregon reservoir, they just drain the whole thing.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/oregon-reservoir-drained-teen-peed-article-1.1759639
I like this part:
"The human pee is not a health hazard — goodness knows plenty of animals and fish use the reservoir as a natural toilet.
But Shaff says he doesn’t like the idea of teenage urine coming through city taps."
Posted by: Bruce Siegel | May 09, 2014 at 08:12 PM
If there is life after death why should those of us who believe in life after death care? This obviously isn't the main show and only exists at the discretion of those beings of light on the other side. If they want to turn off the switch or change the way the game is played it's up to them and has always been up to them. They are in charge, not us.
excerpt from Jame's NDE, "The light, in my personal opinion, is the source of all life, it is life before life is created. And the light itself, comes from somewhere else. ... {snip}... I knew that every little thing that will ever occur here, is exactly planned out, in order to bring about something else. Everything we have ever done or known or will know, is perfectly planned out and perfectly in tune."
http://www.nderf.org/NDERF/NDE_Experiences/james_e_nde.htm
excerpt from Carl Turner's mystical experience, "I knew that everything is perfect and happening according to some divine plan, regardless of all the things we see as wrong with the world."
http://www.beyondreligion.com/su_personal/dreamsvisions-kundalini.htm
Posted by: Art | May 09, 2014 at 09:53 PM
Maria, the Geological Society’s official statement disagrees with pretty well everything you have said.
http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/climaterecord
Some extracts from their December 2013 addendum:
Some here say that climate scientists are eco-freaks trying to erase capitalism. Do you ally yourself with that? It’s not a scientific position at all; it’s a conspiracy theory.
Posted by: Barbara | May 10, 2014 at 04:21 AM
Your commenter ‘no one’ expressed the view that arguments against anthropogenic global warming have not been properly answered. This recent article might change his mind:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2014/may/06/top-ten-global-warming-skeptic-arguments-debunked
Posted by: Ben | May 10, 2014 at 02:54 PM
Amos Oliver Doyle: At my age, I don't really have a dog in this fight. I only really know what I have experienced in weather for the past 75 years in Illinois. Over those years, where I live, depending on the position of the jet stream coming down from Canada over the Midwest, there have been alternating mild winters and very cold winters with last winter being especially cold; a lot of snow and little snow; drought years and rainy years and years where rainfall was has been perfect for corn and beans; early Springs and late Springs. There have been years with many tornados and years when few tornadoes were reported and years when flash floods were reported---but I have not experienced a trend in any direction.
Concerning climate change, I guess this depends on where you live. I've lived near LA near the ocean for 51 years and have observed that here in Southern California there has been a pronounced warming trend with ever increasing drought conditions. The drought over the whole southwest US is very serious, to the point of crisis in Central California. We haven't had a good rainy season in years. Flood control projects built in the 70s and 80s have gone unused and dry for many years. No thick fog near the ocean, which used to be a characteristic feature of southern Ca. weather. Fire seasons have been getting worse every year due to the excessively dry conditions. This is all happening with a pronounced acceleration over the last 15 years.
Of course there is no proof that all of this is due to the anthropogenic global warming effect of increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but I find it highly likely that it is involved.
http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Climate-Change-Impacting-California-219113961.html
Posted by: doubter | May 10, 2014 at 03:00 PM
2. Temperatures at the end of the 19th century were the lowest in 10,000 years. A bounce upward would have been a “reversion to the mean” that would need no other explanation than “natural variation.” It’s mainly extremists who resist this interpretation.
3. Here is a contrarian thread whose commenters throw dozens of darts at the 2010 base statement by the GS, especially its claim of a “positive feedback” effect (quoted below, under #4):
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/06/26/geological-society-statement-about-climate-change/
4. The Dec. 2013 GS statement cites and relies in part for its “growing abundance of palaeoclimate data” on a 2012 paper by Shakun et al. in Nature [footnote 1]. On pp. 6-7 it says,
But it failed to cite the Humlum et al. paper published earlier in 2013 that disagrees with this. Here is how the contrarian NIPCC report characterized it, in July 2013:GS seems unjustified in treating Shakun et al. 2012 as dispositive.
5. GS also relied on its footnote-12 item, Marcott, S.A., Shakun, J.D., Clark, P.U., and Mix, A.C., 2013 for its statement, “Recent compilations of global records [11,12] show a net global cooling of about 0.7°C over the Holocene [12], followed by warming into the modern era [13].” That paper is very controversial. Contrarian rebuttals in 2013 can be found at:
http://junksciencecom.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/marcott-rebuttal.pdf
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/13/validity-of-marcott-et-al-part-ii/
http://climateaudit.org/2013/03/15/how-marcottian-upticks-arise/
http://climateaudit.org/2013/03/16/the-marcott-shakun-dating-service/
Posted by: Roger Knights | May 11, 2014 at 08:31 AM
But multi-decadal climate change like that and worse has existed in the US West all the way back, due to natural variation:
BTW, here’s a link to a somewhat contrarian WUWT thread on the drought situation in California, although it is mostly focused on water-supply issues:http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/02/19/a-perspective-on-the-california-drought/
The past record of major climate swings I cited above casts doubt on that being “highly likely,” as does this sentence from the NBC story you linked to: “Annual average temperatures across the state have risen by about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit since 1895, with the greatest warming seen in portions of the Central Valley and Southern California.”
Since the effect of CO2 didn’t kick in significantly until 1950, it’s odd that 1895 was chosen as the start date. I therefore suspect the rise since 1950 is only half of 1.5 degrees. If so, that’s hard to distinguish from natural variation.
Posted by: Roger Knights | May 11, 2014 at 03:41 PM
http://seattletimes.com/html/specialreportspages/2023517279_chinaenergyxml.html
Will Greenies petition the UN to indict those countries for crimes against humanity? Nothing will come of that. The UN will just say, in effect, “Who’s ‘We’,’ white man?” Will Greenpeace sail a ship to a Chinese oil-drilling platform and occupy it? The outcome of that can be foreseen. Will Greenies Take a Stand and boycott their goods? It'll be hard to find substitutes, and it'll have no impact if they do, and the US collectively can't embargo China et al.--China has us by the short hairs.
It’s a denial of reality to imagine that “doing something” will accomplish anything. If the West reduces its emissions, it will only reduce the amount of warming by 2100 by an insignificant amount. But it will badly harm its economies, as the arrows in the back of renewables-pioneer Spain indicate, and as the increasing economic pincushioning of Germany and the UK is foreshadowing. Anything the West can do that is affordable will be insignificant; anything it can do that is significant will be unaffordable. It is like building a levee against a flood while one’s next-door neighbors refuse to do so. Unilateral action is futile and self-destructive. Therefore, adaptation (and nuclear power) is our only option, and “deniers” are saviors of the West.
They are also saviors of environmentalism, because the public in the West will revolt against Greenies if Green emissions and renewables policies cause great economic hardship, and especially if The Pause continues—or a cooling trend sets in.
Posted by: Roger Knights | May 11, 2014 at 04:33 PM