It’s difficult to write about George Marshall except in a tone of ridicule, so I won’t even try. He’s written a whole book – “Don’t Even Think about It” – about what it’s like to be a modern Ancient Mariner, mocked and ignored by family and friends, the unwelcome guest at the dinner party.
from Paul Kingsnorth’s review in the London Review of Books:
Climate scientists themselves, asked by Marshall about their long-haul flights, come up with some dubious rationalisations. A story is told about a dinner party at which the guests – retired professionals – chatted about their expensive holidays to far-flung locations. Exasperated, one guest dropped the subject of climate change onto the well-ordered table. ‘The room went very quiet. Then someone decided to break the silence. “My word,” she said, “what a lovely spinach tart.”’
But George’s life isn’t all pain and pessimism. He does after all, have COIN, the Climate Outreach group, financed by the British taxpayer to the tune of a few hundred thousand. And he has Twitter.
I don’t tweet, and only came across George’s twitterings by accident. I hate it when people quote tweets at length, because I can’t work out who’s tweeting who, and what about, But George’s bird table is rarely visited, and therefore easy to navigate, so I offer these crumbs of consolation for fans of this kind of thing:
A Year in the Life of a Tweeting Twat.
New Year 2018 George spent in Snowdonia. By February he was back home in Oxford, busy chirruping his agreement with George Monbiot, who had tweeted despairingly:
“Stock markets slide for a day. Result: mass panic and wall-to-wall coverage. Soil is sliding off the land worldwide, threatening the entire basis of human survival. Result: indifference, no coverage.”
George Marshall @climategeorge 7 févr. 2018
Yes@GeorgeMonbiotI was thinking the same as parades of highly intelligent people paraded across the media talking b****ks
..and voicing his disagreement with one Harsh Goenka, who had enthused:
“Airbus A3 in the future would have a modular concept with cafés, spa, gym on board!”
George Marshall @climategeorge 7 févr. 2018
What a bloody nightmare. Proof, were any needed, of the deep-seated #climatedenial among elite technophiles. We can all cruise around on our exercise bikes over a devastated landscapes.
But a week later finds George in Boston. I wonder how he got there? By exercise bike?
George Marshall @climategeorge 13 févr. 2018
Nice piece on Boston radio @wgbhon climate psychology and extreme weather with me and Tony Leiserowitz from the @YaleClimateComm
And three weeks later he’s in Canada, with our friend Katherine Hayhoe, who cycled up from Texas.
George Marshall @climategeorge 6 mars 2018
Really fun night in Calgary talking climate with @KHayhoe and 400 Albertans
By April he’s back in Oxford conducting interfaith masterclasses on communicating climate change, and by the summer he’s doing what we Brits do best – moaning about the weather and the bias on BBC radio:
George Marshall @climategeorge 7 mai 2018
800,000 years! Last month carbon dioxide levels became the highest in 800,000 years! (says Scripps Institute of Oceanography) And UK holiday weather breaking records. I’m not celebrating.
George Marshall @climategeorge 27 juin 2018
Phenomenal performance by @lorddebenon @BBCr4today. ..wish John Humphreys knew what he was talking about..he seems not to understand the issues at all.
George Marshall @climategeorge 4 juil. 2018
Exasperated: waiting for media (anyone) to stop talking about “glorious” weather and link the exceptional UK dry heat to accelerating climate change.
Luckily he managed to get away for a bit to the South of France:
George Marshall @climategeorge 20 juil. 2018
Great to be talking here in Arles at #LesNapoleons
But by September he was back in Oxford, moaning about the weather and the media again:
George Marshall @climategeorge 3 sept. 2018
So it was the hottest summer ever recorded in Britain, according to the Met Office?- well then, even more shame on our rubbish newsmedia for utterly failing to make any connection with climate change in all their coverage of bikinis and icecream.
This continued into October and November:
George Marshall @climategeorge 9 oct. 2018
Absolutely scandalous that @BBCNewsnightis giving air time to climate denier Myron Ebell following IPCC report. Normally I welcome challenging views but this time it is a breach of editorial values.
George Marshall @climategeorge 10 oct. 2018
Strange how #bbcmoralmazeforgets that it used to give a platform to melanie phillips and claire fox to brazenly deny climate change. It’s self righteous as ever with moral amnesia.
George Marshall @climategeorge 2 nov. 2018
Did I just hear John Humphreys say that there is nothing we can do about increasing temperatures?. I am so sick of this. @BBCr4today, do professional journalism on this issue!
In November he was in London for the mass disobedience:
George Marshall @climategeorge 17 nov. 2018
Waterloo bridge blocked by #ExtinctionRebellion the five main bridges in central London are blocked in mass protests against climate change and species extinction. The largest spontaneous mass actions in a very long time
… and then in Katowice, Poland of course, for the COP24:
George Marshall @climategeorge 4 déc. 2018
Talking endlessly about the need to talk about #climatechange! at #COP24@ClimateOutreach
George Marshall @climategeorge 7 déc. 2018
Friday night in the climate negotiations..like that scene in Der Untergang when they party in the bunker as the world collapses outside #COP24
George Marshall @climategeorge 9 déc. 2018
Great night out with Belgium and Poland’s top weather presenters Jill Peeters and Jaroslaw Kret @jarekkret. I’m very inspired by the @climatewithoutborders initiative to mobilize weather presenters as frontline #climatechangecommunicators
George Marshall @climategeorge 9 déc. 2018
In a city literally built on coal, in a cathedral built from the income of coal, the bishop of #Katowiceblesses protest banners declaring the end of coal. A mass for#ClimateChangeand a turning point in history.
…and now he’s’ back in Canada:
George Marshall @climategeorge 26 févr.
Great session in Toronto with 100 fired up #ClimateChangefolks on an all day communications session. Very inspiring
March 2nd he was tweeting from Ottawa:
Another great session… facilitating a room packed with people, energy, ideas in Ottawa planning climate change plans for 2019..how did we live without post-its?
And later the same day:
Edmonton elms;; the largest concentration of elms left in North America.. the disease beetle can’t survive the cold. -25C today, the coldest Feb on 40 years
Cold enough to freeze the b****ks off a brass-necked psychologist? Don’t even think about it. Before he left, he shared with us a high point in his career:
George Marshall @climategeorge 14 févr.
How cool is this? I’m on the same magazine spread as the wonderful GretaThunberg ..an honour.
There’s no link, but an instagram image of the Twat in the Hat
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bt2m4CpnPUp/?utm_source=ig_twitter_share&igshid=1lm1yg28ysry
with a wee article unreadable on the photo. I found it in the March/April issue of a German on-line magazine called Terra Mater.
and here’s the text:
JETZT HAB ICH DAS KLIMA KAPIERT!
Unsere Gehirne können Klimawandel und seine Folgen nur schwer verarbeiten. Marshall schreibt und spricht darüber, wie man Kommunikationdarüber besser macht.
Geoerge Marshall hat ein Buch geschrieben. Lieber redet er aber: Das sei der Schlüssel für alles. Doch noch spalte dasThema Klimawandel politisch mehr als Abtreibung oder Waffenkontrolle. An seine Institut Climate Outreach wird erforsche welche Kommunicationsstrategien bei Menschen Anklag finden. Dafûr redet er auch mit Vertretern großer Widersacher wie die Ölindustrie: “Es bringt nichts, die Leute anzugreifen und ihren zu sagen, wie furchtbar ihre Arbeit ist.” Erreichen könne man Leute nur über einen persônlichen Bezug. “Listen wie, ’10 Dinge, die du gegen den Klimawandel tun kannst’ haben keinerlei Effekt, solange sich die Leute immer noch fragen, wozu sie das tun sollten.”
This is German which even someone who failed German GCSE like me can read, so I imagine the magazine, which looks like a cool green Hello, is for Germans whose knowledge of their language is at about my level. Here’s a translation anyway. Some of the errors are mine, some are by Google Translate:
AT LAST, I’VE SUSSED THE CLIMATE!
Our brains find it difficult to deal with climate change and its consequences. Marshall writes and talks about how better to communicate about it.
George Marshall has written a book. But he prefers to say that that is [not (?)] the key to everything. For the topic of climate change is still more politically divisive than abortion or arms control. At his Climate Outreach institute he attempts to explore which communication strategies people find persuasive. He also speaks to representatives of enemies such as the oil industry: “It doesn’t help to attack people and tell them how awful their work is.” People can only be reached through personal contact. “Making a list of ’10 things you can do about climate change‘has no effect as long as people are still wondering why they should do it.”
And here’s the front cover of the magazine, with the title: “Geniuses with a Conscience. 22 wise men (and women) who want to make our world a better place – and the role played by Leonardo di Caprio.”
George is the one in the hat to the left of the bag below the rhinoceros’s eye.
Climate Scepticism 
Twat ‘the Hat’ Marshall, his 21 other climate genius friends and Leo Di Caprio. They look like they’d fit right in, along with the Krays and the Richardsons, on the 50s/60s London gangland scene.
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Goodness, he’s very well connected with the climate anxiety elite. Constant hand-wringing about the weather doesn’t seem to stop him flying around and having climate anxiety fun practically everywhere. Par for the course.
‘representatives of enemies’ : standard tribalism too. I wonder what he says to them in his reach-outs.
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COIN should definitely publish its own version of the Dr. Seuss classic, for outreach purposes …
‘The sun did not shine. It was too wet to play. So we sat in the house. All that cold, cold, wet day.’ [The kids are obviously suffering from climate change, which is causing abnormal low temperatures, extreme rainfall and increased flood risk.]
[Enter our hero and his green-haired friends Thing One and Thing Two, flying in to create some good-humoured havoc. The fish – obviously some sort of aquatic climate denier – has misgivings, however…]
‘”Have no fear, little fish”, said the Twat in the Hat. “These Things are good Things.” And he gave them a pat. “They are tame. Oh, so tame! They have come here to play. They will give you some fun, on this wet, wet wet day”.’
[Chaos ensues as western civilisation is turned upside down – then restored by a Green New Deal, as if by magic!]
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To the Twat in the Hat and the Green Things:
We do not like the Green New Deal and Ham,
We would not, could not in a tree.
Not in a car!
You let us be.
We do not like them in a box.
We do not like them with a fox.
We do not like them in a house.
We do not like them with a mouse.
We do not like them here or there.
We do not like them anywhere.
We do not like the Green New Deal and Ham.
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Andy. Are you perhaps comparing the Green New Deal with the Cat’s machine that puts the house to rights just before the mother (Gaia?)0 returns and calms the hysterical alarmist fears of the fish? But that would make the actions of the Cat and the Things akin to those of the fossil fuel industry. Not really the right message.
Perhaps a better Green template might be had in “How the [oh so Green] Grinch Stole Christmas!”
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well connected?
He pretty much was the one main influencers in theUK! (along with close acquaintances , George Monbiot/ Mark Lynas)
actually credited with the phrase ‘climate change denier’ and also responsible for the very first online – Deniers – Hall of Shame (visa Rising Tide, the ‘grassroots’ organisation he founded)
responsible for Exxon fossil Fuel smears of Lindzen, Stott and others.
(George had spent a decade in the rainforest fighting Chevron – and was a Greenpeace USA director, and Rainforest director)
Lovely video of him at ‘Climate Camp’ equating climate denial, with people being taken away in cattle trucks in the middle of the night..
The co-founder of Earth First UK (who even Greenpeace were nervous of, because of their extreme direct action)
Now he says, in his sage/wise comms/psychology role that climate change denier phrase is ‘problematic’ and polarising – NOT once actually telling anybody he created the phrase, and demonised climate sceptics (with Monbiot) for years.
and here he is saying he prefers ‘denier’ because it ‘works’ when he was amongst climate activists
http://www.joabbess.com/2010/04/17/sceptic-backlash-questions-answered/#more-5079
(George)
– “Climategate” is a resonant metaphor. We’ve been out-manoeuvred.
– They have inserted this into the language.
– [About the word “Climategate”] It probably came from Marc Morano first.
– Look at the word “sceptic”. It’s a very carefully chosen word.
– I rather use “denier” – and I’m delighted to say it works.
– But they’re [Climate Change sceptics] doing a better job than us at the moment [on communications].
he went far for a guy that did a sociology degree at Bristol in 1984, then buggered off to be a rainforest activist, and beginning a career of a lifelong activist.
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Barry,
Thanks for that video of the Twat Not In The Hat.
“The challenge for us as campaigners is to find ways of making climate change a real risk in people’s minds, making it immediate, making it real, and above all, making it emotional, no longer depending on information as a main means of our communication . . . . .”
This is exactly what climate alarmists are doing. They’re scaring the hell out of people with apocalyptic visions of the near future, scaring the hell out of people by unscientifically linking extreme weather directly to climate change and saying ‘it will only get worse’ and finally, emotionally blackmailing people by appealing to their sense of guilt re. future generations, using brainwashed child protestors to do so. They have abandoned any scientific rationalisation of their claims of imminent catastrophe and have gone straight for the jugular. But not even that seems to be working out very well. Oh dear, never mind.
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Barry, thanks for the background. I’ve come across him in dispatches on occasion, but somehow it has passed me by that he is such a core figure in the climate catastrophist domain. Hence my surprise at his many top connections. I don’t think his usage of ‘denier’ is the first though, Ellen Goodman in the Boston Globe (with specific linkage to the Holocaust for same level of disgust) was 6 months before that video, and there was some usage going back before that too (though I’d have to dig to remember who / when). He seems to believe at that camp that denialism has psychological explanations. And regarding climate risk communication, ‘above all, making it emotional’. Comes across serious chap, i.e. not raving like some, but utterly unaware of how this will completely undermine what tenuous link to the truth might still remain, and create a monster that is outside his and everyone else’s control.
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Ah… I see Jaime got there first 🙂
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Andy – Marshall/Lynas/Hari/Monbiot predate Ellen Goodman (looks like she just copied)
Originally in Marshall’s 2001 worldview, we (the public were all climate deniers), as a comparison with jewish people, in denial about the coming holocaust. (the classic psychological form of being in denial)
Marshall writing in 2001 here: The Psychology of Denial: our failure to act against climate change
http://ecoglobe.ch/motivation/e/clim2922.htm
“Firstly, we can expect widespread denial when the enormity and nature of the problem are so unprecedented that people have no cultural mechanisms for accepting them. In Beyond Judgement, Primo Levi, seeking to explain the refusal of many European Jews to recognise their impending extermination, quotes an old German adage: ‘Things whose existence is not morally possible cannot exist.’
In the case of climate change, then, we can intellectually accept the evidence of climate change, but we find it extremely hard to accept our responsibility for a crime of such enormity. Indeed, the most powerful evidence of our denial is the failure to even recognise that there is a moral dimension with identifiable perpetrators and victims. The language of ‘climate change’, ‘global warming’, ‘human impacts’, and ‘adaptation’ are themselves a form of denial familiar from other forms of human rights abuse; they are scientific euphemisms that suggest that climate change originates in immutable natural forces rather than in a direct causal relationship with moral implications for the perpetrator.” – Marshall 2001
This theme you see him repeat that Climate Camp video years later, people in denial like people being taken away screaming in cattle trucks in the middle of the night .
And here Marshall is with Lynas. in 2003 – listing a Who’se Who ‘list’ of climate deniers and the fossil Fuel smear (straight from Rising Tide Material.) Marshall ex director Rainforest org, freshly back in UK from fighting oil company Chevron in the rainforest (so use his favourite smear, oil companies?)
https://www.newstatesman.com/node/191306
– Who’s who among the climate-change deniers – Lomborg, Lindzen, Stoot, Soon, Ballianus, etc
A few years later, (Feb 2005/2006) in the UK/Austria we had the high profile trial and jailing of a holocaust denier – David Irving
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/feb/20/austria.thefarright
and eco activist ‘journalists’ like Johann Hari, Monbiot and Lynas, skewed the original framing as like being in holocaust denial like Jewish people couldn’t contemplate the enormity of what might befall onto themselves, into climate denial as being the moral equivalence of Irving Holocaust Denial. (2005, Hari, Lynas/Monbiot 2006)
“The climate-change deniers are rapidly ending up with as much intellectual credibility as creationists and Flat Earthers. …they are nudging close to having the moral credibility of Holocaust deniers.”
– Johann Hari, The Independent (2005)
“I wonder what sentences judges might hand down at future international criminal tribunals on those who will be partially but directly responsible for millions of deaths from starvation, famine and disease in decades ahead. I put this in a similar moral category to Holocaust denial.”
– Mark Lynas, Environmental Activist (2006)
“Almost everywhere, climate change denial now looks as stupid and as unacceptable as Holocaust denial.”
– George Monbiot, The Guardian (2006)
Ellen Goodman came after… (just parroting)
“Let’s just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers.”
– Ellen Goodman, Boston Globe (2007)
(links for all the above here)
http://www.populartechnology.net/2014/02/skeptics-smeared-as-holocaust-deniers.html
George Marshall set up a Deniers Hall of Shame in 2002 – Rising Tide website (he founded Rising Tide – which helped/supported/guided a myriad of other similar groups)
https://web.archive.org/web/20021004051549/http://www.risingtide.org.uk/pages/hall_shame.html
The Campaign against Climate Change also used the exact same idea/wording (Marshall was on the advisory board (Monbiot a honorary president, Lynas also involved. ) Marshall influence the whole psychology of climate change debate for that entire organisation
https://web.archive.org/web/20100402201814/http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2009/mar/09/denial-climate-change-psychology
And organised fighting back against sceptics:
https://web.archive.org/web/20100312014158/http://www.campaigncc.org/node/384
which resulted in my first blog post.
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2010/4/19/skeptic-alerts.html
Here we have Marshall being credited with the phrase, and the reason why. Political language to demonize your opponent, and as you see in my earlier quote/transcript. Marshall was delighted to say that ‘denier’ works’…
https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060018646
“In politics, there was “Holocaust denial,” “moon-landing denial” and “evolution denial” — all flowing from Freud, with its implications not only of untruth but of mental illness.
And now the word’s in the center ring of the global warming fight: “climate denial.”
“Climate change has always been a kind of a framing war,” said George Marshall, founder of the Climate Outreach Information Network in Great Britain and the author of the book “Don’t Even Think About It: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Ignore Climate Change.” “If you can get out there and you can get your language inserted into the discourse, it’s your ideas that dominate.”
Marshall and co-author Mark Lynas published the first reference to “climate denier” in the English-language press in a 2003 op-ed they wrote for the left-leaning magazine The New Statesman.
They wanted those words to sting.”
Another extract:
https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060018646
“But while environmentalists say they are making inroads with a public that is increasingly aware of climate change and impatient with those who continue to dispute it, they’re a long way from what Marshall says is the endgame.
“In the end, if you win the frame war, your opponents back off and they start using your language,” he said. “And then you’ve won.”
—————
Marshall is a hardcore intolerant political activist, he knew exactly what he as doing. and the whole psychology and the media, simply went along with him…
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My favourite Marshall quote is from back when he was a spokesman for Earth First:
Er, if you say there’s a place for it then you’re condoning it, no?
That was in 1993. He’s been having it both ways ever since.
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Paul,
I wonder if he’ll tweet back?
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Remember all those anti-roads movements. Marshall as right at the heart of it – Founding Earth First UK (initially concerned about Rainforests) (and had backing/money from The Ecologist founder) ad took direct action that even made Greenpeace nervous.. If you want to understand the activist mentality – read this book (by Derek Wall based on his PhD thesis – now a senior member of Green Party, went up against Theresa May)
In interview (Marshall) :
“There is no area that I can imagine which allows quite such a scope for doing different things… You have to be a journalist, you have to be an artist, you have to be a public speaker… you have to be very straight and very bent. You have to be able to do research and similarly you have to be a demagogue”
– Earth First: Anti-Road Movement – Derek Wall
“While Burbridge and Zeler were in jail, EF! (UK( targeted the July 9991 G7 – heads of government – conference. Marshall described the event as..
“.. a primary opportunity to confront… the heads of major scumbag countries in the world…[and] it was happening in London. I can’t remember how many, like 10,000 media were there, or something; it was a real chance to get a message out, a real chance to confront them directly. Nobody did any actions at all except for us. Nothing”. Bruno Manser, A Swiss rainforest activist contacted by EF!(UK) climbed a lamppost outside the conference (Independant 18 July 1991:1). Using a press pass, Marshall gained entry and launched a verbal assault on Prime Minister John Major.
– Earth First: Anti-Road Movement – Derek Wall
well worth reading (buy a used one!)
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George doesn’t accept any debate…..
Reply to me (after he deleted my comment from his blog, ClimateDenial.org !!
I only think I got it because I named dropped people he knew, and knew I was meeting them. in other comments he deleted. he made out there were abusive comments. but got caught out)
2012:
Dear Barry
So sorry- I was not replying to you but someone else who wrote a highly abusive comment- when I replied it posted my reply but not his comment…looks like I have some way to go in understanding the blog software. I did not accept your comment not because it was abusive- it was actually nicely put, but because, since taking on this subject, I have been deluged with comments from people who do not accept human generated global warming This is entirely their right, but it is also my right to keep my blog on the topic that I choose and also care passionately about, not as a sounding board for a debate that I do not accept-
I do allow comments sometimes from people who do not agree with me, but only when they are strictly on topic…and I rarely have my comments accepted by people with anti-AGW site either
But thanks for writing and sorry for the confusion
George
my reply…
Hi George
Thank you for your reply..
I do think my comment was on topic though, if you want to talk to ‘deniers’ / ‘dissenters’ take a look at why they may distrust those that call them ‘denier’s’?
I do think that some on climate concerned side of the debate do need to look in a mirror occasionally, and not project political /ideological motives to everybody
ie Halls of Shame and Denier, are almost guaranteed to put people back’s up about an issue (whether they are right or wrong)
As it comes across as political rhetoric (of the worst sort).
In my personal experience of have been called many such names by climate activists, just for agreeing with climate scientists views (that don’t match the activists)
A very good friend of mine was co editor of IPCC TAR Summary for policymakers, and advices DECC to this day) and the say the over blown claims of some activists drives the scientists nuts!
I understand about intolerance on both extreme sides of the debate. ie frequently get told to hang out with my climate scientist mates or environmentalist friends.!
or just told to stfu !
Not everyone who is sceptical, has ideological or political motives, they just think the overhype, has been utterly counterproductive..
again it is not a simple belief in AGW yes/ no. it is how much, and whether the dire projections are accurate or overblown/hyped.
Anyway. I’m having lunch tomorrow with Mark Lynas and Professor J Jones, should be interesting..
Best Regards
Barry Woods
This was the blog post…
https://climatedenial.org/2012/03/29/how-to-talk-to-a-climate-change-denier-dissenter/
“I want to apologise for using the phrase Climate Change Denier which is tricky I know. It is, I am sure, the best title for people looking for this material and I want the video seen by as many people as possible. Half way through the video I recommend using the term Climate Dissenters as an alternative.”
Given that he virtually invented the phrase, and certainly helped popularise it (via Guardain, all activist groups and demonised people in Halls of Shame, smeared then as in the pay of, and forgets to mention this fact to anyone that read his book or watched his videos … shows who he is, an activist.
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Barry,
Thanks for the detailed update. One forgets how old all this is, now you remind indeed I recall Monbiot in this trail. From the perspective of launching this into the public I assumed it was the likes of Ellen and him; I’m still blank on Marshall’s role here, I don’t know why I missed that over all this time. Three computers ago I had some older links on the psychology angles of the arisal of so called ‘denial’, which I was more interested in than the public expression, so mainly academic stuff. A quick scan shows there’s still a few around (below) that go way back, and indeed your Sept 2001 article by Marshall came up via the search criteria. These don’t as far as I know make the transition from a presumed psychological state of ‘denial’, to an open labelling of ‘deniers’ or ‘denialists’, but it’s not improbable that just as for the wider social phenomenon of climate change catastrophism itself, academia and even some other influencers, well-prepared the ground for ‘denial’/’deniers’ to take off. Interestingly the Erhlich / Gelbspan quote was presumably in a journal or newspaper originally, though limited to denying scientists.
GLOBAL CHANGE: Ozone Depletion, Greenhouse Warming, and Public Health
Governments in the industrial nations have mostly resisted pressure from these quarters, with backing from the energy industry. I believe there is an element of denial in this, akin to a person’s reluctance to accept a diagnosis of incurable cancer or an adolescent’s faith in immunity from the consequences of risky behaviour. (1993).
https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev.pu.14.050193.000555
Paul and Anne Erhlich: Betrayal of science and reason
Ross Gelbspan, a Pulitzer prize winner journalist, referring to the small cadre of atmospheric scientists who deny that global warming is real, wrote: ‘… in this persistent and well-funded campaign of denial they have become interchangeable ornaments on the hood of a high powered engine of [misinformation].” (original 1996, re-print 1998).
The treaty is a recognition by the world’s major industrial nations that the scientific evidence for climate change is now so strong, that it can no longer be ignored. This is a view being adopted by a growing number of multinational corporations. “We’ve moved, as the psychologists would say, beyond denial,” said John Browne, Group CEO of British Petroleum, in a speech on the treaty’s implications. “There’s a growing consensus that climate change is an issue we have to take seriously.”
https://www.iisd.org/pdf/kyotoprimer_en.pdf (1998)
THE PSYCHO-SPATIAL DIMENSION OF GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS
Responsibility for environmental destruction and degradation is seen to lie outside the control of the individual or even the community. This perceived lack of control may lead to denial and reduced feelings of self-efficacy. (2000).
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0272494400901750
The psychology of denial concerning climate mitigation measures: evidence from Swiss focus groups.
…they also erected a series of psychological barriers to justify why they should not act either individually or through collective institutions to mitigate climate change. From the viewpoint of changing their lifestyles of material comfort and high-energy dependence, they regarded the consequences of possible behavioural shift arising from the need to meet mitigation measures as more daunting. To overcome the dissonance created in their minds they created a number of socio-psychological denial mechanisms. Such mechanisms heightened the costs of shifting away from comfortable lifestyles, set blame on the inaction of others, including governments, and emphasised doubts regarding the immediacy of personal action when the effects of climate change seemed uncertain and far away.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0959378000000613 (July 2001)
Dr Andrew Bennett, Department for International Development:
There is no doubt that climate change will happen. It will affect our lives and impact an increasing number of people. Outside this workshop there is still a denial that climate change is an issue. We need to make it less about models and outcomes and more about stability and economic impacts. (Oct 2001).
Click to access G00069.pdf
Psychology of Promoting Environmentalism: Psychological Contributions to Achieving an Ecologically Sustainable Future for Humanity
Essentially, people don’t like to think about fearful topics, and they frequently repress or deny such information. Clear examples can be seen in inattention to and denial of the dangers of global warming and the ozone hole. (2002).
https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/0022-4537.00173
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Barry, post in mod due to a few links. From your exchange with George detailed above, he seems to be into hypocrisy squared 0:
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Marshalls role.. – Creating – Deniers – Halls of Shame… and quite literally influencing the entire climate movement in the UK.. All those grass roots movements, Stop Climate Chaos, Climate Camp, Campaign Against Climate Change, heavily influenced by Marshall ‘psychological view of the world.. and Monbiot (who he was very closely associated with, pushing the Climate Denier hate in the Guardian… https://www.theguardian.com/environment/gallery/2009/mar/09/climate-change-deniers-monbiot-cards
To quote Leo Hickman, when I asked him about George.. “Everybody knows Climate George”
seriously, buy that Earth First book. it explains an awful lot of what just preceded the climate change movement. Marsahll was in the thick of it.
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Many thanks Barry for the information. Every one of your interventions is a history lesson, transforming the thread under my trivial article into an important source of information.
On your advice, I’ve started reading
Marshall‘s Wall’s book on Road Rage. So far, I’m still on the “Acknowledgements” page:From Wikipaedia:
Larry O’Hara is a green leftwing Brexiteer, so someone who is not half bad. He doesn’t seem to have shot anyone.
Derek Wall’s book is about protesting against the Newbury bypass, a road handy for anyone who travels frequently from Oxford to one of London’s main international airports.
[edited minutes after publishing: The book and the admiration for a murderer are Derek Wall’s and not George Marshall’s. And the extract from Wikipedia above is a summary, and not a direct quote]
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Jaime, well, the twat in the hat did tweet back:
https://twitter.com/climategeorge/status/1102948710785282048
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That’s all right then – George’s work is so important that it justifies his enormous “carbon footprint”. It’s just people like you and me who must have small “carbon footprints”.
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One of XR’s celebrity protesters has finally realised that it’s not a good look to be blocking roads in London, stopping ordinary people getting to work, supposedly in the name of climate change, when you’re a professional Amex-funded globetrotter:
http://www.instagram.com/p/Bt_zGhDHpuT/
‘Recently I’ve begun to feel uncomfortable with my carbon footprint from flying…’
Blimey! Took you a while.
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maybe (very) amateur climate psychologist – can have a chat with professional and actually qualified climate psychologist Professor Stephan Lewandowsky. about ‘flying’ and public perception of flying climate activists…
“…..Now that the kids are adults and scattered across three continents life is no longer a circus but a never-ending series of airline tickets.” – Prof. S Lewandowsky – Royal society – bio
https://royalsociety.org/topics-policy/diversity-in-science/parent-carer-scientist/stephan-lewandowsky/
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Hi Geoff
just had to post this link after reading your great post.
it may be relevant to why most people disregard the likes of this hatter –
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/mar/04/weatherwatch-why-short-memories-may-be-bad-for-the-climate
which links to this – https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2019/02/15/1816541116
one quote from the Significance part of the paper –
“This rapidly shifting normal baseline means warming noticed by the general public may not be clearly distinguishable from zero over the 21st century, with potential implications for both the acceptance of global warming and public pressure for mitigation policies”
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“The changing global climate is producing increasingly unusual weather relative to preindustrial conditions. In an absolute sense, these changing conditions constitute direct evidence of anthropogenic climate change.”
Unscientific, peer-reviewed claptrap.
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This is so depressing.
The worst is that Ehrlich, the great
proto-charlatan of catastrophist ideation himself is still considered a credible, reputable source of ideas.
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All people who have the resources and inclination to fly should be able to do so.
I would not talk about the flying carbon footprint.
I would talk about how, if these climate catastrophists actually believed their nonsensical ideology they wouldn’t fly or yacht or live as they do.
The carbon footprint of flying is irrelevant to the world’s climate.
Just like these ass-clown’s policy demands.
The consensus is all Lent and no Easter, as wiser people have pointed out.
Which is appropriate on this Ash Wednesday
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Hunter:
“The worst is that Ehrlich, the great proto-charlatan of catastrophist ideation himself is still considered a credible, reputable source of ideas.”
They always give them prizes….https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_R._Ehrlich#Awards_and_honors
They usually carry a cash amount, tax free no doubt, such as the Blue Planet Prize, which carries 50 million yen.
See the other notables who have had the yen, here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Planet_Prize
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