Edmund Burke once wrote: “Never despair, but if you do, work on in despair.” I just hope he would have made it to the end of this thread.
Let’s add a beautiful, tranquil backdrop.
That’s all very well, Mr BrainyQuote, but what work can we usefully do about climate alarm and its resultant, seemingly all-powerful, policy bandwagon?
It’s not just climate. The problem is, once we go to Donald Trump, or any other climate-related subject (we’ll always have Paris, as somebody on here said before me, but only until they re-ratify it) we tend to lose some admirable Cliscep contributors and lurkers. (The loss of the lurkers is an assumption on my part but it figures.)
If that doesn’t make you despair, what will?
I orginally had another design for this thread: to give some personal background to Provocation. There were connections between the first three tweets in the first section and the Bristol Eye Hospital, for me. That probably won’t have been obvious. It speaks of a day when I overcame despair and it worked out pretty well, compared to the alternative. But I’m going to tell that story in the comments. The parts that can be told, given doctor-patient confidentiality. Except I wasn’t the doctor. Let me think more about this.
This is mainly about climate and the future of Cliscep, then. In the context of Edmund Burke’s highly illogical aphorism. “Never x, but if you do, y” That’s why I like it so much.
Climate Scepticism 
Several years ago it seemed clear to me that the climate madness is a dynamic symptom, and not the cause.
Perhaps “result” is a better description than symptom.
Either term chosen, it is dynamic because it helped spread the non-sensical responses to policy questions to other areas of life.
As to the future of CliScep, let’s just live it out.
Either the madness will spread to the point where this site will be shutdown by the cancel culture, or it won’t. As to the participation level, we are part of something that has lasted years. The real world distractions of life are happening, I’ll wager, to us all:
Family, work, health, travel, etc. They have certainly happened to me and in spades.
Toss in the latest large-scale manifestation of the social madness, the pandemic. The widespread pathetic failures of the governing class to come up with science based reasonable policies stems directly from the same rot that allowed “climate” to become some sort of emergency.
So despair is understandable, but in a way irrelevant and certainly counter productive.
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It’s worth pointing out to readers, loyalists and lurkers alike, that we at Cliscep don’t actually know each other. I’ve met Richard once, and Alex twice and had a phone conversation with Ben about eight years ago. We occasionally exchange emails about what font to use etc., and that’s it. People come and go because they have lives to lead and so on.
We’re not focussed, in the way that Paul Homewood and Roger Tallbloke are. Should we be?
[Thanks HUNTERSON7 for answering my question four minutes before I asked it]
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I am one of those occasional contributors and lurkers who is losing interest in Cliscep articles – why? because no matter how hard we try we are getting nowhere in our fight against the CACC propaganda (our beloved BBC is pushing it hard at present ahead of the UN’s 2020 CoP virtual shindig and our beloved Prime Minister has fallen into line with his nonsense proposals about installing more of those useless wind turbines).
I’m presently rereading (after about 20 years) the first of Winston Churchill’s WWII three volumes, “The Gathering Storm”, covering the rise to power of propaganda expert Adolf Hitler. This extract from Mein Kampf relates to the CACC lie that our burgeoning use of fossil fuels will lead to a global climate catatrophe, emergency, chaos, crisis, etc. etc. etc.
” .. in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods.
It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying .. “.
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Using the old adage attributed to wise shepherds, Brainy Quote’s scene will predict tranquility only if it is dusk and not dawn.
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I am an omnivore when it comes to such things. I am also generally contrarian by nature. I like coming here. I like hearing sensible voices. I also found, again, a profound truth in Pete’s quote. “It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.” This is why the Republicans have sat back and watched for years as Democrats again and again and again increased their level of cheating until they just stole a landslide election for leadership Americans want. Meanwhile the media is merrily ignoring this while running around with their fingers in their ears and their eyes closed screaming “There’s no evidence!” in the face of overwhelming evidence. I can only conclude either the press is part of the evil or part of the naivety. Yes, I too am feeling hopeless, now in my tenth month of voluntary self isolation with no end in sight. However it is also a great truth of humanity that good people take and take and take up to a point. But when the point is crossed, they come back with more righteous fury than anything the evil can withstand. This round shows even 30% of Democrats think their leadership cheated and stole power. I always derive hope from that coming righteous fury. Leadership of the righteous tend to despair just before the turn around comes. So hang in there. Keep doing your part of chipping at the dam of colossal untruths. The breaking point is coming and one never knows which drop of water is going to release the flood.
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Thank you very much, Natalie.
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You didn’t really expect a couple of dozen sceptical sites would be able to overthrow the accumulated might and vested interests of the climate change lobby and apparatus (with its links to greenness and renewable energy), did you? If anything, I have watched climate change grow like a hydra, beginning to influence more and more of our lives. Moreover it has grown deep roots that make it more and more difficult to uproot and which provide it with my sustenance. It pervades more of our life daily and haunts our futures.
I have heard it said and concluded myself that any real debate is un-winnable, even if it were to be allowed. Increasingly our side of the debate will be deemed dangerous, and there is increasing likelihood that we will be banned.
But all is not lost. The pause was of concern and if the climate takes a downturn then people will think again. I doubt if I will be here to crow, but perhaps it would be unwise to criticise when activists claim success in stopping climate Armageddon by their activities.
Finally sites such as this are invaluable to those beginning a sceptical life. I met numerous undergraduates who were only too pleased to be offered a route away from the consensus which they had found unable to explain inconsistencies they had already noted for themselves. I’m not so sure I would have recommended Cliscep over the past year, with its concentration upon non-climate matters. But then other sites have either deviated or gone moribund. Look back only a few years to realise a great many contributors have gone. We don’t even have our own troll! But regulars toil on.
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“…we are getting nowhere in our fight against the CACC propaganda…”
I’m not sure it even merits the word fight unless it gets to the stage of political representation. Which to any real extent has only been true in the US, and much less / partially in Oz. Which doesn’t mean sites like this are valueless, embers are needed for political fires to arise, among other services. Because the CACC thing is ultimately cultural, this means there is actually a huge swathe in all populations that, even while not being climate literate at all, sense this (cultural effects have essentially existed forever, hence we have instinctive behaviours both in support and opposition to them), and they don’t like that. So any real fight has to be about activating that bulk opposition, which won’t happen because of anything to do with climate science. It might happen when cars and gas central heating are banned, and other such heavy impacts start to occur, and the impact of Wind Turbines on people and environment is already beginning to rankle. So I guess these things are what to focus on. I doubt I could politically organise to save my life, but surely this is where any real fight worth the name lies.
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Alan says:
“But all is not lost. The pause was of concern and if the climate takes a downturn then people will think again.”
I said years ago, on here I think, that the only way the climate scam will come to an end is if serious global cooling happens. The climate industrial complex has grown a lot more powerful and influential since then but it still remains vulnerable to the vagaries of Mother Nature. I doubt even the Schmidts and Hausfathers of this world could turn a sustained cooling trend into catastrophic global warming. 2020 looks like it will be another ‘hottest year evah’ so not much sign of cooling at present. Here’s the latest UAH update. It hasn’t warmed at all since the major El Nino of 2016 but it hasn’t exactly cooled either. We’re stuck in a stasis loop.
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According to a Russian saying, on the battlefield, hope dies last. This is no time for despair. Maybe anger, helplessness, frustration…
However tight the climate policy ratchet gets, I’ll still be hopeful. There will likely be plenty more abuses, blows, indignities in the years to come. But those crazy schemes will sooner or later hit a wall of reality. It is a question of when, not if, the ratchet snaps. I don’t believe for a moment that Net Zero is possible without changes to society of a scale that Western populations could not and will not accept. I don’t know if the turning of the tide will be caused by a single issue, or a trickle of issues, but this tide will turn. Likely dry facts won’t be a part of it. It may be a visceral reaction to yet another onerous regulation, tax, an extensive power cut, unemployment, fuel costs or reduced freedom. It will not challenge the “reality of climate change” – it will just be a cry of “enough!”
I think.
As to the purpose of Cliscep, well, it doesn’t need one. On another thread I likened the conversation here to that in the snug bar at the back of the pub. Like meeting for a pint of mild, this place needs no purpose. We can put the world to rights without ever hoping to change it.
The focus on matters other than climate is perhaps understandable in this the year of covid. Nevertheless, we have had a rash of commentary from a number of surprising and contentious angles that might not be as considered as some of the criticisms of climate policy or science. Such topics might make the casual eye roll. But they should be freely made and freely answered. Perhaps if they had their own space then things might be easier. Then a casual visitor would not be put off, as they might have been on reading a certain thread a month or so back! There are also off-topic excursions that are inevitable without an “unthreaded.” Nevertheless, Cliscep’s strength in general is that there are few zero-content interventions (as there are on WUWT).
If there is a nexus in the stray topics that have come to dominate these airwaves, it is perhaps that the world is seemingly evolving in a certain direction. To some this is obvious. To others, necessary. And there are some who think it is inevitable. But to be a climate sceptic does not require agreement on other things. We don’t have a manifesto. Anyone can be a climate sceptic. It’s easy.
Rust will never declare victory. But it will win in the end.
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Hi Jaime (Jessop),
I’m not oersuaded by your opinion ” .. that the only way the climate scam will come to an end is if serious global cooling happens .. “. If that happens the CACC propagandists will revert to the stance adopted during the cooling experienced in the 1970s by the likes of lead CACC propagandist Stephen Schneider. It’ll be “catastrophic climate change” caused by all of that “carbon” we are pushing into the armosphere resulting from our unrelenting use of fosdil fuels to power expanding economies (and taking millions out of poverty – we can’t have that, can we!).
As Schneider argued (before doing a 180 degree turm when the globe started warming up again) those nasty little particles stop solar energy from keeping us nice and warm, don’t you know!!.
The CACC propagandists have done a fine job of brainwashing the children and grandchikdren of adults who leave education in the hands of leftward-leaning schoolteachers. Maybe that is where we should all be firing our armoury of facts. As Hitler said nearly 100 years ago ” .. the school .. is the seed-bed of the coming generation. It is a struggle for the soul of the child .. “.
I’ve left my grand-children (and other fsmily members and friends) in no doubt my rejection of the CACC hypothesis, and why, but appear to be fighting a losing battle.
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“[We are] a number of disparate voices in a joint venture. There’s no ‘party line’ or rulebook, and certainly no 97% consensus about anything.”
If you all stick to your knitting, in your own individual ways, you will have a formidable website that will prosper and grow.
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I can only agree with Pete Ridley. Our children are indoctrinated with climate change bullshit as soon as they start going to school. And this has been the case for about 30 years. The hope is that we are at peak cagw. Once that first indoctrinated generation starts seeing the lack of predictive power in the cagw “theory”, we might hope for a positive reaction. It could be that the next 5 years, with more and more moronic politicians pushing net zero idiocy in the face of everything the weather throws against them, will be crucial. When the solar panels on the roof start to degrade ; when more and more windmills seize up ; when they need help to move house etc etc. It will be long and slow but I think it is inevitable
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Pete, that is of course a possibility. It might explain the conflation of air pollution with radiative forcing in the popular narrative of ‘climate change’ and of course the IPCC’s modelled estimates of climate change contain negative forcing terms for aerosols, with large uncertainties, so it would not be too difficult I imagine to tweak them into cooling for a brief period. But I don’t think they will be able to take the public with them on that, not after warning for 30 years that the world is getting hotter and hotter, ice caps are melting, heatwaves are getting more severe, wildfires are ravaging the planet, etc. etc.
There have been intimations that scientists are indeed beginning to argue that aerosol cooling has been underestimated, which of course gives them greater scope to increase climate sensitivity to GHGs whilst arguing that the cooling from aerosols has been the main factor thus far in limiting the warming to that which is observed. But by increasing aerosol cooling, they also have to increase GHG forcings in order to make the models fit hindcasts, which will make it harder to simulate global cooling due to anthropogenic aerosols alone, even for a brief period, in the years ahead. But I’m sure they’ll try.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/01/190122104611.htm
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I just posted at the Provocation thread before reading this one. I should have visited this one first! I won’t entirely repeat myself, but part of what I wrote seems more relevant here:
“To my mind, some of the great things about this site are the lack of a rulebook, and the freedom to discuss things without sanction, the ability to disagree (sometimes strongly) with others, without falling out (I hope), and while the thing that unites the founders of the site and most regular contributors is climate scepticism, I find it encouraging that we can differ greatly about so many other subjects – thus demonstrating that we are free-thinkers, not group-thinkers living in an echo-chamber.
Delving deeper, what is the site’s purpose? Does it seek to persuade the undecided that there is at least a debate to be had about climate change and the policy considerations associated with it? Or is there an implicit assumption that nothing can be done to persuade people, so that it is in essence a forum for the sceptical to exchange views and inform others about recent developments and news articles, but not much else? Or something different entirely? If the former, I think it’s vital to avoid comments at the extreme end of scepticism on other subjects, for precisely the reason Richard gave above – we don’t want to be open to the criticism of being “anti-science”, and we don’t want to give the impression (even if the impression is inaccurate) of being a bit unhinged. Everything we discuss should, I think, usefully be backed up by supporting evidence, especially if views expressed are a bit “off the wall”. But that’s just my personal opinion. I’m off to read the “Despair” thread shortly to see if there’s any cross-over (perhaps I should have read it first before commenting here).”
Only the other day I expressed despair here at the lack of intelligent scepticism in the recent NAO report, which unquestioningly accepted that failure to go down the net-zero road would (in a completely unspecified way) cost more than the vast (but equally unspecified) expense of doing so. The level of group-think and lack of intelligent – or even questioning – minds on the part of those in power, or associated with power, IS enough to make one despair.
However, as others on this thread have said, there are grounds for hope. Jaime is correct to say that sustained cooling might do the trick, but I don’t accept that it’s the ONLY thing that would do the trick. When it dawns on people what they will have to sacrifice to achieve “net-zero”, both financially, and in terms of destroying what’s left of the economy and their way of life, and when they realise it’s all for nothing, since China et al aren’t playing ball, then I think there might be a major push-back. And the more the crazies in charge push for ever earlier dates to achieve ever stricter targets, then the greater will be the cost and the level of sacrifice involved. It’s been one thing to talk vaguely about 2050 or 2060, and to disguise the costs, while allowing families still to own two or three diesel or petrol cars, enjoy relatively cheap cooking and house heating via gas, and to go on holiday abroad in a ‘plane whenever they want. It’ll be something else entirely when a serious 2030 target starts to involve raised taxes, the forced end of gas cooking and central heating, only the rich being able to afford cars, no foreign holidays, etc. Then there might be a revolt. If they can’t even get close to their target for smart meter installations, despite a multi-billion budget and sanctions against failing energy suppliers, how on earth will they persuade people to give up a way of life that has been such a struggle to achieve and which (pre-Covid) was so enjoyable for so many? So, instead of despair, maybe there should be hope.
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“That’s all very well, Mr BrainyQuote, but what work can we usefully do about climate alarm and its resultant, seemingly all-powerful, policy bandwagon?”
I been thinking it seems rather weak, lately. It’s always been distraction, and pandemic is currently a bigger distraction.
We are in living in an Ice Age, and people seem to worried about global warming. But one could say it’s more about the idea that humans destroying planet Earth- which almost as absurd as worrying about warming in an Ice Age.
It’s not as though the pandemic is destroying Earth, but the pandemic is making everyone act quite stupid.
It seems everyone knows alternative energies don’t work. One could ask what does work?
Growing forests, to burn them is a bit worse than making ethanal from corn, but seems a lot more unpopular. But I dislike allowing forests to grow {neglect} and then burning down with forest fires {neglect} , even more.
Climate alarm is decades of average global air temperature at about 15 C. And 15 C is cold.
It “started with”, it’s cooling, it’s cooling, and changed to it’s warming, it’s warming…
And cooling was perhaps, something to worry about.
And only thing good about any and all government is they can’t make it cooler.
Mainly because they are idiots.
But also, no government has claimed nor will ever claim that they have managed to make it cooler- there is zero political benefit to be blamed for making the Ice Age get cooler.
Now, could be some benefit, for claiming credit for ending this pandemic and only pol that done anything significant in that direction is Trump. Plus Trump has said, it could just, “disappear”. Or vaccine may not get credit, rather it could just “disappear”- like all pandemics have done.
So, I think it might be “interesting” how it going to be played. It seems trying to “disappear” the pandemic by focusing on “climate change” {weather is a boring topic}, probably doesn’t seem like it will work.
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can only echo what JIT at 5:26 pm & MARK HODGSON at 8:10 pm say.
Richard – “we tend to lose some admirable Cliscep contributors and lurkers. (The loss of the lurkers is an assumption on my part but it figures.)”
I 1st became a lurker/reader at climate audit,bishop hill,realclimate,wuwt,The Blackboard & other mostly climate related sites.
but I also visit “Biased BBC” & other UK sites dealing with my concerns of bias in the media regarding climate & other area’s.
so, to sum up “the future of Cliscep” – cover climate & cover any big policy decisions & have some fun posts for people in the snug:-)
ps – JIT – if we ever meet I’ll buy the first drink:-)
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pps – we need Alan to give “GBAIKIE” a guide to the interglacial (which is cold enough for me)
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I’ve liked almost all these responses, thank you. I’m not personally in despair at present. I’d have preferred fewer words on the virus on Cliscep this year but how does one do that without accusations of censorship? I continue to think that there are opportunities arising for climate scepticism (small case letters, as well as Title Case). There is some desperate bluffing going on about how Net Zero inevitably follows from the economic disaster that is lockdown. Really? We have to find the achilles heel in amongst all that elitist money-guzzling. It can be done.
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Ben hopes that various factions may unite under one umbrella and thinks that this is a good thing because we can then better target the opposition, although I wonder if they do, whether it will divide us sceptics who, it seems are not equally united in their opposition to these factions.
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The thoughtful comments above … raison d’etre enough why Cliscep should carry on regardless.
Let the posts and commentary go where they may.
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@ DFHunter, mine’s a pint, ta, mid-strength ale!
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Richard,
>”I’d have preferred fewer words on the virus on Cliscep this year…”
For me, climate change scepticism is not really about the science but how the science/politics interface plays out and how it is reported by the media. Given that the covid-19 pandemic serves as such a stark example of the issues that arise when politicians ‘follow the science’ and journalists mobilize, I think it would have been bizarre for Cliscep to have ignored it. As for myself, I have written 15 articles since the pandemic began, yet only two of these can be said to be overtly concentrated upon it. Even so, I would not be averse to writing another one if I felt it had anything of value to say about the importance of scepticism in a cynical world.
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JAIME
Ben Pile’s full list of people we’re not is:
“… the coagulation of continuity-continuity-Remainers, Net-Zero nazis, lockdown fascists, ossified monarchists, sinister nanny-statists and NHS Talibanists into one political movement? I hope so, because it would be more convenient. Probably should add dark war-mongers to that list, too. Oh, and big brother/big data wankers.”
That doesn’t leave many. I count readers of this blog, Spiked Online, and Conservative Women. Not much to start the political movement Andy West mentions.
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Richard Drake began this thread asking ” .. what work can we usefully do about climate alarm and its resultant, seemingly all-powerful, policy bandwagon? .. “.
When I began considering to what extent our responses had addressed his fundamental question I felt that none of us had really focussed on it. Reviewing the comments I changed my mind slightly.
In her 6th Dec. 14:53 comment Natalie did touch on a couple of relevant points, i.e.
” .. the press is part of the evil .. good people take and take and take up to a point. But when the point is crossed, they come back with more righteous fury than anything the evil can withstand .. ” (I see no evidence to support the opinion that ” .. The breaking point is coming and one never knows which drop of water is going to release the flood .. “).
Alan appears to have raised the white flag in the face in the face of the triumphant CACC hordes and (like Jaimie?) has misplaced his future in the hands of the god of global cooling. Jamie does appear to recognise (@ 19:43) that any scientific counter-arguments will be turned upside down and inside out by the CACC propagandists.
Andy West did touch briefly on what in my opinion is the only way to fight the CACC war. ” .. any real fight has to be about activating that bulk opposition, which won’t happen because of anything to do with climate science. It might happen when .. heavy impacts start to occur .. the impact .. on people and environment is already beginning to rankle .. these things are what to focus on. .. surely this is where any real fight worth the name lies .. “.
Jit opines that CACC, like other ” .. crazy schemes will sooner or later hit a wall of reality. It is a question of when, not if .. I don’t know if the turning of the tide will be caused by a single issue, or a trickle of issues, but this tide will turn. Likely dry facts won’t be a part of it. It may be a visceral reaction to yet another onerous regulation, tax, an extensive power cut, unemployment, fuel costs or reduced freedom .. “.
Jit appears to be saying that counter-CACC arguments QUOTE: .. will not challenge the “reality of climate change” – it will just be a cry of “enough!” .. UNQUOTE. In my opinion we need to be doing our utmost to MAKE such a cry to happen rather than waiting for it to grow naturally from the increasing deprivation experienced by the masses.
It seems to me that the only ” .. work can we usefully do about climate alarm .. ” is to counter CACC propaganda with our own superior counter-propaganda. That requires expertise in propaganda warfare’ which I suspect is presently in short supply within our ranks. Is there anyone out there has those skills? If so, please get in touch.
If we were able to make our propaganda scary enough even some of the mainstream media (of course excepting our beloved propaganda bureau BBC, the Guardian and the Times) might be interested. After all, a scare story sells far better than good news.
Meanwhile, try reading Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 6 WAR PROPAGANDA
(http://mondopolitico.com/library/meinkampf/v1c6.htm)
” .. EVER since I have been scrutinizing political events, I have taken a tremendous interest in propagandist activity .. I soon realized that the correct use of propaganda is a true art .. propaganda is no more than a weapon, though a frightful one in the hand of an expert .. To whom should propaganda be addressed? To the scientifically trained intelligentsia or to the less educated masses?
It must be addressed always and exclusively to the masses .. “.
Sorry if I’ve ranted on too long but once I get started I find it hard to stop. My wife, grandchikdren, famile and friends frequently scream “enough already!!”.
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The BBC and the Met Office have teamed up to try to scare the pants off us with this Panorama program tonight. because presumably they realise that the public are not that engaged with the issue of climate change and are therefore unlikely to react kindly when they’re told that they have to get rid of their gas boilers and their cars and stop eating meat and dairy. It will probably be the usual guff about extreme weather but I think they’ll be warning that snow will become a thing of the past by mid-century – which is not the most opportune moment to be telling us this, it has to be said!
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Or, for a saner view of climate change, try Ben Pile’s new video on Youtube
He ends describing the Green Alliance (and by implication the rest of the Green Blob and all the main parties that support them) as “..dangerous and corrupt ideologues.”
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Just received from the GWPF ” .. Government sets up secret ‘green nudge unit’ to persuade Britons to install smart meters, drive less and cut down on meat.
The UK has one of the world’s most ambitious targets to cut emissions – 68 per cent within the next decade .. The head of the unit is Gervase Poulden, a former environmental journalist and committed vegan. The head of the unit is Gervase Poulden, a former environmental journalist and committed vegan .. “.
The only praiseworthy thing that Boris has achieved is getting us out of the EU – as long as its a “no deal” outcome, with no last-minute capitulation, but that will depend upon which way his lady-friend is leaning.
If it wasn’t for the upcoming local elections and the opportunity to vote in the “Reform Party” I reslly would be in deep despair.
*********
Richard Drake began this thread asking ” .. what work can we usefully do about climate alarm and its resultant, seemingly all-powerful, policy bandwagon? .. “.
When I began considering to what extent our responses had addressed his fundamental question I felt that none of us had really focussed on it. Reviewing the comments I changed my mind slightly.
In her 6th Dec. 14:53 comment Natalie did touch on a couple of relevant points, i.e.
” .. the press is part of the evil .. good people take and take and take up to a point. But when the point is crossed, they come back with more righteous fury than anything the evil can withstand .. ” (I see no evidence to support the opinion that ” .. The breaking point is coming and one never knows which drop of water is going to release the flood .. “).
Alan appears to have raised the white flag in the face in the face of the triumphant CACC hordes and (like Jaimie?) has misplaced his future in the hands of the god of global cooling. Jamie does appear to recognise (@ 19:43) that any scientific counter-arguments will be turned upside down and inside out by the CACC propagandists.
Andy West did touch briefly on what in my opinion is the only way to fight the CACC war. ” .. any real fight has to be about activating that bulk opposition, which won’t happen because of anything to do with climate science. It might happen when .. heavy impacts start to occur .. the impact .. on people and environment is already beginning to rankle .. these things are what to focus on. .. surely this is where any real fight worth the name lies .. “.
Jit opines that CACC, like other ” .. crazy schemes will sooner or later hit a wall of reality. It is a question of when, not if .. I don’t know if the turning of the tide will be caused by a single issue, or a trickle of issues, but this tide will turn. Likely dry facts won’t be a part of it. It may be a visceral reaction to yet another onerous regulation, tax, an extensive power cut, unemployment, fuel costs or reduced freedom .. “.
Jit appears to be saying that counter-CACC arguments QUOTE: .. will not challenge the “reality of climate change” – it will just be a cry of “enough!” .. UNQUOTE. In my opinion we need to be doing our utmost to MAKE such a cry to happen rather than waiting for it to grow naturally from the increasing deprivation experienced by the masses.
It seems to me that the only ” .. work can we usefully do about climate alarm .. ” is to counter CACC propaganda with our own superior counter-propaganda. That requires expertise in propaganda warfare’ which I suspect is presently in short supply within our ranks. Is there anyone out there has those skills? If so, please get in touch.
If we were able to make our propaganda scary enough even some of the mainstream media (of course excepting our beloved propaganda bureau BBC, the Guardian and the Times) might be interested. After all, a scare story sells far better than good news.
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Pete: ‘It seems to me that the only ” .. work can we usefully do about climate alarm .. ” is to counter CACC propaganda with our own superior counter-propaganda.’
The problem with this, longer-term, is that you end up creating a similar kind of monster to the one you’re attempting to bring down. What one needs is not counter-propaganda as such (which implies it is also propaganda, if that’s what you meant) but neat ways to short-circuit CACC propaganda. I.e. to show that it is indeed OTT propaganda, and not truth. Which ways must appeal to the mass public, and hence aren’t going to be about arcane climate science details. Satire is one good way, and XR plus Greta plus the current 20 year repeat of ‘children aren’t going to know what snow is’, etc. really should offer many possibilities, albeit I can no more do satire than politics. Plus, exposing the likely cost of NetZero to the public is actually truth not propaganda; when all the estimates start to converge more (even government / ONS sources seem at last to be starting to realise that the figures are going to be excruciating at best), my distinctly inexpert guess is that it’ll easily be the biggest single project expenditure in British history, surpassing WW2 or whatever by far. And indeed, making the covid debt look trivial.
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Hi Andy,
I whole-heartedly agree with your ” .. exposing the likely cost of NetZero to the public is actually truth not propaganda .. ” but that has to presented in a scary manner. That’s where the skilled propaganda comes in, using facts alongside gross exaggerations that puts the fear of god in the hearts of the masses.That’s how the CACC supporters operate and we have to fight theirbfire with greater fire of our own.
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Another excellent Ben Pile video can be found here:
How do we persuade the masses to watch such things so that the scales fall from their eyes?
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I’m one of Geoff’s lurkers and regularly login to see who saying what. Mostly a breath-of-fresh -air. I plan to be more involved next year. At the moment I’m very involved professionally in the COVID-19 crisis.
I have a long-standing interest in science or I should say sciences and plan to write on this topic a lot starting next year.
I think it’s quite clear that:
1. some sciences function and make discoveries
2. Some are damaged and still sort-of work in some areas of their domain of investigation.
3. Some are dead in the water which includes most climate-related and may environment-related sciences
Please don’t despair.
Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Change (CAGW) seems to be very dominant in the MSM but I think it’s really quite brittle and could collapse into a pile of broken crystals quite quickly.
Please keep up your excellent work here. And please don’t despair. Best wishes
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PETER RIDLEY
Name sorted and Adolf Hitler’s repetitive comment in moderation. We’re broadminded, but even we have our limits
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Pete: “using facts alongside gross exaggerations that puts the fear of god in the hearts of the masses”
Facts, yes. And when those facts are indeed scary (which is certainly true of the expenditure without having to exaggerate a jot!) then yes I agree also, maximise the portrayal of such. But if portraying scary gets mission creep into inventing scary, even if subconsciously by the scare getting a ‘life of its own’, then that’s what is already happening with CACC, and 2 wrongs don’t make a right.
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Hi Geoff, in my comment of 07 Dec 20 at 4:48 pm I unintentionally repeated a previous comment which included that Mein Kampf quote.(My error was to use the “select all” option after adding my draft comment to my copy if that earlier one. I very quickly drew this to the moderstir’s attention (along with the request to correct my username – for which I thank you). At the same time I apologised for the entire repeat (not just the repeat of the Mein Kampf quote).
Regardless of how vile Hitler was, he was not a total idiot and his opinions about the use of propaganda as a weapon are well worth considering when pondering how to anticipate and combat the shenannigans of the CACC movement. Reading Mein Kampf is also very helpful when trying to understand how a twisted mind works.
UUUUGGGGHH, the BBC’s Panorama special on the UK’s future “climate emergency” has just started. I must go and change channels..
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Pete – “the BBC’s Panorama special on the UK’s future “climate emergency”
can’t watch as we all know the storyline – forget the past & frighten the gullible.
which is timely to this post – blogs & posts like this only reach the few, BBC & the like condition the many.
bottom line from my POV – move to somewhere warm while you can!!!
ps – JIT – i’m the one in a kilt & pink wig, but if the bars busy just shout “last orders” & I’ll find you (on the floor probably)
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Peter,
It is interesting that you can bring yourself to read Mein Kampf to understand how a twisted mind works but can’t bring yourself to watch the Panorama special to see how a twisted broadcaster works.
I empathise entirely 🙂
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Hi John (Ridgeway),
I have been watching the BBC several times a day for many many years, so have a fair idea how that propaganda machine works. In the other hand I have only been aware of that copy of Mein Kampf for a few days and was drawn to it while re-reading the first of Vol. 1 of Winston Churchill’s 3-volume “THE SECOND WORLD WAR”.
Churchill had profound disdain for the Hitler, illustrated by his repeated reference to “Corporal Hitler”. He must have delighted to quote President Hindenburg when first facing the prospect in Aug. 1932 of having Hitler as Chancellor ” .. THAT man for Chancellor? I’ll make him a postmaster and he can lick stamps with my head on them .. “. On 30th Jan. 1933 Hindenburg had to eat his words and unleash a monster that would ravish the world – Chancellor Hitler of the Third Reich.
How did an insignificant little WWI corporal in the defeated German army become the greatest threat to humankind, via the Third Reich? Propaganda played a major role – maybe Mein Kampf helps to explain how.
How did CO2, an insignificant proportion of the global atmosphere, become the greatest threat to humankind, vis the CACC hypothesis? Propaganda played a major role – maybe Mein Kampf helps to explain how.
Maybe now I will revert to lurking here rather than commenting – until the next time!
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Pete,
No, please don’t go back to lurking. I was trying to show an appreciation for your contribution but chose an obtuse way of doing it.
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John, flattery gets you nowhere – – – – but then again ?????!!!!!????
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Getting back to the main reason that I brought up the matter of Mein Kampf, i.e. the indispensable weapon of propaganda in any war, I’ve just spotted Tony Thomas’s Nov. article “Beware, Parents, Your Kids Are Being ‘Scootled’”. I am very surprised how very little interest was shown in that very powerful article. Even maninabarrel fwiled to offer his two-buts-worth.
CACC prophet (profiteer) Al Gore recognised the value of capturing young minds while they are most susceptible to brainwashing, setting up his global propaganda organisation The Climate Project.
In May 2010 (yes, I’ve been ranting on about the CACC nonsense for over a decade) I published an article on the subject under the title “Propaganda & Evangelism” . Here are a few relevant extracts.
QUOTE: ..
.. A month after the premier of his propaganda film “An Inconvenient Truth” Gore set up The Climate Project .. (training) a 3000-stong band of global propagandists located in the US, Canada, Mexico, India, Indonesia, Australia, the UK and Spain. The next phase of Gore’s brain-washing .. started with the establishment in mid-2008 of his “An Inconvenient Youth” organisation .. “a community of teenagers taking action to address the climate crisis”.
The structure of Al Gore’s climate change organisation bears a lot of similarities with Hitler’s NAZI party .. The BBC has a lot of articles on this (Note 9) one of which says “Initially, Hitler saw himself as a political evangelist…rather than as a political leader”. .. I am sure that many of today’s youngsters would ask what The Third Reich has to do with the UN’s promotion of the myth that through our use of fossil fuels humans are causing climate change leading to global catastrophe. The connection is summed up in that one word “propaganda”.
Hitler set up his “Hitler Youth” organisation. Gore set up his “An Inconvenient Youth” organisation. The recruits to Hitler’s organisation were so brainwashed that they were prepared to die for him. Similar brainwashing is being attempted by Gore through his “The Climate Project” and subsidiaries.
UNQUOTE. (http://globalpoliticalshenanigans.blogspot.com/2010/05/propaganda-evangelism.html)
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Upsetting news from the GWPF ” .. The ‘end-is-nigh’ alarmism beloved by campaigners does far worse The ‘end-is-nigh’ alarmism beloved by campaigners does far worse than seed passivity. It can lead to eco-anxiety, a phenomenon described by Psychology Today as a ‘psychological disorder afflicting an increasing number of individuals who worry about the environmental crisis’. In a survey carried out for the BBC, almost three in five (58 per cent) children said they were concerned about the impact climate change will have on their lives. Nearly one in five claimed to have had a bad dream about the climate crisis, while 17 per cent said their concerns affected their capacity to sleep and eat normally .. “.
The parents and teachers of those gullible youngsters should be ashamed of themselves for allowing them to be brainwashed like this.
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I saw in the Guardian a headline
“Covid used as pretext to curtail civil rights around the world, finds report”
I thought that this was encouraging so I made the mistake of reading further.
“In Europe, “authoritarian” moves by governments using the pandemic “as a pretext to curtail freedoms” have restricted civil rights in Hungary, Poland, Slovenia and Serbia.”
No mention is made of events in UK, France, Spain or Italy. The USA comes in for criticism for its treatment of BLM protestors. Obviously the report was written by people suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome. Isn’t it strange that they don’t characterise lockdowns, the intentional destruction of the leisure and hospitality industries, and the serial hounding of Piers Corbyn et al as restrictions of civil rights.
However, all is not lost. Elsewhere in the paper
“Months of empty roads, empty skies and sluggish economic activity reduced this year’s global greenhouse gas discharges by an estimated 7%, the sharpest annual fall ever recorded.”
Ooh, isn’t this good news? Don’t be so silly
“But the temporary decline merely slowed the accumulation of carbon in the atmosphere, leaving the world on course for more than 3.2C of warming by the end of this century”
I think we know how the Big Reset is going to pan out. Total and constant lockdown. It’s almost enough to make me want to try the vaccine, especially since it is now known to occasionally cause anaphylactic reactions
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MIAB, you simply couldn’t make it up could you? In seeking to go net zero carbon, the NHS has adopted an extreme form of the Precautionary Principle by claiming that it is helping to eliminate a ‘profound threat’ to the nation’s health by reducing its (miniscule) contribution to climate change and air pollution. But then today we learned that the same NHS abandoned what would have been a far more sensible application of the precautionary principle by giving two of its employees with a history of very serious allergies a highly experimental vaccine known to contain allergens! Political posturing now drives this organisation, just as surely as it does ‘news’ in the Guardian and other MSM mouthpieces.
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Pete Ridley:
You got the point exactly, thank you. Burke enjoined me to work in my despair, but to what end?
I believe I have the freedom to ask the question, though not to coerce others.
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John:
In all honesty I wasn’t thinking about your words and I agree that it would have been “bizarre for Cliscep to have ignored” the virus. My preference can be stated like this, using entirely fake statistics:
We have collectively written 3 million words on the virus and 300 on the science/politics interface of transgender ideology this year. I’d have preferred around 30,000 words on each subject.
But people weren’t as interested to talk as much about this other non-climate subject, which I have said (somewhere) I think is 10,000 times more important than climate. All the same, I was never expecting Cliscep to reflect that kind of ratio, because it is *Climate* Scepticism. And the virus and the response to it has been kinda topical. So no problem. I don’t expect Cliscep to reflect my preferences.
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Fortunately we have the West Midlands Police to protect us
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Hi Richard,
Your opening point was one that all CACC sceotics should be addressing urgently, before our politicians undermine many of the benefits brought to humans by the discovery of the use of fossil fuels as a superior source of energy.
CACC supporters enthusiastically impliment the recommendations of departed CACC evangellist Stephen Schneider, that “To capture the public imagination, we have to offer up some scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements and little mention of any doubts one might have. Each of us has to decide the right balance between being effective, and being honest”. Such a strategy has been far more effective that that of CACC oponents, many of the most prominent of whom stick to presenting sound scientific challenges. That will get nowhere with the masses. I’ve tried it with friends and family but they just don’t want listen “he’s ranting again!!”.
As I see it we have to resort to fighting the CACC propaganda with our own.
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MiaB,
That was just pathetic. The worrying thing is that it was the police’s own film. They are obviously proud of themselves.
Pete Ridley, Regarding your post on 8th December, 4.49pm:
I’m with you on the use of propaganda in the classroom. Tony’s articles do not get the feedback they deserve, possibly because a lot of people who come on this site are not looking for the long essay experience. My own humble contribution to this area of controversy can be found here:
https://cliscep.com/2018/06/30/dont-trust-a-fox-in-a-green-meadow/
When I say ‘humble’, I refer to the offering, not to myself.
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Pete. I profoundly disagree. CACC opponents should remain as pure as possible. The masses may well revolt when measures taken to reduce CO2 emissions begin to bite and reduce/remove the pleasures in life for no perceptible gain, particularly if elites continue to enjoy them. Then if they find we have also been economical with the actualite, to whom will they turn? Where will a renewed belief in science take root?
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Hi John,
Thanks for linking to that excellent notch article that you posted. It reminded me of recent attempts that I made to get exchanges started with “Climate Psychologist” Dr. Margaret Klein Salamon (and her associates at The Climate Mobilisation organisation).
Margaret runs The Climate Psychologist blog on which she propagandises about CACC. I consider it worthwhile to copy how she starts her blog to illustrate why I opine that we should adopt the Schneider approach to getting a message across to the masses. She claims ” .. I know that climate change poses an imminent threat to our civilization, our species, and each of us individually. I know that the only possible solution to the problem is by waging a WWII-level war on climate change: a massive, government-led, society-wide mobilization. I know that, to achieve such a response, we need to coordinate a social and political movement.
I am the director of The Climate Mobilization, an organization of likeminded individuals– who are attempting to make the necessary possible and initiate WWII-scale climate mobilization.
(my book) Facing the Climate Emergency: How to Transform Yourself with Climate Truth (2020), is a self-help guide for all who are struggling with the pain of the climate emergency , and helps them turn their pain into action. My goal is to help you become the most effective warrior for humanity and the living world that you can be!
This book combines my experience as a Clinical Psychologist, as well as the last 6 years I have spent in the Climate Emergency Movement, as the founder and director of The Climate Mobilization .. ” (theclimatepsychologist.com/about-the-author/#comment-15722).
(for more on Margaret see sub-section 3.1.30 of globalpoliticalshenanigans.blogspot.com/2019/04/spotlighton-extinction-rebellion.html)
So, another psychologist, like Australian CACC evangelist John Cook, who “knows” how damaging our burgeoning use of fossil fuels is and is prepared to propagandise against it.
Hi Allen,
It looks like we’ll have to profoundly agree to disagree on the use of propaganda.
We are all entitled to our opinions. Mine is that waiting for a popular revolt to occur when our living standards have plummeted is like bolting the stable door after the horse has long fled.
During WWII (and others) there were quite a few who refused to react to Hitler’s violence with counter-violence, known as conscientious objectors. Sometimes we have to fight fire with fire.
NOTE that I have removed http:// from my two links because the commentvwas rejected, which may be dure to the number of links (unkess I’ve been banned!)
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Hi Richard,
Reference that contentious trans-gender issue that you briefly mentioned on 9th at 9:48, maybe the reason there have been so few words written about it on Cliscep is the age of contributors. I get the impression that most of us are getting on a bit and may have opinions on issues which conflict with the opinions of today’s politically correct generations.
In an attempt to attract some opinions on the issue, risking vilification (and black-listing by Geoff) I offer some of mine.
I recall while serving in the RAF about 6 decades ago reading a very interesting book “Sexual anomalies and aberrations” (SAA) which included a chapter on individuals who at birth have been registered with the wrong gender, due to misleading physical attributes (see Footnote). I can quite understand how such a mistake could be made and the justification for subsequent trans-gender recognition for the individual following years of feeling “different”.
I don’t have equivalent empathy for those who would rather be of the other sex than they were born and do their best to appear so. Many of us will be aware of such individuals, who present themselves as of one gender but have the appearance of the other (and I’m not talking about “drag” queens).
I am not aware of any instance when any animal, human or otherwise, that was born a male has changed (naturally or otherwise) into a female with the ability to be sired by a male of that specie and give birth to offspring of the same specie (and vise versa). If anyone out there is able to point to convincing evidence that this has occurred then please advise.
Many of us are less than satisfied with what Nature has bestowed upon us but most simply make the best of it and get on with our lives without trying the impossible. A few will go to extremes to pretend to be different from what they really are, aka pretence. Pretending to change sex is an example.
Footnote
Instead of referring to the Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, Trans-sexual, etc” (LGBT+) community, why don’t people use the much simpler, more precise and more (how should I say? – ah yes) inclusive “Sexual Anomalous and Aberrant” (SAA) community. I accept that using far more words than necessary is an essential skill for politicians but for us “normal” folk?!?!?!?!
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PETER RIDLEY
Where did you get that idea? This site is a haven of perfect prelapsarian freedom of expression as far as I’m concerned. Let it all hang out, I say. Just don’t shove it down our throats.
I tend to steer clear of subjects like transgenderism and immigration because my views can appear to be somewhere to the right of the late Reverend Ian Paisley’s. I’m perfectly happy with people doing whatever they like with their kit, including stuffing it into frilly lingerie and posting selfies on the internet. I do think they should be forced to take some basic lessons in photographic portraiture though. Many of the results are lamentable, aesthetically speaking, and lower the tone of some otherwise interesting websites.
Similarly I’ve nothing against illegal immigrants being put in a hostel, given warm food and bedding, a medal for bravery and initiative, and a group photo of themselves standing in front of the Houses of Parliament, before being put on a bus and sent back where they came from.
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Transtrender is the new goth, however, unlike goth, it’s not a rejection of normalcy and a poke in the eye of conformity, but the adoption of a new power structure, very much lauded and encouraged by a certain section of society. Being different has never been so beneficial. Let’s hope the benefits are worth the hidden costs.
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Geoff: Ha!
I feel I set a rabbit going on this thread Peter that it isn’t possible to discuss right here. Having said which, a couple of years ago I felt I learned a lot from Emma Hilton’s From humans to asparagus, females are females. And that is also a lot of fun. But, as a whole, this is Dunning-Kruger territory for most of us I’m guessing. I might come back on that thought. “Dunning, not Freddy Kruger” is a title that came to mind in the last 24 hours.
Another subject that we used to discuss here was Brexit. The silence on that right now is quite striking. But this isn’t the thread to make up that lack either. If lack it is. This thread is about whether it might be a lack and how we would know.
The point you make about the average age of contributors definitely matters, in all kinds of ways. I might come back to that as well. But I might not. I had one deadline earlier this week kicked into the New Year, so I reappeared. But now I may need to give Cliscep a rest, in the nicest possible sense.
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ALAN KENDALL (10 Dec 20 11.55am)
I found a most interesting counter- example to the “argument for purity” here
http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2020/12/welcome-to-ussas-banquet-of-consequences.html
The author is just one more capitalist using his blog to flog his books and investment advice (they’re the only political analysts I trust nowadays) and he makes some interesting points about the fall of the Soviet Union, quoting this book by Alexei Yurchak
The idea that, when the masses realise they’ve been had, they might be just as suspicious of us “Dissenters”’ as of the True Believers is a problem we should ponder. Telling the truth won’t make us any more attractive in a crisis.
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RICHARD
Don’t do it Richard. Transphylumism is already a big step. Coming out as a herbaceous root vegetable is a step too far.
And I disagree that this is Dunning Kruger territory. If there’s one subject on which Dunning and Kruger have nothing to teach us, it’s s*x.
DAVEJR
..and unlike goth, it costs a huge amount to the National Health Service. You can paint your eyelids black for nothing.
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I think the problem with the ‘transgender movement’ is that it’s not a ‘movement’ as such, it’s an ideology, perpetuated and populated mainly by people who are not actually genuinely transgender. It’s a bunch of leftist weirdos, militant transvestites and deep state paedophile apologists in influential professional roles who are promoting the concept of ‘gender fluidity’ within wider society because it’s actually a great way of neutering ‘toxic masculinity’ and undermining traditional family values which are firmly rooted in traditional gender roles. Gender identity is an essential component of self-identity. If they can eat away at the former with their corrupt ideological posturing, then they can begin to undermine the latter.
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“The idea that, when the masses realise they’ve been had, they might be just as suspicious of us “Dissenters”’ as of the True Believers is a problem we should ponder. Telling the truth won’t make us any more attractive in a crisis.”
Huge swathes of the public, exactly how many depending on which country you’re in, already think at some level that they’re being had, the more so as you increase the level at which they perceive more imposition upon themselves (so indeed NearNetZero will push this up), for no detectable benefit except virtue signalling. Such attitudes have nothing to do with climate science knowledge or indeed physical climate characteristics, wherever in the world. Much of it is to do with the fact that evolution granted us an instinctive ability to detect when a culture (notwithstanding cultures have overall benefitted us), is hugely overplaying its hand. It’s a balance mechanism.
So publics cannot recognise the truth, but they can recognise what *can’t* be true, because it’s a fairy story. Part of this ability comes from detecting propaganda (which will come like out of a fire hydrant with NearNetZero). Hence telling the truth will neither make one more attractive or less attractive, but blatant propagandising will definitely result in rejection longer term, because the public will correctly deduce that yet someone else is selling them a (different) fairy story. As great politicians know, there are many ways to work with the truth that are not propagandising, rather just maximising impact. And showing that the other is indeed blatantly propagandising, is a very useful factor in that maximisation, which is completely undermined if one is doing it too. And once the point occurs where the masses get mad at the rumbled fairy story tellers, *anyone* who hasn’t been spinning is, at least, relatively more attractive.
A thing to bear in mind too, is that cultures are polarising. For every convert that propaganda makes, it makes an enemy too. For more aggressive cultures, two enemies or more. For very benign cultures, maybe only half an enemy. Those who get turned off are typically silent while the culture is in upswing or dominant; being instinctively against doesn’t mean there’s a way to express this (part of the point is that it’s not conscious, people don’t even know why they feel what they feel). But when the way appears, there’ll be an awful lot of enemies. When fighting a culture, unless you want to belong to a competing one which eventually will be just as bad, propagandising is merely a way to lose more trust. None of which precludes a fighting spirit or putting hard truths through a megaphone; the current problem is not that the truths aren’t scary enough, but that demonization makes very few risk speaking them. When Lomberg or Pielke Jr or whoever quote the IPCC to point out there’s an issue not an apocalypse, they get called deniers and face waves of smear. Calling the smearers baby eaters (or whatever) and framing their view as scary fascist, won’t help with this issue. Indeed it never have when this is frequently tried. It just cedes the climate catastrophists some moral ground. Likewise the public are cowed; what has woken them to date is not propaganda, just another part of someone’s cultural war, but those moments when their deep urge to express outrage in the face of cultural oppression, just boils over. Like when the London commuters pulled those XR people off the railway carriages, or when the French fuel tax lit a fire in their hearts that burned for a year, would probably still be burning without covid.
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Geoff: I can if I think I can. (People talk about the pee-value making the whole thing improbable but my forthcoming work “I, Asparagus” will put them right.)
Jaime: I largely take the same view and, seen as you do, the capturing of so many key institutions does fit within the “Despair” theme. Except that the UK fightback has been so magnificent, with Keira Bell’s victory in the High Court truly a landmark case. On the very dark underside of the ideology I think Dr EM has published some of the most hard-hitting scholarship (as well as being banned in multiple locations):
So, we are talking about it on this thread! Long may Cliscep’s flexibility continue.
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Geoff. “Telling the truth won’t make us any more attractive in a crisis.”
This was not really my point. The essential point is not exaggerating, not telling lies.
I only have my teaching experience to go on. In retrospect, my “success” in allowing a cohort of sceptical undergraduates to flourish in a world centre of climate activism was never really to directly oppose, but to introduce students to other “facts” and let them make up their own minds. Rather quickly a significant proportion of them opted for scepticism. It is also true that large numbers of them retained their beliefs in climate change. But these I also considered a success, because they went away with their beliefs strengthened, having considered the alternatives and rejected them. I did not consider it my job to proselytise, just to inform. Those working in CRU thought I was using “denier” propaganda, which I wasn’t, even when they debated with students who had learned to ask legitimate questions.
I maintain my stance that to use propaganda would be a mistake.
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ALAN KENDALL
Of course I agree we should tell the truth. My point was the rather uncomfortable realisation ( coming from a book on the fall of the Soviet Union of all places) that we’re likely to be disappointed if we think just telling the truth will win us friends.
Your efforts at UEA must have been quite an experience. I had a similar experience (in a trivial fashion) teaching English to non-specialists in a French university. English teachers tend to take their texts from the Guardian, so all the sociology students think the USA is hell, with a black underclass ruthlessly exploited by white capitalists; geography students think that we’re all going to die of heat tomorrow, etc. It was simply because I was bored (and so were they) that I went looking for something different, and discovered scepticism.
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Richard, Dr Em just left out THE climate. Climate activists are targeting children, says Marc Morano. He’s right. More emotional and psychological abuse of the most vulnerable in society.
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Jaime: I agree that this is also abuse. Most of the radical feminists who have done a superb job against extreme trangenderism, including in help for Keira Bell last week, are sticking to the establishment view of dangerous climate change as a result of man’s CO2 emissions. Joani Walsh doesn’t call herself a radfem but helped a lot with early stories in the Daily Mail and other papers. She’s an exception and there are of course others. But there is a split here. My sister asked me about the climate situation at the beginning of this year because she was becoming concerned about it and I ended up pointing her to Douglas Murray’s Terrifying our children with doom mongering propaganda on climate change is nothing less than abuse in the Daily Mail. That was exactly the point she was concerned about. John Shade territory in days gone by. I did, before that, point her to my piece on Cliscep last year in response to Attenborough and it clearly left her cold! But this was her concern. The humility engendered I’m sure was good for me!
This plays into the discussion between Peter and Geoff and Alan in a pretty interesting way, I think.
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Hi Richard,
You said of trans-gender ” .. I feel I set a rabbit going on this thread Peter that it isn’t possible to discuss right here .. “. The recent comments from several contributors shows just how wrong each one of us can be with our opinions. Being a supreme optimist, I believe that anything is possible (excepting that:
– we are causing catastrophic climate change through using fossil fuels, or that
– there is a supremely powerful being keeping a keen eye on all that happens in the universe, heaven and hell, or that
– etc. etc. etc.).
I’d forgotten about the Keira Bell case and Google took me to an interesting Economist (International edition) article on the subject. This included mention of a Canadian parent who ” .. In March last year .. launched a legal complaint against a school board in Ottawa over a lesson, under a different programme, in which she says her six-year-old daughter was taught that there is no such thing as boys and girls .. ” (https://www.economist.com/international/2020/12/12/an-english-ruling-on-transgender-teens-could-have-global-repercussions).
It’s hard for normal people to believe that such stupidity exists – and very worrying that it exists within the education system. Parents have a moral duty to educate their children about how to recognise and challenge such stupidity. The article did offer a glimmer of hope ” .. In Australia the capital, Canberra, and the state of Queensland have outlawed “conversion therapy” in relation to sexual orientation or gender identity. So too have some American states. Canada is considering a similar law. ..
A backlash is beginning. In Sweden, after a 1,500% rise in gender dysphoria diagnoses among 13- to 17-year- .. Finland recently released stricter guidelines, recommending different treatment for early-onset and adolescent-onset dysphoria, and encouraging patients to seek counselling. .. “.
On the other hand ” .. a trans lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union, tweeted of the English court’s decision: ‘Please see this for what it is—an attempt to weaponise our happiness, our hopefulness, and our love of our bodies. This is a dangerous attack on trans survival and it is spreading’ .. ” and ” .. The Australian Family Court .. has recently seen the first case of a child being removed from parents who did not support transition .. “. Should we all despair, but fight on in despair?????!!!???!!!..
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BTW Richard, pardon my ignorance, but what is ” .. the pee-value .. “?
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I wonder if the most common reaction of sceptics is not despair but resignation. Or is it just my age, in that I very much doubt that I will live long enough to experience the effects of full-blown carbon reduction measures (if they come to pass). I have some concern for my grandchildren, but then I remember living through true fear during the Cuban missile crisis awaiting Russian thermonuclear oblivion, and think there may be greater concerns in the future than greenhype.
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Climate madness was something close to the ground zero of our destruction, but climate madness festered in a weakened public square, that in effect had its immune system compromised.
The immigration, gender, racism, censorship etc. policies of the ironically self-named “woke” are in effect metases of the climate madness.
Once one accepts the delusion that we have an existential climate emergency, one can believe in any amount of bs.
The devolution of Boris Johnson into the anti-Churchill, the chosen one to destroy Britain, is merely a dramatic manifestation of the results of the madness.
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I hope people don’t find it too alarming that Greta Thunberg is once again trending on Twitter
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As usual, Caroline Lucas identifies the crucial detail
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I think maybe we should coin the term trans-sceptics for those traditional climate change sceptics who have crossed over into other contentious areas like gender, critical race theory, Covid lockdowns, vaccines, election integrity, medicine, etc. Maybe it is the sceptics who tend to forage far and wide who should be called truly intersectional! Then again, it probably won’t catch on.
If you do forage beyond climate fanaticism, sometimes you find that despair may turn to a seed of hope. This, for instance. After banishing HCQ into the political wilderness for so long, science and medical evidence begins to regain ground, slowly. Truth wins in the end.
Rough English translation:
“The III Section of the Council of State has accepted, as a precautionary measure, the appeal of a group of primary care doctors and suspended the note of 22 July of AIFA that prohibited the prescription off label (IE for a use not foreseen by the libiardino) of hydroxychloroquine for the fight against Covid.
“The continuing uncertainty about the therapeutic efficacy of hydroxychloroquine, admitted by the same AIFA to justify the further evaluation in randomized clinical trials – reads the ordinance – is not sufficient legal reason to justify the unreasonable suspension of its use on national territory”.
legal, returned opportunity of care to Italians
“A fair opportunity of care was returned to the Italians, taking into account the evidence of the territories. We are really satisfied.” Lawyer Erich Grimaldi, who promoted and supported the petition of a group of doctors against the suspension of the use of hydroxychloroquine in home care protocols for Covid, comments on today’s decision of the Council of State.
“From now on, the prescription of the drug is allowed – continues Grimaldi – under the precise responsibility of the doctor and under his strict control, to patients suffering from Covid in the initial phase of the disease. This means respecting the medical profession, practiced in science and conscience, as we have always argued”.
Since March the lawyer Grimaldi has gathered the experience of doctors from various Italian regions who had successfully used the drug. These include professor Luigi Cavanna from Piacenza, Dr Paola Varese from Ovada (Alessandr9a), Dr Luigi Garavelli from Novara, Dr Riccardo Szumski from Treviso and Dr Andrea Mangiagalli from Milan.”
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Jaime:
That’s a good sentence. One obvious point I was making in Provocation is that sceptics don’t agree on some of the areas you mention, such as our attitude to covid vaccines. In fact there isn’t ever a single sceptical view – a point John has made well on a number of occasions.
The trans debate threw up a remarkable bout of apologising today from a Plaid Cymru politician. I won’t try and explain everything – I’m sure people are smart enough to get the details. I was alerted to the story by Amanda, a Jewish barrister I have a lot of time for:
and said this:
Here’s exactly what Helen Mary Jones of Plaid Cymru retweeted
https://twitter.com/leng_cath/status/1337282603414671365
A rebuke from Jewish professor Rosa Freedman to our old friend Jolyon Maugham. But it’s the climate of fear about being labelled ‘transphobic’ that is really widespread – and hard to believe I think if you’re not in the thick of these things. There is a similarity with the demonisation of climate sceptics – but, in my considered view, it’s much worse.
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Geoff, lecturing to more than 120 first year undergraduates on climate was indeed an experience, but a fleeting one: a single 50min lecture every year. Of course I covered the “evils” of hydrocarbon burning in more detail within my Fossil Fuels module (always with a minimum of 80 undergraduates), but as I have described before I got the students themselves to research various topics on this theme, getting different groups to research the consensus view, how sceptics attacked this view, and how the consensus responded to this criticism (and whether sceptics responded to that). The student groups gave presentations to the whole group. I always invited observers from CRU as moderators, which is how Keith Briffa and I became firm friends. What I noted, year after year, was the way CRU behaved towards the undergraduates and put a large number of them off believing in the consensus view. They insisted in the superiority of their “science” and attempted to convince by authority. This pi$$ed off quite a few students, who invariably complained to me because the students had invested their time and effort reaching their own conclusions. You will not be surprised that Viner (of no snow infamy) was one of the chief culprits, insisting on giving a pro consensus lecture even after the practical had finished. Student protest was most voluble that particular year.
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Notwithstanding bigger or smaller overlaps, one wouldn’t expect sceptics of a whole raft of orthodoxies, to match. Nor is the mere existence of sceptics proof that a particular orthodoxy is (largely) wrong. Having said that, there seems a powerful lot of emotively enforced orthodoxies around at the moment. Regarding discussion of same, though, I think retaining some structure is good. And this place is after all billed as Cliscep, plus there’s plenty of other places to be generic, not least twitter where much of the discussion comes from these days. If folks want to pursue in more depth, why not have a genderscep and lockdownscep or whatever, and (notwithstanding overlap topics), keep this one mostly about CC? That way denizens could select and indeed readers-only could more easily find what they want. While there are some specific threads biased to particular areas, you can’t always tell from the titles plus many end up evolving through a mixed bag of content too.
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Andy,
“Having said that, there seems a powerful lot of emotively enforced orthodoxies around at the moment. Regarding discussion of same, though, I think retaining some structure is good. And this place is after all billed as Cliscep, plus there’s plenty of other places to be generic, not least twitter where much of the discussion comes from these days.”
I kind of agree with you – focus is important – but actually, the structure of the opposition becomes clearer to us as each day passes and it reveals itself in a multitude of interconnected ways. It’s not ‘just’ bad climate science, it’s not even ‘just’ the Green blob anymore, it’s the climate industrial complex aligning itself now with the technocratic ideology of the Great Reset, itself aligning with Big Business and Big Pharma, Big Tech and a whole host of social justice warriors who want to change society ‘for the better’ by forcing us all to come to terms with an alien ‘new normal’ of gender confusion and fluidity, elimination of micro-aggressions and imaginary racial grievances, the erasing of national identity and history etc. All those themes appear to be coalescing around a central core at present. The Emperor, contrary to popular belief, does have clothes and he is putting them on, right now. When he was naked, we thought we could expose him as naked, by digging deep into the rotten science and the dodgy, economically and technologically illiterate fix supposedly justified by the ‘science’. But the Green-eyed monster has grown many new heads, if you’ll pardon the mixed metaphor.
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Having argued on and off that this site should, perhaps, concentrate of climate scepticism, rather than going “off piste”, I’m finding this thread fascinating.
On the transgender issue, the whole issue is obviously complex, and although I can’t genuinely empathise, I can certainly sympathise enormously with anyone who feels that they are in the wrong body, since it must affect every aspect of their lives, and might make their lives a living hell. For such people, I think it’s right that society displays sympathy, tolerance, and help, so far as help is possible.
However, I do agree with many of the views expressed here, to the effect that the active encouragement of young people to seek to become trans (sorry about my ignorance, preventing me from using correct terminology) is bordering on, if not actively being, child cruelty. When I was 16 (and, rightly or wrongly, I like to think I was a reasonably bright and thoughtful youngster) I didn’t even know what career I wanted to pursue, for goodness’ sake, so I really do not believe that children (and under 16s are children) can really know what’s for the best on such a fundamental issue as this. Expressing such a view, or similar views, shouldn’t bring down the wrath of the trans Taliban, but it seems they are very vocal, very active, and very wrathful
And this is where this discussion cross-pollinates with climate scepticism, because it seems to me that there is an increasing tend on the left (and I’m sad that it’s on the left) to adopt extreme positions on a whole range of issues that are now “politically correct” (apologies also for using that perhaps out-dated term). From the trans Taliban, to Black Lives Matter, to XR, they are seeking (with some success) to dominate the mainstream media and to force their views on the population at large.
The critical point, I think, is that while all these groupings might have a point (of course racism is a terrible thing, to be opposed; people with gender issues should be helped, not ridiculed; maybe there is an issue with the climate, which needs to be discussed), they never fail to go too far. The common theme seems to be an arrogant assumption of their superiority and correctness, an intolerance for the views of others, unless they are 100% compliant with their own demands, a general nastiness and condescension towards others, a total disregard for the impact of their behaviour and demands on the lives of others.
And just as there is a push-back against the trans Taliban, just as Black Lives Matter may actually have annoyed ordinary people to the extent that they are in danger of fuelling racism (a seriously bad outcome) I live in hope that the shrill demands of XR, the CCC and all the others may also meet push-back, especially when the ordinary and decent people of this country realise the enormously detrimental and expensive impact its going to have on their lives. And every time XR demands more, sooner, and behaves in such a way that inconveniences ever more people seeking to get on with their poor benighted lives in this miserable Covid-19 existence we are now reduced to, the more I live in hope that people will sooner rather than later say “enough”.
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It’s worth digging into the connections. For example, climate scientist James Annan spent a lot of time modelling the covid pandemic in order to “prove” that an earlier, harder lockdown in the UK in March would have saved lives. He even wrote a paper critical of epidemiological models, to the derision of people such as Spiegelhalter. For example, Brexit-hating barrister Jolyon Maugham suddenly crops up in the transgender war. He also tried to get involved in the rows over PPE for medical staff – he is nothing if not opportunistic – https://goodlawproject.org/update/we-want-justice/
Connections and yet oddities. If an epidemiologist critised a general circulation model, would Annan take it lying down? Is it just to grab opportunistic headlines and funding that occupies the mind of Maugham? And yet, Annan is staunchly in favour of the consensus approach to the pandemic, for all that he rubbishes the official maths. Annan is, of course highly anti – Brexit, mainly it seems because of the obstacles it places in working on a project with an Estonian group of climateers. However, if his collaborators were in Japan or the USA, those obstacles would be just the same. It could be that he just likes a consensus, status quo type of life. And Maugham, although he has to pay lip service to the “cab rank” protocol of the Bar, is obviously happier litigating for the establishment against tax evasion, against moves to promote Brexit, and now it seems the trans war. Sorry, I’m rambling. I cannot make this cohere and yet, broadly speaking, it seems to be the same bunch of protagonists and antagonists in all these areas of controversy. Is just to do with some people being pro Establishment and others being instinctively anti?
Something has changed. In 1973,Tony Benn and Enoch Powell campaigned against the EEC. Can you imagine Dianne Abbott and Nigel Farage joining forces in 2016?
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Some thoughtful and fruitful comments there, thank you.
It is certainly, as MiaB says, worth digging into connections. “Brexit-hating barrister Jolyon Maugham” seems not to have been playing by the same rules as everyone else in the crowdfunding for his Good Law Project. I read about that today but can’t find the reference right now. You’re only meant to raise money for a specific court case and many of the sites concerned have closed funds – for defence against the trans legal mob, for example – when they reach a certain threshold. But Maugham gets a free pass to raise as much as he wants then use it on any kind of case. As has been pointed out he’s suddenly made a beeline to support the already incredibly well-funded transactivist cause after the trauma caused to them by Keira Bell’s victory in the High Court last week. Opportunistic is one way to view this but I’m pretty much beyond that. There is organisation to this evil in my book.
It is also, though, worth tracking the disconnections. Here’s a really heartwarming example from the middle of the day:
Posie Parker was famously ‘thrown under the bus’ by other prominent feminists, including Stock, earlier in the fightback against the transactivist menace. I’ve always thought she was terrific – and so is the professor of philosophy at Sussex. Posie, banned from Twitter way back, responded with “You're welcome. You did a great job!” on Facebook.
There have been such divisions – even in a really successful cause, as I think all ‘gender critical’ folk across the world think the UK GC movement has been, compared to anywhere else. Such a long way to go though.
Not all trans people are on the transactivist treadmill, as Toni shows here.
Those with genuine dysphoria have a lot to cope with, as Mark says.
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I just took a dive down into the rabbit hole which is the ‘trans debate’ and boy, is it messed up! I thought the climate debate was bad. You’ve got Jolyon, a lefty, white, male lawyer, fond of beating foxes to death whilst cross-dressing in his wife’s kimono, jumping on the trans bandwagon by opposing the high court ruling about medicating kids, comparing the opponents of transgender madness to the Nazis and in fact the poetic analogy he used (‘First they came for’) would identify trans people with the socialists, but Rosa Freedman (a Jew) took great offence at this and told him to ‘stop co-opting our trauma’. Yes, it is the Jews’ trauma, but in a very real sense it is the world’s trauma and in the literal sense, it was the real trauma only of those poor souls who were actually victims of the Nazi genocide. The verse Jolyon referred to has been appropriated for use many, many times, in lots of different situations, by many different people. It has become a universal truth almost. So, I disagree with Jolyon and I disagree with Freedman’s criticism of Jolyon, acting in a way indistinguishable from so her so-called opponents who also are quick to take offence at any affront to or misappropriation of their privileged status as victims. Jolyon is called a ‘privileged white male’ by Freedman – this is just playing the same identity politics which the trans lobby uses and the anti-racism nuts use. It’s like: ‘My victim status trumps your victim status’. Then you’ve got this:
Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but it does seem to me that many of those most vocal in support of ‘transing’ kids are the radicalised parents themselves, who it seems often consist of “an army of white, posh, loud, women”! I won’t be going down that rabbit hole again I can tell you!
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In both of the gender critical meetings I attended in 2018, organised by Venice Allan, Posie Parker spoke. I already knew that she was coming under attack from the radical end of radical feminism. One bone of contention was she had expressed admiration for Jordan Peterson, who wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea! So I went up to her during a break at the second meeting, at Camden Town Hall, to ask her about this. She said free speech was key to the whole thing and Peterson should not be muzzled. She said she was a great admirer of Christopher Hitchens too but she disagreed with him on some things, just as she did with Peterson. It was a very impressive answer to this callow youth. Well, in radical feminist terms 🙂
I didn’t ask Posie about her views on Peterson’s climate scepticism but I mention the interaction here partly because he is so good at expressing our points in a university context. When he’s not being no-platformed. (And here’s hoping he’s making a strong recovery from his health problems.)
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Jaime: As I remember it Rosa Freedman was key to the move to ‘purify’ the UK GC movement from those like Posie Parker who accepted invitations from ‘far-right’ US conservative organisations like the Heritage Foundation. At a time the US Left had completely cut their GC sisters out of the public space. On that Posie was right and her critics were wrong, I feel sure. So I have some sympathy with your lack of sympathy for Rosa. However, I think her criticism of the use of the Niemöller by Maugham is fair.
On the Heritage Foundation, though, I will always think of this video:
Thanks to Calvin Ball on Climate Audit in January 2010. Another old, old connection 🙂
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It’s tempting to believe that there must a raft of explicit connections, but I think mostly this is not the case. Similar processes, and indirect entanglement (in the sense that they’re all happening within the same society, and indeed generic virtue signalling may at least on the surface cover several bases) will give that impression.
Hence I think that outside of connections that can be explicitly identified (such as ‘build back greener’ between covid and CC) there is more to be lost than gained by throwing in a kaleidoscope that will only confuse focus. This doesn’t mean any domain would be starved of discussion. They can all get as much as anyone could want, merely that the process could be more structured and productive.
There isn’t some single ‘opponent’; that many orthodoxies share unpalatable characteristics is a sign of how they arise. It’s a serious under-estimate to count only one, or believe that the utter erase of one, would make any significant difference to another. They have extreme redundancy even within a single domain, let alone across several. And someone opposing heavy trans activism can be a catastrophic climate change adherent, or vice versa, and ditto across other domain boundaries. It is much harder to determine lines of argument and reduce misunderstandings if assumptions are inadvertently pulled across domain boundaries. This is why so many blogs are subject orientated in the first place, or at least have clear sub-domains when the top-level is more generic.
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Andy has a point when he says that Cliscep should stick closer to “cli-” or at least clarify its sub-categories. On the other hand, this thread has been one of the most interesting I’ve seen.
Cliscep (its members and regular commenters) is a crowd like any other, and crowds tend to congregate where there’s the chance of seeing a fight. But the climate story has passed from the stage of crowd-pulling action to the real thing, as measured by the number of zeros on Jeff Bezos’s cheques. (See Mike Dombroski’s much-neglected article above.)
https://cliscep.com/2020/11/30/jeff-bezos-gives-big-green-to-big-green/
For example, lost among the billions is the little affair of $43 million going to an organisation called “The Hive Fund for Climate and Gender Justice” which just started distributing money this year, and doesn’t seem to have filed any accounts yet, though we know the Rockefeller foundation gave it $100,000.
One of its board members, Lydia Avila, says this at Grist:
https://grist.org/fix/6-experts-on-the-dawning-of-a-feminist-climate-renaissance/
I’ve nothing against Bezos financing people who give massages to queer climate leaders of colour. In fact I’ll give one myself for a share of that $43 million. (Badass women I’ll do for free.) But on what kind of blog do you comment on stuff like this?
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Geoff, cultural trends opportunistically leveraging each other is very common. While a negative feeding frenzy, in a way it should also be helpful longer term, because it emphasises how far from reality it’s all becoming, thereby increasing innate resistance within publics and taking them another step away from disgruntled silence towards some kind of expression. Re ‘what kind of blog’, this is easy, you just have a separate category for inter-domain connections, which becomes a subject on its own. Typically, such connections are secondary at best to the meat within those domains they reference, but have their own interest nevertheless, which given that all this is happening within one society as such (at least in the connected West), is also relevant to issues such as pecking order, total tolerance, dependencies (e.g. someone getting cancelled in one domain, may impact their standing in another), and so on. The whole experience / discussion would still benefit muchly from structure.
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Richard, OT, but as a Twitter buff, do you know is it common for Twitter to suppress hashtags? I listened on Twitter for 3 years without barely tweeting at all, yet started some tweets, retweets, likes etc. about a month back (as a consequence of this trajectory, I only have 10 followers after 3 years!) Anyhow, I thought I’d experiment. I have a couple of hundred examples of catastrophe narrative (which contradict mainstream science), all categorised for a Climate Etc post a couple of years back, and thought I could tweet them out 1 at a time to build up a linkable set (via hashtag), which can then be retweeted at anytime if / when I have more followers (or indeed I could put the hashtags in replies). Hence some hashtags like CatastropheNarrative, ButSaveThePlanet, ButSaveOurChildren, TerminalClimateMetaphor, and more depending on the species and how it works. Having done a few of these, each referencing the politician / scientist / influencer who provided the original quote, the hashtags did pull up every reference when clicked. However, after 2 weeks or so every hashtag now only pulls up 1 or occasionally 2 references, whereas some certainly exist in 4 to 7 tweets so far. There’ll be no point building up this categorised list of references, and all under a top-level tag, if it neither the category list not the full list ever appears when someone clicks the relevant tag. Is there a ‘normal’ mechanism that explains this behaviour in twitter? or must I start assuming censorship 0: I searched all these tags first to establish no prior usage, but if they were already suppressed, some may exist. #ButSaveThePlanet came up with a ref that wasn’t mine today (and only 1 of mine too), yet I’d never seen it before despite it was older.
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Hi Geoff,
Thanks for that pointer to the “Hive Fund for Climate and Gender Justice” – one of those companies known as a “not-for-profit” but often used for funding the lifestyles of their founding members (see Footnote).
I paid a visit to its home page, etc. and the mind boggles at how readily some people throw away other people’s money (after they’ve creamed off some for themselves, of course).
This USA company was founded in 2019 by two environmental and social justice activists, its directors Melanie Allen and Erin Rogers, both seasoned “charity industry” workers (https://gmmb.com/news/melanie-allen-and-erin-rogers-on-funding-diverse-leaders-of-the-climate-fight/).
The organisation’s “about” page (https://www.hivefund.org/about/) advises that they fund ” .. organizations led by Black women, Indigenous women, women of color, and others on the frontlines working to address intersecting climate, gender, and racial crises .. across the US, with a predominant focus on the Southeast, a 10-state region responsible for nearly a third of US emissions .. “.
They partner those ” .. groups and leaders .. who are essential to making progress to address the climate crisis .. ” and believe that ” .. White supremacy, misogyny, and economic systems that make pollution profitable are intimately intertwined .. “.
How many of us appreciate that ” .. Many Black, Brown, and Indigenous women have been fighting fossil industries for years, even generations .. Funding for women of color-led efforts and multi-solving approaches can speed up the transition to a fossil-free society that also values women’s lives and leadership and delivers cleaner air, voting rights, living wage jobs, and other tangible and lasting benefits .. “.
And so the fantasising goes on.
For some odd reason I remain unconvinced.
Unsurprisingly, its 2 founding co-Directors and 17-strong advisory board all appear to be of the female gender – akthough it can ge hard to trll these days..
It’s first funding round ($500k??) took place early this year with another planned imminently. I eagerly await their bulletin about that and will let you know of anything newsworthy. It will also be interesting to see how much of its income actually ends up as grants to other organisations/causes rather than expenditure on its own activities, such as salaries, expenses, etc.
FOOTNOTE
Melanie Allen said ” .. “Like the work of bees in nature, few people see the work of local community leaders, but we all benefit from the beauty of the blossoms and the products of the hive.” Some benefit more than others from the products of this Hive!Interesting background to the “Hive Fund .. ” not-for-profit is available at https://americannonprofitacademy.com/nonprofit-news/the-power-of-the-hive-new-climate-fund-centers-southern-women-of-color/
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For those who are a little behind the times on terminology:
White supremacy = having pale skin in a country containing those with predominantly pale skin.
Racist = everyone with pale skin. The good racists admit to being racist. The bad racists deny they’re racist.
Racism = What inevitably occurs when those of pale skin meet those of non-pale skin.
Systemic racism = every system created by racists.
Ally = The oppressor who is subservient and self-flagellates before the people they oppress.
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Andy (12:08 pm): You need another kind of Twitter buff – one who knows the code and the intention of the code. That actually may be the empty set, even within Twitter! I wouldn’t trust them with a bargepole or a hashtag or indeed anything. But there is by now a really powerful network effect.
Yet, I’ve actually begun to tweet and retweet again, starting with this after a gap from 7th July
I have ‘replied’ to other people’s tweets in the interim (like Mans above). Such replies do not become visible on my main profile page. The 28th Nov was indeed a mistake in that regard – it wasn’t meant to be visible. Some buff!
But it can all, tweets and replies, be wiped, at the company’s discretion, at any time, as Posie Parker, Jaime Jessop and many others have found. That is ridiculous. No easy answers from me, sorry.
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Everyone else: Thanks for making this one of the most interesting threads Geoff Chambers has seen – though without giving a timescale for that. Since breakfast? 🙂 I may gather some thoughts later in the day. All I’ll say for now is that “connections” do not equal “unified theory”. But they can I think be interesting.
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Richard, thanks. Indeed #climatebrawl still pulls up very many tweets, as it is used by both (all) sides. Connections are indeed interesting, enough so to be a subject in their own right (hence a ‘category’!)
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The #climatebrawl case is an interesting one. I never click on such things, personally! But even when one does, and sees what seems like a balanced presentation of yea and nay, one’s still at the mercy of the algorithms and the history: the banned are forever excluded and, for all one knows, there are subtle rearrangements going on in any area the company cares about. And it was all started with Ruby on Rails. Unhappy face.
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PETER RIDLEY 12 Dec 20 1.29pm
Thanks for the spadework on the Hive. Where did you find out about their funding? I couldn’t see anything about it on their site, possibly because they’re too new to have filed anything. There’s an American official site like our Charities Commission where you can link to annual reports – something about 401 if I remember.
Ben Pile did a lot of researching on green funding at Climate Resistance in the Golden Age of scepticism. I put the results of a couple of half hours of research into two comments under Mike Dombroski’s article. Barry Woods and Vinnie Burgoo frequently come up with hoards of treasure in comments. If I was a serious person (I tell myself) I’d concentrate on this. You find a jewel (like the fact that the annual New York Earth Day march is financed by the Big Oil money of the Rockefeller Foundation) stick it in a comment somewhere, and it’s lost to posterity.
With a minimum of organisation a small number of people could pool their resources and maybe produce something more solid that would have an influence – a Defunding Handbook as it were. Any volunteers?
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@Andy I think I can ace that one. I probably have 10 followers after 8ish years. Then, I never use Twitter. I started because someone said I had to (maybe it was because someone was going to take everyone’s name or sommat? Can’t remember). Then I think I followed Stephen Fry for a bit (don’t know why). I followed Graham Linehan but unfollowed before his permaban (he was unnecessarily obnoxious even if you agreed with some of his points). At the start I wanted to subscribe to hashtags, not people, but at that point Twitter wouldn’t allow it. It seems it does now, but it came too late for me.
What’s your handle? I’ll follow – but I may not see anything you post. I never use Twitter but have been opening it once a week to see whether anyone has asked for any of Alan’s climate library (no bites so far).
Re: Propaganda. I agree with Alan on this one. We don’t need propaganda. We (perhaps conceitedly) think we have the facts on our side – so who needs propaganda? This also applies to the other side – they too think they have the facts on their side, although a little bit of exaggeration does seem to creep in. Otherwise there are massive amounts of confirmation bias, whereby any ill is automatically blamed on carbon dioxide. I strongly suspect that what we see as propaganda the alarmists see as cold facts. Our trouble I suppose is that the appeal of ideas is not related to their truthiness.
I don’t think we will suffer some sort of backlash if climate alarm ever comes a cropper. We have not wanted to impose anything on anyone. In fact, much of our concern is about pointless and costly impositions from government, demanded by XR and chums. (This alone tells you much: that rather than try to persuade people to curb their own emissions of CO2, the zealots demand government instate draconian laws to force them to. If the electorate cared, we would take actions (like not flying) voluntarily.) My point is that sceptics have no demands other than that we and our fellow humans are left alone. And who could criticise that?
Something Peter Ridley said either in this thread or another (I’ll have to re-read) made me think that although we object to much of what is or will be imposed, I don’t see sceptics making clear what it is we *fear*. What does the future look like if XR has its way with us? It’s something I’ve not thought about, but will now consider. We joke about gathering around a candle and wearing 6 sweaters – but what is it we really fear about the future?
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JIT, thanks 🙂 It is WeAreNarrative @AndyWest_Tweets. Over the years some skeptics have specifically said they fear economic disaster, especially in the US and associated with Rep/Con views. I have seen corresponding climate orthodox folks call this ‘economic alarmism’ before. However, in more recent years when NearNetZero is touted and its likely costs are becoming clearer, plus the hair-shirt-no-meat-no-power-and-even-nuclear-sucks-too brigade have become more and more strident, calling out economic alarmism seems to have faded 0:
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DAVEJR (12 Dec 20 2.04pm)
On systemic racism in the US:
I don’t think the illiterate halfwits at CNN, BlackLivesMatter and Antifa have begun to understand the level of unconscious racism in America. This may seem unfair criticism of the country where a person of colour has the greatest opportunity of becoming the mayor of a great city, a Nobel prize winning author or a presenter on prime time TV (particularly coming from the citizen of the ex-British Empire.) I’ll explain.
The two groups who, arguably, have suffered the most in the Western world over the past two centuries are the Jews and the black slaves in the USA and their descendants. Every four years the USA organises a spectacle to demonstrate that no one of either group can ever become President or Vice President.
The clearest example of this unconscious rule was the Democrat Primaries for this year’s election. The favourite to win was Bernie Sanders, a Jew. It was pointed out incessantly that he scored poorly among “electors of color.” (translation: Blacks hate Jews.) Against him were pitted a gay mayor, a red indian squaw, a man with a Chinese name, a woman whose parents were citizens of the British Empire, and a brain dead Irishman. The daughter of the subjects of Her Majesty came last, and was duly chosen to rule the country for the next four years (the second ex-Brit to do so this century.)
If I were the descendant of slaves liberated in the war of Secession, and proud of my American roots, I’d be asking serious questions about the state of the American psyche.
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Hi DaveJR,
Let’s not overlook:
– “bigot” – anyone who disagrees with “woke” ideology,
– “carbon” – any substance (solid, liquid or gas) that gets into the environment as a result of human activity and contains the chemical element carbon,
– “equality” – dragging down standards to the lowest common denominator,
– “race card” – the excuse used by some to explain their failures,
– “sustainable” – any practice that supports the green religion.
No doubt others here have their favourite irritants too.
Hi Geoff,
Regarding funding wrt the Hive Fund for Climate and Gender Justice,
” .. current funders include the V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, McKnight Foundation, David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Women Donors Network, and Wend Collectivei .. ” (https://www.insidephilanthropy.com/home/2020/5/21/the-power-of-the-hive-new-climate-fund-centers-southern-women-of-color).
” .. The Hive Fund .. received grants from the Jeff Bezos Earth Fund .. totaling $43 million over three years (which) will help The Hive Fund expand grantmaking to organizations led by Black, Brown, and Indigenous women and other frontline leaders. The work these groups do is essential to addressing the intersecting climate, gender, and racial justice crises in the U.S. .. ” (https://www.hivefund.org/news/earth-fund-grant-recognizes-critical-role-for-women-of-color-in-climate-fight).
The https://americannonprofitacademy.com/nonprofit-news/the-power-of-the-hive-new-climate-fund-yucenters-southern-women-of-color/ page to which I linked advises that ” .. The first aligned grants total $500,000 over one year. The Windward Fund is the fiscal sponsor .. “.
For me the most revealing figure is the difference between the $4.3M IN and the $0.4M OUT!! It will be interesting to see whether or not these two figures eventually balance – but I expect not. After all, there will be all of those running costs that most charity industry businesses seem incapable of keeping control of. (this is another of my pet hates).
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JIT (12 Dec 20 8.07pm)
Our relative honesty doesn’t come from greater moral purity, but simply from the realisation that if we exaggerate we’ll be pounced upon. Also from the normal rational tactic of anticipating objections to one’s argument and trying to counter them in advance. In scientific papers this used to come in a final chapter called “Possible Objections.” On questions of climate, no objections are possible.
When a million climate scientists, journalists or activists start an article with “We’re facing a climate crisis…” do they ever stop and think: “Gosh. That’s a bit strong. Should I try and justify that statement?” I don’t think so. Why not?
Jackboots – for ever. Not that I’d put it that way in an argument, because of fear of being pounced upon, desire to remain rational in the face of provocation, etc. I think your question deserves a thread to itself. If others agree, I’ll put it up as a separate post.
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Not forgetting the female winner, who came last, is an actual descendant of slave owners. I’m sure you can imagine the furore if it had been an opposition candidate.
There is one ring to rule them all on the intersectional pyramid and that’s politics. Disagree with any part of the intersectional/regressive agenda and you’re out of the club (unless you’re useful in other ways). You can be black, gay, trans, POC, whatever. Refuse to goose step with the rest (which is what the non-compliant feminists are discovering, but still blame on the patriarchy) and you’ll face the nastiest, despicable, slurs and behavior you only hear about happening to someone who told someone else about something they heard, or faked.
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Geoff, “Our relative honesty doesn’t come from greater moral purity…”
I know what you’re saying, but a big majority of the climate orthodox are not dishonest either. The whole point about bias is that it’s *not* conscious. Only a belief completely precludes being questioned.
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Only a belief incorporates complete self-justification.
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Despair today. We have a mad fanatic as PM who is going to destroy what’s left of the economy and sane society with lockdowns, then proceed to transform the UK permanently into an economic basket case Green lockdown Great Reset nation via his Green anti-industrial revolution – and there is not a thing we can do about it. To rub it in, he’s regurgitated his insane ‘tea cosy’ crap for the United Change conference:
“He noted it could also change farming practices and reverse processes ‘by which for centuries humanity has been quilting our planet in a toxic teacosy of greenhouse gases’.”
You can’t get more anti-scientific or stupid than this, but this, just like his anti-scientific fraudulent drivel on Covid, is what will destroy us.
Then over in the States things are not looking good for Trump; the biased Supreme Court has thrown out almost all legal challenges and Harris is crowing about immediately rejoining the Paris Accord in 39 days – as ordered by her boss Xi Jinping. Nothing short of a declaration of war by Trump is going to avert that disaster now. The New Dark Age is almost upon us it seems; the age of Boris the Red’s UK anti-industrial revolution (a reversal of that glorious technological revolution which began in Britain and which dragged the world kicking and screaming out of Mediaevalism) happening against the gloomy backdrop of the anti-science global Endarkenment, where we all fall down.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9046409/Stop-assault-planet-increase-ambition-climate-change-leaders-urged.html
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This is what happened to science in 2020, preceded by decades of decline and dry-rot gnawing at its foundations:
https://twitter.com/boriquagato/status/1337829903530676229
Utterly tragic for humanity if this trend continues into 2021 and beyond.
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Jaime, ‘secular religion’, absolutely. There’s been one of those in the public domain based upon catastrophic climate-change narratives, for decades. We are even able to measure it across nations.
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ANDY WEST
But it’s not unconscious either, in the Freudian sense of being unreachable by conscious effort. It’s preconscious or subconscious in the jargon, meaning that you can get at it and examine it if you want to, unless you’re irremediably thick. And if you don’t want to, you’re morally corrupt.
This leads us into the debate that you’ve already had with Ben Pile and with Brad Keyes on different threads, where they argued that we (if we’re half way intelligent and reasonable human beings) are responsible for our beliefs, as for our actions. Their failure to convince you may be part of the reason they no longer come here, for all I know. I don’t want to reopen that discussion here, but, condensing what I remember of their arguments, it came down to saying that a far reaching explanation of human behaviour such as yours (irrational beliefs are evolutionarily necessary for group survival etc.) precludes us from judging them morally, which undermines the very basis of human discourse.
Trying (and failing) to summarise the argument above makes me realise that the very fact of considering your position (which I accept by the way, whether or not Brad and Ben do) makes me even more angry with the climate believers, which is counter—intuitive. Instead of feeling compassion for their inability to understand their own biases (because they’re in the grip of an evolutionary necessity to conform to a group belief that reinforces their inner needs, poor things) I despise them even more, and my disgust extends (I don’t know why) from the obvious charlatans like Gore and Monbiot to to those I would otherwise spare from my wrath, like the mild-mannered Professor Richard “Big Dick” Betts or the poor sod who conducts a sandal-licking interview with the Person from Greenpeace on the telly. “Forgive them for they know not what they do.” No way.
Talking of wrath, I think I’ll read a bit more of Isaiah before retiring. Those Old Testament Hysterics can teach us a thing or two. See you tomorrow.
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From Climate Denial Roundup at
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/12/8/2000610/–Despair-in-Denierland-Are-Micrometeors-From-Jupiter-Causing-Climate-Change-No
I’m commenting on their site now.
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@Jit – unless I misheard, the task is to stop emissions of “greenhouse gases”.
emissions of CO2 was the focus (though not mentioned) but is water vapour a “greenhouse gas”?
seems the wording to the public as usual is crap/misleading
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Geoff: ‘… it came down to saying that a far reaching explanation of human behaviour such as yours (irrational beliefs are evolutionarily necessary for group survival etc.) precludes us from judging them morally, which undermines the very basis of human discourse.’
While cultural beliefs attempt to set their own morals (part of the problem), it certainly doesn’t preclude them being judged when the line goes too far. You really can’t punish millions of the public for emotively believing in something that is pushed at them for decades, and this isn’t the most productive approach anyhow. But you can certainly punish proselytisers who break the law (XR) or institutional codes (e.g. inappropriate censorship), or indeed much worse. Science and democracy and the law are anti-cultural devices (among other things); while they can be corrupted by culture, much of their purpose is to fight back and for sure we can use them to judge cultural behaviour that crosses lines, and act accordingly.
“Trying (and failing) to summarise the argument above makes me realise that the very fact of considering your position (which I accept by the way, whether or not Brad and Ben do)…”
Thankyou.
“…makes me even more angry with the climate believers, which is counter—intuitive. Instead of feeling compassion for their inability to understand their own biases (because they’re in the grip of an evolutionary necessity to conform to a group belief that reinforces their inner needs, poor things) I despise them even more…”
Accepting the cultural argument is not like accepting Christianity. We do not have to believe one’s cultural opponents are poor lambs. Culture can do terrible things, typically far more terrible than merely lying or conscious conspiracy. It matters to our understanding of what’s happening, is the critical thing. Yet while there’s an element for sure in which the foot-soldiers and even more ‘convenient believers’ were just in the wrong cultural-value place at the wrong time, the full weight of our anti-cultural defence should fall upon anyone who crosses its lines in the name of any culture. That’s what the lines are there for, and I failed to get across to Brad that just because most believers are not lying, doesn’t mean we apply some sort of universal absolvement. You may well despise them even more because all people instinctively know (yes another instinct), that the culturally committed are far more dangerous and far more intractable than mere liars or cheats. The latter can cause some harm but there are many limits to this; in the worst case the former can surpass all limits and so cause, dare I use the word, catastrophic damage.
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This thread is doing nicely without references to the US election, but I can’t let this comment from Jaime pass without comment:
“…the biased Supreme Court has thrown out almost all legal challenges…”.
Just a reminder that the Supreme Court is composed of 7 Justices, 5 of whom were appointed by Republican Presidents (2 by Trump, if memory serves) and only 2 of whom were appointed by Democrat Presidents. In what sense can it be explained that they are biased in favour of Biden?
What happened to that scepticism you were urging on us all over Covid-19 and the state’s response to us? Maybe they threw out the challenges because they were legally (and factually and incidentally morally) worthless?
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Andy
“The whole point about bias is that it’s *not* conscious.”
I entirely disagree. If Climategate taught us anything it was that parts of climate science were biased towards CACC and that the “perps” knew they were biased. Amongst themselves they expressed doubts, but to power, to funding agencies and to the public they were omnipotent in their predictions of doom.
To an extent I understand why they did this. In much of science bias is a natural component. When first trying to explore, and particularly to explain, part of the natural world, bias is rampant. You concoct an explanation and if it works, you fall in love with it and search for new information hoping that this will support your bias. If it does, all well and good; if it doesn’t, ignore it for a time (hoping that more evidence will eventually enable you to assimilate this “contrary” evidence. This is scientific bias and I would maintain it’s everywhere. The Scientific Method is a crock, in my own experience and from others I believe it’s primarily a fantasy, used as a tidy up device when publishing. This, if you like is one of my biases.
The problem comes when the science produces biased results that have enormous and direct relevance to societies – such as climate and other modelling. If you believe models produce relevant truth, then you are biased and I believe that bias was, at least initially, conscious. When your livelihood depends entirely upon funding (CRU was initially entirely run on “soft” money) and especially if you come to believe your work is vitally important to mankind or to the planet, then bias is allowed free reign and the tidying up never happens.
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Mark, in the sense that they have consistently refused to look at the huge amount of evidence for election fraud. In the sense that they have refused to take on a clear case of 4 states violating the US constitution, bizarrely justifying that decision by declaring that Texas has “no standing”. I go by people’s actions, not by their affiliations. But this isn’t the thread to argue about it. All I’ll say is, be very careful what you wish for.
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They’re lying their heads off – constantly. This requires conscious human agency. It just does not make sense to attempt to explain such behaviour as primarily or exclusively subconscious and belief-driven, therefore essentially morally unimpeachable.
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ANDY WEST
I suggest that ALAN KENDALL’s first hand evidence of science as practised (13 Dec 20 8.36am) means that your assertion that “science and democracy and the law are anti-cultural devices..” needs adjusting, possibly with the addendum “…when practised honestly.” But any activity, when practised honestly, can be “anti-cultural,” in the sense of being a corrective to irrational thought – and I do mean any activity, from bar room conversation to religion.
This argument doesn’t detract from the power of your theory of cultures, but it might, if properly developed, dissolve the difference between you and Ben, Brad and Alan. That we should all act and reason honestly is a trivial truth. That we have ways of fooling ourselves is a psychological commonplace. How that happens in the real world is an important area to explore. Alan’s throwaway remark that “CRU was initially entirely run on “soft” money” is a good place to start. And you’re straightaway in the middle of a political debate about Thatcherite policies of demanding value for money from academic research. But hang on. Isn’t all Chinese research based on “soft” money, in the sense that someone else (the Party) decides whether it’s worth financing? And they seem to be doing ok, sciencewise.
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Alan: “If Climategate taught us anything it was that parts of climate science were biased towards CACC and that the “perps” knew they were biased. Amongst themselves they expressed doubts, but to power, to funding agencies and to the public they were omnipotent in their predictions of doom.”
The more ardent of the self-named hockey-team believed in the cause so much, they thought that this outweighed their suppression of doubt, because they *must* ultimately be right, hence a thumb on the scales would be the correct moral thing (as well as conveniently aligning to their interests). To which added all the other standard group-think mechanisms that culture deploys, narrative policing, peer pressure etc etc. The former is an extremely well-known phenomenon called ‘noble cause corruption’, and is just another (strong) bias mechanism, which in some cases can indeed include lying, as I have always pointed out. But they are not lying through knowing it’s all complete nonsense and so nefariously forging ahead anyhow (i.e. the ‘hoax’ theory), they are lying because their belief it must ultimately be right is even stronger. This mechanism will exist in a fair amount of the more knowledgeable within the cultural domain, but cannot exist for the vast majority of ordinary believers, which indeed includes many authority sources, because all such are *not* knowledgeable about the science in the first place. None of this situation is unique to climate science or the climate domain or our era, these are extremely common effects that have occurred all throughout history, because they’re built into us; it’s a feature not a bug.
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Geoff: “…when practised honestly.”
‘Honestly’ is more often than not the wrong word. ‘Objectively’ is the right word, being the super set that includes being honest and also not ‘believing’ too, i.e. even when one is honest. Per above I already pointed out that science, the law, democracy, our tools to defend at social scale, can get corrupted even as they fight culture, so of course they remain only as good as the level of cultural corruption has allowed them to be. I think what you’re now getting at here is exactly what I meant by that, and indeed through the mechanism of noble cause corruption (Gleick is a perfect example) this can for sure include lying as I’ve always pointed out. But noble cause corruption requires some inside knowledge, so it’s limited to a small proportion of believers. But indeed, overall it’s a constant war.
“This argument doesn’t detract from the power of your theory of cultures, but it might, if properly developed, dissolve the difference between you and Ben, Brad and Alan.”
I agree, and I have tried before, but obviously failed to develop it properly.
“Alan’s throwaway remark that “CRU was initially entirely run on “soft” money” is a good place to start.”
It is frequently the case that cultural drives align with the interests of the groups from which they arise. That is partly why they get triggered. Later, they can massively grow out of their original groups and provide far large opportunities for both the honest and the dishonest; as Jaime once pointed out they likely attract a disproportionate amount of the latter. But notwithstanding, say, a tiny minority of Catholic priests who did really bad things with kids, we rightly don’t think the vast majority are doing any such thing or indeed aren’t wholly honest in the propagation of their faith and related good works. Ditto for climate culture. It is an interesting angle that cultures may throw their originators under the bus as they grow. The catastrophic climate culture was already way outside the control of science and prospering hugely in the public domain when climate-gate occurred, and its outside pressure on them was part of the cause of doubt, in which their belief nevertheless still (overall) prevailed at the time. But there’s been many years since then, and I think more of science is starting to realise that they’ve unleased a monster that is going to eat their trade along with many others, because science that kow-tows to that monster is not science. Unfortunately, few have got to the stage where they’re brave enough to speak this.
The cultural theory is only ever about the primary drive and hence the primary understanding of how it develops; what at heart is being fought here. But again as I’ve always pointed out, to navigate the effects in the real world and to oppose them pragmatically, requires a stack of politics and recent history and finance and whatever else, again as I’ve always pointed out. But coming from *both* ends is needed; to misunderstand the drive causes much of the latter effort to misfire.
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@ Geoff in the early hours
A spooky coincidence, that name. I had thought to be the first to discover the country called Denierland: it is the whimsical title of my futile little defiant book of climate scepticism, which would be in my hands now barring the unfortunate issue that the cover image was 0.25 mm smaller than the relevant template.
Sure, one woe doth tread on another’s heel, but there’s no need for Mr or Mrs Kos to rub it in. A little self-reflection might be in order. Kos is a species of lettuce, is it not? Perhaps it has yet to develop self-awareness.
@ Andy you are now up to 11, unless you’ve had a rush since. I also found Richard’s account to follow – though if you search “Richard Drake” it doesn’t find him. He already has a thou, so he won’t notice the extra one. I would follow the others here, but don’t know their handles.
@ DF yes, water is the strongest greenhouse gas, but its effect diminishes greatly with altitude. Any extra we emit will in due course return as rain. If the atmosphere were a tad warmer, it might hold a tad more water before condensing, hence a feedback. Nevertheless, a small proportion of people, it seems, have an idea about the fraction of the atmosphere that CO2 forms. Many have an idea about CO2 that, if true, would make us all suffocate in minutes.
Re: Science. Of course as best practiced it hits upon a better answer in an iterative manner. But if you only search the wrong woods, you might not find the evidence you’re looking for to pull you towards a better answer. However, the ripest plums have been seized by the media, not representative of the science as a whole. (Although there may be a feedback here, where “scientists” willing to hype things up a tad are more likely to be called on again than are those dour and disinterested types.)
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Jaime, “This requires conscious human agency. It just does not make sense to attempt to explain such behaviour as primarily or exclusively subconscious and belief-driven, therefore essentially morally unimpeachable.”
Notwithstanding minority noble cause corruption (lies in the service of culture) per above, if you start with the premise that all discrepancies must be lies and work backwards, then you automatically arrive at human agency. In the vast majority of cases, we cannot know what’s in their heads, and in a cultural conflict all information is disputed, indeed in any emotive conflict likewise as we’ve seen with covid, and cultural conflicts are typically far more entrenched. And nowhere have I said that cultural behaviour is morally unimpeachable, indeed above I specifically say it is not. If society thought this, we would not for instance prosecute war-crimes committed inside the cultural heat of nationalism or anti-Semitism or whatever, which we rightly do, and indeed should do more of imo.
I don’t think you get the true existential nature of the struggle here. From my PoV you seem to constantly underestimate it; cultures try to import their own morals that hence conflict with the existing set. We may think this is not too bad if it’s a benign culture, but if it is very negative then we’ll most certainly be aghast. Catastrophic climate culture is in every way on every day, trying to subvert all our institutions and literally morph our moral outlook into its own. It is literally changing the moral compass of folks, especially the young. We not only need to recognise this (which if folks think it is just a bunch of liars, will *not* get recognised), we need to far more aggressively defend our (prior) morals against this attack, on all possible fronts. So you see from my PoV, this thing about being subconscious providing some sort of universal absolvement is not only wrong and never what I’ve said, it’s almost the opposite, considering what is truly at stake. BUT.. it does change who and what we approach; any actual failures in procedure, balance, objectivity and *actual* lies (i.e. proven by evidence, not just assumed!) must be mercilessly jumped on. But if one just cites that they’re all lying and / or nefarious when a majority will most certainly be engaged in neither, and indeed passionately supporting the cause (which passion corrupts!) this is just a way of crystalising justifiable hostile defensiveness, and hence failing.
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Thanks, JIT 🙂
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Jaime, let me try and cast into a different domain…
So let’s say person A and person B both oppose the current BLM (i.e. capitals, the org not the sentiment), and CRT (critical race theory) based movements.
Person A opposes because they “are just a bunch of lying chancers with a few bonkers ones thrown in, trying to get money and influence” and behaves accordingly. I.e. you have to catch them provably lying / blackmailing, breaking the law or organisational rules etc in order to act. Well both movements do plenty of that, so there is indeed stuff to go for. You may also rail at them ‘lying’ a lot when this can’t possibly be proved, but ultimately this is impotent.
Person B opposes because “they are fundamentally cultural movements whose core narratives and so purpose is committed to the dissolution not only of capitalism, but of democracy, the rule of law, the nation state, the concept of family, and indeed most of our existing moral values”, and behaves accordingly. I.e. not only should all the above happen when actual lines are stepped over, they should be fought every day in every way even when they *aren’t* breaking any rules, because their pernicious culture will spread in all sorts of ways that will damage us, NOT (mostly) via dishonesty, but via millions of people throughout society and many who are influential (e.g. teachers / academics / HR depts / sports people / celebs etc) who *believe* in their warped culture. But we should not oppose primarily by calling them all liars, because this simply cedes them high moral ground, nor is it (mostly) true.
From my PoV, in the climate domain you are person A, and I am person B. And currently, in terms of infiltration, infra-structure control, finance, real-world policy and authorities plus masses persuaded / believing, climate culture is maybe 10,000 times ahead of the two above put together. Dishonesty is not infectious through millions or even billions of people; culture is.
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P.S. I personally count BLM and CRT as separate movements currently. The latter largely spawned the former, but they seem to be spreading in different albeit overlapping ways, so I tend to think of them as at least semi-independent. But it doesn’t make much difference to consider them as a single movement.
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Andy.
“The more ardent of the self-named hockey-team believed in the cause so much, they thought that this outweighed their suppression of doubt, because they *must* ultimately be right, hence a thumb on the scales would be the correct moral thing (as well as conveniently aligning to their interests)”.
I would suggest that this elaboration of your interpretation of CRU’s motives demonstrates my view of science clearly. They had an interpretation that they fell in love with which allowed them to produce and support an iconic hockey stick graph. They deliberately ignored evidence for previous warm and cool periods (often relegating them to regional rather than global effects, without any supportive evidence), hid evidence that the proxies they used failed in recent years (hiding the decline). They did this and proselytised their tarnished goods far and wide. Nor was it confined to a hockey stick. They manufactured a global average temperature by massaging meteorological data until it fit their preconceived ideas and ignored or tried to explain away periods when this mutant creation failed to increase. Using false Chinese data they tried to trash the concept that temperature rises in urban areas could be the result of urbanisation and did not provide support for global warming. Worse, by far, in my opinion, they spread their falsehoods to a ready media and concurred when this media brought to their attention examples of temperature records and unusual weather events and asked whether these were examples of global warming, then global heating or climate Armageddon.
They think they are scientists, but they aren’t. Unfortunately Uncle Tom Cobley and most believe they are, leaving everybody and their aunt to become climate doomsters.
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Alan, well I’ll point out that my elaboration has existed essentially forever, because noble cause corruption (and many other behaviours) are a standard feature of cultures that I frequently mention, and have specifically mentioned in relation to climate-gate before. But I couldn’t agree more “that they fell in love with” the “iconic hockey stick graph”. Cultures have icons (albeit these evolve, especially if an icon once useful becomes a liability), and this became one that rapidly acquired mass emotive commitments way outside of an obscure little science unit. The reason their own love was so powerful, is that it is not *individual* love, which everyone can have alone for stuff they thought of / created, but *group* love. Groupthink (with associated narratives, icons, policing etc) is just culture at the smaller scale, and indeed in this ‘love’ you can see all the other groupthink things happening within the climate-gate emails, policing of the core narrative especially being a big feature. And indeed you use an obviously cultural term here, ‘proselytised’, so again I couldn’t agree more. Cambridge online says of this term ‘to try to persuade someone to change their religious or political beliefs or way of living to your own’, and this is exactly what was happening here, not some consciously lying plot to deliberately / nefariously push false science, notwithstanding noble cause corruption (and indeed with its help). As to your view on whether have they failed science to become climate doomsters, why yet again I fully agree! Climate doomsters who, largely, *believe*. I think most people sense this thing is a secular religion, it comes out in their language all the time, like your ‘proselytise’ above. But for some reason, many seem curiously unwilling to take onboard the actual consequences of this.
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To lighten the tone, given that this thread is titled “Despair”, I found this to be a cause for despair, in our local newspaper, even though others apparently regard it as good news:
“Hopes for Workington retail in “challenging” times”
https://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/18932537.hopes-workington-retail-challenging-times/
“PLANS have been lodged to convert a shop unit which has been disused for “too long” into a supermarket.
TJ Morris Limited, the owner of Home Bargains, have submitted a proposal to redevelop the old Comet site at Derwent Retail Park in Workington. It is the second major development set to take place at the shopping precinct as Aldi are in the process of refurbishing their site.
Shopper Mike Webb said that it is exciting news for the area, as the unit has been out of use for “too long.”…
…Home Bargains also own a store in Washington Square Shopping Centre.
Mr Webb said: “But that’s in the town centre. Once they’ve extended it, it’ll bring more people here.””.
One person’s “exciting news” is another person’s cause for despair, it seems. Workington is dying. Perhaps if the coal mine is allowed to open down the road, then steel-making could return to the town.
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P.S. ‘icon’ is a culture thing too, of course. Avoiding the computing definition, Cambridge online has: ‘a very famous person or thing considered as representing a set of beliefs or a way of life’.
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Mark H, I hail originally from Sheffield and saw much of the closure of the steel works. There are still some small units producing low volume / high quality specialist steels, but I think the age of them as a mass employer is never coming back to the UK 0: I’m guessing automation means they’re now much less of a mass employer even in India or Russia or South Korea or wherever.
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Hi Geoff,
Thanks for the heads-up (13th @ 12:21am) on the DailyKos website comment. When next you comment there would you ask them on my behalf to quote me accurately in future. When saying that we are getting nowhere in our fight against climate change propaganda I was specifically referring to Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Change (CACC), i.e. the fantasised climate chaos/crisis/emergency/disruption/etc.etc.etc. with which CACC propagandists like The Daily Kos, BBC, Guardian/Times, etc. etc. etc. (not to forget our beloved politicians, school teachers, etc.) persist in bombarding us.
When I quote cherry-picked extracts from the CACC propagandists I make a point of providing a link to the source of my quotes. This allows others to determine the full context of what was said and then make up their own minds about the accuracy of my interpretation. I speculate that the author of the Daily Kos comment did not do so, but correct me if I’m mistaken (i’d check it myself but have been unable to register with the blog).
Hi JiT
You commented (12th @ 8:07 pm) ” .. I don’t see sceptics making clear .. what is it we really fear about the future? .. “. For myself, I have no fear for the future. I think that the last time I feared fir my future was in 1945 when an ammunition train caught fire in Hexham railway station and I was terribly fearful that those of us in the vicinity would be blown to smithereens.
It only took a few years for my attitude to be that whatever Nature or other humans throw at us life will go on. Lifestyles may change drastically for better or worse, but life on Earth is a very resilient thing. It has evolved that way of necessity. When the human race eventually becomes extinct Nature will very quickly obliterate all traces of the effects, good’ bad and indifferent, that it wrought.
The word “adapt” springs to mind, which is just what life on Earth has always had to do when Nature turns nasty. We’ll get through the coming ice age fine.
Hi Andy (West),
Your reference to “honesty” and ” .. noble cause corruption .. ” (13th @ 11:17am) immediately brought to mind the words of CACC evangelIst Dr. Stephen Schneider (see my comment of 10th @ 11:13am (https://cliscep.com/2020/12/06/despair/#comment-69884).
Ecologist Schneider died 10 years ago but unfortunately his influence lingers on.
” .. Stephen Henry Schneider was Professor of Environmental Biology and Global Change at Stanford University, a Co-Director at the Center for Environment Science and Policy of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and a Senior Fellow in the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. Schneider served as a consultant to federal agencies and White House staff in the Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations. Schneider’s research included modeling of the atmosphere, climate change, and the effect of global climate change on biological systems. Schneider was the founder and editor of the journal Climatic Change and authored or co-authored over 450 scientific papers and other publications .. ” (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Schneider).
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To admin,
Please would you replace the “not” in ” .. not the fantasised climate .. ” with “i.e.” in my first para of 4:11 pm.
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Pete R, yes, I recall Scneider and some of his comments very well, and have used them myself several times. Classics, you might you might say. If one is truly truly emotively convinced that mankind must be wrecking the planet, one doesn’t care whether it’s through hot or cold; you already decided the ultimate outcome is doom! Such choices are merely a detail to culture, which via selection will automatically pick the most workable case at any one moment. Indeed it appeared to be a mere detail to Schneider too, who also advised that scientists should leave it to their conscience when deciding whether to over-hype facts to be more persuasive. He was appealing to their emotion; if like him most of them *know* that catastrophe must be just around the corner, they will perceive over-egging as morally right 0: As Alan points out above, such behaviour is not science or anything like it; indeed it is rampant noble cause corruption. And for the sake of clarity regarding the discussions above, it should of course receive all the reprimands possible, the difficulty being that such aren’t typically severe anyhow, and essentially don’t exist when all the relevant authorities are already captured by the culture too. He certainly didn’t get fired for his statements, and was likely more lauded than shunned.
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Pete R: “When I quote cherry-picked extracts from the CACC propagandists I make a point of providing a link to the source of my quotes. This allows others to determine the full context of what was said and then make up their own minds about the accuracy of my interpretation.”
Excellent 🙂 So do I here, which you may be interested in. About 180 catastrophe narrative quotes categorised by type and quotee, linking original sources and with commentary about how each of these quotes achieves emotive conviction via self-propagating narrative devices. Includes quotes from PMs, presidents, UN elite, high ministers, ordinary politicians, NGOs, religious leaders, economists, authors and influencers, business leaders, medical leaders, plus many scientists.
Click to access footnotes.pdf
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Mark H, re Steel making, you have to look at the inputs and, given that steel making is global, work out where Workington might have an edge. For the UK, actually making steel will probably be cheaper and provide more benefit somewhere else such as Ukraine. The UK would only be good for converting scrap iron to steel, but whether that scrap is good for steel is another matter. Coal is available in opencast mines in many places and that, alas will tend to be cheaper than Workington. Sheffield used to have an edge because of stainless steel for cutlery and knives etc. Unless someone in the UK can create a cutting edge alloy steel, such as they use in racing bikes, steel-making will not return. Even then, making the steel will probably be cheaper elsewhere :it’s what you do with the steel that counts.
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Jit: On the contrary, I did notice 🙂
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BBC’s “Countryfile” just reduced me to convilsions of laughter. A warden for wetlands off Ispwich just made a comment about the effects of climate change on the birds ” The crazy thing is that they just get used to it”.
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see BBC 4 have a prog/doc on at 9pm tonight – “The Last Igloo” – “doc that follows a lone Inuit as he hunts, fishes & constructs an Igloo, a way of life threatened by Climate Change”
“The Last Igloo” chosen as the emotive title!!!! – I Despair at times 😦
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Hi Andy (West),
Thanks for the heads-up (13th @ 5:02pm) on those 39 scare-mongering CACC quotes (for some unknown reason I couldn’t get to them direct from your comment but found https://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2018/11/footnotes.pdf).
Internationally respected climate scientist Christine Lagarde missed a trick with her ” .. future generations will be roasted, toasted, fried and grilled .. ”. She overlooked the ultimate punishment for our fossil fuel sins, that we will all be drowned in those relentlessly rising seas. After that nature can get back to the normal that it enjoyed before humans started using those damned fossil fuels.
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Well I’m currently watching Whitehouse and Mortimer’s Christmas fishing special set in North Yorkshire. Christmas with trees along the river banks bright green. Global warming gone riot, or is it CO2 fertilisation?
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DfHunter, if only that Eskimo had watched Nanook of the North
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@ Pete perhaps I phrased my question about fear poorly. (That does sound like a terrifying encounter.)
What I was trying to get at was: What do we fear, not for ourselves, but for the future? What will be the consequences of climate alarm for our descendents? If I sat down, picked up my mechanical pencil, cracked open a new notebook, scribbled “2084” at the top of the first page…
What would I write? The dystopia that the alarmists predict for our future is easy to guess. But what does the future look like if all that they demand comes to pass? Andy has mentioned economic catastrophe. I wonder why that does not seem to have the traction of ecological catastrophe.
Anyway, that was my question. I will ponder more the way I think that future might pan out, in hopefully an alternate timeline.
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Hi JiT,
As I see it, fewr is exclusively self-centred and fear is always and can only be about the future, so I am no clearer about what message you were trying to get across. Climate alarm will have consequences, as will any climate change that Nature throws at us, but there is nothing to be gained by fearing it. Rather, if we are concerned about it then we would be better employed considering what reasonable steps we can take to make the most of the possible consequences. Some may be beneficial, some detrimental and others have little impact on our lives. In all cases we can simply adapt as bedt we can, because we mere humens have no influence on Mother Nature.
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Pete:
I was thinking of commenting there this evening but, having signed in with the username and password Google Chrome remembers, which they did recognise, there seem to be no working reply buttons. Geoff’s comment is still visible but has attracted no responses:
That’s 136 comments here, as of now, and a measly ten there. A key point well made, because we sure don’t agree about everything and that was absolutely explicit in my original post. So I was amused by these first two sentences:
“Though the context isn’t exactly clear” – well exactly. The context was, in important part, the fact that we don’t agree about everything. That was hard to express because “Denierland” becomes so much more complicated to smear that way. It’s also part of what’s made this thread such a “bustling hub” – what an excellent description of what we have achieved. Ironies in abundance.
But I am also different to Geoff and other sceptics in my tolerance for the term denier. Thus in May, in my only comments on the Daily Kos, at least that they have remembered for me, initially in support of Ben Pile, I went on to say:
And when the person I was addressing kindly said that nobody gave a shit what I thought:
Maybe that’s why there’s not a Reply button for me this time!
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Jaime:
I liked that comment and that’s because I agreed with it. Any philosophy that causes us to lose sight of these basics is itself immoral.
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‘First they came for the HCQ protagonists, then they came for the vaccine deniers’.
Macron’s 21st century France is beginning to look a lot like Brezhnev’s Russia.
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I also liked this from Mark earlier on:
The reasons for the like here are more complex. I am asserting Mark’s right to make this comment about Jaime’s earlier one. And still be a denizen of Cliscep in full standing – whatever that might mean! My own views on the subject are both complex and full of ignorance. But this, and Jaime’s good-tempered reply, is certainly within the scope of this thread.
And that’s all my likes of recent comments. It doesn’t actually imply much about the others 🙂
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Jaime (10:20pm): One of the problems we have in the current crisis and paranoia is the use of “them”. The French government isn’t the UK one or the outgoing US one, or the incoming US one (even if that is led by Trump). If the man I’ve never heard of in France, up till now, has only offended the authorities by objecting to some aspect of the French mass vaccination plans, and has no history of psychiatric problems, etc etc, it sounds very bad. But the UK government has said the right thing: no coercion. There is no ‘they’ there. The Great Reset is a balloon that’s been floated but they’re bluffing. And which ‘they’ am I using there? The ones that are bluffing about the Great Reset, silly. There always are world government bluffers and we are foolish to ignore all their plans, especially when they end up financing revolutions and wars that lead to mass murder. Anyway, big subject. I didn’t want to get into all that on this thread, believe it or not.
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Big things happening in America. I suspect the MSM are going to go into a frenzy soon.
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Jaime (10:20pm): I also saw what you did there. Martin Niemöller was a pretty mixed bag, as that link shows. His little poem has never greatly inspired me. Too trite by far. But anyway.
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just watched “The Last Igloo”
1st hour was interesting, rest had the Climate/Warming meme at a low level.
the hunter built an Igloo at the end & cooked fish on a gas stove (I think).
he did mention you need a good kind of snow to build an Igloo & that was it !!!
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Richard:
>>They’re lying their heads off – constantly. This requires conscious human agency. It just does not make sense to attempt to explain such behaviour as primarily or exclusively subconscious and belief-driven, therefore essentially morally unimpeachable.
>I liked that comment and that’s because I agreed with it. Any philosophy that causes us to lose sight of these basics is itself immoral.
Who is it who has claimed the behaviours are morally unimpeachable? Not I. I say pretty much the opposite above; the morals are opposed to our existing set.
So you really think hundreds of millions of supporters of climate change across nations, are all lying?
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Andy: The context was this from Ben Pile
I’d maybe question Jaime’s “belief-driven” as being opposed to human agency. For me people are morally responsible for their beliefs. That’s part – a key part – of human agency. A teacher in the first century really majored on this point.
Going back to Mark and Jaime’s conversation about Trump, I’m with Steve Mcintyre here:
And also here:
People need to be calmer. Yep.
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Richard Drake (10.26pm) explained his reasons for awarding his likes du jour. I wish to applaud this practice.
Being a technophobe of the premiere cru, I have failed to learn the complexities of awarding likes. I am very, very pleased when my own efforts gather those medallions and often would wish to bestow them on others. Instead I write comments (as now). I have pondered which (likes or comments) are the better and have concluded that comments (even if argumentative) are preferable. Richard’s combo is the best of all.
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Re: Daily Kos, etc.
We will no longer matter when folks like the Daily Kos stop saying we no longer matter. Even then, there is much to be gained from self-entertainment.
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Richard: “For me people are morally responsible for their beliefs. That’s part – a key part – of human agency.”
The whole point about beliefs is that they come with *their own* moral system, which typically will clash (and maybe clash terribly) with a prior system being invaded. It’s a battle of morals, in which I’ve never said there is absolvement of responsibility for those who do any bad due to belief in climate catastrophe or CRT or whatever. Yet there is no formal punishment for those who do not break the law or institutional rules or who aren’t lying but believing. However, I’ve gone further and pointed out that in the battle of morals, we should be opposing with all effort negative cultural invasions that every day attempt to morph our moral systems, even when they *aren’t* actually breaking formal rules. Because their invasion *will* change the moral codes unless we do so, and indeed that’s happening right now as we speak, especially with children, en-masse. I never understand the argument that people put in my mouth regarding the cultural angle. I say, causation is not a bunch of liars (mostly), which would be easy to deal with. It’s a pernicious and incredibly invasive culture that every day bypasses rationality in millions of people to steal the very fabric of your society and much that you hold dear, literally morphing people’s morals along the way. Incredibly, folks reply, “why are you letting them off?”. The answer should be “okay, that’s way more dangerous, how do we fight it?”. I don’t have that answer in truth, but it starts with recognising the enemy, and it seems that even getting to that point is an issue.
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JIT 13 Dec 20 9.22pm
The first consequence, as Andy and others have noted, will surely be that people begin to notice that putting a cork in the world’s thermometer comes at a price. My fear is that the strength of the cultural inertia in the climate scare story is such that people (politicians and the media first) will refuse to draw the logical conclusions and will look elsewhere for a scapegoat, and that scapegoat will be China, which will be streaming ahead on a flood of cheap fossil fuel energy, and we’ll be lined up for a World War over Taiwan/ Hong Kong.
ALAN KENDALL 14 Dec 20 7.53 am
To give “likes” you need to click on the comment square and establish your identity, then go somewhere else (another site or another article on this site) then come back. I put “likes” for many reasons, sometimes because the comment is at variance with my opinion in an interesting way (I wonder what the Daily Kos would make of that?) and sometimes simply to signal that I’m still here.
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Geoff: “My fear is that the strength of the cultural inertia in the climate scare story is such that people (politicians and the media first) will refuse to draw the logical conclusions and will look elsewhere for a scapegoat…”
Yep. Though I suspect there’ll be multiple scapegoats. In it’s worst strains the culture is also anti-human and anti-technology; I don’t know how much those aspects could come to the fore, but if they do then history suggests a very rough ride indeed.
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Geoff thank you for trying to aid a technophobe par excellence. I am most grateful. But I have to report abject failure. First you told me to click on the “comment square “. I presume this is the single square thingy top right on my I-pad screen (never before used, a total mystery). But then how do I establish my identity? Pressed several options without success. Afraid of some options in that I wish to avoid being the butt of my granddaughter’s scorn when I have to ask her to reset what I have wrought during the day. So I need instructions relevant for a dumb 5-year old (if you please)
In my defence, I know of several commentators who have difficulties liking.
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ALAN
Sorry, I meant the box at the bottom of the thread that says “leave a reply.” This seems to prime the system. Having said that, I now find that I can “like” whenever I like, as you can see under your comment, which was simply to test this new feature.
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Hi Geoff,
Ref. JIT and “fear” (13th @ 9.22pm) you appear to fear that WWIII will arise from China persisting in improving the lot of its citizens through a burgeoning use of fossil fuels. I suspect that the Chinese have learnt from Germany’s midern history, i.e. that there is a better way to take control over other countries than waging World Wars such as we had in the 20th century. Which country currently dominates the EU?
Regarding the “like” button, I have every sympathy with Alan. It took me quite a few attempts at repetitious and random button pushing before the penny dropped
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Thanks to Alan for the unexpected applause for my like-and-explain last night. On this next occasion I’ve liked all comments since my last one except for one from Andy – because I feel sure I disagree but not sure I want to go down that rabbit-hole in abstract terms. Maybe some examples will tease out our differences. But that will also take time.
I in turn applaud Geoff for his various reasons for liking. The technical difficulties he, Alan and others have experienced in even registering a Like are infuriating to me – one of many irritations for a software nerd forced to use this crappy system (and try, in small ways, to make it more usable). Did I ever say that before, in such terms? Well, the post is called Despair. I’m not alone – see % of developers who are developing with the language or technology but have not expressed interest in continuing to do so from the 2020 Stack Overflow poll of developers.
Now I turn into something even more boring than a software nerd – an officious software nerd. When reporting such problems you should always give the platform context. At the very least what operating system or phone type you’re having the problem on and the type of browser. Eg. Firefox on Windows 7, Microsoft Edge on Windows 10, Safari on the iPhone, Chrome on Android, Chrome on the Mac etc. Version numbers earn you even more developer love. Or likes. Sigh.
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Returning to the transgender debate, perhaps briefly, Graham Linehan is republishing a feminist this morning that I feel I know very well, called ripx4nutmeg. Her title:
In shock twist, Ofcom’s CEO says the BBC is transphobic
ripx4nutmeg points in turn to two YouTube videos by Posie Parker, mentioned above. But I thought this headline in itself both resonates with the battles for climate realism we’ve tried to fight and signals how much further the gender critical community has got than us, in a much shorter time. The BBC has been a bastion for the warped establishment view but has begun to wake up, to the extent that it’s now itself being called transphobic by Ofcom.
What would the equivalent be?
In shock twist, Ofcom’s CEO says the BBC is peddling climate denialism
Never say never folks.
(As an aside, I felt sure that I was following ripx4nutmeg on Twitter but this morning it seemed not. A lot of people have accused Twitter of ‘losing’ such connections, in small numbers at a time, accidentally on purpose. As I said earlier, my trust is very low in the outfit by now. But I re-followed ripx4nutmeg anyhow.)
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Richard: “But I thought this headline in itself both resonates with the battles for climate realism we’ve tried to fight and signals how much further the gender critical community has got than us, in a much shorter time.”
Indeed. But they’re working within the context of a number of advantages (even though it may not seem so to them!). For instance climate change can play the ultimate existential card of planetary apocalypse, which dwarfs even the grosser exaggerations of gender activists. Plus climate change can also play the card of hard science (physics etc). While gender activists have narratives that distort and try to subvert hard science (in this case biology), the great bulk of scientists and indeed the instincts of the general public, are still against them not for them in this respect. In the climate case, no one has a clue how the climate works, even scientists from all the other disciplines, so it’s much easier for cultural narratives to hi-jack the whole domain and successfully claim hard science backing. None of which means that gender activism isn’t yet another negative cultural wave to add to the others these days; but it’s not on the same scale (and I think hard to see how it would ever get there). Think of the mass of governments, UN elites, NGOs, authorities and influencers across globe plus huge infra-structure and endless trillions already in service to climate culture. Even the transmission might of the BBC is just a small cog in this machine, so they’re under much greater pressure to conform (and indeed proselytize). The similarities are for sure worth drawing, but the differences must be kept in mind too. Though indeed one should never say never 🙂
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Richard wrote: “The BBC has been a bastion for the warped establishment view but has begun to wake up, to the extent that it’s now itself being called transphobic by Ofcom.
I think you’ve got this backwards. The headline equivalent headline of “Ofcom’s CEO says the BBC is peddling climate denialism” happened over a decade ago for airing the views of sceptics. It didn’t signal the beginning of a more sceptic BBC, but the phasing out of sceptic views. It is not clear that the BBC will double down on “balance”, or, more likely IMO, will attempt to more robustly fall in line with the morality police and phase out “hateful” views.
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Andy: It also helps that most of the reSisters (synecdoche: using a part to name the whole) are professed lefties, often with long stints in Labour, as well as feminists.
And yet, and yet … I instinctively feel we have things to learn, in line with my original question to Olde Mr Burke: what work can we usefully do?
My answer earlier this year is that post-Covid we should emphasise:
1) Cost
2) Cost-benefit (lack of)
3) Cost
4) Money
5) Shekels etc.
I haven’t actually changed on that. But there’s something about the fighting spirit of the radical feminists who’d become the vanguard of the UK gender critical movement by the time Maria MacLachlan was attacked at Speakers Corner in September 2017, and that I felt I experienced in those meetings I attended, and on Twitter, when things looked incredibly against them, that spoke. “Courage calls to courage everywhere,” as the lady said.
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DaveJR: Maybe. But I have been watching the area carefully since July 2015 when a coder I’d got to know and like ran into the trans extremists, who tried to ruin his career. I judge there to be real resistance in the BBC now, much more than there is on climate alarmist nostrums. But we’d probably agree that the battle isn’t over in either area.
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“Courage calls to courage everywhere,” as the lady said.
Indeed. Yet there has to be a natural group of some sort for this message to appeal to. In this case, women, and a pretty massive group too as likely a big majority won’t be impressed with the erasure of their rights. But in the climate case, there isn’t one (yet). I think emphasising cost and cost / benefit is right, but until heavy impacts actually occur that may create a bulk reaction, any need of courage isn’t perceived by most. And the moral imperative to ‘save the planet / all life / civilisation’, is extremely good at undermining any reaction. So far, downsides are perceived by the public as inconvenience not frontal assaults. However, more hopefully, while the Gilet Jeunes thing wasn’t wholly aligned to CC policy, it was significantly so, and suggests that bulk reaction in the West is not too far below the surface right now. Ditto some negative reaction to XR in the UK.
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I look at the list of New Comments and there hasn’t been any for nearly 22 hours. I despair.
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Well it may not alleviate Alan’s despair, but does anyone have an email address for Andrew Montford, aka the Bish? Especially his GWPF one? I can guess the format of it but don’t know for sure.
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Alan,
>”I look at the list of New Comments and there hasn’t been any for nearly 22 hours. I despair.”
There are other prominent sites out there that also go through quiet periods from time to time, and yet are not so quick to resort to self-reproach.
Take, for example, Ken Rice’s ‘And Then There’s Physics’. Willard’s article ‘Beria’s Boat’ garnered the grand total of 4 comments. Since then he has returned to promoting his strawman bingo project in an effort to muster a little more interest, but with only modest results. I would be feeling a bit irrelevant if I were him, but he is made of sterner stuff. I note that over at ATTP he has joined in the rejoicing by claiming that Richard’s ‘Despair’ article is Cliscep waving the white flag of surrender.
As I see it, the only danger would be in boring ourselves to death by having to say the same thing repeatedly, or in alienating our audience by diversifying subject matter in an effort to stave off the boredom. This was never about saving the world from the consequences of its actions. We were never going to do that.
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John, I meant my 2.07 pm post to be lighthearted, not a criticism at all. If anything upon seeing no new comments, my feeling is one of disappointment, not despair, but that wouldn’t fit with the title of this thread. I thought my post might just raise a smile, no more. My disappointment is a reflection of how much I enjoy reading material within this site and anticipate being stimulated by it. When a thread is in full flow, I find it sometimes difficult to keep up.
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Alan,
My apologies. I had read Willard’s comment on ATTP and it struck me that your comment was one of those that invited such premature gloating. It seems I misread you. Maybe I won’t be the only one though.
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I tend not to comment much when I am in a state of despair. Don’t know about others.
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Andy: I sent you an email with the secret info requested. To the secret email address you’ve supplied to Cliscep. What could possibly go wrong?
Alan: I only just saw the 2:07pm joke and it’s a very good one. Mind you, I also agree with John that a gap in comments is entirely ok. I was taking a break from reading the blog for around 12 hours having spent much more time on technical conundrums in the innards of the site than I’d planned during the last two weeks.
PS Mike D looks to have done a really handy post.
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Fantastic Richard, received, Many Thanks! 🙂
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Jaime: My like of your 7:45pm is an appreciation of honesty and reality, not of the fact you’re not commenting. I don’t expect these commendations of one Biden appointment are going to help any of us in the rejoicing stakes.
It won’t be the last. As Geoff said a long time ago, the backlash post Trump was likely to be nasty. That was certainly in my mind when I penned this post.
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From the New York Times:
“The Elderly vs Essential Workers: Who Should Get the Coronavirus Vaccine First?
Harald Schmidt, an expert in ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania, said that it is reasonable to put essential workers ahead of older adults, given their risks, and that they are disproportionately minorities. “Older populations are whiter,” Dr. Schmidt said. “Society is structured in a way that enables them to live longer. Instead of giving additional health benefits to those who already had more of them, we can start to level the playing field a bit.”
…
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DaveJR,
I notice that Schmidt has also said the following:
“The case of vaccine rationing is particularly instructive. Ethical, epidemiological, and economic reasons demand that rationing approaches give priority to groups who have been structurally and historically disadvantaged, even if this means that overall life years gained may be lower.”
I had no idea that one could make a distinction between life years and ethical life years. Cutting my life short to make amends for another group’s historical disadvantage doesn’t sound that ethical to me. And I certainly don’t see were the epidemiological ‘demand’ comes from.
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Richard: I’ve noted in passing that the Scottish Greens have been particularly hot for the extreme end of trans rights. Didn’t really think about it much one way or the other, until today in The Spectator I see one of them, Wightman, resigned through being pressured too much on this issue. The article says of the Greens: “The party has allowed itself to be captured by trans ideologues and even progressives like Wightman who sincerely strive for an equitable preponderance of rights and protections have been cast as haters and harmers. Few movements have done more to narrow the base of their own support and expand that of their opponents. Debate is impossible with people who think debate pushes kids off window ledges.” I view this as a good thing; because I doubt the Green assistance will make much difference in the promotion of ultra trans advocacy over women’s rights, yet the association will as the article says, severely undermine the Scottish Greens. It occurred to me that maybe the English Greens might be afflicted in the same way, but I don’t recall any noise on this. Do you know? Or isn’t fate that kind? In any case, for the Scottish branch: “Their embrace of this brand of anti-politics has cost the Scottish Greens their most thoughtful and diligent lawmaker”.
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Andy West, I need to do some digging, and Richard is far more likely to have the information at hand, but I’m sure I read a year or two back that the English Greens are every bit as bad on this subject as their Scottish counterparts.
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Meanwhile:
“Climate change: 2021 will be cooler but still in top six warmest
By Matt McGrath
Environment correspondent”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-55365414
“UK Met Office scientists are forecasting that 2021 will be a little cooler around the world, but will still be one of the top six warmest years.
The La Niña weather phenomenon will see temperatures edge down but greenhouse gases will remain the biggest influence.
Researchers say the world will likely be around 1C warmer than the pre-industrial era.
It will be the seventh year in a row close to or above this mark….”.
Desperate reporting there, methinks, seeking to big up the warming that won’t be obvious next year, if La Nina does its stuff.
Who’s desperate now?
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Andy, this isn’t what I was looking for, but might be worth a read:
http://bright-green.org/2020/08/04/transphobia-in-the-green-party-leadership-election-is-harming-the-partys-reputation/
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I think this is what I was referring to:
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/how-caroline-lucas-fell-foul-of-the-transgender-thought-police-4-september-2018
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There’s no shortage of funny goings-on in the climate camp at the moment. Hadcrut 5 has just been released and – surprise, surprise – the adjustments accelerate warming after the 1970s. Then there’s the fact that as of Dec 17 2020, the ONLY areas north of 50 degrees not covered by snow and ice in the northern hemisphere are the UK and some countries in NW Europe. Talk about ‘kids won’t know what snow is’! Cliscep should be onto this.
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Date: yesterday
Author: UK Treasury
via Roger Harrabin
Plenty of scope for despair there. I suppose I ought to read the actual document, but I can hardly bear to.
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Oh, and the moronic anti-science nuts at the WEF are repeating the lie that Venus was once an idyllic, eath-like planet, which got fried due to ‘run-away climate change’.
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I wonder how long before they discover a ‘new strain’ of climate change?
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Jaime,
That quote from the UK Treasury tells you that the Treasury, instead of doing the job they are alledlyvdedicated to is not being done.
Instead they are promoting anti-scientific no sense that no same rational person believes.
There is nothing in the clinate- climate as defined and accepted- that is existentially worsening. Nor in the next thirty years can climate worsen existentially. The physics won’t permit it.
Additionally, the article is clearly lying about the cost of the irrational anti-scientific claptrap economics the government weeks to impose. The cost estimates are couched in weasel words and obfuscation.
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Thanks for the links, Mark. It seems that extreme trans activism has at the very least captured much of the English/Welsh Greens, if not outright the whole party yet. This will almost certainly damage their credibility with ordinary voters, and seriously. Especially with women (who traditionally have supplied a greener vote than men).
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Sorry not to have replied but Christmas plans have been blown to smithereens and I didn’t want to say a naughty word.
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Headline in today’s (Monday) Guardian: “Nations ban travel from UK as new strain of virus takes hold”. Barn doors and absent equines immediately sprung to mind. And no more intimate dinners about trade deals.
There must be a stronger word than “despair”, even if naughty.
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If you want to see despair – real despair – go on to Twitter this morning. People are hurting. They are wondering what the point of living is. Pants Down f***ing Ferguson and his 70% more transmissible ‘Mutant Covid’ has finally sent them over the edge. Parliament should be recalled – NOW. Forget Christmas. The bastards should be made to sit on Christmas Day for all I care, in order to try to sort this mess out.
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“But the estimate of greater transmissibility — British officials said the variant was as much as 70 percent more transmissible — is based on modeling and has not been confirmed in lab experiments, Dr. Cevik added.
“Over all, I think we need to have a little bit more experimental data,” she said. “We can’t entirely rule out the fact that some of this transmissibility data might be related to human behavior.”
In South Africa, too, scientists were quick to note that human behavior was driving the epidemic, not necessarily new mutations whose effect on transmissibility had yet to be quantified.”
MODELS!! FERGUSON!! CHRISTMAS LOCKDOWN!! CHAOS!!
I think we’re gonna need a Blind Fury thread.
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Good Morning Britain wheeled out the big guns today to explain the ramifications of asymptomatic covid. Dr Amir Khan (as seen on TV) informed the worried viewers that Vallance had said that up to one in three cases could be asymptomatic. “That means,” he went on to explain, “that when you look at these scenes [of people queuing for trains at Kings Cross, etc.] that one in three may have the disease.”
Now if that isn’t enough to make you despair, I don’t know what would be.
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John: and he’s a Doctor. What hope for politicians?
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Recent comments about Covid19 seem to be pointing the finger in the direction of our politicians (bless ’em). I suggest that the major cause of the serious condition we are in can be found by each of us taking a close look in the mirror and asking “Have I been acting responsibly?” I know that I have, but how about you, and you, and you?
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Pete,
You have asked a very important question that is deserving of a serious answer. The problem, as I see it, is that the answer very much depends upon the science that one is following, as there appears to be some dispute as to how the virus is spread within the community. Take for example, the following study, “The use of aspirated consonants during speech may increase the transmission of COVID-19”:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7263261/
According to this science, I would be acting irresponsibly by using too many English voiceless stops (i.e. ‘p’, ‘t’ and ‘k’) when talking to people. The advice is that such consonants be replaced by softer alternatives such as ‘n’ and ‘f’. Indeed, as I understand it, a well-known right-wing organisation in America suffered a super-spreading event recently and, as a result, is now required to refer to itself as the Flu Flux Flan.
Then there is this, “Can Farts Transmit COVID-19 Coronavirus?”:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2020/04/27/can-farts-transmit-covid-19-coronavirus-here-is-what-is-being-said/
The ruling on whether or not one is allowed to fart anymore is actually quite complicated because it depends upon what tier you are in. In tier 4, for example, all farting is disallowed. In tier 3, smelly ones are allowed but only in your bubble. In tier 2, silent but deadly ones are also allowed, but only on Christmas day (for reasons that will become obvious).
I hope that has cleared things up a bit.
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Pete: Personally, I’ve obeyed every rule so far, and don’t think politicians are (mostly) causal. But given the ‘serious condition’ is similar across most places in the world, I’m not sure that pointing a finger at a few billion persons is too helpful (guilt driven responses tend to be irrational too). A valid question to ask is, had every person in the world behaved exactly according to their locally imposed rules, might we still be in a similar position to where we are? How do really we know in an absolute sense, that the virus isn’t heavily impeded by these rules? If for instance, most transmission is via super-spreaders who start to shed 2 or 3 days before symptoms start, you only need a few of these working at Tesco and Asda, then (say masked up too, and mostly via handling goods), all other measures are subverted. If the rules were strict enough to prevent even such super-spreading possibilities, there might be no life left (for instance, critical facilities like supermarkets and hospitals must remain open, and indeed some reports say 30% of cases are caught in hospital), yet only a bit less strict allows them back in again. I’m not proposing this as the actual scenario, I’m not knowledgeable enough for any such. But it’s meant to contextualise that in a situation where it’s impossible to get absolute evidence and much of the world is in the same place, then certainty is not what we’re dealing with. There’s tons more uncertainty tangled into the rules, for instance studies showing the risks of poor mask-handling protocol, which is an innocent flaw not an outcome of irresponsibility. However, it could indeed be that world-wide, irresponsible behaviour is one of the main issues regarding where we are, and indeed bulk human behaviours should always be taken into account in any solution (the original 10pm UK alcohol ban was crazy in this respect). As part of those behaviours, it’s also likely that ever higher levels of zealousness and guilt pointing could well increase rule breaking rather than decrease it.
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Further to my earlier post, the following instructive video carefully explains the government’s new rules regarding the use of aspirated consonants within the various tiers:
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John: I for one am ready to play my phart.
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Haven’t watched the video, but doesn’t it’s title break the rules? It should be “Stay Sane and Farry On”
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Alan: Among the phonemes in spoken English we have no sibilant glottal consonant corresponding to the glottal plosive ‘C’ at the start of Carry. But of course the Scottish, with their lochs, and the Spanish do. All gente intelligente know that. (Two examples there, of course.)
[Note: Changed aspirated to sibilant there. It’s been a while. But phonemics really is an amazing field. Glottal consonants are the worst. And that Wikipedia page “has multiple issues”. Exactly.]
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To follow the rules we must all flay our farts. In the meantime, we are to Snay Sane and Larry on.
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I think I broke the ‘rules’ yesterday, though I’m not sure because I can’t be arsed to find out what they are. We had some friends round for a pre-Christmas gathering. ‘Mum’ is a lovely old lady, 88 years old, suffering advanced Alzheimers, but lives at home, cared for by her son and his wife and she’s in excellent health, not stuck in a bug-infested ‘care’ home forced to see her loved ones through a window once a week or whatever, to ‘protect’ her from Covid. She’s happy, healthy and seeing our dogs just makes her so much more happy because she spent the whole time time fussing over them. I’m 99.9% sure that I’m not going to kill her by mysteriously passing on some disease which I’m not suffering from. I’m also 99.9% sure that I’ve acted responsibly throughout this ‘pandemic’, but I’m 100% sure that I haven’t followed all the idiotic, brain-dead, non-evidenced ‘rules’ invented by politicians and Commie control freak ‘scientists’ during that time.
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Jaime: I think we’ve all broken the rules to that extent. I also think two other things (and have done since March): 1) The government knew we would have to bend the rules, on the edges, though some jobsworths, like the official at that funeral that went viral, didn’t get the memo. 2) Alan’s right (in the other thread) that the rules can be important in preventing real idiots doing real damage.
Put these things together and you have a mess. An unavoidable mess even. That’s where my narrative is more forgiving even of government than some.
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Just observing the English government making up policy on the fly is enough to cause despair. Every announcement seems carefully designed to create a potential super-spreader event and/or some kind of conflict with other policies. For example, the “eat out to help out” campaign in, was it, August had the effect of cramming a week’s worth of dining out into 3 days at the start of every week. You could see that restaurants were very busy for those 3 nights and practically empty the rest of the time. Obviously it would have been much better for the establishments to have a more even flow of custom over the week.
The 10 pm curfew had the effect of ensuring that there would be crowds of people on the streets at 10pm rather than spreading their departures between, say 9.30 and normal closing time. And, of course, nobody would have bought a crate of beer and organised an impromptu party back home.
Announcing a 4th tier in a 3 tier system on the weekend before Christmas was an act of genius. As we have seen numerous times in Paris, such an announcement triggers an exodus to the country. Given that the only way for someone in London to achieve any kind of family Christmas event was to get out of London on Saturday, was it so hard to predict the pandemonium at the London termini?
The “substantial meal” nonsense introduced if you want to visit a pub…how does that fit in with this alleged obesity epidemic we are constantly being told about? It seems to have benefited manufacturers of Scotch eggs but it does seem to have emerged from the mind of a complete moron.
Couldn’t these politicians see that the tier system is going to create bottlenecks? The shops in tier 4 have to close and this means that everyone who wants Xmas stuff in those areas will just dash a few miles down the road to the nearest open shopping centre hence the crowds in Sussex and Northants yesterday.
Why are they trying to instigate a panic about a mutation of the virus when there has been next to no investigation into its properties. The reaction of the French authorities, closing the shipping and train routes is so predictable that you wonder why Hancock and the press went to all that trouble to provoke it? Do they really think it sensible to create chaos in the freight world at this time?
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Well, I haven’t laughed much recently, but the laughter drought has just been broken and this really made my afternoon. Thank you John!
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I used to think that following and commenting on cliscep was a useful excersise. How wrong was I. Bye
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Pete: In hope you have not left yet, which would be a great shame, what makes you think you were wrong? I presume that you surely can’t have taken John’s humour to be at your expense, which I’m utterly certain it’s not. Beneath the humour is the point that the science which is supposed to baseline what is or isn’t responsible, appears to be a movable feast. And after translation into gov regs is even more so, sometimes being rather arbitrary, and per MiB seems almost bound to get the wrong reaction on occasion. That per me there are issues not about responsibility, is surely not in dispute(?), so we can’t be certain the latter is dominant. And as strictness rises we know from surveys that while people still say they approve, a significant proportion also admit they wouldn’t want to personally conform. As Jamie and Richard add each in different ways, there is a gap between regs and responsibilities that at the benign end, would be more or less expected. I’m guessing everyone would likely concur regarding ‘real idiots’, but when it comes to looking in a mirror, wouldn’t these be the ones who almost by definition wouldn’t see anything anyhow? And per Richard too, much of this mess may be unavoidable. Or have I missed your point entirely in all this? At any rate, it’s all open for further challenge and debate; this is just my own rough take on the last few messages, not anything written in stone.
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Bother, spelled you wrong Jaime, sorry ):
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Let’s be angry, happy, sad, mad, right, wrong, argumentative, provocative, agreeable, disagreeable, annoying, dogmatic, flippant, scathing, appreciative, infuriating even, in sequence or all at the same time if you prefer, during this crazy Christmas period, but please, let’s not be resentful towards each other.
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Pete,
In response to your comment here on Cliscep, you had inspired:
a) The recognition of scientific research into the linguistic factors affecting covid-19 transmission (and this is serious science, by the way)
b) An insightful comment from Andy discussing the uncertainties associated with the efficacy of the rules used to curb covid-19 transmission
c) An insightful comment from MiaB pointing out how any set of rules can have inadvertent side-effects, and questioning the government’s ability to take that into account
d) A timely reminder from Jamie of the mental health issues associated with the rules and the impact of their adherence
e) Satire that provided light entertainment whilst alluding to the ultimately ludicrousness nature of the human propensity for rule adherence
f) Some good old-fashioned toilet humour taken from the finest traditions of English self-deprecation and brought to you by none other than Forbes.
I’m not sure what else you were hoping for, other than a philosophical treatise, a juggling act and a ventriloquist. And to answer Andy’s question: Of course my flippancy had a serious intent and none of the humour (for what it was worth) was aimed at you. If you must go, then go. But take solace in the knowledge that your brief appearance was respected and appreciated by all.
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I blame this ‘new strain’. It’s beginning to show on us all.
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Peter: Sorry for being insensitive. I may say more later but very best wishes and thank you for your input on this thread and elsewhere.
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@ JAIME JESSOP 21 Dec 20 at 7:10 pm
“I blame this ‘new strain’”
has anybody read/heard how this new strain started & did it start in the UK (Kent) ?
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DFHunter,
Supposedly, it was first noted in Kent in September, but only really started to get going in December for some reason. Hence the data on this new strain is very limited, hence most members of the NERVTAG group were firmly against taking any immediate action based on that limited data. The non-peer reviewed research paper didn’t even mention an increase in transmissibility and certainly not a figure of 70%. Ferguson, who was supposed to have resigned from ANY government advisory role has been the main person pushing for more restrictions based on this iffy modelling and Johnson, once again, has bizarrely and inexplicably listened to a totally discredited and serially wrong Commie control freak charlatan to ruin everybody’s Christmas just days after gaslighting us all that cancelling Christmas would be ‘inhuman’. What an absolute cruel, sadistic, fascist bastard he’s turned out to be.
https://www.thelastamericanvagabond.com/flawed-data-model-from-imperial-college-blame-for-latest-uk-lockdown/
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The moral grandstanding, the lies, the misinformation, the emotional blackmail, the brain-dead virtue signalling, the deliberate disinformation by Covid lockdown freaks on Twitter tonight in support of delivering the final coup de grace to the nation is nauseating to behold. I don’t think we will survive this. It’s gone too far. Science, alas, looks like it’s not going to save us, because they are now openly distorting it, rewriting it even and censoring all those who persist in sharing facts, data and actual, real science, as opposed to pseudoscientific political propaganda. I do genuinely despair.
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As the original poster I have taken the liberty of removing four comments I don’t think added anything to this thread.
I want to say something about despair and how we should approach it, in response to Jaime last night. Strangely enough I will be quoting from Adolf Hitler, like Pete Ridley earlier in the thread. And I will aim to make a long story short.
First, we need empathy for one another. I don’t see lockdown the same way Jaime does, especially the “delivering the final coup de grace to the nation” bit. But last night I felt I could empathise and that’s partly because I think we do have some suffering to go through today and in the coming days.
The phrase that came to me as I thought about this was “patient endurance”. A New Testament term, used in relation to the pretty extreme suffering first century ‘followers of the Way’ were going through. But I also thought “I can’t use that!” So I slept on it. And sitting on a wooden bench this morning about 7am in darkest Tier 4 I remembered Rebecca Long and her final tweet.
The next morning the lovely 32-year-old girl I had known from ages 5 to 20, as our family attended the same church as hers in North London, drowned in Lake Michigan. The Chicago Tribune gave a summary of the tragedy the next day.
And in the verse Rebecca quoted we see that endurance of suffering isn’t an end in itself, in the heart of Christianity, but a route to joy. Christ scorned the shame he had to go through – or despised it, as some other translations have put it.
And that’s what Hitler got wrong. He once said “Christianity is the glorification of human failure.” This was brought to my attention by the Cambridge University examiners in their general paper in November 1975, after I’d just turned 18. After making the point that Hitler ended up failing dramatically, and dealt with it disastrously, blaming ordinary Germans who’d let him down (he decided), I quoted the same verse Rebecca did. We glorify Jesus for his endurance because it had a massive, positive purpose. The shame and suffering we despise.
So despair can be the route to something far better.
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Richard,
As an atheist, I am inclined to say that not every tragedy is divine comedy, though I wish it were so.
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Richard, I envy the faith you possess and the comfort it can sometimes give to you. For me it doesn’t work, but I do not despair because of the lack.
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Life itself is suffering. As such, it can be endured, with patience, simply for the joy of life. Time cuts us deeply, but these are not the wounds suffered by Christ. The intentional infliction of suffering is human failure; it is evil. Lockdowns are evil and, in the words of Hitler, they are fast becoming the new religion; lockdowns are a “glorification of human failure”. I see no route to joy through their imposition. I see death, I see the severe curtailment of the opportunities for joy and I see empathy and compassion vanishing into the night. We seem to be stuck in a never ending cycle of human failure where we learn nothing because we either glorify human failure or we despise it and disown it completely as being somehow ‘inhuman’ – as with the Nazis. The ultimate human failure is the failure to understand our own selves. Hence I despair.
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Anyone in despair of dogmatic claims made about two of the subjects discussed in this thread might find solace from these two excellent books:
– Vincent Gray’s 2002 “The Greenhouse Delusion” (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Greenhouse-Delusion-Vincent-Gray/dp/0906522145).,
– Richard Dawking’s 2007 “The God Delusion” (https://www.amazon.co.uk/God-Delusion-Richard-Dawkins/dp/055277331X).
Unfortunately there is unlikely to be similar solace over CoVid19 – because, unlike the other two, our understandibg of that crisis is evidence-based.
As for the opinion that ” .. Life itself is suffering .. “, I pity anyone with such a painfully pessimistic outlook, It is my exoerience, being fortunate enough to have spent 83 years on this wonderful Earth, that for man many if us life is overfliwing with joy.
(Oh dear, I’ve hit a few wrong keys, which may cause some suffering).
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No further comments here as Ridley persists in trolling me. Out.
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John: You sound like you’ve rejected a version of theism that I have also rejected.
Alan: I appreciate the “sometimes”. That’s pretty real.
Jaime: That’s deep. I don’t agree at all with Pete’s brief excerpt and comment thereon. I also don’t agree with “lockdowns are evil” though. It’s not that black and white for me. I think it’s possible that the one begun in March was justifiable. More broadly I think the Covid challenge needed experts who were truly inspired, in a way the greatest entrepreneurs sometimes are – like Norman Borlaugh. I doubt many of them were. I always doubted they would be. (This is the flip-side of the Dunning-Kruger problem, which I also think is real.)
Here are three areas of possible suffering for you I see coming up:
1. Ongoing Covid and responses
2. Brexit under the new Boris-EU deal causing grave if short-term additional problems for UK businesses from 1st Jan
3. Trump being forced to exit the White House on 20th January.
And, in different measures, for all of us.
But, backing up, what you say about evil and failure and the Nazis I like a lot.
On suffering, I endorse George MacDonald’s view. (Try the guy’s Wikipedia page.)
A fruit of cutting loose of rigid theism. Instead, taking seriously both “Jesus wept” and “God is love”. But this isn’t said dogmatically – pace Pete. It’s said to open up avenues of thought that I think are worth exploring at a time like this.
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It appears reasonable to opine that Christian minister George McDonald’s “suffering” declaration (quoted by David) was underpinned by blind faith rather than any sound evidence – but that’s theism for you.
Although he also wrote about Christian theology, McDonald is best known for his fairy tales, impressing and influenced many well-known story tellers.
According to one Rick Segal he was regarded as a heretic by many of his contemporaries. He ” .. tried his hand at pulpit ministry before being run off for expressing ‘belief in a future state of probation for heathens’ and other offenses against orthodoxy. He was most distinguished as a literary figure; an author of fairye tales, fantasies and novels .. ” (https://laurelandelmo.wordpress.com/2013/08/31/george-macdonald-an-anthology-by-c-s-lewis/).
It’s claimed that McDonald said ” .. “I write, not for children .. but for the child-like, whether they be of five, or fifty, or seventy-five.” (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_MacDonald).
My thesaurus includes alternatives for “childlike ” such as ” .. trustful .. naive .. credulous .. “. That might explain why some are so impressed by his religious writings.
Surprisingly, McDonald also earned a Masters in Chemistry and Physics from Aberdeen University.
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Yep, thanks, MacDonald’s degree in Chemistry and Physics was very much in my mind. Especially as his later literary work and scholarship was more identified with the burgeoning romantic stream of the time rather than the hardline Enlightenment one. But of course his close friend Lewis Carroll was ‘really’ a mathematician. There’s lots to delve into here.
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@ Jaime
Pete Ridley says – “being fortunate enough to have spent 83 years”
give him a break, at 63 my eyes are going (need cataract surgery but no not when)
by 83 I think I will struggle to see which key to ytpe!!!
happy new year to all
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Today marks the 20-year anniversary of Wikipedia. I highly recommend this article consisting of first-hand testimony.
Ward Cunningham is rightly interviewed first. But why Jimmy Wales seems to want to paint Ben Kovitz and perhaps even Larry Sanger out of the picture is really quite strange.
Why mention this on a Cliscep thread called Despair? Bit of a long story. 🙂
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Willis’s response also seems worth noting, to give this a bit of a climate spin.
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