Have you ever wondered what a climate change denier looks like? I know that sounds like a silly question, but I’m being serious. In the same way that an airport security officer can look at a passenger and, by observing his swarthy complexion and shifty eyes, immediately know he is a terrorist hijacker, is there any equally simplistic profiling that can be used to pick out your average Cliscep reader? Surely it cannot be that all white males of a certain age fall into the category, so that can’t be used as the basis for your prejudgements. In fact, there are no phenotypes or cultural groupings that can be used. But, according to one expert, there is one shared characteristic that makes for a convenient collation, and hence an effective treatment. Yes, we are all evil, so much so that if our innate malevolence were to be readily apparent, our approach would be as obvious as the slavering advance of an orc army.

If any of you are feeling a teensy bit offended by any of this, then I’m afraid you’re just going to have to suck it up, because I have all of this on the highest authority imaginable – none other than the greatest climate statistician that has ever walked this Earth. Yes, it’s Professor Michael Mann, no less.

To be specific, he supplied the seminal profiling of the average climate change denier when he tweeted the following:

Who created this climate-denying orc army? Of course it was fossil fuel interests and plutocrats…Why is this true? Because climate denial isn’t about legitimate scientific skepticism but, rather, a malicious contempt for science, factual discourse, and objective truth that aligns with a totalitarian worldview embracing nativism, bigotry & misogyny.

And, to avoid being accused of proffering unsubstantiated opinion, he added:

And yes, there is empirical, peer-reviewed support for the conclusion that climate deniers, in general, are truly awful human beings: https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/asap.12347

From the above we must conclude that it is an established scientific fact that we are indeed an orc army, set apart from the human race as a consequence of our malice and moral depravity. You pick any viewpoint that indicates “malicious contempt for science, factual discourse, and objective truth that aligns with a totalitarian worldview embracing nativism, bigotry & misogyny”, and you will find that it statistically correlates with the views of your typically hideous, knuckle-dragging climate change denier. Resistance to vaccination? Correlates. Transphobia? Correlates. Xenophobia? Correlates. Misogyny? Correlates. Right of centre political instincts? Correlates. Leeds United supporter? Correlates.

Let me just reflect upon that for a moment. I’m not so sure that a vaccine that was approved for emergency use can be automatically assumed appropriate for all age-groups, including those who are not even at risk from the disease. I’m not sure that children should be subjected to permanently damaging physical interventions to address what are normally psychological or transient emotional issues, nor do I approve of female safe spaces being violated by cross-dressing fetishists brandishing their semi-erections. I actually do believe that any nation that allows uncontrolled immigration on a massive scale should seriously consider the potential adverse societal impacts, and that critical race theory is a dangerous nonsense. I do have grave concerns that legitimate feminism has given way to misandry that threatens to transform the nature of gender inequality, rather than remove it. Meanwhile, whilst being no lover of Trump, I have to admit to a certain degree of schadenfreude in witnessing the existential angst that Trump’s electoral victory has caused the legions of Hollywood celebrities who publicly threw their weight behind Kamala Harris. And yes, I have been known to make the odd appearance at Elland Road. All of which surely adds up to one thing:

Oh my God! Mann is right. I’m a slobbering orc! I’m a truly awful human being – if I am indeed human at all.

But hold on for a moment. Just where does the real evil truly reside here? Is it between my ears, or is it in the banality of Mann’s analysis? After all, is anyone really impressed with Mann’s citation of a study published in a journal (Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy) established to serve an audience of “policy makers and advocates”? Are we really supposed to uncritically accept the moral compass of a pair of left-wing human rights academics (look them up)? And when they talk of the metrics of authoritarianism and misogyny, are we expected to accept that such metrics can be objective and reliable? Above all, given that one of the authors’ main indicators for being authoritarian and misogynistic is being a supporter of Trump, are we really supposed to overlook the obvious political bias that pollutes their study’s underpinning logic?

The reality is that we live in a complex world that does not lend itself to trite analyses separating between the good and the evil. We do not live in a Tolkienian fantasy of hobbits, elves, wizards and orcs. There will, of course, be correlations between variously held viewpoints, and there will be a variety of confounders that may explain this. But to take a moralistic position and presuppose that the truly unifying factor is an individual’s general wickedness and social unacceptability is a risible line of argument by anyone’s standards – unless, of course, we are talking of the standards offered by Michael Mann. To my way of thinking it is this banality that represents the greater evil, since it is a banality that brands and divides. It is a banality that fuels contempt were there should be at least some attempt at empathy and understanding. And it is the banality of the ideologue who assumes the mantle of righteousness without requiring the apparatus for self-critique. So my Christmas message to Michael Mann would be this: Why not try a little more humility and a little less hostility? After all, you can’t expect others to treat you with respect when you show them none yourself.

And whilst I’m at it, a very merry Christmas to you all.

MOT.

27 Comments

  2. When you invest your mortal soul (and entire lucrative career) in the promotion of a saintly, God-like cause célèbre backed up by irrefutable and incontestable Science (TM), then naturally, any opposition to your chosen Good Cause must per se be evil – and characterising such evil as Orc-like is as good a comparison as any I guess, especially if you have been secretly in possession of the Ring of Power for many years, having found it – and a hockey stick – lurking down the back of the sofa.

    Liked by 4 people

  3. I’ve never met, spoken to or read anyone who “denies” climate – I have difficulty picturing what such a person might sound like. Much the same is true of the more specific “climate change denier”: although there might be a few “young earthers” who think the climate hasn’t really had time to change much in only 6,000 years, anyone who is aware that there were crocodilians swimming in polar waters during the Mesozoic would have difficulty in denying that Earth’s climate has indeed changed since then. What I’m very confident in denying is the lies of climate catastrophists like the egregious pseudo-scientist Mann.

    Liked by 1 person

  5. As I may have mentioned in the past, Mann and friends like to think they are the Rebel Alliance, when in reality they are the Empire. Which team would be most likely to override local opposition to development? I can’t see the Ewoks doing that.

    Liked by 2 people

  6. Chris: I reckon I come fairly close to what could be termed a “climate denier” as I don’t believe there is such a thing as a “climate system” sensu systems engineering. Climate as taught in old fashioned geography lessons describes the patterns of weather experienced in and characteristic of a certain location (which is why it was part of geography). Those patterns emerge from the interplay of physical and chemical forces in atmosphere, ocean, biosphere, topography, solar irradiance etc etc with varying time and magnitude scales with the real killers being how (1) outputs feed back into inputs and (2) continually adjusting state variables. Far too complex to be modellable – reduced, simplified, reformulated – as a box with identifiable boundaries, inputs and outputs, let alone a tuning knob (the recipe items required to cook a “system”). So my status as a “climate change” denier is subsumed within my standpoint as a “climate system” denier.

    Like

  7. I made the mistake of following the link to the “peer-reviewed support” for Mann’s position. I didn’t get far, in fact I gave up at this:

    Many contemporary democracies are under severe strain from right-wing majoritarian political projects, and these are headed by electorally legitimated misogynist authoritarians (henceforth, ELMAs) who continue to command significant public support in spite of their many contradictions and policy failures.

    Let me get this right – democracies are under severe strain from….people the authors disagree with enjoying significant public support and from majoritarian political projects? Aren’t popular support and majoritarian projects the essence of democracy? Or have these people redefined democracy to mean that it only works when it supplies what they want?

    Liked by 2 people

  8. Also, thank you for this:

    I’m not so sure that a vaccine that was approved for emergency use can be automatically assumed appropriate for all age-groups, including those who are not even at risk from the disease. I’m not sure that children should be subjected to permanently damaging physical interventions to address what are normally psychological or transient emotional issues, nor do I approve of female safe spaces being violated by cross-dressing fetishists brandishing their semi-erections. I actually do believe that any nation that allows uncontrolled immigration on a massive scale should seriously consider the potential adverse societal impacts, and that critical race theory is a dangerous nonsense. I do have grave concerns that legitimate feminism has given way to misandry that threatens to transform the nature of gender inequality, rather than remove it. Meanwhile, whilst being no lover of Trump, I have to admit to a certain degree of schadenfreude in witnessing the existential angst that Trump’s electoral victory has caused the legions of Hollywood celebrities who publicly threw their weight behind Kamala Harris.

    I think that’s a pretty neat summary of my views too. (I left out the bit about Elland Road. I’ve been there only once, and I was supporting the away team).

    Like

  9. Jaime should read the link & get back with her thoughts.

    Partial quote –

    “Gender is deeply imbricated in any discussions of climate change. As Allen et al. (2019, p. 1) point out, gender roles are socially constructed and shape climate change vulnerabilities and how society responds to climate change. The most upfront manifestation of this is the ways in which outspoken female advocates of addressing climate change in substantive ways are targeted. Gelin (2019) referred to the “gender reactionaries to climate-denialism” with reference to the attack on figures such as Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez and Greta Thunberg. Cavaliere and Ingram (2021) raise wider questions of knowledge infrastructures and policy directions, pointing out how the patriarchy of late modernity and the role of the industrial movement in it requires a human versus nature binary, and attempts by women to challenge this as individual activists or as part of male dominated environmental organizations means confronting entrenched gender biases.

    ps – at least it has “Citations: 1“

    Like

  10. It could be gender. Or, the hostility to Greta et al may be that their insane but confidently delivered proposals will result in the crumbling of civilisation.

    Liked by 1 person

  11. dfhunter,

    I’ve taken the liberty of rewriting and correcting the Abstract of that study.

    Globally, democratic politics are under attack from Extreme Leftwing Misandrist Authoritarian (ELMA) leaders who successfully misuse misogyny as a political strategy and present environmental concern exclusively in feminine and woke terms. The ascendancy of such projects raise questions involving socioeconomic structures, political communication, and the psychological underpinnings of people’s attitudes. We offer misandry, conceptualized in a specific way – not simply as hatred or disgust for men, but as a way of accessing a gendered hierarchy whereby that which is labeled “masculine” is perceived as inferior, devalued, and amenable to be attacked – as a relevant transmission mechanism in how ELMAs like Biden, Trudeau, Macron etc. may connect with public opinion by systematically investigating the interplay between misandry, authoritarianism, and climate change in the context of the United States. Using a survey methodology (N = 314) and up-to-date questionnaires, we provide a concrete empirical underpinning for recent analytical and theoretical work on the complexity of misandry. We analyze how misandrist and authoritarian attitudes correlate with climate change, adding to the literature on promotion of climate change policy. An additional exploratory aspect of our study concerning US voter preferences clearly indicates that left wing voters are more misandrist, more woke, more authoritarian, and less concerned with the actual environment.

    Liked by 4 people

  12. Mark,

    I was careful not to recommend that anyone should read the study cited by Mann. I took a quick look myself and got as far as reading the paragraph you quote. Then I gave up. Well, that’s not strictly true, because I continued to skim read in the hope that something sensible might jump out of the page. Nothing did.

    I’m afraid it’s just another of many half-baked studies out there that attempts to convince the reader that anyone who isn’t fully on board with the left-wing liberal agenda can be counted amongst the detritus of society.

    And by the way, don’t beat yourself up too much about not being a Leeds United supporter. No one is perfect.

    Liked by 2 people

  14. Jit,

    I sometimes think that Greta was put forward as some sort of human shield. No one but an orc would attack a poor, little, defenceless schoolgirl. Of course, now that the little bully has grown up into a big bully the charm has worn off somewhat.

    Liked by 2 people

  15. Here is another example of someone seeking to form a connection between climate change denial and something rather nasty. In this instance it is so-called transphobia, and it was written by one of the literary geniuses at the Daily Kos. Being an orc, I found it hilarious. Enjoy:

    “Transphobes And Climate Deniers Use Same Rhetorical Techniques To Distort Reality”

    https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/6/12/2174896/-Transphobes-And-Climate-Deniers-Use-Same-Rhetorical-Techniques-To-Distort-Reality

    Liked by 1 person

  16. Thank you for the link John. That article deserves its own takedown, which I can’t be bothered to do as it is no longer current. I liked but did not understand the hopeful and righteous ending:

    “We need to be serious about the magnitude of what’s going on without overly catastrophizing it,” Strangio told Them magazine. “The history of queer activism is one of disruption, one of stunting, of fabulousness. We can’t lose sight of that.”

    Like

  17. Seeking a more recent Climate Denier Roundup article to retort at… I find nothing since exactly a year ago. I do hope CDR is ok, and had moved to blogging elsewhere. The last article is:

    Ten Years Of The Denier Roundup: A Look Back At How Climate Disinformation Has And Hasn’t Changed

    Well, the arguments of the enthusiasts haven’t changed either, & nor has their propensity for dealing in fallacies. But still. Here is the last comment under Ten Years…

    Nobody ever went on a diet unless they realized they needed to lose weight.

    Disagree with your premise of talking to people. I spoke frequently with my mother about climate which she insisted was not ‘changeable’. She came around. Never met ANY-ONE as hard-headed as her. Except my brother. He’s no longer a skeptic either. He’s attending Earth-Day rallies, picking up trash, and working with a food charity.

    The neighbor closest to me was constantly putting trash in the recycling bin, and throwing out a HUGE amount of food. Now she is composting, and respects the blue bin for RECYCLABLES … which are ones with ‘deposits’ and cardboard and paper… so it can be done.

    Please/ Be the one who does talk.

    You see how it works? You browbeat people with fantasy tales of “climate breakdown,” and pretty soon they’re picking up empty beer cans.

    Liked by 1 person

  18. Supposedly, the Orc-like Axis of Evil aligns itself with misogyny, patriarchy, Islamophobia, transphobia and climate denial. But it’s getting very difficult for the simplistic post truthers to keep up this charade. Some of the cheerleaders of the ‘trans movement’ itself are quite obviously misogynistic, as are people like Mann, promoting his very own brand of mann-made climate change dogma, who think it’s perfectly OK to mansplain, patronise and insult women like Judith Curry because she happens to disagree with his alarmist interpretation of ‘Settled Science’. And now, no doubt in an effort to make refugees feel even more welcome and entice more to hop aboard boats, we have the left coalescing around the new social phenomenon of the Slutathon, which is also no doubt celebrating the ‘liberation’ of modern women from the oppressive climate denying patriarchy. Not misogynistic at all.

    OF Bonnie Blue went to a college and wanted to pleasure 130 BARELY legal 18 year olds

    https://x.com/FreedVortex/status/1870295928357199946

    Like

  19. Jaime,

    I’m not sure where the Slutathon fits into the gender political discourse. I have heard it said that they are a patriarchal, misogynistic phenomenon, but to be honest it isn’t a sufficiently edifying subject for me to want to pursue any further. As for transgender affirmation, there does seem to be something unpleasantly homophobic and misogynistic about it all.

    Liked by 1 person

  20. John R, thank you for raising the important issue of the banalities residing at the heart of one-sided climate science which, for being totally unbalanced (i.e. employing partial or motivated reasoning), is in reality just pseudo-science in the service of large corporate national and international bodies such as the IPCC and fellow travellers.  Historically the primacy of the simplistic “CO2 drives global warming” enterprise seems to have shot to prominence, after many years loitering in the political hinterland [Ref. 2], from discussions at the end of the 1980s and early 1990s [Note 1].

    Just as in the subtitle of Darwall’s book on green tyranny [Ref. 2(b)], I find it useful to consider the West’s current climate/energy politics through the lens of modern totalitarianism, specifically fascism.  Although different authors define fascism somewhat differently, I find the definition in [Ref. 3] to be useful for its concision; [Ref. 3] is also useful for indicating how modern fascism differs from the varieties prevailing in earlier times e.g. during ‘the golden age of totalitarianism’[Ref. 4].

    [Ref. 3] states, “Genuinely fascist ideologies are: monist, that is to say, based upon the notion that there are fundamental and basic truths about humanity and the environment which do not admit to question; simplistic, in the sense of ascribing complex phenomena to single causes and advancing single remedies; fundamentalist, that is, involving a division of the world into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ with nothing in between; and conspiratorial, that is, predicated on the existence of a secret worldwide conspiracy by a hostile group seeking to manipulate the masses to achieve and/or maintain a dominant position.”

    It is interesting – and fairly easy – to match the West’s current dominant and recurring political narrative against these fascist criteria, especially as the narrative’s themes are closely related:-

    Monist – CO2 is the dominant or only driver of rising global temperatures;

    Simplistic – eliminate fossil fuels immediately by, for example, just stopping oil etc.;

    Fundamentalist – as Mussolini said, “We do not argue with those who disagree with us, we destroy them.” [Ref. 5].  Thus counter arguments/opinions are not allowed, and those who hold such contrarian views (especially apostates) must be severely sanctioned.

    Conspiratorial – as prof. Mann states in your quote John R, “Who created this climate-denying …? Of course it was fossil fuel interests and plutocrats …”

    It thus seems to me that there is, unfortunately, a very close link between, on the one hand, the West’s current master narrative plus its resulting self-destructive policies [Ref. 6] and, on the other hand, fascist ideology.

    There may be some crumbs of comfort in that current fascism is somewhat different from earlier incarnations because it seems to have attenuated some of its earlier excesses – although we cannot assume that this will always remain so.  For example, a major difference from earlier times is that the original version was nationalistic whereas the current version is primarily internationalistic, which perhaps reduces the opportunities for military conflicts between nations over climate policy issues (but wars over climate-related resources such as fresh water and strategic minerals are still likely).

    I will leave the final word to Gray [Ref. 7] who, from his historical perspective, takes a more clinical view than I currently do:-

    • “Finally, for most totalitarian governments, there will be an inclination to expansion … and, finally, this expansion might be fundamentally global in nature, with the final aim of transforming the entire world.”
    • “The linking element between the disparate forms of eco-totalitarianism is the central focus on the “planet,” “nature,” or some similar ecologically focused notion.”
    • “While the amount of terror varies between totalitarian states, a system of this type simply cannot exist for any real length of time without it.”

    Note 1.  Regarding the “crime” of global warming, Spencer discusses in [Ref. 1] the conviction of CO2 (without due process i.e. without application of the scientific method) as the primary or possibly only felon.

    References

    1. Roy W. Spencer, “The Great Global Warming Blunder”, Encounter Books, 2012, especially pages xix and 122.

    Page xix states, “In the early 1990s, shortly after the IPCC was organised, President Clinton’s chief environmental scientist, Dr. Robert Watson, told me that after he had helped get the production of Freon banned by the international community with the Montreal Protocol, next on the list to be regulated was carbon dioxide.  There was no mention of investigating the science behind the claim that global warming was manmade – only a specific policy outcome that the IPCC was going to support.”

    2. See for example Rupert Darwell’s books, (a) “The Age of Global Warming. A History”, Quartet Books Ltd., 2014, and (b) “Green Tyranny. Exposing the Totalitarian Roots of the Climate Industrial Complex”, Encounter Books, 2019.

    3. I. McLean & A, McMillan, “The Concise Dictionary of Politics”, 3rd ed., 2009, at page 193 for fascism.

    4. Phillip W. Gray, “Totalitarianism. The Basics”, Routledge, 2023, especially from page 126.

    5. Benito Mussolini, https://www.azquotes.com/quote/1085804

    6. Gray, op. cit., pages 9 and 17 for references to self-destruction.

    7. Gray, op. cit., pages 17, 41 and 101.

    Regards, John C.

    Liked by 6 people

  21. John C,

    Thank you for your comment, exploring as it does the broader presence of banality in the climate change debate and how totalitarianism can be discerned in the underlying ideologies of at least some of the climate change activism.

    Mann was quick to accuse climate sceptics of being some sort of malicious, science-hating militia acting in the spirit of totalitarianism, but anyone familiar with Darwalls’ writing will understand that the case for there being an eco-totalitarianism at play is far stronger. In comparing climate change sceptics to orcs, Mann shows contempt for those who disagree with him, but also, by dehumanising his opponents, he also removes any ethical objection there may be to any subsequent abusive treatment. This is par for the course as far as totalitarian propagandising is concerned. And if Mann wants to talk about ‘truly awful human beings’ he should start by looking in the mirror.

    Liked by 2 people

  23. John – I went to your Daily Kos link above and got hit with a link to – Join the ACLU For This Fight | American Civil Liberties Union

    Thought the below link (weirdly Last updated on July 30, 2024) was apt given your “Meanwhile, whilst being no lover of Trump, I have to admit to a certain degree of schadenfreude in witnessing the existential angst that Trump’s electoral victory has caused the legions of Hollywood celebrities who publicly threw their weight behind Kamala Harris”

    The Trump Memos | American Civil Liberties Union

    Header – “President-Elect Trump’s second term agenda is influenced by The Heritage Foundation’s extreme Project 2025 agenda. Read our memos on how to fight back!”

    Like

  24. John C – thanks for that interesting link.

    Only comment I would make re Covid – nobody seems to talk about it anymore!!! It’s like the global panic was a bad dream. Even the UK NHS seem more worried about winter Flu.

    Like

  25. dfhunter, I agree that the MSM are not talking about Covid currently. This is no surprise given their role in promoting the global panic. However, things may change once the new administration in the USA takes over and some of the nonsense from those days is revealed to public scrutiny; the MSM may then have fewer places to hide … and the same may be true of climate change “science” too. I’m hoping so. My fingers and toes are well and truly crossed for such late arriving Christmas presents. Regards, John C.

    Liked by 1 person

  26. Mann’s claim that:

    “.. climate denial isn’t about legitimate scientific skepticism but, rather, a malicious contempt for science, factual discourse, and objective truth that aligns with a totalitarian worldview embracing nativism, bigotry & misogyny.”

    is not only rude, it’s also a non-sequitur. Why shouldn’t a misogynous nativist bigot with a malicious contempt for science be right about climate? After all, the Nazis had a lot of weak points, but they were right about rocket science.

    Mann may argue that climate isn’t rocket science, and he would be right.

    Liked by 3 people

  27. It was all going swimmingly for Mann when he was fighting nativist, misogynist, bigoted science and truth haters for free. But now he’s got to cough up some hard cash in order to continue his crusade against the Climate Denying Nazis:

    The second, ordered Mann to pay $530,820.21 in attorney fees and costs to National Review! As mentioned at the top, this will be the first time that Mann will be asked to contribute to the cost of his unending lawfare to silence criticism of his statistical model commonly referred to as a “hockey stick” due to its design.

    https://www.steynonline.com/14902/a-small-victory

    Like

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