One of my favourite lines in anything I’ve ever read about politics is possibly an apocryphal attribution to Voltaire. On being told that, ‘life is hard’, Voltaire is said to have replied, ‘compared to what?’. Comparison is essential to all humanist thinking – thinking that puts humans, rather than gods and monsters, at the centre … Continue reading
Tag Archives: comment
Thinking – Is it Overrated?
In a quiet and private room, somewhere in the northeast of England, an earnest debate was taking place. “I do understand that the human mind is the stage for a complex interplay between thought and emotion, in which it can be nigh on impossible to determine which comes first,” opined the old man. “Oh no!” … Continue reading
Don’t Trust a Fox in a Green Meadow
Bereft of gainful employment, I now find myself spending more time than is good for me plucking at the internet for morsels of entertainment. Thus engaged, and being a sucker for the allure of an intriguing title, I recently settled upon the following article, written by a certain Michelle Nijhuis, and posted on Vox,1 the self-proclaimed … Continue reading
Climate Sexism Works Both Ways
In Twitterland, you get to see Human Nature, red in both tooth and varnished fingernail. So I thought I would post this brief, timely reminder that naked sexism, as manifest in the Naked Ape, is still alive and well – and it cuts both ways. Firstly, a familiar figure – Sarah Myhre, meteorologist Cliff Mass’s … Continue reading
How to Crash the Earth
On December 28th, 1978, a DC8 flying into Portland Oregon from New York City (United Airlines flight 173) was on final approach, when a cockpit light indicated that there was a nose-gear problem. The crew needed time to investigate, so the captain put the plane into an emergency holding pattern. As he did so, the … Continue reading
Environmental Eichmann
Today is the 70th anniversary of the foundation of the state of Israel. Last week, on 12th April, Israel and other parts of the world marked Holocaust Remembrance Day. One Jewish writer in New York decided an appropriate way to remember was to invent a Twitter hashtag #EnvironmentalEichmann to denigrate and demonise Trump’s head of the … Continue reading
Confessions of a Merchant of Doubt
I hear that it is the height of arrogance for CAGW sceptics to criticise the climate scientists without themselves having any experience or expertise in the subject. Apparently, if they are not able or prepared to offer an alternative thesis resulting from the fruits of their own scientific studies, then they should just shut up, … Continue reading
