Explaining away opposition to AGW
November 26, 2009 11:19 am Ecology, Political Correctness, Politics, ScienceGeorge Monbiot, England’s chief propagandist for anthropogenic global warming (AGW), has recently found reason to call for the resignation of Phil Jones, head of the Climate Research Unit for criminal suppression of evidence.
In a column produced in November 2 this year, he tried to explain why global warming denial was spreading so fast.
“Almost all my fiercest arguments over climate change, both in print and in person, have been with people in their 60s or 70s. Why might this be?” he asked.
He answered his rhetorical industry thus:
“A recent paper by the biologist Janis L Dickinson, published in the journal Ecology and Society, proposes that constant news and discussion about global warming makes it difficult for people to repress thoughts of death, and that they might respond to the terrifying prospect of climate breakdown in ways that strengthen their character armour but diminish our chances of survival(14). …. Dickinson proposes that growing evidence of climate change might boost this tendency, as well as raising antagonism towards scientists and environmentalists. Our message, after all, presents a lethal threat to the central immortality project of Western society: perpetual economic growth, supported by an ideology of entitlement and exceptionalism.
“If Dickinson is correct, is it fanciful to suppose that those who are closer to the end of their lives might react more strongly against reminders of death? I haven’t been able to find any experiments testing this proposition, but it is surely worth investigating. And could it be that the rapid growth of climate change denial over the past two years is actually a response to the hardening of scientific evidence? If so, how the hell do we confront it?”
Here are simpler reasons for opposing AGW, even before the recent news of fraud and bad evidence.
1. We can smell a commie rat.
The notion thatthe advanced industrial powers should send money to the Third World in perpetuity, and lower our standards of living, while obeying the dictates of interfering moral busybodies, strikes us as just another commie plot. We have lived through the twentieth century and we went to university with communists. We recognize them for what they are.
2. We can read a book or two on geology and glaciology
Geology trumps climatology. Rock beats air. For the last 400,00 years, we have been in an ice age, of which this latest interglacial has been one of six interruptions. The likelihood that processes which have continued for hundreds of thousands and even millions of years to trump human activity strike us as a reasonable bet. In the last billion years, there has been ice at the polar caps for only 20% of that time. Think about global warming in that context.
3. We can recognize fanatics and enthusiasts when we see them
The most disturbing aspect of most of the global warming proponents is their enthusiasm: a word which connotes being taken up with godliness and God – the Greek word theos is the core of the word. They, and not we skeptcs, seem to be impervious to argument, quick to find moral fault in those who are insufficiently persuaded, and invested with vast moral superiority. If I found a skeptical global warmist I could talk to him reasonably. But I search for them and find them not. Maybe some of Monbiot’s psychologizing might better be directed to the understanding of warmist enthusiasm.
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Dalwhinnie
FredR :
Date: November 26, 2009 @ 1:24 PM
There’s another reason why people that age are more likely to be skeptical: they’ve lived through climate change – from cooling in the 1940s to 1970s (when some of same suspects were clamouring that governments had to “do something” about the impending Ice Age) to the warming trend of the 1980’s to the millenium.
Been there, lived through it – and smell a rat.
fernstalbert :
Date: November 26, 2009 @ 3:25 PM
The science of geology trumps Climate Change hysteria. Northern Alberta was covered by an inland sea, millions of years ago. Hence the oil and gas reserves. Where did that ocean go? The earth changes everyday, sometimes slowly, sometimes violently. Mankind needs to get over itself. Humans need a little humility, we are all going to die and throwing money at hurricanes and volcanoes will not slow down the evolution of the earth. I think AGW believers should be called creationists. They believe the world began with the “hockey stick”. Cheers.
duggan's dew :
Date: November 26, 2009 @ 3:35 PM
fern, I am increasingly wondering whether climate change hysteria will trump everything. That is what a religion does for its believers. And when the believers are transported like gods to the ends of the earth to eat and drink of the very best while they instruct others in the faith, well, I think they will continue to find the nearest way with heretics.
fernstalbert :
Date: November 26, 2009 @ 6:59 PM
dear duggan’s dew – you are right, the head poohbas are always in conference and they seem to leave a very large carbon footprint. I don’t see too many sandwiches on the menu. I’m enough of a hedonist to wait and see what my neighbours are going to do and so far nada. When Al Gore and our very own David Suzuke give up the mansions, I will then put on a sweater and turn down the temp. Cheers.