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Reader Comments (48)
Damn, I have literally just posted this on unthreaded, didn't want to trouble the Bish directly. As I said over there, can't tell where they stand on this.
Implication as I see is it that they think AGW is real, but that there's just a smidgen of a possibility - one that is still funny to laugh about, because it's not really a big problem - that there are eco-fascists out there who want to jail you for disagreeing with them.
So not on our side really.
This is clearly ridiculing the global warming propaganda. No question.
Cleverly done.....
If they were warmists they would not have done it at all..
as it is a serious business AGW...
Love it! - cover of the leaflet:
"If you suspect someone of Global Warming Ignorance report it to your local council"
Hot lines will be ringing...now where are my yellow pages?.. :-)
You'd have thought that eco-fascism would long have been a magnificent target for satire. Only the 10:10 team managed it so far ...
Thse two are probably heartily sick of Marcus Brigstocke, the unfunniets comiv to tread the boards.
Laughing at the idea of someone being raped in prison because they question where Global Warming went doesn't seem too far from blowing them up with a big red button, whichever side they're on.
"global warming quips... get acclimatised"
It would have been more on point to have a blizzard outside the window, rather than it "cold and wet" too.
Whatever did happen to Global Warming - eh?
Monbiot going paranoid - even the internet is out to get him.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2010/dec/13/astroturf-libertarians-internet-democracy
If people keep pressing the wrong "Recommend" button at CIF Monbiot is going to get angry, really angry, I mean really really angry, so angry in fact that he would make Mr Angry look like Mr Happy in comparison - that is anger indeed.
CIF - Completely Insane & Feeble.
This is equally funny
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/dec/14/hottest-year-environment-review-vidal
"2010: probably the hottest year ever recorded", by John Vidal
No need to read the rest.
The sketch should have made the point that cold weather is always properly described as "just weather" but any warming is invariably due to global warming/climate change/climate disruption. And it is not only okay to say so, it's required.
Mac, THE comment on Monbiot's "astroturfing" post:-
Peter Jackson
"Every day, I receive an email from the Campaign Against Climate Change, an organisation of which George Monbiot is honorary president. This email provides links to articles and blogposts sceptical about anthropogenic global warming, and encourages opponents to post critical comments.
The signup page for this astroturfing operation is here."
Ah Mr. Monbiot: So how do the astroturfers interfere with the polls? Could it not be that CIF is visited by the majority more often than the minority? Or are statistics not a strong point of alarmists?
Green Sand
Thanks for that. Still cackling. A nasty case of double standards.
Monbiot has lost it. Someone should hold his hand and take him to Judy Curry's blog.
Definition of a Monbiot: One who lives in his own little world and believes in his own propaganda.
If it's warm, it's climate; if it's cool, it's weather: If it's Green Gang sabotage, it's AGW. If it's productive-sector energy efficiency, it's rational foresight. If it's bad faith under false pretenses it's Briffa, Hansen, Jones, Mann, Trenberth et al.; if it's disinterested, objective, rational, scientific inquiry, it has precisely nothing to do with CO2, greenhouse effects (sic), sea-levels, any cargo-cult catastrophe you care to name.
By 2020 at latest, decades-long scare tactics on behalf of suppurating eco-fascism will have gone the way of Goebbels and Leni Reifenstahl. Meantime, anyone who grants Al Gore & Co. the slightest credibility has only himself to blame.
I think it's worth pointing out that Armstrong and Miller have a long list of scriptwriters contributing to their show. I tend to think that the writer(s) of the sketch probably wouldn't have even thought to write it if they were true believers - even though it's a dig at ecofascism rather than CAGW belief as such - but they probably weren't A&M.
Mac- Thanks for link to Monbiot. Hyapatia Lee. No idea that they had so much fun over at the Guardian. Excellent.
Monbiot went further last year, accusing a named commenter of being an astroturfer. He never produced any evidence, and never apologised. The details are here.
http://ccgi.newbery1.plus.com/blog/?p=339
Alas, my dear friend sisterdingo has just been banned from CiF for life after wiping the floor with Monbiot last week, like sisterzoot before her, so can’t remind the great man.
I wouldn't be too quick to claim Ben Miller as a moderate skeptic. He's quite a green I believe.
The sketch seemed to mocking extremism (warmist), but also 'common sense'. The brochure featured in it is covered in hockeysticks.
The film clip is
1) Funny
2) Ridiculing many of the tenets of he climate faith
3) Ridiculing the stalinist mindest of the climate believers.
And here is a quick link to the best comment on the grauniad thread about astroturfing.
Know what you mean.
Just today I lost two dear friends there - Greendodo and Norwegiangreen whom, sadly, I had only known for a short while.
The heart wrenching story is here:-
Shub: too funny :))
http://www.guardian.co.uk/discussion/comment-permalink/8807854
"ClimateResistance
In 8 years, Monbiot had switched between the view that "The struggle between people and corporations will be the defining battle of the twenty-first century" and that "Stopping runaway climate change must take precedence over every other aim."
Now, of course, we see George returning to the anti-corporate stuff, mainly because he's discovered that the climate debate didn't supply him with the moral certainty he needed. And it is this moral disorientation which is the cause of this, vacillation and his incoherence. George, like many environmentalists, is simply unsteady without crises and enemies to ground himself."
That seems to have skewered it :)
Yes, foxgoose, Monbiot sees what he knows.
In my discipline we are taught - "the eye cannot see what the mind does not know". The converse is true as well - they eye sees only what the mind knows.
For some, the entire world is an astroturf operation against them
My own little contribution......
http://www.realclimategate.org/2010/12/george-monbiot-complains-about-astroturfing/
George:
"These astroturf libertarians are the real threat to internet democracy
As I see in threads on my articles, the online sabotaging of intelligent debate seems organised.
We must fight to save this precious gift"
George must have forgotten that he is Honoury President of the Campaign Against Climate Change………
……and they send out Skeptic Alerts to do just this to man made global warming sceptical blogs and newspaper comments sections, including the Bishop Hill blog, James Delingpole and Christopher Booker at the Telegraph.
Somehow George's strap line seems strangely appropriate:
"Tell people something they know already and they will thank you for it.
Tell them something new and they will hate you for it."
http://www.monbiot.com/
GreenSand @3.15pm
Peter Jackson's comment about the sceptic alerts now has 156 recommends.
I posted the original sceptic alerts message on that thread. I was banned for writing this.
"How can the Guardian continue to let Monbiot away with this witless mendacity?
It's because he was brought in precisely to stop intelligent debate . The corporate side lost every single argument until Monbiot of the lower third invaded the field with his catapult, stink bombs and mindless insults. Denier, astroturfer, tea party follower.
Followed by an army of NGO orchestrated trolls."
I have been banned for life hundreds of times. Maybe thousands. I can't understand why
:-)
First banned for life at CIF, and then what, sent to the gas chambers? This sort of mentality frightens me. We saw it in the "No Pressure" 10-10 diatribe video.
I think I will go clean my guns, which I am still permitted to have in California. I might need them.
O/T but worth a mention: James Hansen seems to get everywhere.
Climate Change Activists found Guilty:
"A group of 20 climate change activists, including four from London, who planned to shut down the UK's second largest power station have been convicted of conspiracy to commit aggravated trespass."
"The defence case also involved climate scientist James Hansen, director of the Nasa Goddard Institute, who told the court the only way to stabilise the climate was to phase out carbon emissions."
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5jhQppI92Od59PEcGQ0ngnufuzMIg?docId=B39207811292337222A00005
This is so amusing. I think I am falling in love with Hypatia. Not only is she smart and funny, I also hope she looks like her picture.
Lots on Moonbat here tonight. Not really my cup of tea, but Climate Resistance has much to say about dear old George of which this is the merest teaser:
http://www.climate-resistance.org/2009/08/folie-a-deux.html
Next time you are over there, just click 'Monbiot' in the word matrix thing on the right. Then pour a malt and laugh until you fall out of your chair.
e.smith
Yeah - I'm on my Nth Guardian incarnation. Currently stirring it as CorneliusLysergic. Why Monbiot thinks it would be worth astro-turfing him fuck knows - he needs to get over himself.
I have had one major success though. A while back he changed the picture of himself on his article. It was not long after I pointed out that the then pic looked as though he was holding a turd in, and struggling to do so.
Who knows? My wife pointed out to Mick Hume in the Times that his looked as though he was sucking on a lemon. Now it just looks as though he's sucking on a boiled sweet.
I've got folks today who refuse to read the US Senate reports on the rising number of sceptical scientists because I linked to it via Watts Up. That's the level of cretinosity you have to deal with on CiF. Can be like shooting fish in a barrel, but hey - I've got time on my hands. All in a days work.
Do you think it is a 1010 moment, like shoot your self in the foot.
Check out the new and improved Hockey Stick Blues...
http://www.gather.com/viewVideo.action?id=11821949021918437
Going back to Armstrong and Miller (without doubting the comic potential of a Moonbat in full flight but not bothering this time) ... the more I watch this sketch the more I love it.
First, it's really good comedy, whatever your take on the science and politics. The laughter track is real. The audience who'd never seen this before (and must have come to it with a wide variety of views) loved this one - and rightly so.
Second, though artwest is surely right that there's a team of scriptwriters involved this doesn't lessen the impact at all for me, if anything it strengthens it. When I went over to Wikipedia yesterday to check Ben MIller's quantum physics credentials I was struck that he'd been in a team writing for Paul Merton early in the nineties. Almost everyone works their way up in TV and radio comedy this way (Merton may be an interesting exception). If a young gun we haven't yet heard of wrote this, all the better. Whoever did, Miller (and Armstrong in the voice-over) perform it brilliantly - I especially love the point where the couple study the government leaflet so earnestly, before the poor man finally gets the 'right answer'. Anyone involved in this as comedy is causing some really deep questions to be asked, within themselves and in the audience. And you can tell from the audience reaction that it hits a very raw nerve. We are all dog-tired of being talked down to and treated like idiots. That's the common ground here.
So, I think Delingpole's instinctive reaction was absolutely right. Miller may not yet be a sceptic, as a scientist. But his comedic talent is leading him and us into the truth (as true comedy surely always does). It's a moment to savour.
@Stuck-record:
Many years ago, I knew Miller pretty well. While he was able to talk the standard left-wing positions, that were common at the time - and probably still commonplace in the media circles he moves in - but there was also always a side of his character, which suggested that he never completely swallowed the standard left-wing kool aid. While I don't recall ever discussing climate change with him, and I think it would a step too far to assume that he's a climate change sceptic - my experience is that he certainly was a sceptic in the sense of questioning many standard orthodoxies.
And the fact that Delingpole has dug out some ostensibly greenie comments by him, doesn't I think undermine the above, especially when the comments were I think expressed in a frivilous manner. I suspect Miller's beliefs are probably more complex and nuanced than simply being on one side or the other.
Of course, the above is speculation - it's many years since I last spoke to him.
I feel that this comedy sketch is a bit of a turning point. When the scriptwriters start mocking the government/warmist group think and take the mickey out of the thought police so beloved of the tunnel vision myopia of the AGW believers - then the whole barmy catastrophic wish list of the loony left becomes a laughing stock.
Friends of mine that are committed socialists admit they are shocked and angry at what has been revealed about the paucity of real science pushed by the Climate Alarmist lobby.
This sketch is a very powerful manifestation of that anger.
Someone appears to be treating the recommend button, on the CIF post pointing out moonbats hypocrisy, as a surrogate voodoo doll :^)
There seems to be a large disconnect, all across the Internet, between those beating the AGW tambourine and the comments sections afterwards. But I doubt they'll understand why. Their inability to see outside their own little worlds seems connected to a similar inability to look out the window.
And just maybe some comedy writers are beginning to understand that left-slanted Guardian-reading BBC 'comedy' ceased to be controversial, radical or ground-breaking some years before they were born.
What I find interesting from the Monbiot rant is that many contributers are beginning to realise the nature of CiF where sceptical views are being heavily moderated(censored) with accounts stopped whilst those who are pro-CAGW can be abusive as they want in response. More intruguing is the possibility that Guardian enviro-journalists have themselves been posting comments behind nom-de-plumes.
It would appear that hypocrisy over astro-turfing doesn't end with Monbiot at the Guardian.
I contacted Monbiot from his website using his father's name, 'Raymond Monbiot'.
"Daddy
Aren't you proud of me earning a living following my convictions ?
George, you are astroturfing for the carbon trading industry, you
evil, stupid boy. Even that moron Hansen has seen through that.
Go to your room until you learn to stop lying !"
International Emissions Trading Association (IETA) members
BP, Conoco Philips, Shell, E.ON, EDF , Gazprom, Barclays, JP Morgan
Chase, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs."
He replied
"You coward - too chicken to use your own name."
That point that Monbiot misses is that with the level and nature of censorship of sceptical views at CiF is makes no difference if you use your real name, as I orginally did and had my account stopped, and later an alias which was also stopped.
The bottom line is that if you are sceptical of CAGW the Guardian will censor your views, ultimately stopping your account, no matter what you may call yourself.
What I now find intriguing is that Guardian enviro-journalists may have been using aliases themselves to post comments at CiF.
Whatever you do, do not miss the link to the Grauniad posted above by Jack Hughes 4.21pm. I didn't understand what was going on until the penny dropped, hilarious!!!!
Correction to my post. Should be 5.21
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/4/20101216/video/vwl-lighthouse-becomes-icehouse-15af341.html
news reel lighthouse in Ohio becomes ice house .... in the commentary he states that unusually cold weather on the East coast from the Great Lakes to Florida
Where did global warming go to? ... oh sorry I am sure it will average out over .........
Also interesting .. was that I posted from the news about a new type of lifeform .. this appears to have been questioned (or at least the study has)... however at least the study can be questioned without fear of being called names and a discussion can ensue
Erm, no. This is standard BBC climate porn – it’s just being ironic, which seems to have been a bit lost in translation.
You are viewing this video in entirely the wrong light and making inferences based of that interpretation with regards a change in attitudes at the BBC with cannot be justified based on the their actual output. The BBC world service has basically become 24 hour “Songs of Praise” for the Green religion, and this video reflects their default position - not mocking climate science, but mocking the skeptics.
The skit is of the Brechtian (read communist) school – “show that you are showing” – the man presents himself to the camera with his best village idiot routine - he is intimating to the audience, “look, this man is an idiot”.
The canned laughter, which indicates to the audience when they should be laughing, is laughing AT this “idiot” who says “whatever happen to global warming, eh?” and can't see past the end of his own garden.
Note the sarcasm dripping from the voice over – look at this “idiot” who can’t tell the difference between weather and climate – the distain of the intonation infers that anyone who cannot look beyond their own garden is parochical, xenophobic, maybe even dangerously right wing!
Cut to them reading a government a issue book – not a pamphlet – this is serious, well researched data – data you can depend on – there are graphs and everything.
The village idiot is cured! He drops out of character, the suspension of disbelief is broken and he gives an imperceptible nod to camera, implying that now is the point at which the viewer should consider the “moral”.
And the "moral": That the viewer is FAR too smart to identify themselves with the "idiot"; they should smugly congratulate themselves for being neither parochial nor xenophobic, and of course for believing in climate change – becuase after all, anyone that doesn’t believe in climate change is a parochial xenophobe - aren’t they?
"... all wear green," said a soft but very distinct voice, beginning in the middle of a sentence, "and Delta Children wear khaki. Oh no, I don't want to play with Delta children. And Epsilons are still worse. They're too stupid to be able to read or write. Besides they wear black, which is such a beastly colour. I'm so glad I'm a Beta."
The mind control of the video is truly orwellian in its craftsmenship - so subtle it could be the whispering of the decanting chamber in a Huxlean hatchery and conditioning center. The "comedy" simply provides the diversion through which the message to can pass into the brain entirely unchallenged.