Bishop Hill Greens, scientists and bad people
Jun 2, 2011 Climate: WG3 Liberalism Australian politician Peter Phelps has, in that quiet underspoken way that Australian politicians have, compared climatologists to scientists working for the Nazis.
At the heart of many scientists—but not all scientists—lies the heart of a totalitarian planner. One can see them now, beavering away, alone, unknown, in their laboratories. And now, through the great global warming swindle they can influence policy, they can set agendas, they can reach into everyone's lives; they can, like Lenin, proclaim "what must be done". While the humanities had a sort of warm-hearted, muddle-headed leftism, the sciences carry with them no such feeling for humanity. And it is not a new phenomenon. We should not forget that some of the strongest supporters of totalitarian regimes in the last century have been scientists and, in return, the State lavishes praise, money and respectability on them.
He elides from here into a quotation about the involvement of scientists in the rise of the Nazis. This is probably going to cause a few ructions - in fact it already is. The problem is that as soon as you invoke the N-word, you conjure up pictures of jackbooted stormtroopers rather than the mild-mannered scientists who are the problem. This is a pity, because he is making what appears to me to be a serious point.
The rise of the Nazis was abetted by well-meaning nice people who wanted only good things, such as law and order and 'schoolsnhospitals'. In just the same way, I'm sure that Schellnhuber's intentions are entirely honourable too - he's saving the planet after all. He just thinks that only way to do so involves taking us into a dictatorship, run by well-meaning nice people like him. He's a minority of course (although I'm sure there are others who share his views but don't voice them), but that's no reason not to point to the dangers. The price of liberty is, after all, eternal vigilance.
(Could commenters note, I will be ruthless about snipping comments that are rude/off topic/aggressive on this thread.)
Bishop Hill
Climatologist Tamsin Edwards tweets that she has no intention of taking over the world.
Besides, if she did, who would look after the cat?
Bishop Hill
Tamsin Edwards looks at Schellhuber's report and says it's not as bad as it was painted in Die Welt.
Any German speakers want to read the whole WGBU report and confirm? Die Welt were clear that there was a call to limit democracy but it's possible this is down to interpretations and reading between the lines. The only specific instances raised were a new chamber for the German Parliament (chosen by lot) and a new EcoSecurity Council at the UN. Neither of these are obviously roads to ecodictatorship. Perhaps of more concern is the idea that people should give up their desires for material improvement, something that seems to me to be unachievable in a democracy. So is this where the comments about limiting democracy and ecodictatorship came from?
Reader Comments (64)
Wasn't Claes Johnson prevented from teaching his class in mathematics because of his views on the Greenhouse effect?
@Bishop:
"Any German speakers want to read the whole WGBU report and confirm? Die Welt were clear that there was a call to limit democracy but it's possible this is down to interpretations and reading between the lines."
It's hard for my stomach to do it in one go, so here a selection of quotes up to page 9. I guess I am not the only one to find a distressing similarity to totalitarian discourses of the past:
http://www.wbgu.de/en/publications/flagship-reports/flagship-report-2011/
Fascism is a doctrine that people should be prevented from disagreeing with the Leader's consensus since disagreement prevents getting things done and a united people (or bundle of sticks - the fasces) is stronger than the individual. As such anybody who says that, in the eco cause, sceptics should be arrested or even censored from the BBC is, if the term is meaningful, a fascist.
Nazi has the same general rules but with an enthusiasm for mass murder so eco-fascists who are unconcerned about the DDT killing 1 1/2 million annually or indeed high electricity prices causing 25,000 excess pensioners deaths annually are eco-Nazis.
So long as the term is factually provable & used consistently no eco-fascist has a right to claim to have been insulted.
While I would have no problem with being called a "climate catastrophe denier" the word deniier (or denialist) alone is too unspecific. James Hansen, I understand, denies being a lying charlatan & is thus literally a denier.
I think the misuse of language to deceive is one of the philosophical problems of politics and such misuse should be pinned to the wall whenever it appears.
It is not just scientists for discussion re Adolph. For example, one of the most talented photographers of the 20th Century was Leni Riefenstahl, who produced, directed and filmed some of the famous Hitler rallies. She died in 2003 after achieving photographic fame again, this time with fish.
Then, there are the engineers whose contributions to a smallish Germany taking on the World at war were outstanding.
Also, there are the writers who, like Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels, developed new genres like applied propaganda with sound and light and cyanide.
With a cultural heritage like that, who can blame Prof Schellhuber? He has some high historic hurdles to climb before fame is blessed on him.
The human race uses about a millionth of the energy reaching earth from the sun to sustain itself. A tiny increase in the efficiency of our use of that energy will sustain many multiples of the present population in a manner to which we can but hope to become accustomed. The transnatioanal authoritarians who trumpet 'sustainability' as the new clarion call suffer mostly from lack of imagination.
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@ kim,
yes, all imagination. Ever heard about energy density?
Hey, are you Pommy *&^%*s making fun of us Aussies again? Saying we use aggressive *&^%# language? Listen, mate, if we hear any more about Aussie violence and aggression from this Bishop Hill fellow, we'll send our expatriate mates around to show him what's what ... Eh? Wozzat? The Bishop thinks the Greenies are more dangerous? ...
@ Patagon
thanks for the link
this means what ? - "A powerful (eco-)state is often thought of as restricting the autonomy of the ‘man in the street’, whilst at the same time, any meddling on the part of the citizen is viewed with misgivings as a disturbance factor to political-administrative rationality and routines. A precondition for a successful transformation policy, though, is the simultaneous empowerment of state and citizens with regard to the common goal of sustainable policy objectives."
WTF - why do people/departments get away with this hogwash?
Oh, yes, opastun, I've heard about energy density. Did I speak of the density of the mass of humanity, several quadrillion individual souls, if all the sun's energy falling on earth were dedicated to the sustenance of humans?
I'm a skeptic, as leery of wind and solar applications, except for special, local situations, as I should be. I'm merely deconstructing 'sustainability' as so commonly overused, lately, for the appalling lack of imagination, and the urge to defeat and totalitarianism that it is.
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er, and most of that energy would probably be devoted to producing food, and quite, locally, like maybe on the wall of your domicile.
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opastun, my point is simply that a tiny increase of the efficiency of our use of the sun's energy would allow an increase in the magnitude of the humans sustainable. An example was accomplished in our own time with Norman Borlaug's Green Seed Revolution.
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When we have space industry building square miles of tinfoil solar satellites will be cheap and easy and with no weather they will last forever. The amount of energy within geosyncgronous orbit is 17,000 times greater than hits Earth. Fusion would be equally unlimited and fission is not seriously limited if we are allowed to use it.The era of cheap energy has not yet dawned.
My lawyer is actually an environmental and natural resources attorney employed by the US Department of the Interior. Walter Kay's essay argues that the goal of environmentalist-ecologism, ie, the creation of a statist control-center within the state.
This has already been achieved through nebulous, feel-good dreck like the Endangered Species Act (ESA). For instance, Interior has to rule on an Enviro-wacko groups claim to protect a bird at high altitude, allegedly "endangered" by global warming because - while doing very well and not endangered - its high altitude habitat IS though alleged warming. But because Interior is directed to use the "best available science" in making rulings, it accepts the disaster of the IPCCs uncertain and contested findings.
Thus, short of clarifying ESA, the goal of skeptics must be to get the IPCC unmasked and dethroned.
One way this could come about is through the climategate episode, which has meant fewer and fewer of the best scientists participating (eg, Nils-Axil Morner on sea level change, of Chris Landsea on hurricanes). The fewer who do, the more they need to be organized to critique and contest its authority as the "best science."
Yes, Neil; we have vast imagination, and engineers who can't help but debunk politicized science.
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