Bishop Hill Pressure getting to you?
Oct 3, 2012 Climate: Sceptics James Murray, the editor of Business Green website, has penned an extraordinary screed about us wicked sceptics and what to do about us. From conspiracy theorising…
A small band of climate sceptics centred on Lord Lawson's Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) have, through a hugely expert lobbying campaign, convinced an influential and sizable group of Tory MPs and right wing media commentators that climate change is not something to worry about
…to name calling…
Personally, I favour the terms "climate reckless" and "pollutocrats".
…and even hints at his underlying motivations…
The problem is that in the short term the continuing influence of climate sceptic thinking remains a serious threat to green growth.
…the article has the lot. Enjoy.
Reader Comments (58)
The problem with Murray's article is that it betrays his mental picture of mankind
He thinks that as people don't go along with his "self evident" ideas then the people must change.
"We have the right ideas so we have the wrong sort of people!"
Not if my ideas don't work then perhaps i'm wrong.
Geoff may now scream until Greenland gets covered in forests but the 'let's tell the great unwashed waht to think' attitude is typical of contemporary lefties.
omnologos:
Is that meant for me? (Careful Maurizio, I read your Italian blog too... ;-)Murray no doubt thinks of himself as a lefty. He certainly thinks we’re all raving rightwingers, busy grinding the face of the poor. My presence among you is your alibi. Cherish me.
Bill,
I can give you another example of what you describe:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8474611.stm
It's a BBC article from 2010 titled "Why do people vote against their own interests?" As far as I can tell, it is not intended as humour and acknowledges no irony. They appear quite certain that they can know how other people "should" or "ought to" vote.
Whether such thinking comes from the Left or from the Right, such belittlement of the choices of adults at the ballot-box "in their own interests" is only two or three steps away from some very unpleasant places.
Michael, one of the problems of the Left is that nearly everything they think rests on Marx, whether they admit it or not. Their bible tells them how things 'ought' to pan out, how people 'ought' to think. So it puts them in a conundrum when (in particular) the proles thinking & behaviour is not as per Marx's playbook. Possibility No 1 is that Marx was wrong - well, we can't have that can we? So possibility No 2 is that the proles are suffering from a nasty dose of false consciousness. (Translate false consciousness: not thinking and acting as we, through Marx, think they should). How have they caught false consciousness? First, from capitalist propaganda (in the climate change sphere, 'big oil' and its satraps) and second, because the counter propaganda and education offered by Progressive elements has not been forceful enough (failure to communicate, not getting our message across effectively etc etc) - so more consciousness-raising activities are required among the workers and peasants. Of course, the beauty of a properly proletarian society is that, if even more consciousness-raising doesn't work, you simply execute or internally deport the recalcitrant ingrates. Progressives face difficulties in more pluralistic societies, and so endlessly agonise about why eg people vote against their own interests, until they get old and die. All the while, they hardly ever speak to a proletarian. If they did, they might find out that the proletarians are in fact not voting against their own interests, merely against some bourgeois git's abstract interpretation of what he thinks their interests are.
That Greenpeace membership application form suddenly looks so much more attractive now...
"What do the Chinese really think, about the West's CAGW concerns?"
ans: "Quick, let's build another 1000 coal fired electricity plants! What do you morons take us for...inscrutable?"
The Chinese are laughing at the West (Europe in particular) as the Social Demcorats/Greenies make Europe even more uncompetitive than it is already. They compound the issue in buying the technology from Chinese to implement this uncompetitive master "plan".
You couldn't make it up.
It is not in China's interests to extinguish CAGW, they are just having a good laugh at our expense.
Dumb Gweilos.