Monday
Jun032013
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill The Empty Shibboleth
Jun 3, 2013 Climate: other For some time now I have shuddered every time a politician or activist says that "climate change is real" or its variant "climate change is manmade".
The utterance of either of version is of no relevance to the global warming debate. The climate changes; that is undisputed. Mankind has affected the climate since he started clearing the forests with stone axes. As always the question is how much the climate might change, if at all.
I think we need a shorthand to express the fact that such a statement is a shibboleth of the green tribe rather than a meaningful contribution to a public conversation.
Would "The Empty Shibboleth" work?
Reader Comments (59)
Empty or Vacant Shibboleth is good but I agree with others it is a bit high-brow to catch on. I've long thought CAGW was like a giant with feet of clay (hence the blog name), but that is probably too obscure for some.
What about 'meme'... is that widely understood? 'Outdated meme'? no that's a bit mild. Misguided Meme? Not quite. Well that's my tuppenyworth.
'Ecochaff' is brilliant. Must start using that! Ed Davey got my blood up earlier. I can feel a post coming on.
IMHO, 'vacant shibboleth' is brilliant, even if I have trouble spelling it. And it may raise the quality of language usage among the 'Joe Publics' of the world, many of whom are not as ignorant or as intellectuall-challenged as the Guardianista and their ilk like to believe.
I'm with those who think that "shibboleth" may be somewhat on the high-brow side.
But considering that we agree that, as His Grace has declared, "utterance of either ["climate change is real" or "climate change is manmade"] is of no relevance to the global warming debate ... may I suggest ...
"Trivial pursuits" (of the mind-numbing kind)?!
Barry Woods just referred to the "Shallow Consensus". Maybe better?
I like this 'playing with words' game.
One thought that unites both the alarmists abd the sceptics is that the damage wrought by CO2 will be 'immeasurable'
I've "excellent English" - I'd place myself in the 90th percentile, but shibboleth isn't a word I could provide a definition for.
How about "green movement sales pitch"?
I suggest keeping the names and ideas simple and then repeating them often to show confidence and reinforce that "the science is NOT settled":-
"Anti-science", "misanthropic", "dangerous" to describe the alarmists' ideas, "realists" to describe those that are guided by the data rather than by the alarmist PR machine. And always point at the data, "No warming for some 15 years but CO2 has now passed 400ppm so why is there no runaway global warming?", "Check for yourself that the temperature record shows that, at worst, CO2 is a mild green house gas" etc.
And never, ever, ever use or repeat the word "denier"; use "realist" instead.
"Shabby shibboleth" has a nice ring to it.
To me, more than anything these terms work as a litmus test for irrelevance.