Bishop Hill Dear old George
Sep 19, 2013 Climate: Models Dear old George Monbiot has reentered the climate fray - I somehow missed this at the start of the week. It seems like an eternity since he last graced us with his presence, but readers looking for amusement will be pleased to hear that his gratingly sanctimonious style has altered not a bit in the interim.
George's ire has been piqued by the temerity of David Davies, the Tory MP who led the motion against the Climate Change Act in the House of Commons last week. George, in common with the Labour MPs who spoke that day, spends a lot of time ranting about conspiracy theorists, while signally avoiding the fact that the only people who ever mention conspiracies are those, like him, who are obsessed with the idea of fossil-fuel-funded denialist devil-men (Or is green lizards controlling our brains? It's hard to keep up sometimes).
Anyway, George, linking to the AR4 summary for policymakers, tells us that the evidence that the warming at the end of the twentieth century was manmade is "impressive". I think this means that, like his rhetoric, George's understanding of the science has moved on not a jot since 2007.
I think he needs to Google terms like "pause" and "natural variation" and "OMG how do we explain this away?"
Reader Comments (72)
GM is indeed back with his school yard bully bile spitting best, whilst hiding behind the modes to cover up when he gets it so wrong. Still with the IPCC report coming out perhaps CIF think the kiddies of SS will not be enough on their own .
could be true , they sound increasingly desperate , and with all the posts their pushing out its hard to see how they got time to work for the 'evil fossil fuel ' industry which is supposed to pick up their daily pay check.
MONBIOT & THE CACC
The albatross round poor old Monbiot's neck is the CACC website. There one still finds a very youthful-looking George alongside his pompous mantra, starting with the words - "Climate change is perhaps the gravest calamity our species has ever endured ........".
His erstwhile co-conspirator Mark 'Six Degrees' Lynas has long since made his escape, leaving the Great Moonbat 'embedded' with Caroline Lucas, surely a fate worse than death !
Click on "Hall of Shame" and mug-shots of his principal 'hate figures' are revealed, namely Lawson,Monckton, Delingpole, Booker, Lomborg, Plimer, Inhofe and Peiser.
How he must hate the undisciplined rabble who now post their ridiculous 'messages' in his name.
George's problem is that there is no easy escape route from the CACC, no halfway house, if he changed one single word he would be branded a traitor, he has nailed his colours firmly to their mast and is doomed to go down with the ship.
Recently ran into another 'conspiracist' unfurling the sanctimony against the GPWF
"A couple of years ago I decided to stop arguing with climate change deniers. It was driving me mad." says George; to which modesty replies, "Oh, no, sir, we can't take ALL the credit."
As has been pointed out elsewhere, CaCC is a hollow, zombie website. Practically no one has ever commented on the articles posted on the home page - until, that is, the most recent. That has 20 comments: 19 critical and one ("Pay no notice of the sceptics, guys!") in pathetic support. It's been there for over two weeks with no attempt at rebuttal, engagement or discussion. It all reflects poorly on George, Caroline, Michael etc. Sad really.
All is well with the world and George is a constant, he's full of it.
It never ceases, I am always amazed, delighted and entertained when George mounts the throne to declaim to the lower orders of men. Bless his soul, he just cannot withhold those haughty tones oozing forth from his pen, and that nuanced ex cathedra certainty, indeed you must have spurned your calling George, hell fire and damnation - a forte, preaching fire and brimstone your message.
To George Monbiot, just remind us how small the circulation figures are for the Guardian, and how much money its losing? As the penny drops that it is evidence against CAGW that drives public opinion, and politicians like those that he despises to push for changes that will prevent the wrecking of the UK economy, how long before the Moonbat realises that he is in an echo chamber simply repeating his delusional and unsubstantiated "evil fossil fuel funded deniers" meme, while the rest of normal life that is the British public are moving on and ignoring him?
Perhaps when the Grauniad circulation drops so low it becomes irrelevent to anybody and someone finally decides to close it down as a lost cause, then Monbiot will wake up and realise that he is out of a job and that nobody cares about his extreme views. He certainly isn't mainstream (except possibly at the BBC).
ThinkingScientist: the reality however is that, notwithstanding its tiny circulation, the Guardian is hugely influential within the Establishment. For very many people in the professions (especially the law), academia, the media (especially the BBC), the Westminster bubble, etc. it's the opinion former of choice. Moreover, its website is widely read internationally. It's far from being a lost cause.
David Davies, in response, was so delighted with Moonbat's article that he tweeted the link to it, pointing out that it failed to deal with his two main points that a) theres been no warming for 15 years, b) it would be pointless for the UK to 'take action' unilaterally.
Robin Guenier: In the world of public opinion, like it or not, its the Sun that matters in public opinion. Quite ironic, if the Sun somes out against CAGW.
HOW ARE THE MIGHTY FALLEN
Some years ago I mentioned 'global warming' to a delightful but very left-leaning lady of my acquaintance, "Oh I know all about that" she declaimed, "I've been to hear George Monbiot !".
This took me back some 50 years, when I was amongst the adoring throng who 'heard' Billy Graham in Hong Kong.
It is difficult to realise to-day, how recently it was that the Great Moonbat was indeed drawing admiring and exultant crowds.
When I went to hear him at his great 'Climategate' debate in London on July 8th 2010 whereat, with the assistance of McIntyre and Keenan, he totally destroyed the credibility of poor little Professor Trevor Davies (Phil Jones' boss) he was certainly at his peak.
From that day on his confidence gradually left him. He felt betrayed by the UEA over 'Climategate' and admitted that he was very much friendless and alone.
He was never again quite sure who were the 'good guys'.
Details of the debate itself have been deleted from the Guardian archives, particularly after George felt constrained to apologise to Phil Jones for suggesting that he should be sacked.
However that ridiculous 'mantra' and his on-going 'Presidency' of the 'Campaign Against Climate Change' leave him no option but to make the odd 'outburst', such as this one from his 'bunker', and to wait for the end.
No-one knows better than George Monbiot that that day will not be long coming, he more than most, realises that Abbott's victory and the fall of Flannery pressage his own demise.
This talking point is getting rather tired looking. A boondoggle doesn't require a conspiracy. If it did, there would be far fewer of them around.
Someone is reported to have asked Ian Hislop why Private Eye had no coverage of climatgate and othe matters related to climate shenaneganes.
He is said to have replied that Monbiot had explained it all to him so there was nothing to be published in Private Eye.
Who cares what Monbot thinks?
He is simply preaching to an diminshing group of green, Guardian reading fanatics
If I remember rightly Monbiot wobbled just after climategate because he correctly interpreted what he saw, he was quickly brought back into line.
Other Green pundits are re-inventing themselves as 'New environmentalist', however I cannot see George making that transition, because for him it is more of a religion.
Just because someone has an epiphany on the road to Damascus doesn't mean you'll like the result. Why is it always assumed?
comments on this now closed
not very supportive of the moonbat?
Martin A,
You mentioned Private Eye. We bought one recently - first time in years - and I took a moment to define the theme of the magazine. Something like: "We are restricted by no convention, at least in the conventional sense of the word, in fact we're a bunch of old fogies still true to our roots as hairy students. We whimsically expose the shenanigens of the rich and powerful, the special interests who exploit the common good." The single vice which it targets - its raison d'etre - corruption.
And then wondered, "Why no coverage of Ed Davey's Ministry of Silly Walks?"
Martin A wrote:
"Someone is reported to have asked Ian Hislop why Private Eye had no coverage of climatgate and othe matters related to climate shenaneganes.
He is said to have replied that Monbiot had explained it all to him so there was nothing to be published in Private Eye."
And that's why I haven't read it since 2008 having been a subscriber since 1969.
Dear old George's definition of "impressive" is: frequently spouted by his bien-pensant chums.
jollyfarmer
Comments are always closed on Guardian articles after three days. This article attracted 1200 comments. Since informed sceptical commenters have all been banned from commenting, don’t expect much informed criticism. Those who wish to engage with Monbiot (or Caroline Lucas or Michael Meacher) are recommended to follow Robin Guenier’s suggestion and pop over to
http://www.campaigncc.org/
where comments are not censored.
toad
The Guardian debate can still be heard at
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/audio/2010/jul/15/guardian-climategate-hacked-emails-debate
A full transcript, including Douglas Keenan’s contribution, which was censored in the Guardian audio, and Steve McIntyre’s contribution, which was omitted from the Guardian’s five minute video trailer, is available at
https://sites.google.com/site/mytranscriptbox/home/20100714_gn
You must all realise that the class issue is very strong in Monbiot who was educated in the cohort that had to compete with the grammar schools for the glittering prizes. Stowe where Monbiot went s one of the small number of lowish Common Entrance mark entry organisations whose output has acted to recreate the old caste system.
The battle between Etonian Matt Ridley, a representative of the true elite damping down neo-fascism, who like Monbiot has an Oxford zoology degree but of a higher class, is charged with this issue. Monbiot and fellow elitist Lucas have been occupying a piece of ground they controlled for their fellow investors and will give it up very slowly because it's their only relative success.
Robin Guenier
I remember some years ago, a well known BBC TV news reporter (unfortunately so well known I have forgotten who it was :-( ) revealing in his memoirs how he used to arrive in the editorial offices to enquire what the hot topics of the day were, which he should prepare for.
Handed a copy of the Guardian, he was told "Just read this, it's all in there"
"Dear old George Monbiot has reentered the climate fray - I somehow missed this at the start of the week. "
You should have stayed away. As usual he has nothing to offer, as an irreverence he already gets too much attention.
George is just a gullible and pompous fool, sadly taken far too seriously by the groupthinkers across the media, from the BBC to Private Eye, who should know much better. Monbiot seriously thought that a few mild winters in the late 20th / early 21st century was evidence of anthropogenic climate change - Mocking Our Dreams, February 15, 2005. I wonder if he had any success planting out his vegetables in February in the last 6 years.
"Climate change is perhaps the gravest calamity our species has ever endured ........". Yes George, let's forget about the millions who pointlessly died in Flanders, Stalin's purge in the 30s, the 60 million who died in WW2, the killing fields of Cambodia in the 70s, and Rwanda in the 90s. Yes George, an increase in atmospheric CO2 from 0.035% to 0.039% by volume is much more of a calamity than all that.
Slightly O/T, did anyone see the programme on fracking last night, and if so, how objective was it?
Re Guardian circulation, I assume that the people actually buying the paper are English and Media Studies graduates looking for jobs in the BBC and similar organisations, not to mention all the copies bought by the BBC and similar organisations.
Asmilwho
That was Robin Aitken in his book "Can We Trust the BBC" which is on my desk right now.
Perhaps Aitken's question would be a good Discussion Topic.
Or perhaps not; the truth is pretty clear (but not on the BBC!).
Sep 19, 2013 at 10:54 PM | ThinkingScientist: but you must have noticed that, on matters of policy, public opinion is of little account. And as I said, the Guardian is hugely influential within the Establishment. That's where policy is determined.
Bloomberg throughout see this as negative! potentially, Australia could lead the world back to climate sanity - what's not to like? once the co2 financial bubble bursts, it's all over for Monbiot & Co:
19 Sept: Brisbane Times: Bloomberg: Abbott’s win seen stoking anti-carbon price sentiment elsewhere
The failure of Australia, the biggest emitter per capita among the world’s richest nations, to entrench its carbon price is emboldening opponents of fledgling emissions markets from South Africa to California and dimming prospects for a new global climate treaty...
“People who want a reason not to implement some form of emissions reduction would be able to point to Australia and say: they haven’t, why should we?” said Grant Anderson, a Melbourne-based partner specialising in carbon regulations for electricity, LNG and coal at Allens, a global law firm. “That’s the whole thing about international agreements. Once one party decides not to put forward a stronger commitment that was expected, it’s an excuse for others.”…
Abbott’s victory has strengthened the case against a carbon tax set to start in 2015 in South Africa, Nazrien Kader, head of Deloitte LLP’s local taxation practice, said in an e-mail. The country delayed the plan in April after metals companies such as ArcelorMittal South Africa Ltd. and Gold Fields Ltd. objected…
“We can only hope that it strongly influences the South African government’s stance,” Kader said. “A carbon tax has virtually no support from business.”
The American Energy Alliance, a Washington-based group that promotes fossil fuels, posted a note on Facebook on Sept. 11 saying “poor energy policies won’t get you re-elected” above a map of Australia. Senator David Vitter of Louisiana, the top Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee, said in a Sept. 5 statement that US lawmakers should learn from Australia’s “carbon tax failure.”…
Repeal of Australia’s carbon price would discourage cap-and-trade programs worldwide, Frank Jotzo, director at the Australian National University’s Centre for Climate Economics and Policy in Canberra, said…
“Australia is much more important internationally in these matters than its share of global emissions might suggest,” Jotzo said…
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/business/carbon-economy/abbotts-win-seen-stoking-anticarbon-price-sentiment-elsewhere-20130919-2u2ek.html
...bring on the clowns...
Private Eye
Here are some (substantial) extracts from the "Keeping The Lights On" column in the current edition:
No coverage, Brent? It seems they overlooked the need to consult George about this item.
Lapogus you missed the Black Death, which is believed to have wiped out at least a third of Europe's population, and perhaps a quarter of the whole human race. Obviously trivial by comparison with a 1.2ºC increase in global temperatures (we have already had the first 0.8º of the total 2º.)
Does anyone remember Monbiot's statement that went something like "you see that snow outside your window? That's how global warming looks like"? That's like an author saying to his audience "Look into my eyes. I'm telling you without any shame on my part that you are all idiots." It takes talent for an author to get away with that ... or a gaggle of geese for the audience.
In his article he tries to debunk the coverage in the 1970's of a 'new ice age' coming. I was around in the 1970's and I remember it quite clearly, there was much talk and hysteria on the issue. It's a pity for him there are people still around who can remember the true position.
I saw him once, last year I think. He was touring a lovely country house in Oxfordshire. If it was him and it's only a maybe, he had a baby strapped to his stomach, and he hadn't shaved, but then that might have been 'designer'. He looked scruffy but I dare say he thought he was 'chic'. Not averse to gawping in toff's houses for a rabid lefty.
I'm not a lefty and I like country houses. Perhaps he was checking out what he would have for himself after the revolution.
@ Prangwizard
It's clear that there was a rising tide of published chit chat about a new ice age in the 1970s, and we can see it courtesy of Google Ngrams. Here's a picture of that:
http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=new+ice+age&year_start=1965&year_end=1980&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=
Compare it to the frequency of the term "global warming":
http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=global+warming&year_start=1965&year_end=1980&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=
The charts are almost the same by the end of that decade.
The most odious thing about the climate psychos is that they will simply shriek "none of that ice age stuff was peer reviewed", as though this somehow excuses them. As with the hilarious Indy "children won't know what snow is" article, they are nonetheless still complicit and culpable, because they stood silently by and let lies pass unchallenged because the lies lined their pockets.
These people are simply morally incompetent.
sHx
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/dec/20/uk-snow-global-warming
George is important because of his reputation as an investigative journalist, unafraid to change his mind on e.g. DDT or nuclear power. He changed his mind for about half an hour after Climategate, announcing that Phil Jones should resign and that he’d have been a better journalist if he hadn’t believed everything he was told :-)
Then he presumably realised that to admit he’d been wrong about CAGW would be a step too far, changed his mind back again, and apologised to Jones, saying that if he’d been cleared by an official enquiry set up by his employers, then he must be innocent. This, and his clearing of Pachauri of any wrongdoing on the basis of a report by Pachauri’s accountants, has destroyed his reputation as a journalist, and caused him to turn to less controversial matters, like filling the Welsh hills with elephants.
But he’s still honorary president of the Campaign against Climate Change, and capable of mobilising 1200+ comments at the Graun. Unlike Deben or Yeo, he has no financial interest in CAGW, and no reason to cleave to any political programme. He promised after apologising to Jones that he wouldn’t come back to CAGW, but he can’t stop scratching the scab. His undoubted intelligence and desire for logical consistency makes him a weak link in the chain. Keep nagging away at him.
I really feel like the boy in the Emperor's New clothes. The CAGW scam, electric cars, windmills, biofuels and everything are so utterly stupid with even a cursory scientific or financial analysis that any fool could see through it. But many people who in many regards can not be considered fools believe so fervently and go along with it. One has to suspect a conspiracy at a high level to perpetuate this bullshit. What do all the commenters to Moonbat column in the Grauniad know that I don't?
O.T. but well worth a look.
Greenpeace will find out it doesn't pay to p*** off the Russians :-)
http://en.ria.ru/russia/20130918/183548105/Shots-Fired-in-Arctic-Over-Greenpeace-Protest-at-Oil-Rig.html
Geoffchambers
Thanks for those links.I imagine you were there on that fateful day.
Doubtless you remember poor little Professor Davies saying that we should have talked to HIM, rather than badger his subordinate Phil Jones !
Iapogus
Very true. One can really feel for the pompous Moonbat, he daren't alter a single word of his 'mantra' but how must regret every one of them. Day by day he looks ever more foolish !
Very much off topic but does anyone know of any research on religious belief and if that correlates to which camp people fall in? Thanks
John, there's a post on this just today at Talking Climate referring to a recent paper. Unsurprisingly, US evangelical christians are more sceptical.
You'd need to be a bit more specific than that John. Just taking the 1,300,000,000 Catholics, I think you'd find every shade of opinion you cared to look for and any correlation you'd want to see. Never miind the Islamic world and the eastern religions. What exactly are you looking for?
Thanks Paul, best not align with the US evangelicals...keep that one quiet! I would imagine most skeptics are secular.
Following the reading of these post's, I took the trouble to look at the CaCC website that has been mentioned several times.
The first sentence on the current page reads: "Since 1980 we have lost 75% of the Arctic." http://www.campaigncc.org/
Now I thought the 'Arctic' was: 'A region between the North Pole and the northern timberlines of North America and Eurasia.'
It is very worrying to read that three-quarters of it has disappeared. Can anyone tell me where it has gone!
On the subject of religion, the rise of Greenyism seems to correlate with the decline of traditional religions in Western cultures. Of course it's facetious to suggest that the cultist mind has merely transferred its allegiance from one religion to another, but on the other hand, 97% of kellydowns agree with me.
Richard Verney, 6:55. I missed that programme on fracking completely. Which channel was it on? Maybe it is still available on iPlayer or equivalent.
Thanks
"Climate change is perhaps the gravest calamity our species has ever endured ........".
He must have led a sheltered life. Perhaps if he was savaged by a Welsh sheep?
Judging by the CACC website, it appears that Monoblot, or one of his conscares, doesn't know the meaning of 'decimate'. Being left with ninety percent of their influence and reputation intact is far more than future events will permit them. I predict that with over 97% certainty.