Bishop Hill Throwing the mud back
Feb 21, 2014 Climate: Sceptics Also coming out fighting this morning is Roy Spencer, as mild a character as you could ever wish to meet, but I guess everybody has their limits. Today he has decided that he is just not going to sit back and take the abuse any longer.
When politicians and scientists started calling people like me “deniers”, they crossed the line. They are still doing it.
They indirectly equate (1) the skeptics’ view that global warming is not necessarily all manmade nor a serious problem, with (2) the denial that the Nazi’s extermination of millions of Jews ever happened.
Too many of us for too long have ignored the repulsive, extremist nature of the comparison. It’s time to push back.
I’m now going to start calling these people “global warming Nazis”.
This is an interesting step, coming so soon after the UK Green Party's call for a purge of dissenters from government ranks.
On a somewhat related matter, I asked journalist Mehdi Hasan yesterday for some justification of his calling Owen Paterson a denier, given Paterson's acknowledgement that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. Despite my prompting him for a response, Hasan refused to even acknowledge my question, let alone answer it, although he was happy to exchange tweets on other matters.
Reader Comments (135)
Hmmmm...I'd wait for something official before trumpeting about Balls supposed win???
Mailman
Notwithstanding impolite things I have said about Entropic Man from time to time, I completely agree with him that direct straightforward speech is best.
Name calling may make you feel better momentarily but, in the long run, you loose. Responding calmly and rationally avoids bystanders thinking "they are as bad as each other".
EM 1. There is a difference between locals
e.g your own forum or a completely general public space like the BBC
SkS can namecall us on their blog, but such loaded language on the BBC would immediately negatively skew any item.
2. For a start it's BULLYING which the BBC is supposed to have strong policies against
Clearly unequal bullying: It's not a question of us having a loaded word to balance theirs cos as you see from the way it is allowed to creep into ABC/BBC progs, it is used a a dagger to stick skeptics with, but since mosty skeptics are banned by GreenPolice producers, no counter word at all against warmists is aired.
- I still reserve the right to one day find some of the mythical BigOil money and class action sue the BBC on 2 grounds :
- Facilitating bullying which many of us feel hurt by
- and defamation which has damaged our potential earnings
Nullius in Verba at 11:48 AM Feb 21, 2014
If the "Mill" to whom you refer is John Stuart Mill, the well known philosopher, then no, he is not a "believer". He is universally known to have been an atheist from childhood(as are all smart people).
"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful" Someone from long before Mill.
"If the "Mill" to whom you refer is John Stuart Mill, the well known philosopher, then no, he is not a "believer". He is universally known to have been an atheist from childhood(as are all smart people)."
Clearly not "universally", since I wasn't aware of it. Evidence?
And not all smart people are atheists. So far as I know, there is no particular correlation between intelligence and religiosity, any more than there is between intelligence and left/right views, or belief in climate change. Greater intelligence simply enables people to find more detailed justifications for their pre-existing beliefs.
I hope Dr. Spencer can withstand the goading that is coming his way by standing up.
It is not clear that this was the wisest response for him, but he is the rocket scientist who runs an impostant NASA project. Most of us here are just blogosphere denizens.
The tawdriness of the CO2 Alarm Campaign is the key thing here. As it was with other extremist adventures in the past. The symbol of the fasces was part of it in the 20th C. Perhaps faeces may be the symbol of it in the 21st. Ben Pile has a trenchant post on one of the buffoons of the recent phase of the Campaign, one Stephan Lewandowsky. The title of the post?
.As they say, read it all: http://www.climate-resistance.org/2014/02/lewandowsky-nails-his-faeces-to-the-door.html.
It is packed with insight.
Further to my 08.20 comment on a Lindzen BBC interview, his answers to questions at the end of the recording are also well worth a listen. I'm glad to say this interview, first broadcast on BBC World Service, 6:32AM Sun, 3 Oct 2010, remains available until 12:00AM Thu, 1 Jan 2099, by which time I am confident his wisdom will have been long vindicated.
I haven't had time to read all the posts, but yes, "global warming Nazis" is a mouthful.
What the warmists are, as Robert Tracinski has pointed out, are Lysenkoists:
Wiki: "Lysenkoism is used metaphorically to describe the manipulation or distortion of the scientific process as a way to reach a predetermined conclusion as dictated by an ideological bias, often related to social or political objectives."
Tracinski's essay:
http://www.tracinskiletter.com/2014/02/americas-lysenko/
In the end - the battle will be won by ridicule.
The deeper people dig themselves into illogical belief systems - the more sensitive they become to the idea that anyone is mocking them.
Look at the frenzied reaction on true-believer blogs whenever a sceptic tries to mildly extract a little urine sample.
I think a good selection of good, old-fashioned, robust, scatological insults should be part of our armoury - preferably with a dash of humour thrown in.
Ecoloons, Watermelons, Catastrophiliacs, Warm-mongers, Thermophiles and many other I've temporarily forgotten, give me a chuckle - and if they give them apoplexy at the same time - what's not to like?
John Shade: ‘Can you see now why I'd like to know more about why you just called me a denier?’
I hope I have never called anyone a climate denier, and it’s certainly not my usual style. But since you ask the question, climate ‘denial’ unfortunately shares several points of similarity with Holocaust denial:
1. Concede all unassailable matters, lest one be thought a nutter.
2. Row back from above by minimising the evidence and accusing opponents of lying, cheating, stealing, and doing science while fat or bald (or worse, both fat and bald).
3. Choose the core issue, and never, ever concede. In the case of Holocaust denial, it’s the gas chambers for use on humans; once you concede that, it’s game over. For climate, it’s the risk of catastrophic climate change. Once that’s conceded, mitigation becomes a live option.
So, unfairly perhaps, climate sceptics get tarred with the denier brush, in part because their argument style follows a pattern. But that may be the case with any sort of opposition to an established belief.
Addendum: Mill was a perceptive man. The majority opinion gains a force that the minority opinion lacks, so the majority need to respect that difference. Perhaps at one time, the two climate sides were more equal, but not so nowadays.
Lapogus:
Me too. One day, when all this AGW is shown to be bollocks, I intend to write to Brown for an apology.
I like the term 'The Warmish' - like the Amish. Another fundamentalist cult. They also excommunicate members who 'do not conform to community expectations'.
The analogy is apt since the ironically named Ashkenazi Jews had an average IQ of 116 and now claim the majority of hard science Nobel Prizes, so really the Nazis (of the National Socialist Workers Party) were the boringly average jocks attacking the super smart nerds.
An interesting step indeed:
http://memegenerator.net/instance/46329373
That "coming soon after" is brilliant too.
I'd like to see universal refusal by sceptics to use the meamingless nonsensical term "climate change". Be specific, refer to either warming, global warming or man-made global warming. The public and MSM need to be very clear that "climate change" is a deliberate obscurity of "global warming" and has no understandable meaning..
Let's define some terms then create a hierarchy.
Fascists are authoritarian nationalists. Greens are religious (nature is sacred), but there is no good term to denigrate them when they want to rule the world. So Fascist will have to do. Those who propose jailing or silencing "deniers" get the Nazi label.
Green is the religious side of Environmentalism (an ideology). All religions spin off cults with leaders of questionably sanity. Predicting an apocalypse because of human sins, for example. Eco-Fascist is a good name for them. It's a good idea to point out they are a religious cult as often as possible.
RE: Feb 21, 2014 at 11:30 AM | Jeremy Harvey
"I also agree that Roy's choice of retaliatory words is poor, and tactically unwise. But angry people - and something has clearly made him angry - don't always think carefully before lashing out!"
Reminds me of a time (and a long time ago) when I was sitting in the backseat of a police cruiser reciting 'my side' of the story. I clearly remember answering the officer's question with,"Actually, I did ask him why he tried to punch me and what I did to offend him, but I'm guessing because he was curled up on the ground after I kicked him in the nuts he didn't hear me." Or at least something to that effect. But it surely was a defensive move on my part, as it was a long time ago.
The high ground has already been established and taken by those like Roy Spencer. Now's the time to defend it. However . . .
Lintzen is correct, ridicule of those who bleat about "deniers" is the way to go. The average bloke understands and appreciates ridicule. I enjoy being called a denier, it is a robust and extremely accurate (at 97%) IIP*. Maybe nazi is a bit ott but nothing wrong with tossing in the odd ecoloon or watermelon occasionally but don't overdo it. I personally like Greenshirt.
* Idiot Identification Proxy
Foxgoose uses the term "Thermophile" above, but a related name that works is "Thermophobist," one who suffers from "Thermophobia."
Found this in wiki: "In medicine, thermophobia is a specific phobia, abnormal fear of heat and hot places."
A clinically recognized disorder. Perfect. And, upon reconsideration, a person who suffers from thermophobia would be diagnosed as a "thermophobe," not a "thermophobist."
Mock the buffoons, they are Homocentric Global Warming Enthusiasts, mere Climate Fetishists.
They are a throwback to the Pre-Enlightenment religious & superstitious primitives who saw weather as signs, auguries , portents & evidence of mankind's wrong doing !
They even use the same tried & true religious methods such as medieval Papal Indulgences for the forgiveness of Sin as a way of revenue gouging, their scam is a tad more protestant/anal in nature but the same essence as they use 'Carbon Credits' to 'offset' the risible sin of using stuff.
Hysteria & hyperbole all over a puny half to three quarters of a degree warming in 160 years ! Only a fear ridden neurotic could see that as anything other than evidence of climate stability !
When CO2 was at 8000ppmv of atmosphere, there was no "runaway" warming, it was never too hot & now at one twentieth of that level (400ppmv) it cant, by sheer reason do so now, let alone be driven by our puny portion of it !
The notion that our trace of that trace gas can overwhelm all other billions of year old climate drivers to send the climate spiralling one way or another is the single most idiotic cause in human history.
Mock the fools, for history surely will.
The origin of the word Nazi: it adds to the first syllable of National the second syllable of Sozialisten. In the same way, Hitler's Geheimstatspolizei got its own acronym, this time with three such syllables.
As there is so much money to be had on this climate gravy train I suppose collectively they could be called a consortium of warmists, or vise versa a Warmist Consortium as it can be more easily abbreviated.
Feb 21, 2014 at 11:24 PM - Brendan H. Thanks for the comment. I made the mistake of taking a quick peek in here just before heading out on a trip! No time to compose a reply. I'll be back at my desk here tomorrow, and I'll see what help I can give you then.
And quite right too, the word 'denier' is becoming far too common as a means of attempting to silence freedom of thought and expression. It always comes from the bullying and threatening Left. It is helping them with their dream of a totalitarian utopia.
The best riposte is to use peer reviewed data from two expert climate scientists using observational data.
http://tinyurl.com/qbrrv99
A more powerful 'denialist' graph I have yet to see.
Oops. The Muir Rusell version was a little more different:
"their rigour and honesty as scientists are not in doubt"
I've created a discussion thread called Global warming Nazis to keep this debate going - and, if possible, to take it in some other directions.
I have read the posts and Tallbloke's, 'Greenshirts' I feel is the most effective response to the abusive 'denier' bandied about by the Greenshirts, some may inadvertently misspell by omitting the ' r ' but all well and good. If Delingpole or Josh the cartoonist could use the term it would aggravate the cognitive dissonance of the likes of Feldmarschall Ed Davey. The successor to the convict and arch europhile Huhne, who's convict ex wife now has an ex convict boyfriend Denis McShane an arch europhile. Please forgive me the digressions here, anyway when anyone utters abuse or is promoted from/within the CAGW hierarchy they could be awarded an Iron Cross 1st or Second class, Oak leaves with cluster, ribbons and diamonds and all the various ranks and positions as they progress could be worn on their greenshirts. So no need to reply' Nazi', but everyone will be in the picture.
Winston Churchill voted the greatest man of the last century knew the enemy, he was a denier.
Harry Passfield suggested: “That said, we seem to be entering a new phase: a McCarthy-ite era where we can just hear the accusation: "Have you now, or at any time, ever denied Global Warming?"
The same sentiment inspired a quick Photoshop of the man himself:
http://s6.postimg.org/kdr0qt181/Climate_Mc_Carthyism.jpg
OK chaps - forget all the agonising about the right degree of invective to apply to the enemy.
There's a new, officially approved, accurate and descriptive title for all who earn a living in the climate concern business.
It's ……. #ClimateParasites
http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/02/m-climate_parasites_the_answer_to_climate_change_deniers.html#.UwUJslV6lzg.twitter
Brendan H, I promised you a response for your earlier comment picking up on one of mine. I have just posted my response at the Discussion post thread Global warmking Nazis.
Climate Change denier a badge of honour
Resorting to petty insults means we are getting to them.The alarmists dont have much confidence in their own argument.