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« Quote of the day, hypocrisy edition | Main | The MSM covers Bengtsson »
Thursday
May152014

Bengtsson and the left

As Judy Curry notes, the Bengtsson affair is going to be very damaging for the climatology profession. From the press reports today it seems clear that Bengtsson was threatened with ostracisation from the rest of the "community" because of his temerity in offering to provide scientific advice to GWPF. It seems that at least one climatologist demanded that his name be removed from a forthcoming joint paper with Bengtsson.

As a result, the word "McCarthyism" has been bandied about. The behaviour of climatologists does not carry an official stamp of course (although I can't say I've noticed any protests from Ed Davey either) but the effects look rather similar: you toe the line or you will be cut off. A senior scientist like Bengtsson could perhaps consider carrying on regardless - hard, but not impossible. For a younger scientist it would of course be the end of their career.

And all for what? Because he wanted to join the Academic Advisory Council of GWPF? And what is the problem with GWPF exactly? Over at Marcel Crok's blog the theory is advanced by commenter "Neven" that GWPF is a group of "old, white, male, free market fundamentalists". On the face of it, this idea is scarcely worth our time: a scan of the GWPF Board of Trustees shows that it includes Lord Donoughue (Labour) and Baroness Nicolson (LibDem); hardly the free-market jihadis of Neven's fevered imagination (and I believe that the word "baroness" is traditionally associated with people who are women).

But despite Neven's idea being silly, I think they really are the reason that so many scientists object to GWPF. To many in academia, being right-wing or (horrors) in favour of free markets is anathema - just listen to anything said on the subject by Paul Nurse. But Nigel Lawson is, in their minds, something else, being closely associated with the right-wing triumphs of the 1980s. In the academy such connections amount to being the devil incarnate, but on steroids. I think many academics just lose the plot entirely when they see his name in print. I was told the story of a sceptic who was having an exchange of emails on a largely unrelated matter with a prominent (non-climate) scientist; an FRS, no less. During the exchange, he mentioned that he had once been in contact with Lawson. The scientist in question said that if that was the case then their correspondence must cease forthwith and he cut off all contact. In similar style, one of Bergtsson's tormentors compared the GWPF to the Ku Klux Klan. It's that hateful, that crazy. And governments take advice from people with views like this.

Still in the comments at Marcel's site, Roddy Campbell muses on Neven's ideas:

I’ve rarely seen it so clearly expressed that those who object to the GWPF and other libertarian / liberal economics think tanks on climate and related issues – whether the physical science, the impacts science, the policy, the inter-geographical and inter-generational ethics, the importance of GDP versus other things, the economics, the discount rate, the ability to forecast the future, risk, precautionary principle – often / generally / usually / primarily object to wholly non-climate issues – their political grounding.

Neven seems to have a fundamental political objection to the GWPF, and any argument or expression of reason they might make. He believes that they are primarily in existence for the reason he gives – to defend laissez-faire capitalism, their status quo.

Interesting.

I’m musing on whether that is symmetrical, and I don’t think so – as a capitalist middle-aged white western male I have no such feeling towards WWF or Greenpeace or left-wing think tanks. I enjoy their thoughts and the debate.

Would I send Matt Ridley abusive comms if he became connected to such a body? Of course not – it would be really interesting to find out how he got on, and who converted who and on what issues.

There is a fundamental difference in my view. Right-wingers think that lefties are wrong. Well-meaning perhaps, but guilty only of a failure to think things through properly and of putting feeling good about themselves ahead of the good of others. So if Matt Ridley suddenly took a Marxist turn, I think Roddy would wonder about the possibility that age had got the better of him but wouldn't even think of ostracising him. The friendship would endure.

To a lefty, however, *most right wingers are evil (eeevillll!!!). And when you see an evil person it is of course quite natural to have nothing more to do with them or indeed with anyone who associates with them. Ostracisation is the correct thing, the moral thing to do. So here we see why universities - and indeed all public and third sector organisations - are so overwhelmingly left-wing: it is simply that *many left-wing people are free to ostracise and to blacklist those whose political views they disapprove of. I think this must be why so many charities set up by fervent right-wingers soon end up funding left-wing causes. It's not a conspiracy - it's just a reflection of the way *many left-wing people see right-wing people.

In private sector organisations the situation is rather different. Here there is a profit motive, which forces people to focus on an external objective - making customers happy and making profits. People of different political (or religious) views are forced to work together; what divides them becomes less important than the thing that unites them. If people end up being employed (or frozen out) because of their political beliefs, the business suffers a huge competitive disadvantage and is weeded out by the competition.

What I am saying is that we should not be surprised by what happened to Bengtsson. It is a reflection of the way people on the left behave. The unpleasant results are simply inevitable.

There's a corollary to all this. If scientists (and everything else that comes out of the university system) is overwhelmingly left-wing and, if we accept what I've written above, will always be so, where does this leave evidence-based policy? In a politicised subject such as climatology, I'd posit that it is left in tatters.

Updated 19.33, 15 May 2014 by Bishop Hill

* qualifications added

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Reader Comments (94)

Its the same everywhere - they hate honesty.

https://theconversation.com/is-misinformation-about-the-climate-criminally-negligent-23111

May 15, 2014 at 9:11 PM | Unregistered Commenterbarry

Rhoda
No, trade unions didn't try to keep out women and blacks. The first black MP in Britain was elected in about 1906 I think in East London on a ticket of the Labour Representation Committee, who were of course favourable to universal suffrage and therefore votes for women.
I agree with your observation that “leftist folks think they are not only correct, but they are good and therefore anybody with a contrary opinion must be not only wrong but wicked.” When you've got the likes of George Orwell on your side, and you think you're still fighting Colonel Blimp, it's inclined to make you a bit priggish. That's no excuse of course, but that's the way it is. If you don't like it, complain to the New Statesman, pointing out that you're a woman (or, better, a trisexual transgender being from the planet Blaiggghr)

May 15, 2014 at 9:11 PM | Registered Commentergeoffchambers

Geoff Chambers wrote at 5:37 pm: ":If you want an analysis of why some lefties are so unpleasantly priggish about conservatives, I'd suggest starting with the undeniable fact that the right, within living memory, was infested with people whose views on race, feminism and sexuality were absolutely unacceptable."

There was a time when both the left and right were equally guilty of these views supposedly anachronistic views. I remember the women in the hard left groups of the 60s complaining about the sexism of their radical men. In the U.S. the left, or at least those that were white, Democrat, working-class and often living in mixed neighborhoods or in proximity to black ghetto neighborhoods, were even more racist than the conservative right, or that was my experience growing up in the 50s and 60s. More Republicans in the House voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 than Democrats. One could argue that sexual liberation which many feminists came to view as a conspiracy by men to to procure more casual sex for themselves, was an idea promoted by the left.

No, I think some lefties are unapologetically "priggish" because they are intolerant, patronizing and pushy by nature. Also impatient for change for its own sake. One of our conservative writers, R. E. Tyrrell once wrote: "The liberal's main goal in life is to annoy his neighbor." There is much truth in that statement.

Whenever progressive ideas come along, the left immediately takes ownership of them. Conservatives tend to say, "Now wait a minute. Let's look at all the ramifications."

May 15, 2014 at 9:23 PM | Registered Commenterpottereaton

I too am not sure if this is a left/right thing. The totalitarian/libertarian seems to have a bit more going for it. I certainly don't think it's just a 'climate' thing. There are a number of contentious issues where debate is being throttled. Have a look at this article:

http://www.spiked-online.com/freespeechnow/fsn_article/the-pro-choice-lobby-should-celebrate-not-censor-debate#.U3UhuaKQmsx

the parallels are instructive.

May 15, 2014 at 9:25 PM | Unregistered CommenterCumbrian Lad

It's well known that if an Academic wants to increase his chances of funding then all he/she needs to do is work "climate change" into his application. (I heard that from an Academic back in '92.)

May 15, 2014 at 9:30 PM | Unregistered CommenterJimmy Haigh

Mike Jackson (May 15, 2014 at 6:24 PM)

geoffchambers
: Now you know I don't like arguing with you but …
OH yes you do!
But we're not here to discuss the prejudices of miners are we? Andrew's well-argued article is about whether the weirdness of the Global warming hysteria/religion/ideology can be attributed to the political left. I'd say no, for several reasons:
First, it's invaded the deepest regions of the conservative party. Listen to Lord Deben, whose profound thoughts I analysed at
http://geoffchambers.wordpress.com/2013/03/06/lord-deben-and-his-pals/
and
http://geoffchambers.wordpress.com/2013/03/08/dirty-deben-does-drugs-and-potty-talk/
His thinking is not in the least socialist. He's speaking with all the respect for authority you'd expect from a relapsed Anglican whose father was a canon called Selwyn who called him Selwyn and sent him to Selwyn College, Cambridge.
And secondly..
well, secondly, all the rest of the arguments I make here and elsewhere, plus those of Ben Pile at Climate Resistance and of many others
(to be continued..)

May 15, 2014 at 9:51 PM | Registered Commentergeoffchambers

There are a whole load of people's careers that depend on 'the cause ' well its taken climate 'science' from 'what?' to a headline act. So its no real surprise to find some will fight tooth and nail to keep 'the cause' on tack not via any grand conspiracy but from normal self serving interest. And given that a massive ego and a thin skin seems to be a qualification to work in this are, this hardly surprise.

May 15, 2014 at 10:04 PM | Unregistered CommenterKNR

"And yet she was popular enough to be elected three times."
May 15, 2014 at 8:52 PM | Unregistered CommenterJeremy Poynton

Thatcher was elected three times but never polled anything like half the vote. For people living in countries with basically a two party system it might appear that Thatcher was more popular than she was. There were few people indifferent towards her. Pretty much anyone who voted against her loathed her.
I think even her most fervent supporters have to acknowledge that the opposition was divided and she benefited from an unelectable Labour Party, a strong third party, a timely Falklands win and favourable electoral boundaries.

May 15, 2014 at 10:26 PM | Unregistered Commenterartwest

artwest, you are describing the components of election results, which would have had the same characteristics no matter who won the ballot.

As someone who lives in a country where voting (or, at least, showing up at a polling booth) is compulsory I'm not up on the ins and outs of non-compulsory voting. But it does seem that on the day, three times in a row, more punters showed up and voted for MT than the alternatives.

Your point is ... ?

May 15, 2014 at 10:34 PM | Registered Commenterjohanna

Bishop, "ostracism" is a shorter and prettier word than "ostracisation". I'd also like to point out that McCarthy has been shown to have been right, although he may have had an unpretty way of pursuing his agenda.

May 15, 2014 at 10:44 PM | Unregistered CommenterPeteDreeber

Lots of interesting comments; many of them quite strongly expressed against my views. But here I can enjoy reading them and will try to find time to answer some of them, but not now.
I feel nothing aggressive or vindictive in the many critical comments and I hold no negative feelings about those who disagree strongly with me here. We will never agree politically, yet we are united by - what? By the feeling that Bengtsson has been badly treated? Is that all? Do any of us care which Swedish party Bengtsson votes for?
I won't insist on the irony of the fact that the campaign against Bengtsson has been compared to McCarthyism. Yet there really were communist spies working in the USA in the 50s. And there really were honest decent Americans who felt some sympathy for the USSR and its flawed attempt to create a more just society.
All this is so difficult to understand and explain – far more difficult than a graph of average global temperatures, however it's been smoothed and tampered with, because it concerns human beings and their complex motivations.
Maybe we should stick to discussing CRUTEM

May 15, 2014 at 11:00 PM | Registered Commentergeoffchambers

Geoff wrote- "If you want an analysis of why some lefties are so unpleasantly priggish about conservatives, I'd suggest starting with the undeniable fact that the right, within living memory, was infested with people whose views on race, feminism and sexuality were absolutely unacceptable."

Unacceptable to whom exactly? The problem with socialism is that it believes that it and it alone hold the truth. Political Correctness, taken to its logical conclusion would mean that only one view is correct- and who would decide what that view is?
Perhaps Geoff ought to get out a bit more

May 15, 2014 at 11:25 PM | Unregistered CommenterDave

Would you let officers and crew board the lifeboats on the Titanic? I see the logic in this. If they're going down, it only seems fair that they all go down together.

May 15, 2014 at 11:31 PM | Unregistered CommenterWill Nitschke

Left and right have both considered their opponents evil at various points in history, until you dissapear back to a time when our current narrow definitons don't hold anyhow. Depends which of them happens to hold more of the popular reins within a particular era / region. If you do want to look back further, I think a more generic definition that allows for some further backtracking is: some folks tend to coalesce around policy relevant issues of the time that stress a bit more co-operation than competition, while others tend to coalesce around the opposite, i.e.a bit more competition than co-operation. So Roman republicans versus those who want an Emperor, Sparta v Athens, etc. These tend to go hand-in-hand with main implementations (flatter v heirachical structures, intervention v not), though of course any real scenario will be much messier by virtue of many interacting societies and other complications. The people's voice can be a component on either side, but tends to be less if either is a more extreme position.The temporal swings between the 2 sides can be viewed as a social control system oscillation arround an ideal point of co-opetition, which itself is dynamically evolving, and hence has be 'discovered', by criss-crossing the line*. This suggests that the left could not live without the right, and vice versa, which rather makes both their desires to obsolete (or sometimes exterminate) the opposition, very ironic indeed. [the ideal line at any time is probably a representation of the current state of social de-darwinisation].

May 16, 2014 at 12:23 AM | Unregistered CommenterAndy West

Dave (May 15, 2014 at 11:25 PM) says:

The problem with socialism is that it believes that it and it alone hold the truth. Political Correctness, taken to its logical conclusion would mean that only one view is correct - and who would decide what that view is?
But that's the nature of democratic politics since ancient Greece (see Thucydides). Who would decide? Why, the people, of course. Which is not to say that they would always be right (Thucydides again).
I didn't become a climate sceptic in order to explain the basics of political theory. I vote left, but climate is all about graphs, which are neither left nor right.

May 16, 2014 at 12:32 AM | Registered Commentergeoffchambers

"I feel nothing aggressive or vindictive in the many critical comments and I hold no negative feelings about those who disagree strongly with me here. We will never agree politically, yet we are united by - what?"

Lots of stuff. Many people on the left are perfectly nice people who I have nothing against - whose politics are defined by a deep sympathy for the poor, and who have been told that this is associated with the left. Redistribution sounds like such a simple and obvious solution.

The right usually have a deep sympathy with the poor, too, but tend to think that production and profit are more likely to solve the problem. For most ordinary people, I have always thought the problem is more down to a different understanding and a different culture/worldview/set of assumptions than the sort of fundamentals we're talking about above.

The people I have an issue with are the hardliners, the outright communists, the 'elite' intellectuals and theoreticians, the cabal of academics, the campaign leaders, the media, and the politicians. The people who I have a problem with are the totalitarians and authoritarians, who think their ends justify the means, who *know* they're right. Whose hatred and bigotry for the 'enemy' knows no bounds (and who ironically consider themselves leaders against hatred and bigotry against a select group of politically-favoured categories). I wouldn't like to claim that they are all on one side, (they're not,) but at the moment a lot of the most famous ones are. That does not, of course, say anything bad about the many who are not.

It's easy to generalise and dismiss. But we need people with a diversity of viewpoints, to catch the flaws in our own, and the same applies to the left. The ordinary man or woman of the left is useful, and, like everyone, have a right to be heard and their opinions appropriately represented in policy. Even if we don't like it, or it's wrong.

The major problem is the ones who don't think like that, who seek to enforce their view on everyone. I hope left-wingers don't think that in criticising the ideology of the left, we are criticising all the people of the left. Some, sure, but not all.

May 16, 2014 at 12:45 AM | Unregistered CommenterNullius in Verba

It is no longer 'The Climate Community' - it has morphed (as it inevitably will when it's philosophical foundation is based on faith and not scientific reason) into "The Climate Mafia".

May 16, 2014 at 3:04 AM | Unregistered CommenterKenObjectivist

These are not my own words -- I just forgot where I cribbed them from:

Look at the solution the political left offers us as a means of combating anthropomorphic climate change: more direct government hands-on regulation of our lives, more laws, more control, more bureaucratic and political power, massively more extractions of our incomes, more loss of our individual choices and our freedoms and our property.

It just seems like an incredible coincidence that the "solution" to the "scientific fact" of human-caused climate change just happens to perfectly coincide with the coercively collectivist elitist-controlled social and cultural philosophy of the political left.

May 16, 2014 at 7:19 AM | Unregistered CommenterRick Bradford

But it is only a reflection of the way some people on the left behave.
May 15, 2014 at 7:18 PM | Unregistered Commenter michael hart
Of course it is! That's always the trouble with blogging and replying to blog posts. One tends to end up with the black and white argument because of space pressure or time pressure and then you have to back off a bit and stop generalising quite so much.

And geoffchambers is forcing me to do the same thing. Again! But I'm going to refer to johanna's post and agree — and I have said this before, geoff — that the labels 'left' and 'right' are increasingly meaningless. Control freaks exist across the political spectrum so let me put this forward as a working hypothesis: it's what you want your control freakery to achieve that differentiates left from right.
And as a rule of thumb (there we are, generalising again!) I'll stick with my interpretation of the Left as believers in the ultimate goodness of mankind though they are children that need guiding by the Elect and the Right as believers in the fallibility of mankind but that they are grown-ups who should be largely left to make their own way and brought up short when they fall by the wayside.
Which will always mean that we tend to see what we call 'the left' as dictatorial and self-opinionated and 'the right' as more libertarian while at the same time the left is more lenient in dealing with the failings of its 'children' and the right stricter in dealing with the failings of its adults — contradictory as all that may seem.

Or maybe I should just shut up.

May 16, 2014 at 8:45 AM | Registered CommenterMike Jackson

The problem with socialism is that it believes that it and it alone hold the truth. Political Correctness, taken to its logical conclusion would mean that only one view is correct- and who would decide what that view is?
Perhaps Geoff ought to get out a bit more

May 15, 2014 at 11:25 PM | Dave
================================================

i.e. Moral superiority over those who beg to differ. I rest my case on that one.

May 16, 2014 at 8:54 AM | Unregistered CommenterJeremy Poynton

The Guardian and the Independent are studiously ignoring this sorry tale. The Telegraph has reported on it, and I don't have a sub to the Times to see if they do. The BBC has nothing about this. Odd is it not that all three media outlets lean the same way politically?

May 16, 2014 at 8:58 AM | Unregistered CommenterJeremy Poynton

May 16, 2014 at 8:45 AM | Mike Jackson

Don't shut up. I think more robust & formal explanations regarding political left/right can be found in the mechanics of cutural evolutionary processes (see above). But your explanation is a beautiful and easily grasped story that for my money holds a great deal of truth ('guiding' = co-operation, 'make their own way' = competition).

May 16, 2014 at 10:29 AM | Unregistered CommenterAndy West

Nullius in Verba (way back yesterday evening): I meant of course in the popular mind. Hitler was of the right, Stalin of the left. For myself I follow Michael Burleigh and others in finding much more in common between the totalitarian systems of both than with liberal democracy under the rule of law. But all we need here is something to explain the effortless moral superiority assumed by many on the left. Not all - I think Frank Field is the most impressive counterexample in the UK.

Good discussion Andrew, Geoff, Nullius and others. But I have work to do. I'm likely to be quieter for some days, maybe weeks. Have fun.

May 16, 2014 at 10:37 AM | Registered CommenterRichard Drake

P.S. the only thing I would presume to add to your rather lovely model, is that after a long period of being treated like children, statistically speaking more of us want to break free from nanny and do our own thing. And after a long period out in the hard wide world, more us are a bit bruised and have a hankering to return to the comfort of childhood. Hence without external constraints societies will naturally oscillate, or with them will hold internal tension.

May 16, 2014 at 10:51 AM | Unregistered CommenterAndy West

A final thought - something I found under Joe McCarthy on my wiki:

Replies never catch up with accusations, however, as Senator Joe McCarthy demonstrated in his campaign of character-assassination back in the 1950s. Demagogues are defeated by counter-attacks, not by protestations of innocence. But counter-attacks are not always easy to manage, especially when you are a guest on someone else’s show and playing a game at which you are an amateur facing a pro. However—another lesson from the old neighborhood—you don’t have to win every fight to make people leave you alone. The mere prospect that you may inflict a bloody nose and a couple of nasty bruises may be enough to take all the fun out of picking on you.

That's Harlem-born black economist Thomas Sowell of course, writing in 2001. They call him right-wing these days but his contempt for McCarthy comes out whenever he mentions him. Lots of lessons for the good guys here.

May 16, 2014 at 10:55 AM | Registered CommenterRichard Drake

"There is a fundamental difference in my view. Right-wingers think that lefties are wrong....To a lefty, however, *most right wingers are evil (eeevillll!!!)."

ABSOLUTELY true.

Which is why I agitate among the Right to repay the fascist-Left with the same judgement. As Jonah Goldberg's "Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the Left" demonstrates, using primary and standard secondary (ie, mostly Leftist historian's) historical accounts, the modern Left is an alien, Continental European philosophy imported into the USA.

From Hegel through Bismarck through Mussolini, the "progressive Left" of President Wilson - and his racism and eugenics through Franklin Delano Rooselvelt's Mussolini worshiping "brain trust," who admired Il Duce who "made the trains run on time" - the American Left has long admired fascism and its fascist heroes, this remains the case.

Today it is enviro-fascists like Tom Friedman and Paul Krugman who loath American obstructionist "democracy," unnecessary "rights," and admire Chinese authoritarian who know how to get things done - good and hard! - for the People's own good. Because the ends justifies the means.

Today, Leninist campus "Political Correctness" has devolved into Nazi-like Geleichschaltung (the Nazi policy of the 1930s) pressed by America's ruling classes - the enforced coordination of Belief. You cannot dissent on abortion, on gay marriage, on President Obama without being smeared as "racist." And in Bengtsson's case, one cannot dissent about Belief in CAGW. Case closed - the Left IS evil because the Left is inherently fascist.

And given power - as a variety of festering Obama and Ombamunist scandals like the voter suppression campaign by the Internal Revenue Service against Tea Party groups - dangerous to people (eg, the murder count produced by the Department of Alcohol, Firearms and Tobacco's "Fast and Furious" Gunwalking scandal, ie, a federal agency selling illegal guns to Mexican drug cartels, a scandal that remains still unexplained after years) and the poisoned body politic (eg, a lawless and unconstitutional President Obama).

I lived through the Nixon impeachment years. No president in my lifetime has been more lawless and unaccountable than Obama.

People who have abandoned US citizenship are already four times greater than under Bush, at least. My friends are all in stages of planning their exit from the USA. There is deep anger, deeper angst, and a terrible resolve, unlike anything I've ever seen since the Vietnam War era.

May 16, 2014 at 10:58 AM | Unregistered CommenterOrson

People who have abandoned US citizenship are already four times greater than under Bush, at least. My friends are all in stages of planning their exit from the USA. There is deep anger, deeper angst, and a terrible resolve, unlike anything I've ever seen since the Vietnam War era.

May 16, 2014 at 10:58 AM | Orson
============================================

Orson, my first thought on seeing Obama in action was that the USA had for the first time, a European style Lefty with all that brings with it, in charge. His behaviour since gaining power backs that up. He is a truly divisive president, who, whilst taking out Osama and telling us Al Qaeda are done for, to all intents and purposes puts them in power in Libya (which disaster area is being ignored completely by the MSM) *and* at the same time hanging out and clearly admiring the extremist and vile Muslim Brotherhood. Whilst Egypt and Saudi are banning them, Obama is inviting them into the White House.

Is he really unaware of the well documented links in the 1930s and WWII between the Muslim Brotherhood and the Nazis?

May 16, 2014 at 11:42 AM | Unregistered CommenterJeremy Poynton

It seems that The Times has a front page splash on the witch hunt.

So - two journals of rightish leaning report it, two leftish and the BBC don't report it. Sadly predictable.

Why am I reminded of this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3BO6GP9NMY

May 16, 2014 at 11:48 AM | Registered Commenterjeremypoynton

John, May 15, 2014 at 8:22 PM

The hatred in the US comes from right wing talk shows?!! Really?

I would have thought that Obama and friends with their constant slanders (racist, sexist, homophobe, terrorist, ad nauseum) might have had a little something to do with it. Or maybe the lies and repetitive character assassination Obama trots out so often. Tends to be a bit divisive.

May 16, 2014 at 8:03 PM | Unregistered Commenterstan

Bish,

Charles Krauthammer (M.D, former psychiatrist), US pundit wrote some years ago that the difference between Republicans and Democrats is that Republicans think Democrats are wrong and Democrats think Republicans are evil. There was a column recently where a lefty politcal pundit admitted that for the first 40 years she didn't know any conservatives and always believed they were evil. Then she started working on a tv talk show with some and found it they were nice people who had different ideas on how to help people.

This is the moral reasoning of a small child. Unfortunately, it is quite typical of the morally retarded who populate the left. The child-like thought pattern (once described to me by an old Arkansas politician as the way Hillary Clinton thinks) is -- I am a good person. I want to help people. Therefore I favor [policy X giving people stuff taken by force from others]. Anyone who does not agree with me about policy X does not want to help people and is, therefore, evil.

Note, a lefty psych professor in the US, Jonathon Haidt, and some others have studied how people use moral bases in making policy choices. He says that conservatives use all 5 moral bases (now expanded to 6) whereas liberals use only 2. More interestingly, they discovered something when they had people project how others would decide certain questions. Conservatives and moderates were quite good at predicting how lefties would answer the questions. Lefties, however, had no clue how others think. In essence, lefties did a poor job of predicting because they were so certain the the others were driven by evil motivations.

May 16, 2014 at 8:16 PM | Unregistered Commenterstan

"academic freedom" is an interesting one..it id not guaranteed with indefinite assignments for vice chancellors and professors. Neither with a university bureaucracy that is now larger than its teaching staff.

May 16, 2014 at 11:19 PM | Unregistered Commenterptw

Calling people "evil" is, as often as not, prima facie evidence of the intellectual bankruptcy of the speaker.

May 17, 2014 at 7:57 AM | Unregistered CommenterTuppence

> And what is the problem with GWPF exactly? Over at Marcel Crok's blog the theory is advanced by commenter "Neven" that GWPF is a group of "old, white, male, free market fundamentalists".

Not exactly. The problem is what GWPF decides to promote. Neven's hypothesis to explain its relative success of this promotion is the market fundamentalism, an ideology he observes are shared in a specific group.

While Neven might going a bridge too far in his diagnosis, and may not choose the wisest strategy to address contrarians like you, guys, I'm not sure our beloved Bishop does himself any service by misreading what Neven says for the sake of playing Innocence Abused.

And speaking of what Neven says:

Please, read more carefully what I’m asking. I’m not comparing the success rate of “green socialist initiatives” with that of “unfettered free market initiatives”. I’m asking whether you or anyone else here agrees that climate policy by its very nature (through compensation of the externalization of costs to society) is a threat to the unfettered free market capitalism and neoclassical economic thought that has dominated the world for a couple of decades now? Or can these two go hand in hand? Can we keep growing GDP, and keep consuming ever more resources, AND at the same time mitigate the potential risks of AGW?

http://www.staatvanhetklimaat.nl/2014/05/14/bengtsson-resigns-from-the-gwpf/#comment-6032

There's already one commenter at Marcel's that plays dumb, so it might not be wise to recycle that one here.

May 20, 2014 at 6:33 PM | Unregistered Commenterwillard (@nevaudit)

[w.]

May 20, 2014 at 6:51 PM | Registered Commenteromnologos

"There's already one commenter at Marcel's that plays dumb, so it might not be wise to recycle that one here"

From reading the comments on that thread, that person appears to be willard, so I am unable to make sense of his comment here. Clearly neven's grasp of political history and economics is defective if he believes that there has been anything that can be described as "the unfettered free market capitalism and neoclassical economic thought that has dominated the world for a couple of decades now". He also does nothing to back up his assertion that the GWPF is Nigel Lawson, nor does he back up his assertion that Lawson is a free market fundamentalist. Anyone who has followed Lawson's career in journalism and politics would find that hard to believe. Basically neven's critique is opinion and prejudice unbacked by any evidence. It looks as if he objects to Lawson's frequently expressed stance on the policy options being taken in the UK but cannot find any arguments other than name-calling.

May 20, 2014 at 7:49 PM | Unregistered Commenterdiogenes

> He also does nothing to back up his assertion that the GWPF is Nigel Lawson, nor does he back up his assertion that Lawson is a free market fundamentalist. Anyone who has followed Lawson's career in journalism and politics would find that hard to believe.

Counterfactual thinking may not be the best way to substantiate one's claim about Neven's unsubstantiated claim.

But speaking of Nigel's deambulations:

Nigel Lawson, Baron Lawson of Blaby, PC (born 11 March 1932) is a British Conservative politician and journalist. He was a Member of Parliament (MP) representing the constituency of Blaby from 1974 to 1992, and served in the Thatcher Cabinet from 1981 to 1989.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigel_Lawson

You're welcome.

Let's hope Diogenes will demand more evidence.

May 20, 2014 at 8:00 PM | Unregistered Commenterwillard (@nevaudit)

Over at Marcel Crok's blog the theory is advanced by commenter "Neven" that GWPF is a group of "old, white, male, free market fundamentalists". On the face of it, this idea is scarcely worth our time: a scan of the GWPF Board of Trustees shows that it includes Lord Donoughue (Labour) and Baroness Nicolson (LibDem); hardly the free-market jihadis of Neven's fevered imagination (and I believe that the word "baroness" is traditionally associated with people who are women).

Thanks for letting me know that you wrote a blog post containing some quotes of me, and inviting me to the discussion. :-)

Over at Marcel Crok's blog the theory is advanced by commenter "Neven" that GWPF is a group of "old, white, male, free market fundamentalists". On the face of it, this idea is scarcely worth our time: a scan of the GWPF Board of Trustees shows that it includes Lord Donoughue (Labour) and Baroness Nicolson (LibDem); hardly the free-market jihadis of Neven's fevered imagination (and I believe that the word "baroness" is traditionally associated with people who are women).

For the sake of completeness the GWPF's Board of Trustees is 100% white, 90% male and 76 years old on average. Less relevant, but the academic advisory council is 90% white (two persons of Indian descent), 100% male and 70 years old on average. Only Tol, Shaviv and Svensmark are below 60.

As the Board of Trustees (and academic advisors) is clearly white, male and old, I guess the problem must be with 'free market fundamentalists'. I apologize, that is just my clumsy descriptor and value judgment. The value judgment is totally beside the point, and detracts from my argument.

I don't know what descriptor would satisfy commenters here. Laissez-faire politics, with a minimum of government interference, and a maximum of deregulation/privatisation? Would that do? I'm not arguing that this is the best or the worst ideology. This is beside the point.

May 20, 2014 at 8:50 PM | Unregistered CommenterNeven

Why would a Labour peer be in favour of laissez-faire? Or a LibDem for that matter? I think you see things through a political prism. I think there a quite a lot people on the left who oppose GW policy because it is harming the poor right here and now. I imagine they are quite taken with Nigel Lawson's argument it is wrong to punish the poor today to guard against the hypothetical risk of our greatgrandchildren's yacht capsizing.

I don't think you can put a simple political descriptor on GWPF because the thing that unites them is clearly not politics. It's disquiet with the global warming movement. When people say "we have to tear up our way of life, shrink our economies and hand them over to multinational organisations" some people shrug their shoulders and say "whatever". Other people, from across the political spectrum, want to ask a few questions first.

May 20, 2014 at 10:23 PM | Registered CommenterBishop Hill

Willard can only see the [w.].

ps first Connolley then w. - this place is becoming a candied pâtisserie

May 20, 2014 at 11:16 PM | Registered Commenteromnologos

Regarding the GWPF and the age- related remarks of Neven: presumably most people who are under 65 have other jobs to do which take up most of their time. As someone who is now on what Neven would see as the wrong side of 70, I take issue with the presumption that anyone of that age immediately loses their mental faculties as they cross the dividing line. We haven't all got dementia.

If this is not what is being implied, how about a little more of the Chinese approach to older people. Please consider that older people may have had more experience, gained more wisdom and acquired more understanding of the way the world works than the young whippersnappers who think they know it all. Criticise the GWPF for its actions, if you want to, but don't criticise them for being over 70 (or indeed for being white).

May 21, 2014 at 8:20 AM | Unregistered CommenterMessenger

We haven't all got dementia. Please consider that older people may have had more experience, gained more wisdom and acquired more understanding of the way the world works than the young whippersnappers who think they know it all.

Definitely, but there are also old people who stay like little boys/girls, and almost all old people want things to stay just the way they are. Old age is not a guarantee for wisdom, and young age is not a guarantee for intelligence. Like Georges Brassens once sang: 'Le temps ne fait rien à l'affaire, quand on est con, on est con'.

The 'old, white, male' thing is not meant as a criticism, but as an explanation why the GWPF favours laissez-faire. If you look at the Board of Trustees, they're all part of Lawson's old boys network. Most of them were economists and/or bankers and/or involved in the government when all the deregulation/privatisation policies were executed in the 70's and 80's. It was needed at the time, and worked well for what was intended: breaking up the old traditions that hung like a millstone around the British economy.

It worked then, and it will work wonders again, on the condition that there is zero climate policy. I really believe that is where Lawson and his Board of Trustees are coming from. I can dig up evidence if you like. There's some info out there that describes the vision of the Lords back in the days, and the actions they took.

Laissez-faire is the core of the GWPF. Nothing wrong with that, but let's be clear about it.

May 21, 2014 at 11:51 AM | Unregistered CommenterNeven

> I think you see things through a political prism.

I think this is Neven's argument too. Agreement, at last!

There is this small distinction, though: Neven wishes that we all be clear about that prism. Whereas our beloved Bishop seems to imply he can stand outside this prism, and perhaps still see everything in purple.

Incidentally, Neven's argument is not unlike what honest brokers implore about stealth advocacy. Our beloved Bishop's devouts might not have seen this one coming!

Ideology is always what the Otter entertains.

***

Oh, and to please my favorite tailing commenter: whining about Neven's "white old" argument is whining indeed.

May 21, 2014 at 2:14 PM | Unregistered Commenterwillard

I commend [w.] for the amount of sheer hypocrisy he manages to concentrate in so few a word.

May 21, 2014 at 6:49 PM | Registered Commenteromnologos

The problem here not just involves one part, but many things happens outside and this why I hate politics.

May 28, 2014 at 12:19 AM | Unregistered Commenterbalack robert

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