You can always tell when real science has long ago given way to hysteria and agenda setting when the arguments being dragged out become more and more bizarre. Less and less science is offered, and instead we get all sorts of blatant moonbattery.
We have had several prime examples of this lately. Consider a major player in all this, Al Gore. He has gotten so desperate to push his whacko agenda that he is now saying that climate change skeptics are basically in the same camp as racists.
Just as we had to fight the ugly racists in the past, Gore says we need to do the same with those ugly climate change skeptics today. And we are supposed to embrace the alarmists as the epitome of rationality and science? Sorry Al, but I don’t have enough faith to be a true believer like you are.
Then we have the case of an Australian true believer who has actually said we can link climate change to mental illness! Yes you heard me right. An ABC report puts it this way: “A report has been released that draws a direct link between inaction on climate change and long-term social and mental health problems.
“The study by the Climate Institute, titled A Climate Of Suffering: The Real Cost Of Living With Inaction On Climate Change, points to increased depression, anxiety, substance abuse, suicide and self-harm in the wake of recent natural disasters in Australia. Professor Ian Hickie of the Brain & Mind Institute, launched the report in Sydney, saying that regional and remote communities are most vulnerable to the impact of climate change.”
I suppose it is only a matter of time now before scientists will be telling us that climate change is responsible for migraines, impotence, and the common cold. Indeed, they will soon inform us that the London riots were due to climate change.
And it is quite likely that the Norway massacres were a direct result of climate change. And the current Thomson Labor scandal is most likely to be explained in terms of global warming as well. In fact, why not put down my burnt toast of this morning to climate change as well? Sounds good to me.
The truth is, when we start getting such bizarre theories, you know the grounds these guys are standing on are very thin indeed. What we have is the pushing of agendas, not real science. Science has been hijacked by those with special interests.
One writer looks at a major agenda item found here: anti-capitalism. He speaks of “The Secret of Global Warming – Posh Anti-Capitalism”. Martin Durkin is worth quoting at length here. He begins this way: “Poor Al Gore. Global warming is fast turning into a joke. From the jolly Hockey Stick (remember that one) to the topsy-turvy ice core data (what a howler), from the laughable computer models, to the dodgy temperature records … not a single scrap of global warming garbage has escaped the blistering, excoriating scrutiny of McIntyre, Lindzen, Christy, Spencer, Singer, Carter & Co. The awkward-squad army of sceptics have kicked and trampled this theory to death, not once, but a hundred times over.
“And yet, for all the onslaught of reasoned, scientific argument, the global warming beast refuses to lie down. Like some beleagured, maniac cyborg from the future, it just goes on and on. We all know the reason. The edifice of global warming is built not on science, but politics. But what kind of politics? This is the first in a series of blog pieces to explore the green politics behind global warming …..A BEGINNERS GUIDE TO POSH ANTI-CAPITALISM.”
He continues, “The next time you’re forced to attend a dinner party, keep an eye out for the global warmer. Then ask him what he thinks about supermarkets (wicked), ‘consumer society’ (soulless), world trade (cruel) and government regulation (more needed). Global warmers are, in short, anti-capitalist. But – and here’s the really important thing to understand – it’s a very specific form of anti-capitalism. We might call it posh anti-capitalism.
“In the old days, when there was less swearing on TV and kids were scared of policemen, anti-capitalism was coloured Red. The Reds complained that capitalism would cause the ‘immiseration’ of the workers, and they dreamed of giant socialist factories, out-producing the West.
“The tragedy (for the Reds) was that capitalism didn’t play ball. Instead of getting poorer, ordinary folk got richer – much, much richer. For the simple reason that capitalist mass production must necessarily go hand in hand with mass consumption. What the new-leftists call ‘consumer society’.
“But these days, anti-capitalists are coloured Green. They campaign not in the name of the working class, but of ‘Earth’. Instead of giant factories, they dream of little handicraft workshops and organic peasant farms. They complain not that capitalism will impoverish the workers, but, on the contrary, that capitalism has made them too rich. It is the very success of capitalism that seems to upset them.”
But the really annoying thing is this: these anti-capitalists are in fact fat cats who so very much enjoy the good life provided by capitalism. That they are not even aware of their own glaring hypocrisy in all this makes these guys even more pathetic. Says Durkin:
“It is more than ironic that the anti-consumption rant comes from people who are, by global standards, rolling in the stuff and from a superior social class. Take a look at Al Gore and Prince Charles, at Jonathon Porritt, the old Etonian friend of Prince Charles, son of Lord Porritt; or the old Etonian Baron Lord Peter Melchett, former head of Greenpeace, or Ecologist editor Zac Goldsmith, another old Etonian, son of the billionaire James Goldsmith, and nephew of yet another old Etonian the Green guru Edward Goldsmith; or ‘eco-warrior’ Mark Brown, who was acquitted of leading the ‘Carnival Against Capitalism’, who is a member of the fabulously wealthy Vestey family; or the founder of the Soil Association Lady Eve Balfour, daughter of the Earl of Balfour; or the author of the Global Warming Survival Handbook, David de Rothschild, and so on, and on. Charles Secrett, former executive director of Friends of the Earth helpfully explains, ‘Among the aristocrats there is a sense of noblesse oblige … a feeling of stewardship towards the land.’
“Brendan O’Neill says in The Guardian, ‘It is remarkable how many leading environmentalists come from wealthy or aristocratic backgrounds.’ And adds, ‘There is something irritating – actually, let’s not beat around the bush – there is something monumentally infuriating about rich people telling the masses that they should live more meekly.’ It seems that it is not any old consumption that upsets the Greens. It is mass consumption. The Green foodies don’t mind expensive organic free-range food, or hand-made cashmere sweaters, or costly Italian floor tiles. They don’t rail against posh cheese shops or vintners. The problem is not fine-art auction houses or Persian-rug sellers. The problem is mass production and consumption. Greens John Cavanagh and Jerry Mander deplore the vulgar bargain hunter for whom, ‘everyday low prices are the ultimate human conquest.’ The Green group Earth First went so far as to organise a ‘puke in’ in a shopping mall.
“It is not exclusive, expensive delicatessens, but rather the wicked low-cost supermarkets frequented by everyday folk which they find repellent. It is a commonly heard complaint from Greens that things ‘aren’t expensive enough’. The ‘rebels’ down from Eton for the anti-globalisation rallies threw bricks through windows – but not the windows of high-class restaurants. Instead they smashed up and ransacked a working class MacDonalds when they marched down Piccadilly. It is not the luxurious Heals furniture shop that makes them angry, but the proletarian IKEA, with its affordable sofas and lamps.”
Quite right. Durkin concludes this way: “The Green anti-consumption rant, though fashionable among the elite, does not go down big with the great unwashed. People who are experiencing wealth for the first time rarely think badly of it. The Greens always moan that the bulk of the population is unmoved by their silly warnings of impending catastrophe. Whether it’s global cooling or global warming or genetically modified ‘Frankenstein’ food, all the end-of-the-world stuff fails to grip the imagination of the masses. No surprise. They know that it’s all directed against them.
“The Greens tell us that food should come from peasants rather than industrial farms. Chairs and tables should be produced, not in factories, but lovingly by skilled artisans. But as we all know, such antiquated, handicraft methods inevitably produce far fewer, more expensive goods. Handicraft production was what happened in that Green golden age before capitalist production, when the vast majority of people were grindingly poor – unable to afford such lovingly crafted, hand-made luxuries. These were the good old days, when everyone knew their place in the ‘natural order’.
“Green anti-capitalism is Snob anti-capitalism. This is not mere name-calling. It goes to the very heart of what ‘Green’ is about.”
Yea and amen. Between junk science and rank hypocrisy, these green elitists are doing a good job of showing us why the old socialism and the new environmentalism need to be avoided like the plague. These guys don’t really want to save the planet – they just want to save their well-heeled necks, and allow us plebs to go down the gurgler in the process.
http://slatest.slate.com/posts/2011/08/27/al_gore_compares_climate_change_skepticism_to_racism.html
http://blogs.abc.net.au/queensland/2011/08/ian-hickie-on-climate-change-linked-health-issues-29th-august-2011.html
http://www.martindurkin.com/blogs/secret-global-warming-posh-anti-capitalism
[1556 words]