Global warming is a 'weapon of mass destruction' Climate experts hit back after being accused of overstating the problem By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor Published: 18 March 2007
Global warming is a "weapon of mass destruction", one of Britain and the world's top climatologists said yesterday.
Sir John Houghton, former director-general of the Meteorological Office and chairman of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, entered the debate over the seriousness of climate change after two meteorologists were reported as saying that "some scientists have been guilty of overplaying the available evidence". He said he agreed with the Government's chief scientist, Professor Sir David King, that it posed a greater threat than terrorism.
Well, I've suggested in another thread that AGW is BEING USED in exactly the same way as WMD. If fact WMD, in this current story, could easily stand for Weather of Mass Destruction. It's not so much that AGW is more of threat than terrorism - to make such a statement is an act of terrorism in itself. AGW (as an idea) is a BETTER TOOL to use for terrorising - than WMD or, say, Islamic fundamentalism is.
Why is AGW a better tool for terrorising? (Why is there a preference for AGW?) Because it is a "sustainable threat'. It can never be proved or disproved - only ever 'believed in' (like the angry/benign invisible God we once had). Using the AGW 'threat' to control people, at the cost of democratic human rights, is a 'win - win' situation for the scientists and the governments. Draconian measures taken to reduce CO2 can either be 'proved' a 'success' (when the weather naturally changes)... or 'failing' (when CO2 levels naturally enter a period of rising). Either way, the power-base is now answerable to the weather and NOT to the electorate.
It's like a re-worked telling of the King Knut story... but in this 21st century version, the action of the sea is blamed directly and wholly on 'the people'. If the King gets his feet wet... the people are BAD (they haven't surrendered enough freedom yet). If the sea (coincidentally) recedes... the King is GOOD (for having forced his people to surrender their freedom).
Either way, it is terrorism.
What is noticeable by its absence on this scientific forum, is any willingness to acknowledge the nature of humans. In fact the whole sub-plot of the AGW movement appears to be - yet another - rallying cry for a crusade against human nature. As such, AGW is just a cover-story - by people who should know better.
But Sir John, as one of the founders of the panel, says that it had "deliberately underestimated the problem"
This is as serious as overestimating. Why not just give hand on heart the best estimate? Why would scientists not use their best estimate? Can one really believe what he's saying?
What is noticeable by its absence on this scientific forum, is any willingness to acknowledge the nature of humans.
The scientific evidence is virtually unassailable: its 110 years old, based on a sound physical basis, made predictions in the 1980s that are still correct 30 years on. The theory is virtually unchanged but much better tested, and successive governments have come and gone.
But we still keep having to go back to scientific questions because people would rather rail against it with irrational statements suggesting that a bunch of nerdy enthusiastic scientists want to control people - quite bizarre.
This leaves no time at all for discussing mitigation, politics and the "nature of humans". Every thread that starts on this usually ends up with someone saying its a government conspiracy, when it is quite clearly a business conspiracy that has successfully confused them into dismissing the theory.
when it is quite clearly a business conspiracy that has successfully confused them into dismissing the theory
There's even bigger bucks/business opportunities in CO2 reduction, plus many associated new jobs to keep unemployment figures down etc for the politicians so it's pretty easy to see a win-win for all business and politicians. None of which gives me a problem if they are acting on truly good science.
Originally posted by Steve_M: The scientific evidence is virtually unassailable: its 110 years old, based on a sound physical basis, made predictions in the 1980s that are still correct 30 years on. The theory is virtually unchanged but much better tested, and successive governments have come and gone.
Whether or not the 'expert-given' theory is as sound for you as you claim, is not what I am questioning. I'm noticing and questioning your desire to believe in an idea so much that you think it's worth getting rid of (some or all of) your existing environment for. I am simply saying that your desire for this type of change - along with a terror of the believed-consequences of not changing - is a very familiar one in human history.
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But we still keep having to go back to scientific questions because people would rather rail against it with irrational statements suggesting that a bunch of nerdy enthusiastic scientists want to control people - quite bizarre.
Some people may not share your desire to get rid of (some or all of) your existing environment (on the strength of your believe) because it will affect them. These people question your irrational desire to get rid of (some or all of) your existing environment which is hidden in your rationality (your 'evidence') for doing so. A bunch of nerdy enthusiastic scientists wanting to control people is indeed a bizarre thing. Just as a bunch of nerdy enthusiastic islamists, a bunch of nerdy enthusiastic National Socialists, or a bunch of nerdy enthusiastic Labour MPs is. It is bizarre for a group of people to desire that type of control over other people - but it is NOT AT ALL uncommon in the history of human nature.
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This leaves no time at all for discussing mitigation, politics and the "nature of humans". Every thread that starts on this usually ends up with someone saying its a government conspiracy, when it is quite clearly a business conspiracy that has successfully confused them into dismissing the theory.
There is no 'conspiracy' - no ulterior motive - in questioning human nature. Claiming someone else 'owns' the ulterior motive is a cover-story... to disguise - to divert attention away from - ones own. It is not the 'theory' in itself which people are 'dismissing' (or, rather, being unconvinced by), it is what such theories have been used for historically which people choose to remain un-confused about (despite the 'no time' urgency which is always attached to these theories).
How come Sir Bob can make these sensational statements without being accused of being in the pay of Wind and Wave money. Not saying he is, but if the show was on the other foot he would be called an Oil Industry mole.
I can tell you for a fact that Wind and Wave companies here in Ireland are whipping up the hysteria. There was a comical full-page advert in all the Irish papers yesterday of Dublin flooded with text over it saying "...too late" - The ad was paid for by the CFC bulb industry.
This is why is kills me to hear any scientists who questions the C02 stuff instantly called a oil employee when the other side is up the jaxey in money from wind turbine and CFC providers.
There was a comical full-page advert in all the Irish papers yesterday of Dublin flooded with text over it saying "...too late" - The ad was paid for by the CFC bulb industry.
Q: How many light bulbs does it take to change a scientist? A:
Q: How many light bulbs does it take to change a climatescientist? A:
Between 1.5 and 5.8 with a central projection of 2.9 - OK I'm not a comedian.
Thing is that nerdy enthusiastic scientists are only any good if they learn not to blindly follow consensus. And unlike National Socialists they don't have a particular desire to control you. They mainly want to do the science.
I don't have a desire to get rid of any of my environment for my "beliefs", I'm arguing from a perfectly rational viewpoint with sound science that has a long history. The science has no ideological bent as such - it doesn't say that people with fair hair are better, it doesn't say that eating meat makes you thick, it doesn't say that praying to god causes insanity, it just says that sticking more of a known greenhouse gas into the atmosphere makes you warmer.
All the ideology comes from business - all those Institutes for Free Thinking, Global Climate Coalitions, Friends of Science, National Environmental Stewardship foundations, the Daily Telegraph - they're the ones formulating the ideologies.
If you engage with the science and the scientists you would understand this.
Sheesh ! Nature has WMD ! Quick....someone call Hans Blix. Let's get the UN team in there before nature hides all the WMD....and while there's still time to create headlines like " Nature could raise the temperature 100 degrees in just 45 minutes ". Better call Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice as well....as they know all about sexing up WMD.
Then we can launch an all out ' shock and awe' attack on nature, bring nature to trial, and hang it in front of the baying mobs.
Originally posted by Steve_M: The science has no ideological bent... it just says that sticking more of a known greenhouse gas into the atmosphere makes you warmer.
But what it fails to say is the second half of the sentence - "...if you don't want to get warmer you have to get rid of something."
Now let's take the sentence and develop it a bit: "sticking more Business* into the environment makes you poorer*... if you don't want to get poorer you have to get rid of something."
*Business. As you claim, business is clearly 'conspiring' to confuse us into dismissing this Idea. Therefore it is either Business, or the Idea which has to has to be got-rid-of from the environment.
*poorer. The 'poorness' of our environment is here measured by its quantity of warmth (and more importantly, warmth that doesn't exist yet). A poorness of an environment could just as easily be measured by its quantities and distribution of money.
Now let's apply the same statement retrospectively to a known recent event: "sticking more Jews* into the environment makes you poorer... if you don't want to get poorer you have to get rid of something."
*and Jews, curiously enough, were painted to be the 'conspiring business' in the environment this statement refers to too.
Perhaps the AGW lobby's over-readiness to use the 'denial' word in this modern debate is letting-slip a self-denial... a recognition of a recent - and remarkably close - historical association to what they want to do.
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Originally posted by Steve_M: If you engage with the science and the scientists you would understand this.
I am engaging with the science and the scientists - but on MY terms not theirs. As this engagement is primarily about nature itself (and if it will survive), then it seems quite important to me that a large and essential part of nature is not excluded from the exchange - as the scientists and politicians wish it to be. Perhaps the AGW lobby KNOW that if human nature was included, the conclusion they seem so keen to rush to might be not be the conclusion they have in mind.
It is very easy to see that different races and cultures lead to bias and prejudice.
It is possibly easy to see that an ideological dislike of capitalism can lead to bias and prejudice.
It is not so easy to see that scientists, who are a mixed bunch in terms of ideology - possibly with a leftish bias, can organise themselves to be biased in the way being proposed, particularly as, due to the internet and the media, the science is much more open now than it has ever been.
Scientists make discoveries and promote them on their merits. They don't consider the impact on the politics. AGW theory is based on a very large jigsaw puzzle of small findings, none of which by themselves prove the theory either way.
On the other hand you have surely to recognise that there is a denier industry that goes beyond scientific scepticism by repeating and promoting factual errors, by lobbying politicians, and by working outside the peer review process.
Originally posted by Steve_M: Roger58, I think that is quite contorted logic.
It is very easy to see that different races and cultures lead to bias and prejudice.
It is possibly easy to see that an ideological dislike of capitalism can lead to bias and prejudice.
It is not so easy to see that scientists, who are a mixed bunch in terms of ideology - possibly with a leftish bias, can organise themselves to be biased in the way being proposed, particularly as, due to the internet and the media, the science is much more open now than it has ever been.
In short: People can respond to difference by acting to get rid of it. Whether the difference in the object is defined by colour, culture, religion, politics, science or a preference for exchanging resources for money.
People, being people, can find all sorts of ways to exclude the different object from the space (the environment). Even scientists - being people - are not excluded from merging with the group in pursuit of this goal.
All reason and purpose for doing this - regardless of how 'justifiable' and specific it is claimed to be - boils down to a single primate urge: to 'idealise' the space. To exclude the difference in the object which is seen as an obstacle to the space being idealised.
This urge is not only primitive, in human terms it is essentially infantile. How 'clever' a scientist (or politician or philosopher etc etc) is is immaterial... if a cleverness is subverted to this use it becomes abuse.
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...you have surely to recognise that there is a denier industry that goes beyond scientific scepticism by repeating and promoting factual errors, by lobbying politicians, and by working outside the peer review process.
I recognise only people who agree that the space works WITH difference included... in other words, a collection of people who have developed an adult capacity to tolerate difference and to abandon any fantasies of an idealised space. This is all they have as a common connection.
I recognise only people who agree that the space works WITH difference included... in other words, a collection of people who have developed an adult capacity to tolerate difference and to abandon any fantasies of an idealised space. This is all they have as a common connection.
I'd change "I recognise ..." TO "I feel comfortable with"
Your wish to translate the urges you are talking about to scientists has a few problems. Scientists very often do not agree with each other - their belief system (in the scientific principle) may be shared, but their beliefs differ. They're all also working on different things, so the "consensus" is really a collective understanding of published literature as determined by a hierarchy of scientists.
Clever scientists can be bullies, but in my experience they are rare. Certainly, none of the climate scientists I know fit this mold.
Your argument is more applicable to people who do not have much scientific knowledge and who "believe" in the consensus, or its opposite, because it aligns with their personal philosophies. But they're reasonably easy to spot because they don't have a deep enough understanding to reflect and refine their arguments.
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I recognise only people who agree that the space works WITH difference included... in other words, a collection of people who have developed an adult capacity to tolerate difference and to abandon any fantasies of an idealised space. This is all they have as a common connection.
You might learn from them.
Hmmm...this sounds very politically correct. I live with these organisations. They promote their views, and I am entitled to argue against the views and use evidence to discredit their views. I use strong language about them in my post above, because I am trying to get across the point that they are waging a deliberate PR campaign to obfuscate the science. You are hardly as pure as the driven snow when you characterise scientists as having similar principles to religious fundamentalists and seem uncritically to worship big business.
I recognise only people who agree that the space works WITH difference included... in other words, a collection of people who have developed an adult capacity to tolerate difference and to abandon any fantasies of an idealised space. This is all they have as a common connection.
I'd change "I recognise ..." TO "I feel comfortable with"
Thanks, Son of Mulder. As comfort is another word for pleasure, then yes - I feel pleasure with people who agree that the space (our environment) works best with difference included.
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Originally posted by Steve_M: Hmmm...this sounds very politically correct.
If you mean it sounds like the correct use of politics, then yes, I agree. Politics is, after all, nothing other than the negotiation of difference.
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I live with these organisations. They promote their views, and I am entitled to argue against the views and use evidence to discredit their views. I use strong language about them in my post above, because I am trying to get across the point that they are waging a deliberate PR campaign to obfuscate the science. You are hardly as pure as the driven snow when you characterise scientists as having similar principles to religious fundamentalists and seem uncritically to worship big business.
Without doubt, these people are entitled (at present) to promote their view(s) that the space works best WITH difference included. Just as you are entitled to argue against this view. But it may be worth wondering what you have to let go of - what world has to end - before you can start agreeing with them.
It strikes me that 'big' - whether applied to a business or a person - is another word for 'developed'... or 'grown-up'. And the world that the AGWers advocate is noticeable for its insistence that development is got rid of in preference for idealisation.
Knowledge of what life is all about is useful - whether it is found in science or (from a very different angle) in religious texts. But if a tiny part of what is realistically 'knowable' is taken, amplified, and used as a manifesto for idealising our real world, then that knowledge is being ab-used.
But it may be worth wondering what you have to let go of - what world has to end - before you can start agreeing with them.
First you say learn from them. Now you say agree with them. Are you trying to mess with my mind!
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It strikes me that 'big' - whether applied to a business or a person - is another word for 'developed'... or 'grown-up'. And the world that the AGWers advocate is noticeable for its insistence that development is got rid of in preference for idealisation.
That's an incorrect generalisation. I have views about "big business" and views about AGW, and currently the two views are not strongly related in my mind.
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Knowledge of what life is all about is useful - whether it is found in science or (from a very different angle) in religious texts. But if a tiny part of what is realistically 'knowable' is taken, amplified, and used as a manifesto for idealising our real world, then that knowledge is being ab-used.
You could be describing the discovery of electricity, the spinning jenny, or the smallpox vaccine in that statement. At what point do we say that science should stop having an impact on our "real world"?
Originally posted by Steve_M: First you say learn from them. Now you say agree with them. Are you trying to mess with my mind!
Where's the confusion? If you learn to use a knife and fork to eat with, then you agree with those who showed you that it's be best thing to use. Development - No mess!
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That's an incorrect generalisation. I have views about "big business" and views about AGW, and currently the two views are not strongly related in my mind.
Hmmmm. You're fast running out of conspirators!
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You could be describing the discovery of electricity, the spinning jenny, or the smallpox vaccine in that statement. At what point do we say that science should stop having an impact on our "real world"?
All these were developments, understood in depth and used - when ready - for the development of mankind. AGW is fragments of forensic 'evidence' (ab)used - prematurely - to halt the development of mankind.
But if a tiny part of what is realistically 'knowable' is taken, amplified, and used as a manifesto for idealising our real world, then that knowledge is being ab-used.
Roger58, you've hit the nail on the head. Sorry to jump in again but you've eloquently presented where I'm coming from. In fact I think that AGW as driver of change is worse because instead of "is taken" in your quote I think we have a situation where "is assumed true" should be substituted.
All these were developments, understood in depth and used - when ready - for the development of mankind. AGW is fragments of forensic 'evidence' (ab)used - prematurely - to halt the development of mankind.
The examples I gave are different to AGW, but I think it is incorrect to say that their impact was "understood in depth" before being used. Our perspective now sees them as being beneficial to mankind's development, but we may see the discovery of AGW as being beneficial in the long run too.
To suggest that a halt to the development of mankind is being proposed is no less emotive than some of the scenarios being proposed should the impacts of AGW be at the upper end of the scale of what is expected.
Recently, business is beginning to take note of the risks and is beginning to take measured steps to mitigate the effects.
While your arguments come across as reasoned and thoughtful, I think you are being remarkably complacent.
