Comments on: activism.plc@gov.ac.uk

By: geoffchambers

geoffchambers — Sat, 16 May 2009 21:41:18 +0000

BrianT at #8 makes many interesting criticisms of the warmist movement, but his basic thesis – that global warming alarmism is a conspiracy to control the world (“a naked power-grab on the part of self-interested parties”) – is a right-wing myth. The intention to use the supposedly incontrovertible nature of science to exercise illegitimate undemocratic influence on political decisions may certain be a motivation of certain key establishment figures in the world of science policy, like Maurice Strong and Lord Stern, and even, at a lower level, Bob Ward. But the argument that the environmentalist movement as a whole wants to control the world is a political accusation, usually emanating from the libertarian right and aimed at the statist left (the watermelon theory). The fact that BrianT has it in for Keynesian economics, as well as for Global Warming Alarmism, suggests that this is his position. It’s important to be clear that Global Warming Scepticism – and in particular, refusing to accept the argument from authority implicit in Warmism – is neither left nor right.

to Pete #10
I’m not sure that the age thing is very relevant. The Alarmists have got Lovelock and thousand year-old tree-rings, as well as the Tinkerbells and Lost Boys of Plane Stupid. I would guess Adam and Monbiot ”found” this site via Spiked or the Register, or maybe via my frequent plugs on Guardian Environment blogs. I find it hard to imagine the kind of sudden swing in opinion described in 1984 leading to Global Warming Alarmism”s sudden death, simply because too many politicians have invested too much hot air in the subject. Mind you, after the last week in British politics, who would venture any kind of prediction …?

By: Pete

Pete — Sat, 16 May 2009 19:44:34 +0000

Bob Ward is worried. Like David Adam and Monbiot, they are now resorting to desperate measures. See Moonbat’s latest on the evacuation of people from islands that are sinking rather than threatened by a rise in sea level.

Even warming alarmists on the thread have admonished him for making it easy for sceptics to undermine their whole case. His scientific credential are in tatters as a result.

Ward, Monbiot and Adam are old and established, and for a long time they could trumpet the disputed fact that young people make up the groundswell of their climate crusade, and that only older people in their sixties and seventies, as Monbiot wrote recently, are the climate ‘deniers’.

They are down with kids and gain a lot of their legitimacy from portraying themselves as being at the forefront of a youthful rebellion.

But, shock horror, the editors of this blog are young and it concerns them that this questioning might catch on in universities and might be more widespread among younger people than they thought.

The nightmare scenario for them is that they end up looking like the authoritarian, controlling and hectoring old farts which they clearly are.

An establishment which would want to stymie human progress, keep people in their place, and crucially, make a shitload of money doing so either as writers, or as advisors to green big business.

This is what keeps them awake at nights: being regarded as an elite making big bucks or servicing a career on the back of a medieval, religious type scare which young people will identify as The Man to be rebelled against.

That’s why they ‘found’ this site – and that’s what they fear as the earth cools and the general public turn a deaf ear to their nonsense.

It’s going to be fun in the years ahead to see their reputations go down the shitter as scientists conclude that their ‘theory’ is disproved.

Keep your eye on the cloud experiments at the LHC, the UHI effect on surface station temperatures leading to a swing toward emphasis on satellite data, and the quiet sun.

Things are going to get interesting, and I predict a 1984 style ‘I never believed in man made climate change’ volte face from many in the scientific and political establishment.

By: Demesure

Demesure — Sat, 16 May 2009 15:16:12 +0000

Dr. Bob Ward is projecting his own corrupt behavior on others, in which anyone’s motive is money-minded and anyone’s act is payed. His childish bullying against Durkin was already unbelievable and it is confirmed here.

I don’t know what is leading him to such lows, desperation maybe, insanity probable, arrogance and impunity undoubtedbly. Anyway, they earn him no respect and are a disgrace to science, reason and civility.

By: BrianT

BrianT — Thu, 14 May 2009 14:39:37 +0000

It’s increasingly obvious to those of us who believe in freedom and liberty that Global Warming alarmism is nothing more than a naked power-grab on the part of self-interested parties who stand to gain a great deal in prestige and financing.
Labeling a naturally occurring trace gas, one upon which all life depends, as a pollutant will be marked by future generations as the pinnacle of human hubris. Poking one’s finger at a point on a graph of atmospheric CO2 content and claiming that 280ppmv (+/-) is the optimal level for earth’s climate across all time – because that’s the level it was prior to the so-called industrial revolution – **is** hubris. Our atmosphere is presently starved for CO2. All life on this planet depends greatly on its presence. More is better as we attempt to feed a burgeoning world population.
I, for one, will not “go quietly into the night” while environmental doomsayers attempt a takeover of the governance of human (actually, all…) life on planet earth. Make note of history. Take note that there are two – and only two – means of making it through this life. One is the economic means wherein we create wealth by producing things of value that others are willing to trade with us to acquire. They trade something they value less – in modern civilizations, money – for something they value more – the product of our labor. The other means is the political means whereby some attempt to live off of the fruits of the labor of the productive. This they do via corruptions of law. Global Warming alarmists wish to take (more) control of the political means. Doubt?: Go and read Frederick Bastiat’s “The Law”, then come back here and prove to me they’re not.
Its history not yet being written, I believe the 20th Century will known as the century of “Death by Government”. If you persist (e.g.: alarmists) you may well be responsible for a level of misery and suffering unmatched by even that history. Mark well the fact that you are being watched. Take note that we (the people) now have this wonderful medium of information exchange called the internet. That we know who you are, and that there is a wealth of information out (t)here for the un-schooled to become educated and informed thinkers.
Scarcely anyone alive in Europe or America today believes in the superiority of Western society. Guilt and shame hang around our necks like millstones (and to the political correctness mix, you add carbon footprints and other environmentally correct dogmas), dragging our emasculated culture to the verge of self-immolation. Whatever faults the British Empire-builders may have had, they were certain of themselves.
Our forefathers built a technological civilization based on energy provided by carbon-based fossil fuels. Without the inexpensive and reliable energy provided by coal, oil, and gas, Western Civilization will collapse. This seems to be precisely what the prophets of global warming want.
Alarmists promise that if we stop using carbon-based energy, new energy technologies will magically appear, notwithstanding the laws of physics and chemistry. No, those will be repealed by political (the Political Means, dear reader) will power. We will achieve prosperity by destroying the very means by which prosperity is created. These people are insane and need to be quickly locked away in the asylum and the key thrown away.
While we in the West sit around confused, crippled with self-doubt and guilt (aided and abetted by the alarmists), the Chinese are building out an energy-intensive technological civilization – with a population of 1.3 billion. They have 2,000 coal-fired power plants, and are currently constructing new ones at the rate of one a week. More people there believe in free-market economics than in the US and all of Europe combined. If you believe the Chinese are going to emasculate themselves on the alter of Global Warming hysteria, you do not understand their way of thinking. Go and read Sun Tzu “The Art of War” and you will understand what you are up against. They may give lip-service to carbon emission reductions, to get **you** to do it, but they will not participate in your self-immolation.
If we in the West do not reverse course, our Asian friends are about to be nominated by history as the new torchbearers of human progress, and yes liberty as well. There’s no way they can put the economic genie back in the bottle over there. There’s no way another Mao could arise there today and repeat the mistakes of the 20th Century. Go ahead, self-immolate. Lord Stern notwithstanding, Keynesian economics is dead, is rotting, and stinketh to high heaven, and it’s long past time that it be buried.

By: Pete

Pete — Thu, 07 May 2009 15:28:36 +0000

First David Adam, Bob Ward – and neither engaged with or refuted any of the points made.

If I were one of the Editors, I’d take that as a double compliment: one, that their original words were enough to provoke a response; and two, the response is so pitifully lacking in any substance.

I think many are starting to fear their day in the sun (geddit?) is over.

By: Tabby

Tabby — Thu, 07 May 2009 14:21:10 +0000

Interesting. What I want to know is which bits of this article Bob Ward objects to. He calls it “imaginative” but doesn’t say how, or why any of it is inaccurate. It reads to me as a list of observations about the various interests of various influential environmentalists. It’s Ward’s reliance on ad hom rubbish in his comments here that makes my imagination run wild.

By: Editors

Editors — Thu, 07 May 2009 13:15:02 +0000

It is telling that the former director of communications at the Royal Society, and now the policy and communications director of the Grantham Research Institute can only engage in debate at the level of innuendo and rumour about funding.

What does that say about the Royal Society and the Grantham Research Institute?

We are not going to write anything about our own financial affairs here, other than to say that you couldn’t be more hilariously wrong, Bob. We’ll email you an answer if that makes you feel any better.

By: Bob Ward

Bob Ward — Thu, 07 May 2009 12:47:26 +0000

I didn’t expect you to reveal your sources of financial support, and you didn’t disappoint. Or maybe you really are independently wealthy and don’t need to work for a living. Just like Prince Charles, eh chaps? Pip pip!

By: Editors

Editors — Thu, 07 May 2009 11:48:29 +0000

Bob,

We aren’t able to reveal who our paymasters are because we don’t know.

A spaceship beams down parcels of cash into our backyards once a month, and a mystery voice phones us up every week to tell us which stories we should write. We’ve only managed to catch a glimpse of the flying saucer once, but we didn’t see an Exxon logo on it.

One thing we are sure about is that we make a great deal less cash out of our involvement with the climate debate than you and your associates do.

As with your attempts to demonstrate that Exxon are behind ‘denial’, the implication that we are being funded is just stupid, and lacks any sense of proportion.

You set the terms that you are being criticised by. If you didn’t spend so much time banging on about ‘funding’, we wouldn’t have wondered what kind of commercial interests you and your associates had.

As it happens, it is clear that you and your colleagues have a great deal more cash at your disposal than can be attributed to any oil industry conspiracy to ‘distort’ the perception of ‘the science’.

Moreover, you and your colleagues can be found taking as many liberties with the facts as you have accused Exxon. Our favourite was Bob May claiming that Martin Durkin had produced a three-part series of films denying that HIV causes AIDS. It is, of course, a lie.

By: Bob Ward

Bob Ward — Thu, 07 May 2009 10:44:18 +0000

Dear Ben and Stuart,

Who needs ‘LinkedIn’ when you can have hilarious pages on spoof websites like this devoted to your career! Congratulations on one of the most imaginative attacks on me yet – it ranks alongside ExxonMobil’s attempts to convince Chris Huhne MP that there were question marks over my departure from the Royal Society! (http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.com/pa/cm200506/cmhansrd/vo061012/debtext/61012-0013.htm)

I was hoping to gauge whether I was demonstrably more corrupt than you, but sadly you seem to be a bit shy about revealing the identity of your paymasters. Do tell!