Relax everybody, NBR editor Nevil Gibson has conducted extensive research (read the Wall Street Journal), and discovered that we really don’t need to worry about climate change any more. In an astonishing “editor’s insight” this week, headed No worries: Climate change debate goes nowhere fast, he writes:
In the past year or so since you last worried about it, the climate change debate has moved on. In fact, it is in danger of extinction as the scientific “consensus†disappears and international agencies and governments backpedal on draconian measures to stamp out use of carbon.
Gibson repeats some of the arguments used by a WSJ columnist to support this view, including mention of the shonky (and repeatedly debunked) “700 scientist” list promoted by Senate denier James Inhofe, and then quotes the WSJ verbatim:
Peer-reviewed research has debunked doomsday scenarios about the polar ice caps, hurricanes, malaria, extinctions, rising oceans. A global financial crisis has politicians taking a harder look at the science that would require them to hamstring their economies to rein in carbon.
Oh really? This is counterfactual, an invention, an ideologically-inspired attempt to mislead, misdirect and misinform, and I’m being polite. The peer-reviewed research, as handily summarised in the Copenhagen synthesis report so extensively covered at Hot Topic (and see also RealClimate), shows that far from being debunked, “doomsday scenarios” are looking more likely than ever. Worse, if the business world that Gibson seeks to inform believes what he writes, then doomsday scenarios will be assured.
New Zealand’s business community does not need ideologically-inspired excuses for inaction, it needs clear-sighted assessment of the real risks (and opportunities) that climate change brings. Sadly, Nevil Gibson prefers to repeat nonsense from US ideologues. If that’s the quality of the “insight” he offers, then perhaps the NBR needs a new editor.
The utter ignorance of this sort of comment from people who one assumes are well educated is presumably a sign of how sadly their education is lacking when it comes to science and how little they have done to make up for that. It sounds as if Richard Holmes’ recent comment is apposite here. It is still something of a shock though to see such nonsense from a journalist of this standing, embarrassing in fact. I haven’t seen the National Business Review for years, but I recall a time when I had some respect for the quality of its writing.
I notice that most of the articles claiming victory for global warming… skeptics… er… sounds too much like they have a point… denialists …that are getting play are printed in business magazines.
I thank them for their new-found expertise and methods of explaining, honestly, the meaning of science. Now I know who to trust when making important economic decisions… right, the same guys who told me that the price of oil – and real estate – was going to continue to climb forever…
Never mind. Just feeling testy.
As far as I can see, it’s all part of US-based effort by the usual suspects (Heartland, CEI etc) to try to undermine Waxman-Markey. Since the average Congressman seems to know little and understand less about climate ( to judge by Krugman’s comments), a PR war obviously stands some chance of being effective. And that’s what it is — it’s nothing to do with reality, it’s all about perceptions, and managing a narrow set of political objectives. Try watching some of the last Heartland conference videos (here): Inhofe’s talk is quite instructive, in many respects.
Just had a look.
As Singer said in his video, “It isn’t about the climate, it’s about the money.” I had to play it again, after looking him up at SourceWatch – nope. Not a hint of irony.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=S._Fred_Singer
Inhofe’s line to the conference was something like “don’t worry about Congress, it’ll never get through Senate”… so we shouldn’t expect this flurry of misinformation to die down any time soon.
I wonder if Nevil Gibsom reads the weekend Herald ? Perhaps just the business pages. Anyway, what’s a professor or two against a WSJ columnist?
Have you read Richard Haass of the Council Of Foreign Relations comment’s Gareth? They expose that “global warming” was invented to enable the global elite to tax everyone. Please verify what I am stating for yourself.
Haass wrote:
“In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill,†the book states. “All these dangers are caused by human intervention,†and thus the “real enemy, then, is humanity itself.â€
Richard Haass, the current president of the Council on Foreign Relations, expanded on this topic in his article, State sovereignty must be altered in globalized era. According to Haass, a system of world government must be created and sovereignty eliminated in order to fight global warming and terrorism, both INVENTED as the Club of Rome suggested.
“Some governments are prepared to give up elements of sovereignty to address the threat of global climate change,†writes Haass. “The goal should be to redefine sovereignty for the era of globalization, to find a balance between a world of fully sovereign states and an international system of either world government or anarchy.â€
Also, have a look at the Iron Mountain Report -1966.
The purpose of the study was to analyze methods by which a government can perpetuate itself in power. The authors concluded that, in the past, war has been the only reliable means to achieve that goal. Under world government, however, war would be impossible so the challenge was to find other methods for controlling populations and keeping them loyal to their leaders. It concluded that a suitable substitute for war would require a new enemy which posed a frightful threat to survival. Neither the threat nor the enemy had to be real, they merely had to be believable. Several surrogates for war were considered, including a staged space-alien invasion, but the only one holding real promise was the environmental pollution model. This was viewed as the most likely to succeed because firstly, it could be related to observable conditions such as smog and water pollution – in other words, it would be based partly on fact and, therefore, believable. Secondly, predictions could be made showing end-of-earth scenarios just as horrible as atomic warfare. Accuracy in these predictions would not be important. Their purpose would be to frighten, not to inform. Not only does the environmental pollution model justify expansive and authoritarian government, it also requires citizens to impoverish themselves thereby widening the gap between leaders and followers.
Refer:
http://www.policestateplanning.com/chapter_7.htm
Clare:
What Laurence said.
Duh.
— bi
A clear case of Swinney flu if ever I saw one.
From Clare Swinney’s submission to the 2008 ETS Select Committee:
“I oppose this bill in its entirety because it is founded on a fraud that has been manufactured for fascist political purposes. Proponents of the New World Order are behind this as they wish to bring in a one world government under the guise of saving the planet. In reality they want to implement UN Agenda 21 under which not only will we have no property rights, but we will be treated as nothing more than mere contaminants.”
nuff said.
Thought I’d try and ‘verify’ Ms Swinney’s claims for myself using this passage as an example:
“Haass wrote:
“In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill,†the book states. “All these dangers are caused by human intervention,†and thus the “real enemy, then, is humanity itself.—
2 things I could verify:
1 – Haass didn’t write these words – it is a quote from a 1991 book entitled ‘The First Global Revolution’ by Alexander King and Bertrand Schneider, members of of the elite think tank ‘The Club of Rome’. One should stress that the book consists of debates and hypotheses by scientists, politicians and the like regarding possible developments towards a more integrated global society, rather than ‘the explicit admission by a cabal of evil internationalists of their plans for world domination’ which is how Ms Swinney obviously intends such information to be interpreted. But then the Illuminati do like to taunt us snivelling wretches by dangling their secret plans in front of us in clear view. Why else would such a scheme be puslished by a mainstream press? (New York, Pantheon, 1991). Good to see Ms Swinney adheres to high standards of research in basic matters such as the attribution of quotes.
2 – the bulk of the websites that featured this quote were all (unsurprisingly) expressions of American far right patriot/fundie thought (global warming and environmentalism are scams by the Zionist Communist Illuminati to take over America and enslave the world!): their exegesis of the quote (as usual) consisting of cross-references to other far-right conspiracy sites.
Oh – and Clare – the ‘Report from Iron Mountain’ was a hippy satire on the US Cold War mentality aka ‘Dr Strangelove’. It’s got about as much credibility as the ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion’.