Some Potentially Good News out of Britain

[Scott A. 0]

Despite the onslaught of environmentalist propoganda for the past several decades (or longer), people aren't buying it. See here.

This paragraph particularly caught my attention...

There is growing concern that an economic depression and rising fuel and food prices are denting public interest in environmental issues. Some environmentalists blame the public's doubts on last year's Channel 4 documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle, and on recent books, including one by Lord Lawson, the former Chancellor, that question the consensus on climate change.

I take it the author of the piece doesn't see the relationship of the issue in the second sentence to that of the first.

I think the skepticism exists precisely because people are educating themselves on the relationship between the environmentalist agenda and the economy, in the specific cases of rising fuel and food prices. These are two areas the environmentalists have had a direct and huge impact. Even if one starts with rising fuel and food prices as isolated events and investigates the source of it, he will be led to environmentalism and its political power. The books, television shows, and articles that debunk manmade global warming are helpful to him because they also frequently expose the political agenda and aims of that movement. So, rising prices don't dent public interest in the environment; they increase it.

The environmentalists wanted everyone to focus on and be concerned for the environment. They have achieved that, but we'll see if it turns out to be what they truly desired.

[ewv 0]

I think the skepticism exists precisely because people are educating themselves on the relationship between the environmentalist agenda and the economy, in the specific cases of rising fuel and food prices. These are two areas the environmentalists have had a direct and huge impact. Even if one starts with rising fuel and food prices as isolated events and investigates the source of it, he will be led to environmentalism and its political power. The books, television shows, and articles that debunk manmade global warming are helpful to him because they also frequently expose the political agenda and aims of that movement. So, rising prices don't dent public interest in the environment; they increase it.

The environmentalists wanted everyone to focus on and be concerned for the environment. They have achieved that, but we'll see if it turns out to be what they truly desired.

The viros have been aware of this threat of slowing down their agenda for a long time and are actively engaged in combating it in their campaigns. They are well aware of the books and videos mentioned in this article and are doing everything they can to undermine the credibility of those in their way. They even hire sympathetic economists to tell them how to spin their pitch to make it look like they are helping the economy.

Here is a report on a high level internal strategy conference for viro leaders sponsored by the Environmental Grantmakers Association (EGA) in the early 1990s that I have previously cited on the Forum. Notice how they know very well that they are destroying the economy at the same time they argue amongst themselves on how to promote themselves as pro-people and economics. Their keynote speaker, geneticist and TV "science" personality David Suzuki -- who boasted that he is a friend of Al Gore and that Al Gore agrees with him -- called economics "species chauvinism".

Economics is very important, and no one denies that, but let us understand that economics is a very chauvinistic invention – and I don't mean male chauvinistic, it is a species chauvinistic idea. No other species on earth – and there may be 30 million of them – has had the nerve to put forth a concept called economics, in which one species, us, declares the right to put value on everything else on earth, in the living and non–living world. If we find a use for it, we declare that it has value; if we don't have a use for it, we declare that it's worthless.

... there is no alternative but to begin to rapidly decrease the consumption of our populations... And I've talked to Al Gore about this many, many times, and he understands clearly. He said that when the public understands profoundly the change that's needed, politicians will fall all over themselves to get aboard.

At that time they had not yet hit on the strategy of politicizing the weather in the form of mass hysteria over "climate change", but you can see from your own experience how in the last 15 years they have worked to try to stampede people into "necessary changes" by trying to frighten us to death with the "Globulwarming" campaign.

Vironomics, or –

The Anti-Industrial Revolution vs. "Species Chauvinism"

Land Rights Letter, March 1993

“We have to develop case studies where environmental regulation has in fact created jobs, where it's in fact improved people's lives, because we have a lot of these same kind of stories and we're not just getting them out there,” EGA strategist Debra Callahan said in her proposals to counter “wise use.”

But while the EGA PR strategy includes a “mainstream message” and a publicity campaign using “stories” to make it look like environmentalists care about people, the environmentalist strategy on the economy itself is very different. The economy is not what environmentalists fundamentally care about.

The distinction was illustrated when a representative from the Pew Charitable Trusts, concerned over strategic appeals to “economics”, asked,

“I want to know whether the economic piece in this political battle for the forest is the link that environmentalists have missed ... or whether – I know this would be somewhat controversial to say – whether it represents a sort of last retreat, in an ultimate defeat.”...

Conference participants frequently spoke of “The Transition” – without being very specific about what the “transition” is to. For example, one discussion focused on activism in Montana,

“where there is a tradition of grass roots organizing on the part of the environmental community, with many groups employing field organizers who really know what they're doing. It's a place where there has been some thinking already, that's been going on about the economic future of how to make the transition from a state that is heavily dependent on resource extractive industries to – [pregnant pause] something else. Studies, you know, responsible studies have been done on that.”

What is the “something else”? They don't know.

One funder who had previously been involved in the “peace movement” candidly made it clear that worrying about the economics of “transitions” is a waste of time. “Anyone,” he said,

“who looks at [the economic] conversion, that effort [by the “peace movement”] – with anything other than a romantic eye – sees that it's zilch. It had almost no impact whatsoever. And I think it's not at all dissimilar to what is happening in the environmental areas when non–profit funders, most of whom have no experience with the bottom line, are supporting groups who equally have no experience of ever running a business, managing a business, starting a business, who are gonna go in and advise loggers who have no high school education and are making $40,000 a year, how to convert to being some other kind of economy in the middle of the woods that is gonna produce $15,000 a year at best, and expect that they're gonna embrace it. It's just folly, and on this kind of issue, there [are] times – it happens all the time naturally, where you simply say, it is unacceptable to continue to do that activity, whether it's logging, whether it's a type of polluting, toxic polluting or whatever, you can't do it, and if it means shutting a plant down, or if it means stopping a pulp mill in Sitka or what have you, that's what has to happen. And all of these little plants, the transitions that aren't gonna make these people who have no ability to transition, by and large, to comparable jobs, feel any better. I at least have answered that question for our funding, thinking it's a big, big mistake to go in that direction.”

Another was briefer:

“There are local communities that are going to go over the abyss in the short run.”

And –

“Forks, Washington just cannot continue to exist, the way it has. It's gonna be either a different kind of economy or its not gonna be there.”

If the economy can't be dealt with, perhaps they can buy off the victims, suggested one participant in the forestry session:

“Is there any attempt or usefulness in trying to ratchet up the level of compensation that's spoken about for the timber workers to sort of peel them away from the real, you know the culprits – more the corporations. I'm just wondering if that's just economically impossible or if – Because it doesn't seem as if there are that many timber workers, but they seem to be a very strong political force.”

Answer by the session leader:

“I think it's quite possible. It means taxing, taking back the enormous profits that these corporations have reaped ... And that means in some cases confiscating their assets.”

But the “mainstream message” in the EGA PR won't say that. One participant said their “next set of priorities” is to “fund economists or investment banker type expertise to be added to the staffs” of environmentalist law firms just as they have hired “scientists” in the past. In other words, if they could buy scientists to promote environmental scare campaigns and endangered species legislation to take over the landscape, why not buy economists to sell the idea that the proposals to destroy the economy are in our economic interest?...

Full article

[Go 4 TLI 0]

But there is also bad news. The environmentalists are stridently on the march to solve their PR woes with censorship. A prominent global warming alarmist scientist, James Hansen, gave a speech at the National Press Club today, where along with the usual apocolyptic predictions he had the following to say:

Special interests have blocked the transition to our renewable energy future. Instead of moving heavily into renewable energies, fossil fuel companies choose to spread doubt about global warming, just as tobacco companies discredited the link between smoking and cancer. Methods are sophisticated, including funding to help shape school textbook discussions of global warming.

CEOs of fossil energy companies know what they are doing and are aware of the long-term consequences of continued business as usual. In my opinion, these CEOs should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature.

Link.

A writer at a green website (Grist.org) suggested something similar about a year ago, although he compared global warming dissenters to Holocaust deniers rather than cigarette companies. Due to a wave of indignant comments, he was quickly forced to fake a retraction.

When I first read this story today from the UK's Guardian, it gave the impression that Hansen was going to testify to that effect to Congress. But this story from Fox News stated that he said no such thing in formal testimony, but he had an "informal" (i.e. off the record) meeting with Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., head of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. So he is crafty enough to publicly advance the idea of censorship without doing so on the Congressional Record.

This is a disturbing development.

[Scott A. 0]

But there is also bad news. The environmentalists are stridently on the march to solve their PR woes with censorship. A prominent global warming alarmist scientist, James Hansen, gave a speech at the National Press Club today, where along with the usual apocolyptic predictions he had the following to say:

...

When I first read this story today from the UK's Guardian, it gave the impression that Hansen was going to testify to that effect to Congress. But this story from Fox News stated that he said no such thing in formal testimony, but he had an "informal" (i.e. off the record) meeting with Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., head of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. So he is crafty enough to publicly advance the idea of censorship without doing so on the Congressional Record.

This is a disturbing development.

I agree it is disturbing, but it is also a dropping of facades. It is evil uncloaked, and I believe many people see it and will do something to stop it.

The global warming lunacy will not be forwarded by statements of the absolutely pathetic Jim Hansen. I do not believe that a majority of Americans, or voting Americans, are on his side. Perhaps I'm naive, but I think these people are exposing themselves. It's ugly.

[Go 4 TLI 0]

But there is also bad news. The environmentalists are stridently on the march to solve their PR woes with censorship. A prominent global warming alarmist scientist, James Hansen, gave a speech at the National Press Club today, where along with the usual apocolyptic predictions he had the following to say:

...

When I first read this story today from the UK's Guardian, it gave the impression that Hansen was going to testify to that effect to Congress. But this story from Fox News stated that he said no such thing in formal testimony, but he had an "informal" (i.e. off the record) meeting with Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., head of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. So he is crafty enough to publicly advance the idea of censorship without doing so on the Congressional Record.

This is a disturbing development.

I agree it is disturbing, but it is also a dropping of facades. It is evil uncloaked, and I believe many people see it and will do something to stop it.

The global warming lunacy will not be forwarded by statements of the absolutely pathetic Jim Hansen. I do not believe that a majority of Americans, or voting Americans, are on his side. Perhaps I'm naive, but I think these people are exposing themselves. It's ugly.

There are two ways to look at this.

(1) The viros feel emboldened enough to remove a bit of the facade based on decades of success. That's bad news, and that was the point of my post.

(2) Once in the sunlight, the voting public will see them -- and Hansen in particular -- as the pathetic evil that they are. That's good news, and it is also very likely.

However, there is additional potential bad news here.

First, the method that the viros are using doesn't require the cooperation of the voting public. I have read elsewhere that envrinmental lawyers are already preparing lawsuits similar to the ones used against tobacco companies. They can use judges and, even worse, juries to accomplish what they want the voting public be damned.

Second, I think Hansen is angling for government job which will give him power over which climatologists do or do not receive research dollars. Probably not a cabinet level position, but something like NASA or NOAA administrator. I predict he'll be a shoe-in for such an appointment in an Obama administration. I also wouldn't put it past a McCain administration to make the same appointment in the name of appeasing the Left bipartisanship.

[Scott A. 0]

(1) The viros feel emboldened enough to remove a bit of the facade based on decades of success. That's bad news, and that was the point of my post.

(2) Once in the sunlight, the voting public will see them -- and Hansen in particular -- as the pathetic evil that they are. That's good news, and it is also very likely.

It's possible they feel emboldened. I wonder how much of it is genuine vs. deluded. The poll out of Britain I linked to in the first post suggests the politicians are nervous because of the public's reaction. Also, Rush Limbaugh reported on another poll from a few weeks ago that sampled people across Europe and was apparently unfavorable to the global warming movement (although I haven't seen the story firsthand).

Here in Colorado, there have been commercials on the big talk radio station sponsored by oil companies that point out the harm to humans of proposed environmental legislation that protects certain animals. The ads are not deeply or explicitly philosophical arguments against such legislation, but have an implicit value-judgment regarding man vs. lower animals. It was really quite refreshing to hear, and at least these companies are beginning to defend themselves.

First, the method that the viros are using doesn't require the cooperation of the voting public. I have read elsewhere that envrinmental lawyers are already preparing lawsuits similar to the ones used against tobacco companies. They can use judges and, even worse, juries to accomplish what they want the voting public be damned.

Yes, this is a major problem. However, while I may be wrong, I strongly believe that a point will come when people will simply say no, and show that they are more powerful than an irrational court ruling.

[Go 4 TLI 0]

(1) The viros feel emboldened enough to remove a bit of the facade based on decades of success. That's bad news, and that was the point of my post.

(2) Once in the sunlight, the voting public will see them -- and Hansen in particular -- as the pathetic evil that they are. That's good news, and it is also very likely.

It's possible they feel emboldened. I wonder how much of it is genuine vs. deluded. ...

I'm definitely of the opinion that they are deluded. But being deluded never stopped the likes of the Nazis from doing extraordinary damage before finally being defeated.

First, the method that the viros are using doesn't require the cooperation of the voting public. I have read elsewhere that envrinmental lawyers are already preparing lawsuits similar to the ones used against tobacco companies. They can use judges and, even worse, juries to accomplish what they want the voting public be damned.

Yes, this is a major problem. However, while I may be wrong, I strongly believe that a point will come when people will simply say no, and show that they are more powerful than an irrational court ruling.

But for the people to say no would means they affect lifetime court appointments via legislative representatives who do not yet exist, except in a small majority. Or perhaps they could legislatively overturn bad court rulings like Kelo v. New London like the attempt to reign in Eminent Domain that perished in flames here in California last month?

The time constant in this political equation is long indeed, and time favors the litigators.

[ewv 0]

But there is also bad news. The environmentalists are stridently on the march to solve their PR woes with censorship. A prominent global warming alarmist scientist, James Hansen, gave a speech at the National Press Club today, where along with the usual apocolyptic predictions he had the following to say:

Special interests have blocked the transition to our renewable energy future. Instead of moving heavily into renewable energies, fossil fuel companies choose to spread doubt about global warming, just as tobacco companies discredited the link between smoking and cancer. Methods are sophisticated, including funding to help shape school textbook discussions of global warming.

CEOs of fossil energy companies know what they are doing and are aware of the long-term consequences of continued business as usual. In my opinion, these CEOs should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature.

Link.

A writer at a green website (Grist.org) suggested something similar about a year ago, although he compared global warming dissenters to Holocaust deniers rather than cigarette companies. Due to a wave of indignant comments, he was quickly forced to fake a retraction.

We had an extended discussion of this assault on free speech and freedom of scientific inquiry in Nov. 2006 here on the Forum after two liberal Republican Senators (Rockefeller and Snowe) wrote a threatening letter to ExxonMobile implying they would be subject to litigation and punishment analogous to the Tobacco Wars, if they continued to argue against climate change hysteria or fund groups that do. It made the Wall Street Journal, where it was severly criticized, but there were no retractions.

When I first read this story today from the UK's Guardian, it gave the impression that Hansen was going to testify to that effect to Congress. But this story from Fox News stated that he said no such thing in formal testimony, but he had an "informal" (i.e. off the record) meeting with Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., head of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. So he is crafty enough to publicly advance the idea of censorship without doing so on the Congressional Record.

This is a disturbing development.

Rush Limbaugh had an audio of Hansen from a Senate hearing, but I haven't gone back to listen to it carefully yet. It doesn't make any difference legally whether or not Hansen's statement is in the Congressional Record. The intent was to generate media PR. The political significance is not that Hansen said what he did, but that those who control the Congressional committees are collaborating with his media circus by providing him a highly visible official public platform that the media was sure to pick up on. They are "mainstreaming" more radical ideas. Hansen's press release talking about high crimes against humanity and nature was tied to his appearance in Washington, which gave it more visibility, as intended by all involved. That is the significance of his testimony in Washington -- a platform from which to promote their campaign with what he said there and everything else he is saying that they can tie to it in the media coverage. They talk about things like this amongst themselves all the time and don't need a Congressional hearing to do that. They are using progressively more extreme rhetoric with no particular legal status (yet) in order to further soften people up to the ideas behind it by becoming more accustomed to it as they are exposed to it (whether or not they take it seriously now) and to intimidate their enemies/victims. In the context of the Snowe/Rockefeller letter this theme is clearly a major strategy deliberately adopted by the viro/Congressional leadership.

[ewv 0]

(1) The viros feel emboldened enough to remove a bit of the facade based on decades of success. That's bad news, and that was the point of my post.

(2) Once in the sunlight, the voting public will see them -- and Hansen in particular -- as the pathetic evil that they are. That's good news, and it is also very likely.

It's possible they feel emboldened. I wonder how much of it is genuine vs. deluded. ...

I'm definitely of the opinion that they are deluded. But being deluded never stopped the likes of the Nazis from doing extraordinary damage before finally being defeated.

They may be deluded in many ways, but these are professional political operatives who know what they are doing towards their own goals.

First, the method that the viros are using doesn't require the cooperation of the voting public. I have read elsewhere that envrinmental lawyers are already preparing lawsuits similar to the ones used against tobacco companies. They can use judges and, even worse, juries to accomplish what they want the voting public be damned.

Yes, this is a major problem. However, while I may be wrong, I strongly believe that a point will come when people will simply say no, and show that they are more powerful than an irrational court ruling.

But for the people to say no would means they affect lifetime court appointments via legislative representatives who do not yet exist, except in a small majority. Or perhaps they could legislatively overturn bad court rulings like Kelo v. New London like the attempt to reign in Eminent Domain that perished in flames here in California last month?

The time constant in this political equation is long indeed, and time favors the litigators.

The viros have for decades implemented a strategy of "3 L's": lobby, legislate, litigate. What they don't get in legislation at first they often add through litigation before sympathetic judges. They have enormous resources to spend on doing just that in order to strangle and suffocate their victims over time, in what the Sierra Club once called "ceaseless pressure ceaselessly applied".

There have been very few meaningful state reforms pushing back against the Kelo decision. Federal legislation has been completely blocked in the Senate under both Democrats and Republicans. It may be theoretically possible in principle to overturn bad court decisions but in practice it takes enormous resources fighting against enormous odds. It takes a lot more than people "saying no" as they are picked off one at a time by an entrenched political and legal system. At the level of popular resistance it takes an enormous uprising -- rarely seen -- by ordinary people still trying to go about their own business to take care of their own lives as more victims are knocked off in a divide and conquer scenario. Whatever "reform" may appear to be attained is usually mostly appearance as the government interests ride out the storm and wait until people go back to their lives. This kind of protest may temporarily slow them down and can buy time or save some particular individuals, but it is not enough to reverse the statist trend.

[ewv 0]

Second, I think Hansen is angling for government job which will give him power over which climatologists do or do not receive research dollars. Probably not a cabinet level position, but something like NASA or NOAA administrator. I predict he'll be a shoe-in for such an appointment in an Obama administration. I also wouldn't put it past a McCain administration to make the same appointment in the name of appeasing the Left bipartisanship.

It doesn't make any difference whether or not Hansen gets such a job because there are thousands more, just like him, available to do the same thing, mostly with less public visibility stirring up controversy in a largely ignorant populace. Hansen is serving his function as circus barker and propogandist whether or not he ever again does anything else inside government.

[Tito 0]

If you want to see the epitome of the evil behind the environmentalist movement, check out Paul Flynne's comments. He is a British member of parliament.

Global warming deniers have undermined well-founded public alarm on Global Warming. Panic is our only hope. Channel Four and Nigel Lawson have pushed the seductive message of comfort and reassurance that Global warming is not happening.

...

It’s bunkum, but the weak long for happy delusions that will ease their worries. Confronted by the loud-mouthed environmental ignoramus brigade of fuel gluttons and macho poseurs, British politicians' green convictions are wilting. Today's Observer poll suggests that six out ten

Britons are not convinced that global warming is the supremely vital issue.

The public fear must be cranked up again.

[Nicolaus Nemeth 0]

I have to add my two cents. I believe that the whole Viro movement is on its way out. Why do I think that?

1) The whole thing was at its loudest this past winter and spring. The green thing was everywhere. I see this as a sort of scream as its dies. I've already seen a marked decline in Viro propaganda. I would have to agree that their becoming more explicit is an angry attempt to regain a dying spotlight.

2) More and more evidence is coming out that the general population doesn't buy the hype, and that if they do they are unwilling to do much about it (besides buy "green" products which is really just a rationalization to be a snob).

3) Cap and Trade was significantly defeated before coming to a vote in the Senate recently.

4) There is serious talk of opening back up oil reserves in the US.

5) This past winter and spring was decidedly cold. This weather gave experiential knowledge to everybody who wanted it that global warming is nothing more than hype and there is no climate crisis.

6) Americans are tasting just what would be an effect of Green legislation with the recent economic downturn. Given this taste, we've decided that economic downturns or even small decreases in our standard of living are intolerable! Americans are so used to living in opulence that they're not going to give it up for a sketchy idea that only a few (according to those polls) really even believe anyway.

7) I believe in Americans. I believe that we are mostly good people and won't let something like Environmentalism happen to us. Ayn Rand once asked us to not let our sense of life go, and we haven't yet. Viros (or Christians, or Muslims, or Socialists) won't win until we do.

[bborg 0]

I have to add my two cents. I believe that the whole Viro movement is on its way out. Why do I think that?

First of all, I don't think you can trust the day-to-day as a sign of long-term trends. Environmentalists have to use a lot of deception to sell their ideas, so I don't think you can take their actions at face value. What we do know is these are vicious man haters who are not going to stop because a few people object to their policies. I won't believe they're on their way out until government gets out of bed with them.

That brings me to the second point. I also have read polls that people aren't convinced of global warming, but don't make the mistake of confusing global warming and environmentalism. This is just one of many projects they have taken up in order to gain power. And this crap is being taught in schools, so we have a new generation of drones growing up, ready to accept anything in the name of saving the environment. Notice also that for the most part, opposition is to the "science", not to the morality. And it's important to note that viros have learned how to evade blame and even pin the destruction their policies cause on capitalism. For example, they create a resource shortage through wilderness protection laws and then blame the results on "overconsumption" and tell us we have to start conserving. Global warming is becoming "climate change". Yes, the last winter was very cold, but do you hear any about that anymore? The IPCC announced that we will not be facing a warming trend for the next decade, but do you hear anything about that? They can adapt to practical objections by changing the terms or just ignoring the evidence. So to sum that up, 1) viros work on multiple fronts, 2) they got to the future generation, which means a lot more activists coming up, and 3) practical objections don't work.

As far as the American sense of life, this is not a static thing and will not save us against an explicitly altruistic culture. I've talked to people, as I'm sure others here have, whose objection to oil prices is "profit". You can argue that government has restricted supply, loaded the product with taxes and inflated the money supply, but what their argument boils down to is that the "Big Oil" execs should be held accountable because they're making money. Nobody talks about the governments revenues from taxes, they attack the earned wealth of the private businessmen. How is that for sense of life?

Don't get me wrong, I love that there is growing opposition, and I think there's going to be a real clash of ideas in the not too distant future. But until that happens, I think we can expect to see a lot of the same.

[bborg 0]

The IPCC announced that we will not be facing a warming trend for the next decade, but do you hear anything about that?

By the way, this was not to give the IPCC any scientific credibility, but to point out that even when their own sources refute their claims, viros remain undeterred. And you notice, the media completely ignored the report.

[Scott A. 0]

This is definitely a topic that, unfortunately, has many years ahead of it, and it is impossible to know what will happen over that time. I don't think we're doomed, as some seem to suggest. It's hard to stay positive when most of the news on this subject is bad. But this is why I thought it appropriate to call attention to some potentially good news. I suspect there is more of it out there than is reported. No doubt others could line up 20 articles of bad news to this one article of good news. Nevertheless, I'm choosing to focus on the good and let it motivate me.

[Betsy Speicher 0]

No doubt others could line up 20 articles of bad news to this one article of good news.

That is probably true, but that's no indication that things are twenty times as bad. Being unusual makes something news, and the good is so commonplace that people take it for granted and don't think it worthy of mention or special note. Also, the Mainstream Media (MSM), run by aging New Leftist hippies, is more interested in making things look bad and pushing a Leftist agenda as a path to gaining political power.

I think it is a good sign that the public is getting wise and not buying their newspapers, magazines, and ideas with the result that the MSM are on the verge of financial and intellectual bankruptcy.

[Scott A. 0]

No doubt others could line up 20 articles of bad news to this one article of good news.

That is probably true, but that's no indication that things are twenty times as bad.

Yes, that's why I wrote that I suspect there is plenty of good news out there that isn't reported. I agree with all the reasons you gave for why there is the heavily slanted reporting.

[Go 4 TLI 0]

I suppose I could have started a new thread rather than insert my initial post here. I will be the first to admit to thinking the glass is half empty, but my intent was not to be contrarian or pessimistic.

Betsy likes to say that because reality is on our side we will win in the long run, and I agree with her. But that applies as long as we -- and everybody -- are free to express good ideas and counter environmentalism and other evils. The viros have taken their first steps toward censorship and joined the religious Right and the multiculturalists. That is why I posted this. Not to point out the latest defeat in the latest skirmish in what has been and will be a long war, but to point out what I see as a new tactic started by an enemy.

[Stussy88 0]

The IPCC announced that we will not be facing a warming trend for the next decade, but do you hear anything about that?

By the way, this was not to give the IPCC any scientific credibility, but to point out that even when their own sources refute their claims, viros remain undeterred. And you notice, the media completely ignored the report.

This is most interesting, can you cite the souce so I can look at it?

[bborg 0]

This is most interesting, can you cite the souce so I can look at it?

Actually, I'm afraid this was a case of "telephone". I remembered something incorrectly. It was not a report, but comments made by Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC head. I had seen mentions of this from a couple sources, including where John Coleman wrote that "The cooling trend is so strong that recently the head of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had to acknowledge it. He speculated that nature has temporarily overwhelmed mankind’s warming and it may be ten years or so before the warming returns."

I did a little searching and found the following, from Reuters:

Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the U.N. Panel that shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, said he would look into the apparent temperature plateau so far this century.

"One would really have to see on the basis of some analysis what this really represents," he told Reuters, adding "are there natural factors compensating?" for increases in greenhouse gases from human activities.

He added that skeptics about a human role in climate change delighted in hints that temperatures might not be rising. "There are some people who would want to find every single excuse to say that this is all hogwash," he said.

So what it amounts to is that the IPCC head was confronted with the facts and got defensive, claiming he would "look into it". Sorry about the misleading statement, I should have double-checked that first.

[Nicolaus Nemeth 0]

First of all, I don't think you can trust the day-to-day as a sign of long-term trends.

What is a long term trend other than a series of day-to-day events? I have only just begun to think that the viros are on their way out and I listed most of the long string of the day-to-day that has proven to me the long term trend.

[bborg 0]

What is a long term trend other than a series of day-to-day events? I have only just begun to think that the viros are on their way out and I listed most of the long string of the day-to-day that has proven to me the long term trend.

You mentioned the fact that environmentalists were very loud last winter and spring, and speculated that this was a scream as the movement dies. I took this evaluation as based on your observations that opposition to environmental regulations has grown stronger. However, you are not seeing that we have two presidential candidates who both stand firmly behind the global warming scam, and despite all the talk about oil drilling nothing has happened yet. In fact, in another thread Thales mentioned a bill passed in December making it illegal to develop oil shale. If you remember also, the polar bear was declared endangered even though populations have not decreased, reasserting the environmentalist foothold in Alaska. And just based on my own experience, I am not confident that the average American understands what is and is not a result of green legislation. It's more popular to blame businessmen, for not making bad policies work. "You'll find a way, Mr. Rearden." The problem is that people haven't woken up to the fact that these policies are not just impractical, they're evil. Until they do, we can expect more of the same.

The evidence you provided suggests that there is some healthy resistance and even a reason to be optimistic, but it is far from proof that environmentalism is on its way out.