Call me fussy. James Lovelock — the GAIA man himself — is calling it as he sees it, and good on him. Bravo. I’m just a little underwhelmed with the reasoning. Hat tip to Bishop Hill, Phillip Bratby and Barry Woods.
Some things are spectacular:
I am an environmentalist and founder member of the Greens but I bow my head in shame at the thought that our original good intentions should have been so misunderstood and misapplied. We never intended a fundamentalist Green movement that rejected all energy sources other than renewable, nor did we expect the Greens to cast aside our priceless ecological heritage because of their failure to understand that the needs of the Earth are not separable from human needs. We need take care that the spinning windmills do not become like the statues on Easter Island, monuments of a failed civilisation.
Others are not:
…there is little doubt among scientists… that the burning of fossil fuels is by far the most dangerous source of energy. … we are changing the composition of the air in a way that will have profoundly adverse effects on the Earth’s ecology and on ourselves.
So Lovelock still thinks CO2 is a dangerous thing despite it also being food for life on Earth. Is getting energy from inanimate rocks really far worse than chopping down rainforest to plant a biofuel crop? Is is worse than feeding corn to cars instead of to hungry people?
He thinks windmills might become monuments of a failed civilization but at the same time thinks that this particular windmill might be less civilization-destroying if it were placed somewhere less sensitive. He reasons that a wind tower might make this special spot in North Devon “vulnerable to urban development and unsustainable farming” — as if farmers and land developers are on the lookout for space under 80m thrashing turbines.
Clash of the pointless symbols?
Lovelock admits that anything the UK does about energy is “mainly to set a good example”. That’s also the way he sees North Devon: It’s a good example of sustainable living. But having two good green examples in the one place doesn’t make for an ideal life, instead it makes for “industrial vandalism”. Oh.
Is there a better way to explain to anyone how green ideals just don’t add up?
(Surely he is not a NIMBY?)
How cynical is the windfarm “environmentalism”?
Phillip Bratby in comments tells us the environmental firm could have made the windmill bigger but it is designed not to maximise the electricity it will produce, but the subsidy it will receive (thanks to Barry Woods for the pointer).
James Lovelock’s letter is an objection to a single 84m to blade tip wind turbine, applied for by Ecotricity, the company founded by hippie Dale Vince, to trash the countryside with wind turbines, whilst making himself huge personal wealth at the expense of electricity consumers. It is described as a medium sized turbine (equivalent in height to a 28 storey office block). It would be one of those turbines deliberately produced with a maximum output of 500kW to get the maximum subsidy from the Feed-in-Tariff banding. Turbines of the same physical size are available with a greater output, but that would mean Ecotricity would produce more electricity but get less income. Cynical does not come into it! Unfortunately the planning system does not seem to care about such issues.
Jan 26, 2013 at 9:27 AM |Phillip Bratby
At last, someone gets it.
May he become a powerful voice in the environmental movement. 🙂
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The “someone you agree with” write:
Jo neglected to include this bit.
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WRONG – Nice One
Read and Comprehend – its in the post above.
“…there is little doubt among scientists… that the burning of fossil fuels is by far the most dangerous source of energy. … we are changing the composition of the air in a way that will have profoundly adverse effects on the Earth’s ecology and on ourselves.”
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Nice One
Yes he said that but in an April 23 2012 article he also said this :
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Nice One of SkS … here’s what Bob Tisdale has recently said of your GAIA Bible:
It would not be difficult to extrapolate that the rest of SkS is equally cartoon shite. But we know that already.
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OK, let’s compromise — I vote for expanding nuclear electricity production.
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Well, nuclear power, especially for OZ, would be wonderful;) But people are not rational about radiation scare, radiation safety, etc. After decades of Soviet-fed propaganda of “atomic war mutants”, two-headed goats of Chernobyl, etc., you read today about “meltdown” at Fukushima…
Nobody died there, nobody got radiation sickness, but German government cancelled their whole nuclear power station program… I’m not saying radiation is good for you (as CO2;)), it is just that fully grown humans (and their reproductive system) are much more resistant to radiation, than it was thought.
As for nuclear power – it is mature technology, not less safe than other methods of electricity production. Australia has its own uranium, has places where safely deposit very small amount of radioactive waste and is tectonically stable in order to do so. I’m against burning coal, not because CO2, because of C13, and C14, which make coal station ashes dangerous.
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By the way, Nice One, I am still waiting for you to present the empirical evidence (not man-made models) that show the causal link between CO2 and global climate.
It is starting to look like you can’t produce it. Are you really all mouth and no trousers?
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Stillwaiting for your calcs of attribution. The models use physics including the known radiative property of GHGs. Up to you to prove that worng.
All talk, bugger all attribution calcs. That’s something you guys really suck at!
01
Nope, not letting you get away with that. The models have never been published (what are you guys trying to hide, one wonders?). We are still awaiting you guys to release your methods and calculations for general review.
So I have never committed to supplying anything, but I am waiting for you to back your assertions with some empirical evidence.
And sorry, models are not evidence because all they can do is to calculate the results of predefined algorithms. If the wrong algorithms are used, you will get the wrong answers.
Even if the answers look “right”, compared with your pet theory du jour, you can claim to have a correlation, but you still cannot demonstrate causation.
The best that models can do is to point you to the things that you don’t yet know that you don’t know. So they are useful tools. But they can never be proof. In most jurisdictions, models are not acceptable as evidence in a court of law.
Models are to empriical science, as Computer Games are to real life. Perhaps you are challenged by that concept?
30
NO has his foot in his mouth again.
Poor old Lovelock; in his heart he wants his Gaia to be real, mummy earth looking after her errand human children, but in his mind the scientific part of him knows he needs to grow up; the inconsistent, illogical tosh he comes out with is the product of this internal conflict; which mirrors the conflict between the greens and the rest of us; the greens are the children, dangerous because they now control society, the rest of humanity the adults who have been derelict in letting the children gain control.
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It does make me wonder sometimes how those lovers of mother nature remain blind to the fact that she is indeed a heartless b!tch. She doesn’t care. She just does.
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Nature, whether you call it a mother or anything else, is an inherently stable system that has developed to self regulate and to deal with the worst excesses, before they get out of hand. It doesn’t need the Greens, indeed they are just sounding like mummy’s boys, and nature will sort them out too, though not necessarily on a human scale.
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It’s taken James Lovelock until the age of 93 to develop some perspective on his extemist views.
What does this say about the logical mind?
20
Power in the hands of the young, because they have the acumen & familiarity to use the technology, and the strength to shout about it, yet lack the perspective to handle it
Logic without perspective is like, well, Greens running the economy or would be just emotion ?
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Peter Garrett (ex lead singer of Midnight Oil, now a Minister in the Labour Government of Australia) … Has also become a powerful voice in the environmental movement….
The Australian Government and the NSW Forestry Service were presenting an alternative
to NSW sheep farmers for controlling the dingo population. It seems that after years of the sheep farmers using the tried and tested methods of shooting and/or trapping the predators, the Labour Government (Peter Garrett – Environmental Minister), the NSW Forestry Service and the Greens tree-huggers had a ‘more humane’ solution.
What they proposed was for the animals to be captured alive, the males would then be
castrated and, wait for it, let loose again. Therefore, the dingo population would be
‘controlled’. This was ACTUALLY proposed to the NSW Sheep Farmers Association.
All of the sheep farmers thought about this ‘amazing’ idea for a couple of minutes.
Finally, one of the old boys in the back of the conference room stood up, tipped his hat back and said, ‘Mr Garrett, son, I don’t think you understand our problem, the dingo’s aren’t shagging our sheep, they’re eating them.’
You should have been there to hear the roar of laughter as Mr Peter Garrett and the members of the NSW Forestry Service, the Greens and the other ‘tree huggers’ left the meeting ‘very sheepishly’.
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Cross-posted at Bishop Hill.
For an alternative view to Lovelock’s regarding the effect of fossil fuels on “Earth’s ecology and on ourselves” check out Humanity Unbound: How Fossil Fuels Saved Humanity from Nature and Nature from Humanity, a recent report published by the Cato Institute, Washington, DC. A brief 2-part summary is also available at MasterResource. Part II, which deals with how fossil fuels saved nature from humanity, is here. Part I, which deals with how humanity escaped nature’s Malthusian trap is there.
Lovelock also seems to suffer from a bout of cognitive dissonance. Despite being “the originator of Gaia theory, a view of the Earth that sees it as a self-regulating entity that keeps the surface environment always fit for life,” he seems to have little faith in the earth’s “self-regulating” capacity to adjust/adapt to climate changes, particularly considering the lack of evidence that these changes don’t seem to be anything that the it hasn’t experienced before.
Ye, of little faith!
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Blogs need to adopt one of those little ‘emotes’ (yellow faced emoticons) as a sarcastic and/or cynical symbol and make it very easy to add to a comment, perhaps both leading and following in the manner of quote marks.
If the one after comment #1 has been accepted as such a blog tool, I have not noticed. That one does not convey a sense of “sarcastic.”
Bog artists – please get busy.
Joanne, can you do a request type post and a poll?
00
As a graphic, one eyebrow raised? Rotated tilde for the mouth? Wouldn’t work in ASCII though.
My view of Lovelock’s comments is ‘one step forward one step back’.
And putting windmills in “less sensitive” places means they work even less efficiently.
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We progress by many small steps forward and in spite of some huge steps backward.
Progress is being able to prevail in spite of the grand ideas whose implementation slows progress enormously.
00
Something like 😕 ?
That was done by typing a colon – hyphen – question mark, as a contiguous string
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Thank you, Rereke. Old dogs can still learn new tricks. 😕
Remember to leave a space in front of all these little emoticons or make them the first thing on a line. Otherwise they aren’t recognized correctly.:-? It took me a little time to realize this was the reason they weren’t working for me.
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.. ore maybe 😈 (“twisted” between two colons) or 😛 (“razz” between to colons) 👿 (“evil” between colons)
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… or maybe 😈 (“twisted” between two colons) or 😛 (“razz” between to colons) 👿 (“evil” between colons)
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John,
About #1: I had not intended to be sarcastic so much as I intended to be controversial to spark whatever debate would follow. I do that now and then. Had I known about 😕 I’m not sure I would have used it.
Roy
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Also, sometimes I think sarcasm should stand on its own without anyone needing to be told it’s sarcasm.
Just my opinion for whatever it’s worth.
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Give Prof. Lovelock at least one cheer. He’s come a long way from uncritical Gaia worship and is actually beginning to realise the unintended consequence of his earlier position.
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consequences
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ONLY if they affect him !!
20
Master Resource did a detailed analysis of the economics of wind power, concluding: “wind plant implementations cannot be sustained because they divert a large portion of national wealth into unproductive debt-laden investments.”
I added: Exactly. Look at Europe, on the verge bankruptcy after spending huge amounts of money on heavily-subsidized green energy. So, when the Democrats [in the US] passed their cap & trade bill in the House in 2009 that mandated insane 83% CO2 cuts by 2050, if the bill had made it to Obama, we wouldn’t have seen wind and other fanciful green energies making up more than an iota of this lost energy. Our country, already in a fiscal mess, could not maintain such wasteful spending.
Moreover, as far as the full cost to society of wind power, consider also the documented health problems and loss in property values in the vicinity of the eyesore windmill farms.
I often hear that “someday” green energy and wind will be economically viable, so we should subsidize it now. No, when someday comes, then go ahead and produce windmills. Actually, don’t. It is a hazard to the birds. Specifically, to raptors. No joke. It’s killing these birds by the thousands, including the Bald Eagle. Stop it.
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For me this is quote of the year and then some.
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There are plenty of greens who do not care if civilization fails, and there are plenty of greens who hope that civilisation fails.
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“there are plenty of greens who hope that civilisation fails.”
This would bring everyone else down to their level.
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Greenies have done so much damage to the UK economy with their unfounded theories and beliefs on ‘global warming’.
The UK’s countryside (like many others) is infested with these ugly, noisy, inefficient, unreliable and expensive monuments to bad science, greenie stupidity, gullible politicians and greedy investors.
Lovelock’s statements read like a fraudster who has broken the 11th commandment of: “Thou shalt not be found out.”
So no sympathy, if you peddle green stupidity, you should be made to live with the consequences – like in a tent in northern Mali – live the joys of a Stone Age lifestyle surrounded by creatures who do not have your best interests at heart.
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Clearly 97% of ‘scientists were WRONG
20
Yeah – all 27 of them. 🙂
10
James Lovelock has been very inconsistent in his statements about the effect of CO2. In April last year he said
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And here is an excellent article from June last year, entitled ‘One-Time Alarmist James Lovelock Recants A Bit On Global Warming’.
http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/062512-616091-gaia-creator-says-global-warming-alarmism-gone-too-far.htm#ixzz2J6wLpkpS
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Lovelock doesn’t recant at all.
Lovelock restates his and the early environmentalists’ position of Man living with Nature. He says that we must work within the self-sustaining biosphere of Earth, recognizing that when we throw off kilter on portion it comes back to smack us (and the rest of the biosphere). What he does, importantly, is restate a rejection of a retreat to the Eden of pre-Man. He recognizes that humans are the primary consideration and need significant sources of energy beyond that of the warmth from sunshine. Nuclear power is perhaps regrettable in its collateral damage – the “dark Satanic mills” – but if the negatives are managed and kept to a minimum (locally), it is a better solution to our needs than fossil fuels.
Lovelock is alarmed by anthropogenic CO2 now as he was then. Changing the atmosphere is changing the “natural” harmony. However, the “natural” is not pre-Man: Lovelock sees the early 20th century Britain, with its completely Man-manufactured and -managed hedgerows and pastures as a wonderful thing. In principle he would like to all non-human lives to have equal rights to Man, but in practice he recognizes that they do not, shall not and cannot in a world where humans are the principal life of concern. But he says we need to disturb the world as minimally as reasonable – not possible, note – because our fate is tied up in the fate of the fate of all.
Lovelock is against the windfarms because they extend industrialization to areas that are unnecessary. They increase our “footprint” on nature as do nuclear power plants, but they do it excessively and, most importantly, unnecessarily. Environmentalism in the Lovelock way is not rejectionist of technology, but wary, looking to the whole picture and not just either the benefits or the drawbacks.
There are few of us who wouldn’t recommend moving away from the fossil fuel diet, even those (like me) who work in the industry. Coal, oil and gas are fabulous for many things, but they are an increasingly more expensive energy source. Disregard the news about abundant oil in shaley basins in North Dakota, Cumberland or central Australia showing how our energy sources are not going away, so don’t worry: the only reason those are being tapped is because they are more expensive, i.e. more technologically difficult, to obtain.
The future is not dark, but the light is expensive. Shale gas in the continental United States is cheap because it is being sold under the production price because there is a glut, and you can’t/don’t want to shut-in producing reserves. Oil production comes with gas production, also: some gas you can’t shut off, though in former times we simply burned it (flared it). Not allowed to do so anymore: we have to capture it, transport it and either sell it (preferred) or store it in the ground (which costs).
Economic oil production in North Dakota is said to be around $60/bbl, which is probably a piece of “misinformation” for shareholders’ purposes; the real number is somewhere around $80/bbl. With shale gas, the real number is around $5/mcf (you have to take in the marginal areas you develop, not just the core). This truth exists in Britain and Australia: the gas and oil you get will cost more to produce, let alone sell, than the stuff you currently burn in your home furnace or Smart-for-Two cars. That is why it is still there – if it were as cheap to produce as the hydrocarbons you already consume, do you think nobody would have gone after it before?
Which means that oil and gas – and coal, as we went after the easiest reserves first – are, in fact, diminishing if you think of a resource plentiness as a function of how many hours of your labour required to get it. Cost is a very good description of how bountiful something is. The fact that you ignored the reserves before does not mean you didn’t know about them, but that pragmatism meant that you didn’t talk about what you couldn’t get. (Similarly, gold is everywhere, if you consider the amount in seawater. But you wouldn’t say it was available until someone can up with a scheme to pull it out of the oceans at an economically viable price, which it would be if gold were worth $3000/oz.).
We need to move away from fossil fuels as an energy source that we rely on because it is a non-renewable material that has a very specific and short lifespan at a specific cost. In the future we wish to move and heat and cool without devoting all of our disposable earnings to them. We do not want to “make do”, we want to “get ahead”. But coal and oil and gas have specific, good functions that, with proper management, they can still be counted on to do in the years to come.
Lovelock is not saying that CAGW is a crock, or that more CO2 is good, or that solar and wind are bad per se. He is saying that we need to manage living in this world reasonably, neither fouling our nests because we can, nor leaving all the doors open because nature made the wind to blow through things. He is saying, live smarter, not necessarily softer.
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Using fossil fuels wisely and more efficiently is a no brainier, I think all of us agree with that concept.
The principal fallacy in green energy is we have only very limited and inefficient ways of storing it.
The cost of renewables, through technological improvements, would eventually fall to levels competitive with conventional energy sources, but only if you could store that power.
The age of cheap energy is over, we have to become better/more efficient at using the abundant, more expensive, types such as oil and gas shales.
The fallacious subject of rising carbon dioxide levels causing runaway CAGW has resulted in huge distortions in energy prices, which have caused huge damage to western economies.
The transition to more efficient use of energy production has been hijacked by the greenies, thereby delaying this desirable gold and at a huge cost. Not surprisingly, green has come to mean goofy.
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True, but with energy resources this brings about Jevons Paradox, where increased efficiency reduces overall cost of energy production and leads to increased consumption as less financially viable industries become more viable due to the reduction in input costs.
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I would not entirely agree with the statement.
There are two dimensions to fossil fuels efficiently. The first is the engineering sense and the second is the economic sense, which is the means of creating the greatest quality of life for the least cost. It is the economic sense that I subscribe to and not the engineering one. Some example.
How do you gain the most efficient transport in a large city?
For engineering efficiency, fuel use is minimized by subsidized public transport, and congestion charging for cars. For economic efficiency, in my home city of Manchester, it is minimizing the time spent travelling and minimizing the discomfort. From my point of view, that is spending the least possible time in the cold and wet as possible. So a comfortable car, which gets me from home to work in half the time of public transport and saves being out in the elements for 30 minutes a day, is my economically preferred mode of transport.
That is not to say there should not be constraints. One should minimize the externalities. That is to drive with consideration of others (particularly the cyclists who battle through the snow and wind), and to make sure my chugging diesel car is not spewing out black smoke.
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But we in Australia unwisely allow the LPG that cannot be stored, sold locally or exported to be burnt off to atmosphere, it makes no sense. To start with all government fleet Australian made, as they should be given the subsidies from taxpayers to produce them, should be running on LPG as most taxis do. Why waste fuel that is available?
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Are you Doug Proctor the Canadian geologist living in Alberta?
30
I am. Is this a bad thing?
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Not at all. I’ve read some of your postings on Tallbloke’s blog. Wanted to check you’re the same bloke.
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No mate…hes saying what suits him.
20
…thats confusing, I was referring to Dougs earlier analysis.
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Actually Lovelock has also often said in the past that nuclear power is the cleanest and most sensible solution to the energy demands of the future, for example in this article in the Independent from 2004. Admittedly this has usually been in the context of avoiding what Lovelock foresaw as a CO2-induced Armageddon, but it does belie his image as some sort of tree-hugging luddite who wants to live in a Rousseauian fantasy of a non-existant past . Whatever else, Lovelock has shown that he is not attached to a fixed position. Unlike many scientists decades his junior, his brain is still working.
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Jo,
O/T but FYI
http://thelukewarmersway.wordpress.com/
Via http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/
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Jo is right with “partly recants”, because Lovelock won’t let go of his Gaia garbage. If that twaddle actually worked, for every eagle chopped, another eagle would get its wings.
Does anyone know if this site is genuine: http://garethsworld.com/catstogo/ ?
I know Kiwis (the human kind, anyway) do irony as well as anyone, but this seems to be intended seriously. Anyway, doesn’t the survival of bird-killing cats on NZ, the former avian Utopia, suggest that Gaia’s responses are a teeny bit slow?
“Hello. You are through to Gaia. For total extinction, apart from cockroaches, press ‘1’. For individual species extinction, excluding Homo sapiens, press ‘2’. For human extinction, press ‘3’. For cockroach extinction, please hold. Gaia will respond presently. In the meantime, here are Obama’s first five inauguration addresses.”
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Owen
This site is real and the suggestions serious. Feral cats,especially, are a big problem in NZ with birds but so are rats , stoats etc.
The suggestion has raised the ire with many over here in the past week.
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Ive read about it elsewhere as well.But again, as with most Environmental issues the manifest content masks a cultural sub-text. Whilst its supposed to be about birds and voles and such flying, creeping crap,its REALLY about a certain culture and lifestyle of which the domestic cat is seen as a symbol or expression. This is patent if one considers just how many people never let their cats out of doors anyway for fear they get stolen. Such as a friend of mine who keeps her British Blue pedigree under house arrest. That cat and its cousins are never going near prey in their life.
The anti-cat people are the same Enviro-MENTALISTs who I’ve seen adovocating that toilets be replaced by earth-filled boxes.I bet you would find most of them live in shit houses already if you were to pay them a visit.
Meanwhile, the cat basically permitted human civilisation to continue when it was nearly wiped out by bubonic plague for it was the only effective response to the rat that bore the fleas that carried the organism.
If these enviro-maniacs had been around would they have permitted that?
Dont get me started on the dog. There possibly would never have been language let alone civilisation without it. Thats a seperate issue. But as over a billion followers of a particular cult already want all dogs exterminated it can only be a matter of time before Ecos do too.
Give them time and these people will demand that the few colonies of Smallpox virus held in secure laboratories be released into the wild in a move analagous to the re-introduction of the wolf in Europe. I believe its already being discussed by the worlds top “etthicists”. Smallpox has rights too!
It is deeply comical but also tragic, that born-followers like Brookes and Maxine dont understand where their support for these maniacs would ultimately lead, had they their megalomaniacal way.
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I like cats – they taste just like chicken. 🙂
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Owen…they only get two inaugurations.
…otherwise a great comment.
Or, er, maybe you refer to suspicion that Obama is intending a third! He’s well into talk of changing the constitution already. In which case it would indeed be his last.
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… think about if his wife then became President and then one of the kids, etc. … like the Kennedy clan had a go at. 😉
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Are you trying to scare us?
00
OT (Yes, to a Briton watching from the sidelines, Obama’s constant attacks on the US Constitution do make me wonder if he genuinely intends to go on to the speaking circuit after four more years. He does seem to like emulating FDR, apart from the polio, and he does seem to think that the Constitution should be what he can make it to be…)
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Well this gun issue is like the wedge they need to legislatively ignore an ammendment without constitutionally changing it and get away with it because of populaist and media support. Obama has arguably already ignored the war powers act (in Libya and elsewhere) and got away with it.
These are precedents that form stepping stones. However, it is well to remember that, excluding all the dead people who voted and those who voted several times, apart from those who were never entitled to vote and did anyway, Obama is supported by considerably less than half of Americans.
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Beware of the ongoing creation of welfare for the masses who will vote to keep their no work money.
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Ace,
Not living here makes a difference in how you perceive our talker in chief. Just so you know — Obama will deliver a lot more than 5 inaugural addresses, probably several hundred. 🙂
Talking is his only job qualification. 🙁
00
About changing the constitution: Obama has simply ignored the constitution and federal law and done whatever he wants. He simply writes executive orders which his henchmen then carry out. Who will stop him? Who can stop him?
Self government only works for people willing to govern themselves first. Obama and his followers are not willing. Whatever the future brings, my country is no more. It has been replaced with complete and total lawlessness.
00
http://occupycorporatism.com/communist-party-progressive-democrats-compliment-obamas-socialist-agendas/
00
Obama’s oath.
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
The “U.S.” is a corporation. The “U.S.A.” is that which the Constitution refers to.
01
Roy…I was thinking along those lines but deleted some of it…that basically Obama is a felon and should have been prosecuted by now….because I felt uneasy saying this as an outsider. But you’ve stated it boldly. Basically, it seems to me if Bush had acted like Obama …well its unimaginable, swift impeachment at the very least.
00
Ace,
You have it quite accurately nailed down. But I do appreciate your not coming on too strong.
If Bush had tried one tenth of what Obama has done there would be a hue and cry for his head. As far as I know there is still an effort afoot to extradite him to The Hague for trial. It’s going nowhere and won’t ever succeed but that’s the depth of the hatred of George Walker Bush.
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Nice one!
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Nice one was meant to be BEFORE that last one…I REALLY cannot comprehend the tiering protocols of comments on this platform. Now it looks like I am complementing myself!
00
Owen,
I suspect they are very serious about cats. If feral cats are a problem then it needs to be dealt with, hopefully humanely; but certainly dealt with.
Unfortunately their next target will be your pet cats. They don’t know how to draw the distinction.
10
When the thoughts of likes of Lovelock, Suzuki et al are not reported in the media (anywhere), then we will know that reason and science have been restored to their rightful positions.
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Is being a dupe a mental illness?
Do you believe everything the government and mainstream media tell you?
Do you trust your government to always work in your best interests?
Are you dismissive of the idea of mind control or propaganda techniques to control you?
If you answered yes to any of the above questions you may be a dupe. It is not illegal to be a dupe but is it a modern mental illness? Current medical authorities may say no but others may disagree.
In our upside down world answering no to these questions puts you at risk.
Group-think must be the norm.
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I share your disgust Kevin but Im afraid group think and conformity with the majority ARE the norm and totally normal. Its just human nature. Orwell had Smith brtainwashed by Obrien into thinking hesaw three fingers when there were four but in actual reality, as demonstrated in an experiment repeated by many thousands of psychology under-grads, a person will think (or at least say) quantities are other than they actually see if the majority in the room say the same. Thats the tip of the iceberg.
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The trouble is that there are so many propaganda sources today.
Propaganda only really works when it is centrally controlled. But whomever originally had control of this particular meme, has long lost it. We now find propaganda with various messages that span the spectrum of reasonable thought, and more.
We find that so many governments are putting out their own version of the truth, to meet both parochial electoral requirements, and for reasons of personal gain either financially or in terms of increased international status.
And we see many similar, but oddly different propaganda techniques being experimented with, each in support various agendas, with professionals and amateurs alike trying to get “their message” out there. The 10:10 campaign being one ridiculous example.
The overall result conjures up a mental image of a piece of music, played by several orchestras, with musicians of variable ability, all playing in a different key, in diverse location, with an overall time delay. If you try really hard, you might be able to name the tune, but you really have to try.
The net result is that nobody really knows what is actually happening any more. People are still frightened, but they are no longer sure why. All they have now is the Precautionary Principle, and they cling to that like a life belt.
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Thankfully people are starting to wake up to the Australian government’s latest plan to make any kind of insult, albeit perceived to be by the complainant, a legal issue for the accused. An example was given of a picture showing Jesus with tape over the mouth as a potential insult to pursue if the amendments to the Act are passed.
30
Not a mental illness at all. It is the direct result of decades of dumbed-down State education where people are no longer to taught to think logically, receive propaganda instead of facts and are taught polemic and not analysis. The way the Noble Lord eviscerates would-be opponents should be a lesson to us all of the power of classical logical thought, and the tools of logic are out there for all to learn. One of the best things you can do for your children and grandchildren is buy them a copy of, “Sophie’s World”, and read it yourself before passing it on.
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JO, the lovelock letter in pdf form link, does not work.
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Try This Link.
http://www.bishop-hill.net/storage/James%20Lovelock%20Letter.pdf
—
Link Fixed. Thanks – Jo
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yeah, found it, read it..
Its exactly what I state at #14.. a Greenie whinging about a turbine in one of his favourite areas.
Put the darn thing in his own backward, see if he likes that !!!
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And now , because Lovelace is a chief greenie, the turnbine will be repositioned next to someone else who doesn’t matter.
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Seriously !!
This is just a Greenie on an” I don’t want a wind turbine near me” campaign.
HYPOCRISY ……. Thy name is GREEN !!
The rabid hens have come home to roost !!
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ps.. what he is saying is
“don’t put them somewhere where I like to live or visit..Other places, I don’t give a stuff”
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I sure do like some of your Australian colloquialisms! 😀
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Q. Gaia theory: is it science yet?
❝ These concerns seem to be based on Lovelock’s expectation of a third climate state.
The last 500,000 years show an alternation between quasi-stable warm and cold states, flipping on a 100,000 year cycle.
Lovelock (using simple modelling described in Vanishing Face of Gaia) proposes that higher CO₂ will lead to a third, hotter, quasi-stable state.
The proposed causal chain is: warming from more CO₂ → more stable oceans, less circulation → less nutrients at surface, so less algal production → less pumping of CO₂ into deep oceans → more CO₂ remains in the atmosphere, locking in the warming. ❞
A. No.
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Lovelock is crazy, but at least he’s interesting. Unlike the average boring, dogmatic environmentalist who keeps repeating the same message.
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can u believe this? no whisper of outrage in the piece from Greens or CAGW-funded NGOs! LOL.
just finished reading about the Timbercorp & Great Southern Plantation investment ponzi schemes that collapsed in Australia, but there’s always a new plan to monetise agricultural lands according to the CO2 meme:
26 Jan: Stuff NZ: Industry eager for biofuels ‘hard metrics’
Forest crown research institute Scion is set to launch its Woodscape report on the viability of generating biofuels from trees, a move that could throw a much needed financial lifeline to the sector…
If forest plantings doubled, about $5.5 billion worth of biofuels could be produced annually on top of the $4.2b currently earned by the export of forestry and timber goods.
That could set New Zealand up to be an exporter of carbon neutral energy in the form of biocoal, which could be used in power stations in China for example…
Investment in forest planting tailed off since the 1990s due to rising land costs, falling log prices, and the sharp rise of dairy farming…
Falling demand for printed materials is adding further price pressures. It was hoped the investment case would improve with the introduction of the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) in 2008, giving forest owners a carbon revenue stream while their trees were growing.
However, the introduction of cheap international credits into ***ETS saw the price of New Zealand carbon units plummet from $25 a tonne when the scheme was launched in 2008 to $2.50 a tonne. It was at $22 a tonne about a year ago.
“Investors don’t look at very long-term investments, and forestry is long term,” said Mike King, chief executive at consultancy Interpine. “The ETS in its heyday corrected those return imbalances.”…
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/8225644/Industry-eager-for-biofuels-hard-metrics
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Lovelock’s NIMBY hypocrisy is not unexpected or of much relevance. Rather, this sentence:
The Achilles Heel again
The ad-homs will flow now, particularly along the lines of hinting at loss of mental faculties through aging
Lovelock letter here:
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/storage/James%20Lovelock%20Letter.pdf
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Nice of the French to host it on their bit of nature too, so the Brits can regularly import about a Gigawatt of their national requirement, without spoiling their own wonderful environment . If only they could take all those pesky windmills too and just sell the product back to us. The French have always been big in utilities.
00
He strikes me as like a little guy who talks tough all his life but finally confronted by a bruiser swears he was always a pacifist.
A total, complete, utter, ars..ho..hypocrite.
I had no idea he was so vile.
Meanwhile, no need to wait for future civilisations, writers have already described the sorry spectacle of thousands of retired power-mills from earlier generatioms, that never made a profitable output and outlived their subsidies, now rusting away in huge graveyards devoted to them in California. Where most of the crap we have to live through seems to have started.
As for Devon, drive there from here and you pass through a landscape that is totally man-made. First being virtually denuded of the dense forest that once covered it, then having gigantic hill-structures created in the bronze age that still tower over everything, followed by immense networks of hydraulic engineering (“wet-lands”) and finally carpeted with a comfy blanket of green fields. Almost nothing here is other than man-made. But these pillocks think its somehow a spot of “nature” they live in. I am dismayed that someone like Lovelock subscribes to that flop-nut perspective.
Personally, I aint bothered by large structures. I love them. I wish the pusilanuimous British “mind” didnt obstruct their construction at every step. Pylons and windmills add to the fecking tiresome English landscape. And are only one small addition to its artificiality. My objection to these things is that the bastards drawing the subsidies are bumping up my bills to a point at which…as I mentioned before, I aint sure I can keep using electric lighting or heating. My misery is their profit and its all under-pinned by an a**hole who suddenly recants because the aesthetics offend him.
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“an a**hole who suddenly recants because the aesthetics offend him.”
Well said , Ace. 🙂
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Where would we be without the asterisk?
[Stuck in the moderation sin-bin] Fly
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Fly,
Why bother? Today’s children can understand what’s left unspoken even faster than the adults. And no one is fooled by disguising the intended word. Better to insist on a level of discourse that doesn’t depend on so many words having only 4 letters don’t you think?
BB
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Open-Ended Resourceship.
❝ The total supply of any mineral is unknown and unknowable because the future knowledge that would create mineral resources cannot be known before its time.
There is no economic law analogous to the physical conservation of matter.
There is no law of conservation of value; value is continually, routinely created by the market process.
And this value creation does not deplete–just the opposite. ❞
•
Jonova’a recent post on the South Aust. shale oil discovery is a fine example of open-ended resourceship.
•
Open-Ended Resourceship highlights the extreme lack of cognitive “thinking” required by an environmentalist which leads to reason such luddite concepts as “peak oil.’ Lewandowsky is a fine example of this.
⌘
Exciting examples of open-ended resourceship:
Quasicrystal- a mineral that was first thought “impossible”.
In 1984, Israeli materials scientist Dan Schechtman was on sabbatical in the US when he analysed a rapidly cooled metal alloy.
His data showed the atoms in this alloy were arranged to have five-fold symmetry.
Despite being puzzled by the impossibility of what stared back at him, Dan Shechtman had the fortitude to publish his results and 17 years later, in 2011, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his discovery of what would later be called quasicrystals.
•
Graphene is an amazing material offering high strength, transparency and flexibility with excellent electrical and thermal conductivity, all from a single layer of carbon atoms.
Forty times stronger than steel and conducting electricity ten times better than silicon, graphene is the wonder material that could one day replace silicon in microchips.
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Maybe slightly off topic but the article at WUWT on Lovelock includes this snippet
The Earth’s mean temperature rose sharply during the Nineties. This may have caused us to overestimate climate sensitivity. We are most likely witnessing natural fluctuations in the climate system – changes that can occur over several decades – and which are coming on top of a long-term warming. —-Professor Terje Berntsen, University of Oslo, 24 January 2013
In the past “scientists” have been telling us they calculated the sensitivity of the earth including feedback factors. They also claimed that they knew the sources of natural variation and the rise being observed was well outside those limits so it had to be due to CO2 – there was no other possible factor. Remember the claims of positive feedback from water vapour, the hot spot in the middle troposphere, the change to less low cloud and more high cloud etc.
This is an admission they simply used the claimed rate of temperature rise, assumed it was all due to rising CO2 (without really having any idea about natural variations their sources or magnitudes) and from that extrapolated an effect 100 years out. This is totally opposite to what they claimed they were doing in the past. They are now conceding that natural variation is at least as large as the impact of CO2 (since it supposedly has cancelled out warming for the last 16 years) but since they have now also admitted they don’t know anything about natural variation and its sources maybe they are still out by a factor of 2 and both the rise 1970 to 1998 plus the stasis 1998 to 2013 are due to natural variation.
Look at it another way, they calibrated their model based on data to 2000 and then used it to project forward 100 years. 10 years later the projection is MASSIVELY in error. Their response? recalibrate the model based on including the next 12 years of data and again project outwards 100 years again claiming it is right. Models only have validity if they can make projections that turn out to be right. A model that has not made a proven projection has no validity but a model that has made a blatantly wrong projection is worse, it is falsified. To simply adjust the magnitude of a parameter and claim it is now right is absurd. Consider that with the new sensitivity value it no longer hindcasts data to 2000. If it cant even hindcast accurately it clearly cannot forecast.
Who is really in denial?
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James Ephraim Lovelock, CH, CBE, FRS, PhD (born 26 July 1919) is an independent scientist, environmentalist and futurologist.
His PhD is in medicine which possibly gives him a bit more credibility than your average climatologist, particularly of the alarmist variety, even so if one reads his interesting life story he comes across as a somewhat eccentric character. The sort of person one would expect to be an environmentalist (who with a touch of anthropocentrism is a bit of an enviro heretic) and a futurologist.
On his own admission this futurologist hasn’t scored too well in predicting global temperatures on the basis of his understanding of the GHG theory. Interestingly all the alarmist futurologists have also stumbled here because that theory without a more complete hypothesis, which includes all the variables, has eluded them.
In Lovelock’s case, given his propensity to eccentricity, his understanding of the GHG theory was useful to give his hypothesis of the self regulating nature of the interaction of the organic with the inorganic (Gaia) some sense of attention grabbing immediacy.
What is interesting is that this idea was rejected initially as unscientific only to be resuscitated by, amongst other fringe disciplines, climate science. Which of course has become the basis for the alarmism of the so called consensus.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Lovelock
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llew, In summary…theres no fool like an old fool.
Now you tell me his training was in medicine you’ve eliminated any last vestige of reluctant respect I had for him.
BTW…isnt it odd that medicine is uniquely a profession in which you dont have to have a Phd to call yourself “doctor”. Outside of being a Timelord that is.
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Hi Ace. In Australia the bachelors of Dentistry and Vets are now calling themselves “Doctor”. I think it comes from the American way of calling what should be MBBS,a MD.
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Ace,
A quick look over Lovelock’s bio indicates to me that he never did a medical course or practiced as a medical doctor. So to say that he trained in medicine is stretching it a bit.
I’m an MB, ChB St Andrews (and FRCPath, FRCPA) so I think I can rightly think of myself as a “doctor”. I have absolutely no problem with dentists and veterinarians being called “doctor” (as they do here in Australia) or genuine PhDs in any field whether it be in sciences, law, philosophy or theology. But I do get a bit upset by chiropracters and natural therapists claiming that title.
Lovelock has a PhD, he is entitled to be called a doctor. But a doctor of medical science, not a doctor of medicine.
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On the wards of UK hospitals under-graduate medical students are referred to as “doctor”.
A Phd in most subjects (I discount tourism studies and the like) is usually a very considerable leg of work to complete. Referring to anything other than a Phd as “doctor” is in my opinion very misleading.
The comical title is “Professor”. It sounds so impressive but all it means literally is “teacher” and for centuries any Tom Dick or Harry has been with some legitimacy found to use the title: Profesor Arkwright of the Street Corner Academy, Tumbleweed Arizona, Snake Oil Salesman and teacher of Spellin.
00
What is interesting is that this idea was rejected initially as unscientific only to be resuscitated as an article of faith by, amongst other fringe disciplines, climate science.
Now that is a more accurate sentence.
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Yes I think yours is a more accurate statement.
In my more ideological moments I think that what we are seeing is a return to what is essentially paganism with the only difference being the gods have been given different names. Same gods. Different names.
Thus I have no problem with your insertion of “faith” on two grounds, namely the of lack of observed evidence as well as Gaia being a basic tenet of the religion of paganism.
20
I would point out one slight error, I don’t think it is fair to lump Gaia and Paganism together. Paganism is Polytheism derived from the vast array of primitive reigonal practices with the root derivation being paganus meaning rural, and was more to do with seasons and gods of protection and fertility. Lovelock’s Gaia worship is a Monotheistic religon that is a perversion of the Greek Mythology where Gaia was the Great Mother & Uranus The Great Father from whom arose the Titans and other Gods of Hellenism, also a Polythestic Religon.
10
That is what Cardinal George Pell has mentioned in his writings on the subject.
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Paganism it is.
THE UN and ONE WORLD WORSHIP.
The Religious Face of the New World Order
http://www.usasurvival.org/docs/Global_Religion.pdf
http://www.scribd.com/tag/Religion-New-AgeOccult?l=1
http://religiousleftexposed.com/home/2011/11/vaticans-pontifical-council-for-justice-and-peace-endorses-global-socialism-in-new-document-and-warns-of-anguish-and-suffering-on-the-road-to-world-government.html
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/04/bolivias_return_to_pantheism.html
From,
“The Two Babylons” by Alexander Hislop, p.77
From “Am,” “mother,” and “arka,” “earth,” you get “Amarka,” “The Mother of the Earth.”, alias Rhea, Cybele etc, The Mother of Gods and Men, alias the Roman Catholic Mary, the “queen of heaven” [Jeremiah 44:17,18,19,25], and most surely these manifestations which all represent Nimrods wife are represented by the “Statue of Liberty” in New York harbour. [ note 1, p.77. The Goddess Mother of Habitation” – “The Two Babylons” by Alexander Hislop.]
and from the same book page 158 — The Golden Cup —- Revelation 17:4
Jeremiah 44:17
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Rubbish.
05
Saint Brookes hath spoken:”Rubbish”.
Ignoramus.
30
You are getting more concise in your unsubstantiated comments.
I would hope this trend in conciseness quickly terminates at its logical conclusion.
30
Excellent.
Or to put it another way…disappear up his own…
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John is looking for his lunch again. !
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Brokes I am with you on this. But perhaps we shouldn’t call a religous view of the world rubbish. It is just magical thinking. Which exists on both sides of the climate change debate.
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Lovelock’s argument of placing windmills in a less sensitive area would probably mean that he supports locating the pylons offshore.
I took my annual holiday in North Devon last year, at the small coastal town of Ilfracombe. It is one of the most beautiful parts of Britain. I revisted Lundy, a small island just offshore. The local conservationists are opposing plans to build one of the biggest wind farms in Europe. The turbines could be 180m or 220m high. The current subsidy of around $62 per Mwh is twice that available for onshore pylons of a similar size. The wholesale price is around $71 per Mwh. What is more, the subsidy is indexed linked.
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Paul I appreciate that Pagans have always been a pretty diverse entity however by observing the statements of the “consensus” climate scientists over some time it did occur to me some time ago that their presuppositions were essentially pagan.
Pagans, in contrast with some theistic religions, steer clear of statements of belief claiming to be more interested in an experiential or emotional religion than a doctrinal one.
When I read your comment I thought I would see if I could find a Pagan site with a bit of pagan doctrine.
I found the following article headed Modern Paganism – Questions and Answers.
One heading in that article is:
“What Contemporary Pagans Believe”
“While there is no set of beliefs shared by all Pagans, most would agree that similarities far outweigh differences. There are a number of beliefs held by the vast majority of modern Pagans. Some of these are: “
(The more relevant parts that link paganism to the Gaia hypothesis and hence climate change alarmism are tenets 1, 2 & 4 of that belief system)
*1. Divinity is seen as immanent.
*2. Divinity is as likely to manifest itself in female as male form, the God or the Goddess, in the interconnectedness of all life.
(3. only marginally relevant to our topic).
*4. We respect and love Mother Earth as a living being, Gaia, of which we are a part.
Comments:
1. As you are no doubt aware immanence and transcendence are part of theism in reference to a personal deity. In pagan thought however immanence, and given the context of tenet 2 & 4 can only refer to being limited to and by nature.
2. The key pagan doctrine is expressed in “the connectedness of all life”. It is that element of pagan thought that is exploited by climate alarmism. A little investigation reveals that “life” also applies to inorganic entities a concept foreign to non pagan thought.
4. I would suggest is essential paganism and essential Gaiaism of the Lovelock genre.
That’s the link that I see between alarmist climate science, James Lovelock and paganism.
http://www.paganlibrary.com/introductory/modern_paganism.php
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I agree with the points you make, the difference lies in definition. For me Paganism will always be of the type practiced by wicans, druids and the pre – iron age Europeans, simply because whenever I study a subject I always start at the derivative roots and first principles, as such I don’t equate contemporary Paganism with true Paganism. For me religous belief revolves around individual and communal existence and is a reflection of the person/community’s attempt to make sense of and understand the world in which they live & where they fit in the grand pattern of life in all it’s forms.
Contemporary religons are more about control than understanding and it is this aspect that is most prominent in the Gaia worship of today. We have evolved to a level where we now have the ability to quantify much of which our forebears couldn’t. As such, I have little time for any modern religon, except in studying it to better understand how society has developed, in particular the core beliefs and how they are used. If the belief system frees the individual to expand their knowledge and better themselves and the community in which they live, that is good and I respect those who hold to their beliefs, if it trys to shape or control through fears and constraints, that is destructive.
Most faith based belief systems have something to offer and are a benefit to the greater extent, and any faith is free to dictate to their adherants how they should live. The key difference between ancient and modern religons (especially since technological advances have led to easier travel & trade)is the propensity of the adherants of modern religons to try to force their beliefs on others. To me they are more ideology than faith as they put more emphasis on changing others rather than improving themselves.
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should be (inter)connectedness as per the pagan site. Which of course is an important step beyond connectedness and is at the heart of paganism.
10
I suppose the best way to see Lovelock’s Gaia worship would be to class it a neo-paganism rather than classic paganism.
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Yes or contemporary paganism.
The point of course is that we do not have to make a value judgement of paganism but rather to acknowledge that the sort of climate change alarmism we are subjected to really has its basis not in science but in religion.
(However 7 billion soon to be 9 billion of us on the planet would seem to need, from our politicians, the acceptance of a more anthropocentric paradigm, for the worthwhile existence of all of us).
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Indeed, unfortunately world governments have already wasted hundreds of billions trying to proove the existence of the anti-christ of their faith, that being the evil human devil driving cataclysmic climate change. What could this money have provided if put into energy research and development of basic crops that require less water and less intervention against pests and disease, amongst so many more worthy avenues of research?
If we indeed are not the lone sentient lifeform in the vast unknown universe, and if we keep up with the type of anti-science behind Y2K, the impending ice age & now the CO2 cataclysm. There will come a day when the remenants of our civilisations are found by some spacefaring race and held up as an object lesson on rank stupidity and mass hysteria for other races to learn from.
Now isn’t that a wonderful legacy to leave.
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How about post-normal paganism?
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[…] Jonova goes into more detail, with a lot of comment worth a read: Keep reading → Share this:ShareDiggEmailRedditPrintStumbleUponTwitterFacebookLike this:LikeBe the first to like […]
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Our own Gaia guru the appalling Clive Hamilton has just written a long farewell note to humanism, science and progressive public policy.
http://theconversation.edu.au/climate-change-signals-the-end-of-the-social-sciences-11722
There is a devastating rebuttal of environmental determinism espoused by Lovelock, Hamilton, Flannery et al by David Correia
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/01/24/profiting-from-climate-catastrophism/
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Correia’s article is good, but it, like most of the type forgets a significant difference between past destructive shifts and the current one. The loss of civilisations such as the Mayans can’t occur in the same way in modern times, they didn’t have the knowledge and technology to adapt and mitigate the potential harm of climatic shift. We do, our government simply prefer to waste hundreds of billions on proping up a failed hypothesys than spending it on adaptation and mitigation.
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In spite of attempts to revise archaeological perspectives to provide grist for Eco-doctrine, past civilisations such as those Mayans faded away or were destroyed for reasons totally unrelated to the environment. Mainly the incursion of other peoples. Numerous South American civilisations were wiped out by the Incas, a happy crew that made the Third Reich look like a Sunday school tea party.
What do we mean by our “civilisation”? Do we refer to the global community in its present state of technological integration accross cultures. Or do we refer to specific cultures and polities. If the latter then “our” civilisation, if we mean Western Judaeo-Christian liberalism, is probably going to end in the not too distant future. Especially in Western Europe and the UK. The reasons are demographic.
However, I thought the USSR would last centuries or, indeed, forever (!). There are always unfore-seen factors in the future.
Which is of course one of the reasons Grand Environmentalism is so fundamentally ill-conceived.
10
Good point and Correia subscribes to the warmists fallacy. But still its a start of the push back and welcome for that.
00
LINK
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