Zion Lights
If we don’t teach our children how to spot cults and con artists they might grow into adults who lie on roads, tie themselves to cranes, and throw soup on a Van Gogh. Those who benefit from Climate “action” are exploiting mentally ill people.
A lady with the unlikely name of Zion Lights was once a spokeswoman for Extinction Rebellion but quit and is now speaking out about their brainwashing, destructive behaviour, and the way they never seemed to want to solve climate change.
“The whole thing was a masterclass on how to manipulate emotions”, she says. She was told to “cry on TV” and bring her children to protests. Fellow activists there were so brainwashed some were sure they were going to die before thirty, and the leader of the movement, Roger Hallam offered them salvation, preyed on their guilt, compared himself to Gandhi and MLK and called himself a prophet. But was rude to followers, wouldn’t listen, and really didn’t care about “the people” at all. Ultimately, while he talked about armageddon, “he did nothing to prevent it” she said.
The hypocrisy finally got to her. Ms Lights wanted to talk about nuclear power as a way to solve climate change, but wasn’t allowed to. Indeed, for even suggesting it, she was attacked and called a “climate denier”. What could be worse than that, eh?
As XR hit speed bumps, Roger Hallam did what all self-respecting narcissist con-men do when the going got tough, he avoided answering questions and moved on to set up “Just Stop Oil” — the new incarnation of climate cultishness and road-gluing behavior.
The climate movement is splintering under the weight of absurdities and over-reach, tearing itself apart because there aren’t any real principles to hold itself together. If they cared about CO2 they’d care about reducing it, if they cared about people they wouldn’t treat them so rudely.
A key turning point was when XR protestors jumped on the tube train in London and were tossed off by fed up commuters, most of whom were the working poor the movement was supposed to be helping. It was such a selfish inconsiderate act, about half the key people at XR refused to defend it on TV. It was the beginning of the end. A few days later one of the other XR leaders said the movement wasn’t about the climate anyway, it was really about “toxic white European racist heterosexists“, which left XR supporters a bit flummoxed, since they were mostly white.
Three years later and XR is so irrelevant they tried to get attention recently by announcing that they would stop being a public nuisance and do normal protests instead.
At its peak the movement was paying key activists up to £400-a-week to lead protests. Somehow £200,000 was being fed into a “grassroots movement” semi-staffed by professionals who happened to be the right personality type.
Ms Lights left XR two or three years ago and went on to work with Michael Shellenberger for a while promoting nuclear power, but he’s become such a skeptic, perhaps it’s not a good fit anymore. She has set up her own group called “Emergency Reactor“. Obviously, she still believes in the climate change religion, and thinks reliable facts come from “the UN, IPCC and the WHO” — just that she tells green groups to “back nuclear or back down”. Her movement is sort of half-sensible but suspended on an ocean of absurdly stupid science, so it will appeal to the few who are pragmatic enough to solve climate change but not pragmatic enough to check the science. Without help from marxist fans, minions-of-doom, the renewables industry, big-bankers, and China or Russia — which she obviously won’t get — her movement looks doomed.
I see Zion Lights has an MSc in Science Communication, (my very own field) which is presumably why she has no idea what science is. Science Communicators are trained to be marketers for Big-Gov-Science, not journalists to serve the people.
Thanks to Climate Depot
Climate Activism Has a Cult Problem
By Zion Lights
As a member of Extinction Rebellion, writes Zion Lights, I watched people brainwashed into pulling outrageous stunts in the name of ‘saving the planet.’
But there were red flags.
At my first XR media training, I was instructed to cry on television. “People need to see crying mothers,” Jamie Kelsey-Fry, the trainer and longtime XR activist, told me. “They need to be woken up to what they should really care about.” They asked if I’d bring my children to climate marches for the same reason. The whole thing was a masterclass on how to manipulate emotions. We were instructed to bring everything back to the climate emergency and how politicians were failing us. Nothing about solutions or science.
“You could almost describe Roger as the leader of a cult.”
… over time, I realized there was something wrong, and that the guy in charge of XR, Roger Hallam, was the root of it.
Roger, 56, an organic-farmer-turned-radical, is XR’s most dominant leader. He turned to activism after his farm business in Wales collapsed—a failure he blamed on extreme weather. In 2018, Roger founded XR with several people, but his ego propelled him to the top.
When I first saw Roger in the XR office in London, I didn’t see his appeal. His wiry gray hair was unkempt, and he sat behind his desk every day eating pungent homemade hummus. I noticed he didn’t pay attention to people when they talked. That we were facing certain death was his justification (or rationalization) for being rude to everyone.
Members called him a hero, and fell for his constant self-comparisons to MLK and Gandhi. He referred to himself as a prophet, and “proved” he was a martyr through regular arrests and stints in jail.
“He’s a genius,” Joel Scott-Halkes, another spokesperson, told me. Another common refrain: “He’s the only chance we’ve got.”
Roger liked to claim that war, murder and “the rape of young women on a global scale” are just around the corner.
While Roger insists he’s saving the human species from Armageddon, he doesn’t do the things you need to do to prevent it—like lobbying for legislation, electing sustainability-focused politicians, or fighting for actual solutions. (The Free Press got no response from Roger Hallam after sending requests for comment via email and his website.)
Nonetheless, people, especially women, clamored over him.
That’s because Roger knows his followers—mostly young men and women—feel immense guilt about their carbon-heavy lifestyles. He preys on their guilt and their anxiety about the future. You could almost describe Roger as the leader of a cult.
For any cult to work it needs to offer salvation. Roger offers that, plus a sense of purpose and belonging to the young people who flock to him.
“I won’t live to be thirty,” youth members would tell me. I tried to convince them they would live, but they were already under Roger’s spell.
Cults need messianic figures that trade in gloom and doom:
In a TedTalk, sociologist Janja Lalich identifies the key elements of a cult: “A cult is a group or movement with a shared commitment to a usually extreme ideology that is usually embodied in a charismatic leader.” Roger preached martyrdom—he pushed everyone to sacrifice more in order to “fill the jails”—and used fear and control as tools for wielding power. I’d often be asked by reporters if XR was a cult, and I’d say no. But it was.
It’s not just Roger Hallam who inspires terror and devotion among his climate-change flock. Those qualities typify the climate change movement.
When a movement that bills itself as compassionate and democratic seems to rely so heavily on messianic figures trading in doom and gloom, you have to ask yourself: Is this really the most ethical way to change the world?
As with all cults, the apostates must be punished lest others follow them out the door. And to suggest nuclear power was not just less than ideal, it was traitorous:
After I started being vocal about nuclear energy, as part of my decision to focus on solutions for addressing climate change and air pollution instead of apocalypse, two of XR’s main spokespeople, Rupert Read and Donnachadh McCarthy, were incensed. They sent me angry messages, calling me a “shill,” a “sellout,” a “traitor” and a “climate denier.” They told me they were ashamed of me, that I’d betrayed the group. I blocked them from my phone, and then also on social media when they took the fight there.
Read it all at The Free Press
Many gullible teenagers fell,
Under the climate-cult spell,
Where they have to obey,
What the cult leaders say,
And not think for themselves or rebel.
— Ruairi
I consider it brain dead cult since they throw away their freedom to think rationally about the real world.
There is NO visible 6th extinction wave coming.
There is NO Climate Crisis.
There is NO Lower Tropospheric Hot Spot.
There is NO significant change in Storminess.
There is NO significant increase in warm forcing effect from a doubling of CO2.
There is NO……. Zzzzz…..
It is really sad when so many of the Youth are being lied and mislead over so many areas of science.
582
It’s all just a fairytale for the terminally gullible…
101
Yup a cult and/or religion. How far back did we make that observation?
Good to see them splintering though. Now if we can see the WEF and like crumble there might be hope.
271
Well I think we can forget about Zion Lights and just continue to follow proper data and evidence.
Certainly Shellenberger, Epstein, Lomborg, Koonin, Christy, Spencer, Lindzen, Happer etc understand the data + Science and the rest of us need to continue to challenge the extremists to explain their concerns.
But they BELIEVE in a cult so I don’t think that is very sensible either.
So what is so wrong or different about the climate since 1900, 1950 or 1970 or …..? Please explain?
270
Whenever I see a group of protestors in my local town I invariably chat with them. They are invariably youngish middle class citizens who are very nice and sincere and who believe the rules apply to everyone else but themselves as they will happily jet off on holiday, eat imported food from the furthest corners of the world , have their gas heating on as often and as warm as they want, wear fossil fuel derived clothes and will compensate by aspiring to an electric car
They talk in slogans and their knowledge of the subject invariably wafer thin. On the question of the cost and unreliability of renewables they will invariably vaguely say we need more of them and have no answer as to what happens when the sun does not shine or the wind blow other than to believe sufficient power can be stored in batteries that can power the entire population for weeks.
A cult? Most certainly.
551
Many (most?) of these people are protesting, not because they fervently believe in whatever cause is being pushed, but because they enjoy protesting. This is why many of them turn up at multiple protests, for multiple (often unconnected) issues.
Why they do this isn’t clear, but I suspect they simply seek attention and want their overinflated egos validated. You know, “We are saving you from yourself.” and all that. They can then bask in their own virtue and feel superior, plus they get to ‘brag’ to each other afterwards, in the way that real soldiers do when they get back to the barracks in one piece after fighting.
Shallow, yes, but members of the same generation believe they are racing drivers because they won a racing game online.
161
Leftists do that yes. They also responsible for most of the egregious loss of life (genocide) in any time period. Their willingness to protest may be an identifying characteristic we should be wary of.
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Neville, their start and finish answer is always ‘ In the opinion of 97% of scientists….’
Opinion is politically stronger than facts. It has the added advantage that one doesn’t have to worry ones self with learning anything about science or facts. Besides, ‘facts’ are all in the eyes of the beholder these days. One person’s facts are anothers lies. Facts? It’s the feel, man. It’s the feel.
70
I have been repeatedly called a climate change denier, but the climate in my region is the SAME as it was in 1964 when I moved there.
BSk
Köppen climate classification
LINK
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Tom,
That’s a fascinating article in Wikipedia. Thanks for the link.
I have a love-hate relationship with Wiki. It can be so woke and cancel-ready on any subject that has a conservative smell to it, but on neutral subjects it can be a fount of knowledge. What pre-internet cover-bound encyclopaedia could ever give one such a complete description of Koppen Climate Classification?
Curious now to know (only roughly) where you are to be experiencing Bsk climate classification. Are you in Australia?
30
I’m in central Washington State.
Also a Köppen BSk; east of the Cascade Mountains, so dry; and at 47°N Lat, so hot summer and cold winter.
The Cascadia orogeny began approximately 100 million years ago, sometime after that the climate changed. I wasn’t here then.
60
What the youth could be doing that is more productive is to demand better housing designs that are more realistic for actual need and that is uses 50% or less power consumption.
More emphasis on home gardening a benefit many overlooks easy to grow Tomatoes, Lettuce/Bibs and Onions and grow Nasturtiums as the round leaves are nutritious and the flowers are edible and moderately spicy.
Nasturtium officinale
Nasturtiums LINK
Bermed homes, Passive Solar Heating, build underground or a combination.
Hawkweed Passive Solar Heating LINK
I own a copy, it is worth considering.
They are often cheaper and easier to maintain.
Bermed Homes LINK
Demand reducing massive power waste of the terribly designed lighting systems all over the world as the night sky is being wiped out have you actually been in a high very dark place to see the beauty of the night sky.
Here is the LIGHT POLLUTION INDEX map LINK
Disgraceful!!!
There are plenty of ways to improve in the way we live and still retain to comfort of the way we live.
131
Modern homes are efficient enough. We don’t need to massively redesign homes to live in places of a completely different design unless people voluntarily do so.
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That is unfortunate since the massive reduction of power consumption is a great benefit to the planet as far fewer dams would be needed, Fewer Coal, Gas and Nuclear power producers would be needed yet still achieve similar comfort levels we already enjoy in parts of the world we take for granted.
There would be far less air pollution and much less coal ash, nuclear waste and so on from a large reduction of power consumption.
Have you actually been in Passive Solar Homes, or Bermed homes, Straw bale homes my uncle lived in one where his power consumption plummeted over 75% yet was MORE comfortable as there were no chilly drafts or cold areas to encounter as there was no wind infiltration at all.
I have been in all of them, was in a Passive Solar home near Goldendale back in the early 1980’s where it had been foggy for several day yet still warm with a simple heater backup available that is how effective it was there.
Homes can be retrofitted but I was talking about NEW home designs that greatly reduce power consumption and materials.
811
All of what you wrote is fine Tom, as long as it is on a purely voluntarily basis with no mandates.
If people want to live in straw homes, fine.
If they want to live in a bermed, underground house, fine.
If they want to live in caves, fine.
If people want to go off grid with their own solar and wind plus batteries, it’s all fine.
I am however strongly opposed to all forms of compulsion that doesn’t involve a protection of the rights of others and none of the above styles of housing or energy production should be compulsory in any way.
381
Agree, but we can improve on REDUCING the overt consumption of energy which currently is being used wastefully as the massive light pollution attests.
I wasn’t trying to advocate government compulsion to build them but to advocate that we should improve the consumption rate of resources in a more efficient way as we should consistently treat it as if they are scarce that is what can be done which I am doing right here.
47
All you need for this is price.
Anyway, why are you chasing energy use in homes? The only reason domestic use looms large in Australia is because price has already driven the big industrial consumers away to the Far East (and no, I don’t mean New Zealand). Suggest you try criticising the “overt comsumption” in China, Korea, Japan, etc.
152
Those largely boil down to insulation, window area and aspect, which are all important aspects of passive heating and cooling.
In much of Australia, cooling is more important than heating, so flow-through ventilation and summer shade also come into play. Open the house up at night in summer to allow the air to cool down, then close the windows and blinds if it’s forecast to be hot.
The combination is quite effective.
180
What you’re suggesting is only for the well off, the rest will be living in a 6sqm studio unit, with a daily power and water allocation. There is not enough landmass for everyone to have a cute little vegi patch, so who misses out? The poor of course. So the only climate change alarmists way to live is for everyone, billionaires to poorpers to live in 6sqm studio units, it’s for the good of the planet comrade.
180
Tom Pearson,
What, in real terms is the overall effect of (say) changing home design to halve the electricity output from a nuclear power station?
You delay some burnup of a tonne of two of uranium, but is that a benefit compared to the dislocation, materials and construction costs of the different homes proposal?
In reality, balances like that are usually set by people using supply and demand guidelines, not from bureaucratic edicts – particularly at a time like now when the bureaucrats have been so dreadfully wrong on many important topics. Geoff S
170
How many new nuclear power plants have been constructed in America where I am?
How many lower masses power producers of Solar and Wind been constructed in America?
Again, never advocated that government force the superior alternative homes to be constructed which some of you focus on while others think it is a price that sets the home construction, but many here doesn’t seem to realize it is the builder who sets the price which will normally be at the higher end because they seek to maximize profit every time thus too many homes that are too big and energy wasteful with higher maintenance costs are on the market which helps squeeze many people into old homes or apartments which are booming in areas of the country.
The best house I ever lived in was a house for 8 people with approximate 1400 sqft. and a deep basement that never needed heating and cooling despite a 100 degree change outside over a years’ time while too many of today’s home for 4 is well over 2000 sqft. which drives up the cost and a drain in elevated heating costs.
America thinks and live big also waste big.
00
Tom,
I see that Goldendale, Washington State, USA, is in a Bsk climate classification region.
20
I know of one passive heating/cooling house outside of Ellensburg and one straw bale building SE of Wenatchee, WA. I’ve spent time in both.
These work as designed. Nice ideas.
I added insulation in my stick-built house and reduced glass area. A total rebuild was not an option.
50
When I made a statement I couldn’t support, Dad used to say I was “Casting Nasturtiums”. 🙂
111
No…
Just aspirating in the wrong direction.
30
@ Tom Pearson: Not much of that would work here. Residential lots are expected to provide 15 dwellings per hectare so are too small to grow much food. They also tend to produce a severe UHI effect. Building code now supports Nut Zero so this will get worse. When solar goes above 25% (at midday when it is least needed) all newly installed residential solar has to be switched off because otherwise it will crash the grid.
We have had 395mm of rain in the 25 days of January. Residential roof gutters are not mandatory simply because the rainfall volume will sometimes require a gutter that is so wide it would need separate massive supports to carry the weight. Gutters are expected to be ripped off by cyclones. No one here with any sense builds below or even near ground level.
I am one of the main reasons why rainwater tanks are not required in this urban region. I was able to prove (by engineer-verified process modelling) that the maximum value of water recovered (at the penalty rate) for new dwellings would be in the region of $140,000 p.a, and the cost of fitting the tank systems would be in the region of $14,000,000 p.a. (2006 prices).
30
Modern society is increasingly in love with cities. That requires everything else including massive continuous and reliable power for everything it requires. Sealed roads, trucks trains and planes for transport, collection and centralisation of food and food delivery, refrigeration, power for massive worksites, founderies and mining and all else. Multistory residential centres are now all the go. Living the dream is only possible in small (decreasing numbers) of viable country towns. The AGW clique would have no interest in a dispersal of living areas unless it brought the desired impoverishment that clique is chasing to destroy the West while empowering its enemies. Your paradise is personal. The real fight is national and for international control over how we live.
You will not like a ‘successful’ authoritarian outcome, unless you wish to impose your idea of paradise on everyone.
40
An organic-farmer, who’s farm business collapsed. Now there’s a suprise/sarc
170
Organic farming should be profitable if the price premium is sufficient to make up for the reduced output and additional labour.
To a very large extent in the UK, the methods used up to at least the end of WWII would qualify for organic accreditation.
130
The Left are trying to make conventional farming non-viable by restricting fertiliser use and in the Netherlands shutting down 3000 farms.
In Australia, conventional farmers are strangled by endless and increasing regulations designed to put them out of business.
Non-mechanised farming methods, pre-19th century style, is all that will be left with a dramatic reduction in agricultural output, massive increases in costs and food shortages and starvation for non-Elites.
140
DM
Our ABC continues to market two monthly magazines, Gardening and Organic Gardening. Started late 1990s IIRC. These were one of the first expressions of Australian woke in terms of tangible products rather than earlier thoughts and “ambitions”.
One wonders if there should be a short, brutal campaign to get ABC to either justify the Organic version or can it. No authority should waste taxpayer money.
Some versions of organic gardening invoke a cow horn filled with manure planted in a field when the Moon is at a certain phase. Modern science at work?
Geoff S
120
For the last about 4 decades farmers have been told, organic price premiums will make up for reduced output / increased costs.
General population have been told, as more farmer go oranic prices will come down.
It’s a luxury/brand niche market.
80
Definitely, but it currently pays if you can grow the right crops on the right soil types.
51
It’s a bit tricky for both to be correct at the same time.
They possibly are both true, but if he organic prices come down too low for too long, the farmers will just switch to something else.
The catch is that the organic certification involves a fair bit of red tape, so once you drop it for a particular paddock it takes years to get it back.
50
The story is the same with ‘renewables’ Both are for people with more money than brains.
Neither can supply the actual NEEDS of the general population.
70
I was on a massive broccoli farm. Vast acreage. Massive 4WD tractors with 6 wheels on each axle. In the packing shed with the owner packing the organic broccoli boxes and wrapping the “Certified Organic” tape around to seal them, I asked him how much of his acreage is devoted to organic production.
He said the whole farm is organic, but Coles/Woolworths take all the good looking broccoli. The rejects are boxed as organic and command a higher price.
150
There is no genuine energy crisis except for the one bought about by the anti-energy regimes in North America, Europe and Oceania.
If we get rid of expensive and random mandated wind and solar energy and return to coal, gas, nuclear and real hydro and allow oil and gas exploration and fracking there would be plenty of relatively inexpensive energy for all.
There is no anthropogenic global warming crisis.
There is no “sustainability” crisis.
We need to halt the current cessation of civilisational progress caused by massive unwarranted investment in alternative energy systems (and wokeness in the social arena) and get back to advancing human civilisation.
380
I agree that Occasional power producers such as Wind and Solar power are not viable for mass use, they are expensive have large land use footprint, suffer from intermittent flows and can cause line blow outs and more.
They are useful in niche areas where homesteading and far off the grid situations for individual homes can make them viable but still at low consumption levels.
But to waste a lot of power production to bad designs of homes, buildings and more are NEVER excusable we are too smart for that it is an area we can improve over time that reduces the rate consumption of the planets resources, it is a problem that is growing slowly over time which is why we should start improving now.
48
You are trying to teach grandad to suck eggs. “We” being the people who’s job it was to promote energy efficiency, climate-responsive design, sustainability (“for the rest of us”, not the fat-cats) and resilience (to flood and cyclonic wind), started DECADES ago. Off-grid? Remote homesteading? Remote communities of any size are no longer permitted, and the existing ones get penalised as being “unsustainable” (but continue to have rates levied of course).
31
32V power with windmills to generate continuous but mainly nocturnal recharge of the battery bank were around for nigh a hundred years. It’s how parents and grand parents on farms and in isolated towns lived. Their next ‘luxury’ was the kerosene fridge and then in the 50’s came the home diesel powered A/C plants with which I was familiar. There’s nothing new in the current energy systems except solar power used to recharge the lithium batteries. It still requires limiting, judicious use of power depending on how large is the battery sump. It hasn’t the flexibility of centrally supplied power.
40
This is a troubling problem that has going on for centuries since most people are so hooked on the concept of overt hierarchical thinking that they can be easily manipulated by people who take advantage of the youth who doesn’t know about right to be FREE THINKING individuals while still be able to work with others to mutual benefit.
Consensus arguments depends on the concept of Hierarchical thinking because being part of a herd (Conformity) is what has been inculcated into us from the beginning than to be a truly free individual in control of their own thinking and viewpoints which isn’t actively promoted in most families which is why same party politics/religion/prejudice and more tends to run in families I am the black sheep of my family which is why I am not easily fooled on anything as I dare to think about things on my own based on what I consider credible information.
It takes just one person in America to start a war, but it takes 330 million Americans to say no and demand peace.
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Tom,
Hierarchies exist throughout nature and humanity . We need logical thinking not emotional response . If you destroy hierarchies in its place you have chaos – and in many cases the destruction of civilisation . The problem we have is that the apex of the hierarchy in most organisations is under the wrong control. The emperor has no clothes…
80
Because of the overrated Hierarchies model, we suffer from wars, disease, abuse of resources, abused rights, reduced freedom and more.
That is why there has to be a change in how we manage ourselves into a lesser train of conflicts which strongly depends on the top-down model of control that exist all over the world as mankind develops increasingly more powerful and dangerous weapons in their insane drive to control each other at the national level despite that over 90% of the population on each nation doesn’t support war preparations and doesn’t desire war but since that power has been given to just a small group of people it becomes inevitable.
I fear that the future will be filled with destruction when nuclear weapons will eventually be used on each other as that is INEVITABLE since it takes just one madman in power to set it off will it be Putin who has been making threats sending nuclear missiles or someone in the future who gets elected by an increasingly misinformed voting class who recently incredibly voted for a halfwit/destructive Biden into office.
War is hell people always loudly say they want peace then we get war anyway how come?
10
Starting your own church used to be the go to for scammers and con arts. (at least in the US)
Now it’s activist groups, same principal.
Were did that £200,000 come from – more profitable than an organic farm (apparently)
150
There is now only one dominant religion – Climate Change. It is so all-encompassing that the Roman Catholic Church has aligned itself with the CCC. It is not clear to me if the head of the Church resides in New York or Geneva. If there is enough Climate Ambition then I think Geneva will be the seat. A bit like Avignon and Rome for the RC papacy.
Anything and everything can be blamed on climate change. Russia invades Ukraine due to climate change. California is flooding due to climate change. UK is having to ration power due to climate change. Australia is paying high prices for most things due to climate change.
On the other hand Albo is currently a TWO trick pony. He can blame climate change or the previous liberal government. A bit like the USA; if its not Climate Change, it is Trump. Was it Climate Change or Trump that caused Covid! That one will blur with ageing.
So rather than forming a new religion just take on the Climate Change calling. There are plenty of zealots trying to make a name.
60
This story has a familiar ring to it; conversion after seeing a new perspective?
Perhaps a sign of self assurance and intelligence.
As to the cultism, an online news item this morning described an activist in the U.S. who described itself as an intersectional climate scientist.
Her main focus seemed to be on de-whitifying the areas of our lives which created dangerous CO2.
Anyone with their feet on the ground in the USA will immediately be declared “white” and therefore a pollution danger.
Pray for us.
90
After reading more about this lady I have to confess to having been misleading. Delete the “intelligent” bit.
At least she saw cracks in the solution, if not the CO2 climate catastrophism.
30
I disagree – too gullible to start with. A product of the failed UK education system.
40
As someone else said; maybe she was repulsed by the “leader” and his poor image.
20
This young lady was “schooled” on live TV by Andrew Neil, who had all the actual science facts.
She could not answer a single quesion, just emote.
The interview opened her eyes and changed her life.
20
If this Reformation is anything like the last one, we’ll see more of these groups.
Like the last one, many may one day be mainstream.
I, having a similar level of charisma as Mr. Hallam, have already started my own.
Styrofoamianism
Imagine a styrofoam cooler floating in the ocean containing an ant colony.
Are the ants capable of understanding the origin, purpose, construction, and ultimate fate of the cooler?
I Honk, founding prophet of Styrofoamianism say … no.
90
There is an interesting contrast between two of Australia’s richest people.
SEE LINK FOR REST
Fundamentally, Forrest is a globalist Elite who went to the WEF at Davos while Rinehart, who didn’t go to Davos, understands how everyday people feel and is at one with “the people”, despite being a billionairess.
160
Note that Gina Rinehart is aware of the problems of ordinary people brought about by the high costs of “green” energy.
When have you ever heard of a “green” billionaire or one of their apologists such as politicians or wealthy useful idiots of the Left complain about the cost of “green” energy or express concern for the plight of the common person?
110
Gina Rinehart is good.
Andrew Forrest is only interested in “green” investments that attract massive subsidies, making it hard for him to lose any of his own dollars – he gets quite upset when there is any sign of said subsidies being discontinued.
Andrew Forrest is also in cahoots with china – he gets quite upset when there is any sign of diplomatic trouble between Australia and communist china because it might negatively affect his vested interests with said country.
200
A suggestion for JoNova – put together a funding proposal to Gina Rinehart to really make a difference in science education. With her backing you could leverage what you have already achieved. Something like AUD10M a year would enable a focused effort on science matters rather than the current religious indoctrination.
It is about time that the underfunded skeptics got access to some of that fossil fuel money that is supposed to be flooding in.
110
So how much energy does every person use in every country?
Per capita energy in Canada + USA is much higher than Australia, but certainly Canada is a very cold country in winter.
But Africa is the poorest continent by far and yet they’ve increased their population by over 1 billion people since 1970.
And all Africans today have a much higher life expectancy, better nutrition, more wealth, much lower infant mortality etc. Just look up the data.
Certainly the climate since 1970 has been extremely beneficial to Africans and very benign or they wouldn’t have such an enormous increase in population.
In fact this is by far the greatest + fastest increase in population in Human history. Just look up the data for yourselves.
IOW the past half century has been the best climate ever and Humans have thrived since 1900 since 1970 and since 1990.
Just hold the mouse pointer over the countries to show per capita energy use.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-energy-use
50
Neville,
Energy use is one small piece of the puzzle . Improvements in health , hygiene and availability of food have made it possible to have a larger population without disease or famine killing off large numbers of us . Industrialisation has provided means for us to travel wherever we want and do things that were not previously possible . Our biggest problem is ourselves.
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Old Goat I couldn’t agree more about energy use per person and the data proves my point.
Of course wealthy OECD country’s citizens wouldn’t want to live like poor Africans or have their still very low standard of living.
But somehow poor Africans have had a huge + record increase in population, nutrition, life expectancy, better education for girls, better health care, lower infant mortality etc and a very benign climate for many decades.
Even the world’s worst HIV AIDS crisis didn’t make an obvious difference to their population and all of the other beneficial points I’ve listed above.
But the extremists don’t seem to be able to THINK clearly about how or why Humans have thrived over relatively recent times.
The data is very clear and yet very few people seem to understand?
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Oh dear!
She has compared being anti-nuclear to being anti-vaccination . . .
From her very long Wiki page.
It is a complete mystery to me how a person changes jobs more often than the wind, in the Westerlies, changes direction. Does she accumulate retirement funds at each, or is she sufficient rich that it doesn’t matter?
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She is likely what is colloquially known as a “scatterbrain” as characterised by shallow thinking, inability to focus or to follow-through with anything.
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“He preys on their guilt and their anxiety about the future.”
What religion does not do that? The entire Green movement does it.
All cults work like that. “Give me a child when he is young”. Hitler created his Hitler Youth and ten years later he had an army who would die for him.
If Hitler had no committed suicide, the war would have continued. From private to General, the Wehrmacht had all sworn personal oaths to Hitler. Not only was his suicide cowardly, it freed them. To admit the leader is false is to admit you have wasted your life to date. It’s no wonder she keeps going. To admit you are wrong as well is just too much.
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And no religion is based on provable facts. Only two even pretend to be Science based, Scientology and Climate Scientology.
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Add Mao. Give me the children. I will give you the man/adult!
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I understand that Hitler and his wife went to Argentina were they had two daughters
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Picked up both our granchildren from school recently and the elder (8 years) saw me shaking my head about renewables on TV. Why are you shaking your head Pa? I said that the sun does not always shine and the wind does not always blow. He replied “that’s wrong Pa, the sun shines all day and the wind blows all night”
Small children are being taught propaganda in our schools! Lord help us!
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This was what struck me the most in the above article:-
At its peak the movement was paying key activists up to £400-a-week to lead protests. Somehow £200,000 was being fed into a “grassroots movement” semi-staffed by professionals who happened to be the right personality type. Just who or which organisation is paying for this? Soros? The Russians? The Chinese? It is some entity determined to ruin the Western economies.
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Yes just where is this money coming from?
Also some of those key activist are doing multiple gigs, so not a bad earner.
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If an activist gets paid £400 per week,
over a year of (approx) 50 weeks
an activist would get £20,000
10
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STJ,
When you get to the stage where you can explain how magnetism works, you will know a lot about science but may still not be a scientist.
Give the subject a try and let us know how that goes.
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I would like to understand gravity.
When I point out that there can be no such thing as radiation energy from cold to hot because EMR cannot travel against the electric field potential, I have had the response that how does a photon know what direction it is going in.. They just shoot out in all directions.
My sumple reply is why does Earth orbit the sun? How does Earth know there is a sun there to orbit? Surely Earth and Sun are communication across the gravity field. It is then not much of a stretch to appreciate that they might also communicate across the electric field.
So I appreciate gravity and the gravitational field but I do not understand it.
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I’ve often thought about the similarity between solar systems and molecules. Maybe our solar system is just an atom of some element in an even bigger molecule. The sun is the proton and all the planets including Earth are just like electrons. We are embedded as an atom in a molecule which is part of some even bigger structure. Maybe part of a branch of a tree in some humungously big forest on a planet. Which is then part of an even bigger atom…..
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“My sumple reply is … ”
I didn’t know you can speak Kiwi.
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if quoted right that seems to be needing a /sarc/?
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John, I am one of the black sheep of Science Communication in Australia. I was once an associate lecturer at ANU in Science Communication. Back in my Green-vegetarian days.
I did not realize at the time that the whole field of Science Communication was really just a training ground to market “government science” and a consensus of experts. We were not taught the philosophy of science, or logic and reason except in a shallow way — in either our science degrees nor in the Sci Comm post grad course.
There was no sense there that Science Communicators should be asking scientists hard questions. And that we had a vital role in serving Australians to make sure our tax money was not being wasted on pointless or incompetent research.
There are a few others like me in the field that I have met at conferences but they are largely quiet. To be openly politically incorrect risks eviction…
As I discovered in Bali at the UN meeting in 2007, the most ardent believers of climate change there were the science communicators — the teams from New Scientist and ABC/BBC were the most passionate at the whole conference.
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You do have a big advantage….
… who is pretty well up on mathematics and science. 😉
Named David (IIRC).
I’m guessing there would be some interesting conversations at time. 🙂
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No forgetting of course that Jo also has a BSc in microbiology.
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Here’s the magic trick. Here is the sleight of hand that subverts the entire education system. From 9.00 to 17.30 opens a Pandora’s box in very simple language. Language that a second grader would understand. The whole podcast is eye opening.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNgfs5a4vNQ&t=291s
Happy Hate Australia Day everyone! (do I need to say sarc?) (yeah, probably.)
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Very good, FC. Thanks for posting.
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I was intrigued by a Jordan Peterson comment on protestors who assailed him at university events. He saw that the enthusiasts were mainly women and the few men who accompanied them had all the appearance and behaviour of opportunists and predators on these vulnerable and emotional women.
The story of Zion Lights is not that she lost her faith in the movements, but that she was also eventually disgusted by leader Roger Hallam aka Gandi and MLK. “His wiry gray hair was unkempt, and he sat behind his desk every day eating pungent homemade hummus.” You see it in the animal kingdom too. But even an adoring acolyte has personal standards and that may have been the end as much as the refusal to listen.
Many cults also include the worship of strong charismatic and otherwise quite unattractive males whose who find themselves surrounded by adoring harems despite their appalling often abusive behaviour and their personal habits. Hitler. Gandhi had his harem too. Jim Jones who ordered his followers to kill themselves and their children. And they did.
Jordan Peterson was also amusing. He found a simple way to avoid protests by moving his university campus talks to the early morning. They were as well attended but the self indulgent leaders of the protestors were just too lazy to get out of bed. It’s what happens when you attack an analytical psychologist. He analyses your motivation.
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Many gullible teenagers fell,
Under the climate-cult spell,
Where they have to obey,
What the cult leaders say,
And not think for themselves or rebel.
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Mice to see your limericks again. Keep up the good work.
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Wonderful! Thank you Ruairi!
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Posted thank you Ruairi!
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Psychopaths co-opting fear of the future (weather in this example) to manipulate people … colour me shocked! Shocked I say!
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And it progresses. In the current (Australian) Spectator there are many articles about Nett Zero and Electrical power and Climate laws and Carbon Capture and Carbon Credits but not one questioning Global Warming aka Climate Change?
Judith Sloan for example questions the sanity of a backup system for Unreliables which explicitly excludes fossil fuels. How does that work?
There is a level of insanity permeating government. And the activists are finding they are unnecessary. The politicians and judges are already wrecking the joint.
In rushing to legislate and fund carbon capture, more windmills, carbon credits and shutting down manufacturing and farming and travel and most of society, everyone including journalists have long moved on from questioning the crazy ideas of man made CO2 driven tipping point Armageddon. And activist judges are rushing to bypass the legal system by claiming nebulous international agreements have the force of law. Climate craziness permeates every sector of society, despite the fact that in 35 years every prediction has proven wrong?
I cannot believe Al Gore is not being laughed off the stage while he is being ultra ultra serial (South Park).
————–
CO2 levels are not man made or controllable. It’s a ridiculous proposition. While Al Gore stated last week that we output 162 million tons of (CO2) ’emissions’ every day he omitted that the oceans both emit and absorb another 860Million tons a day.
The CO2 level is controlled by vapour pressure of dissolved CO2 in that great soda siphon where 98% of all CO2 is stored under pressure, the vast oceans on this water covered planet.
The pushers of this scam say CO2 not in rapid equilibrium and “While fossil-fuel derived CO2 is a very small component of the global carbon cycle, the extra CO2 is cumulative because the natural carbon exchange cannot absorb all the additional CO2.”
We are being told the oceans which already contain 98% of all CO2 cannot absorb a tiny 0.5% over 250 years, so it has built up in the atmosphere? What utter fantasy. Send money to the UN/IPCC.
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You beat me to it, TdeF. I was going to say, who needs Greenpeace, Extinction Rebellion etc when we the people elect almost the equivalent into power ? The parliamentarians, who in the majority are brainwashed by junk science, tell a pack of lies and then we ( the taxpayers ) pay them a salary. They also do their best to vandalise national treasures. Transitioning our once cheap and extremely reliable power grid to solar and wind is like throwing paint over a painting.
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I posted it before but it sums up the XR cult and all cults:
Monty Python’s Holy Grail monks
https://youtu.be/e4q6eaLn2mY
They just end up hurting themselves and achieve nothing.
But at least it’s entertaining for us.
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Yes. Funny and unbelievable and still happening.
A friend as a Jesuit priest wore a celice like this member of Agnus Dei. Painful. Others wore sackcloth and ashes.
But rich sinners like Medieval Al Gores kept on sinning, did not bash themselves or debase themselves or go on interminable walking pilgrammages but bought expensive personal indulgences from the Pope. The best salesman was Tetzel, the one who upset Martin Luther, as he had permission to sell plenary indulgences for complete remission of sins. Great work if you can get it. Good commissions too, up to 50%. The rest I assume went to help the poor in Rome where they had sinners’ parties. A bit like the UN or Downing Street or Canberra where minister’s offices are popular for the after party.
Today Pope Francis recommends carbon indulgences. That way everyone can fly first class and pay for their sins.
And to prevent Hellfire. So the message has not changed either.
Perphaps carbon indulgences are not marketed for remission of carbon sins but re-emissions.
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As if this loony was not also brainwashed.
I am presently observing the UK education system first hand with eldest UK grandson now in school at age 4. From 5 onwards his parents will pay a fine if he does not show up for school without solid reason. And visiting aged grandparents across the other side of the globe is not a solid reason.
The UK education system has created this mess and it is rapidly occurring across the globe. Parents need to be active in teaching their children. It is a responsibility that should not be handed over to the state. My grandparents and parents had a big influence on my education. I also recall one primary school headmaster, three primary school teachers, four high school teachers and five university lecturers who had varying degrees of influence on my education – some teachers problems and character flaws that were shared with the kids they taught. My wife and I were involved in kids education to the point of deselecting particular teachers that were ordinary up until they got to university.
The Nazi HJ and BDM should have been sufficient to teach the world how dangerous it is to indoctrinate youth into a false system of belief. But the Climate Change movement is repeating this folly on a grand scale. People funding all this really need to face prosecution before it gets any more out of hand.
Any individual can take responsibility for challenging the curiosity of those in the sphere.
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Yes it happens in Universities where lecturers happen to have a
fanaticism for their pet trendy subject which doesn’t have necessarily relevant to the topic they’re supposed to teach. Hence Anthropologist teaching anti – Christian, pro IRA, pro communist ideas. (out of hours of course, but they’e using the same students). In at least that case, the course was shut down. No longer offering that faculty at that University. (easier than sacking the lecturer!)
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Some of the comments from the cult remind me of Jonestown. Increasingly this whole movement has trappings of a religious experience. Every year that passes reinforces my belief that CAGW is just the latest installment of End of Times with Elmer Gantry and Jimmy Swaggart.
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Such cults and cliques always prey on negative emotion.
Great to see someone’s come out as an evangelist for the anti XR movement
Once attended an anthropology “evening” associated with a London University. The atmosphere was very similar as described by the lady in the article. They use these kinds of academic circles, or bodies of people, students, public sector workers, for their mission to disrupt and lie about all manner of issues be they woke or green. Always anti government and always left leaning numpties
The XR group are just the first of a line to fold.
Wonder when just stop oil will just stop
As for her academic background? It’s surprising that anybody who genuinely takes time to look closely at the basis for AGW, finds reason to be alarmed in the first place.
Have any of them actually looked at temperature record outlet sites? Or is it all word of mouth and gossip with them?
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Tony Thomas did a great piece on this bunch and its founders, in 2020. “The Most Disgusting Climate Cult of All”
Lots of detail on Hallam: https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2020/04/the-most-disgusting-climate-cult-of-all/
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I used to be a paying member of Greenpeace for years after I left school.
When I finally woke up to the Big Green con in my early twenties, I had the same understanding of my experience dealing with people in Greenpeace; 95% were cultists with no interest what-so-ever in solving any problem, they were only in the organisation because of what THEY were getting out of it psychologically. These people mostly live in a self-propagating state of despair and nihilism.
There I was, the whole time, thinking the idea was to do good and solve problems. How naïve. Now it’s pretty clear the directors of these organisations are aware of the true value these cults represent for special interest groups/high-net-worth individuals seeking to exploit the brainwashed in pursuit of a most massive and parasitical racket.
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