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There is no surer way for a political party to gain voters’ attention than to predict the imminent end of the world. Creating fear in the public mind is as old as politics, itself. Having shaken people’s faith in the future by instilling that fear, the party’s next ploy is to offer a solution that is not open for debate.
No contemporary party has used this method of politicking with such success as The Greens. For years they have successfully portrayed themselves as tree-hugging pacifists whose sole concern is protection of the environment. However, this is only a minor part of an ideology founded on scenarios that forecast the end of the world.
One of their earliest forecast calamities depended on a hole in the ozone layer above the Antarctic. In the view of the Greens, this would expand, causing increased solar radiation that would endanger life on Earth. This idea did not attract enough public attention to elicit the widespread fear the Greens’ always need to advance their agenda. Moreover, proof that the hole was expanding, was not convincing.
Next came global warming. Selective evidence of increased temperatures that would cause droughts, crop failures and mass deaths from starvation, pointed to humanity’s inevitable end.
Who can ever forget Professor Tim Flannery’s dud predictions of melting ice caps, rising sea levels, empty dams, drought and increased cyclones? Perhaps when he said this, he was just having a ‘bad hair day.’
The problem with the global warming hypothesis has been variability in recorded temperatures. Although some regions of the world have experienced rising temperatures, it was not a comprehensive phenomenon. Other areas were unusually cool. This cast doubt on the green end of life prophecy. What they needed was a hypothesis that could not be questioned. Nevertheless, it did not take long for them to settle on climate change as the cause of the world’s problems
The Greens were now on firmer ground. Their case was incontestable because climate has been changing for millions of years and will continue to do so. By placing climate change at the forefront of their campaign, they were able to promote the idea of associating it with every variation in weather. This conflation of world climate change with weather resulted in widespread support for green ideology. People in every corner of Earth are aware of daily variations in weather; now they have a faux explanation for them.
The fact that the cycle of ice ages and heat waves prevailed long before homo sapiens existed, has not prevented the Greens from blaming humanity for changes in climate. However, not every sector of mankind is considered guilty; only industrial economies that burn large amounts of fossil fuels are singled out for condemnatioin. The Greens see industry as the Satan who must be expelled from an Earthly Paradise, even though such an Eden never existed.
Industry and technology have contributed most to the wellbeing of mankind. By depriving them of energy, the destruction of both is assured. In view of the Greens’ ideological opposition to modern standards of living, it is likely they settled on a policy of eliminating fossil fuels as an energy source, without any regard to its consequences. They have a problem, however, in proposing a nexus between climate change and burning fossil fuels. This centres on the paucity of scientific evidence.
According to the Greens, where increased global warming is involved there is no doubt that ‘the science is in.’ However, unlike experimental science that is based on hypotheses testing by statistical analysis, their idea of science is a combination of correlation and computer modelling. Yet, as every student of statistics knows, correlations do not prove cause. In addition, results of computer models are open to question. They are easy to manipulate to give a desired result. Apart from this, a computer programmer can’t be certain that every relevant parameter is being fed into the model. This is not to suggest that the results of every computer model are false, but they are questionable. When the future of civilisation hangs in the balance, it is not good enough for dubious findings to become the decisive factor in deciding the fate of humanity.
Nevertheless, even if global warming can be shown to result from burning fossil fuels, eliminating the practice in the absence of a comparable replacement, is madness. Alternatives such as wind and solar power are distractions from the real energy needs of both modern industry and domestic consumers. Both methods of energy production are unreliable and expensive.
The most dependable alternative source of energy is nuclear power, which for years has been produced successfully in many countries. Since nuclear power meets The Greens’ criteria of energy sustainability and cleanliness, one would have expected them to embrace it. However, they reject it.
The Greens’ deep fear is that production of nuclear energy would derail their plans to destroy industrialised societies. Energy produced by nuclear plants would end their delusion of imminent global extinction and, more importantly, the raison d’etre for their very existence. Far from being insightful prophets, they are zealots who impose their ideology on others and brook no opposition from those who question it. As Australia’s most successful Marxist party, The Greens hope to engineer the nation along totalitarian lines. In a democratic country such as Australia, they are free to spread their message of gloom and doom.
The Greens are troubled people, not mad, but not normal either. Like all left-wing apparatchiks, they rely totally on ideological theory to project political and social reforms. In so doing, they reject rational thought. They are the latest, but probably not the last, in a long line of self-appointed prophets whose mission is to save the world. Their message is viewed as holy writ. Anyone who rejects it is condemned for apostasy.
The kindest thing to be said about The Greens is that ‘they know not what they do.’ Imagining they can turn back history by transforming advanced countries into primitive gardens of Eden is not a dream, but a nightmare. One can only guess at the type of life The Greens envisage for all of us; North Korea is probably the closest analogy.
Greens diktats concerning climate change, global warming, weather and the role of human economic activity in ending life has swept the world like a virus, for which the only antidote is rational thinking. Without a reasoned and rational approach to global problems, Green ideology may turn out to be the greatest confidence trick in the history of Mankind.
“The most dependable alternative source of energy is nuclear power, which for years has been produced successfully in many countries. Since nuclear power meets The Greens’ criteria of energy sustainability and cleanliness, one would have expected them to embrace it. However, they reject it. ”
Probably because they read The Groan, which is chockers with stuff like https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/01/what-should-we-do-with-radioactive-nuclear-waste
The Left’s dependence on catastrophism cannot be overstated. Without some current of looming catastrophe to justify their interventionist schemes, whether reform or revolution, the Left would have nothing.
A Rum lot and mad as Hatters, so one would like to take them back to the forties when our small village had no running water, no electricity, wood burning stoves, copper boilers for washing, the milk came in the house cows that had to be fetched in and milked, the milk separated, the cream churned into butter, chooks for eggs, the eggs preserved in stuff called water glass, kerosene or carbide lamps, and wonder of wonders if the family were well off, a kerosene ‘fridge. Most of the above hunter gathering took place, the milking, egg collecting, butter making, wood chopping began before the days work started. If one could remove the kero and carbide mentioned one could be considered as green as grass and an excellent Green. There wasn’t any fun attached to the above, none at all, no Sir, and guess what, they wouldn’t like it either and in no time at all would recant.
Welcome to the Carbon party- anyone for another rebate.
I just endured an advertisement for the greens, its first sentence begged the question “are you feeling anxious?”
One question that never seems to be asked and answered is what is the IDEAL average global temperature? Why is a degree or two warmer bad? Would a degree or two colder be good?
A few years ago I read an interesting article about ice ages and interglacial periods like the current Holocene. It claimed that previous interglacial periods were warmer than than the Holocene and featured no ice at all at either pole. It further proposed that the Holocene is not a true interglacial but just a warm period in an ongoing ice age.
Whatever way I look at it the Climate Crisis activists have achieved a remarkable victory in convincing what now seems to be a majority of people to believe that there is nothing more important that cutting CO2 emissions drastically, and as soon as possible, damn the consequences. The destruction of the mental health of the young is already clear as are the likely economic and political consequences including famine and war plus many consequences that remain unforeseen.
The age of reason has passed into history. We now live in the age of stupid where fanatical sanctimonious wind bags rule the world.
I came across a booklet at a colleague’s place from a protestant church organisation: it was full bore climate change all the way and gung ho for planting a church garden to avert disaster. I wondered to my colleague if the church took seriously the dismal prophet (Jeremiah 17:9: The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?) and bring some scepticism to the doom-sayers’ claims.
Blank look in return!
The green movement is the antithesis of peace.
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Let the piper call the real tune.
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From a psychoanalytical view point all the green people including Bob Brown and Tim Flannery are actually wandering in the wilderness- at the level of the subliminal they are actually looking for something less material than that they are grasping – they are almost right, they just have to make the metaphysical effort (leap)and open the Old Testament up at psalm 23, especially on polling day because that is when their numbers make sense.
The entire AGW hoax rests of the so-called “greenhouse effect” and the “greenhouse gas” hypothesis. It is nonsense.
We do ourselves no favours when we obsess about “emissions”.
The atmosphere of earth contains 400 parts per million of CO2. The temperature of Earth fluctuates from region to region but could be characterized as (say) a liveable average 50-70 degrees Fahrenheit.
The atmosphere of Venus contains 94% CO2. Surface temperatures on Venus are hot enough to melt lead. Proof of the greenhouse gas “runaway” effect?
No! Simply confirmation of the Ideal Gas Law. PV=RT. You learned about this law in high school. P=Pressure, V=volume, R=Molar Constant, T = Absolute Temperature. This physical law has been confirmed by countless experiments.
You can take published NASA data collected by Venus landing craft and confirm that the atmosphere of Venus, like that of Earth, follows the Ideal Gas Law to a remarkable degree of accuracy. In the Ideal Gas Law accounting, there is no room for any mysterious “Greenhouse Gas” effect. If there had been a runaway greenhouse effect on Venus, deviations from the ideal gas law would have been observed. But there are no such deviations. Hence, the much ballyhood Greenhouse Gas effect does not exist. It is pseudoscience!” Furthermore, this is true for any planet or satellite whose atmosphere is more than ten MPa. That includes Jupiter and Titan, the largest moon of Saturn.
That’s all there is to it. As Brian points out, experimental science employs empirical observations to disprove an hypothesis. As Richard P. Feynman was fond of saying, if you hypothesis does not agree with observations, then it is WRONG!
Thanks Brian, good exposé and good comments. The warmist science fraternity also from time to time tell people that CO2 stays in the upper atmosphere for hundreds if not thousands of years and I remember a commercial some time ago showing balloons painted black all up at the ceiling to demonstrate their point. No media questioned the nonsense, as CO2 with a molecular wt of 44, oxygen at 32 and nitrogen at 28 one could expect the opposite…..they’d all be on the floor. I was at a dinner once and there were some balloons filled with the requisite lighter than air gas and straight up in the air, tied to a few chairs including the one a lady next to me was sitting in. I commented that if it was filled with CO2 it’d be on the floor, and she was dumbfounded, even perplexed and looked as if she just couldn’t really believe me.
Rather than arguing against the climate lunacy, which will be dismissed at denialism, better to hammer home how the Greens shafted Rudd. It creates a crack in the trendy worldview, opening them to the truth that the Greens don’t care about the environment.
A few comments:
I would not capitalise Greens, since that implies the Green Party rather than the far more widespread and equally mad green tendency in all parties and instruments of government . Greenies use this as a diversion , disingenuously claiming they can’t be affecting anything because The Greens don’t have power even though their support comes overwhelmingly from people in local , state and federal government bureaucracies and the media..
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Nor would I use the term “fossil fuels” – not because it’s pejorative, (although greenies probably intend it as such, due to “dinosaur” associations – but oil and gas industry uses it too sometimes) but because hydrocarbons are used for much, much, more than fuel, as in the example of fertiliser panic in Europe when gas supplies were disrupted last year , months before the Ukraine invasion. The media spent a minute or two frantically trying to explain this vital fact which they had hitherto done their best to keep the public ignorant of
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I found the Guardian article linked interesting.
Drilling is my business and I have been involved in some schemes to bury nuclear waste in deep wellbores and the first thing that strikes you is how tiny the quantities are. Vastly outweighed by the casings required by law. It’s never been clear to me whether the alarming stories about “tonnes” of nuclear waste. includes the weight of its enclosure. The prof calling the problem “intractable” they cite as part of the “Nuclear Consulting Group” fails to mention that this group (as is clear from this link: https://www.nuclearconsult.com/our-blog/ ) is 100% anti-nuclear activists, most of whom are not scientists , and those who are scientists are mostly not nuclear scientists or any kind of hard science..
(Guardian article linked by Ian McDougall, I mean)
Has anyone ever confronted a Green and suggest to them that even if they achieve zero emissions in Australia, it will not change the world’s concentration one little bit. They don’t seem to care, maybe because it’s the journey not the destination.
In my opinion, the great mistake made by Scott Morrison was setting a carbon target, by doing so he legitimised Green claims of impending doom and their solution. Once Green policy was legitimised, the electorate went for the candidate who would do most to prevent the catastrophe.