Isn't it revealing to see the extent to which the views of the apocalypse-predicting green eco-authoritarians of Jersey's own J-CAN are echoed in the wider national political scene?
Perusing certain UK political party websites today in the furtherance of wider research, Clameur de Haro came across this little gem which should bring a warm glow to the likes of Messrs Palmer, Wimberley, Forskitt et al -
"Peak oil spells the end of cheap oil and gas. It will be seen as the heralding of a new age when we learn to live with the resources of the planet."
But with, of course, the most drastic restrictions on individual liberty, economic freedom, and human advancement, all in the name of allegedly saving the planet (although, strangely, it doesn't mention that).
And this one -
"Develop renewable energy sources such as off-shore wind farms, wave, tidal and solar energy"
Even though wind power has been proved not to provide anything like the power-generating capacity that is claimed for it, or a fraction of the power-generating capacity it is supposed to replace (although equally strangely, that isn't mentioned either).
And where, precisely, apart from in the prescriptions of J-CAN and its fellow-travellers, does one find such enlightened opinions articulated? Why, in none other than the policies of the intolerant, racist and bigoted British National Party. It's all spelt out on the odious BNP's website.
Judge ye a man by the company he keeps, counselled Clameur de Haro's spiritual advisers, all those years ago. Sound advice, maybe.
An unduly harsh judgement? Perhaps. But perhaps not when levelled at those whose habitual mode of debate is to disparage honest sceptics as "deniers" rather than engage with their arguments.
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6 comments:
Interesting to see the greenies billed as extreme right as apposed to extreme left. Not sure either is totally accurate but each to their own.
I would be very happy to engage in a debate on the subject should that be your wish.
Regards.
Frank - J-CAN supporter.
Interesting to see the greenies billed as extreme right as apposed to extreme left. Not sure either is totally accurate but each to their own.
I would be very happy to engage in a debate on the subject should that be your wish.
Regards.
Frank - J-CAN supporter.
I am sure that oil will run out sooner or later; it seems commonsense that a natural resource taken out of the ground can only have a finite capacity. Whether we are at that stage now is another matter, but prudence suggests that even if we are not, it would be wise to gear our energy consumption towards research and development into other forms of energy. An exponential rise in consumption is simply not tenable in the long run, even if there is 100 years more capacity at the present rate of growth - we are shifting a problem onto our great-grand children, and evading our responsibilities not to act like greedy children, who think only of their own wants.
In that event, France has been more prudent that the UK, where nuclear power development has been virtually at a standstill, but French scientists have been working in the fields, and are decades ahead of their British counterparts.
Politically, as well, the dependence on one source of energy is problematic, as can be seen by the fawning desire of governments not to offend Saudi Arabia and other Arab states where women are treated more or less as chattels. Remember (if you are old enough) the furore over "Death of a princess"? Intolerance and bigotry there is in plenty, but no government wants to rock the boat. Judge ye a man by the company he keeps, as you say. And Russia has shown that it can use the power of the energy tap to force political agendas on its neighbours with its own oil and gas supplies. Clearly some form of energy independence is needed.
Part 1
Oh please! If you're going to use twisted rhetoric like this, then two can play at that game. I suppose you're in favour of making the trains and buses run on time? You're patriotic too? - so was Adolf Hitler. Cutting the civil service (literally) like Pol Pot? Look at the company you keep Clamsie baby!
You appear to be intelligent but your "confirmation bias" (look it up) is blinding you. It's possible that you indeed believe yourself to be an "honest sceptic" and not one of the spectrum of silly/dangerous/stupid people in the denier/denialist/delayer/inactivist movement who feed your wishful thinking. If so, you are not very good at judging the credibility of your sources.
The problem about us - me, Mark Forskitt, Deputy Daniel Wimberley and every National scientific organisation in the world - allegedly not "engage(ing) with their arguments" is that it is a big fat lie. All of the so-called arguments of the denialists have been demolished a million times over the decades - probably some that you have never even heard of because they would look plain embarrassing today. What happened? The denialists continued, and still do to this day, to peddle most of the same mendacious but cleverly crafted sophistry to fool the general public - indeed their propaganda onslaught upon truth and science is larger today than it has ever been. At regular intervals, they come up with a new piece of sophistry to get media attention again - so far they have invented well over fifty different (and often mutually contradictory) red herring pieces of pseudo-science. They seem to rely upon the gullibility and wishful thinking of their followers that makes them blank out what came before! Straight out of Goebbels' handbook. They continually try to manufacture controversy and debate and delay when the time for that is long past. They flatter honest (but gullible) sceptics into doing their dirty work.
Why are they called deniers? Simples! There are at least two types of denier. First, the "Donahue/Trisha show" type that, for example, deny that the relationship they are in is bad by refusing to see the reality about their partner, even when the facts are overwhelming and all their friends tell them so. This is a kind of stupidity that even the highly intelligent can suffer from. "Honest sceptics" probably come into this category. Second are the "black hat" types. They consciously know, or suspect, that what they are doing is deceitful but they don't care because they think that their lifestyle, or corporation's bottom line, or industry's future trumps everything else. They are functionally identical to the tobacco company executives, and their PR people, who deliberately set out to obfuscate the science about the health risks of smoking by manufacturing a false delaying debate. Long after their own scientists had told them that the evidence for cancer etc was valid, they continued to deny in public that there was any such evidence. Ring any bells, Clameur? Indeed, Seitz, Singer and Lindzen (three of the most prominent global warming deniers) are or were associated with the tobacco industry's P.R. effort to deny the scientific truth that ended up with it being fined 100's of millions of dollars for its professional lying. Corporate evil certainly and pretty close to pure evil.
Part 2
Exactly the same propaganda techniques (they worked for decades in the past, so I suppose the deniers reckon that if the techniques ain't broke, why fix or change them?) are currently being used by the global warming denier movement, which is now rooted in far right and libertarian American think tanks and institutes. Some individual deniers like Martin Durkin, who authored the "Great Global Warming Swindle" (sic), are hard left communists.
Even the oil and coal industry now publicly distance themselves from these pathological think tank types (although apparently they still fund some of their activities).
In short, deniers are stupid or evil and are pulling the strings of naive and gullible honest sceptics.
Clameur - consider what happens if climate change science turns out to be wrong yet we go all out to reduce carbon emissions. We get an economy based upon sustainable use of renewable energy and materials which, although probably at a lower level than the current "too big to fail" hyper-manic one would (at least) last for a long time. Peak oil and peak material availability nver arrives and human civilisation happily walks off into the sunset thousands of years in the future.
Alternatively, imagine if climate science turns out to have been right and we did nothing to stop rising greenhouse gas levels. Peak oil, peak coal and peak everything else combined with population growth and the vainglorious pursuit of unending exponential growth permanently does our bubble economy in anyway and then on top of that we have to cope with climate chaos, drought, desert, disease and sea levels rising 20 feet plus over the next few hundred years. Human civilisation ends with a whimper.
How lucky do you feel, Clameur? If your position wins out, you and your ilk would be responsible for a human caused catastrophe orders of magnitude greater than anything in the past - greater than all the world wars put together. I suppose you must accept, if you actually believe the rhetoric in your post, that you must be worse than Pol Pot, Hitler and the BNP! I don't know how you people live with yourselves!
"Even though wind power has been proved not to provide anything like the power-generating capacity that is claimed for it, or a fraction of the power-generating capacity it is supposed to replace (although equally strangely, that isn't mentioned either).
And where, precisely, apart from in the prescriptions of J-CAN and its fellow-travellers, does one find such enlightened opinions articulated?"
I have scanned the J-CAN website and found nothing by way of a policy supporting wind farms. Could you please provide a link or a reference to some J-CAN publication in support of your claim? Would you clarify whether you support an individual having a wind turbine for their own power supply, if that is their personal preference?
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