Is Grist on Autopilot?
This is a priceless post that suggests Grist editors are not reading what goes up on the site, much less editing any of it. Just for kicks, I’m gonna break down the first three graphs:
So, the world did not end on Saturday. Harold Camping’s predicted Judgment Day and “Rapture” failed. I wonder how disappointed his followers are.
Me too. But I’m sure they’ll bounce back in time for the next heralded Doomsday.
I also wonder if this might be a good time for the environmental community to reconsider its use of apocalyptic terms when describing our fears for the future.
Now I’m intrigued. Such a reconsideration is long overdue. I’m going to read on and see where this goes.
There’s no doubt that we face certain peril and that immediate radical action is needed. We find ourselves frustrated by failures in Copenhagen, Cancun, and the Obama administration. And the “Arab Spring” reminds us that we need massive mobilization; we long for our “Cairo moment.”
Uh oh. Certain peril and immediate radical action.
Oh well, I guess it’s not such a good time to reconsider apocalyptic rhetoric, after all.
The author notes that “twenty years on we are still struggling to actualize” the “People of Color” environmental agenda, which includes:
“6) Environmental Justice demands the cessation of the production of all toxins, hazardous wastes, and radioactive materials, and that all past and current producers be held strictly accountable to the people for detoxification and the containment at the point of production.”
So… No nukes, no lithium ion or lead-acid batteries (ie no hybrids), no twisty light bulbs with Mercury in them, no coal, oil, natural gas. I can’t imagine how you can build windmills or solar panels without mining and smelting- which use toxins and produce hazardous wastes- ditto biofuels. In short. pretty much no energy.
But, other than that, she’s advocating good policy, right? I mean, you’d clearly have to be an idiot or a stooge for industry to say “no” to this.
Meanwhile, as reported in Australia…
The Commonwealth Government’s independent Climate Commission released a report yesterday saying climate change is still real, it is still caused mainly by burning fossil fuels and digging up trees and the consequences are still going to be bad… But for anyone with even a passing concern in climate change, the announcements felt about as fresh and revelatory as they did the last time they heard them. Or the time before that. Or before that.
The commission’s report called this the “Critical Decade” in which the world needs to respond to the challenge. Just like the 1997 Kyoto Protocol was supposed to have responded to the challenge. Just like Copenhagen was going to be the meeting that saved the world. These catchphrases echo across the decades.
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/2728116.html
Folks, the server for my site was down for several hours until recently, making this site inaccessible.
That is why some of you haven’t been able to leave comments.
But I’m told everything is now fixed. Sorry for the annoyance.
Conversion and AGW
If one wants to understand what is going on with the AGW prophecies of doom, a good place to find the answer would be in William Sargent’s book “Battle for the Mind: A Physiology of Conversion and Brainwashing”. Sargent’s book is considered to be seminal work on this.
Sargent was a psychologist. He was asked by the British government to determine just what was going on in the brainwashing that was being practiced by the Chinese on British POW’s in the Korean War. Why was it so effective? Sargent found that there was nothing novel about the technique. It had been used for centuries to achieve more or less the same purpose. That is conversion. it is a technique which is designed to trigger basic physiological processes so that subjects will abandon their current beliefs and take up those which are desired by the practitioner.
The basic technique is to place the subjects is a stressful position in which nothing they can do will be effective in relieving the stress. tTat is place the subject in a hopeless position for which he/she has no way to extricate themselves. Then offer a way out. This is the essence of conversion. It is the way that fire and brimstone preachers work. They show subject thats the only outcome for them is hell but offer a way out to salvation. Sargent showed how John Wesley used the technique in his sermons. it is the way that police interrogations work. The police convince the subject that the only way out is to adopt the theory the police are presenting. It is why police have to be careful that they do not elicit false confessions A clear example of this is the treatment given to Galileo to get him to recant the heliocentric model. He was confined to a dark room and forced to listen to a hidden voice whispering “Confess” over and over again for days at a time.
So the AGW camp is looking to convert. They paint a certain future and indicate that the only way out is to adopt their favored AGW mitigation measures,. Sargent’s research indicated that this is not based on a rational argument. it is a technique to cause hopeless physiological stress so that the brain will seek to find ways to relieve it.
That the AGW camp is doing this in a clumsy and ineffective way does not deny that this is the technique that they are using and that conversion is their goal. Note that conversion is not convincing someone by rational argument. Climate scientists are smarter than you are. They see a catastrophe coming. They do not see any way out but by following their advice and believing what they believe. You are incapable of changing this except by accepting the truth. Climate scientists have knowledge that you are incapable of understanding. Your children’s doom is assured. Take up the true belief and save them.