Every week that passes, more and more evidence and scientific certainty that human pollution is causing the planet to warm dangerously beyond the biosphere’s ability to cope come to light…
World warmer now than ever, study claims
The world is now warmer than at almost any time since the end of the last Ice Age and, on present trends, will continue to reach a record high for the entire period since the dawn of civilisation, a study has found.
A reconstruction of global temperatures going back 11,300 years, which covers the historical period from the founding of the first ancient cities to the space age, has concluded the biggest and most rapid change in the climate has occurred in the past century.
Scientists found that the warm period following the end of last Ice Age, called the Holocene, peaked about 5000 years ago when the world began to get cooler. However, this cooling went into a dramatic and sudden reversal about a century ago when global temperatures shot up to levels not seen for thousands of years, the scientists found.
…so when will the NZ climate deniers apologize to NZ for doing all they could to muddy the waters and allow the public to falsely believe that the evidence didn’t add up? David Farrar makes his living from being a hard right masquerading as lite right blogger who is the online mouthpiece and pollster for the Government. His carefully crafted spin lines accepts climate change but does all he can to paint anyone out who wants to do something about it as a climate alarmist. Farrar famously once backed Ian Wishart’s assertion that the ‘climate alarmists’ were predicting a global flood of 67 meters that turned out to be a false assertion by Wishart and his breathless support of Poneke’s work on ‘climate-gate’ (which was debunked) is testimony to the deciet Farrar spins.
Slater of course is one of the best known online climate deniers who specializes at twisting facts and science to concoct a narrative that the ‘green Taliban’ are attempting to strangle off freedom by dragging the world back to the stone age.
Why are right wing bloggers so focused on being climate deniers?
It’s because this stopped being a scientific issue a long time ago and has become a cultural issue. Slater, Farrar and their climate denial acolytes can NEVER accept that the green movement is right because they have far too much culturally invested in the green movement being wrong. The Achilles heel of rampant consumerist Capitalism is its inability to produce within the confines of the planet, and those who have the most to lose from being forced to scale back their pollution have spent billions on trying to spin and deceive relying on the vested cultural interests of bloggers like Farrar and Slater to do the rest.
The now infamous 2002 Frank Luntz Memorandum to the Bush White House, gives a very clear idea of how the polluters of the planet have gone about shutting down the climate change debate…
Winning the Global Warming Debate – An Overview
1: The scientific debate remains open: Voters believe that there is no consensus about global warming within the scientific community. Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly. Therefore, you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate, and defer to scientists and other experts in the field.
…the polluters of the planet have simply adopted the same tactics the Tobacco industry used, cloud the ‘science’ behind how cancer and smoking are linked to create the perception that the debate hasn’t been decided yet so that there is no imperative to change. Rely on those who have a cultural vested interest in not changing and the debate gets shut down altogether.
The problem for the climate deniers like Farrar and Slater is that the impacts of climate change are now so apparent that they are being accepted by the masses.
Politically only the Greens are looking for real solutions (MANA will be launching their environmental policy later in the year) so only they can really trumpet any high ground on the issue. While our main Political Parties remain loath to change, the people who are being impacted must act.
Climate change will increase erratic, catastrophic weather patterns. I find an enormous irony that Farmers who are suffering the current severe drought are the same Farmers wanting to take more water and pollute more rivers and create more climate changing gasses through intensification of Dairy. NZ can be – SHOULD BE – the global leader at sustainable farming and charge a higher premium on the global market because of that purity. Government should be helping the Dairy industry invest hundreds of millions into research and development for those goals now, but while climate deniers still have the public’s ear, we won’t have that sea change.
Climate deniers are the creationists at a lecture on evolution. They need to be shown the contempt they deserve and we need to start making genuine efforts at greening our economy and giving our industries the research and development support that is going to help us adapt to the climate change our denial has already booked us in for.
It will take a change of Government for this to occur.
Farrar isn’t a “climate denier”. He posted yesterday on “The Monckton tour”:
“My position on climate change is that greenhouse gas emissions beyond doubt cause warming. There is a legitimate debate about how much warming will occur, as we do not know for sure how the rest of the very complex climatic system will respond.
But personally I don’t find Monckton a particularly useful contributor to the debate. He has a history of over-egging his claims and this rebuttal by John Abraham shows that he has quoted people out of context.
I think the biggest challenge with climate change is getting the major emitters to agree. An agreement without China, India and the US is basically worthless in environmental terms. China’s daily increase in emissions is greater than NZ’s total emissions.”
Climate change denial noise is very loud at Kiwiblog but not from Farrar.
I used to get inviolved in climate debate at there but rarely bother now, there is a small number of regular regulars who keep repeating the same old denials and try to discredit anyone who says anything but what they want to hear and make heard.
There is never any progress made in debate, it’s futile arguing with entrenched denial. Yesterday Kimble made the most perceptive comment:
“STOP READING HERE!
There will be nothing in this thread that stands any chance of changing your mind, so why bother?
Go play with your kids instead.”
Most people with any interest in serious debate avoid doing it at Kiwiblog, but that’s not due to Farrar’s views.
But did you understand what he actually said? It was in two parts:
1.) There was debate upon the amount of warming. Contextual implication is that the warming will be slight and not the major increase that the scientists are predicting.
2.) The big emitters need to change first
This amounts to saying that NZ should do nothing.
Don’t give up on this issue, Pete. Every so often, drop in a wee bit of information, and let them take it in. After a while, the deniers will realise that the science is against the; satellite sensors and anbtarctic core-samples don’t lie; and yes, continental drift is a reality – even though we can’t see it happening.
It took a while for people to realise that CFCs were ruining the Ozone Layer – but we’ve long since stopped using that gas in our speay cans. Which was proof all along that yes, humans can have an impact on the environment.
Ditto for greenhouse gases.
It hardly requires proof that humans affect the environment.
Our very existence implies this.
The issue is the extent of the problems, how we can address them, and what the downsides of the so called solutions are.
Industrial civilisation is predicated on looting and polluting. Industrial civilisation cannot function without looting and polluting.
The talking heads who manufacture consent for looting and polluting are well paid for lying to the masses.
Current trends in warming indicate the Earth will be anything between 20C and 6oC hotter by 2040. People like Farrar and Cameron could not give a toss about the next generation: I’m alright [for now].
The continuing drought in the US and the one that has just commenced in NZ may wake a few people up. But most will pretend it’s all a natural phenomenon and has nothing to do with their lifestyles.
The fact is, to prevent runaway greenhouse causing Near Term Extinction requires shifting the economy completely away from fossil fuels. Big oil/ big coal won’t allow it. Profits before people, even if it means extinction. And our bought-and-paid-for politicians will do nothing to prevent runaway greenhouse.
meanwhile, the mainstream media assiduously avoid any connection between climate catastrophe and consumerism: consumerism must reign supreme.
That’s why there is no hope for most species on this planet. And probably none for humanity either.
Atmospheric CO2 397ppm and rising faster than ever. Climate chaos underway
Oceanic pH dropping.
Arctic melting as never seen before.
”Hope it doesn’t affect the economy.”
That should be between 2oC and 6oC hotter, not 20oC
Not a peep from wannabe QE to the moon Russell Norman lately on this I suspect? Except of course on TRADING carbon credits (including, shorting, call and put options, derivatives, swaps, futures etc), as opposed to an ACTUAL reduction in emissions. The green Party has been coopted by banksters, I’m getting more certain of it every day.
Green Party: Go well, go Shell.
And yes, the banksters have a big say in Greed Party policy these days.
As you indicate, carbon trading is just a financial scam, designed to allow corporations and money-lenders to profit from doing nothing to protect the environment.
so sad that such a clearly intelligent chap as Cam continues his charade
For those who are “interested” in Monckton’s tour – which is being supported and paid for by our farmers, can find details here.
http://climaterealists.org.nz/
Thanks, Satisfaction.
In the meantime, those who aren’t emotely interested in Monckton’s tour can go here… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meZDEjhV7rE
Climate denial nonsense at its most ridiculous
The IPCC central estimate for climate sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 is 3 degrees C.
However, several IPCC supporting scientists, including Myles Allen of Oxford University, are suggesting that 2 degrees is a more likely figure.
Depending on emissions scenarios, this is something that may occur towards the end of this century.
When Cameron Slater uses the word “scam”. I suspect he is referring to the multi-billion dollar industry that has built around this scare, rather than angsting over the few fractions of a degree that we have warmed since pre-industrial times. In fact, many IPCC authors who concur with the “consensus” views don’t think that there is an immediate danger at all, rather something we can manage with sensible policies and technological innovation.
What ‘scams’ might these be?
What ‘sensible policies’ and ‘technological innovations’ are these?
@Frank. AndyS or Andy Scrase, is serial climate denier-commenter on NZ blogs whenever the topic arises, he was recently banned from Hot Topic after being valiantly tolerated by Gareth Renowden (contributing author here) for a tiresomely long time.
The scams referred to would those of the “hard left marxists” who are behind Agenda 21 and world domination through the means of an elaborate climate science fraud.
You see, these people plan to increase your taxes to fund build bird-chopping wind farms, we can’t have that.
Have I got that right Andy?
Comments are closed.