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The Forum > Article Comments > Green fundamentalism > Comments

Green fundamentalism : Comments

By Richard Castles, published 1/12/2006

'Repent now or pay later' is the solemn warning of the Stern Report.

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The point of science is to get out there with the measuring sticks and get the facts. So the Stern Report is a good thing then?

All those extra people and cars clogging up Brisbanes roads in say the last ten years have improved the air quality then. Fresh as ever ahy RC. You don't personnally see any smog or extremes in weather (and you conviently forgot to mention the almost empty dams and burning sunlight) - what couldn't find a scientific report to back up your statement. So much for science.

Anecdotal evidence is a good starting point in my books. When old timers who wouldn't have a bar of conservatonists start going on about how something must be wrong, it is really time for serious discusson. When reports like the Stern's come out and all the mounting evidence then it is time for action.

Your arguments work both ways R.C. Apart from the double speak, it was sensible article by the way.
Posted by ronnie peters, Thursday, 7 December 2006 10:46:56 PM
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"When old timers who wouldn't have a bar of conservatonists start going on about how something must be wrong, it is really time for serious discusson" Ronnie Peters I disagree , by that stage it is getting to late. As it is to arrest climate change we are at the boy with his finger in the hole in the dyke stage and even that may be too late as warming is accelerating. As for panaceas we can only offer those in at least one and a half to two centuries away any solution through our actions now. Either way life on earth will not return to a healthy equalibrium for many thousands of years.
Posted by West, Friday, 8 December 2006 11:01:54 AM
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Oh, Johnj, you really are tying yourself up in knots. You started by being quite convinced I had to be with the IPA, and now you're questioning my existence and saying my posts could be being "written by anyone". I don't want to get tangled up in your logic anymore, I might never get out.
Posted by Richard Castles, Friday, 8 December 2006 3:59:29 PM
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dickie: "And most of us refrain from making claims which we cannot substantiate."

Still waiting to learn of my "lies and misinformation".
Posted by Richard Castles, Friday, 8 December 2006 7:24:00 PM
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Mr Castles

My apologies for the delay in attending to your request where you ask that I support my statement that you have spread lies and misinformation.

a: You claim in your article: "Environmentalists are shrewd to label anyone who scrutinises the economics and science of climate modelling as "denialists" implying more than disagreement but a psychopathological resistance to the fearful truth."

b: "Yet reports such as Stern's are widely taken as gospel before they have been subjected to the intense scrutiny that the importance of the subject demands".

c: "Kofi Annan is the latest prominent figure to cast aspersions on the infidels".

1......Why do you presume that environmentalists invented the term "denialists"? Would you consider that this term was originally invented by journalists?

2......Who, and how many environmentalists implied that "denialists" have "a psychopathological resistance to the fearful truth"? Names please.

3......You imply that environmentalists do not scrutinise the "economics and science of climate modelling"? Please explain?

4......Please support your claim that all (and only) environmentalists take the Stern report as "gospel".

5......Why do you imply that Mr Annan considered the "denialists","infidels"? Isn't the word "infidels" your own description to emphasise the point that any opposition must be knee-capped?

6......Why do you pepper your report with nouns such as "bullies", "cult leaders", "despots"? Was the innunendo a feeble attempt in implying they are suitable descriptions of environmentalists? That was your intention was it not Mr Castles to feed these insults into the readers' psyche?

For an immediate contradiction to your accusations Mr Castles, you may peruse my post of 5/12 "Worst Drought in 40,000 Years" where I,
disputed a Stern recommendation. All of my research along with many other environmentalists, on atmospheric chemicals, was performed long before the Stern Report and the Al Gore movie was available.

So Mr Castles, it is clearly obvious to many of us that you have set out to bash the opposition and typically, you are, along with other unethical "denialists", sufficiently audacious to write an article on a subject where I suspect, you would fail an elementary test on the science!
Posted by dickie, Friday, 8 December 2006 9:09:41 PM
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Dear Mr Castles,

Brendan O’Neill’s remark about Tony Juniper deserves further consideration:

"More recently, Tony Juniper of Friends of the Earth said broadcasters should think twice before allowing climate-change sceptics on air, because "allowing such misinformation to spread would cause harm". Again, the words of sceptics or doubters are depicted as a kind of poisonous force that is literally bad for us, and which must therefore be quarantined."

Looking at Tony’s entire article (placing the excerpt from my above post in its proper context), I find that Tony appears the relativist sceptic, and Bjorn Lomborg and Lord Nigel Lawson appear more fundamentalist. - I don’t think Tony’s case helps Brendan Neill’s argument greatly.

You appear to be filtering the spectrum of arguments and participants in the global warming debate so as to picture it as struggle between fundamentalists and sceptics. I don’t believe two categories are adequate to resolve the issue.

The next item Brendan O’Neill mentions is:
Warm Words - How are we telling the climate story and can we tell it better?
Gill Ereaut and Nat Segnit
AUGUST 2006
© ippr 2006

The authors provide a number of categories useful for classifying arguments, for and against, in the global warming debate. It’s worth a look for its analysis of the debate, not just for its recommendations, which Mr O’Neill finds alarming:

“ "the task of climate change agencies is not to persuade by rational argument but in effect to develop and nurture a new 'common sense'” ”.

See http://www.linguisticlandscapes.co.uk/discourse.htm for the “Warm Words” analysis, which might add (at least the title of “comic nihilist”) to your nomenclature.

I'm rashly guessing that the main difference between alarm and acceptance depends upon what the reader believes to be “common sense”.

My experience of common sense is that it is more likely to be based on an emotional response than a rational argument, and when “argued reasonably”, common sense soon gets lost in the undergrowth of details, or else degenerates from light to heat.

It’s common sense to me that feelings are irrational. Does that make me sceptic, or fundamentalist?
Posted by Sir Vivor, Saturday, 9 December 2006 10:53:13 AM
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