Poirot,

Obviously, some people don't understand the science, no matter how many times and in how many ways it is explained or pointed out.

To them it is just a communist plot - nothing to do with the science at all.

I think those same people confuse "government" with "governance"

http://cognoscenti.wbur.org/2013/01/23/climate-politics-moomaw-hamel

Dear qanda,

Well said.

I would have thought that conspiracy theories
were no longer as common as they were decades ago
and that we should all be concerned about
sustainable development in the 21st century.

The Brundtland Report (named after the Norwegian
Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland) introduced
sustainable development to the world in 1987.
The Stern Report did the same in 2006.

Yet some refuse to listen.

Sounds like an extreme weather event going on in QLD. Where is that bloke that can predict the next flood. Gone quiet.

Dear Geoffrey,

Look I'm more than happy to put the work in if I thought it would do any good.

I don’t so I didn't.

But I'm happy to give you the benefit of the doubt however you would first need to answer the following question:

Is your mind capable of being changed on this issue and if so what would you need to see in a graph I produced to make that happen?

As to your proclaimed nationalism it is hard not to see it being subsumed by your politics. Your call for freedom and independence for our nation only extends to those institutions you deem unacceptable, the UN obviously one of them.

It equally obvious to others that to you this ethic is not universal which then relegates it to opinion.

If you we're a true patriot you wouldn't have a bar with any nation setting up a secret military base on our soil, no matter who it was. I mean where is Australia’s secret military base on the American mainland?

Pity.

Thanks for the link, qanda.

I really believe that the denialist movement "isn't" about the science at all.

We know what happened when the realisation dawned that any effort to mitigate warming would produce a shift in the status quo....that people would be required to put the brakes on unfettered consumerism and growth.

We live under a system that requires growth at all costs. Environmental imperatives that would retard capatalist endeavours simply are incompatible with modern industrial sensibilities.

Canada is a good case in point. Of late, their conservative government has acted without restraint to stymy any moves in the direction of global environmental agreement. They possess the world's single largest industrial polluter in the Athabasca Tar Sands (If one needed an example of the worst of modern industrial environmental vandalism, it would be difficult to find a more pertinent example). When Obama put the brakes on the Keystone Pipeline to bring this oil into the US, Canada immediately began talking of selling it to China and Asia in general....Canada sees this dirty oil as their economic salvation. They will turn themselves inside out to keep production going.

My main point is that I believe it is pointless arguing the science, when it is so plain that the science is not the issue.(although playing along with the likes of cohenite is a tad entertaining at times:)

It's the psychological and social devices and strategies that are employed which need to be countered. They have been deployed, and they have caught the scientific community on the back foot.

Scientists and those who support them need to concentrate on the tactics, and fight fire with fire.

Dear qanda,

You said on Friday, 25 January 2013 10:09:41 AM, “I think those same people confuse "government" with "governance””

Do you believe that Yvo de Boer got it wrong in the UNFCCC resolution and meant to say “governance” and not “government? I have quoted the exact text on OLO more than once, so I assume you are aware of the intentions of the UN?

Regards,

Geoffrey Kelley