Kingsman — a movie where the villain is a climate change megalomaniac

The movie came out in December (I’m way behind the times). It appears most of the audience had a rollicking good time at a spy movie where the evil villain “Valentine” had the ultimate genocidal carbon reduction plan. It was murder-to-save-the-planet.

Perhaps the leading edge of Hollywood has finally arrived? This can’t be good for the forces of freeloading. Someone shot the sacred cow, and though they did it quietly with no bragging or boasting, the crowd rewarded them.

From Mark Steyn’s review a few weeks ago:

Valentine is tired of giving money to politicians for action on climate change and nothing happening. He loves the planet and man is destroying it. So he’s concluded that the only solution is to eliminate the vast majority of mankind, leaving only those pre-selected individuals he’s invited to his mountain lair to re-emerge when the dust settles to live on a now Edenic earth cleansed of what he calls its “virus” – man.

This actually makes way more sense than the average Bond villain’s plan. Indeed, it makes so much sense that the pajama boy at Vox isn’t too sure who to root for. I mean, why would Colin Firth and the good guys even bother saving the world “only so it can be destroyed decades later” (by global warming)?

Steyn had a lot of fun with the confusion of the critics who laughed at the villain but knew they weren’t supposed too. He compared the boundary pushing Kingsman with the predictability of “The Day After Tomorrow”.

That’s how a Hollywood blockbuster is meant to address climate change – by telling you what to think every step of the way.

Because Kingsman isn’t that kind of earnest yawneroo, nervous critics find themselves pausing in mid-laugh to wonder whether the premise of the jest is entirely sound.

And just as The Interview took the Road formula and put Kim Jong-Un in it, Kingsman takes the old-time Bond formula and puts a climate-change megalomaniac in it. That’s not just a funny idea, but a great service to mainstream pop culture…

 Read more on Mark Steyn

I saw John Stewart interview Colin Firth last month; I didn’t realize the movie had a plot.

Thanks to Marc Morano, Judith Curry.

8.8 out of 10 based on 64 ratings

122 comments to Kingsman — a movie where the villain is a climate change megalomaniac

  • #

    I thought it was a documentary !!!

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      Mac551

      This topic was covered in the Bible,a select group who are taken from the earth just before everything that was corrupt was burnt,then the earth was restored to its paradisiacal glory(as it was at the time of the Garden of Eden).
      Instead of worrying about carbon dioxide maybe people should spend more time worrying about their neighbours.

      52

    • #
      James Bradley

      I’d pay to see it twice, but not even video pirates have bothered to offer Oreskes’ Merchants of Doubt for free.

      70

      • #
        Allen Ford

        That lamentable oversight has now been rectified. If you Google Merchants of Doubt free download, you’ll get 501,000 hits. This one is as good as any!

        20

  • #
    Roy Hogue

    Saw a trailer but you don’t get much from those so I didn’t put it on the want to see list.

    Maybe I should reconsider.

    70

    • #
      Scott L

      Hi Roy,

      I saw it in Gold Class – great movie although I don’t think the Swedish princess will approve 😉

      90

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      It is a good movie.

      One of the ways in which you can combat propaganda, is to grab it by the scruff of the neck, and take it to an extreme.

      I have done this with trolls on this site from time to time, but unfortunately, we no longer get the class of trolls that we used to.

      But, I digress. This movie does take things to extremes. The good guys never break a sweat. The bad guys have all the money, are basically as thick as two short planks, and are creatively evil.

      Lots of gadgets, hidden rooms, and really nasty henchmen who can’t seem to aim straight. Young punk gets recruited, gets trained up, goes into the villains lair to do battle, and saves humanity.

      Pretty predictable, I know, but it is a send up of all the James Bond and Flint movies, but with an overt message that climate change is orchestrated.

      And guess what? People relate well to that message. Duh, hello! Compare that to the ‘Merchants of Doubt’ offering, and let’s compare attendance numbers, shall we?

      270

      • #
        Roy Hogue

        Star Wars was the best movie I ever saw for plain old good entertainment. That original trilogy was the first and only 3 times I ever walked out of a movie theater with a big wide smile on my face. Hey, the good guys not only won and won against totally unreasonable odds but they actually deserved to win. How refreshing was that? I didn’t have the slightest difficulty telling who was the bad guy and who the good. What more could I ask?

        Only Lord of the Rings comes close to that.

        So what if it’s predictable? So what if it’s completely cornball and unbelieveable? So what if anything as long as it entertains me? That’s what I pay the asking price to get — entertained well for a couple of hours.

        So I shall endeavour to find Kingsman.

        40

    • #
      aussiguy

      Roy, go see it! Its entertaining.

      …And the cherry on top: those who chant the rhetoric of Climate Change know the villian is about them! 😀



      When you think about it, this is ONE of the most effective ways one can fight back against the endless waves of political Left narratives in recent decades.

      => Make fun of them through parody. Do it in a subtle, yet entertaining way through a good story. ie: Mock your opponents while entertaining the public…It puts them on the defensive!

      60

      • #
        Roy Hogue

        You probably have noticed that I’ve stopped arguing science. The climate change monster has come way beyond that and is no longer worthy of anything but derision and scorn. There’s nothing left to do but make fun out of it.

        Unfortunately the thing is still breathing and I’ve no idea how to kill it off. 🙁

        40

        • #
          Roy Hogue

          PS:

          When I saw Star Wars being hyped on TV in 1977 I wrote it off as just another 3rd rate sci fi flick and not worth a look. There had been far too many of those already.

          Then the guy I was carpooling with said no, go see it, it’s great. He’d taken the family to see it 3 times. Well, I knew Mike and he wasn’t a blithering idiot to be sucked in by some garbage movie so I relented and took the family to see it. We had to drive nearly 50 miles to where it was playing, stood in line an hour and a half to assure decent seats and paid a ripoff $6.50 a head to get in.

          When it started with, “Long long ago in a galaxy far far away…” I knew it had to be either really bad or really good. There couldn’t be any middle ground.

          Unfortunately you sometimes still have to judge the books by their covers until you get information to the contrary.

          20

          • #
            Roy Hogue

            When you see the moderated comment finally released you’ll wonder if the moderation filter has lost it’s mind. 🙁

            10

    • #
      Andrew McRae

      Yep.
      I also recommended it here two weeks ago, it’s both funny and at times dramatic.
      It’s 007-esque with some modern twists.

      Also kindof funny how Valentine uses the fact that everybody is practically glued to their cellphone all the time as a part of his weapon strategy.

      20

  • #
    Yonniestone

    This movie is important for two major facts it actually has a swipe at the CAGW concept and it’s a main stream Hollywood based movie!

    I noticed a few past CAGW adopted themes including the infamous 10/10 video, also the head villain is comparable to Richard Branson with even the logo looking like the “Virgin” one, if the movie does anything let it be a flag to signal it’s OK to ridicule something that’s ridiculous even if powerful people have been gullible enough to fall for it.

    After all this whole CAGW mess has mostly been spread via social media and popular culture so the main battle will probably take place there to win back the cynicism of the masses.

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  • #
    Leonard Lane

    I hope this opens the flood gates of movies mocking the global warming alarmists. Let these kind of thoughts go viral in the leftist movie makers, You Tube, comedy shows, etc.
    Good news.

    190

    • #
      Truthseeker

      The movie Interstellar has Matt Damon play a scientist who lies through his teeth to save his own skin at the risk of the rest of humanity. The character’s name? Dr Michael Mann.

      Must be a co-incidence … must be …

      211

  • #
    TdeF

    “This actually makes way more sense than the average Bond villain’s plan”.

    Actually this is quite the Bond villain’s plan other than simple world conquest.

    Drax in Moonraker had all his perfect specimens in his space station while he released a deadly toxin from satellites. The villain in “The spy who loved me” was doing the same on the bottom of the Meditteranean, destroying the world with a Russian/US exchange of nuclear missiles.

    Science has never been the strong point of EOW (End Of World) scenarios. A personal favorite is Geoff Goldblum who wrote a virus to destory the alien spaceship in Independence Day and the point where he connects his laptop to the plus on the alien ship. Seems they use RJ45s as well, plus binary, plus the same CPU instruction set and perhaps Windows 8? Cunning Aliens. Bill Gates has conquered the aliens first?

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    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      Bill Gates is an alien. Didn’t you get the email? 🙂

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    • #
      Iconoclast

      Not Gates Tdef but Jobs or should I say Wozniak, a classic movie example of the suspension of disbelief, they used an Apple which didn’t talk to anything Terran let alone alien.

      20

    • #
      ExWarmist

      The implication is that we got all of our technology from the Aliens – don’t cha know….

      Hence that ability to plug and play…

      00

  • #
    Richard C (NZ)

    >”a climate-change megalomaniac in it”

    The UNFCCC has a climate change megalomaniac in it – Christiana Figueres:

    “This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model, for the first time in human history”, Ms Figueres stated at a press conference in Brussels.

    “This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the industrial revolution. That will not happen overnight and it will not happen at a single conference on climate change, be it COP 15, 21, 40 – you choose the number. It just does not occur like that. It is a process, because of the depth of the transformation.”

    http://www.unric.org/en/latest-un-buzz/29623-figueres-first-time-the-world-economy-is-transformed-intentionally

    I’m still waiting for what the world’s economy will be transformed to. For example, what will replace international shipping that’s takes our exports and brings our imports but mostly powered by bunker oil, the cruise ship industry that brings our tourists by the same evil dirty fuel source, and aviation that takes our political entourage, along with the affiliate NGO personnel, to the UNFCCC COP venues and back every year but injects the deadly planet poison at high altitude?

    I don’t think basket weaving is a viable alternative but what else? Back to sailing ships perhaps.

    Any tips in the film?

    311

    • #
      tom0mason

      In that statement

      “This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model, for the first time in human history”, Ms Figueres stated…”

      The parts I have put in bold is where I presume she’s referring to all her other like-minded Big Left-wing Government elitist comrades. And not to the likes of you and me.

      231

      • #
        Rereke Whakaaro

        People like Christina Figueres (and I have worked with a few) think of themselves as being visionary. Many are proud of the fact. They therefore restrict themselves to only visioning the end state, of what they want to achieve.

        They might consider the last few moves of the end-game, especially those, where they are lauded for their vision, courage, and tenacity, but in the main they leave the minor details of how to get from where the rest of the world is, to where the vision demands they should be, to their functionaries, and the expendable hired help.

        The English have an expression; “all mouth and no trousers”, that seems very apt, when applied to the elite of the UN.

        But not to worry, a Kingsman will sort them out.

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      • #
        Joe V.

        Scary movie. C.Figueres reflecting on is the UN up to the job.

        20

        • #
          Just-A-Guy

          Joe V.,

          You mentioned yesterday how this all resembles the Tower of Babble. The thing that united that generation was language. Now as then, the UN has developed a special language to convey their message.

          World Government is portrayed as Global Governance.
          We no longer need comprehensive studies, they just need to be robust.
          Resource management is too much work , it’s enough to have sustainable developement.

          The list goes on and on.

          Abe

          91

          • #
            Joe V.

            Yes, forgive me for posting that clip again. No one should miss what she’s really about.
            …and as any halfway competent politician can tell you, communication is about repetition, repetition and repetition.

            Nothing really changes but the language and the amount of 8U££$41T the scams get wrapped up in.

            60

            • #
              Yonniestone

              She says regarding a global government scenario “we never had that 5,000 years ago” so how about Alexander the Great or the roman empire, they had to come pretty close?

              41

              • #
                Rereke Whakaaro

                Alexander the Great, and the Roman Empire, were constantly at war. Either with other countries, or with themselves.

                Question of the day: When you have a professional army, but run out of wars for them to fight, what happens next?

                40

              • #

                Question of the day: When you have a professional army, but run out of wars for them to fight, what happens next?

                Simple, really.

                Just return them to their core duty. Cleaning up after natural disasters.

                The Army ones sent to clean up this area after TC Marcia left yesterday after three weeks, with no fanfare, no barbecue and beers, very little thanks, and no media mention, probably to be told upon their return to their home base not to unpack, as the C17 was on the tarmac waiting for them to go to Vanuatu.

                Please excuse my cynicism.

                Tony.

                Post Script. Hmm! If TC Pam was a Cat5 and was the single worst storm event ever to hit the Pacific, I’m wondering what Cat5 Marcia was then.

                71

              • #
                Just-A-Guy

                TonyfromOz,

                I think Rereke was pointing in another direction. As in . . .

                . . . They turn on each other.

                Abe

                00

              • #
                Iconoclast

                Beg to differ Rereke but I rather fancy Yonniestone is right, at least in respect to the Romans. The Pax Romana lasted for around two hundred years and saw a period of relative peace not seen before or since in the history of humankind.

                10

        • #
          Allen Ford

          C.Figueres reflecting on is the UN up to the job.

          I find Ms Figueres even more frightening than Christine Milne. She also has an uncanny resemblance to Rosa Klebb.

          00

    • #
      Richard C (NZ)

      Figueres at Lima:

      Christiana Figueres told journalists at U.N. climate talks in Lima that in terms of paying for the efforts needed to shift economies worldwide onto a low-carbon track “$100 billion is frankly a very, very small sum”.

      “We are talking here about trillions of dollars that need to flow into the transformation at a global level,” she added.

      She said $90 trillion would be invested in infrastructure over the next 15 years.

      http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/03/us-climatechange-talks-idUSKCN0JH2MN20141203

      You just have to admire the fluent phraseology of – “flow into the transformation”.

      90

      • #
        Yonniestone

        Much like the saying “blood flowing on the streets” except it won’t be contained to just streets.

        That was actually a feature in “Kingsman” with the head villain having an aversion to blood, I considered it an equivalence to the cliché of the elite never getting their hands dirty but are perfectly comfortable with the violent actions carried out under their orders.

        81

    • #
      Just-A-Guy

      Richard C (NZ),

      I don’t think basket weaving is a viable alternative but what else?

      Read Eric Simpson’s comment.

      Current oil reserves give us about a hundred years worth of supply at today’s consumption levels. If they can de-populate to the levels they desire, they can extend that supply to last them a thousand years. Problem solved.

      That anyone still has any doubt about their resolve to get this done is naive.

      Abe

      190

      • #
        tom0mason

        Just-A-Guy

        The oil reserves you refer to are only the known reserves, who knows what else is out there? Until the oil price rises sufficiently to make further exploration viable these figures will not change that much.
        .
        Oil type fuels, and many product currently made from oil, could be made from coal if the price is right. World reserves of coal may run to many centuries worth (the US alone has 400 years worth of known reserves), ( Antarctica has unknown volumes ) and with the oceans’ possible harvest of methane hydrates would take us to a thousand years or so.
        .
        So no I don’t believe we could ‘run out’ of fuels. As humans are adaptable and resourceful when it come to making life more comfortable (except those left-wing loonies that repeat the mantras of doom and gloom).
        .
        I believe we will struggle along, exploiting natural resources as we require them. It’s in our nature, and with the correct and minimum regulatory action on free market forces, it is a sustainable method for our future.

        140

        • #
          Rereke Whakaaro

          There is also a lot of research dollars going into small-scale nuclear fusion, and in the recycling of spent nuclear fuel from fission.

          There was an article in one of the IEEE magazines a couple of years ago, that drew comparisons between seven or eight alternatives that were in the planning stages.

          I am not directly involved in research of that nature, so haven’t kept up with it, but all the people involved then, seem to be still be involved now.

          90

        • #
          Just-A-Guy

          tomOmason,

          So no I don’t believe we could ‘run out’ of fuels.

          It wasn’t my intention to imply that we may run out of carbon based fuel any time soon. I was simply trying to express my take on the mentality of those promoting the ‘let’s trim the population down’ idea. It was never about CO2, global warming, or anything of the sort.

          It’s always been about full control of all resources.

          Consider this. Water is not a right. The discussion about water begins at the two minute mark.

          Especially disturbing is this trend of billionaires and multi-nationals buying up all the water.

          Abe

          50

          • #
            tom0mason

            I thought that may be the direction you were heading but I could not resist the temptation, and so posted my reply.
            .
            Sorry I can’t see your reference as I have no video resources on this 16year old PC (it’s good to recycle 🙂 ).
            From your other link –

            Familiar mega-banks and investing powerhouses such as Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, UBS, Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse, Macquarie Bank, Barclays Bank, the Blackstone Group, Allianz, and HSBC Bank, among others, are consolidating their control over water. Wealthy tycoons such as T. Boone Pickens, former President George H.W. Bush and his family, Hong Kong’s Li Ka-shing, Philippines’ Manuel V. Pangilinan and other Filipino billionaires, and others are also buying thousands of acres of land with aquifers, lakes, water rights, water utilities, and shares in water engineering and technology companies all over the world.

            The fact that so many multinationals are buying lots of water rights and resources is indeed worrying and should be opened up to public debate.
            I can’t imagine too many people would feel comfortable knowing that some investment company was pricing their water resources just to maximize their profits.
            IMO some amenities and services should be maintained for optimum public good and not to maximizing corporate profit.
            I fear no good will come of it.

            90

    • #
      Ted O'Brien.

      The only signs I have seen point to the system they threw out in Russia a couple of decades back. These people are not bright. It won’t be basket weaving, it’ll be digging ditches and getting buried in them.

      80

  • #
    TdeF

    So many typos. You have to play guess the word again. Sorry. Plus is .. plug.

    60

  • #

    “A cancer is an uncontrolled multiplication of cells; the population explosion is an uncontrolled multiplication of people. We must shift our efforts from the treatment of the symptoms to the cutting out of the cancer.” -Paul Ehrlich, Stanford
    “My three main goals would be to reduce human population to about 100 million worldwide, destroy the industrial infrastructure and see wilderness, with it’s full complement of species, returning throughout the world.” -David Foreman, Earth First!
    “If I were reincarnated, I would wish to be returned to Earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels.” -Prince Phillip, WWF
    “In order to stabilize world population, we must eliminate 350,000 per day.” -Dr. Jacques Cousteau
    “Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?” -Maurice Strong, ex UNEP Director
    “A massive campaign must be launched to de-develop the United States.” -John Holdren (1973), Obama’s Science Czar

    310

    • #
      Just-A-Guy

      Eric Simpson,

      Almost on a daily basis, someone will comment here about how they don’t understand why the powers that be continue to beat the dead ‘climate change’ horse in spite of all the evidence against it.

      We all know in the back of our minds that the real-world megalomaniacs want desperately to bring about these scenarios.

      I guess we all just need a constant reminder to keep us focused.

      Thanks for that.

      Abe

      240

    • #
      Graeme No.3

      Ask them if they’re volunteering to be the first eliminated.

      No guess necessary about the answer.

      150

      • #
        Just-A-Guy

        Graeme No.3,

        Ask them if they’re volunteering to be the first eliminated.

        The whole point behind eugenics was that they could breed themselves into a superior race. Thus they see themselves as the cure not the disease.

        Abe

        120

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      Ask them if they are comfortable with anarchy, and a total loss of civilisation as we know it.

      During the Cold War, there was a lot of scenario planning done, around the concept of a much diminished population. None of those scenarios envision the sort of place where Christiana Figueres would want to live. No clean water, no sanitation, no electricity, no communications. People fighting over food and clothing. And above all, no personal security.

      130

    • #
      tom0mason

      And much to the eugenics advocating Malthusian misanthropes’ chagrin, according to FAO, the numbers of people in hunger keeps dropping and has been for 25 years.

      http://faostat3.fao.org/home/E

      80

    • #
      Leigh

      Whenever these self righteous barstards rear their ugly heads I always think of the movie Soylent Green.
      Eric, did any of these wanabe mass murders ever say how or who was going to get it in tne neck first?

      62

    • #
      ferdberple

      “A massive campaign must be launched to de-develop the United States.” -John Holdren (1973), Obama’s Science Czar
      ===========
      that part of the program is well underway.

      60

    • #
      Retired now

      But if one tries to mention these quotes the arguments might go like this:
      1. They didn’t say that.
      2. Or if they did they were taken out of context.
      3. You can’t really believe that they would say that do you?
      4. you’re just a right wing conspiracy theory nutter.
      5. But the world is overpopulated and we need to consider seriously how we must deal with the horrendous degradation of the natural resources and mother earth. The rape cannot be allowed to continue.

      10

  • #
    tom0mason

    Was not this film about a Bond event ?

    70

  • #
    bemused

    The premise of the movie actually reflects something some notable members of the Left/Greens have advocated in order to save the planet, putting something in the water etc to reduce the world’s population.

    101

  • #
    Doubting Rich

    It is hilarious that as the Vox reviewer blunders through a pompous misinterpretation of the film’s circumstances, politics and humour, his pretentiousness is blown apart by his mistaking Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance March no. 1 for Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture! They are not even very similar at all.

    100

  • #
    TdeF

    The whole anti carbon movement is illogical. Say we stopped burning fossil fuels, flying jet aircraft, heating our homes, cooling our homes, driving cars and using our computers, except when the wind blew or the sun shone. What then? Are we to believe seriously that the world temperature would not change? Are we to believe that problems of overpopulation would be solved? Are we to believe that mass starvation will be prevented. What exactly are the predictions for a jolly future for all mankind? Or is the Green caring solution simply mass murder anyway?

    No, it is just the usual STWIGO. Stop The World I Want to Get Off nonsense from the 1960s. Staying very still will not keep the wolves away. The ice ages were not pleasant times and they will come again. So will droughts. So will storms and extreme events which only happen every 100 years will happen every 100 years.

    Besides, the world is not heating, what 1980’s 0.5C heating we saw may well have been instrumentation change over and we will run out of fossil fuels soon enough. So what is the Green solution? Windmills. Lots and lots of windmills. Idiots.

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    • #
      TdeF

      The Greenist/Warmist approach to life

      Stop the World I Want to Get Off

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      • #
        tom0mason

        And here is an example of the language they use. So be afraid, be very afraid!

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        • #
          RB

          Apologies to Lewis Carroll fans.

          `Twas unbrilliant, the slimy toads
          Did gyre and gimble in P State;
          All flimsy were the data uploads,
          And the data they outgave.

          Beware the Hockeystick, my son!
          The angle that’s right, the lines that match!
          Beware the sue!sue! man, and shun
          The unicorn or strawman’s catch!

          Mike took his carnal sword in hand:
          Long time he thought for nought —
          And after emailing the rest of the band,
          He slumped awhile. He thought.

          And, as in uffish thought he typed,
          “The Hockeystick, with angled blade,
          Will prove it ‘yond doubt”, he hyped
          “From man, that ΔT was made”.

          One and one is two! Through and through
          The hockey blade went flicker-snap!
          It left for dead, by you and you
          Science sent them in a flap.

          “And, has thou slain the Hockeystick?
          Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
          O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
          I chortled in my joy.

          `Twas brilliant! But sly Argos
          Did gyre and gimble in the wave:
          All flimsy were the thermistors,
          And the data they outgave.

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      • #
        Just-A-Guy

        TdeF,

        The Greenist/Warmist approach to life . . .

        Stop the world. It’s mine so get the fv(k off. Now!

        Abe

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      • #
        Minderbinder of Qld

        Or, could it be “stop the world I want you to get off”?

        70

        • #
        • #
          Just-A-Guy

          Minderbinder of Qld,

          Notice the time-stamp of my comment above yours.

          Synchronicity or a ‘Bind of the Mind’? 😮

          Abe

          Relevant lyrics from another place:

          Our so-called leaders speak.
          With words they try to jail ya.
          They subjugate the meek . . .
          but it’s the rhetoric of failure.

          Sting

          50

      • #
        Winston

        Sorry, TdeF,

        That should read- “Stop the world, I want you to get off”.

        80

  • #
    handjive

    The CSIRO set sail for Fail …

    If the data doesn’t fit the model, adjust the data:

    ABC, 2008: “A long-standing difference between climate models and observations has been resolved with researchers finding that the world’s oceans have been warming faster than previously thought.

    The researchers found that from 1961 to 2003, ocean temperatures to a depth of 700 metres, contributed to an average rise in sea levels of 0.52 millimetre-per-year compared to a 0.32 millimetre rise reported by the IPCC.

    As part of a review of ocean temperature measurements, the researchers found significant errors in measurements from expendable bathy-thermographs (XBTs), which have been used since the late 1960s and makes up approximately 70 per cent of data.

    By adjusting the measurements for bias, the researchers have been able to provide a better match between climate models and observations.”
    . . .
    The 97% bogus climate science continues unabated…

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  • #
    Rod Stuart

    Did anyone else catch the radio debate Dr. Tim Ball vs Elizabeth May this morning. (7AM in Tasmania)
    Elizabeth who, I hear you ask?
    Leader of the Greens in Canada and their one and only lonely member in the Parliament.
    As you might expect, she is chocker block full of innuendo, stories from the fairies at the bottom of her garden, one logical fallacy after another, and “facts” she has gleaned from Skeptical Science and RealClimate. It’s a real tear jerker that someone with a degree from Dalhousie Law School would end up so stupid and gullible.
    Tim, of course walked all over her with factual information.

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    • #
      MurrayA

      I listened to it on YouTube (as much as I could stand from that green woman), and I noticed that she kept appealing to the Arrhenius formula proposed back in c.1896. I remember Chris Monckton observing that Arrhenius actually published an updated formula about ten years later which corrected, and effectively undermined the original one. Could anyone enlighten me on this?
      As for the rest of it, E. May just regurgitated the usual claptrap and claims about “settled science”. I am currently teaching a course on the history of science, and it is amusing to note that eugenics was “settled science” in the 1920s! No-one dared question it at the time. But what a disaster it was!

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        tom0mason

        MurryA,
        sorry I can’t help with the Arrhenius but here may be a good place to start. http://www.principia-scientific.org/a-statement-on-behalf-of-lord-monckton.html

        However your quote of –
        “…it is amusing to note that eugenics was “settled science” in the 1920s!”
        I believe that policies of eugenics are still active today, and may in fact be engrained into many Western government, and international organizations(UN, NATO, etc.,) policy.
        .
        It is a modified version where the (eugenic) acts are not caused by commission but by willful (and often planned) omission. That both national governments and international agencies are deliberately slow in stopping minor disagreement escalating into regional conflagrations, or regional disease outbreaks morphing into global epidemics through inaction, are evidence of this policy.
        .

        The lateness in action of world leaders to the African Ebola outbreak (and AIDS before it), NATO’s continuing harassment of the Russians via the politics of their borders, the lack of resolve in restraining the Syrian war (and feeding both sides with arms). And many more…

        The fact that UN-Peacekeeper do not keep any peace but just catalog damage and tally numbers, especially of dead bodies after conflict. They will supply aide and relief to overstressed areas but only after enough political pressure has been brought to bare on the situation.

        There are many other instances of these kinds of (political) omissions, eugenic by stealth, I’m sure you can think of a few.

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          Rod Stuart

          Tom0mason
          Interesting that Monckton mentions Callendar.
          I recall reading about an Englishman Callendar that published before the war on measurements he had made. I think his first name was Jeff or James.
          In fact, his work suggested that the effect, if any, is completely insignificant.
          Damned if I can remember where I found it now.
          Dr. Vincent Grey of New Zealand though published a paper that discusses all of the work on this topic in the twentieth century beginning with Svante Arrhenius.
          Again, as I recall, Grey found fault with all of the experimental measurements, bar none.
          There is a very recent paper though that reports measurements in the atmosphere itself, (not in a laboratory), that indicates the effect of CO2 doubling is a whole 0.03 degrees. How would you measure that?
          Here it is

          In conclusion it may be said that the combustion of fossil fuel, whether it be peat from the surface or oil from 10,000 feet below, is likely to prove beneficial to mankind in several ways, besides the provision of heat and power. For instance the above mentioned small increases of mean temperature would be important at the northern margin of cultivation, and the growth of favourably situated plants is directly proportional to the carbon dioxide pressure (Brown and Escombe, 1905): In any case the return of the deadly glaciers should be delayed indefinitely.

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  • #
    Richard C (NZ)

    ‘The coming climate court’ The proposed Paris agreement is another reach for global power.

    By Chris Horner – – Sunday, March 8, 2015

    http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/mar/8/chris-horner-paris-climate-agreement-a-global-powe/print/

    ‘World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth’

    International Climate Justice Tribunal

    https://pwccc.wordpress.com/category/working-groups/05-climate-justice-tribunal/

    Alternative Regionalisms – Part of the Economic Justice programme

    International Climate Justice Tribunal

    http://www.tni.org/events/international-climate-justice-tribunal

    Time For Climate Justice

    Welcome to our Ideal World clouds, filled with hopes for the future.

    Browse the clouds and add your vision for your Ideal World 2030.

    http://www.climatejusticeonline.org/

    ###

    My Ideal World 2030 vision is a world free of climate megalomaniacs.

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      Just-A-Guy

      Richard C (NZ),

      The ‘Klimate Kourt’ is nothing more than the UN’s version of The Inquisition.

      “Are you now or have you ever been a climate change dee-nye-err.”

      Abe

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        OriginalSteve

        Well the irony was that the Inquisition ( of which there were a few ) created free thinking men.

        We just need to keep speaking the truth, but also making sure we keep hard copies of all we have ( hidden securely – as these will become “heretical documents” ) so future generations can see the lies by comparing the science with the current nonsense.

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          Just-A-Guy

          OriginalSteve,

          Well the irony was that the Inquisition ( of which there were a few ) created free thinking men.

          Adversity has always been a force for positive change. Usually after the killing and maiming of hundreds, thousands, or more. Should’t we try to avoid all the carnage by reaching inside ourselves to find a way of avoiding all of that suffering?

          We just need to keep speaking the truth, but also making sure we keep hard copies of all we have ( hidden securely – as these will become “heretical documents” ) so future generations can see the lies by comparing the science with the current nonsense.

          With google on the verge of implementing truth filters on the internet, I think you’ll agree that it’s not just future generations we should be worried about. We’re talking about now. We’re talking about those generations alive today who may very quickly find themselves unable to locate pertinent information not just about climte change but every other subject that has a bearing on our day to day existence.

          Abe

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            OriginalSteve

            I would like to issue a call to all Skeptics –

            Please start printing & storing hard copies of all the papers that provide the scientific proof of lack of climate change.

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        Len

        In the Senate in Australia, recently the Green Senators at an equiry asked “Are you or have you ever been a member of the IPA? [Institute of Pubic Affairs]This questioning style keeps coming up 🙂

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    el gordo

    Its clearly a Bond spoof, here is Colin Firth praising the director.

    Q: Watching the film and seeing your performance, how did you also manage to balance the seriousness and the humor of your character in the film?

    A: I think it is written into it. Getting the tone right comes from the director and I think I sensed quite early on the tone that Matthew was going for. It is serious in that he wants to create a story where the stakes are high and he wants us to invest in all that. But, at the same time he is being playful; he knows the plot is far-fetched and the fact that it is satirical means that he can get away with a lot more. Completely implausible gadgets, crazy scenes, things that we know could not happen, and yet we buy it or for the purposes of two hours of fun.

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      Just-A-Guy

      el gordo,

      Make no mistake about it. The message is very real. The delivery is satiric to make it palatable.

      Abe

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        el gordo

        ‘The delivery is satiric to make it palatable.’

        Maybe, it depends on the demographic of the audience. If a younger crowd don’t laugh you can be sure they are all brainwashed.

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    RB

    This actually makes way more sense than the average Bond villain’s plan. Indeed, it makes so much sense that the pajama boy at Vox isn’t too sure who to root for. I mean, why would Colin Firth and the good guys even bother saving the world “only so it can be destroyed decades later” (by global warming)?

    If the human population must decrease, could the people thinking this make the ultimate sacrifice before they jump to the idea that it needs to be the more intellectually inferior.

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    Thomas The Tank Engine

    OT – it has to happen http://www.ecoenquirer.com/EPA-water-vapor.htm

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      Robert

      Interesting link. When I first read it I was just scanning the comments really quick between getting ready to go to work and actually leaving for work. I had to read it again later for the comedy value to sink in. On a better day I’d have caught it sooner, on a rougher day I might not have caught it at all.

      Looks like a fun site.

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        Thomas The Tank Engine

        It actually makes a very valid point. Human emissions of water vapor far far exceed CO2 and water vapor is supposedly a far more powerful “greenhouse gas”.

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    • #

      Be careful with the link at this site.

      Whilst interesting, I think it dates back to 2007, and besides the Bush Administration giveaway, and the White House staffers name, another is the Breaking news headline saying there was a breakthrough at the Bali UNFCCC conference, and that was in December of 2007. I kept looking for the April First time stamp.

      Note also the image of a Vapour trail, and then note the accompanying text for that image where it says.

      This jet condensation trail seen at sunset will gradually evaporate, increasing the water vapor content of the atmosphere.

      The water vapour is already there at that altitude where the jet is flying.

      All that comes out of the back of the jet engines is basically heat, which turns the existing water vapour into what are basically long thin clouds.

      Vapour trails are invariably more visible in Winter than in Summer, and that’s mainly because of the Lapse Rate.

      I wonder how many Greenies would read an article like this and take it as fact.

      Tony.

      (Tony, please don’t mention that ‘C’ word.)

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        Just-A-Guy

        That article is a parody as are all the others.

        Abe

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          ROM

          Bali conference ;
          Yeh! remembered that from back in the dark ages.

          Bush administration; Been, Come and Gone.
          Twice !!

          Trade mark ; eco-news 2006

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    TdeF

    I suppose it is consistently irrational. With rational science we know all life on earth, plants, animals, fish, insects are made almost entirely from CO2 (and water). We are solid CO2 and living the carbon cycle, starting with CO2 captured by photosynthesis.

    What sort of twisted irrational science declared CO2 pollution? When did people become the problem? When did the self haters take over? Do they really think early man had an idyllic existence with no medicine, no heating, no cooling, no cities, no variety, nothing at all to do except eat, fight and die? Not even a wheel or a cup or woven clothes? A pointy stick, no films and no internet. Let’s build votive offerings to the Earth Gods. Hundreds of thousands of useless giant windmills. Oops. Already done. Madness.

    Close the IPCC. These few bureaucrats have created a monster of misinformation, based on a wrong and opportunistic premise that governments controls the planet’s weather when we cannot predict tomorrow’s weather. Now the same people want control of the world’s governments. All because of carbon dioxide. Tell them they’re dreaming. Please.

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    There actually was a deep-green, anti-tobacco, pro-lentil, nature-worshipping, vegetarian dictator (who was Stalin’s collaborator for a couple of years, then not). And he actually did thin out the population!

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  • #
    Rod Stuart

    Happy St. Patrick’s Day everyone!
    Here is a little Irish ditty that we can sing for the warmistas.

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      Ross

      There is a lot of hoopla from the warmists about Cyclone Pam and how AGW is responsible. So Steve Goddard @ Real Science reminds them what it was like on St Patrick’s day in 1936 in the eastern USA

      https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2015/03/16/st-patricks-day-1936/

      GISS and co are going to have rapidly adjust all their data to account for 1936 so the meme can continue. /sarc

      NB. Like everyone else I feel for the people in Vanuatu but solar power and wind turbines will not help the clean up or avoid future storms.

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        Climate extremes in the US during the 1930s would be a great op for the modern climatariat. The floods of 1936 were preceded by a fierce coldwave and followed by the Big Heat, the worst known in the period of record along with 2012. Put that together with the Dust Bowl and the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 – the strongest and most intense hurricane to make landfall in the United States and the Atlantic Basin in recorded history – and you’ve got a prob or two.

        Mind you, Australia was no fun in the 1930s, our driest known decade, when we had our most lethal heatwave (and most lethal natural disaster) in a bloody La Nina, of all things. But the main thing about the 1930s was not to live near any major waterways in China.

        Amazing how the climate used to change before we had climate change.

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          ROM

          Amazing how the climate used to change before we had climate change.

          Suggest you trade mark that one mosomoso 😉

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    Allan

    Reminds me of the plot to (the late, great) Michael Crichton’s State of Fear. Mega-maniacal eco nut jobs as the villains. Wish someone would turn that into a movie!

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    pat

    i commented on this at WUWT a while back. i don’t read this movie they way Steyn does:

    UK Scree Review: Kingsman
    WHAT’S IT ABOUT?
    When a mysterious internet billionaire, Valentine (Samuel L Jackson), kidnaps a RESPECTED climate change scientist, he manages to outwit the secret agent, Lancelot (Jack Davenport), who’s traced them to a mountain retreat…
    http://ukscreen.com/review/kingsman-the-secret-service-review/

    12 Feb: Wall St Journal Speakeasy VIDEO (watch from 1.20 in)
    Q. Is the villain that Samuel L. Jackson plays in “Kingsman: The Secret Service” based on hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons? What’s up with the movie’s climate change subplot?
    Firth and “Kingsman” director Matthew Vaughn stopped by the WSJ Cafe to answer these and other burning questions.
    (paraphrasing: Kingsman director, Matthew Vaughn says the Jackson character is based on Steve Jobs. Vaughn says Valentine, the villain of the movie, identifies a problem THAT AFFECTS ALL OF US, he talks about global warming, etc, so he identifies a problem which is REALISTIC, but his solution is crazy…he crosses the rubicon into madness”)
    http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2015/02/12/colin-firth-on-kingsman-russell-simmons-and-climate-change/

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      Ross

      Pat

      If you are right then it suggests the producers of the film totally failed. The fact that Steyn can plausibly interpret it or twist its story to mean the opposite equals a failure in my book.

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    pat

    more reasons i wouldn’t go near this film (aside from the gratuitous violence & foul language):

    Kingsman star, Colin Firth, is married to eco-fashionista, “the Queen of the Green Carpet”, Livia Firth, whose name you see below in the youtube summary:

    54 secs: Youtube: Colin Firth introduces #SustainableFilm at the BFI
    posted by by EgoAgeTV
    ***Oscar-winning actor & Co-Founder of Eco-Age Colin Firth launches the #LFFindustry talk on #SustainableFilm at the BFI.
    Bringing together key players in the film industry to highlight the importance of sustainability, Director of the BFI Amanda Nevill and LIVIA FIRTH introduce a panel of experts to talk best practice, the challenges ahead and outlining what tools and resources can help.
    The panel included Derek Watts (Three Mills Studios), Melanie Dicks (Greenshoot) Aaron Mathews (***Albert Carbon Calculator), David Neilson (Filming Scotland), chaired by John Newbigin (Creative England).
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsffesHFyoI

    ***check out Albert online, if u wish, search: BAFTA: Albert The Carbon Calculator

    Oct 2013: Sustainability: film has ‘a unique opportunity to inspire’ says actor Colin Firth
    Last week, as part of the BFI London Film Festival, the BFI and BAFTA hosted a Focus on Sustainability panel. Livia Firth, Founder and Creative Director of Eco-Age opened the discussion, which included industry representatives from Pinewood Studios, 3 Mills Studios, Filming Scotland, Greenshoot and Albert, along with our own Head of Film Dan Simmons. The agenda, headed up by driving figure Colin Firth, was creating a sustainable film industry; focusing initially on the environmental, but then also social and economic nature of this far-reaching issue.
    This comes after the recent IPCC climate report, affirming that human activity is the dominant cause of the global warming observed since the 1950s. Industry practitioners at the panel gave examples from bottles of water being wasted on set, to lights being left on overnight, and HGVs transporting equipment around the UK…
    http://blog.skillset.org/index.php/2013/10/sustainability/

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      Bones

      This sounds like the creation of more jobs for gangreen boys and girls who have no intention of ever getting a real job.How do you make an industry more sustainable by making people do more courses for a job they already know how to do,at an extra cost.Just like the unions,no green certificate,no worky.

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    hergo007

    Hang on, that’s basically the plot for Moonraker. Hugo Draw assembles a group of “pure” humans and rockets them to a space station. He sets about releasing a neurotoxin, that will kill only humans, into the atmosphere before returning many years later.
    Bond, with the help of Dr Holly Goodhead and the assassin Jaws, stops him in his tracks.

    Pure pre-Daniel Craig, Bond that.

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    tom0mason

    What has happened to ‘the Griss’ these days?
    Haven’t read his cutting prose for a while now.

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    pat

    not for the first time in recent weeks, another Gore presidential run is being floated. bizarre photo caption!

    16 March: Vox: Ezra Klein: Al Gore should run for president
    The most ambitious vision for the Democratic Party right now rests with a politician most have forgotten, and whom no one is mentioning for 2016: Al Gore…
    PIC CAPTION: In addition to some interesting ideas, Al Gore has a sun-powered death ray that can obliterate the earth if he is not elected president.
    Climate change is a real and growing threat to the world’s future. In 2009, nearly every country in the world agreed that global warming must be held to less than 2 degrees Celsius. We’re on pace to blow through that — warming the planet four degrees or more is horrifyingly plausible…
    Income inequality is a serious problem. But climate change is an existential threat…
    When it comes to climate change, there’s no one in the Democratic Party — or any other political party — with Gore’s combination of credibility and commitment. Bill McKibben, founder of the climate action group 350.org, calls Gore’s work on the issue “the most successful second act of any political life in U.S. history.” Perhaps that’s hyperbole, but it speaks to the regard in which Gore is held by climate activists…
    Moreover, in an era in which very little moves through Congress, climate change is an issue where the president has real unilateral authority…
    He begins with a powerful asset in presidential politics: credibility…
    He serves on the board of Apple, as a senior adviser to Google, and at the mega-venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers. He’s also carved a path through finance and telecommunications, becoming fabulously wealthy — richer, even, than Mitt Romney — as an investor and mogul. And then there’s his centrality in the environmental community, which is, itself, quite rich — it’s easy to imagine, say, billionaire Tom Steyer gathering some friends and putting some massive Super PAC money behind Gore…
    http://www.vox.com/2015/3/16/8220537/al-gore-president-2016

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    pat

    16 March: WUWT: Gore goes off the deep end, calls to ‘Punish Climate-Change Deniers’
    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/03/16/gore-goes-off-the-deep-end-calls-to-punish-climate-change-deniers/#comment-1885136

    the above has a link to MacWorld but, even there, the ***comments suggest they don’t buy the Gore BS:

    13 March: MacWorld: Caitlin McGarry: Al Gore challenges SXSW to focus online activism on climate change
    Years from now, if the world hasn’t been ravaged by fires, floods, and famines, Gore said the next generation will look back at us and ask: “How did you change?”.
    “Part of the answer may well be that a group of people came to South by Southwest in Austin, Texas in 2015 and helped to make a revolution,” Gore said.
    The audience of tech-minded folks who have descended on Austin for the music, film, and interactive festival was into what Gore had to say.“He’s such an inspiration,” one attendee told her colleagues as they filed out of the Austin Convention Center’s exhibit hall…
    That means signing climate change petitions, using social media to call out climate change-denying politicans, and streaming the Live Earth Road to Paris concert on June 18, an event designed to draw attention to the climate talks happening in Paris this December…
    ***
    (12 comments)
    comment: DW: He has made $200 million off the rubes who believe this hoax. I’m sure he’ll make more.
    Ed Quigley: Seems to me that this guy should practice what he preaches, or sit down and shut up. Wow; I’m starting to sound like a conservative, and I’m really not, but I’m getting sick of his hypocritical BS!
    PatTheCarNut: Then he walked out to his 6 Chevy Suburban motorcade and left, forcing Austin PD to close roads nearby making motorist sit idle, wasting fuel as he was driven to Austin-Bergstrom to board his private jet.
    http://www.macworld.com/article/2896641/al-gore-challenges-sxsw-to-focus-online-actvism-on-climate-change.html

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    Rod Stuart

    This information is from my investment advisory service.

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    pat

    16 March: Breitbart: Robert Wilde: Mathematician Tells Climate Change Advocates ‘Time to Get Over They Lost the Scientific Argument’

    Dr. Christopher Essex, professor of Applied Mathematics at the University of Western Ontario, told Breitbart Executive Chairman, Stephen K. Bannon, that political activists, who undermine scientists for not embracing climate change theology, have crossed a line by making direct political attacks on regular scientists, like Willie Soon.
    Appearing on Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM, Patriot radio, channel 125, Essex explained that on Sunday he and a group of scientists published a paper which methodically critiqued the Royal Society’s position on climate change, emphasizing areas that were “weak, limited, and flimsy.”…
    Overall, Essex believes that climate change arguments have evolved to the point where we don’t talk about any science, but end up talking about people. “It’s wrong, it’s inappropriate and utter political nonsense,” he stated. There is “no merit” to the climate change arguments. He sais that, “it is time to leave the scientists alone.” Essex explained that the climate change advocates are going to have to “get over the fact that they lost the scientific argument.”
    http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/03/16/mathematician-tells-climate-change-advocates-time-to-get-over-they-lost-the-scientific-argument/

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    pat

    14 March: UK Telegraph Emily Gosden: One in ten Green Deal companies ‘struck off’ for breaking the rules
    Fresh blow to Government’s flagship energy efficiency scheme as it emerges hundreds of companies have had to be barred from installation work
    More than a tenth of companies implementing the Government’s flagship energy efficiency scheme have been banned after breaking its code of practice, ministers have admitted, raising fears thousands of homeowners may be being ripped off by dodgy tradesmen…
    The latest £70 million tranche of funding from the Green Deal Home Improvement Fund giveaway is up for grabs from Monday 16 March, with homeowners able to claim up to £5,600 each for work including solid wall insulation, double glazing or a new boiler.
    But new figures reveal that more than 350 of the companies registered to carry out assessments or installation work for the scheme have had to be stripped of their certification after breaking its code of practice, which is designed to ensure they are properly qualified and deal with complaints correctly…
    The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has now admitted that 43 Green Deal assessor organisations – about 10 per cent of all those registered – and 324 installers, or 12 per cent of those registered, “have had their authorisations as a Green Deal participant removed for non-compliance issues against the Green Deal Code of Practice”. …
    Gillian Guy, chief executive of Citizens Advice: “Green Deal firms struck off for letting consumers down need to be stopped from being re-certified, as should phoenix companies attempting to get recertified under a different name.” …
    The consumer charity warned last year that scammers were cold calling households, purporting to be from the Green Deal scheme.
    Trading Standards watchdogs around the UK have reported dozens of similar complaints…
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/11471036/One-in-ten-Green-Deal-companies-struck-off-for-breaking-the-rules.html

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      Just-A-Guy

      pat,

      When a dead carcass ends up rotting under the blistering sun, the vultures invariably show up for the free meal.

      Abe

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    pat

    16 March: BBC: Roger Harrabin: Oxford’s postponed divestment decision faces protest
    Former students occupied an Oxford building on Monday to protest the university’s failure to decide about divesting funds from fossil fuels.
    Campaigners expected an announcement from the university, following discussion of a divestment proposal put forward by students.
    But an Oxford spokesperson said time was needed to consider “serious issues” involved in the investment change…
    Joining the occupation was John Clements, Oxford’s director of finance from 1995 to 2004. He said: “We are bitterly disappointed about the university’s failure to come to a decision. Oxford should be leading the move away from investment in all world-destroying fossil fuel companies to more sustainable forms of energy.”…
    Oxford postponed its decision until May.
    ‘Hear the voices’
    The British Medical Association, the World Council of Churches and the Rockefeller Brothers have all agreed to divest and members of the London Assembly have urged the Mayor Boris Johnson to withdraw investments in coal, oil and gas.
    This is said to be the fastest-growing divestment movement the world has seen.
    Oxford is the second richest university in the UK after Cambridge. Its endowment is worth around £3.8bn…
    Two years ago the university accepted funds from Shell for a new Earth Sciences laboratory and the firm also funds research doctorates in geochemistry. BP spends millions supporting university research…
    Daniel Fischel, emeritus professor at the University of Chicago Law School told BBC News: “Every bit of economic evidence suggests that fossil fuel divestment is a bad idea. The costs are substantial and stand to have real financial impacts on the returns generated by endowment funds.”
    Jeremy Leggett, a solar entrepreneur and Oxford alumnus said: “I don’t think universities should be training young people to craft a viable civilisation with one hand, and bankrolling its sabotage with the other.”
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-31877595

    16 March: Democracy Now: As U.N. Backs Fossil Fuel Divestment, Bill McKibben on Vanuatu, Oxford Vote, California Water Crisis
    This comes as University of Oxford alumni, donors and students are watching a vote set for today on whether the school will divest its endowment from the top 200 companies involved in exploring or extracting fossil fuels…
    BILL MCKIBBEN: And the people in Vanuatu know exactly what the culprit is. You know, in one of the most beautiful demonstrations of the climate change era, last summer Vanuatu and 10 other Pacific Islands’ Pacific Warriors, 350’s Pacific Warriors, built indigenous traditional canoes and took them off to Newcastle in Australia, the largest coal port in the world, and used them to blockade the great coal ships in an effort to demonstrate exactly what Cyclone Pam also demonstrated—the incredible vulnerability of so many of the poorest people in the world to the rising temperatures that we’re inflicting on our one Earth…
    In many of these nations, coral reefs provide the best defense against a raging ocean. And that defense is breaking down everywhere. Add to that the fact that we keep seeing these super typhoons, super cyclones. You know, warm air holds more water vapor than cold. It allows, in arid areas, for more evaporation, and hence more drought…
    AMY GOODMAN: As we speak, Oxford University in Britain is set to vote on a measure to divest from coal. The decision could come during our show. Meanwhile, the U.N. body responsible for global climate change negotiations is backing the fast-growing campaign persuading investors to sell off their fossil fuel assets. Nick Nuttall, the spokesperson for the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, the UNFCCC, said, quote, “We support divestment as it sends a signal to companies, especially coal companies, that the age of ‘burn what you like, when you like’ cannot continue.” …
    BILL McKIBBEN: You know, I remain slightly in shock about the whole thing. Three years ago, it was a few of us. You know, I wrote the first big piece about this for Rolling Stone magazine. At this point, this idea, this divestment idea, now encompasses great universities, from Stanford to Sydney to Stockholm. It encompasses religious denominations—United Church of Christ, the World Council of Churches. There are cities, like Oslo and Seattle; the Rockefeller family, the first family of fossil fuel. Today, Oxford is taking a vote. In a couple of weeks, people are descending on Harvard—you know, all kinds of people, Al Gore, yes, but also a two-time Reagan appointee to the SEC, also Desmond Tutu, all Harvard alumni of one kind or another—demanding that the university sell its shares. So, this has become one of the many faces of the fossil fuel movement, the fossil fuel resistance. And it’s very much hand in hand with those Vanuatuans standing up to the biggest coal mines in the world in Australia. Those coal mines can’t be developed without the kind of financial lifeline that we’re trying to cut off when we do things like divestment…
    AMY GOODMAN: George Monbiot just tweeted, “I’ve pledged to hand back my degree if Oxford University does not divest from #fossilfuels. Please make the right decision.” …
    BILL McKIBBEN: Yes, George Monbiot is going to hand back his Oxford degree. And almost as powerfully, Natalie Portman has demanded that Harvard divest. So, it’s everywhere now, Amy…
    http://www.democracynow.org/2015/3/16/as_un_backs_fossil_fuel_divestment

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      Annie

      This is worldwide bullying of the mining companies. It’s unbelievable. Those hypocrites will still want to fly everywhere, eat well, wear warm clothes, have heating and lighting, top-end cars and all the fuel that goes with them and yet be quite happy for the rest of us to have none of them.

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      Leigh

      Let me see if I can get this right.
      So if one of these global alarmists with a degree. That is payed by government and universities to advise and teach on scientific matters in his chosen field of his degree.
      That some who now feels so empowered, so self righteous that he will hand back his degree of “expertise”.
      Is he then no longer qualified or for that matter “entitled” to suck on the teat of public monies or give “expert”advice?
      The scientific community does not listen to me (or anybody else who disagrees) simply because I’m not qualified.
      They are ALL so willing to spend other peoples money in persuit of THEIR ideolygy.
      Lets see if any of these bag of winds are willing to hand back their personal bag of other peoples monies that comes with their alarmism in protest.

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    ROM

    UPDATE;

    Jo’s post of Mar 12th

    Naomi Oreskes film Merchants of Doubt

    From; Box Office Mojo

    Domestic Total as of Mar. 15, 2015: $54,200

    Release Date: March 6, 2015

    Total Lifetime Grosses
    Domestic: $54,200

    Domestic Summary

    Opening Weekend: $20,300
    (#60 rank, 4 theaters, $5,075 average)

    Widest Release: 10 theaters

    ___________________

    10 days; 10 theaters ; $54,200 gross;

    All time domestic [ USA ] rank; 10.312

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    pat

    deceptive as always, BBC’s Harrabin writes “John Clements, Oxford’s director of finance from 1995 to 2004” has joined the occupation at Oxford Uni. Harrabin knows full well Clements’ current position:

    LinkedIn: John Clements
    Finance Officer at People & Planet, Oxford
    December 2006 – Present
    Previous:
    Director of Finance
    University Of Oxford
    October 1995 – June 2004
    https://uk.linkedin.com/pub/john-clements/22/11a/b97

    “climate grieving” at the website!

    PeopleandPlanet.org: Students campaigning to end world poverty, defend human rights & protect the environment
    Fund Fossil Free
    All over the UK we are winning, can you help us keep up the pressure?
    This year, slowly but surely the power of the student divestment movement is growing. Students at universities and colleges are taking on the giants, the fossil fuel industry, who are no longer laughing, they are fighting us.
    http://peopleandplanet.org/

    Oxford accused of ‘dithering’ on fossil divestment | News …
    http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/…divestment/2019119.article
    14 hours ago – Andrew Taylor, Fossil Free campaign manager at the student campaign organisation People and Planet, said

    Oxford University should lead the way and divest from fossil fuels

    The Guardian-12 Mar 2015
    The idea of fossil fuel divestment, seemingly a radical pipedream just a few … We’ve also had support from People and Planet

    UPDATE: Anti-fossil fuel protesters leave after taking over Oxford …
    The Oxford Times-6 hours ago

    from Wikipedia: People & Planet
    Type: Company Limited by Guarantee and Charity registered in England & Wales and Scotland.
    People & Planet is funded primarily from governmental grants, trusts and foundations, and an increasingly successful social enterprise training FE and school students…
    Notable People: The environmental campaigner and journalist George Monbiot is patron of People & Planet

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    toorightmate

    Whether it was good, bad or mediocre doesn’t matter.
    It was a movie – same as Donald Duck, Three Stooges, etc, etc.

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    pat

    16 March: UK Independent: Christopher Hooton: Earth has exceeded four of the nine limits for hospitable life, scientist claims
    In a paper published in Science in January 2015, Johan Rockstrom argues that we’ve already screwed up with regards to climate change, extinction of species, addition of phosphorus and nitrogen to the world’s ecosystems and deforestation.
    We are well within the boundaries for ocean acidification and freshwater use meanwhile, but cutting it fine with regards to emission of poisonous aerosols and stratospheric ozone depletion.
    “The planet has been our best friend by buffering our actions and showing its resilience,” Rockstrom said. “But for the first time ever, we might shift the planet from friend to foe.”
    This table by Ted shows where we’re at according to his scale…
    The research echoes a recent debate over whether the Earth has moved from the Holocene epoch to a new one scientists are calling the Anthropocene, named after the substantial effect mankind has had on the Earth’s crust.
    It’s not all doom and gloom though.
    “Ours is a positive, not a doomsday, message,” Rockstrom insisted…
    He is confident that we can step back within some of the boundaries, for example through slashing carbon emissions …
    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/earth-has-exceeded-four-of-the-nine-limits-for-hospitable-life-10111582.html#

    Stockholm Resilience Centre
    The centre is a joint initiative between Stockholm University and the Beijer International Institute of Ecological Economics at The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. The centre is funded by the Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research, Mistra…
    How did the research on the planetary boundaries come about?
    Discussions about the planetary boundaries started in 2008 at a workshop convened by Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm Environment Institute and the Tallberg Foundation…
    “There are now so many of us, using so many resources that we are threatening the Earth’s capacity to regulate itself,” says co-author Professor Will Steffen of the Australian National University, one of the science strategy leaders of the Planetary Boundaries research initiative…
    http://www.stockholmresilience.org/21/research/research-programmes/planetary-boundaries.html

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    pat

    academia.edu: Planetary Boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing planet.
    The Australian National University, Canberra ACT 2601, Australia…CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization), St Lucia QLD 4067, Australia… Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK)…etc etc
    Acknowledgements: The planetary boundaries research at the Stockholm Resilience Centre is made possible through a core grant from MISTRA (Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research). S.E.C. is supported by the Swedish Research Council, R.B. is supported by a Branco Weiss Fellowship, C.F. is supported by the Family Erling Persson Academy Programme on Global Economic Dynamics and the Biosphere, I.F. is supported by the Stordalen Foundation (Norway), and S.R.C. and V.R. are supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation .
    http://www.academia.edu/10192614/Planetary_Boundaries_Guiding_human_development_on_a_changing_planet

    Mistra.org: THE SWEDISH FOUNDATION FOR STRATEGIC ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH supports research of strategic importance for a good living environment and sustainable development.
    Asset Management:
    Mistra was formed in 1994 and started with assets of SEK 2.5 billion. These funds were derived from the previous ‘wage-earner funds‘. At year-end 2011, the assets amounted to SEK 2.7bn. Since the start, Mistra has disbursed SEK 3.1bn for various initiatives.
    Since April 2007, the whole of Mistra´s assets under management have been placed according to sustainability criteria, to reflect Mistra´s remit of helping to solve environmental problems and working for sustainable development. This must be done with reasonable consideration of the requirements in Mistra´s Statutes of a good return and limited risk.
    http://www.mistra.org/en/mistra.html

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    bemused

    Problem solved, but which one gets us first: http://phys.org/news196489543.html?

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