Conservative voters are blind, with deficient mental software, says psychologists

The implications are staggering, half the population fail at blink tests, and can’t see newspaper headlines about “climate change”. If only we could make them see by using rhetorical and psychological trickery to get past their faulty filters, the world would be saved. Please send us another grant!

The research you’ve been waiting for:

Why some conservatives are blind to climate change

Naturally, this self-serving, circular, and poorly researched piece is brought to you by The Conversation. Where else?

The big insight looks like pattern seeking and confirmation bias to me:

When we modified the test to measure people’s attention to climate change, we found people who are concerned about climate change are better at seeing climate-related words, such as carbon, right after the first target than those who are less concerned.

When we analyzed the data, we found a pattern: Conservatives who were less concerned about climate change were less likely to see climate-related words than liberals who were worried about the issue.

In short, conservatives showed climate change blindness.

Or in another hypothesis, conservatives had better filters for pointless news stories with a prediction success rate lower than random chance. From experience, conservatives have figured out that these news stories are a waste of time.

The evidence suggests instead that Climate-change voters show reality blindness. (See the evidence list and references here).

Wrong with their first fact. Please, someone teach these Profs to use a search engine

The real problem with this study is that it starts from flawed assumptions, and everything “builds” on that. Apparently they only get their news from the BBC, or possibly 350.org flyers:

Despite the strong evidence that human activities are contributing to climate change, a small minority of the public disagrees with the scientific consensus.

Skeptics are an absolute majority and have been for years, repeatedly, consistently, and across the continents. Someone should tell these PhD’s about things called “polls”. A ten-second online search shows 56% of Canadians are skeptics. Likewise,  54% of Australians are skeptics (a CSIRO estimate). The OECD estimates  Australian skeptics outnumber believers. A very well done British survey show skeptics are a “minority” of 62%.  A third in the US are not just skeptical they think it’s a total hoax. (And that was years ago, before The Trump. It would be higher now).

If a majority “agreed with the consensus” why is it that most Australians don’t want to pay even a tiny $10 a month for renewables to save the world? Nearly half of US adults don’t want to pay $1 a month.  And The British don’t want to pay a cent.

So the three authors based their entire research on untested assumptions that they may have sourced in a Greenpeace seminar (which is what the BBC did).  Perhaps they formed their opinions surrounded by young left-wing lecturers and then went on to become three of the same.

A professor or bright undergrad,
Can easily be duped and be had,
By those who hoodwink,
Through consensus group-think,
To fall for the climate-change fad.

–Ruairi

The way to (Not) win over skeptics

Genius advice in communication apparently starts with calling people demeaning names:

We can do this by using messages that align with people’s political ideologies and personal values.

For example, we can frame climate change action as protecting our nation against climate catastrophes, advancing economic and technological development and creating a more caring and considerate society, which is an effective message to engage climate deniers.

Good luck with this theory:

Framing environmentalism as a form of patriotism can be successful, particularly if the appeal is seen as coming from one’s in-group.

It’s always hard to get someone’s attention, but if the messaging is in line with their personal values and motivations, they will take notice.

 Messaging can be “in line” with personal values, but junk-in-line is still junk. Unproven half-truths and wild extrapolations won’t convince anyone bar the gullible groupthinkers.

The Authors:

The authors are three psychologists: Assistant Professor, University of British Columbia Postdoctoral Fellow, Northwestern University and    Assistant Professor, University of British Columbia

Jiaying Zhao is the Canada Research Chair (t2) in Behavioral Sustainability, whatever that is. The other two are variations of neuroscientists. Sadly, none of them understand how to test their assumptions, avoid confirmation bias, and design a meaningful study. But they look like nice people.

The three are funded by:   NSERC, NSF, Sloan Foundation, Mitacs, and US Forest Service.  SSHRC. CIHR, NSERC, SSHRC, MSFHR, MITACS, The Templeton Foundation.

 I predict comments will be closed there by the time you read this. (Go on, please, moderators at The Conversation, prove me wrong.)

Re: All the grants that funded these researchers? We’d like our money back. Conservatives are half the population. This unresearched, namecalling, unchecked article (and lack of protest by other people in their universities) is further evidence that universities should be privatized and immediately.

9.7 out of 10 based on 93 ratings

231 comments to Conservative voters are blind, with deficient mental software, says psychologists

  • #

    How do skeptics win over the alarmists who push political ideology ahead of science. How do we teach them that the climate change controversy is not about tenths of a degree trends in ambiguous anomalies, but about the magnitude of a single metric called the climate sensitivity, where the ONLY consideration for establishing the ‘consensus’ value was that it be large enough to justify the formation and continued existence of the IPCC and UNFCCC.

    601

    • #
      diogenese2

      CO2; the most concise summing up of the core issue from which almost all of the future “projections”, and “predictions” are derived. You might also add that the value ( 1.5 – 4.5 ) is broad enough to frighten but not firm enough to justify resignation and apathy. This is why the move to
      “ 1.5 c target” has been tempered to avoid “ too late now why bother, give us another beer”.
      Just as there is “ compassion fatigue”, there is also “apocalypse fatigue”, a concept the authors
      cannot grasp, rendering their efforts derisable.
      You efforts on the many forums you address are bearing fruit. I take my hat off.

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      • #
        toorightmate

        The CO2 horsesh*t has to stop.

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        • #
          sceptic56109

          You know what? The Vikings farmed continuously in Greenland for almost 400 years during the Medieval Warm Period and CO2 was lower.
          The 400 year time frame means that grass growing on Greenland lowlands was not caused by regional warming.

          50

        • #
          clivehoskin

          At a news conference [22Jan2015] in Brussels, Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of U.N.’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, admitted that the goal of environmental activists is not to save the world from ecological calamity, but to destroy capitalism. “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,” she said
          . Referring to a new international treaty environmentalists hope will be adopted at the Paris climate change conference later this year, she added: “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.”
          Investor’s Business Daily: http://news.investors DOTcom/ibd-editorials/021015-738779-climate-change-scare-tool-to-destroy-capitalism.htm#ixzz3RXh5Tujn

          41

      • #

        They’ve also added layer upon layer of obfuscation and indirection in order to separate what’s actually controversial from the controversy. The sensitivity factor is what’s controversial and claimed to be about 0.8C per W/m^2 +/- 0.4C which translates into the 1.5-4.5C for doubling CO2 considering that doubling CO2 is EQUIVALENT to 3.7 W/m^2 of solar forcing while keeping the system (CO2 concentrations) constant. The many layers include an ambiguity in the definition of forcing, the 50% error bars for an ostensibly ‘settled’ value for the sensitivity factor, converting to a sensitivity to CO2 concentrations and the various RCP scenarios which misrepresents the uncertainty as how much CO2 we emit in the future. FYI, the physics bounds the sensitivity factor to be between the deterministic sensitivity of an ideal BB at the planets emissions temp of 255K (about 0.3C per W/m^2) and the sensitivity of an ideal BB at the surface temperature of 288K (about 0.2C per W/m^2) where even the upper limit based on the physics is less than the lower limit needed to support the continued existence of the IPCC and UNFCCC.

        50

    • #

      co2isnotevil
      I enjoy your blog / website

      There is no way 30 years of
      climate propaganda from teachers,
      liberal-biased media sources (OVER
      95%) and goobermint officials, can
      be reversed by a small band of skeptics
      … unless the climate gets so cold in the
      coming decades that people will
      know it without looking at a thermometer!
      .
      “Climate change” is a religion, not real science.
      .
      I’ve been an atheist since I was old enough
      to understand what the word meant — what
      chance do I have of convincing a religious
      person there is no god, heaven or hell?
      .
      No chance.
      .
      A few years ago, as a public service,
      I started a climate change blog to
      tell people wild guesses of the future
      climate are not science.
      .
      I thought I’d run out of things to say
      in a year … but the leftists keep
      inventing more and more bizarre predictions
      of the future climate — but always a coming
      catastrophe … that can “only” be prevented
      by a larger more powerful central government.
      .
      .
      http://www.elOnionBloggle.Blogspot.com

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      • #
        Kinky Keith

        I’ve learnt a lot on this blog and that increased knowledge and awareness has been of great benefit when I have had discussions face to face.

        We may not be changing the world but at least we know a bit more about the topic and that gives confidence in our understanding.

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    • #
      Mal

      Psychologists have absolutely no idea about objective science. They deal in human behaviour where the bulk of it is based on personal perspective and group think. As we all know consensus has no role in objective science. Conservatives generally deal with “facts” rather than beliefs and consensus of opinions that have been formulated by agenda setting activists, politicians, rent seekers etc. As the old saying goes, when you point a finger at someone, you have 3 fingers pointing back at you.

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    • #
      Roy Hogue

      co2isnotevil,

      Sorry to have to say this but my eye caught on your first sentence, “How do skeptics win over the alarmists who push political ideology ahead of science,” and I have a sinking feeling in my gut that says there is no way. This climate change idea has acquired a life of its own and now pulls the strings of power everywhere, government, business, banking and in the heads of the fools that people follow because they’re glamorous and famous, instead of knowledgeable.

      That they seek to use psychology against us bears out the fear I had when I was required to take a 2 semester psychology course to get my bachelor’s degree. Both then and now I remain convinced that psychology is no more a science than astrology is. Unfortunately it’s legal so anyone with some training and degree can hang up a shingle and start telling people anything they want to hear.

      Yes, you read me correctly. You can literally find someone out there who will tell you anything you want to hear.

      The few who actually work to understand human behavior and help people are either drowned out by an avalanche of criticism or they’re oblivious to what’s happening.

      We’re in for a long siege.

      60

  • #
    Bert Walker

    The American polls said Hillary had a 97% chance of winning the presidency in Nov 2016. We are happy to BS pollsters if only because they offer such leading questions and false dilemmas to choose from. Few in the US care about “global warming” as an existential threat. We are just trying to recover from the deviation of the Obama economic policy debacle.

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    • #

      Yes, we’re all ‘deplorables’.

      220

    • #

      Bert Walker
      For the 2016 election,
      Thanks to Shrillary and
      fellow Dumbocrats,
      Trump was so demonized
      that a few percent of the
      people planning to vote
      for him would not admit it
      to pollsters.
      .
      I don’t recall that happening before.
      .
      The pollsters measured what people
      told them … but some people deliberately
      his their admiration of Trump.
      .
      Your statement about the
      “Obama economic policy debacle”
      is meaningless without data..
      .
      The average economic growth rate
      after the last recession ended in June 2009,
      through 2016, was +2.2%..
      .
      Trump’s first year, 2017,
      had year-over-year
      economic growth
      of +2.3% over 2016 —
      hardly an economic boom in 2017.

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      • #
        ATheoK

        “Richard Greene March 8, 2018 at 9:59 am · Reply
        Bert Walker For the 2016 election, Thanks to Shrillary and fellow Dumbocrats, Trump was so demonized that a few percent of the people planning to vote for him would not admit it to pollsters.”

        No.
        Citizens were dang sick and tired of getting lied to, lies about and railed at for expressing absolutely anything other than abject support for Hillary.
        Most of us learned to keep our mouths shut.
        Those that still responded honestly to biased questions, found their answers twisted bizarrely to support Hillary.

        Newspapers were ranting and raving about any alleged flaw on Republicans; and deathly silent regarding released emails proving HRC Quid pro Quo and Clinton Foundation’s funny finances that immensely enriched HRC and Chelsea. (Judicial Watch)

        It comes down to, “It weren’t no use answering any biased poll or responding to fake reporters”.
        The result was that except for a few urban enclaves, mostly near coastal cities. County by county, America voted Republican; thus proving the brilliance of America’s founders for establishing the Electoral College.

        “Richard Greene March 8, 2018 at 9:59 am

        Your statement about the “Obama economic policy debacle” is meaningless without data…
        The average economic growth rate after the last recession ended in June 2009, through 2016, was +2.2%…
        Trump’s first year, 2017, had year-over-year economic growth of +2.3% over 2016 – hardly an economic boom in 2017.”

        Your odd summaries are also rather meaningless.
        From the “A Summary of the Annual Report of the Council of Economic Advisers
        “The U.S. economy experienced strong and economically significant acceleration in 2017, with growth in real GDP exceeding expectations and increasing from 2.0 and 1.8 percent in 2015 and 2016 to 2.5 percent, including two successive quarters above 3.0 percent”

        In other words, the economy under Trump, in his first year improved month by month, ending the year above 3%.

        Which is why Obama is trying claim credit for Trump’s first year economy; yet blamed his first moribund years on Bush.
        Ignored in this discussion are Trump’s massive regulatory reductions, and a return to common sense government; e.g.:
        No Paris Agreement, E
        nding EPA, DOE, IRS, BATF, DOJ, etc. abuses,
        Eliminating misbehaving bureaucrats,
        Returning all U.S. Government to common sense weather and climate,
        Reestablishing gas, oil and coal as sources for America’s energy, and eliminating regulatory burdens,
        etc. etc.

        Trump returned prosecutorial adherence to investigating, prosecuting and incarcerating criminals, including gang offenders.

        America’s economy increased month over month and is still roaring along above 3% in 2018.
        Trump’s income tax fix returns substantial earnings back to the companies and workers who actually earned that money.

        “Richard Greene March 8, 2018 at 9:59 am

        I don’t recall that happening before.
        …”

        What!?
        You mean Dewey won the Presidency over Truman?
        Nope! Truman won, in spite of the newspapers and dodgy polls.

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      • #
        robert rosicka

        Richard Greene says

        ” the pollsters measured what the people told them ” , yeah but if the polling questions are skewed and the areas polled were strong Democrat states like California what on earth do you think they would report ?
        Even in OZ the reporting was biased against Trump but in one report on MSM this little gem somehow got thru the sensors , no placards in favour of Hillary Clinton could be found and almost every street had multiple houses with the Trump message loud and proud .
        This suggested to me the polls were not only wrong but deceitful and Trump would win .

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        • #
          RicDre

          “…but in one report on MSM this little gem somehow got thru the sensors , no placards in favour of Hillary Clinton could be found and almost every street had multiple houses with the Trump message loud and proud”

          I noticed this phenomenon in a small town in northern Ohio near where I live. In 2012 the town was full of Obama placards but in 2016 there were very few Clinton placards. I thought at the time it was because a lot of people who voted for Obama in 2012 would vote for Trump in 2016 but were unwilling to advertise this fact. As it turned out, a lot of these people did vote for Trump but also a lot of them didn’t vote at all and so Trump ended up winning a lot of smaller towns in Ohio that formally had voted for Obama.

          30

    • #
      Leonard Lane

      The Democrat polling companies were all left wing and cheated on the polling data to convince people that Hillary winning was inevitable. They would bias the results by polling a higher percentage of Democrats in their sample than existed in the nation’s voters, and other tricks like this. And the media wanted to report in a biased way to support the polls.
      Somewhere along the way to election day they started believing their own crooked and biased poll numbers and Hillary didn’t even campaign in some states where their phony polls showed Hillary way ahead.
      In short their lies and deliberately biased polls directly led to their defeat. If their polls were honest and the media was fair and unbiased, Hillary might have won.
      These biased psychologists and their hive-mind believers have done the same thing so long that they believe their own deceptions and try to fool others into following them. Truth has a way of eventually coming out.

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    • #
      Roy Hogue

      The pollsters forgot the great equalizer built into the election of a president, the Electoral College. Trump won the votes that counted by a wide margin, 304 to 227 in the election that counted. That’s an overwhelming victory.

      The architect of Trump’s victory is Kellyanne Conway, whose polling experience and diligence in knowing where to put his final effort coming up to the election made all the difference. I think that without her advising him he would have lost to Hillary. It’s noteworthy that Trump never campaigned in California as far as I know because it would have been wasted effort. In fact, my vote for him in both the primary and November elections was a waste of my time.

      The reason there is now so much pressure to do away with the electoral college is so the large numbers of Democrat voters in just a few states like California and New your can determine that there will always be a president they elect, always a Democrat or course. Or maybe worse, a socialist or communist.

      Deciding the president based on the popular vote was not acceptable to the rural states when the Constitution was being drafted exactly because they feared the same thing I just said — the northern states had larger populations and the southern states would be effectively locked out of any influence over who became president.

      Fools will always rush in where wiser men fear to tread.

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      • #
        PeterPetrum

        Roy, I take it from your comment “In fact, my vote for him in both the primary and November elections was a waste of my time“ that you are a California resident.

        You may have lost the state to the Democrats but if my memory serves me well i remember that a map of the counties that were red in your state covered well over 75% of the state. Only the cities, such as LA, San Diego and SF were blue.

        So I do not believe that your vote was wasted, it was registered and the evidence is there.

        10

        • #
          Roy Hogue

          Peter,

          I’m well aware that most of the state is red. But just two blue areas have nearly all the population of California. I live in a conservative area. When I moved here we had no trouble electing Republicans to the House of Representatives and the State Assembly. But over the years that has changed both as a result of redistricting every 10 years right after the census data is published, which is done by the legislature which in turn is definitely blue; also because people leaning left are moving into the county. So now I suffer under the representation of 2 Democrat women whom I would not follow even if my life depended on it.

          Yes, my vote was recorded and counted but it was swamped by Democrats. Compare my vote as a rowboat to a big container ship bearing down on me so fast I can’t get out of the way in time no matter how hard I pump the oars back and forth and you’ll know the situation in california. I may have done some good by my other votes on the ballot but I’ve given up hope for common sense to prevail in California.

          The real problem my precious United States faces is simple. Holding on to a Republican majority in both houses of congress gets harder and harder. And the left will only vilify Donald Trump. They will not acknowledge even the legitimacy of his election, which is unquestionable since he had an overwhelming majority in the electoral vote that actually determines who will be president. They will certainly not acknowledge that the stock market is going well again or that a healthy stock market is to their benefit ot that Trump is actually following the constitution and the laws of his country. They already point to Trump as a reason to vote Democrat. And with every passing election the likelihood of congress turning majority Democrat in both houses gets bigger.

          Once Democrats can control congress again I expect them to put forth a constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College and decide the president based on the popular vote. It probably won’t be ratified the first time, maybe not the second time either but eventually it will be ratified and then the United States I was born into will be gone. Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York City and a few other population centers will control the government from then on and they are all majority blue.

          And all this is aided and abetted by a media that is so dishonest you can watch some of it’s most popular stars lie on a daily basis. MSNBC has more liars per broadcast hour than any other network. Then comes CNN, NBC is next, then ABC (ours, not yours in Oz), then CBS.

          Only Fox News and One America News Network are telling the truth. And those two networks are shunned by blue voters like it would kill then instantly if they watched even a second of either one. Of course those are the people who most need to hear the truth.

          This coming mid term congressional election is going to be scorched earth by Democrats. Picture what the next presidential election will be.

          Let’s not even talk about the liberal/left/blue influence that has been working inside our school districts for so long. Some schools are still sound but the Department of Education under Barack Obama worked as hard as it could to get control over every school in the country and turn them into indoctrination mills. They got a good part of that agenda done. They even proposed an educational program that amounted to worship of Barack Obama. That generated such an outcry that the abandoned it. But that will tell you what their thinking is.

          ————————————–

          I’ve learned from recent history that if enough people really want something they will work to get it. And they will eventually succeed. The socialism that Europe stumbled its way into post WW II is instructive. If we can’t wake up enough people soon, we will be what we see there. The worst of it is still a ways off. But it’s coming down the road at us at 90 miles an hour and we aren’t prepared to stop it.

          And that’s my take on the situation in my country.

          10

          • #
            Roy Hogue

            I apologize for writing a book here but these are things that need to be said.

            I don’t apologize for my position because I’ve arrived at it honestly by watching what’s actually hapening instead of just believing the words someone speaks.

            10

  • #
    RAH

    Alarmists have spent a great deal of time and effort studying how “communicate” their message to have the greatest impact and it hasn’t worked so now we see the occasional study that excuses their failure because we skeptics have a mental defect that prevents us from getting it or some other reason. You know if some of these clowns and actors an personalities called me to my face what they’ve been calling conservatives or skeptics in the broad sense in the media I would plant my boot so far up their wazoo they’d be tasting Kiwi for a week!

    441

    • #
      Allen Ford

      we skeptics have a mental defect

      I am a mental defective and proud of it.

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    • #
      sophocles

      It’s the “Witch Hunt” mentality. It’s alive and well, despite our greater knowledge, our huge investment in education, our development of the scientific method and the resulting research, and technology.

      We are still poor pathetic primitives who bay at the moon, just as we did before we landed on it.

      The seventeenth Century saw the depths of the Little Ice Age. It saw the depths of mankind’s inhumanity: innocent people, more often women and girls, were accused of witchcraft, tortured until they confessed and then burnt alive ‘for the sake of their immortal soul.

      We supposedly live in a <sarc>more enlightened</sarc> age when people who look at the supposed evidence, compare it with their experience and reject it, are pursued with the same zeal. Do we? Really? It can only be described as that: people who are accused of denying Klimate Change, as being deniers or (shudder) denialists have lost their jobs. Fortunately, none seem to have lost their lives … yet.

      Those impassioned “believers in the “ Cult of Climate Culpability” are calling for imprisonment for “deniers” of their religion, then the street they walk is a two way street:

      If anyone is to be imprisoned, it should be those UN “diplomats” and the members of the Club of Rome who “felt” and “assumed” mankind was to blame and established the FCCC and the IPCC to fix the blame. It should be those who voice the charges of “Denier.” Maurice Strong and his co-conspirators should be disempowered and, imprisoned for the biggest and most expensive hoax ever perpetrated, one which has badly impacted every economy on the planet except for North Korea’s. Fortunately for him, Maurice Strong has escaped mankind’s justice but he still has to be tried by the Almighty.

      The tables can easily be turned, but I like to think I’m more “enlightened” than those poor pathetic primitives still baying at the moon. They can bay, as long as that is all they do. The moon eventually sets …

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      • #
        sophocles

        Burning witches then totally failed to “cure” the weather although some no doubt felt good that they were contributing positively to assist “mankind overcome the climate change.

        But what an awful price!

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      • #
        RicDre

        “It’s alive and well, despite our greater knowledge, our huge investment in education”

        I fear “our huge investment in education” is exactly the problem given who is currently in charge of education process.

        120

    • #
      WXcycles

      I’ve personally known two psychologists, a former crazy girlfriend’s parents, when I was 23. They were both ecentric maddies and acted like quacks. Apparently a lot of people study psychology because they wish to get a better handle on why they’re such fruitcakes. The problem is, many of them finish their degrees and thus become full-blown accredited quacks. This girlfrient was a wild ride but totally bonkers, I bailed after two months, the only crazy one I ever had, but now I know that it really does run in families. She was studying radical feminism and psychology … yup … and an insatiable nympho. It put me off psychologists … eventually.

      80

    • #
      clivehoskin

      George Orwell knew what he was talking about in the end of 1984:
      “If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever.”

      30

  • #
    Curious George

    These Professors should set an example of a truly carbon-neutral lifestyle: Hunter-Gatherer. That should keep them busy 16 hours a day or more. I can hardly wait.

    340

  • #
    Leonard Lane

    When you have a truthful and significant message most reasonable people will agree.
    When people do not agree with you, it is time to re-examine the truthfulness and benefits of what you are pushing.
    It is pointless to say we know the truth and only have to convince you that you are wrong. In a free society this will not work. It takes socialism/communism to form a tyranny and make you accept what they want to accept.
    For freedom and against tyranny is the only way to have freedom.

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    • #
      C. Paul Barreira

      Among those quoted in the post few, I expect, would hold with terms such as “truthfulness”. Even the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is doubtful regarding the term, preferring “truthlikeness” for which it has many criticisms anyway. For these people, as Jo remarked, paid by taxpayers, truth is not the point. It is even less liked in Stanford than the other terms, Australian academic historians, for instance, quite reject the idea. The point is always politics and, among common folk, denial of meaning. Statements from academics that are complete bollocks by any rational criteria are fine provided they serve political—typically collectivist—ends. Freedom—in the sense implied by Leonard Lane—means nothing in the academy.

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    • #
      mc

      When you have a truthful and significant message most reasonable people will agree.
      When people do not agree with you, it is time to re-examine the truthfulness and benefits of what you are pushing.

      No, no, no, when people do not agree with you it’s time to stage a play called Kill the Deniers!

      80

  • #
    Dennis

    A chilling fact about climate change

    MAURICE NEWMAN
    Recent research suggests a mini ice age may be a greater threat to the planet.

    The Australian newspaper

    270

  • #
    ivan

    Now we see what The Conversation really is – a massive ego boosting sounding box for those academics that have nothing to say.

    For all their doctorates non of them have learned anything real, all they can do is spout the climatology mantra which isn’t converting anyone.

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    • #
      glen Michel

      I tried.It’s a real battle to get past that gatekeeper,no matter how politely you put your position.Comment deleted but we’ll leave the attack dogs to gnaw on the carcass.

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      • #
        OriginalSteve

        Maybe, but yalking to mates at the pub is often the best antidote to climate nonsense. If it passes the pub test, its all good. You will know the Establushment us desperate when they link govt handouts to their lies….oh, hang on….

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    • #
      John Westman

      Interesting point Ivan.

      Most people in society know a little about a lot.
      Then we have to so called “educated” elites who know a lot about a little.
      Then we have the “super” experts, the “leaders”, who know a huge lot about almost nothing.

      This all relates to the increasing specialisation in the fields of work. Let’s look at an “expert” who has earned his doctorate in the study of coca cola cans. Now such an expert can tell you anything you want to know about coca cola cans, but for most of us who live in the real world, it is useless information. Such an expert may well have difficulty with basic life skills. Their life has been spent on exclusive study something useless, with a nothing value.
      Reminds me of Greenies.

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      • #
        mc

        Most people in society know a little about a lot.
        Then we have to so called “educated” elites who know a lot about a little.
        Then we have the “super” experts, the “leaders”, who know a huge lot about almost nothing.

        Then we have the legions of passionately committed individuals who are deeply convinced of the veracity of their belief without having undertaken the slightest scrap of genuine research, ever, in any way shape or form, yet if you should ask them how they know what they say they know, God forbid; the fury, the contempt, the rage!

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    • #
      sophocles

      Try accusing them of touting “witchcraft” because, in effect, that’s what they are doing.

      100

  • #
    Gary H

    Actually, it’s just the opposite. Liberals [alarmists] tend to have too much white matter in their prefrontal cortex than normal people. Many studies here. From a 2005 study: Dr. Adrian Raine and Yaling Yang of the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, and colleagues in the British Journal of Psychiatry. (sorry – link is down)

    Past studies have found that the prefrontal cortex shows heightened activity when normal people lie, and it is believed to be involved in both learning moral behavior and feeling remorse.

    Because gray matter consists of brain cells, while white matter forms the “wiring” or connections between these cells, pathological liars may have more capacity to lie and fewer moral restraints, the authors suggest.

    “They’ve got the equipment to lie, and they don’t have the disinhibition that the rest of us have in telling the big whoppers,” Raine said in a press release accompanying the study.

    But don’t stop there with the exercise – the understanding. They’ve got the equipment to make it up as they want – and yes – group think.

    Hint: During adolescence, particularly in the frontal cortex, unneeded gray matter is pruned away and white matter, made up of axons covered by a lipid membrane known as myelin, increases. .. Ever see the movie, “Thirteen?” Teens can loose their sense of normal – what they know to be normal – right – moral. It usually comes back into balance in a few years.

    A little extra white matter can be good, as it the fast firing part of thinking. However, that fast firing can get you to, ‘It depends on what the meaning of is, is.” It can lead to great creativity – artists – musicians – writers – composers. Wild and woolly professors – Marxists – debaters. Those who can argue a point from any possible angle – making it up as they go; or, subject to change their views in an instant, depending on the current need. Yesterday – we want population control to save the Earth. Today – we want open borders, while we believe that man is changing the climate because of too much man? Nuts. Oh, that brings us to what happens when there is way too much white brain matter? Schizophrenia

    They want Anthropogenic Climate Change to be – so, they make it be.

    Bonus –

    President Clinton’s moral lapses and problems with bad judgment and excitement-seeking behavior — indicative of problems in the prefrontal cortex [excess white matter]– eventually led to his impeachment and a poisonous political divisiveness in the U.S. The prefrontal cortex houses the brain’s supervisor, involved with conscience, forethought, planning, attention span and judgment. Daniel G. Amen, a neuropsychiatrist and director of the Amen Clinics, is the author of “Change Your Brain, Change Your Life.

    While it’s true that some extra white matter can add a few points to intelligence – IQ – in reality it just does more to make one appear that they are more intelligent, as they can go on, and on, and on, and the audience is impressed. With a solid head of gray brain matter – one is more prone to know what is right and wrong – what is good and bad – what works and what doesn’t work, and little time is spent spinning it around in one’s little noggin.

    There are many other studies making this case – even some that define liberal vs conservative – however the media really doesn’t like them to be available to the voting public.

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    • #
      tom0mason

      Unfortunately your example comes from the realm of professional psychiatry, a branch of medicine that is so often show to be riddled with poor science. Unconstrained observational studies of small populations (often done on those within medical establishments) and then extrapolated out to the wider population are notoriously error prone. Often such studies are not carried out against proper scientific methods (double blind testing [randomized or not], measures taken to reduce placebo effect affecting results, checking results against wider population, etc.,).

      Certainly when it comes to assigning areas of the brain, or types of brain structures, or tissues types to behavioral activities of individuals, psychiatry is all too quick to jump to cause and effect with very small amounts of data. Psychiatrists Raise Doubts on Brain Scan Studies

      Not that psychology does any better, many studies are questioned or retracted.

      Also keep an eye on retraction watch website.

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      • #
        Kinky Keith

        Good comment.

        Too many people want to profit from the idea that psychology and psychiatry are about “what” people think.

        It’s mostly about the “how”.

        How do we react to stimuli.

        “What” we think about is a bit like the weather; variable.

        KK

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        • #
          tom0mason

          Indeed Kinky Keith,

          Also too often studies in psychology and psychiatry arrive at conclusions that are little more than correlation is evidence of causation.

          50

    • #
      OriginalSteve

      Gary, there are other unworldy factors at play i think, and enough anecdotal evidence surfaced over the years that suggest its not just the physical but also religious elements at play, including the possibility that the Mrs outranks the Mr in their unseen world, and from what i have seen that world coukd be the antithesis to christianity.

      Consider how the Mrs has never been found guilty of anything despite mountains of evidence, and those who cross them seem to be consistently ( fatally ) clumsy across a broad range of activities…..

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    • #
      sophocles

      It may be that in certain times, being able to lie creatively, plausibly and with ease and great facility are a good survival trait. We call it politics

      60

  • #
    Sean

    I am conservative and a scientist. It’s really easy to win me over. Stop preaching, start debating and with the debate.

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    • #
      Tim Hammond

      Me too, and I have been won over by evolution, relativity and all sorts of other things too.

      This nonsense suggests that Conservative don’t believe anything for which there is good and convincing evidence, which is obviously wrong.

      10

  • #
    James Poulos

    Haaahaahaaahhaaaaahaaaaaahahaaahahaaaaahaahaahaaa… etc

    60

    • #
      glen Michel

      I once told my psychologist that I was into sadism, necrophilia and bestiality; do you think I’m flogging a dead Horse?

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      • #
        sophocles

        Ummm, the “bestiality leaves a little room for doubt … but other than that: Yes, you are. 🙂

        20

      • #
        Mal

        I went to a psychiatrist recently due to recurring dreams. One night I dreamt I was sleeping in a wigwam, next night in a tepee. These kept recurring. He told me I was too tense ( 2 tents)

        40

        • #
          JLC of Perth

          How many psychologists does it take to change a lightbulb?
          Only one, but the lightbulb has to want to change.

          50

  • #
    Ruairi

    A professor or bright undergrad,
    Can easily be duped and be had,
    By those who hoodwink,
    Through consensus group-think,
    To fall for the climate-change fad.

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  • #
    yarpos

    I think blindness to reality is a damn fine topic for them to explore.

    The could perhaps illustrate their point by explaining how they are not blind to the realities of:

    – continually failed predictions and winding back of IPCC doom
    – the reality of “out children will never know snow” and “the dams will never refill” type statements
    – the warming hiatus (or is it a cooling trend?)
    – the declining trend in cyclone frequency and intensity
    – threatened species that annoyingly grow in population or even have a million or so “discovered”
    – drowning Pacific Island that grow in size
    – accelerating sea level rise , that doesnt accelerate
    – the climategate emails

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  • #
    Dave in the States

    Conservatives who were less concerned about climate change were less likely to see climate-related words than liberals who were worried about the issue.

    Skeptics are more literate with such fact concentrated topics as chemistry, physics, biology, mathematics, even history…They are less likely to taken in by nonsense words and ideas such as “carbon pollution” or “scientific consensus.” In other words skeptics tend to be better educated in the hard sciences. I know that hurts those who are proud of their social science education and theories, but sometimes the truth hurts.

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    • #
      Greg Cavanagh

      The quoted statement comes from a psychologist (not good with numbers).

      While I agree with you 101%. It’s a little unfair really. They just don’t have the ability to see their own irrationality.

      I guess it comes down to rational people can see the rational world. Emotional people see the emotional world. To look into the other world takes effort and understanding, but when you’re an expert you are assumed to have that. Add a couple titles and awards and you’ve guaranteed ignorance of the other side of the argument.

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  • #
    George McFly......I'm your density

    Consensus is the first refuge of a scoundrel, and patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel

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    • #
      sophocles

      Perhaps we need to modify Dr. Johnston’s famous quote: Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel and consensus his justification.

      50

  • #
    Ian Hilliar

    Thanks Dave. that is it, in a nutshell !

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  • #
    rk

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._state_temperature_extremes Here are the maximum and minimum temperature records for US States. It can be seen that the maxmimums are not being exceeded and in fact most were many years ago. If the world was continuing to warm we would see ever rising maximums and minimums. There is no such thing as average temperature any more than there is average pressure, clouds or weather, Right now the Sydney area has 34 recording stations on the BOM web site and there is no average temperature, wind direction and speed, humidity or rainfall. All different and constantly changing – the term average is an abstract concept. The rainfall over the past week in Queensland and NSW is not average and varies over a wide range and large number of locations. Mornington Island has had 191.6 mm of rain since 9 AM yesterday whilst Hamilton Island has had none. If you were to fly from Brisbane to Perth right now, the temperature is 21.3C in BrISBANE AND 14.8C in Perth. On climb the temperature will change all the time and in standard atmospheric conditions it will be -51C at 33,000′ Where is the average? There is none. To infer that CO2 is causing all these variations is delusional.

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  • #
    Kinky Keith

    Google the Asch experiments.

    All about conforming to accepted group think.

    Some might even label that behaviour as “mass hysteria”.

    Whoever invented that new word “sheeple” did an amazing thing.

    It accurately describes the “follower” mentality and has just enough needling to make people not want to belong to that group.

    KK

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  • #
    Greg Cavanagh

    It’s always hard to get someone’s attention, but if the messaging is in line with their personal values and motivations, they will take notice.

    The day Julia Gillard announced that Australia will tax people for Carbon Emissions, is the day I jumped on the web and did some research about it. I didn’t care less for it before that moment.

    I remember finding Gavin Schmitt’s site and how rude he was. I found other warmist sites and how rude they were. Then I found WUWT and the careful analysis that they did, and the full on discussion of the implications and validity that the article implied.

    It didn’t take long to pick a side, and I’ve not been disappointed with my choice yet.

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  • #
    Gary in Erko

    The Conversation has a follow up article about a new mind altering technique called Phrenological Panelbeating, where surgical alterations of the shape of a skeptic’s skull can alter their perception of climate.

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  • #
    Senex

    What annoys the hell out of me is the automatic assumption that climate change skeptics are Conservatives. I have always been skeptical to the point that I think most so-called climate change research is collectivist politics wrapped in a veneer of junk science, but I have never once voted for a conservative political party or candidate.

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    • #
      Kinky Keith

      Agreed.

      What the manipulators want is to create polarization of the discussion so that the real issues, ie. reality, never gets a look in.

      Those extreme words, Left, Right, Liberal (USA), Conservative aren’t helpful.

      KK

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      • #
        OriginalSteve

        Plus the left love division, because its a crack they can exploit to forment dissent.

        Most of them need a propervjob and responsibility…clearly they have a poor attitude and too much time on their hands…this is what happens when naughty children are left unsupervised….

        60

        • #
          Greg Cavanagh

          You’re right; “If you’re not with us, you’re against us”.

          I can think of so many saying, and examples in history of this tactic.

          30

    • #
      sophocles

      KK:

      I think you make an excellent point about what seems to be the deliberate polarization of every important issue. It’s an attempt to turn every discussion we must have into the simplistic “Yes/No” taking of sides. I am wary about such bi-laterization of life, thinking and everything else, because it ignores aspects/facets which affect the discussion. I’m suspicious, another way of saying sceptical, about terms such as Left, Right, Liberal, Conservative, etc. In fact, I don’t like them, because it shows over-simplification of a topic and the desire/effort to prevent thinking. That means a slant has been applied. It can be large or small or even of little consequence. Or it can be of huge consequence. Whatever, it is an attempt to influence and not necessarily to my or many others advantage, so I’m very wary of such attempts.

      I’m more interested in Justice, which is another way for saying Fairness, and is a very much broader term than many people think. There is economic justice which very few people consider in their dialectic of Socialism, Left Wing and Republicanism, Right Wing. or whatever they call the other side.

      In Climate, I’m more concerned with determining the real facts rather than following the consensus of the witch hunters. The Real Facts affect me more than a consensus; Nature doesn’t care about a consensus.

      I’m neither Left nor Right so I must be “Middle of the Road” perhaps.

      60

    • #
      David Maddison

      In the US in 2015 only 20% of Republicans thought climate change was a very serious problem vs 68% of Democrats so there is some evidence that conservatives are more skeptical.

      http://www.pewglobal.org/2015/11/05/global-concern-about-climate-change-broad-support-for-limiting-emissions/

      51

    • #
      Griffo

      Interesting,climate alarmism is associated with the left side of politics,one exception was a link I found from one of the commenters on this blog,try searching for Lord Donohue,a British Labour Peer who does not accept the climate scam and explains why it is so attractive to people on the left.

      10

    • #

      Conservatives, fuddy duddy they are not,
      in fact they are the opposite. Trial and Error
      is Nature’s way.
      https://beththeserf.wordpress.com/2016/01/24/36th-edition-serf-under_ground-journal/

      30

      • #

        Love the pic of old English industrial machinery in your serf’s journal. One of my first stops if I ever tour England will be Bazalgette’s newly restored Crossness plant, the Cathedral of Sewage. Lovely, gooey Victorian colour scheme and all.

        I think globalists, commies and climate botherers are just dull fellows and I would never think of calling them sick or deficient. In fact, once we have crushed the climatariat I think we should allow them a safe space to make determinations about things like stickers on apples, the correct gauges for string shopping bags, flags for a republic etc. Still ignore them, of course.

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        • #

          Yes, moso, there are lots of nice little jobs for them to
          do, they’re good in offices and cloudy towers,plenty for them
          to get up to whiling away the tenured hours. They like making models and if they run out of the where-with-all,why there are
          always issues that can be discussed, maybe run up a visionary statement or two.

          30

        • #
          Peter C

          Have you been to the pumping house at the Science Museum, Spotswood, Melbourne?

          It think it is a replica of Bazelgette’s pump house and built only few years after.

          30

    • #
      Tim Hammond

      I vote for the Conservatives, but am not a conservative, as I am pretty liberal socially, and very Liberal economically.

      I am a scpetic and believe that nothing is so proven that it cannot be overturned, and that science is merely our best description of the universe that we have today.

      20

  • #
    Robert Swan

    Best part for me is this:

    Jiaying Zhao is the Canada Research Chair (t2) in Behavioral Sustainability, whatever that is.

    Gibberish is what it is. Do they get these titles from something like the old Dilbert mission statement generator? (original page seems to have gone, but the link describes it well enough)

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    • #
      Kinky Keith

      Haven’t heard that word for quite a while; but it’s great.

      GIBBERISH.

      It’s sad to think that Universities have been relegated to the job of providing a holding place for people who might otherwise appear on the unemployment figures.

      Does this mean that Universities have been politicised?

      KK

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      • #
        Robert Swan

        Yeah, for a long time I’ve thought the push — everyone to year 12, everyone to uni, everyone to postgrad — has been to keep the unemployment figures down.

        There’s an American economist (don’t remember his name) who equates going to university to working for a negative salary (i.e. you work and incur debt at the same time). This suggests the only people who would go for higher education are either highly motivated (laudable) or very stupid. Go on, guess which group would include someone with a “research chair in behavioural sustainability”.

        100

        • #
          Kinky Keith

          Hi Robert

          I think that governments are just too lazy to help guide and structure society to provide meaningful work for everyone at a level that suits.

          First it was the living dole that was used to buy votes. Now it’s university. What a mess.

          20

          • #
            Greg Cavanagh

            No. The government is run by people. It’s not laziness that they are incompetent… it is incompetence.

            30

            • #
              Kinky Keith

              Incompetence, and greed, and giving more time to their special projects that are more politically rewarding.

              30

    • #

      A confession: I may have been the inventor of the Vision Statement. Many years ago I was walking in Centennial Park with family and we were all having a laugh about Mission Statements. At one point I jested that a Mission Statement was pretty lame because everyone had one by the late 80s, from the lolly shop to the dog pound. We needed something new, like a…a Vision Statement!

      All of this was said quite loudly with much chortling, and there were quite a few well-heeled Sydney-siders within earshot. The jest was forgotten, then, not long after…

      Sorry everybody. I think it was me.

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      • #
        Annie

        Now every conceivable group, establishment and business has both ‘mission staements’ and ‘vision statements’…..groan!

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        • #

          I didn’t mean to do it. My vision was to leverage interpersonal jocundity in a context of parkland perambulation with a view to invoke familial jocularity.

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        • #
          NuThink

          Not to forget KPIs (Key Performance Indicators).

          30

        • #
          yarpos

          lets not forget Values, that was the chat at my final employer “Vision – Mission – Values”

          no saying people were cynical there but we had a group who played BS Bingo during each company wide “Town Hall” presentation, just to see how much meaningless corporate speak would be blurted out.

          when I beloved CIO spoke , there was a betting pool on what 1/4 minute he would mention either RFID (his pet technology) or the phrase “perfect storm” which would generally be used to excuse the latest stuff up in one of his grandiose plans.

          30

        • #
          JLC of Perth

          Sorry Annie – I hit the red thumb by accident. I was trying to click the green thumb.

          20

        • #
          R2Dtoo

          Annie – don’t forget about the “slogans”. Every uni has to have a slogan for marketing. Then they have to have “branding” as a sales pitch. Thousands of dollars are wasted on all of these “ego-exercises”. I spent way too much time on committees with a mandate to mission/vision/sloganize and brand an institution or program.

          10

      • #
        RicDre

        Hmm, that sounds similar to the way the saying “Who is John Galt?” got started.

        30

    • #
      tom0mason

      Yes but it is SUSTAINABLE gibberish!

      😆

      80

      • #
        Annie

        ‘Sustainable’! That’s what counts, isn’t it?…groan again!

        60

        • #
          OriginalSteve

          Sustainable as in what cows sustainably produce every day……

          30

          • #
            Environment Skeptic

            That’s a can of worms/compost. It would involve mandatory drug/hormone testing for cows as well as testing emissions for particulates as well…

            20

        • #
          toorightmate

          Annie,
          I hope the Mission and Vision statements you have pinned on your notice board are sustainably acceptable.

          30

          • #
            Annie

            No…I don’t have a notice board! I groan when I see all that sort of nonsense in ‘Christian’ papers and flyers…just get on with the job of trying to live Christianly if that’s what you’re aiming to be; forget all the PC jargon and precious claptrap; it’s sickening and off-putting.

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            • #
              toorightmate

              What about people who dig trenches.
              Their MISSION is to dig.
              Their GOAL is to dig faster.

              20

              • #
                RicDre

                “What about people who dig trenches”

                Are you referring to the people who are installing “Renewable” Electrical system to replace fossil fuel based Electrical systems? If so, I’d say they were meeting their goal of digging faster.

                00

              • #
                R2Dtoo

                But the ultimate “vision” is to dig the biggest, longest and deepest trench evah – for the Guinness BR.

                00

  • #
    a happy little debunker

    You cannot demonise your political opponents unless you first portray them as monsters.

    Forget the science, the way to winning the climate change cause is to silence your critics.

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    • #
      OriginalSteve

      I had a near stand up with a very committed Leftist one day in the middle of an office…he got to demonstrate exactly how committed he was, but once id set my jaw, that was it…..

      Never ever ever back down..they are just bullies…

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    • #
      Tim Hammond

      I don’t think that’s right. The first step is to believe that your opinions are not just right, but virtuous. That automatically makes your opponents not just wrong but evil.

      Once you establish their evil intent, you don’t have to listen to them, and at worse, you can punish them.

      20

  • #

    One of the surest markers of creepy collectivist intellectuals: pathologizing disagreement. If propaganda fails, try special conditioning. If special conditioning fails try re-education. If re-education fails there’s always the psych ward.

    But is all this necessary? Maybe when government is even stronger we can have a compulsory Alexa, linked to everything from Google to Mastercard, in every single home. Alexa can go tsk-tsk at the merest expression of wrongthink. Bad-for-the-planet wrongthink makes Jeff frown and takes away your Amazon discounts for a day then restricts your viewing to the ABC and your reading to The Conversation.

    Of course, I exaggerate. To make all this happen you’d need a centralised and corporatised media, and we all know that there are hundreds of choices within the government-funded media and Murdoch-owned media. Moreover, as well as the red and blue coloured parties you now even have a green one to pick, if you want to be a bit different. Alexa might even give you discounts on Wholefoods if you pick the green one.

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    • #
      Kinky Keith

      Brilliant.

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    • #
      Environment Skeptic

      For goodness sake mosomoso. Behind every good empire, there is a debt to equity ratio?
      Murdoch an others like him/her must obey their creditors behind closed doors or suffer the loss of even that which they do own.

      So who really rules the roost?

      30

      • #
        Environment Skeptic

        Follow the debt!
        Once upon a time it was “follow the money” and that formulation no longer holds true.
        Flo Whites “Money Bomb” – YouTube
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IKSyj5z6I4

        30

        • #
          Environment Skeptic

          Re: All the grants that funded these researchers? We’d like our money back.

          Re: All the loans that funded these researchers? We’d like our credit rating back. 🙂

          30

      • #

        Hmmm. Here’s an idea. You arrange it so that people have to trade in your currency. If they look like trading in something else you send in drones which drop bombs until they start trading in your currency again. Then you just make more of that currency and lend it to anyone provided they trade in it and not in, say, seashells or stuff you can’t just make up.

        It’s like magic! All you need is a printing press and 600 billion units annually of the currency you just made up for a military which keeps all the people using that currency. The added advantage is that everyone is up to their breathing holes in debt so if they argue they get a mouthful of additional debt. They won’t argue, especially if they’re selling stuff fewer and fewer people want, like dodgy news or star-studded movies.

        Think it’ll work?

        50

        • #

          Do you have bitcoin?

          21

          • #
            el gordo

            The Marshall Islands have created the crypto Sovereign as their national currency, they have nothing to lose.

            30

            • #

              Am I missing something or are cryptos a way of expanding the amount of invented/fiddlable currency floating about the world? Much as I like the blockchain, cryptos seem to be backed by thin air or yet-to-be-drilled Venezuelan oil. Anyway, I shouldn’t complain. I love coal and crypto-mining is pure coal consumption.

              Mind you, I’d rather run world-best smelters for all our other great minerals. And have modernised coal-power gen for a grid that truly rocks. But that’s just me.

              40

              • #
                el gordo

                ‘Cryptocurrencies, of which Bitcoin is the most well-known, are created by computers that have been tasked to solve complicated mathematical formulas in a process known as “mining”. Over time, the equations become more difficult to solve, requiring miners to harness more computational power.

                ‘Last month, a group of scientists at a Russian nuclear warhead research centre were arrested for allegedly using the facility’s supercomputer to mine cryptocurrencies.’

                ABC

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              • #

                Is this the only form of mining where one consumes a pile of minerals to end up with none? I wouldn’t mind if it wasn’t my favourite mineral that gets chewed up.

                God I loved the smell of the old Waverton coal loader when they wetted it down on hot days. And it glistened. How it did glisten!

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        • #
          Tim Hammond

          No. because you have no idea what money is or how it works.

          20

          • #
            Environment Skeptic

            Tim….that is why we so desperately need a science credit rating agency.
            Take the guess work out of science and scientific consensus.
            Science needs this.
            … 🙂 Maybe we could start science credit rating agency with some consensus funding, AKA (also known as )crowd funding the agency initially??
            Moody’s credit rating agency transformed the guesswork out of economic science….climate science could enjoy the same by way of a simple credit rating for new/old scientific theories.….consensus is so passé

            20

  • #
    robert rosicka

    Been called worse than a mentally deficient deplorable but is this what they have left in the war chest really ?

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  • #
    OriginalSteve

    Sceptics are being set up as “Untermunchen”…..nothing changes under the green socialist religion….

    Some interesting quotes from Goebbels that provide contect behind the Bolshevik nature of eco-Nazism :

    https://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joseph_Goebbels

    “What does Christianity mean today? National Socialism is a religion. All we lack is a religious genius capable of uprooting outmoded religious practices and putting new ones in their place. We lack traditions and ritual. One day soon National Socialism will be the religion of all Germans. My Party is my church, and I believe I serve the Lord best if I do his will, and liberate my oppressed people from the fetters of slavery. That is my gospel.

    Dated 16 October 1928

    “. . . it would be better for us to go down with Bolshevism than live in eternal slavery under capitalism.”

    The Devil’s Disciples: Hitler’s Inner Circle by Anthony Read (2004) p. 142, diary entry Oct. 23, 1925

    “The Fuhrer is deeply religious, though completely anti-Christian. He views Christianity as a symptom of decay. Rightly so…”

    Dated 29 December 1939

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  • #
    OriginalSteve

    Interestingly, there would be a likelyhood for quite a few sceptics to be right wing and Christian, so under socialism , this view of the world would be seen (wrongly) as ” mentally deficient”…..and Goebbels deranged rantings resonate again now…

    You can almist hear the gates of the camps opening up……

    The hoofbeats of the 4 Horsemen of the Apocolypse grow louder…..

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    • #
      Kinky Keith

      The last two lines are a good wake-up for all those who might be thinking; “she’ll be right mate”.

      A current illustration of political manipulation is the use of the new Trump import tariff on metals.

      Headlines proclaim that Trump will cause closure of iron, steel and aluminium manufacture in Australia.

      The reality, probably little understood by most voters, is that both sides of politics here have not only neglected Australian industry for a long time, but have deliberately acted in such a way that shutdowns were pretty much inevitable.

      If we don’t start thinking soon the only jobs available will be in university teaching courses such as : the psychological impact of unemployment on the Australian population.

      KK

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      • #
        PeterS

        Indeed. Trump’s actions have no bearing our the demise of our manufacturing industry in Australia. But as usual the MSM and both major parties will rewrite history and blame Trump for the closure of our car manufacturing and other industries, when in fact they started to close down a long time ago, even before we knew who Trump was. There doesn’t appear to be anything that can stop it now. Full steam ahead to the cliff. If the GFC actually caused a major recession here we might have been taught some valuable lessons. Instead we are sailing through as though we are invulnerable. Far from it. We are so close to the edge of the cliff already it’s not funny. A few have already fallen over it but by and large we haven’t noticed it. Wait when the crowd starts feeling a sense of weightlessness. Panic then sets in. As the nation falls into the abyss the left can scream and yell all they like that Trump is to blame but nobody else will be listening. Besides since when were we part of the US? Can’t we look after ourselves like we used to? We used to be a very successful nation being the envy of the whole world. Mirrors should be mandatory for all.

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        • #
          OriginalSteve

          Not much you can do when we are being white anted by our political OberFuhrers….

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        • #
          mikewaite

          Did you not become effectively part of the US when you used Australian tax dollars to contribute to Hillary
          Clinton’s election expenses? Or did I misunderstand some of the posts here on that topic?

          01

      • #
        sophocles

        KK said:

        f we don’t start thinking soon the only jobs available will be in university teaching courses such as : the psychological impact of unemployment on the Australian population.

        … and if you don’t start acting soon, the only remaining jobs will be “researching” and writing the pseudoscience to provide the underpinning and “consensus” for those courses.

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  • #

    Delve deeper into the science with an understanding of thermalization and use of Quantum Mechanics (Hitran does the calculations) and discover that CO2 does not now, has never had and will never have a significant effect on climate. http://energyredirect3.blogspot.com

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    • #
      Kinky Keith

      That’s the ultimate point Dan.

      The physics and chemistry of the situation show conclusively that CO2 cannot create or add to global warming.

      There is NO functioning CO2 mechanism that can lead to global warming.

      This FACT has remained remarkably undebated for too long and points to the pressure which academics in the sciences are subjected to.

      KK
      KK

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      • #
        RicDre

        KK, what you say is true, that is why they invented water vapor amplification and assigned it a big enough value to do the deed that CO2 could never do. And as an added bonus, the science on whether Water Vapor is a positive or negative feedback is murky enough that they can claim that that their case is proven without any actuals facts to back them up.

        51

        • #
          Kinky Keith

          What they did with the water being amplified by CO2 is the only bit of genius they’ve shown.

          But as you say, show me the measurements.

          30

          • #
            sophocles

            KK said:

            with the water being amplified by CO2

            no no, back to front: it’s the CO2 being amplified by the water!

            For heavens sake, KK get with the consensus 🙂

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            • #
              RicDre

              Sophocles:

              Darn, you’re right, I forgot that as the oceans warm and approach their boiling point, all of that CO2 now hiding in them will come bubbling out like a soda bottle without a cap on it.

              40

              • #
                Kinky Keith

                Now that’s real genius.

                10

              • #
                The Deplorable Vlad the Impaler

                That means the next crisis will be ‘ocean basicadation’. No CO2, the oceans become a base … … …

                We’re all DOOOOOOOOOOOOMED!!!!

                20

  • #
    Curious George

    I vaguely remember a study which showed that progressives were so much mentally superior to conservatives – but then the authors found that they mislabeled the two groups.

    100

    • #
      Environment Skeptic

      I have already explained in detail below that we need a credit rating ascribed to various scientific theories..

      ‘Credit rating’
      We need a credit rating agency in the scientific community much like the credit rating agency Moody’s.
      Triple A (AAA) and so forth.
      It could be a called a ‘consensus rating of ‘CCC’ as being the highest consensus and ‘CCC minus’ as being lower consensus rating and so on….

      10

  • #

    As a libertarian since the mid-1970s,
    after being a liberal since the late 1960s
    (in the good old days when
    US liberals were against the government,
    and against the Vietnam War),
    … I feel that there is a large difference
    between liberals (modern style) and
    conservatives.
    .
    Conservatives will debate you on any
    issue, where you have a different view.
    .
    They do not character attack if you
    listen to their views politely.
    .
    They do not automatically
    trust the government,
    even when Republicans are in charge.,
    but often can’t come up with a list
    of government spending they’d like
    to eliminate — they believe in the theory
    of a smaller, less powerful government,
    like libertarians … but usually
    can’t take the pressure
    when special interest groups try to
    protect “their” portion
    of government spending.
    .
    Conservatives can get a little testy when they find
    out I’m an atheist, and don’t subscribe
    to any Christian religious views, other than
    admitting most of the 10 commandments
    make sense.
    .
    .
    Liberals will not debate.
    .
    At most they will spout a few
    memorized talking points,
    which they don’t understand,
    and once in a while
    there will be some
    misleading statistics within
    those talking points.
    .
    Discussions end quickly when
    they realize you are not one of
    them — character attacks often
    follow — sometimes actual hate
    — even liberal relatives instinctively
    character attack — perhaps a
    little less hostile than strangers
    on the internet, but they think you
    are not worthy of debate.
    .
    Thanks to three decades of propaganda
    in schools, and from liberal-biased media
    sources, almost no one knows anything
    about the lack of real science behind
    the predictions of a coming climate
    change catastrophe.
    .
    When they see the Honest Climate Change Chart
    on the home page of my climate change blog.
    conservatives tend to be stunned by how little warming
    there has been since 1880 … but liberals tend to start
    arguing that the scale used for the chart is no good,
    and hides the details … and they refuse to read further.
    .
    There is no doubt in my mind that liberals
    I’ve met think they know more than conservatives,
    but the reality, in my opinion,
    is they “know” many things that are
    not so … and their minds are closed to contrary
    views (no matter how much data, logic and
    common sense supports your argument).
    .
    Leftists live in an imaginary world
    where “equality” is the goal,
    failing to realize the only “equal” people
    are identical twins!
    .
    .
    The Honest Global Warming Chart Blog:

    http://www.elOnionBloggle.Blogspot.com

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    • #
      Kinky Keith

      Good comment.

      One small point about identical twins.

      The one on the bottom i.e. first out, may have been under a bit of pressure that leads to some ” differentiation “.

      KK

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      • #
        toorightmate

        I went out with identical twins once.
        They were easy to differentiate.
        The brother had a moustache.

        As Victor Borge once said, he was a twin.
        His brother was also a twin.

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    • #
      OriginalSteve

      As long as they stay in their land of make believe, all good. ( I suspect this is why they have so many professionals who do play dress-ups and make believe for a living, so happy to speak for them…birds of a feather and all…)

      Where it gets interesting ( for them, anyway.. ) is if they get up in my grill….

      20

    • #
      RicDre

      I think of myself as a Classical Liberal in the same way as the USA’s Founding Fathers were. Today’s USA “liberals” are actually Progressives which is a very different animal. “Conservative” is just a label that US Progressives give Classical Liberals because they think of that name as a pejorative.

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      • #
        Kinky Keith

        Here in Australia it’s not quite as confusing.

        We have the Liberals, and Labor, plus the Greens.

        Our Labor is like the U.S. Democrats.

        Our Liberals are a bit like the U.S. Republicans.

        Our Greens make me wish they had chosen some other colour, cause I like the bush.

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        • #
          AndyG55

          Our Liberals are like the many RINOs in the US Republican party.

          Vying for the far-left with Labour (union thuggery) and the Greens (loopy SJW pseudo-enviro-MENTAL-ists.)

          Leaving anyone even slightly right or to the centre, no major party to vote for.

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        • #
          RicDre

          KK, thanks for the explanation of Australian political parties. One of the reasons I like this site is that it gives me another country’s perspective on the world.

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        • #
          robert rosicka

          Do not agree on your description of the dems and pubs with our un- useful idiots , I think maybe our major political parties have closer theological ties to the democrats although I do agree with what you said about the greens but why so polite ?

          20

          • #
            Kinky Keith

            Now Robert, I didn’t say they were exactly the same.

            And true, neither of them, at the moment, is worth voting for.

            Sorry, forgot about the ants.

            RIC, there is another party called the National Party: it was known as the Country Party in an earlier incarnation.

            Sorry. It’s been a long day.

            00

      • #
        Tim Hammond

        In the UK Conservatives are made up of conservatives, liberals and Liberals, plus Libertarians.

        10

        • #
          Richard Baguley

          In the UK:-
          UKIP: originally right wing but took on many socialist policies. Wonky on climate. Still anti EU.
          Conservative: left of centre no longer conservative. Believes in CAGW. Pro EU.
          Liberal Democrats: left wing muddle. Close to greens on climate. Rabidly in favour of EU superstate at all costs.
          Greens: watermelons. Economically and scientifically illiterate.
          Labour: extreme leftist, marxist lead aka Communist Labour. Believes in CAGW caused by business. Anti freedom, anti democratic, anti defence forces, anti monarchy, goal to destroy the system. EU policy ludicrous. Illiterate on everything. So far left that Lenin, Stalin and Mao would never have dreamed of such extremism. Next UK government.

          10

  • #
    Greg in NZ

    Since Michael E. Mann-gate spoke/preached at the Pacific CCC group-hug-thing in Wellington last month, NZ’s mass hysteria media has gone into overdrive, spouting all sorts of UN-sciency fables/parables/prophecies. The Greens leader even proposed inventing a new Category 6 for cyclones because… I dunno, carbon maybe? And with TC Hola now spinning between Vanuatu and New Caledonia, the radio and interwebs (I gave up TV decades ago) are like pigs in the proverbial – there’s *stuff* flying everywhere!

    And as for NZ’s NIWA Principal Scientist of Forecasting, a recent import from New York, via the BoM, whose LinkedIn page states he is a Certified Broadcast Meteorologist (AMS), claims he has “a strong passion to learn more about the science and how to best communicate ‘the message’.” Should be written: how best to… [communicate The Faith]. As someone who makes use of NIWA’s output (for surfing, snowboarding, and work) I’m a little miffed when he refers to me, and other members of the public who are paying his wage, as an “end user”. *Do I insert ‘trigger warning and/or sarc’ here? I’ve never ‘used’ and I’ve never used an ‘end’ neither, even though some past German girlfriends were always keen.

    As a longhaired skateboarder on the wrong side of 50, who has always had a bit of a lean to the left (I ride goofyfoot), my friends & family & co-workers comment on how conservative, far-right, anti-science, CCC-d@nying, Trump-loving I’ve become… whatever. Wisdom comes with age, I tell them, having lived through (almost) two 30-year climate cycles/periods, having chased cyclone swells since the 1970s, having accurately called summer snow storms for decades and, reading the literature. And, of course, regularly visiting Jo’s site and learning/researching via all the other fine contributors here.

    Methinks psychologists need to get outside more often and play in the snow and (literally) go jump in the ocean.

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    • #
      Kinky Keith

      This reads like a put down of modern elites who want to control and direct us.

      I’m glad you all survived the conference.

      50

      • #
        Greg in NZ

        Thank you, K.K., thankfully I was nowhere near the conference nor any of its members. Media outlets were very quiet about the gathering – except for Kim Hill, a usually cut-and-thrust interviewer on Radio NZ (our state-funded South Pacific Pravda / ABC), who gushed and googooed as Herr Doktor Mann rambled on about the end of the world and how we must tackle carbon and whoah it’s too late because the Arctic has melted and the Pacific is drowning and… and that’s when I turned the radio off. Since then, and it’s only been two weeks, any high tide, any drop of rain, any breath of wind, any anything is now solid proof that Climate Causes Weather, according to young journalists/reporters/disciples and PR-persons™. “The Message” must be spread! We may have survived the con (ference)… now the real side-Shoah begins.

        P.S. It snowed on the tops of the whole length of the South Island the day the conference opened, which happened to be my birthday, so I went snowboarding, in summer. Thank you CO₂!

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    • #
      sophocles

      GreginNZ said:

      The Greens leader even proposed inventing a new Category 6 for cyclones because…

      he’s a True Believer&trade: in Mickey Mannikin’s mantra(s). He hasn’t an ounce of science in his education considering he is qualified in sustainable business development/management which I in my opinion is “how to rob a company often without being caught”. Consequently he isn’t to know that Cat 5 for cyclones means winds of >250km/hr, ie 250km/hour or more. It’s an open-ended category.

      But, he’s allowed to make a fool of himself.

      Yes, we could create a sixth category: we could have: 251km/hr or more. We could always call it The Jimshaw Monster Category.

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  • #
    observa

    Behavioural Sustainability: If you think like we do you’ll get lots of grants too.
    Challenges to Discipline: The fallacy of composition.

    40

  • #
    PeterS

    There’s one thing that’s worse than confirmation bias and it’s twisted confirmation bias that doesn’t even stand up to its own standards let alone the correct ones. Much of what stands for science in most fields these days simply do not convey a lot of truth, facts, correctly interpreted evidence, logic and goodness. That’s a far cry from what science used to be about.

    60

  • #
    el gordo

    This is not the way to win over sceptics, Mathew England picks up $100,000 for being an overt catastrophist.

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-05/challenges-understanding-climate-change-impact-antarctica/9398192

    They are saying east Antarctica is unstable, unbelievable.

    60

  • #
    Dave of Reedy Creek , Qld

    Very interesting article, thanks for keeping us up to speed. Between you, WUWT, Greenie Watch and a few other credible sites I have keep a good eye on the subject. The outcome has been since about 2006 that I became a total climate atheist. The major issue has been the extremely costly bogus predictions of a certain character name Flannery who is responsible for unbelievable knee jerk political spending and waste. Here on the Gold Coast we have a desalination plant rusting away, built here mainly because the State Government of the day in their total lack of foresight on growth in both Brisbane and here left Brisbane high and dry and they used our water until their big dam was finally completed. Secondly the exposure of the corruption in the UK before the Copenhagen conference stunned even a cynic like me, [Snip – sigh], blatant lies and collusion jump to mind…
    Then there is the tampering of temperatures, even in my former home town of Inverell but the killer was the disgraceful episode in Bourke.
    Next we have “computer modelling” and “computer projections.” As a friend of mine once said on the topic — garbage in garbage out. I think the comments that climate change is a religion is very true because huge amounts of it are not science but assumptions, opinions and deliberate distortions to get more money, Athiest I am and athiest I stay.

    40

  • #
    OriginalSteve

    O/t but interesting:

    https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/is-it-going-to-be-australias-coldest-winter-ever-quite-the-opposite/ar-BBJZq0y?li=AAgfYrC&ocid=mailsignout

    “Despite rumours of the nation hurtling towards its “coldest winter on record”, the experts have said it’s not time to bunker down for ‘Snowmageddon 2.0’.

    Weatherzone meteorologist Max Gonzalez told 9news.com.au Australia is in the middle of what is known as the “spring predictability barrier”, which makes it difficult for season outlook models to make accurate forecasts.

    But using the Bureau of Meteorology’s seasonal model (POAMA), Mr Gonzalez predicted we’re in for a warmer than average June to August period.

    “It’s hinting at negative Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) conditions for that period,” Mr Gonzalez explained.

    “Typically negative IOD events bring above-average winter (temperatures) and early spring rainfall to north-western, central and south-eastern parts of Australia.”

    Mr Gonzalez added that another weather forecasting model, the ECMWF, predicted that warmer than usual winter is in store for central and south-eastern parts of Australia.”

    30

    • #
      el gordo

      Alright, global cooling has begun according to Spencer’s satellite, so the ECMWF predicts a neutral IOD and ENSO will produce a ‘warmer than usual winter … for central and south-eastern parts of Australia.’

      Not a word on the blocking highs, I predict the coldest winter in living memory.

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  • #
    Dave

    O/T

    But two Bureau of Meteorology staff caught mining Cryptocurrency
    Using the Super Computer?

    80

  • #
    MudCrab

    My view is more that Lefties are literally incapable of accepting a differing world view.

    Think of what a lot of Lefties believe – Everything would be better if only THEY were in charge. They believe the system is broken and must be changed for the better. Society must have a progressive mindset and accept social changes.

    Exactly what social change they want may vary depending on who you talk to at the time, but the prime defining aspect of a Leftie is that THEY know what is best for you.

    A Rightie does not think the system is broken as such, more that you must constantly change the way you play in order to get ahead. They also, despite what rampaging ferals claim, rarely want to be in charge, instead preferring to be in charge of their own destiny. Own. Your destiny can do what it likes provided of course it doesn’t place me or my loved ones in danger.

    Short description of a Rightie is someone who just wants to be left alone to do their own thing.

    So, back to Lefties.

    Lefties honestly believe they are correct. (well most, there are some who are power hungry and know they are gaming the system for their own selfish ends, but the greater herd honestly believe they are doing ‘the right thing’.) Since they believe themselves to be correct in what they think, in what they say and in what they do when they are confronted with differing ideas they are actually deeply conflicted.

    Remember, they believe they are correct. Their entire function in life revolves around this concept. For them to admit, even to themselves, that they were wrong forces them to question everything else they previously believed in.

    So, what can they do? Admit that their entire life has been wasted on a lie? Or call people Climate Change Deniers and scream abuse?

    Muse on this together with the theories on Groupthink we had the other week. Groupthink maintains that entire ‘I must be right’ mindset that Lefties need in order to prevent massive and destructive waves of self doubt. To question the think of the group is to question themselves. Safer to believe in the group.

    The irony is that Conservatives are normally more progressive with ideas than actual Progressives. Conservatives are not welded onto the life belief that they need to fix everything. They only need to fix things for themselves and for their families and hence place themselves in social environments where they are willing to observe and learn from people who may think differently. Admitting that they were wrong is simply embarrassing, not a crisis of faith.

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  • #
    OriginalSteve

    O/T but Interesting :

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-08/worlds-largest-solar-and-wind-hydrogen-plant-proposed-for-sa/9526706

    “A new solar and wind hydrogen plant, which has been dubbed the largest in the world, has been proposed for Crystal Brook in South Australia’s Mid North.

    The Labor Government has committed $25 million in grants and loans to renewable energy company, Neoen, to finalise plans and — pending development approvals — commence construction of a Hydrogen Superhub.

    The French company also owns and operates the Hornsdale Wind Farm in Jamestown, SA, the site of the Tesla lithium-ion battery.

    If approved for construction, the site will create up to 260 jobs during the planning and construction phase, with 40 ongoing positions once the site is operational.

    The Crystal Brook facility will produce up to 400 megawatts of solar and wind power each day, which will power the site’s hydrogen ‘electrolyser’ to potentially produce 20,000 kilograms of hydrogen daily.

    The SA Government has said that exporting the hydrogen products created at the plant to markets in Asia was a possibility.

    SA Energy Minister, Tom Koutsantonis said that new hydrogen projects would create economic benefits for the state and placed South Australia as a world leader in hydrogen production.”

    SA seems to be a world leader in why not to run off renewables….

    40

    • #
      RicDre

      Just a stray thought, but if Co2 = Carbon then doesn’t H2O = Hydrogen? If so, wouldn’t Perrier of France be a leading exporter of Hydrogen? Of course, its Sparkling water, so they would also be exporting Carbon, which is evil. And since this is Naturally occurring CO2, shouldn’t they just “leave it in the ground” as the EU demands of other things containing Carbon?

      71

      • #
        OriginalSteve

        Why is it you never see Lefties/rent-a-crowd ever protesting outside beer or soft drink manufacturers, the same who basically export CO2 everywhere in their product?

        41

        • #
          RicDre

          I agree, and per Dr. Bjorn Lomborg, using the IPCC’s own calculations, the Paris Accord would reduce the effect of global warming by about 0.05C by 2100, so rounded to the nearest 0.5C both the Paris Accord and banning all carbonated beverages would likely have the same effect on Global Warming.

          10

      • #
        George Daddis

        Which suggests another alternative to the two that Jo mentions.
        That is, a skeptic understands that any writer who confuses carbon with CO2 doesn’t know his butt from a hole in the ground. Ergo their supposed “trigger word” stops further reading of a piece that has a high probability of containing nonsense.

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    • #
  • #
    pat

    MSM’s CAGW gate-keepers haven’t given up on exploiting the young, when it suits their agendas plural:

    behind paywall at NYT, but here in full:

    6 Mar: PoliticsOfHope: NYT: Lisa Friedman: College Republicans Propose an Unusual Idea From the Right: a Carbon Tax
    As the Republican Party struggles to find its footing with the next generation of voters, several conservative college groups have banded together to champion something anathema to the party: a carbon tax.

    The group is led by the Yale College Republicans, the main campus student organization for young Republicans at Yale, and includes other prominent GOP groups at 22 other schools around the country including Clemson University in South Carolina, North Carolina State University and Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas. Under the name Students for Carbon Dividends, the coalition is backing an idea first broached by Republican heavyweights including former Secretary of State James A. Baker III and former Secretary of State George P. Shultz: Tax the carbon pollution produced by burning fossil fuels and then return the money to consumers as a dividend in the form of monthly cash payments to individuals, both adults and children alike…

    Republican strategists said the budding movement reflected an important shift on social and environmental issues that could divide the party along generational lines. Political polls suggest that millennials are dissatisfied with what they see as politics as usual from both parties. But Republicans said they worried their ranks would bear the brunt of the shift as young people moved away from party orthodoxy on issues like guns, gay marriage and climate change…
    “I think what we see is that, at a time when younger voters are rejecting party politics broadly, they’re rejecting the Republican Party at a much higher rate because what they see, according to them, is a party that doesn’t want to listen and doesn’t want to grow,” said Doug Heye, a former communications director for the Republican National Committee.
    “It’s a problem right now, but it’s going to be a catastrophic problem in five years or 10 years,” Mr. Heye said.

    The leaders of nearly two dozen Republican student groups involved in the coalition said they and their peers accepted the scientific consensus that humans have played a significant role in warming the planet. Many said they were tired of hearing Republican leaders deny climate change and did not want their party branded as anti-science.
    “As a party, we’re losing voters rapidly because of this issue,” said Kiera O’Brien, president of Harvard University’s Republican club, which is a member of the carbon-tax coalition. “I’m increasingly frustrated by the fact that the science is disputed when there’s clearly evidence of climate change. We need to have a solution for our party, but we also need a solution that’s an alternative between doing nothing or ceding everything to the government.”…

    Under the plan the students are proposing, an initial tax of $40 per ton of carbon would be levied at the point where fossil fuels enter the economy, for instance a mine or port. The tax would increase over time. That money would then be returned to taxpayers in a per-person monthly payment, with half-payments going to children under the age of 18 and a limit of two children per family…

    ***Alexander Posner, 22, a Yale University senior who founded the group, said he has been interested in climate change and energy for years. When he read about the climate council Mr. Baker and Mr. Schultz began last year, he signed up for an internship. Soon after, he started contacting his peers at Republican clubs across the country to sound them out on creating a coalition of their own.
    “We’ve had a lot of conversations, and literally not once has the validity of climate science come up,” Mr. Posner said…
    The coalition of 23 Republican student groups, five college Democratic clubs and three university environmental clubs comes at a unique moment of youth political activism…

    Last week the nonprofit Alliance for Market Solutions issued a survey on millennial attitudes toward climate change showing that nearly 60 percent of young Republicans acknowledge that human-induced climate change is real, and 88 percent of young Democrats. A majority of young people of both parties said they believed steps should be taken to slow or stop climate change.
    “Young voters don’t necessarily have strong views on what should be done about climate change, but doing nothing is not a path that most young people, including Republicans, tend to support,” said Kristen Soltis Anderson, the Republican strategist who conducted the survey.

    Harrison Preddy, 22, a senior majoring in political science at North Carolina State University, said he was skeptical when he first saw Mr. Posner’s email asking him to embrace a carbon tax and dividend. But when the two spoke on the phone, Mr. Preddy said, “it started to speak to what I had been feeling we were missing for so long.” …

    Mr. (James) Baker said in an interview he believes the idea of a carbon tax and dividend can appeal to those who question climate change science. “I’m sort of a climate change skeptic,” he said. “I do think the climate is changing but I don’t know why, and I sure don’t understand the extent to which man may be responsible for it.”
    But, Mr. Baker added, uncertainty about the magnitude of the threat shouldn’t be an excuse not to act. “This is a free-market based solution,” he said.
    http://politicsofhope.com/college-republicans-propose-an-unusual-idea-from-the-right-a-carbon-tax.html

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  • #
    pat

    gate-keeper Robinson Meyer:

    28 Feb: The Atlantic: Robinson Meyer: They’re Here to Fix Climate Change! They’re College Republicans.
    “A lot of young conservatives are frustrated by the false choice between no climate action and a big government regulatory scheme.”
    Consider the life of a current college sophomore, a 20-year-old.
    She was born in 1998, at the time the warmest year ever measured, when a monster El Niño pattern spawned floods and droughts around the world. Seven years later, as she started first grade, Hurricane Katrina inundated New Orleans, and 2005 set a new record as the warmest year ever measured. That record fell again as she started fifth grade and sixth grade, and in her sophomore, junior, and senior years of high school.
    In fact, 18 of the 20 years she has been alive have ranked among the warmest ever recorded…

    On Wednesday, a coalition of 34 student groups from around the country—including 23 chapters of the College Republicans—announced the formation of Students for Carbon Dividends, a bipartisan group calling for national legislation to fight climate change…
    Specifically, they’ve endorsed the Baker-Shultz plan, a proposal to impose an expensive new tax on carbon pollution while slashing Environmental Protection Agency regulations. That plan gets its name from the two GOP graybeards—James Baker III and George Shultz, both former secretaries of state – who first advanced it last February…

    “Adult leaders have not acted efficiently or effectively on this issue, and we are stepping forward to fill the void,” said Alexander Posner, the founding president of Students for Carbon Dividends and a 22-year-old American history major at Yale University…
    “The other thing that’s unique here is that the elder statesmen of the Republican Party are kind of uniting with the younger generation, to press the middle generation to act on climate.”…

    “The Republican Party has failed to have a coherent strategy for climate change,” said Kiera O’Brien, a 19-year-old government major and the president of the Harvard Republican Club. She is also a vice president of the Students for Carbon Dividends…
    “I may not see the effects [of global warming] yet in my hometown, but the world’s changing,” she added…

    Experts say that climate advocates should see the polling data—and the existence of Students for Carbon Dividends—as positive developments.
    “I’d say that such announcements can’t hurt and might do some good,” says Dan Kahan, a professor of law and psychology at Yale University who studies partisan polarization and climate change. “In general, Millennials seem less divided than other age cohorts” on climate change.
    https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/college-republicans-carbon-climate-change-plan/554465/

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  • #
    pat

    comment in moderation re: 28 Feb: The Atlantic: Robinson Meyer: They’re Here to Fix Climate Change! They’re College Republicans.

    6 Mar: Reuters: U.S. loses bid to halt children’s climate change lawsuit
    by Jonathan Stempel
    A federal appeals court on Wednesday rejected the U.S. government’s bid to halt a lawsuit by young people claiming that President Donald Trump and his administration are violating their constitutional rights by ignoring the harms caused by climate change.
    By a 3-0 vote, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said the administration had not met the “high bar” under federal law to dismiss the Oregon lawsuit, which was originally brought in 2015 against the administration of President Barack Obama.

    U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken in Eugene, Oregon in November 2016 refused to dismiss the lawsuit, saying a quick dismissal without addressing the merits could sanction the government’s alleged “knowing decision to poison the air.”
    In seeking to overturn that ruling, the government said letting the case proceed could lead to burdensome litigation, and provoke a “constitutional crisis” by pitting courts against Trump and the many other Executive Branch officials named as defendants.
    But in Wednesday’s decision, Chief Judge Sidney Thomas said the dismissal request was premature, and deciding whether the plaintiffs’ claims were too broad could be addressed through the normal legal process.
    “Litigation burdens are part of our legal system, and the defendants still have the usual remedies before the district court for nonmeritorious litigation,” Thomas wrote. “C1aims and remedies often are vastly narrowed as litigation proceeds; we have no reason to assume this case will be any different.”
    The U.S. Department of Justice, which handled the government appeal, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

    Julia Olson, who represented the plaintiffs and is executive director of Our Children’s Trust, which advocates for improving the climate, in an interview welcomed the decision.
    “It’s very exciting,” she said. “It will be the first time that climate science and the federal government’s role in creating its dangers will go on trial in a U.S. court.”
    The lawsuit was returned to Aiken for further proceedings
    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/us-loses-bid-to-halt-childrens-climate-change-lawsuit/ar-BBJZg3l?ocid=spartandhp

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      RicDre

      Ah, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. They wouldn’t agree with a republican if the Republican said water was wet.

      These people may regret putting “climate science” on trial as they may be forced to produce some actual facts to back up their position.

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    el gordo

    ‘For example, we can frame climate change action as protecting our nation against climate catastrophes, advancing economic and technological development and creating a more caring and considerate society, which is an effective message to engage climate deniers. Framing environmentalism as a form of patriotism can be successful, particularly if the appeal is seen as coming from one’s in-group.’

    The Denialati would frame climate change as a natural variable and carbon dioxide as a harmless trace gas that unfortunately doesn’t cause warming, but there is no denying human induced CO2 has made the world a lot greener.

    Engaging with global warming zealots is impossible, they know nothing of the science and instead nod in the direction of the Klimatariat high priests, who have dug themselves into a deep hole.

    ‘….the appeal is seen as coming from one’s in-group.’

    Around the barbecue with family and friends has become a minefield, political correctness on climate change is destroying relationships and aunty is to blame.

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  • #
    Phillip Bratby

    I’d like to know what “Behavioral Sustainability” is and also who is a “climate denier”. I was taught that the climate exists at a very early age, and being a good student, I accepted the fact, as I could see the evidence that there was such a thing as climate. Anybody know?

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    pat

    Another Ian –

    you beat me to it. Krauss has denied all allegations, so he’s innocent until proven guilty & all that, but it’s still worth recalling how political BAS has become:

    27 Jan 2017: ABC: Reuters: Doomsday Clock ticks closest to midnight in 64 years due to climate change, nuclear fears, Donald Trump election
    “The Doomsday Clock is closer to midnight than it’s ever been in the lifetime of almost everyone in this room,” Lawrence Krauss, the bulletin’s chair, told a news conference in Washington…
    Trump and Putin largely responsible for shift
    Professor Krauss, a theoretical physicist, said Mr Trump and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin carried a large share of the blame for the heightened threat…
    It said the Trump administration nominees raised the possibility the government will be “openly hostile to progress toward even the most modest efforts to avert catastrophic climate disruption.”…
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-27/nuclear-doomsday-clock-ticks-closest-to-midnight-in-64-years/8216458

    25 Jan: LiveScience: Armageddon Update: ‘Doomsday Clock’ Stands at 2 Minutes to Midnight
    By Mindy Weisberger
    In 2018, it reflects the breakdown of global efforts to reduce reliance on and risk of nuclear weapons; increased posturing and threats regarding the use of nuclear weapons; and an insufficient response worldwide to curb the impacts of climate change.
    It is not any one of those factors, but a combination of all of them — and the weakening of public faith in knowledgeable expert voices — that prompted the change to the clock, Lawrence Krauss, chair of the BAS Board of Sponsors and director of the Origins Project at Arizona State University, told reporters…

    “This danger looms at a time when there’s been a loss of trust in political institutions, in the media, in science, and in facts themselves, all of which exacerbate the difficulty in dealing with the real problems the world faces, and which threaten to undermine the ability of governments to effectively deal with these problems,” Krauss said.

    The new time was set by the BAS’ Science and Security Board, a group of scientists and other experts in nuclear technology and climate science…
    https://www.livescience.com/61526-doomsday-clock-update-2018.html

    6 Mar: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: Lawrence Krauss resigns from Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Board of Sponsors
    Press release:
    The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has accepted Lawrence Krauss’ resignation from its Board of Sponsors and his role as Chair:
    Rachel Bronson, president and CEO of the Bulletin, stated that “Lawrence Krauss has been a valued member of the Board, and has greatly contributed to the Bulletin’s mission during this perilous moment in global affairs.”
    The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists engages science leaders, policy makers, and the interested public on the topics of nuclear weapons and disarmament, climate change, and disruptive technologies. We do this through our award-winning journal, iconic Doomsday Clock, public-access website, and regular set of convenings. With smart, vigorous prose, multimedia presentations, and information graphics, the Bulletin puts issues and events into context and provides fact-based debates and assessments. For more than 70 years, the Bulletin has bridged the technology divide between scientific research, foreign policy, and public engagement

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    pat

    6 Mar: E&E News: Can we refreeze the Arctic? Scientists are beginning to ask
    by Chelsea Harvey
    Part one of a three-part series
    Each summer, residents of the Swiss Alps make their way through the mountains to the edge of the famous Rhône Glacier. There, fleecy white blankets in hand, they cover up the ice. They’re trying to reflect the sun and prevent the glacier from melting.

    The Rhône is one of many glaciers around the world that have noticeably shrunk in recent decades. The blankets are a simple fix, but they seem to help — Swiss glaciologist David Volken has previously suggested (LINK) to Agence France-Presse that they may reduce melting by up to 70 percent.

    Similar protective coverings are used on other glaciers, as well, in places like Italy and Germany — and scientists have begun to propose higher-tech solutions for the future. One research group from Utrecht University hopes to save Switzerland’s Morteratsch Glacier by blowing reflective artificial snow across its surface, a proposal it presented at the annual meeting of the European Geosciences Union last spring. It hopes to eventually secure funding from the Swiss government, after proving the technology in a smaller pilot demonstration.

    In a steadily warming world, using technology to protect the planet’s glaciers may only prove useful for so long — curbing greenhouse gases and stopping the warming itself is the only true solution. But some scientists hope that stopgap measures could buy a little time for the world’s ice…READ ON
    https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060075503

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    pat

    Worland so concerned about crediting Obama, not Trump, that he temporarily forgets Obama was reportedly the “climate leader” of the world!

    6 Mar: Time: A ‘Major Second Wave’ of U.S. Fracking Is About to Be Unleashed Upon the World
    By Justin Worland
    U.S. oil and natural gas is on the verge of transforming the world’s energy markets for a second time, further undercutting Saudi Arabia and Russia.
    The widespread adoption of fracking in the U.S. opened billions of barrels of oil and trillions of cubic feet of natural gas to production and transformed the global energy sector in a matter of a few years. Now, a leading global energy agency says U.S. natural gas is about to do it again.

    The International Energy Agency (IEA) said in a new forecast (LINK) this week that growth in U.S. oil production will cover 80% of new global demand for oil in the next three years. U.S. oil production is expected to increase nearly 30% to 17 million barrels a day by 2023 with much of that growth coming from oil produced through fracking in West Texas.
    “Non-OPEC supply growth is very, very strong, which will change a lot of parameters of the oil market in the next years to come,” Fatih Birol, the head of the International Energy Agency, told reporters at the CERAWeek energy conference hosted by IHS Markit. “We are going to see a major second wave of U.S. shale production coming.”

    Republicans politicians and policymakers celebrated the news and sought to take credit for the development…
    But analysts attributed the growth in U.S. production to market factors rather than Republican policy. In the report, the IEA forecast that higher oil prices and increased demand from China and India will trigger increased U.S. output to make up the gap. The IEA also predicts that demand for petrochemicals used in plastic will grow overall demand for oil.
    Still, the White House sent out a press release highlighting the report on Monday… (In reality, Obama promoted natural gas as part of an “all of the above” energy strategy and his signature climate change regulation would have benefited the fossil fuel.)…READ ON
    http://time.com/5187074/fracking-energy-oil-natural-gas/

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    pat

    behind paywall:

    Chilling fact is most climate change theories are wrong
    The Australian-18 hours ago
    But Anthony Watts, who runs a climate change website, puts things into perspective. He observes: “Warm moist air from the Pacific and Atlantic oceans has warmed the Arctic above the 80th parallel. It should be noted, however, that the Arctic Circle actually starts at 66 degrees north, meaning the record heat is over a much …

    presumably it’s this Maurice Newman piece:

    7 Mar: MorningMail: The truth about climate change
    Maurice Newman’s piece in today’s Australian will have the inner city’s latte sippers reaching the pepto-bismol as they denounce the article as a work of the devil, or that damned Abbott, Abbott, Abbott.

    You have to hand it to Peter Hannam, The Sydney Morning Herald’s climate change alarmist-in-chief, for his report last month – “ ‘Really ­extreme’ global weather event leaves scientists aghast”.
    Source: News Corp
    Chilling fact is most climate change theories are wrong
    Hannam is often the ­canary in the coalmine (er, wind farm) when there is a sense that public belief in man-made global warming is flagging. With Europe in the grip of a much colder winter than predicted and with the ­abnormal chill spreading even to Africa, he did his best to hold the line.
    Earlier this year, Climate Council councillor Will Steffen also climbed on board — for The Sydney Morning Herald of course. Extreme cold in Britain, Switzerland and Japan, a record-breaking cold snap in Canada and the US and an expansion of the East Antarctic ice sheet coincided with a ­Bureau of Meteorology tweet (later retracted) that January 7 had set a heat record for the ­Sydney Basin. Steffen told us these seemingly unrelated events were in fact linked. “Climate ­disruption” explained both. Whether fire or ice, we’re to blame. No ifs, no buts…

    It’s true, warm air has made its way up to the high Arctic, driving temperatures up to 20C above ­average. But Anthony Watts, who runs a climate change website, puts things into perspective. He observes: “Warm moist air from the Pacific and Atlantic oceans has warmed the Arctic above the 80th parallel. It should be noted, however, that the Arctic Circle actually starts at 66 degrees north, meaning the record heat is over a much narrower area.”
    Cato Institute atmospheric scientist Ryan Maue reviewed high Arctic temperature data going back to 1958 and says: “Data before the satellite era … has some problems, so it’s hard to say the current spike is for sure a record.” He says that if the baseline is 1973, when the polar-­orbiting satellites began recording the data, there is not much difference between today’s ice extent and then…READ ALL
    http://morningmail.org/truth-climate-change/

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    pat

    was this?

    8 Mar: Bloomberg: Why Environmentalists Want to Tell It to the Judge
    By Bob Van Voris
    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-07/why-environmentalists-want-to-tell-it-to-the-judge-quicktake

    a response to this?

    7 Mar: Townhall: Paul Driessen: Those Fraudulent Climate Litigation Shakedowns
    https://townhall.com/columnists/pauldriessen/2018/03/07/those-fraudulent-climate-litigation-shakedowns-n2458376

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    pat

    7 Mar: BBC: Cape Town drought: South African city may avoid ‘Day Zero’
    Cape Town will not have to turn off water supplies after all if current consumption levels are maintained, the region’s governing party has said…
    But water-saving efforts in the South African city have seen the day pushed back from April to 27 August.
    Seasonal rains should mean that date is now averted, the city said…
    “Thus, provided we continue our current water savings efforts, Day Zero can be avoided completely this year,” the city government said in a statement…

    Although the risk that piped water supplies will be shut off this year has receded, politicians and environmentalists warn that the water crisis is there to stay in Cape Town, as year-on-year rainfall levels dwindle…
    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-43321093

    8 Mar: Daily Mail: AFP: Cape Town is saved from Day Zero: Water will NOT run out this year thanks to six weeks of restricted use – but it COULD run out in 2019
    ‘Provided we continue consuming water at current levels, and we receive decent winter rainfall this year, ‘Day Zero’ will not occur in 2018. This means the taps will stay open in 2018,’ he said in a statement.
    However, Mr Maimane warned that this did not mean that Cape Town residents could return to frivolous water use as the risk of a Day Zero in future is still very real.
    ‘While it is now unlikely to occur in 2018, Day Zero is still a very real possibility during the 2019 summer months if we do not have significant rainfall this winter,’ said Maimane.

    ‘I want to reiterate, and cannot stress enough, that we need to keep at current consumptions levels until at least after the winter rainfall.’…
    ‘Consumption now sits at between 510 and 520 million litres per day – down from almost 1.2 billion litres in February 2015,’ said Maimane…

    Strong summer rains saw much of southern Africa recover from a drought induced by the El Nino weather phenomenon.
    But Mediterranean-like Cape Town receives most of its rain in the southern hemisphere’s winter — and scientists warn there is no guarantee of a good rainy season…
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5473067/Cape-Town-averts-dry-taps-2018-official.html

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      yarpos

      Water magically OK till next year, after just 6 weeks of restrictions? I think an indicator that they really dont know where they are with water and/or they dont want to scare the tourists away and panic will set in again come winter.

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      • #
        Kinky Keith

        Why build dams to service the increasing population of the city when if things get really tough or politically awkward you can just take a week off to hit Paris or Rio for a climate conference.

        All those westerners using cars and electricity have caused the drought.

        Politics is such a wonderful tool here in 2018.

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    mmxx

    So-called Climate Science has deposited scientific integrity into sludge.

    Climate Twitter-science is the frightening new norm – until scientific standards are re-introduced.

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    • #
      Environment Skeptic

      ‘Credit rating’
      We need a credit rating agency in the scientific community much like the credit rating agency Moody’s.
      Triple A (AAA) and so forth.
      It could be a called a ‘consensus rating of ‘CCC’ as being the highest consensus and ‘CCC minus’ as being lower consensus rating and so on….

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    pat

    7 Mar: Scientific American: E&E News: Nominee to Lead USGS Is Hard to Read
    In hearings, James Reilly II supports scientific integrity but sidesteps climate questions
    By Brittany Patterson
    President Trump’s nominee to lead the premier science office at the Interior Department sidestepped a question yesterday about whether climate change is a core mission of the U.S. Geological Survey.

    Speaking with reporters after a Senate hearing, James Reilly II said he “couldn’t address” whether the office’s climate research fits into its traditional mandate. Reilly told senators that one of his priorities if confirmed would be identifying the core mission of USGS and whether it’s working on issues outside those boundaries.

    “One of the things I will be looking at very closely, though, is how do the main mission areas, how do they tie in,” Reilly told reporters after the hearing with the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. “A good understanding of the ecosystems is obviously a requirement that we have to have here as a national priority. That’s going to be something we’re going to obviously focus on as part of the charter of the USGS and one of the prime mission areas.”
    Reilly, a former astronaut, sidestepped other questions about the agency’s mission, not just those on climate, and said he would wait to be confirmed before commenting on specific issues under the banner of USGS…

    Under Trump’s fiscal 2019 budget plan, USGS would receive just under $860 million, or about a 20 percent decrease from funding levels enacted in fiscal 2017…

    It also runs eight regional climate science centers and one national climate adaptation science center. Established by Congress in 2008, the climate science centers develop science and tools to help land managers address climate-related impacts to land, water, fish and wildlife, and cultural sites…
    Trump’s budget request includes $13 million for only three of the eight regional climate science centers and one national climate adaptation science center. The remaining centers would presumably be shuttered…
    https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/nominee-to-lead-usgs-is-hard-to-read/

    7 Mar: Politico: Climate change skeptics run the Trump administration
    Agencies including the USDA, CIA, DHS and HUD have leaders who have expressed sentiments at odds with the warnings of the government’s own climate researchers.
    By EMILY HOLDEN
    At the Interior Department, decisions about Pacific island territories threatened by rising seas are in the hands of an assistant secretary who has criticized “climate alarmists” for “once again predicting the end of the world as we know it.” …

    Trump has chosen at least 20 like-minded people to serve as agency leaders and advisers, according to a POLITICO review of his appointees’ past statements on climate science. And they are already having an impact in abandoning former President Barack Obama’s attempt to help unite the world against the threat of rising sea levels, worsening storms and spreading droughts…

    What they said: In a congressional hearing in March 2015, the then-senator (Jeff Sessions) from Alabama asserted that “carbon pollution is CO2, and that’s really not a pollutant. It’s a plant food, and it doesn’t harm anybody except that it might include temperature increases.”

    Why it matters: His lawyers at the Justice Department have vast power over the fate of Obama’s regulations and Trump’s regulatory rollbacks. Already they have sought to delay court decisions while agencies repeal and rewrite Obama-era rules facing attack from industry. And they will have the task of defending Trump’s proposals against legal challenges filed by environmental groups and Democratic-leaning states…

    Some have expressed doubt that the Earth is warming at all, speculated that the trend might be good for humans, or said it’s just impossible to know how much of a role humans and their pollution are playing. All these statements fly in the face of findings by the government’s own research agencies and the vast majority of climate scientists.
    “There are scientists that think lots of different things about climate change,” then-Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.), now Trump’s CIA director, said on C-SPAN in 2013. “There’s some who think we’re warming, there’s some who think we’re cooling, there’s some who think that the last 16 years have shown a pretty stable climate environment.”…
    https://www.politico.com/story/2018/03/07/trump-climate-change-deniers-443533

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    pat

    7 Mar: WaPo: Angela Fritz: Winter storm updates: Snowfall rates reach 6 inches per hour in New England
    For the second time in less than a week, a nor’easter is tearing up the East Coast. The last one blasted New England with gusts up to 97 mph and knocked out power to 2 million homes and businesses. This one will dump more than a foot of snow from Philadelphia to Boston.

    By the time this storm is over late Thursday morning, New York City will be under 8 to 12 inches — but the heaviest snow will fall in New Jersey and parts of Upstate New York. As much as 24 inches is possible in those areas…

    10:15 p.m. — In Vermont, 18 inches of snow in three hours
    That’s impressive by any standard — even Vermont’s. The Berkshires are getting slammed multiple feet of snow tonight, and it’s not the heavy wet kind that fell along the I-95 corridor. The air is much colder there, which means all of the precipitation will fall as light, fluffy snow. That also means snow depth will be much deeper because it’s less compact…

    Tweet: Mitch: Absolutely nuts unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. 26″ of new snow, 18″ in the past 3 hours!!!!!! Very fluffy, 20-25 to 1 ratios at least. I had to shovel out the heating vents to prevent them from getting blocked by snow…READ ON
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2018/03/07/northeast-winter-storm-targets-new-york-city-new-jersey-boston-with-heavy-snow-strong-wind/

    7 Mar: GlobalNewsCanada: Justin Trudeau keeps saying science minister is a Nobel Prize winner; she’s not
    By Amanda Connolly
    For the second time in two days, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau touted the credentials of Science Minister Kirsty Duncan by saying she is a “Nobel Prize-winning scientist.”
    There’s just one problem — she is not…

    According to her official biography on the Government of Canada website, she also “served on the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.”
    That is how the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says individuals who worked on its prize-winning research should be attributed.

    But during a panel discussion on science and innovation with American TV host Bill Nye “The Science Guy” on Tuesday, and again during a panel on women’s leadership on Wednesday, Trudeau said something entirely different.
    “Our Minister for Science, Kirsty Duncan, is a Nobel Prize-winning scientist,” said Trudeau on Tuesday, while touting the role women who come from scientific fields have in his caucus…

    Global News contacted the Prime Minister’s Office to ask why Trudeau continues to describe Duncan as such but a spokesperson did not say whether Trudeau would stop using the phrase to describe Duncan in the future.
    “As stated in her biography, ‘Minister Duncan served on the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,’” said spokesperson Chantal Gagnon in an email. “We are incredibly proud of the work she has accomplished.”…
    https://globalnews.ca/news/4067885/justin-trudeau-kirsty-duncan-nobel-prize/

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    pat

    8 Mar: MySanAntonio: Storm moves up East Coast dumping snow, knocking out power
    by Karen Matthews and David Porter, Associated Press
    The second major storm in less than a week moved up the East Coast early Thursday, dumping heavy snow and knocking out power to hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses from Pennsylvania to New England.

    Some places saw more than 2 feet of snow by late Wednesday. Montville, New Jersey, got more than 26 inches from the nor’easter. North Adams, Massachusetts, registered 24 inches and Sloatsburg, New York, got 26 inches…
    The storm made traveling treacherous. Thousands of flights across the region were canceled…

    In New Jersey, the state’s major utilities reported more than 300,000 customers without power by late Wednesday, with some left over from last week. Utilities across the Northeast also reported tens of thousands of homes and businesses without electricity.

    The National Weather Service issued a winter storm warning through Thursday for most of New England as the storm continued to make its way through.
    In Worcester, Massachusetts, public works crews late Wednesday had a hard time keeping up with the snow…

    In North White Plains, New York, 10 people were taken to hospitals with symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning after running a generator inside a home, police said. All were expected to survive…

    Porter reported from Newark, New Jersey. Associated Press writers Michael Catalini in Morrisville, Pennsylvania; Michael Sisak and Rod Hicks in Philadelphia; Wayne Parry in Atlantic City, New Jersey; Bruce Shipkowski in Toms River, New Jersey, and Rodrique Ngowi in Worcester, Massachusetts, contributed.
    https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/us/article/Storm-moves-up-East-Coast-dumping-snow-knocking-12737070.php

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    pat

    7 Mar: IndependentRecordMontana: Get ready for runoff: Snowpack setting records across Montana
    Some parts of Montana received record-breaking snowfall in February, resulting in well-above-normal snowpack totals for March 1 for most river basins, according to snow survey data collected by the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service. Twenty-five SNOTEL stations and manual measurement locations set new records for February totals, and 21 measurements at other locations were the second highest on record.

    “Abundant mountain, valley and plains snowfall this winter has Montana under a blanket of snow at the beginning of March,” said Lucas Zukiewicz, NRCS water supply specialist for Montana. “While this is great news for long-term water supply, it’s been hard on a lot of families and businesses in the plains.”
    Snowpack totals are above normal in all major river basins of the state of Montana for March 1, and some measurement locations are setting records for this date…

    The Missouri currently sits at 136 percent of normal for snow to water equivalent…
    http://helenair.com/news/local/get-ready-for-runoff-snowpack-setting-records-across-montana/article_56ae779e-3e71-56e4-9953-642af3792663.html

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    pat

    before the Nor’easter brought another 2 feet-plus of snow:

    7 Mar: NECN: Snow Fighting Supplies Strained as Another Storm Hits VT
    The supply chain for rock salt has been strained by a string of intense winter storms, Vermont’s transportation agency said Wednesday.
    By Jack Thurston
    Ahead of another winter wallop, the Vermont Agency of Transportation has just broken a record, secretary Joe Flynn said Wednesday.

    Flynn told necn that VTrans crews across the state have applied 133,000 tons of salt this winter to state-managed roads.
    “That’s the highest that we have recorded,” Flynn said, noting that the total salt usage for last winter was 130,000 tons.
    Flynn said that spike in usage is due not just to snow, but also to ice events this season, and to multiple thawing and re-freezing cycles.
    Now facing another Nor’easter, VTrans said some town highway departments—especially in southern Vermont—are turning to the state to help them access rock salt. Flynn said the communities have told the agency their normal deliveries have been stretched thin lately…

    At the Barre Public Works Department, assistant director Steve Micheli also has salt on his mind.
    “It’s a monetary stress,” Micheli said. “With all the storms we’ve had, we’ll be over budget for sure, on the salt.”
    Micheli said the department has been able to make that $170,000 line item go farther by blending sand with salt, but with 48 miles of plow-able roads in the city, the salt has gone quickly this year…
    VTrans said it plans to have a full fleet of 250 plow trucks out in this latest storm and during its aftermath, clearing the fresh snowfall…
    https://www.necn.com/news/new-england/Snow-Fighting-Supplies-Strained-as-Another-Storm-Hits-VT–476163513.html

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    pat

    7 Mar: DailyRecordScotland: Scotland set to be battered with MORE snow chaos as ‘Pest from the West’ creeps in
    More bad weather is on the way as another freezing front will sweep through the UK on Thursday morning.
    Weather experts are ‘closely monitoring’ the deep Atlantic area of low pressure, saying that bittrly cold frosty nights are expected across the UK…
    https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/scotland-set-battered-more-snow-12142698

    8 Mar: Daily Mail: Severe weather warning is issued with Britain set to be hit by four inches of snow from TODAY amid fears gale-force winds, hail and thunder will barrel into the UK this weekend
    Met Office issues severe weather warning for snow this morning across central England and Wales
    Parts of Scotland and Northern Ireland are also facing a severe warning for ice overnight into Thursday
    Forecasters have also warned of low pressure system coming up from the South West towards Britain
    Swathes of Britain face up to four inches of snow this morning as some homeowners continue to face problems with water supplies five days after problems with burst mains first emerged…

    The Met Office has issued a severe weather warning for snow early on Thursday covering central England from Leicestershire up to Yorkshire, along with North and Mid Wales, amid concerns over more travel disruption.
    Scotland and Northern Ireland are also facing a severe warning as ground temperatures fall under clearer skies especially where remnants of recent snowfalls have been melting.

    The Met Office snow warning says: ‘Sleet and snow for upland areas and some lower ground as well. Some roads and railways are likely to be affected with longer journey times by road, bus and train services.’
    Looking further ahead, forecasters have warned of a low pressure system coming up from the South West and heading towards Britain, which is set to bring some heavy rain, strong winds and further snow by the weekend.
    Met Office forecaster Nicky Maxey said: ‘At the moment there’s great uncertainty about when it will actually arrive and how far north it will travel across the UK and where cold air meeting slightly warmer air will happen.’ …

    But the Met Office was keen to insist that the system was ‘fairly typical’ for the time of year and ‘compares in no way shape or form to what we saw last week’ when Storm Emma brought chaos to the country…
    On Tuesday, fresh snowfall caused more transport chaos in Scotland with blocked roads, cancelled trains and grounded flights.

    Hundreds of cars ground to a halt on a busy motorway after an HGV slipped on ice and crashed.
    Vehicles queued on the M77 near Newton Mearns, Renfrewshire, yesterday afternoon following the accident. The traffic then meant snow ploughs struggled to reach areas in need.
    Nearly a foot of snow lay in places, forcing councils to close snow gates.

    Hundreds of plastic sleds are dumped at beauty spots across Britain after being broken in the snow
    The non-bio degradable sleds were used last week as the Beast from the East swept across the country, leaving behind several inches of snow.
    But when people were done with them, the broken plastic and even car bonnets and tea trays were dumped in bushes, around bins and by benches at beauty spots across Britain…
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5472035/Tooting-High-Street-flooded-2-000-homes-without-water.html

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  • #
    Tim Hammond

    This stuff is utter junk and really doesn’t deserve this attention. Like so much of psychology, it devises a test and then simply assumes what the test shows, when in reality we have no clue what the test shows – if anything. They might as well say that the test shows that conservatives see purple as green.

    But how we believe is a far more interesting topic, and why we all find it hard to change our beliefs. Given what we know about the brain, it seems most likely that beliefs become hard-wired, like memories. The alternative – that we somehow hold beliefs floating in our minds has no basis in the reality of how brains work. And if beliefs do become hard-wired, then, like memories, they are very difficult to change even if we listen to the arguments.

    Thus the key thing we should research is how beliefs get laid down, and why some seem to resist fixing them (sceptics) and others seem to reinforce them until they are immovable.

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    Steve Borodin

    I once tried to teach basic statistics to postgrad psychologists. I soon realized that, for them, correlation IS causation. It was a useful tool that they applied mechanically and without understanding. They simply saught a correlation that would support their prejudices and then sat back to write their piece uncritically. There are many interesting parts of psychology and, I am sure, good psychologists. But I got the impression that it was the chosen course for featherbrains who feared the intellectual rigour of more demanding courses.

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      yarpos

      A psychologist friend of my wife saw the stats niche and wrote a book on statistics for psychology. Used in courses around the world apparently, a nice little earner and freebie travel generator for her.

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    I try to stay away from people who seem like they have any form of mental software.

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      Environment Skeptic

      Don’t forget hardware like rockets/guns and things…

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        Environment Skeptic

        If they have a good rating from an accredited ratings agency they should be ok.
        Like in accordance with Impairment assessment guidelines that look for psychological impairment or faulty psychological software in your climate region. 🙂

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    pat

    ***Bill Clinton-appointed judge?

    7 Mar: McClatchy: Federal court will hold first-ever hearing on climate change science
    By Stuart Leavenworth
    A federal judge in San Francisco has ordered parties in a landmark global warming lawsuit to hold what could be the first-ever U.S. court hearing on the science of climate change.
    The proceeding, scheduled for March 21 by U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup, will feature lawyers for Exxon, BP, Chevron and other oil companies pitted against those for San Francisco and Oakland — California cities that have accused fossil fuel interests of covering up their role in contributing to global warming.
    “This will be the closest that we have seen to a trial on climate science in the United States, to date,” said Michael Burger, a lawyer who heads the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University.

    Experts on both sides say Alsup’s call for a climate change “tutorial” is unlike anything they’ve heard of before.
    “I don’t know of any judge who has asked for a tutorial like this,” said Steven E. Koonin, a physicist and former Energy Department undersecretary known for his contrarian views on global warming research. “I think it is a great idea. Anybody having to make a decision about climate science needs to understand the full spectrum of what we know and what we don’t know.”

    In the five-hour hearing, both the cities and the oil companies will have a chance to present Alsup with their views on the history of climate change science, and the most important recent findings in the field…
    “The court is forcing these companies to go on the record about their understanding of climate science, which they have desperately tried to avoid doing,” said Marco Simmons, general counsel for EarthRights International, which helps groups worldwide litigate against major industries.

    ***Alsup, appointed to the bench by former President Bill Clinton, has a reputation for immersing himself in the technicalities of legal cases…

    In the upcoming climate change tutorial, Alsup told lawyers he wants a two-part presentation from both sides over roughly five hours.

    “The first part will trace the history of scientific study of climate change, beginning with scientific inquiry into the formation and melting of the ice ages, periods of historical cooling and warming, smog, ozone, nuclear winter, volcanoes, and global warming. Each side will have sixty minutes,” the judge wrote in his order.
    “The second part will set forth the best science now available on global warming, glacier melt, sea rise, and coastal flooding. Each side will again have another sixty minutes,” he added…

    But it is unlikely the March 21 tutorial will be a pure debate on global climate change. Exxon and other oil companies have already stated that “the risk of climate change is clear and the risk warrants action.” The oil industry has mostly accepted scientific findings that increasing carbon emissions are warming the atmosphere.

    Instead, the hearing and ongoing trial will focus more on who knew what, when, and what they did in response…READ ALL
    http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article203842084.html

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    Roy Hogue

    In the end, psychiatry and psychology will do whatever they want. What standard exists by which to hold them accountable? None. It’s totally unlike medicine where something has to be shown to work before it can be used as a treatment. And it’s hard enough there to keep out the quacks and snake oil salesmen.

    I should probably mention that a psychiatrist is an MD so at least there is accountability on the medical side of a psychiatrist’s practice. But what he can advise you do do or not do when he’s got your wellbeing in his hands is still up for grabs.

    A research finding like this is as good as something you might read on the wall in a public restroom.

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      Roy Hogue

      By the way, I’m a conservative and blind to climate change because there’s nothing there to see. I’ve looked and it ain’t there.

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    Athelstan.

    I think that if all the world’s…………. and heaven forfend it, I say! But if, all of the world’s pyscho’s were put up against a wall and summarily dismissed, who, apart from university snowflakes would miss them? Aye, certainly not the planet nor indeed the firmament, both do and would glide imperiously onward.

    no problem?

    Actually, I do have a problem and here I can’t speak for Aussie’s but alluding to and in the UK.

    Ah the UK, where public virtue signalling and hidebound idiocy is the national coinage, and a mentalist government have abandoned all decency and common sense long consigned to the dustbin. In the schools of the UK, the Marxist pedagoguery when they are not lambasting the President of the free world and singing the laments of the EU-remoaniac banshees, are indoctrinating children about the great scam and making it Gospel, hmm would you believe it – after binning the Gospel! Dear lord and oh God the ocean going irony, Marxists teaching the new Gobspiel with a religious fervour that would make Torq’ and his band the Jesuits proud.

    Now I don’t want to get into a religious war, faith and personal belief are entirely your business and none of mine, however CK Chesteron did make the point, that:

    “When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of believing in anything.”

    And Alinsky, the Frankfurt School taught, post modernism all it knows; sleaze is good, relentless lies and propaganda – good, victimhood, identarian politics the vehicle = divide and conquer. Back to the psycho’s, and tossing a few ‘stupid’ mortars into the conservative trenches – yep all of that.

    Alarmism is dying a death, we’ll be able to scrap, to fight over who gets to put the first shovel of Gods brown earth on their coffin – no mocking laughter, please be respectful, after all we’re small c conservatives and hold ourselves to a FAR, FAR higher standard.

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