Rhett wrote: ↑Mon Oct 21, 2019 6:21 pm
In Australia, we have a chunk of population connected to the coal industry, that dont want change. They are "highly partisan, anxious and often despairing, self-righteous, big on blame [and social justice], and willing to attack those that disagree with them. They often distort the truth when it serves their interests."
Yep, you're right. Moreover, this chunk is a large chunk (around 35-40% of the population) that is almost exclusively right-wing.
The current right-wing government, headed by Scott Morrison, looks to be entirely comprised of climate change deniers with, as you say, strong connections to the fossil fuel industry and loudly supported by the Murdoch press (The Australian, The Courier Mail, Sky News, and a multitude of gutter tabloids). Day after day, this powerful anti-science conglomerate at the center of our society is loudly belittling anyone and everyone who expresses concerns for the environment and even discussing ways to legally persecute them in more severe ways.
This is why children are taking to the streets. They can see what the adults are doing. They can see them sticking their heads in the sand and vacantly pretending there is not a problem. No wonder they are getting frightened and desperate. For them, it's like being stuck in a sci-fi horror movie. Everyone around them seems to acting like a stepford wife.
Even those who accept the science are often no better. On numerous occasions people have told me straight to my face. "What do I care? I'll be dead soon, so it won't affect me." And these are the very same people who like to regale with you with pride about how fantastic their children and grandchildren are. It's insane. These people are insane. They are being vacuous, callous and irresponsible, and their children and grandchildren know it.
So when Greta Thunberg cries angrily at the adult world, "How dare you!", they all know exactly how she feels. I know exactly how she feels.
Anyway, reading through his blog article, it is plainly obvious that Clifford Mass has no problem lying through his teeth and being willfully deceptive in all possible ways. For example:
Clifford Mass wrote:The real rebate is between two groups:
1. A confident, non-political group that believes technology, informed investments, rational decision making, and the use of the best scientific information will lead to a solution of the global warming issue. An optimistic group that sees global warming as a technical problem with technical solutions. I will refer to these folks as the ACT group (Apolitical/Confident/Technical)
2. A group, mainly on the political left, that is highly partisan, anxious and often despairing, self-righteous, big on blame and social justice, and willing to attack those that disagree with them. They often distort the truth when it serves their interests. They also see social change as necessary for dealing with global warming, requiring the very reorganization of society. I call these folks the ASP group (Anxious, Social-Justice, Partisan).
There is no better way to see the profound difference between these two groups than to watch a video of the testimony of young activists at the recent House Hearing on Climate Change, which included Greta Thunberg, Jamie Margolin, Vic Barrett, and Benji Backer.
Jamie Margolin of Seattle talked about an apocalyptic future, with "corporations making billions" while they destroy the future of her generation. Of feeling fear and despair. Of a planet where the natural environment is undergoing collapse, where only a few years are left before we pass the point of no return, and where only a massive political shift can fix things, including the Green New Deal. Watch her testimony to see what I mean.
Mass is here being deceitful in the extreme. It isn't just frightened school children sounding the alarm. It is virtually the
entire scientific community; it is world-class institutes such as the UN, NASA, the Pentagon, and many of the world's central banks. Even the financial industry is getting on board, such as Goldman Sachs. All the serious-minded people of the world are finally wakening up to the reality of what is happening, albeit still far too slowly.
The only people holding out are the right-wing nutjobs and ideologues who are so blinkered and obsessed with their culture wars that they can't see anything else. Unfortunately, they are the ones who are in power at the moment and who are still determined to be the loudest.
Clifford Mass wrote:And yes, there is President Trump. Much of what he says on climate change is simply nonsensical, and quite frankly he is not part of the debate. Republicans in Congress do not follow his lead. But he is a convenient foil for the ASP folks, who use him for their own purposes.
As pointed out in the commentary section in that blog, this is patently untrue. Republicans are still, even to this day, consistently voting en masse for anti-environmental measures and regulations - such as new gas and oil projects, new drilling explorations in environmentally sensitive areas, the rolling back of anti-pollution measures, etc. As this
article explains, they are still a long, long way from even beginning to take the issue seriously.
Clifford Mass wrote:In many ways, the ASP group appears to be a religious movement, not unlike the many millennialist movements of the past. As other groups in the past, they predict an apocalyptic future (including fire and brimstone!) and that one must "believe" in their viewpoint or be rejected as a "denier." The ASP folks have a holy viewpoint that comes from authority (they claim based on the views of 97% of scientists). There is no debate allowed, the science is "settled." Sounds like religious dogma.
And so there you have it. A scientist openly and shamelessly equating scientific consensus with religious dogma. Oh my, what degenerative times we live in.
Normally, in times past, when a scientist disagreed with the scientific consensus, he would roll up his sleeves and set about trying to create an alternative theory that was compelling and supported by serious evidence, and he would submit his theory to peer-review and have it assessed on its intellectual merits. If it was compelling enough, his alternative theory would be adopted by the scientific community. And if not, he would have to go back to the drawing board.
But no, in these more enlightened times, he doesn't have to do any of that. All he has to do nowadays is whip up some half-arsed blog filled with ad-hominems and specious reasonings, and then sit back and bask in the glory of being called a brave maverick by a low-quality, lo-info cheer squad. This is what passes for intrepid, ground-breaking science nowadays.
Clifford Mass, a 67 year-old scientist, who will never achieve real scientific acclaim, who will never win a Nobel Prize, who will probably not even be cited by other scientists in the future, whose work is probably already forgotten by all those who matter, has decided to betray his calling as a scientist and indeed the whole scientific establishment for the sake of some short-term, local notoriety on the internet. What a guy.
Anyway, I can't be bothered addressing the rest of the article. It is just a woeful piece of work from beginning to end.
Diebert asks:
Anyone wants to join the first group?
The bottom line is, both groups are needed. We need people to work on the solutions (technological and otherwise) and we need people to keep sounding the alarm (because too many people are still asleep). I don't see the reason for bashing the second group. If you are genuinely concerned about the state of the environment, then you would want people to keep sounding the alarm.
