More Freudian projection from the Warmists

There is no group in this wide world more immune to persuasion by the facts than the Green/Left.  They HAVE to be unaffected by the facts because their beliefs are so counterfactual.  Could anything be more absurd as statements of fact than classic Leftist slogans such as: "All men are equal", "Man is naturally good" or "All men are brothers"?  Yet the article below claims that it is conservatives and climate skreptics who tend to be immune to the facts.  Freud would understand.  Seeing your own faults in others is a common defence mechanism.

And Warmists NEED to believe that there is something wrong in the heads of their opponents.  Realizing that something which they see as obsessively important is seen as unimportant by most people creates cognitive dissonance in their heads.  How can so many be so wrong?  How can so many not see these obvious truths?  Are Warmists the only sane ones?  So to relieve that dissonance they have to dimiss any possiblity that their opponents might be right and instead find some defect in their opponents

The title of the original article is "Scientists are figuring out the keys to convincing people about global warming".  It was written by dedicated climate deceiver Dana Nuccitelli and appeared in the Leftist "Guardian".  Just an excerpt below from a whole heap of garbage

Can facts convince people about global warming?

Social scientist Dan Kahan has argued that ideological and cultural identity can be so strong that scientific evidence, facts, and information can’t break through it. Kahan thinks that on certain issues like climate change, ideological biases make many conservatives immune to facts.

In fact, conservatives with higher education and general scientific knowledge are often more wrong about climate change, in what’s been coined the “smart idiot” effect. This has led Kahan to conclude that on climate change, facts and knowledge can’t sway people. However, other research has found that climate-specific knowledge does correlate with acceptance of climate science.

In the new study led by Jing Shi, the authors surveyed a total of 2,495 people in Canada, China, Germany, Switzerland, the UK, and the US. They asked questions to evaluate the participants’ specific knowledge about the physical characteristics of climate change and understanding of its causes and consequences.

Critically, they found that knowledge about the causes of climate change was correlated with higher concern about climate change in all countries, and knowledge about the consequences was linked to higher concern in most countries.

"respondents from Germany and Switzerland had significantly higher scores on knowledge about physical aspects of climate change than participants from Canada and the US. Chinese respondents knew significantly more about the causes of climate change than the respondents from the other countries. German and Swiss respondents were most knowledgeable about the consequences of climate change. In contrast, participants from the US had the lowest level of knowledge about climate change among the six countries we surveyed, independent of the type of knowledge"

In short, as illustrated in the Yale/George Mason poll numbers, people who realize that humans are causing global warming are more likely to be concerned about the problem.

In Shi’s survey, the Chinese respondents had the most knowledge about the causes of global warming, with the German and Swiss participants most accurately answering the questions about its consequences. These nationalities also expressed the greatest concern about climate change. Americans showed the least climate knowledge and the least concern.

The keys to convincing people on climate change

Social scientists have identified several key pieces of knowledge that might convince people – even conservatives – about the need to tackle global warming.

Shi’s team showed that when people realize humans are causing global warming, they’re more likely to be concerned about the problem.

Social scientists at UC Berkeley have shown that when people understand how the greenhouse effect works, they’re more likely to accept human-caused global warming, across the political spectrum.

Research by teams led by Lewandowsky has shown that when people are aware of the 90–100% expert consensus on human-caused global warming, they’re more likely to accept that reality, and to support climate policies. Meanwhile, only 16% of Americans, including just 4% of Republicans, realize the expert consensus is so high.

This social science research shows that teaching people about the expert consensus and how the greenhouse effect works can increase their likelihood of accepting the reality human-caused global warming and potentially increase their support of policies to solve the problem.

It may be the case that ideology acts as a mental block preventing conservative Republicans from accepting facts like the 90–100% expert consensus on human-caused global warming. However, while there’s certainly a group who are unreachable due to ideologically-based science denial, they are a relatively small and dwindling segment of the population. For the vast majority of people who underestimate the expert consensus and don’t understand the mechanics of the greenhouse effect, this knowledge can make a difference.

As this research shows, if climate communicators can successfully inform people about how the greenhouse effect works and that humans are responsible for global warming, more will come to support climate policies, and it will become even more of a winning political issue.

SOURCE





Book review: “The Fable of a Stable Climate”.  Review by  By Dr. Hans Labohm (Edited/condensed by P. Gosselin)

Gerrit van der Lingen has recently published a fascinating book, “The Fable of a Stable Climate, the writings and debates of a climate realist”.

Most of the public information about the climate comes from scientists who studied the weather and weather processes and who consider temperature data of 150 years already a long period. For geologist and paleoclimatologist van der Lingen this is only a heartbeat in the geological history, which forms the only correct context for judging the present climate developments.

Ideology vs pure science

While studying climate change in the past van der Lingen realised that the present belief in man-made catastrophic global warming caused by CO2 emissions is not supported by the science and that it seems the debate is one between ideology and pure science.

The first chapter of his book an overview giving a clear overview of the climate debate, with all its high and low points. It draws attention to important participants, protagonists as well as antagonists. What really surprises Gerrit van der Lingen is how it is possible that intelligent people have been taken in by the AGW hypothesis and seem to have lost all sense of reality as a consequence.

British science delegation misbehaviour

One salient detail in the book pertains to the Russian position in relation to the Kyoto Protocol. The Russians had a few questions on which they never received an answer. In 2004, they decided to organise a climate conference in Moscow, independently of the UN IPCC climate panel, and with the co-operation of a number of climate sceptics. At the end of this conference, Andrei Illarionov, then economic advisor of president Putin, presented his impressions.

Yuri Antonovich and I have mentioned the fact that this is the first seminar of its kind that we have managed to arrange and it was accidental. Over almost a year we have repeatedly asked our foreign partners who advocate the Kyoto Protocol and who insist that Russia should ratify the Kyoto Protocol, and we have invited them to meet and discuss these issues, present arguments and counter-arguments and discuss them jointly. But we have not received any reply for a year. These people persistently refused to take part in any discussion.

Nine months ago, at an international climate change conference in Moscow, ten questions concerning the essence of the Kyoto Protocol and its underlying theory were submitted to the IPCC. We were told that the reply would be given within several days. Nine months have passed since then but there has been no reply, even though we have repeated our inquiries on these and the growing number of other related questions.

Instead of getting replies to our questions, we kept on hearing that replies did not matter. What was important is that whether or not Russia trusts Britain, the European Union and the countries that have ratified the Kyoto Protocol and that have been exerting unprecedented pressure on Russia to ratify it. This is why it was so important for us to arrange a real meeting and a real discussion of real problems with the participation of foreign scientists who have different views in order not to stew in one’s own juice, as Yuri Antonovich put it, but to hear the arguments not only of our Russian scientists but also the arguments and counter-arguments from scientists in other countries.

We did get such an opportunity and over the past two days we heard more than 20 reports, we held detailed discussions, and now we can say that a considerable number of the questions we formulated and raised have been somewhat clarified, just as some other questions have.”

Andrei Illarionov continued describing in detail the misbehaviour of the British delegation under the leadership of Sir David King, then the most important advisor of the British government, who did his utmost to sabotage the meeting, among others by requiring that climate sceptics not be allowed to present their presentations, and by stalking out of the meeting.

Ideology, not science

Illarionov compared the AGW with an ideology:

The next point brings us directly to the Kyoto Protocol, or more specifically, to the ideological and philosophical basis on which it is built. That ideological base can be juxtaposed and compared … with man-hating totalitarian ideology with which we had the bad fortune to deal during the 20th century, such as National Socialism, Marxism, Eugenics, Lysenkoism and so on. All methods of distorting information existing in the world have been committed to prove the alleged validity of these theories. Misinformation, falsification, fabrication, mythology, propaganda. Because what is offered cannot be qualified in any other way than myth, nonsense and absurdity.”

The Moscow climate conference leaves no doubt that the Russian Academy of Sciences cannot be considered as supporters of the AGW dogma – a thesis that is part of the standard repertoire of the disinformation by climate alarmists.

“Rubbish in – gospel out”

The book also looks at all important themes of the climate debate are discussed in short, clear analyses, and all allegations of the climate alarmists are tested against measurements and observations, and are refuted. In the end all warming hysteria is not based on science, but only on non-validated computer models. As is often said: Rubbish in – gospel out.

At the end of the book, Gerrit van der Lingen sighs:

When future historians will be studying the present global mass hysteria about alleged catastrophic man-made global warming (MMGW), they will most likely shake their heads in total disbelief. They may well compare it with other such historic irrational hysterias, like the tulipomania in Holland in the 17th century. […]

The belief that human emissions of carbon dioxide cause, or will cause catastrophic global warming is a […] totalitarian belief. It does not allow ‘critical discussion’. Those scientists who try are vilified. Over the years I collected the following abuses: ‘climate change deniers’, ‘cashamplified flat-earth pseudo scientists’, ‘the carbon cartel’, ‘villains’, ‘cranks’, ‘refuseniks lobby’, ‘polluters’, ‘a powerful and devious enemy’, ‘profligates’. The list is endless. […]

By saying that the science of climate change is ‘settled’ and not open to further discussion, clearly shows that the belief in man-made global warming is not based on proper science, but is a neo-Marxist, intolerant ideology. It is anti-science, anti-capitalist, anti-democracy, anti-growth, anti-humanity, anti-progress.”

All in all, “The Fable of a Stable Climate” shows a wide and solid knowledge of the subject. Moreover Gerrit van der Lingen has the talent to very clearly explain the complicated problems, which make his writings very accessible for a broad public. In other words: his book reads like a riveting novel.

The book has 418 pages and many illustrations and graphs, as well as extensive reference lists, and is available in both paperback and Kindle, can be ordered at www.book2look.com.

SOURCE





Sorry, Environmentalists: Buffalo Were Saved From Extinction by Capitalism

The North American bison, widely known as the buffalo, will now likely be recognized as America’s “national mammal”—on par with the bald eagle. (The bill is heading to the president’s desk.)

It is a fine tribute to a creature etched into American lore. While praises are already being made to the efforts of conservationists and modern environmentalists to save North America’s largest land mammal, the reality is that the species was saved by capitalism.

After describing how bison populations “dwindled from tens of millions to the brink of extinction,” a Huffington Post contributor wrote that the animal must be “acknowledged as the first success story of the modern conservation movement.”

Conservationists did play a role in saving the buffalo from extinction, but it was in large part the power of the free market that allowed the once-decimated species to thrive after nearly being wiped out.

Any description of the Great Plains in the 19th century usually involves vast herds of the giant, imposing bison dotting the landscape. The great frontier historian, Francis Parkman, included numerous, vivid descriptions of buffalo herds and hunts in his books.

Parkman wrote in “The Oregon Trail,”

"The face of the country was dotted far and wide with countless hundreds of buffalo. They trooped along in files and columns, bulls, cows, and calves … They scrambled away over the hills to the right and left; and far off, the blue pale swells in the extreme distance were dotted with innumerable specks"

Native American tribes of the Great Plains relied on the American bison for food when early American pioneers encountered them in the 18th and 19th centuries. The Plains Indians had unique hunting methods that were efficient, yet wasteful.

Anyone who has spent time in Wyoming, Montana, or any one of the Plains states is likely to have encountered giant, seemingly random craters. These are the remains of what were called “buffalo jumps,” and were the primary way many tribes cultivated the animal for food.

Frontier explorer Meriwether Lewis, of the famed Lewis and Clark expedition, described one of these jumps in an 1805 journal entry:

"Today we passed on the Stard. side the remains of a vast many mangled carcases of Buffalow which had been driven over a precipice of 120 feet by the Indians and perished; the water appeared to have washed away a part of this immence pile of slaughter and still their remained the fragments of at least a hundred carcases they created a most horrid stench. in this manner the Indians of the Missouri distroy vast herds of buffaloe at a stroke.

It was a ruthless affair, but it got the job done. Squandering enormous quantities of meat was simply not a problem for the nomadic people of the plains. There seemed to be endless amounts of the beasts.

The dwindling of the American bison began long before settlers arrived, but a swelling population of new migrants finally put the species at risk. And the intentional extermination of the herds to drive out the Plains Native Americans left the buffalo on the brink of annihilation. At one point, there were only 300 of them left in the wild.

Saved by a Free Society and Market Economics

Though the social and economic dynamics of the 19th century came close to wiping out the American bison, the species survived and began a recovery in the 20th century. The wild-roaming bison had been hunted mercilessly to the brink of destruction, but widespread private ownership allowed them to flourish.

Historian Larry Schweikart wrote about a study by Andrew C. Isenberg, now a professor at Temple University, which busted the myth that it was government intervention that saved the bison. From a small herd clinging to survival in Yellowstone National Park, the bison began their resurgence. Isenberg’s conclusion “upsets the entire apple cart of prior assumptions,” according to Schweikart:

This remnant herd and other scattered survivors might eventually have perished as well had it not been for the efforts of a handful of Americans and Canadians. These advocates of preservation were primarily Western ranchers who speculated that ownership of the few remaining bison could be profitable and elite Easterners possessed of a nostalgic urge to recreate . . . the frontier.

Preservation societies that aimed to maintain an authentic Western landscape, and travelling shows like Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, were instrumental in keeping the tiny bison population alive. They did a much better job of protecting these valuable assets than the public national parks.

But even more than as a tourist attraction, the bison became prized for the same reason Plains Native Americans and settlers hunted them to begin with: they’re delicious.

Isenberg’s study showed that the number of bison swelled in the 20th century mostly because they were “preserved not for their iconic significance in the interest of biological diversity but simply raised to be slaughtered for their meat.”

Ranchers like Charles Goodnight, who provided the herd reintroduced into Yellowstone National Park in 1902, found ways to raise and profit from the bison. This led to a thriving national industry and ensures the bison will survive into the 21st century. Today there are around 500,000 buffalo in the United States, and about 90 percent are in private hands. And for that miracle resurrection, the world has capitalism, not Congress, to thank.

SOURCE  





Tale of Two Tribes: 'Climate Refugees' vs. EPA Victims

The left has concocted a lucrative category of politically correct victims: "climate refugees." It's the new Green racket.

U.S. taxpayers will now be forking over untold billions to ease the pain allegedly inflicted on "carbon's casualties" by industrial activity. By contrast, those who have suffered as a direct result of government incompetence by federal environmental bureaucrats continue to get the shaft.

Consider the plight of two tribes: the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw in Louisiana and the Navajo Nation in New Mexico.

The New York Times splashed a viral story on its pages this week spotlighting the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's $48 million grant to Native-Americans who live in the flood-ravaged coastal community of Isle de Jean Charles. About 60 residents, the majority of whom belong to the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw tribe, will be resettled to drier land.

That's a whopping $800,000 per "climate refugee!"

Never mind that the Times' propagandists themselves admit that erosion on the island began in 1955 as a result of land-use and land-management factors that had nothing to do with climate change.

"Channels cut by loggers and oil companies eroded much of the island," the paper reported, "and decades of flood control efforts have kept once free-flowing rivers from replenishing the wetlands' sediments."

Never mind that there are conflicting scientific analyses on the extent to which man-made greenhouses gases have caused sea levels to rise; whether the rate is accelerating; and how much, if any, reducing carbon emissions would actually mitigate purportedly rising sea levels.

Never mind that enviro-alarmists have conveniently changed their tune from blaming global warming for causing sea level rises to blaming global warming for causing sea level drops.

Oh, and never mind that many of the inhabitants of Isle de Jean Charles — whose forefathers originally moved there to escape forced government relocation under the 1830 Indian Removal Act — don't even want to leave and have fought resettlement efforts for decades.

Obama's social engineers are already plotting how to replicate the climate change relocation program. "We see this as setting a precedent for the rest of the country, the rest of the world," declared HUD official Marion McFadden, who is running the program.

Even worse, the United Nations is looking to preemptively "address extreme weather displacement" by targeting refugees even before any apocalyptic event has caused them to seek refuge.

Can you spell "manufacturing a crisis"?

While these meddling liberals conspire to displace one tribe in the name of saving the planet, another tribe is still begging for help after Obama's destructive EPA poisoned their waters.

It's been almost eight months since an Environmental Protection Agency contractor recklessly knocked a hole at the long-abandoned Gold King Mine in Colorado's San Juan Mountains. You should know that Washington has long schemed to declare it a Superfund site, which would increase its power, budget and access over the region.

A federally sponsored wrecking crew poking around in the mine last August triggered a 3 million-ton flood of bright orange gunk into the Animas River. EPA's blithering idiots delayed notifying local residents for 24 hours and downplayed the toxic spill's effects.

Downstream, the muck seeped into the San Juan River in New Mexico, where the Navajo Nation lives and farms. The impact on drinking water and livelihoods has been catastrophic. But the Obama administration refused the tribe's request for disaster relief from FEMA last fall and yanked emergency water tanks the EPA had supplied for Navajo livestock.

Navajo Nation chief Russell Begaye blasted the White House at the time for shirking its responsibilities.

"U.S. EPA caused this entire disaster, they have harmed the people, the water and the land. ... For years, we have consistently been at the receiving end of toxic spills and contamination with no adequate relief as the United States Government and Private Companies became wealthy off of the natural resources of the Navajo Nation."

Our eco-savior on the Potomac's response to the victims of his man-caused, government-engineered disaster: Never mind.

SOURCE





We are having an impact: the government has already begun removing links to its ‘Glacier Park glaciers disappearing’ sites

Roger Roots, J.D., Ph.D.

In the fall of 2015 I offered a bet of $5,000 if the glaciers at Glacier National Park disappear by 2030 (as predicted in all GNP signage, pamphlets, films and publications). See here. As of yet, no one has taken me up on my bet.

The Park’s glaciers were melting rapidly throughout the 1990s, as the catastrophic-manmade-global-warming-by-CO2 movement was riding high. Bills were introduced in Congress for “cap and trade” programs, carbon taxes and other reforms.

The National Park Service, and the U.S. Geological Survey published websites showing photos of the Park’s glaciers taken in prior decades next to more recent photos of the same glaciers. This ‘repeat photography’ showed massive decreases in the size of the GNP glaciers.

(I have often pointed out that the government’s photos from prior decades tended to not specify calendar dates. Because glaciers tend to build up in winter and then melt all summer long, the specificity of calendar dates is quite important.)

On January 8 of this year, I posted a prediction that the government would soon alter its GNP-glaciers-gone-by-2030 claims. See here. I asked, “What is the government going to do as 2030 approaches and it becomes clear that their preposterous claims are untrue?”

“I have no doubt,” I wrote then, “that the government will begin modifying these claims by 2025, if not sooner.” I began saving screenshots of government websites which make the claim that manmade-global-warming will melt the GNP glaciers by 2030.

It turns out I didn’t need to wait very long at all. Today, on May 4, 2016, I started looking for the government’s ‘repeat photography’ sites.

IT APPEARS THEY HAVE DISAPPEARED.

Today when you google “repeat photography” and “Glacier National Park,” you are redirected to general-info USGS sites with pictures of hikers in the mountains.

Fortunately, I have screenshots of the prior government projections.

SOURCE





Asbestos-laden building materials slipping into Australia as result of weak regulation, report finds

The whole asbestos scare is conventionally correct but is utter nonsense.  There has NEVER been any proof of harm from asbestos in building and other products.  The only people harmed by asbestos were those involved in mining, fabricating and installing it.  There has never been any harm to the general public from products in their environment that incorporate asbestos.  I spent a significant part of my childhood living in a house lined with unpainted asbestos sheeting ("Fibro"), as did countless other Australians.  It was once a very fashionable building material.  And none of us came to any harm from it.  Asbestos is one of the many things that are harmful only if you are exposed to large amounts of it


Glaring weaknesses in regulations and border protection issues are allowing building products contaminated with potentially deadly asbestos into Australia, a Senate committee has warned.

In an interim report tabled late on Wednesday, the committee raised particular concern about "the ability of Australia's enforcement agencies to effectively police borders so that [contaminated products] are detected and prevented from entering Australia".

"At the moment, this area of enforcement appears to require substantial strengthening and should be a high priority for government," it read.

"The importation of banned materials, such as asbestos, raises very serious concerns about the capacity of Australian authorities to deal with this issue, particularly in light of our open and dynamic trade environment."

The report notes only two importers have been fined over asbestos-laced building material since tougher penalties were imposed in February 2014.

It said fines of up to $170,000 could be imposed, but only $64,000 in fines, penalties and costs had been issued since 2009.

The committee said the role of foreign governments in stopping contaminated products from leaving their shores should also be considered.

It has requested the inquiry be extended for a fourth time, to September 30, 2016, "due to the seriousness of the problem and the disjointed regulation of the use of building products, both manufactured in Australia and overseas".

SOURCE

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