The monolith of climate smear-mongering
Ben Pile
Established thinking has it that ‘oil money’ explains the existence of climate scepticism. According to this view, ‘Big Oil’ funds all manner of outfits and individuals, such as yours truly, to shed doubt on otherwise established ‘consensus science', to protect their profits. This in turn explains the failure of politicians, so far, to save the planet with climate policies.
Take, for example, these delightful messages left under our recent film, Why there is no climate crisis (and why people believe that there is):
These are angry and ignorant whinges that I hear daily. Many of a green bent seem utterly confused by the existence of opinions that run counter to their convictions about the world — articles of faith — even though the facts I, and many others offer are easily checked.
But if these furious commenters are right that the evidence of a climate crisis happening is ‘overwhelming’, it would surely be easier and more effective to counter the arguments made against it with the evidence than to posit such a conspiracy theory that manifestly lacks it. Better it seems, on the green view, to make an accusation of irredeemable bad faith — being ‘funded’ by ‘oil money’ — that can not be disproven, pour encourager les autres.
It is as if fact is subordinate to financial interests — the truth of a claim can be established by understanding who it most benefits, or perhaps by the virtue of the person who makes the claim. Is this green metaphysics?
After all, how could anyone possibly disagree with a planet-saving climate warrior in good faith? And so climate change scepticism must be bad faith. And so the idea of an entire industry of climate denial servicing the interests of big oil companies has become the most respectable conspiracy theory at all levels of society — the online troll is as comfortable reproducing the the smear as the chair of the internationally-renowned scientific organisation.
But as I shall demonstrate, there remains very little evidence of this conspiracy in fact. This is a very, very long article. It starts with what I believe is a simpler explanation of why greens fail to persuade people intellectually. Then it examines the evidence pertaining to the idea that oil interests fund misinformation. Then it attempts an objective analysis of competing interests in the climate debate. And then it draws some conclusions about the nature of climate politics from what can be established as facts.
Changing minds through reason or harassment?
A major part of the ‘Big Oil’ conspiracy theory is that climate sceptics have carefully-crafted ‘tools’ and ‘playbooks’ by which to brainwash people into receiving their ‘messages’, many developed from the tobacco wars. But how plausible is this notion? It is useful, I believe, to take it back to first principles, and to attempt to understand how and why people either make up their mind or even change it in debates that require them to take a position. The idea that people are brainwashed or easily ‘misled’ is, I believe, deeply condescending and wholly inaccurate.
I am either a convert (to climate scepticism) or an apostate (from environmentalism), depending on your perspective on the climate wars. And I was as much moved to this position by another convert-apostate as by his angry inquisitor. In the early 2000s, Bjorn Lomborg gave a book reading at the Oxford branch of Borders bookshop, and was accosted by environmental activist, Mark Lynas, then styled as ‘Pie Man’, with a custard pie. ‘That’s for everything you say about the environment which is complete bullshit’, said Lynas to Lomborg.
This had a profound impact on my thinking. I was at the time (as I have explained elsewhere) quite young, and of a particularly green persuasion myself, although doubts were setting in.
What answer to a book is a custard pie?
Lomborg had set out to confront the work of the late Julian Simon — an economist who had argued, among other things, that the world was in a much better state than environmentalists, especially neomalthusians, had claimed, contradicting the green narrative of worsening ecological problems. But as Lomborg and his students gathered the data for their analyses, they began to agree with Simon. The result was Lomborg’s The Skeptical Environmentalist.
Having learned of the climate activist having nothing to say to the statistician’s book (other than a custard pie) I jumped on my bike to go and buy it, from the very scene of the assault. And just as Lomborg had changed his mind, I found his work compelling enough for me to begin to change mine.
Moreover, I found Lynas’s actions, which was even by then a dominant characteristic of the green movement, a demonstration of its, as well as his own, intellectual vacuity. ‘Direct action’, they called it. I think it was just a dick move. And nobody can claim that the character of the environmental movement has improved in the two decades since. There is no evidence of environmentalism nurturing in its adherents any intellectual depth or commitment to reason, much less debate and democracy. And in that time, an entire generation of new obstructive activists has been raised from birth on its bleak narcissistic nihilism.
So rather than being ‘Big Oil’, might the real obstacle to environmentalism be the fact that so many environmentalists are simply utter pricks, and proud of it? Might it be the case that environmentalism, in its broadest sense, is not as much premised on scientific consensus as it is an infantile rejection of reason, debate and democracy? I can only speak for myself. And I can only claim that I am yet to receive even as much as a single penny from ‘Big Oil’. But it seems to me very obvious that the fact of the dominance of the conspiracy theory, and its lack of evidence, among other things, mark the green movement as the one most obviously characterised by bad faith. It is perhaps entirely and exclusive driven by bad faith — the most monstrous act of bad faith in history.
https://benpile.substack.com/p/the-monolith-of-climate-smear-mongering
************************************************I’ve been radicalised by Just Stop Oil
Toby Young
Last month I went to Lord Frost’s superb lecture for the Global Warming Policy Foundation about the harm net zero will do to the British economy. He pointed out that the government is completely unrealistic about the economic cost of the policy, which former energy minister Chris Skidmore claimed last year could boost GDP by up to 2 per cent, thanks in part to cheaper household energy bills. (As Frost said: ‘Good luck with that.’) This is even more Pollyannaish than Labour’s energy review in 2003, which at least acknowledged that achieving a 60 per cent reduction in carbon emissions by 2050 would cost 2 per cent of GDP. When ministers are pressed on how the economy will cope with problems such as the intermittency of wind and solar power and the mind-boggling expense of creating adequate battery storage, they are reduced to muttering that ‘something will turn up’.
The fact that our political masters have embarked on such a ruinous course would have seen them turfed out of office in decades gone by, Frost said. But the problem today is that the intellectual climate is highly collectivist. Vast swaths of the electorate believe the purpose of policy-making is to tame markets, not liberate them, and are convinced that the 2008 crash was caused by the free enterprise system rather than bad regulation and poor central bank decision–making. In the mainstream media, anyone expressing scepticism about the impact of anthropogenic global warming is viewed with intense suspicion.
During the Q&A that followed the lecture, I asked Lord Frost if we should take a leaf out of our opponents’ book and set up a militant anti-green-activist group. The eco-protestors say their reason for disrupting major sporting events and holding up traffic is to stop people ignoring the ‘climate emergency’, a rationale I’ve always found baffling, since the professional-managerial class talk about nothing else and the public is bombarded with environmentalist propaganda 24/7.
But net-zero sceptics like me genuinely are a beleaguered minority, unable to get a hearing in the public square. In fact, we are exactly who the eco-protestors imagine themselves to be – concerned citizens desperately trying to draw attention to an impending disaster, but dismissed as ‘alarmists’ by policy-makers. So while the antisocial behaviour of Extinction Rebellion and Insulate Britain makes little sense – they’re like pro-communist protestors in Soviet Russia – similar antics by climate contrarians could make an impact. If I unfurl a giant banner outside the Green party’s Brighton headquarters saying ‘Just Stop Snake Oil’, people might sit up and take notice. At the very least, it would draw attention to the fact that there is another side to this debate.
Not surprisingly, Lord Frost wasn’t convinced. It was bad enough having to contend with the eco-loons wreaking havoc on our roads and bridges, he said, without the provisional wing of the Global Warming Policy Foundation adding to the chaos. In any event, he didn’t think that trying to disrupt the Derby did the other side’s cause much good. Wouldn’t it be better to let them continue to lose friends and alienate people? By all means ridicule them, he said. But for God’s sake don’t imitate them.
I’m not so sure. Judging from the reluctance of juries to convict eco-protestors, the public seems pretty sympathetic. Yes, commuters may be unimpressed by someone lying in the road when they’re late for work, but many admire the activists’ courage and commitment. According to an Omnisis poll published last year, two-thirds of people support taking non-violent direct action to protect Britain’s environment and 75 per cent are in favour of installing solar panels on farmland. More recently, Ipsos found that 84 per cent of Britons are concerned about climate change and more than half think we should aim to achieve net zero sooner than 2050. It looks to me as if the tactics of the pink-haired militants are succeeding.
So who’s with me? We could start by daubing red paint on the Belgravia homes of the billionaire backers of these ‘anti-capitalists’ protestors. Then rush the stage at Coldplay’s next concert – their tour is called ‘Sustainability: Music of the Spheres’ – and rip open some packets of green powder. And to conclude our first campaign, next time there’s some international green boondoggle in London I will lead a group of sceptics on to the main runway at Farnborough so we can lie down and prevent all the leading advocates of net zero landing in their private jets. ‘How dare you?’ Greta Thunberg will ask. To which I’ll reply: ‘Who dares wins.’
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/06/just-stop-snake-oil/
******************************************Illusion in Progress - 2023 UN Climate Change Conference
Even the greatest magicians usually limit themselves to performing one illusion at a time. In a show starting on November 30th and running for two weeks, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will create a double illusion and have the entire world as its audience. In hosting the annual Conference of the Parties (COP) 28 of the United Nations Climate Change Conference, the UAE will present itself as a champion for green energy and a modern society.
Like all magic shows, there will be a lot of smoke and mirrors, and a façade to direct attention away from reality. For COP28, hidden from public view will be UAE’s determination to remain a major exporter of oil and its record of human rights violations.
Then come the side shows. The swarm of 600 fossil-fuel lobbyists that blanketed last year’s COP27 in Egypt is expected to be dwarfed in volume by this year’s descent onto Dubai. Outside the conference rooms and meetings halls will be displays and presentation areas that can be best described as an upscale information bazaar. Their displays will be professionally designed to conceal the contradictions of the corporations and countries they represent.
UAE is off to a bad start in trying to present itself as part of the solution to climate change. As host country, it picked UAE’s Minister of Industry and Technology Dr. Sultan al Jaber as COP28’s president. Here begins the first façade. Dr. al Jaber is also the head of the state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Company. Appointing the head of one of the world’s major exporters of oil as the COP28 president reduces the credibility of the event and allows al Jaber to be the ringmaster at the circus.
This is especially true considering that al Jaber's $26 billion international deals for oil production involve Italy’s ENI and America’s Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Company, which in turn includes a $4 billion pipeline investment. Bottom line is al Jaber’s mission from the UAE will be to control the narrative at COP 28.
Recognizing the problem with al Jaber hosting the conference, 110 European Parliamentarians and members of the US Congress have sent a joint letter to President Joe Biden expressing concerns with this conflict of interest. More specifically, the elected representatives have asked President Biden to “…engage in diplomatic efforts to secure the withdrawal of the president-designate of COP 28.”
Meanwhile, twenty-seven Democrat members of US Congress have formally engaged Presidential Special Envoy John Kerry to urge UAE to appoint someone other than al Jaber to head the conference. Considering his record as Secretary of State in dealing with Iran’s Khamenei, Iraq’s Maliki, and Egypt’s Morsi while all three were leading genocide campaigns against their own people, Kerry is not going to do anything. Just the opposite of the Congressional wishes, Kerry has already blessed al Jaber’s appointment.
Then comes the human rights façade. Political opposition parties are outlawed in the UAE. Media sources are under an iron grip. Online and on-street digital surveillance by the UAE is continual. Women’s rights are all but non-existent. Anyone within the country’s borders expressing dissent is subject to immediate arrest, imprisonment, conviction, and the possibility of a trial (in that order).
Even those who have completed their sentences are subject to remaining in confinement without visits from or communication with their families. Ninety-four human rights advocates, intellectuals, and lawyers convicted and sentenced in 2013 remain in prison. Known as the UAE 94, many of their sentences expired in 2019.
As documented by law, crimes in the UAE include opposing the system of government, association with opposition groups, damaging national unity, and undermining interests of the state. UAE justification for keeping prisoners in custody includes "rehabilitation needs" and "counter-terrorism measures." One of the most blatant examples of UAE injustice is the case of Ahmed Mansoor, a recipient of The Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders. In 2017 he was sentenced to ten years in prison for “insulting the prestige" of the UAE.
As bad as citizens of UAE have it, migrant workers and foreign nationals within the borders have it worse. They can be arrested and imprisoned for all the same reasons. They are also subjected to arbitrary detention and deportation without cause. Their efforts from years of building a future and living in a secure environment can disappear in a minute.
UAE has brilliantly hijacked the annual UN Climate Conference by presenting itself a concerned nation, appointed the head of its state-owned oil company to preside over the conference and control the narrative, received blessing of that appointment from a former US Secretary of State and Presidential candidate, and is doing it in a country that blatantly violates human rights and the rules of law. It is among the most oppressive countries in the world.
In a two-week run, starting late this fall, the main event and all its side shows will create the illusion of a climate conference in a progressive country. When all the smoke, mirrors, and façades go away, the world might come to realize nothing was real and no good was achieved.
***********************************************************
Net Zero Watch welcomes British Government U-turn on Net Zero heating levy
Net Zero Watch has welcomed the Government’s apparent U-turn on plans for a new levy on household bills.
The levy, introduced as part of the drive to “Net Zero”, was designed to fund the development of hydrogen as an alternative to gas heating. However, it would have hit households with a bill estimated at £120 per year.
According to press reports, the Energy Secretary has now admitted hydrogen will never replace gas boilers, and it appears that the levy will now be dropped.
For months, Net Zero Watch has been informing ministers and MPs about the radical shift in public opinion in much of Europe in response to the cost of energy and cost of living crises.
Governments around Europe are beginning to water down and abandon Net Zero policies. There can be little doubt that the Net Zero U-turns by both Labour and the Conservatives are a clear indication that the cost of living and the costs of Net Zero crisis will become one of the key election issues.
Craig Mackinlay MP, chairman of the parliamentary Net Zero Scrutiny Group, said:
"The cancellation of the proposed £118 Hydrogen Tax on household energy bills is hugely welcome and I hope is the start of a common sense journey for the government on energy policy. When the laudable ambition of Net Zero hits the reality of cost and significant changes to the way we live, the public are understandably turned off as they look at low uptake of the ‘plan’ globally and their ongoing growth on the back of cheap traditional energy.
History is littered with failed and costly government projects. I forecast that many of the wasteful Net Zero plans based on unreliable, fringe technologies will be historically judged in the same way.”
***************************************
My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
*****************************************
Jim Hansen and his twin
No comments:
Post a Comment