Mod+ 234. GLOBAL WARMING, CLIMATE CHANGE AND OUR ILLUSION OF CONTROL

I see. So, Maurice Strong got on a conference call with the collective climate science community, and nine out of ten of those in the conference said, "Yep, good scam, Maurice - we're in", and the other one in ten just forgot about the call.
 
A straw man is a form of argument and an informal fallacy based on giving the impression of refuting an opponent's argument, while actually refuting an argument that was not presented by that opponent. One who engages in this fallacy is said to be "attacking a straw man".

Appeal to authority is a common type of fallacy, or an argument based on unsound logic. When writers or speakers use appeal to authority, they are claiming that something must be true because it is believed by someone who said to be an "authority" on the subject.
 
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By all means, then, present - in your own words - the plausible scenario you have in mind when you say that "the scam began with Maurice Strong", bearing in mind that climate scientists agree in general on the science, and that thus, presumably, Maurice must have affected their view of the science. If it wasn't as directly as a conference call, then how on Earth did Maurice Strong get nine out of ten climate scientists to support scientific conclusions which are unjustified, especially given that he is not a scientist himself?

Oh, and, it's not a fallacy to appeal to the expertise of somebody who generally is an expert on the matter in contention in the course of deciding what to believe when one is not oneself an expert and has not the reasonable capacity to exercise any such expertise personally. See, for example, the page Appeal to Authority on the website "Logically Fallacious", noting in particular what it says about denialism and heuristics (emphases in the original):

Exception: Be very careful not to confuse "deferring to an authority on the issue" with the appeal to authority fallacy. Remember, a fallacy is an error in reasoning. Dismissing the council of legitimate experts and authorities turns good skepticism into denialism. The appeal to authority is a fallacy in argumentation, but deferring to an authority is a reliable heuristic that we all use virtually every day on issues of relatively little importance. There is always a chance that any authority can be wrong, that’s why the critical thinker accepts facts provisionally. It is not at all unreasonable (or an error in reasoning) to accept information as provisionally true by credible authorities. Of course, the reasonableness is moderated by the claim being made (i.e., how extraordinary, how important) and the authority (how credible, how relevant to the claim).
 
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Short enough for Laird to watch :)

MIT Professor Richard Lindzen On the Corruption of Climate Science


He also mentions Ike's prophetic warning in his farewell address that most definitely has come to pass.
I very much agree with Professor Lindzen's video, and I would urge everyone to listen to what he says. It gets to the heart of what is wrong with climate science, and it is spoken by a retiring expert in that field.

What I think people do not realise, is just how soft science can be in certain areas. Any science (and climate science isn't the only one) that relies on computer simulations that supposedly take account of hundreds of factors, is very soft indeed - twiddling any of a vast array of parameters will get you any answer you want to get, or have been told to get.

Apparently many people in all sorts of walks of life suffer from The Imposter Syndrome.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome

I suspect this is nowhere truer than in science - where the amount you should know and understand is almost infinite. This makes people reluctant to stick their necks out - except perhaps on anonymous internet forums or when they retire.

David
 
Because I've already given climate change denial a decent hearing on several occasions, only to find that it misinformed rather than informed me. For example, some years back I watched one of the popular "skeptical" movies (maybe The Great Global Warming Swindle or something like that?), and it seemed compelling when I watched it (the good old "it's not about CO2, it's about the sun" argument), but then I did some post-viewing research and found that it badly misrepresented the facts. And I've seen, via various pundits breaking down "skeptic" lectures and claims, that this is typical for climate change denialists. So, now, I don't waste my time on that stuff.

Bear in mind, too, that it's very easy for you to sling out a few links or videos, but for me to then fact check and confirm/reject them takes several times as much time. Whilst I have a lot of spare time on my hands, that's not my preferred means of spending it, and I'm not prepared to get stuck in the role of "corrector in chief" in this thread, especially because, as I've already pointed out several times, I am not an expert in this field.



I've pointed out to you several times that the basic science behind global warming was known over a century ago. Are you suggesting that the scientists who developed that science back then were in on a multi-generational hoax?

As the RationalWiki article to which Alice linked points out in a graphic, of the two competing theories that (1) climate science is a hoax perpetrated by scientists/activists, or that (2) climate change denial is a hoax perpetrated by the fossil fuel industry, the latter easily and readily makes far more sense:

Neither makes sense.

Nowadays there are a lot of ludicrously wealthy crackpots knocking about. Such people can get a bee in their bonnet like anyone else, the only difference is that they can spend $10Bn on their pet ideas.

Also, once a system becomes unstable, it often doesn't make much sense to look for a causal explanation of what happens next. A whole variety of social factors - sped up by the internet - have produced dangerous instability that can emerge in an almost infinite number of possible forms. Climate hysteria, extreme and violent religious hatred, belief in the imminent end of the world (a perennial favourite), wild ideas about human sexuality, etc all come out of that instability.

Nothing remotely useful is likely to emerge from this phase.

Given the main subject of this forum, I can't help thinking that part of the origin of this nonsense may be non-human, and quite possibly mischievous or worse.

David
 
By all means, then, present - in your own words - the plausible scenario you have in mind when you say that "the scam began with Maurice Strong", bearing in mind that climate scientists agree in general on the science, and that thus, presumably, Maurice must have affected their view of the science. If it wasn't as directly as a conference call, then how on Earth did Maurice Strong get nine out of ten climate scientists to support scientific conclusions which are unjustified, especially given that he is not a scientist himself?

Oh, and, it's not a fallacy to appeal to the expertise of somebody who generally is an expert on the matter in contention in the course of deciding what to believe when one is not oneself an expert and has not the reasonable capacity to exercise any such expertise personally. See, for example, the page Appeal to Authority on the website "Logically Fallacious", noting in particular what it says about denialism and heuristics (emphases in the original):

In the late modern times (post-WWII), the appeal to authority was very actively whitewashed, to make an impression that is only wrong if the authorities to whom one appeals are somehow "invalid" ("irrelevant", "illegitimate", etc.). Such whitewash is understandable, since late modernity are exactly the times when scientific enterprise started to wither and crumble, because of social factors such as bureaucratisation, commercialisation, ideologisation etc.


But if one looks in the pre-WWII literature - literature written in the golden age of science, when the bedrock of the fundamental knowledge on which the science stands up to this day were formed - one finds up the original notion that ALL appeal to ANY authority is fallacious in EVERY circumstance.

Just think, this notion was in use when science was flourishing. And compare it to the notion in use in the times when science is decaying.

And remember that science once arose as a rebellion against authority, as an insistence that knowledge is assessable to anyone who makes a careful and organised effort to obtain it, and has nothing to do with one's institutional status. Nowadays, this primary drive behind scientific endeavor was given up - if not to say, thrown away as garbage, with the "denialism" or "pseudoscience" brand burned on it - and the originally rejected appeal to authority was once again exalted, returned to its place in the pre-scientific epoch.

What we are living now, Laird, is a post-scientific age that, however, still tries to present itself as a "scientific" one - just like some barbarian chiefs after the fall of Roman Empire started to dress as Roman emperors, gathered Roman relics and texts, invited some old surviving members of Roman aristocracy to their circles etc. They called themselves "new Romans", but all these was just a play, a pretence. Rome was dead, and only in a thousand years, in the epoch of Renaissance, its legacy would be genuinely rediscovered. And even then, it would be a rethinking of the Roman legacy rather than its simple reanimation.

In the post-scientific age, the age than science institutions and science community is rotten to the core and no longer trustworthy, the really useful heruistics is the direct opposite to the one you think - never trust "credible experts" until/unless there is a really strong evidence, which you researched by yourself rather than simply found out in the institutional proclamations, to accept their statements in this one exact case.

Maybe, we will see the genuine scientific Renaissance one day - I hope we will. But, it will definitely come from outside the academic institutions, exactly from the "denialists" and "pseudoscientists" who are being banished from them; banished exactly for their attempt to keep the original spirit of science as free, anti-authoritarian search for the authentic knowledge alive.
 
I see. So, Maurice Strong got on a conference call with the collective climate science community, and nine out of ten of those in the conference said, "Yep, good scam, Maurice - we're in", and the other one in ten just forgot about the call.
Laird,

Why don't you take a short break to actually read some of what LS and others have written.

You seem to have a fixed view about this, but you maintain that by not actually engaging with anything anyone else is saying.

David
 
In the late modern times (post-WWII), the appeal to authority was very actively whitewashed, to make an impression that is only wrong if the authorities to whom one appeals are somehow "invalid" ("irrelevant", "illegitimate", etc.). Such whitewash is understandable, since late modernity are exactly the times when scientific enterprise started to wither and crumble, because of social factors such as bureaucratisation, commercialisation, ideologisation etc.


But if one looks in the pre-WWII literature - literature written in the golden age of science, when the bedrock of the fundamental knowledge on which the science stands up to this day were formed - one finds up the original notion that ALL appeal to ANY authority is fallacious in EVERY circumstance.

Just think, this notion was in use when science was flourishing. And compare it to the notion in use in the times when science is decaying.

And remember that science once arose as a rebellion against authority, as an insistence that knowledge is assessable to anyone who makes a careful and organised effort to obtain it, and has nothing to do with one's institutional status. Nowadays, this primary drive behind scientific endeavor was given up - if not to say, thrown away as garbage, with the "denialism" or "pseudoscience" brand burned on it - and the originally rejected appeal to authority was once again exalted, returned to its place in the pre-scientific epoch.

What we are living now, Laird, is a post-scientific age that, however, still tries to present itself as a "scientific" one - just like some barbarian chiefs after the fall of Roman Empire started to dress as Roman emperors, gathered Roman relics and texts, invited some old surviving members of Roman aristocracy to their circles etc. They called themselves "new Romans", but all these was just a play, a pretence. Rome was dead, and only in a thousand years, in the epoch of Renaissance, its legacy would be genuinely rediscovered. And even then, it would be a rethinking of the Roman legacy rather than its simple reanimation.

In the post-scientific age, the age than science institutions and science community is rotten to the core and no longer trustworthy, the really useful heruistics is the direct opposite to the one you think - never trust "credible experts" until/unless there is a really strong evidence, which you researched by yourself rather than simply found out in the institutional proclamations, to accept their statements in this one exact case.

Maybe, we will see the genuine scientific Renaissance one day - I hope we will. But, it will definitely come from outside the academic institutions, exactly from the "denialists" and "pseudoscientists" who are being banished from them; banished exactly for their attempt to keep the original spirit of science as free, anti-authoritarian search for the authentic knowledge alive.
I need a 'like x 1000' button to respond to your post.

David
 
Laird,

Why don't you take a short break to actually read some of what LS and others have written.

You seem to have a fixed view about this, but you maintain that by not actually engaging with anything anyone else is saying.

David

David, I really hope that by ‘take a short break’ you mean voluntarily, and that you’re not acting in an official capacity?

Your post is extremely patronising imo.
You probably wondered why I abruptly stopped communicating with you by PM? It was because, for the third time you had stated that ‘I feel there’s something bothering you’ despite my having twice previously denied that there was! You just couldn’t accept my point of view - so there just had to be something of a personal nature bothering me. What was bothering me was you!

I complained that you hadn’t read or watched what I’d presented as evidence. You replied “Yes you are right, I haven't read much of it.” Yet you complain about Laird doing the same.

Jim Smith presents propaganda non stop on the Trump Consciousness thread, but nothing is said about that - because you agree with him!

I think some self reflection is needed.
 
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I really had to do this post, especially in light of the recent record breaking cold and snow events.

Here are some predictions from the very top tier climate scientists, climate organisations and media. The list is by no means exhaustive, but I think it makes the point quite well. Remember this when the double think begins and the "experts" start telling you global warming creates extreme cold.

THE SCIENCE OF SNOWFALL WAS ‘SETTLED’ BY THE ‘97% CONSENSUS’

2000 - Snowfall will become “A very rare and exciting event… Children just aren’t going to know what snow is.” Dr David Viner – Senior scientist, climatic research unit (CRU)

2001, the UN IPCC predicted diminished snowfalls as human CO2 increased, claiming that “milder winter temperatures will decrease heavy snowstorms” due to the activities of mankind. THEY also forecast “warmer winters and fewer cold spells, because of climate change…”

2003 CSIRO report, part-funded by the ski industry, found that resorts could lose up to 40% of their snow by 2020 …

2000 - “Winters with strong frosts and lots of snow like we had 20 years ago will no longer exist at our latitudes.” – Professor Mojib Latif

2000 - Spiegel“Good bye winter. Never again snow?”

2004 - “Snow has become so rare that when it does fall – often just for a few hours – everything grinds to a halt. In early 2003 a ‘mighty’ five-centimetre snowfall in southeast England caused such severe traffic jams that many motorists had to stay in their cars overnight. Today’s kids are missing out . . . Many of these changes are already underway, but have been accelerating over the last two decades. Termites have already moved into southern England. Garden centres are beginning to stock exotic sub-tropical species, which only a few years ago would have been killed off by winter…” Mark Lynas

2005 - Christopher Krull, Black Forest Tourism Association / SpiegelPlanning for a snowless future: “Our study is already showing that that there will be a much worse situation in 20 years.”

2005 - George Monbiot on climate change and snowWinter is no longer the great grey longing of my childhood. The freezes this country suffered in 1982 and 1963 are – unless the Gulf Stream stops – unlikely to recur. Our summers will be long and warm. Across most of the upper northern hemisphere, climate change, so far, has been kind to us…

2006 - Daniela Jacob of Max Planck Institute for Meterology, Hamburg…“Yesterday’s snow… Because temperatures in the Alps are rising quickly, there will be more precipitation in many places. But because it will rain more often than it snows, this will be bad news for tourists. For many ski lifts this means the end of business.”

2006 - The Independent‘s somber editorial admonished us that the lack of snow was evidence of a “dangerous seasonal disorder”… The countryside is looking rather peculiar this winter. It seems we have a number of unexpected guests for Christmas. Dragonflies, bumblebees and red admiral butterflies, which would normally be killed off by the frost, can still be seen in some parts of the country . . . Some might be tempted to welcome this late blossoming of the natural world as a delightful diversion from the bleakness of this time of year. But these fluctuations should be cause for concern because it is overwhelmingly likely that they are a consequence of global warming . . . all this is also evidence that global warming is occurring at a faster rate than many imagined…

2007 : BBC “One Planet Special”It Seems the Winters of Our Youth are Unlikely to Return” presenter Richard Hollingham … speaks to climate scientists to get their views. Their conclusion? In the words of the BBC, they all give “predictions of warmer winters, for UK & the Northern Hemisphere”.

2007 - Schleswig Holstein NABU“Ice, snow, and frost will disappear, i.e. milder winters” … “Unusually warm winters without snow and ice are now being viewed by many as signs of climate change.”


2007 : Western Mail (Wales Online) … article, entititled “Snowless Winters Forecast for Wales as World Warms Up” quotes one of the global warming movement’s key figures, Sir John Houghton, former head of the IPCC and former head of the UK Met Office… Former head of the Met Office Sir John Houghton, who is one of the UK’s leading authorities on climate change, said all the indicators suggest snowy winters will become increasingly rare He said, “Snowlines are going up in altitude all over the world. The idea that we will get less snow is absolutely in line with what we expect from global warming.”

2007 : Die Zeit“First the snow disappears, and then winter.”

2008 : Another predictionA study of snowfall spanning 60 years has indicated that the Alps’s entire winter sports industry could grind to a halt through lack of snow. It found a dramatic “step-like” drop in snowfall at the end of the 1980s which has never recovered, New Scientist magazine reported…. In some years the amount that fell was 60 per cent lower than was typical in the early 1980s, said Christoph Marty, from the Swiss Federal Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research in Davos, who analysed the records. “I don’t believe we will see the kind of snow conditions we have experienced in past decades,” he said.

2012 :

d7kouquu0ao0dam.jpg

2012 - Griffith associate professor Catherine Pickering says snow is rapidly disappearing because of global warming and by 2020 Australia may not have any left. “We’ve predicted by 2020 to lose something like 60 per cent of the snow cover of the Australian Alps,” Professor Pickering, from the Griffith School of Environment, said. “Unfortunately because our current emissions and our current rises in temperatures are at the high end of the predictions, it’s definitely coming to us sooner and faster.”

2014 : the global warming theory-obsessed New York Times touted “The End of Snow?”…“The truth is, it is too late for all of that. Greening the ski industry is commendable, but it isn’t nearly enough. Nothing besides a national policy shift on how we create and consume energy will keep our mountains white in the winter — and slow global warming to a safe level. This is no longer a scientific debate. It is scientific fact. The greatest fear of most climate scientists is continued complacency that leads to a series of natural climatic feedbacks…”

Full article... It includes yet more dramatic and falsifying reports of early winters and snow from a variety of locations. It talks of the polar vortex and the excuses used and how it was also used in the 70's to push global cooling. It's truly comical, how embarrassing for the "experts" and climate science in general.
https://climatism.blog/2019/11/18/snowfall-will-signal-the-death-of-the-global-warming-movement/
 
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As the RationalWiki article to which Alice linked points out in a graphic, of the two competing theories that (1) climate science is a hoax perpetrated by scientists/activists, or that (2) climate change denial is a hoax perpetrated by the fossil fuel industry, the latter easily and readily makes far more sense:


Laird, friend. You have, indeed, surprised me. After I seen this graphic - taken from the super-reliable (Ir)Rational Wiki*, no less! - I was, for some time, literally out of words. And out of breath, too.

To say that this graphic misrepresent the actual state of events, is to say nothing. It, if one can say so, anti-represent, couter-represent them, showing a direct opposite of what actually is - at least, in its left half, the one dedicated to the pro-CAGW positions.

Only "regional environmental groups and community activists", really? Really?! REALLY?!! And what about all the governmental/bureaucratic, commercial/corporate (yes, them too!) and academic/think tank actors and interests - with all the immence wealth, crushing power and world-spanning prestige that each of them individually, and all of them together, possess, and that is invested in, and thus dependent to, the public success of the CAGW model?

Laird, just watch again the videos of the numerous Greta Tunberg's public speeches, and look who is her audience. Who is applausing her angry condemnations. Who glorify and promote her at every opportunity. Are these poor, powerless, marginalised people? Or are they captains of industry and finance, leaders of governments, academic and media celebrities - obcenely rich, highly influential, globally popular?

Don't you understand the hard fact that the wealth, power and fame that these elite types can and do invest in the cases they promote is, at the very least, fully comparable - and, most often, much greater - to the ones being invested in the opposite causes?!

Damn it, look at Caitlin Johnstone, whom you probably know. She is as ardent CAGW proponent as you are. Yet, with all her unwavering support of the understanding of CAGW as a real and immence threat, she is socially knowledable and aware enough to understand that pro-CAGW position are, at the very least, as much actively supported by the elite types she rightfully despises as the anti-CAGW one. Here is a pair of examples, you can find more on her website:

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/09/28/want-to-save-the-environment-de-fund-the-pentagon/

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2018/10/09/some-thoughts-on-climate-change/

* I always wondered why the some people from the fringe, who know clearly what kind of the stinky excremental pit of slanderous defamation and gratitious distortion (Ir)Rational Wiki is, still use it as the source in the cases when one of its positions (mainstream positions, that is; (Ir)Rational wiki only supports them, ever) is similar or identical to theirs. Don't do that, please. You know already, yourself, that it is not a valid or reliable source. And this excremental pit should never be linked to as a source - even if you think that in some singular, specific point it is, after all, correct. To compare: if I would like to make a political or ethical point of any kind, I would never link to the Daily Stormer, even if occasionally, in some specific cases, some not entirely crazy - in a few cases, even perfectly justifiable - things are published there. I would not do it because I understand that, overall, the Daily Stormer remains the garbage bin of overt Neo-Nazism, hardcore antisemitism, gross racism and intense misogyny, and it not a valid source even if it sometimes not entirely wrong (very rarely, even right).
 
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On a positive note, increased Co2 levels a are "Greening" the planet.

greening-earth-data.jpg


Plant life is the great healer and purifier of the planet. True to their form, climate activists in the usual Orwellian double speak, will claim how this is actually a bad thing. No positive things are allowed only doom and gloom. Up is down, black is white, hot is cold.
According to the map the vast majority of Oz is maybe 15-50% greener at the time the satellite data was taken.
The 'greenness' of this map is visually misleading. I just can't believe that Australia is as green as this map implies. This not a satellite image, it is a map coloured in to look green. CO2 may show great results when used as a 'forcing' agent in the confines of a greenhouse but that outcome doesn't necessarily apply in a worldwide sense where there are many other influential criteria, nor take into account any drawbacks as noted by Laird's qualifying comments in #1,173:

Norby notes the results scientists produce in labs are generally not what happens in the vastly more complex world outside; many other factors are involved in plant growth in untended forests, fields and other ecosystems. For example, “nitrogen is often in short enough supply that it’s the primary controller of how much biomass is produced” in an ecosystem, he says. “If nitrogen is limited, the benefit of the CO2 increase is limited…. You can’t just look at CO2, because the overall context really matters.”
while rising carbon dioxide might seem like a boon for agriculture, Moore also emphasizes any potential positive effects cannot be considered in isolation, and will likely be outweighed by many drawbacks. “Even with the benefit of CO2 fertilization, when you start getting up to 1 to 2 degrees of warming, you see negative effects,” she says. “There are a lot of different pathways by which temperature can negatively affect crop yield: soil moisture deficit [or] heat directly damaging the plants and interfering with their reproductive process.” On top of all that, Moore points out increased CO2 also benefits weeds that compete with farm plants.
Rising CO2’s effect on crops could also harm human health. “We know unequivocally that when you grow food at elevated CO2 levels in fields, it becomes less nutritious,” notes Samuel Myers, principal research scientist in environmental health at Harvard University. “[Food crops] lose significant amounts of iron and zinc—and grains [also] lose protein.”


For eg excess nitrogen run-off from farm crops leads to increased algae-growth in rivers and lakes -that is 'increased greenery', except that it is toxic and in the wrong place. You have repeated this statement a number of times without progressing your argument beyond 'CO2 is good for plants, therefore CO2 is good' or acknowledged that while CO2 may be good for some plants and situations, it is not good for others. You have even accused me of saying 'plant life is bad', presumably because I have not accepted all aspects of your argument, so my opinion must be questionable.

It is as if you are saying:
CO2 is good for plant growth>excess CO2 is extra-good>being against CO2 is 'bad'
And further:
The 'Elites' (some of the biggest producers of CO2 emissions) have recently joined the climate crisis movement>the elites dislike and wish to eliminate the middle-class>therefore, if you believe the decades-long excess of 3% pa accumulation of CO2 is causing GW, then you are also 'against' the middle-class (freedom and America)
 
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Laird, friend. You have, indeed, surprised me. After I seen this graphic - taken from the super-reliable (Ir)Rational Wiki*, no less! - I was, for some time, literally out of words. And out of breath, too.
Vortex, as I posted the original Wiki-link, I think I can ask, are you saying -we at Skeptiko don't like Wikipedia (because they call psi-research 'pseudo-science') so if you like an article by (Ir)rationalWikipedia you're not welcome here (as some of us might hyperventilate)?
 
David, I really hope that by ‘take a short break’ you mean voluntarily, and that you’re not acting in an official capacity?
Well I was certainly speaking about something voluntary, but I guess it was blurring into something that you might call 'official capacity'. I want debates to be a real dialogue.
Your post is extremely patronising imo.
Thanks.
You probably wondered why I abruptly stopped communicating with you by PM? It was because, for the third time you had stated that ‘I feel there’s something bothering you’ despite my having twice previously denied that there was! You just couldn’t accept my point of view - so there just had to be something of a personal nature bothering me. What was bothering me was you!
Fine, but I wrote to you privately, because I thought you might be going through a rough spell - not to be patronising.
I complained that you hadn’t read or watched what I’d presented as evidence. You replied “Yes you are right, I haven't read much of it.” Yet you complain about Laird doing the same.
I wasn't exactly complaining, but Laird simply appeals to the experts, ignoring the fact that LS and I were trying to show why that doesn't work. I have repeatedly tried to point out that Laird himself does not simply hand over to the 'experts' in areas such as consciousness, ψ, etc. - neither do you!

As you know, from time to time, there are people who come on here to post scoffing replies to some topic they consider to be 'woo'. I generally start by trying to engage them in some sort of discussion about the facts, but ultimately - yes, I do something about it. Well in the same way, I'd like discussions about CC not to be dominated by people who refust to engage in discussion.
Jim Smith presents propaganda non stop on the Trump Consciousness thread, but nothing is said about that - because you agree with him!

I think some self reflection is needed.

Well I don't think what Jim writes can be called propaganda - most of it is facts.

Above all, I am not here trying to censor anyone. My aim is to:

1. Avoid the forum being trolled or spammed.
2. Keep the discussion interesting, rather than degenerating into a yes/no/yes/no..... dialogue.
3. Keep things reasonably polite. There is no point in permitting 10 pages of f... this and f... that, etc.
4. Try gently to keep discussions about the podcasts reasonably on topic.

I'd really like you and Laird to read Vortex's contribution above:

http://www.skeptiko-forum.com/threa...e-and-our-illusion-of-control.412/post-136361

Even better would be if you discussed it!

David
 
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Well I don't think what Jim writes can be called propaganda - most of it is facts.
Well, I think that Jim rarely writes anything on his Trump-thread, he mostly posts opinionist propaganda 'placards' - these are not facts.
 
I am wrong in saying this cause you speak of Is the solution by the UN, as in Agenda 2030?
Yes, you are wrong. I mean 'the cause' is the recovery and care of our planet Earth. It is the only cause really, despite your valid claims that the elite care nothing for her or us, because this is our home and we all should own and care for her collectively.
 
Vortex, as I posted the original Wiki-link, I think I can ask, are you saying -we at Skeptiko don't like Wikipedia (because they call psi-research 'pseudo-science') so if you like an article by (Ir)rationalWikipedia you're not welcome here (as some of us might hyperventilate)?

Was the link from Wikipedia or from RationalWiki?
 
It is because of the consumerism lifestyle. They say the middle class is the problem not because we can resist but because the middle class are destroying the planet.
Well they would say that, and are clearly neglecting to notice the three fingers pointing back. Such as that 90+% of the world's wealth is held by 1%; that one person owning a mansion with 7 bathrooms is conspicuously consumerist; and that the top 50 richest families only invest in each other (i.e. there is no 'trickle-down') It is because we (the middle-class) tend to consume what they don't want to promote, like fair-trade or organic products and political&social education. Why else do you think education is underfunded and maintained at an ignorant level of misinformation? The middle-class (or anyone well-educated) is liable to agitate for better working conditions, fair pay and care of the planet.
There is no climate crisis.
Here we must disagree. So your argument may not be complicated, but it is hard to fathom..'The elite are using a non-existent problem, not caused by excessive fossil-fuel use to 'false-flag' further development of their existing intention for global-control'(?)
I have never called Greta a sad little dupe, she is a child.
Well, you have said she is "being manipulated" [Dict: 'Dupe'-a person who unwittingly serves a cause or another person. note:'cause' here being the elites' one of mass-control; I believe she has her own agenda that happens to coincide with the elites' late arrival on the climate scene, as they must surely realise she has a lot of public support] By extension you imply that anyone who supports her or a belief in AGW is also being 'duped'.
It's really not complicated
Well, it is complicated by your having two strands of argument -whether there is or is not climate change and what the implications are for elitist involvement in that, and contradicting yourself at times.
You see, it is not about science at all, is it?
 
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