"Climate Denier"

bobblepuzzle

After watching the Late Late Show the other night and seeing the Green Supporter call the guest a "climate denier" I couldn't believe what I was hearing... :mad:

Now, I don't agree humans are causing climate change like many other people, but to come up with such a term to categorise people of such views is a disgrace imo... what's your view and do you take offence to that made up term?

bazzer86

Withdraw!!!

Monty Burnz

Most terms are made up to be fair. I don't think people should take offence, personally.

bobblepuzzle

bazzer86 wrote: »

Withdraw!!!

Withdraw!!! Withdraw!!!!

thetonynator

bobblepuzzle wrote: »

Withdraw!!! Withdraw!!!!

The sad thing was jim corr copying him about 30 seconds later . . .:rolleyes:

Quigs Snr

That Green supporter didn't do their cause much good with that statement - "Climate Denier" what a ridiculous label. When Jim Corr is on the show and still still come across as the dumbest then you know its time to call it a day.

baux

Lord Monckton denies that humans are responsible for climate change. He has been paid by an insurance company (I don't know what company) to research the claims made by the IPCC. His conclusions are that they exaggerated the predictions of climate change and that the CO2 that humans produce has little to do with climate change.

I found it very funny because he's not denying the climate. I thought that woman was a bit silly, extremely emotional and absolutely no match to Lord Monckton. Calling him a climate denier was pointing that out perfectly because getting personal showed that she had no real rebuttals. Poor woman.

Lord Monckton is a very controversial person, I love him. I don't agree with everything he says and I certainly would not like to engage in a debate with him but he reminds me a bit of Stephen Fry. And he always has very strong points that can make you very uncomfortable.

I found what was said to Jim Corr more offensive;
The man in the public said;
"I've spend some time on his website over the last couple of days and ...the history of conspiracy theory in North America and Europe over the last century....and what he calls the Anglo-American shadow government... has its roots in...frankly in antisemitism.'

He goes on to say that he doesn't think that this is where Jim Corr is coming from. But the damage was done.

To me, this sort of name calling and associations kills a debate.
Call Jim Corr a conspiracy theorist all you like but his heart lies with the people of Ireland. They didn't allow him to talk about the economy!

My name is URL

There is no climate!

Seriously though, when I heard the term used on Friday night I assumed De Burca just made it up, but after looking into it; it appears that the old term of climate change skeptics isn't used much any more, at least within 'skeptic' circles. I guess they don't want the term skeptic to be muddied by those who question the validity of anthropomorphic climate change studies. Seems a bit ironic to me tbh

Captain Havoc

If that's the term, then fair enough but does this mean the word denier is now automatically associated with "holocaust denier" and makes you on par with David Irving for denying whatever you choose to not believe in? That's just plain stupid, if someone called me a denier of whatever, I wouldn't see me being on the same level as a holocaust denier and wouldn't take offense.

up for anything

I thought this was a thread about climate controlled tights!

Captain Havoc

Just to add, I think Lord Monckton played that one to his advantage.

thetonynator

up for anything wrote: »

I thought this was a thread about climate controlled tights!

which are?

My name is URL

Captain Havoc wrote: »

If that's the term, then fair enough but does this mean the word denier is now automatically associated with "holocaust denier" and makes you on par with David Irving for denying whatever you choose to not believe in? That's just plain stupid, if someone called me a denier of whatever, I wouldn't see me being on the same level as a holocaust denier and wouldn't take offense.

I think it's the idea that it's viewed as a form of Denialism that irks people, it's a pretty negative label to have attached to your ideas even though they may be empirically based.

Captain Havoc

I wasn't aware of Denialism, thanks for adding reason to that, I thought it was Godwin fail.

up for anything

thetonynator wrote: »

which are?

Tights which regulate the temperature so your legs don't get too hot or too cold. They can be 7, 10 or 40 dernier so you can see why I was slightly confused.

srocliffe

up for anything wrote: »

I thought this was a thread about climate controlled tights!

I thought exactly the same thing when reading the thread title, that it was about tights :-)

M.T. Cranium

The term "denier" is being used to cover a range of positions from outright deniers to moderate skeptics. The AGW lobby insists on full acceptance of their scenario of catastrophic climate change. Anyone whose opinion is "won't be so bad" to "nothing really is happening" gets labelled as a "denier" by the AGW/CC lobby.

In my own case, I've always believed that AGW was a faint background signal that was confused with natural warming cycles at times in the late 1980s and 1990s to about 2006. Clearly those natural warming cycles have faded and we're into a colder (natural) climate. I do accept that greenhouse gases are adding a signal of perhaps 0.5 C deg to the complex reality.

This makes me a "denier" to some, but I've run into people in the debate who insist there is no signal and even some who claim that all the excess carbon dioxide comes from the natural warming cycles. That part I don't accept, I see the evidence for man-made increases in greenhouse gases since the early 20th century.

Stronger terms are also used, such as "climate holocaust" which can involve predictions of rapid extinction of the human species -- all of which seem highly speculative and worst-case-scenario to me. There is really not that much evidence that a 7-metre sea level rise would be much more than a manageable inconvenience on the scale of the human race, of course it would be catastrophic in some limited areas, but one supposes that technology might provide solutions in the time scale of the more likely appearance of this problem (which I rate as being only moderately likely at worst).

I firmly believe that the whole scenario is politically motivated by scientists who are placing their politics ahead of science, and trying to stampede governments and voters into radical economic changes. So far the evidence is that these changes have harmful effects on a scale perhaps thousands of times greater than the climatic problems that are supposed to be fixed, and also no evidence that these really are problems or that they could be fixed.

In other words, they want a green stampede to a utopian green future that might not even make slight economic sense, as we can see in the vastly inefficient performance of wind energy in its developing stages. A certain amount of this green agenda probably makes sense, but the whole agenda when based on fictitious warnings of impending doom might actually bring on that doom through economic collapse. Anyway, asking people who can't predict the weather to predict the economy is asking for trouble. The question is, do we already have the trouble, or can we shake these people off before they scare people into making decisions that cannot be easily reversed, and that cause dramatic collapses of national economies? One notes that a certain group of countries want us to make these changes, but not themselves. Is this not really just a sort of economic war being fought on false scientific premises?

thetonynator

One perfect example of changes that shouldn't be made in M.T'S post is the climate change bill the green party wanted to bring in. He it had good through it would have absolutely destroyed irish agriculture, ruined our food exports, massively increased our reliance on imports and resulted in thousands unemployed. The most ironic rape is that other countries would produce more to make up for us, and as we are far more efficient in agriculture in ireland than a lot of countries, it would actually have increased carbon emissions. :rolleyes: green logic. . . :P

Sponge Bob

It is soooooo much simpler if you go along with it.

Here is an example of how it works.

1. Scientists explain how global warming makes the north atlantic less salty
2. Scientists explain how global warming makes the north atlantic more salty

Can't lose

darkman2

M.T. Cranium wrote: »

The term "denier" is being used to cover a range of positions from outright deniers to moderate skeptics. The AGW lobby insists on full acceptance of their scenario of catastrophic climate change. Anyone whose opinion is "won't be so bad" to "nothing really is happening" gets labelled as a "denier" by the AGW/CC lobby.

In my own case, I've always believed that AGW was a faint background signal that was confused with natural warming cycles at times in the late 1980s and 1990s to about 2006. Clearly those natural warming cycles have faded and we're into a colder (natural) climate. I do accept that greenhouse gases are adding a signal of perhaps 0.5 C deg to the complex reality.

This makes me a "denier" to some, but I've run into people in the debate who insist there is no signal and even some who claim that all the excess carbon dioxide comes from the natural warming cycles. That part I don't accept, I see the evidence for man-made increases in greenhouse gases since the early 20th century.

Stronger terms are also used, such as "climate holocaust" which can involve predictions of rapid extinction of the human species -- all of which seem highly speculative and worst-case-scenario to me. There is really not that much evidence that a 7-metre sea level rise would be much more than a manageable inconvenience on the scale of the human race, of course it would be catastrophic in some limited areas, but one supposes that technology might provide solutions in the time scale of the more likely appearance of this problem (which I rate as being only moderately likely at worst).

I firmly believe that the whole scenario is politically motivated by scientists who are placing their politics ahead of science, and trying to stampede governments and voters into radical economic changes. So far the evidence is that these changes have harmful effects on a scale perhaps thousands of times greater than the climatic problems that are supposed to be fixed, and also no evidence that these really are problems or that they could be fixed.

In other words, they want a green stampede to a utopian green future that might not even make slight economic sense, as we can see in the vastly inefficient performance of wind energy in its developing stages. A certain amount of this green agenda probably makes sense, but the whole agenda when based on fictitious warnings of impending doom might actually bring on that doom through economic collapse. Anyway, asking people who can't predict the weather to predict the economy is asking for trouble. The question is, do we already have the trouble, or can we shake these people off before they scare people into making decisions that cannot be easily reversed, and that cause dramatic collapses of national economies? One notes that a certain group of countries want us to make these changes, but not themselves. Is this not really just a sort of economic war being fought on false scientific premises?

MT, "Climate Denier" label is actually used implicitly and on purpose to equate with deniers of far more violent things. It's a disgrace of a term in my view. A label to shut down debate. People talk about facism - well listening to Duncan Stewart saying our voice does not count because it has been proven and we should be taken off the air...that is what he said. Now to me that is facism. Not that I have truck with the Lord Brit in the OP. He is as anti Irish as he is anti human climate change.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOb4s3ETUQc

They don't like a critical point of view clearly....


As for "a small minority" - tell us "madam" what percentage of the population voted for the Green Party last election!?

hplp

The other big thing to remember is the vast amount of money that scientists have been able to secure to 'research' into it. If you were in a position that if you deviated the course of your research slightly to be gauranteed far more money or even funding in the first place, what would you do?


Ive seen this tons of times when at university.

H

Danno

Oh when will they realise? When it's too late? When our pockets are raped in the name of climate change? Please, please stop this madness. Windmills can't turn in the ice, it's not our fault that somebody put our oil under their sand.

i57dwun4yb1pt8

was that De Burca who said this ?

I saw it and thought it was hilarious , what a dumb Bint .

gbee

I'm a Green Denier, I've denied them my vote!

I call on every one to do the same.

ciaran67

Watch Horizon tonight on BBC2.


Science under attack

thetonynator

I don't think we'll have any problems denying the greens votes this time round. . . After the last 3 years anyway!

hevsuit

Mobhi1

How can you deny climate? Climate is all around for everyone to see. Climate Denier is just a stupid term - It'd be almost like calling somebody a weather denier! Presumably Climate change denier is what was meant, which obviously a lot of people are?

nacho libre

hplp wrote: »

The other big thing to remember is the vast amount of money that scientists have been able to secure to 'research' into it. If you were in a position that if you deviated the course of your research slightly to be gauranteed far more money or even funding in the first place, what would you do?


Ive seen this tons of times when at university.

H

yes but this carry on wouldn't be exclusive to either side of the divide in fairness. I must say when Thatcher's ex adviser mentioned he is a paid researcher made me suspicious. Afterall we know that big companies have paid people to skew their research in the past.
Personally, I think there is no doubt we have some influence on the climate warming, but from what i've read it would seem what's occurring is mainly down to natural cycles.

Anyway, if James Lovelock is to be believed Ireland could be the place to be in a 100 years time.:cool:

Deep Easterly

nacho libre wrote: »

I must say when Thatcher's ex adviser mentioned he is a paid researcher made me suspicious. Afterall we know that big companies have paid people to skew their research in the past.

Well said Nacho Libre.

(interview starts at 6.30 mins)

'Lord' (:p) Christopher Monckton is a member of the UK Independence Party which supports increased military spending, zero tolerance on crime and a scraping of the 1998 Human Rights Act and who also gives a Union Jack painted finger up to the ECHR. It is really a struggle to take someone who supports Boot Camps seriously!

I just laughed my way through that 'debate' to be perfectly honest. Deidra de Burca reminded me of a robot that was just repeating what she just read somewhere else a few minutes earlier.

Having two 4th rate politicians arguing on this issue is not good chi. De Burka, go back to growing your low fat lettuce; Monckton, go back to whipping your slaves and leave the science to the scientists please.

M.T. Cranium

I can see you have the same frustration about this issue being denied a chance for real discussion and debate, as we feel here in Canada.

While we suspect that our government is not very keen on climate change, they refuse to criticize it on the public stage, and with all other parties in our political system very keen on it, this gives the voter who identifies this as a major issue with no options other than hoping their suspicions are right about the Conservative Party. In any case, it's hardly a democratic triumph to have this very contentious issue under a code of official silence in most of the large countries of the "free" world -- they are much more forthright about it in other places.

We clearly need a breakthrough in the political realm to get any change to happen, otherwise I feel that our economies will come under increasing strain to support the harebrained economics of the green agenda. These wind farms are underproducing by unit of investment on a standard rate of 10 to 100 times all other alternatives. If we increase the percentage of the grids given to wind generated electricity, it could bankrupt consumers and businesses. Here in Canada we have seen various increases depending on which province you're in, but Ontario in particular which has a very green oriented government is seeing massive electricity rate increases. This of course just drives industry away to more competitive places, or puts them out of business (which I suspect is the real green agenda).

As Darkman2 says, the censorship aspect is also very troubling. We are only one step away from legal sanctions coming into play against so-called climate deniers. In Canada we already have very contentious free speech limitation laws that prevent people from speaking out on various issues in the social realm, but so far the climate lobby hasn't tried to use these laws on climate skeptics. I think they are holding back because they don't want to inflame public opinion, but if they see their position weakened, I have no doubt that they would use these laws -- and I understand that European countries have similar if not identical laws in place for potential use.

Anyway, the one good thing about the situation is that people are much more alert to cold weather now than they might have been otherwise, due to the surprise factor. :cool:

Su Campu

I watched the clip and I have to say it's laughable that people like de Burca are still spouting that old clichéd argument, "backing it up" with the ole list of bad weather events that took place because we drive cars....who are they trying to kid anymore?

I totally disagree though with people bringing the speakers' backgrounds - political or otherwise - into this debate. Lord Monckton is whoever he is, and De Burca is whoever she is. What people fail to concentrate on is the facts of the case. Climate changes - always has and always will - and devastating floods have happened before and will happen again. Pakistan, Queensland, Boscastle, Brazil (where hundreds died but it happened during the Brisbane floods so nobody cared) - were all naturally occuring events, but have been hijacked by the pro AGW and used to brainwash our kids.

Plus, while I'm on a rant, another gripe I have is the use of the term global warming. It has become the phrase of this generation, and is made out to be something bad, when in fact the globe has been warming and cooling for millions of years. If people want to talk about our (alleged) contribution to the current natural warming we're experiencing, please use the word "anthropogenic" before it.

Rant over

Danno

Watched the clip, and it is totally laughable. Anyone who would like to see where the Pro AGW camp collect their data, may I suggest this site as a starting block which shows the quality of the data being collected... http://surfacestations.org/ The sooner these foolish thoughts are put to bed, the sooner we can get to the real environmental issues such as water and waste management.

Joe Public

The other camp could be called "climate as usual deniers"

Deep Easterly

Su Campu wrote: »

I totally disagree though with people bringing the speakers' backgrounds - political or otherwise - into this debate. Lord Monckton is whoever he is, and De Burca is whoever she is.

I would normally agree with you on this Su, but given the fact the both Deirdra de Burca and Christopher Monckton are both first and foremost politicians (the very reason they got to speak on the Late Late Show) and thus ideologically motived to say what they had to say on this matter, I don't see bringing up there political backgrounds as a problem in this case.

But I do agree that the climate debate is becoming all too political. It is a pity that the real scientists, whether they be pro or anti Climate Change don't speak more often in the public sphere. Having the likes of de Burca claiming that certain weather events were 'climate disasters' before she quickly changed that to 'weather disasters' was just totally misleading. I am sure any climate scientist watching this squirmed in horror. I don't think anything De Burca or Monckton had to say added to the overall debate.

Su Campu

Deep Easterly wrote: »

I would normally agree with you on this Su, but given the fact the both Deirdra de Burca and Christopher Monckton are both first and foremost politicians (the very reason they got to speak on the Late Late Show) and thus ideologically motived to say what they had to say on this matter, I don't see bringing up there political backgrounds as a problem in this case.

But I do agree that the climate debate is becoming all too political. It is a pity that the real scientists, whether they be pro or anti Climate Change don't speak more often in the public sphere. Having the likes of de Burca claiming that certain weather events were 'climate disasters' before she quickly changed that to 'weather disasters' was just totally misleading. I am sure any climate scientist watching this squirmed in horror. I don't think anything De Burca or Monckton had to say added to the overall debate.

I agree, I was just saying that in an ideal world it shouldn't matter who says what - if it's fact then it's fact, and people should be able to see that and not the person who said it. As it happens I think Monckton won it hands down, because he stated what I believe to be fact, which people can go and research if they want. I don't care what his background is, if I agree with what he says then that's all that counts.

fizzycyst

A fact is only a fact until it's disproved IMO. But here's a reason why we should be skeptical of the so called 'climate deniers'

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jan/25/michaels-climate-sceptic-misled-congress

Now I'm neither a staunch skeptic or believer when it comes to man-made climate change, but when I hear things like this I realise why. How can we make informed decisions with the knowledge that money infiltrates science like this. Lord Monckton acted like an a**hole, if he had an honest point to make he wouldn't have tried to shout de Burca down. She was just not able for him so it was an unfair debate. I'd like to see to people from opposite sides having a good fair debate on this, as if on the late late show:rolleyes:

darkman2

Both sides of the debate are compromised by finance. But the pro AGW lobby is far more compromised then the anti Man Made lobby. Think about all the scientists now employed by Governments to research the issue. Think about all the "environmental correspondents" in media organisations across the globe alot of whose jobs now depend on AGW as being a newsworthy item. Think about the IPCC etc.........if any of these people want to sow the seeds of doubt or give an absolutely honest unbiased scientific appraisal it would be like turkeys voting for Christmas. The whole debate is a biased sham.

thetonynator

fizzycyst wrote: »

A fact is only a fact until it's disproved IMO. But here's a reason why we should be skeptical of the so called 'climate deniers'

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jan/25/michaels-climate-sceptic-misled-congress

Now I'm neither a staunch skeptic or believer when it comes to man-made climate change, but when I hear things like this I realise why. How can we make informed decisions with the knowledge that money infiltrates science like this. Lord Monckton acted like an a**hole, if he had an honest point to make he wouldn't have tried to shout de Burca down. She was just not able for him so it was an unfair debate. I'd like to see to people from opposite sides having a good fair debate on this, as if on the late late show:rolleyes:

The fact that it's in the guardian kind of devalues it . .:P

snowstreams

My opinion about AGW has swayed a few times over the last few years. But now i think its mostly natural.
I think that there is a small amount of warming from man made green house gases, but it is probably a far smaller amount than the IPCC etc say. Maybe 0.1c in the last 100 years.

I remember this program The_Great_Global_Warming_Swindle on channel 4 a few years ago.
It came out with some ridiculous 'facts' against AGW saying that most of the co2 is from volcanoes and man has had no real effect on the concentration.
After seeing this program I ended up doubting the anti AGW side. Both sides seem to be lieing for political reasons!

This is always worth a watch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOLkze-9GcI

bobblepuzzle

Deleted User wrote: »

This is always worth a watch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOLkze-9GcI

Thank you very much for posting that... I just posted it in the AH thread...

MT Cranium, any chance you could submit your view here http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056157342

planetX

all I can say is that there are a number of university departments that were languishing in underfunding until the climate change machine started to roll. Handy that.

Koyasan

Deleted User wrote: »

This is always worth a watch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOLkze-9GcI

"I have no axe to grind" .... except for a lifetime of work. You see, this is called "escalation of commitment." People will defend a position to which they have committed a lifetime of work until the day they die just because they've spent so much time building up said position.

It would be great if he actually examined global averages, but this video falls apart from the start since he uses data from a single location.

also,

The NIPCC report, which Carter contributed to, was published by the Heartland Institute, an industry-funded organization that has worked with Philip Morris to question the link between secondhand smoke and health risks, and has received $676,500 from ExxonMobil since 1998 (infor here http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=41)

Awkward :rolleyes: