From a comment at Forbes, found by R. I found it hard to believe that anyone would say such, but indeed its true:
Mr. Zwick you believe your lies and we will believe ours. The sun controls the climate not man. Our earth was more polluted back when there were very few humans roaming the earth that it is today. And that is fact. When the day comes that everyone of your believers gives up their cars, their mansions, shuts off all electricity and ceases all the dirty destructive habits you claim humans impart on the earth is the day many of us might take you seriously. Really. How can we believe a word Al Gore and any of you say when your so called " carbon footprint" is bigger than most 100 hundred people rolled together. Al Gore is the biggest liar on the face of this earth. And he is getting very rich off the lie. As are many other of the believers. Yes most of us will be dead and gone in 10-20 years but I truly hope you and your children are still around to eat your words. You demand we live like monks while you and your faithful live like Kings...
This is by karenbracken, a fairly std content-free septic ditto head (notice that she continues with an argument that, classically, is classified as the "Al Gore is fat" fallacy). But I think she has somewhat let the cat out of the bag, in a way reminiscent of The New Aristotelians. She doesn't care about the truth, or the science - to her its just a fight, with no respect for truth - or perhaps, being more generous, that she "knows" the truth, in some vague sense, but can't be bothered to find out or understand any actual facts, and somehow believes everyone else do the same.
[If you want to find the comment for yourself, its on page 31 of 32 (currently). The Forbes comment system appears to be somewhat broken; this is a nominal direct link, but it doesn't work.]
After a pause for thought
I've realised that I shouldn't be so literal. Its a great failing of mine. By "lies" she doesn't really mean lies - at least, I assume she doesn't really think she is lying (few people think that) or believing other people's lies (even fewer do that).
What she really means is something like "foundational myths", or "memes", or "well-known truths", or "common talking points", or "things assumed to be true", or even "things that need to be true in order for my world view to hold up". And in that sense, all she is doing is expressing the tendency of people to talk past each other, which you'll see so often - especially in places like the comments in WUWT. Rather than listen to or answer anyone's arguments, people just revert to "ah, but temperature isn't rising" or somesuch (or, to give the "warmist" example, "ah, but GW will destroy our ecosystems"). There is no value in such stuff; you've all heard it many times before, so has everyone else; its just ritual chanting to drown out the noises you uneasily sense coming from outside the circle.
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So she's old. I'd be tempted to say just wait until they die out, but there will always more new ones to replace them.
Natural selection at work, I guess.
Apparently Svensmark's little theory has reached it's apotheosis! He has discovered that cosmic rays are responsible for everything!
[Um yes, that was weirdly prophetic of me -W]
A Google search with keywords: "Karen Bracken" "global warming" turns up a treasure-trove of red-blooded all American tinfoilhattery. Al Gore, the UN, Agenda 21 -- you get the whole set (and I'm sure that there are some black helicopters in there somewhere).
For "lies" simply read "stories" (you've got your story, I've got mine)?
[Stories, yes. Its still a bad way to think, but at least it can be understood -W]
Curse you, RN, for pointing to that.
Having wasted a few minutes there culling through the comments of the mostly old and mostly stupid, I did see this gem of a suggestion:
"Salby and Svensmark need to get together and go on a worldwide tourâ¦"
I can only look forward to it.
Sadly, I see that some commenters, with a little goading from LS, figured out that the paper actually purports to say nothing about recent climate change. Funny how Calder neglected to make that clear.
Did you really mean "septic" ditto head?
[Yes -W]
Actually I think you got it right first time, with no need for the second clarification part.
Take these people's claims that the climate scientists are engaged in a massive fraud.
Committing a fraud that involves at the very least a tacit prediction - temperatures will continue to rise as CO2 does*, is a very stupid thing to do. Because odds are temperatures won't continue to rise and after at least two or three decades, without any mitigating factors, you'll be shown wrong.
That the deniers continue to peddle the fraud meme shows that it hasn't occurred to them that it's stupid. They don't think that far, they really are content with whatever garbage surports their fantasies. Furthermore they're happy to resort to the fraud meme because that's how they carry out their 'intellectual endeavours'.
*Before anyone claims the recent abatement of warming disproves AGW 1) Acquaint yourselves with basic statistics 2) Read Kaufman and Foster/Rahmstorf on the reasons for the recent abatement.
W.
You write
"... all she is doing is expressing the tendency of people to talk past each other, which you'll see so often - especially in places like the comments in WUWT. Rather than listen to or answer anyone's arguments, people just revert to "ah, but temperature isn't rising" or somesuch (or, to give the "warmist" example, "ah, but GW will destroy our ecosystems")."
But aren't you just talking past her? You't response is just implying the same old argument that global warming is happening but there is no need to worry.
[Not really. I'm making no attempt to reply to, or rebut, any of her comments. I'm commenting on her comments -W]
It is obvious to anyone who understands (very few) that exponential economic growth cannot continue indefinitely; that we greenies who say that 3 car and >2 child families are immoral, are spot on. (I think you have 3 kids, so no doubt you regard what I am writing as politically correct rubbish.)
[2 in fact. However... everyone can indeed have 3 cars without indefinite exponential growth -W]
She is quite right. You pseudo-greenies are not willing to give up your cars, nor is Al Gore willing to give up his private plane. You don't respond to her that if she gives up her SUV you will give up your Citroen CV. Your Citroen CV is too precious to you.
[I didn't read her argument. I don't think she was saying that. If she was, it would be nonsense -W]
We have been hit by a double whammy. We have run out of resources and global warming is about to hit us. When are folks like you going to waken up to reality?
Cheers, Alastair.
Honestly, I think you're reading too much into that initial sentence. I interpret it as a malformed paraphrase, in which she tried to copy the familiar form of "you have your opinions, we have ours" while still imparting the sentiment that "your 'facts' are all lies". The fact that the sentence explicitly acknowledges that her own side has lies of its own seems much more attributable to compositional flub than to some hidden wellspring of self-awareness.
Did Alastair just call William a lukewarmer?
[Alastair was not quite polite -W]
Those wishing to check for more prodigious quotes in future should try the site originally reporting the discovery:
http://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/
[Your html was broken, I hope I've fixed it -W]
These aren't comparable. The temperature has risen and will continue to, and GW already has and will continue to contribute to damage of ecosystem services that support human civilization.
In the case of 'the "warmist" example', that's your own ritual chanting.
Did Alastair just call William a lukewarmer?
I saw James Annan described as a lukewarmer on Judith Curry's blog a few months ago. Pretty soon the IPCC will be co-opted as a lukewarmer organisation.
Speaking of James Annan, I just noticed he has a Wiki page which basically describes him as a gambling addict. Some of your work o' grand gatekeeper of Wikipedia?
[I doubt it, though I know I've touched it. The problem is that for most scientists their actual work rarely gets reported in anything that wiki would consider a "RS", and people dislike lists of publications -W]
Kindest interpretation:
"We're just going to talk past each other. No matter what I say, you'll think I believe lies and I know that you believe lies. So you believe yours, I'll believe mine- but I'm right."
Good post. It's hard to analyze something as meaningful in any rational sense when it's so over the top it would be almost impossible to parody. It's like listening to someone shout out loud their immature, triumphal day dreams. You'd think any reasonably self-aware adult would be embarrassed to be seen doing this in public, but that's the world we live in now. You have to wonder where civilization is headed when this sort of garbage can be presented as legitimate political discourse.
Having spent the last 13 years as a writer and administrator at a scientific institution, it would be great if someone could tell me how to get a gathering of scientists to agree on anything long enough to have a conspiracy.
[:-). As you say. I think that the conspiracy claims just show how utterly out of touch with actual science the septics are -W]
It has long been easier to believe in the conspiracies of others than organize one of one's own.
Russell, speak for yourself.
Our Conspiracy has been remarkably successful: our past achievements go as far back as the Greenwich Meridian and the International Time Zone System, and the Metric System (okay, so the anglophone world is fighting back, but we'll get you in the end); then, later the Geneva Conventions and the Internet. The Montreal Treaty was an interesting case too as signatories continue to believe it was voluntary... but, you know, our most spectacular success was that of Comrade Tyndall in the 1860's, planting a meme which is still found in all the world's geography textbooks, that the "snow tops" of high mountains are made up of actual snow, not powder sugar... that feat has yet to be outdone. The work goes on.
Resistance is futile.
Heil Svante!
Someone is, I hope, doing a PhD thesis by catching these things at the beginning then tracking how they spread, how they're rebutted, and whether any of the copypasters notice.
This may set a record for now:
http://www.samefacts.com/2012/04/wayward-press/death-before-dishonor-de…
Pretty soon the IPCC will be co-opted as a lukewarmer organisation.
Well, it's happened. The IPCC is lukewarm.