Althouse: "We know who the active denialists are – not the people who buy the lies, mind you, but the people who create the lies."

April 21, 2012

"We know who the active denialists are – not the people who buy the lies, mind you, but the people who create the lies."

"Let’s start keeping track of them now, and when the famines come, let’s make them pay. Let’s let their houses burn. Let’s swap their safe land for submerged islands. Let’s force them to bear the cost of rising food prices. They broke the climate. Why should the rest of us have to pay for it?"

54 comments:

Wally Kalbacken said...: I'll have more to say about when the famines come... after I get another Klondike Krunch Bar from the freezer.; 4/21/12, 8:25 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: I haven't looked but I got an Elisabeth Warren flash.; 4/21/12, 8:25 PM
Richard said...: Writing for Forbes Magazine, climate change alarmist Steve Zwick calls for skeptics of man-made global warming to be tracked, hunted down and have their homes burned to the ground,

Oh the irony, that will just add more C02 to the atmosphere. These warmist are not just bat shit crazy, but also they evil.; 4/21/12, 8:28 PM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: ... and this is what it was always about- making Them pay.; 4/21/12, 8:28 PM
Rialby said...: Now, would those be Stalinist famines or Maoist famines?; 4/21/12, 8:28 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Wow..

Some environmentalist.. so judge mental.; 4/21/12, 8:31 PM
traditionalguy said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 4/21/12, 8:33 PM
bgates said...: Writing for Forbes Magazine

What the hell.; 4/21/12, 8:33 PM
traditionalguy said...: That is a fantasy within a fantasy.

There is no effect from CO2 trace gas on the climate. Zero. None. It'e all a Big Lie.

But someone is making the sun spots go away and the cosmic rays form more cloud cover which is is making the atmosphere enter a maunder minimum phase of global cooling by 2.5 degreesF.

That's who needs to be identified. Or just make up a pagan witchcraft myth of the need for millions of human sacrifices to the Sun god Osiris The Environmental Spirit.

Atheism, there's nothing like it. With no God, there can be any god anyone wants to make up down at the Climate Science Temple.; 4/21/12, 8:34 PM
Christopher said...: Thankfully many of the skeptics are well armed.

God bless the 2nd Amendment.; 4/21/12, 8:36 PM
C R Krieger said...: What if you accept AGW is real, but you don't really care, believing the positives might well outweigh the negatives?

Regards — Cliff; 4/21/12, 8:46 PM
Fernandinande said...: At first glance I read the title as:
"We know who the activists are – not the people who buy the lies, mind you, but the people who create the lies."; 4/21/12, 8:48 PM
Ambrose said...: Let's make it a fair game. When the famines and floods do not come. Let's go after the alarmists and burn their houses and take their stuff. Blow CO2 in their faces.; 4/21/12, 8:48 PM
Saint Croix said...: These people are frickin' insane.

Is Obama one of them?; 4/21/12, 8:52 PM
Tibore said...: Infowars? Well there's the frikkin' problem right there: It's a dipshit's hangout site. It was created by a paranoid loon and is a magnet for the idiots on the internet.

Why link them? I wouldn't trust that site if they said the sun'll rise in the east; anything they'd be right about they'd be right about by mistake, not by design or effort.

Who cares what the topic is. It's frothing-mouth city over there. It's best to ignore them.; 4/21/12, 8:52 PM
Anonymous said...: Ice ages being as common as they have been and having as short an onset period as have sometimes had, I think human suffering at the onset of a new ice age would be relieved by a micro-degree or two by the spectacle of the AGW priesthood contorting their theory to blame global cooling on the same villains as global warming. To expect them to admit error in that case is too much to hope for and wouldn't be nearly as amusing.; 4/21/12, 8:53 PM
SGT Ted said...: "Lets be Fascists."

There, edited for brevity and clarity.; 4/21/12, 8:55 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Environmentalist goes nuclear.; 4/21/12, 9:01 PM
Michael K said...: Would it be OK if the denialists allowed, say, ten years then hunted down that twerp and burned his house to the ground with him in it ?; 4/21/12, 9:03 PM
edutcher said...: Now you know why firearm sales have skyrocketed in the last 4 years.; 4/21/12, 9:06 PM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: Radical environmentalists are far more likely to cause a famine than anything any skeptic could do.

For the last century the two primary causes of famine were wars and bad governments. Most of those governments were Communist.

So, ideologies kill people.; 4/21/12, 9:13 PM
paul a'barge said...: Waiting for you, Steve Zwick. Come on by.

Oh what the heck. I'll come to you. Send me your home address. Do you smell that odor of something burning? Yep. It's your flesh.; 4/21/12, 9:20 PM
1775OGG said...: The only poeple worse than Al Gore's idiotic followers are those who follow Alex Jones, who's also a true nut case. Of course, Jones must be good since his voice sounds so much like that Scruffy former governor from Minnesota. Nah, both Jones and that other are two of a kind.; 4/21/12, 9:30 PM
yashu said...: Cliff,

I think there's a significant difference between those who may believe in AGW (as a scientific theory) and those who believe in CAGW (Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming).

The "C" is what is taken to justify the arrogation of vast governmental power to drastically regulate (and thereby devastate) the world economy-- and in the process effect an immense global redistribution of wealth. The "C" is what is taken to justify not only draconian diktats but even the terrorizing of citizens advocated here.

One is taking a position on the validity or probability of a scientific theory. The other is adhering to a radical political agenda.; 4/21/12, 9:39 PM
Steve Koch said...: Many of the global warming alarmists are going out of their minds with rage now that they are losing the battle.

For Obama, the strategy of raising energy prices during a recession was inevitably political suicide. This summer the gas prices are going to keep going up and Romney will keep hammering Obama about his ecofascist energy policies (killing drilling in the Gulf and ANWAR, harassing the directional drillers, opposing the pipeline from Canada, EPA shutting down coal plants, attempting to pass cap and trade, etc).; 4/21/12, 10:18 PM
bagoh20 said...: If you just woke up from a 30 year sleep and knew nothing at all about the climate controversy, would you tend to believe the side calling for this kind of approach against the opposing view. The message is basically: "We're the crazy violent side, you can trust us to be rational and scientific."

Lately, a lot of people have been drowning in their hypocrisy and bullshit. It's just one thing after another.; 4/21/12, 10:37 PM
Synova said...: "The message is basically: "We're the crazy violent side, you can trust us to be rational and scientific.""

Heh.

I figure that an alarmist who isn't agitating in a real way for nuclear power is a liar.

As for who broke the climate... I have it on good authority that it was the Chinese...

... 8000 years ago.

D*mn rice farmers.

And if rice farming by pre-industrial people in a few areas of the world was enough to add global methane at levels that caused warming... we're simply screwed.

We're better off looking for the bright side, and identifying those areas where we'll have to do what humans do best... adapt.; 4/21/12, 11:02 PM
chickelit said...: Yashu wrote: The "C" is what is taken to justify the arrogation of vast governmental power to drastically regulate (and thereby devastate) the world economy-- and in the process effect an immense global redistribution of wealth. The "C" is what is taken to justify not only draconian diktats but even the terrorizing of citizens advocated here.

I sincerely don't understand why the draconic measures and the redistribution must be coupled. They seem like two unrelated goals. Why can't the Western, developed world "enjoy" the proposed taxes and any fruits of new technology? I always found the "we must commit suicide in order to save Africa" thinking highly offensive. I got into this briefly with Ritmo on my blog after I read what I considered a very inflammatory booklet published by Oxford University Press: link; 4/21/12, 11:02 PM
caseym54 said...: For a moment I thought the "denialists" were the public employee unions and the crisis was public bankruptcy. BUt that can't be the case, since we have no intention of making public employees go without even a dime of their back-room-begot pensions. No, we will loot other people's 401(k)s.; 4/21/12, 11:28 PM
Chip Ahoy said...: In Russia climate break you.; 4/21/12, 11:34 PM
bagoh20 said...: There is a kind of cultural hypochondria that is different for the right and left but in the same way on each side takes any hint of a possible problem and quickly expands it into a meme of disaster in need of action and attacking someone.

For the right, it's usually some kind of cultural decline or government overreaching or corruption. For the left it's environmental disaster or power plays by the rich. This often metastasizes into conspiracy theories on both sides. The whole hypochondriac response - just like with common physical hypochondria - is very lucrative for a wide swath of people and institutions. Many people make a living off of fear and overreaction to even slight risks. It's amazing how many of these very expensive and zeitgeist dominating fears never develop into anything more than a fad, and yet some of them still never completely go away.; 4/22/12, 12:13 AM
Tyrone Slothrop said...: Environmentalists = flagellants.

The end is coming. The only way to avoid eternal torment is by punishing ourselves. It is written.; 4/22/12, 12:37 AM
Penny said...: So me and Forrest Gump were sittin' on a bench eating a box of Godiva chocolates while swatting flies with my current issue of Forbes.

I say, "Forrest! Would you mind if I call you, Woody?"

He says, "No, ma'am. But my friends like to call me Metaphorical."

Made me think some.

So I finally have the gumption to say, "Woody, we aren't friends. We're just sharing a bench and a few chocolates!"

Course he smiles wide about now and reminds me I brought the Forbes to the bench and that kills the pesky flies who want at our chocolates.

And he's quite right about that.

So I call him, Meta Woody, and he seems to like that.; 4/22/12, 3:57 AM
Penny said...: Doesn't take much. Does it?

Ha ha; 4/22/12, 3:58 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: Let’s start keeping track of them now, and when the famines come, let’s make them pay.

It is an article of faith in these alarmists that famine will come with the warming. Never mind the Medieval Warming Period, when the English were able to grow grapes for wine, and the Vikings were able to settle Greenland and Vinland. They ignore that man has tended to thrive when the Earth was a bit warmer, and suffer when it was a bit cooler.

Now, two trends would seem to suggest that we would have more food available with a warmer Earth. First, if you look at the globe, one of the things that you should notice is that a lot of the landmass is in the northern climes. Indeed, as a result of this, a large percentage of the Earth's landmass is unfarmable, because it never unfreezes. Think huge swathes of three of the four largest countries in the world (Russia (esp. Siberia), Canada, and the U.S.), and maybe even the fourth (China). I calculated a couple of years ago that moving the freeze line north 100 miles or so would likely create billions of acres of potential farmland.

Secondly, warmer air carries more moisture. This is why we see snow in the mountains - the air cools as it rises to go over the mountains, and has to dump its excess H2O.

Third, three big things involved with AGW increase plant growth: CO2 concentration; warmth; and H2O. All potentially increase with AGW.

The amount of land that will be lost to cultivation would likely be de minimis. When the Earth warms, the warming is far more significant nearer the poles and much less significant nearer the equator. This has to do with how air carries heat. Also, the rise in the sea levels that we see have also been de minimis.

If the freeze line moves toward the poles, with the areas closer to the poles heating up more than those closer to the equator, the result should be that the crops that now thrive at a lower latitudes will migrate towards higher latitudes. It used to be that it took significant time for this migration to happen, given the limitations in transportation that we had until fairly recently. No longer - what used to take decades, if not centuries, can now be done in weeks or months.

The fall back seems to be that the alarmists have models that show the potential for droughts based apparently on different wind and weather patterns. But, of course, these models cannot be tested, at least not over the relevant time period, and they defy both physics and history. But, other than that, they seem almost credible.; 4/22/12, 5:01 AM
Pastafarian said...: Chicken little: "I sincerely don't understand why the draconic measures and the redistribution must be coupled."

Because the redistributionists are not really as concerned about giving to the poor, as they are with taking from the rich.

When asked if he'd still raise taxes on upper incomes, even if he knew it would actually decrease total government revenue, Obama said he still would raise those taxes, because "fairness", that's why.

It's so unfair that society values the contributions of builders and doers, of industrialists and engineers and entrepreneurs, more than they do those of sociology and poli sci majors, tree hugging hippies and academics in parasitic nonproductive fields. Those squares in business and engineering end up making more money, driving nicer cars, hell, they even get the better looking women.

(Although Michelle does have those stunning arms. And see the photo at St Croix's 8:57 link for a real hottie.)

So let's take it all away from them. That's the underlying motivation behind today's left: covetousness and petulance.; 4/22/12, 7:11 AM
HT said...: Richard said...

Writing for Forbes Magazine, climate change alarmist Steve Zwick calls for skeptics of man-made global warming to be tracked, hunted down and have their homes burned to the ground,

Oh the irony, that will just add more C02 to the atmosphere. These warmist are not just bat shit crazy, but also they evil.
4/21/12 8:28 PM
_____________

I know you are quoting para 1, but I don't think Zwick ever advocated burning homes to the ground.

But, whatever.; 4/22/12, 7:26 AM
Toad Trend said...: Everyone needs to note the ANGER in their point of view.

The Debbie Downer, deranged left in this country is an enemy that can no longer be tolerated.

"Many people make a living off of fear and overreaction to even slight risks."

= politicians and other omniscients that don't derive their living from actually producing something.

'Cultural managers'.; 4/22/12, 7:31 AM
HT said...: It's comforting to know there is a place I can come to where everyone knows that the rest of the country does not buy into global warming. But eventually, I must flee the nest.

Most Americans believe that global warming has played a role in a series of unusual weather events during the past year.

A poll released today by the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication found that 72 percent of Americas believe global warming played a role in the very warm winter the United States just experienced.

The poll found that most Americans linked these events — "record high summer temperatures in the U.S. in 2011 (70%), the drought in Texas and Oklahoma in 2011 (69%), record snowfall in the U.S. in 2010 and 2011 (61%), the Mississippi River floods in the spring of 2011 (63%), and Hurricane Irene (59%)" — to global warming.

But maybe 2011 is just an island, unique unto itself. In 2012 we got back to 'normal' afterall.; 4/22/12, 7:37 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: Most Americans believe that global warming has played a role in a series of unusual weather events during the past year.

So, science, again, becomes a popularity contest. But, that leaves the denialists at a significant disadvantage in relation to the alarmists, since the MSM is filled with the later, and almost devoid of the former. Probably worse than the funding discrepancy between the two groups.

But, does this mean that these two university groups are going to go back to "global warming" instead of "climate change" because so many of those who know so little about the subject believe in the former?

The basic problem I see there is that while both "global warming" and "climate change" may have the same purported root cause (CO2, conveniently), they have very different climatic ramifications. Maybe. No one really knows yet, as far as I can tell, the ramifications of anthropogenic "climate change". I am sure that when they have had time to work on this for awhile, the "concerned scientists" will be able to come up with some hypothetical horribles that we are assured will certainly maybe see if we are very, very, unlucky. But right now, they are stuck with theoretical horribles for a different anthropogenic catastrophe than the one we are supposedly currently experiencing.; 4/22/12, 8:57 AM
HT said...: Nice taking the quote out of context. What I said was that people in this comments section think that Americans do not buy in to global warming.

So, science, again, becomes a popularity contest.

I never argued the science one way or the other in my comment. I can, I will, I have, but in that instance I did not.

But by all means, carry on.; 4/22/12, 9:11 AM
Crimso said...: "I don't think Zwick ever advocated burning homes to the ground."

You're absolutely correct. He advocated letting the homes of certain people burn down. Rather like the "deniers" (i.e., the scientifically literate) refusing the "alarmists" (i.e., lay people and scientists who should know better) medical care. Or, say, birth control.; 4/22/12, 9:14 AM
Anonymous said...: This is a staple of certain religious belief. It starts in the legend of Noah, goes through Sodom and Gomorrah, meanders through the legend of Atlantis and we find today in the Rapture beliefs, radical environmentalism, and a dozen other places.

It's always the same. Mankind has sinned. Those who keep sinning are destined to die in fire or flood. But WE, the righteous, will live on in a new world purged of evildoers.

It's doubly funny with the environmentalists because they are mostly high IQ people who think think themselves very clever indeed, proving once more that brains are no substitute for wisdom.; 4/22/12, 9:34 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: Nice taking the quote out of context. What I said was that people in this comments section think that Americans do not buy in to global warming.

Why should that matter? And, no, I don't think that the "denialists" here believe that (most) Americans believe in their folly. That is just something that I think you read into this. That a larger percentage of the posters here disbelieve in anthropogenic potential catastrophes (cooling, warming, climate change, etc.) has little to do with the points being made here.

I questioned your use of polling data here for that reason - that you were the one bringing popularity into the discussion.; 4/22/12, 9:41 AM
HT said...: It's doubly funny with the environmentalists because they are mostly high IQ people who think think themselves very clever indeed, proving once more that brains are no substitute for wisdom.

While I disagree with the notion of making sweeping generalizations about "environmentalists," I second your thought, in the general sense. Something funny I read in a local paper's comment section: "I swear, Washington, DC has the dumbest smart people anywhere."

I just love that. I see it everyday.; 4/22/12, 9:49 AM
Original Mike said...: These guys remind me of the guy with the sandwitch board; "THE END IS NEAR".; 4/22/12, 9:55 AM
Dante said...: One should not be so harsh on Steve Zwick. After all, he has been subjected to a certain kind of old testament propaganda by Al Gore.

The Seas will Rise!

Plague and Pestilence will rule the day!

Famine will decimate the population, and war will break out!

What is odd to me, though, is many people who really buy into the catastrophic global warming theory believe those who don't are "flat earthers". It's pretty amazing.; 4/22/12, 9:56 AM
Real American said...: Seriously, let's look at who pushes the climate change delusion: big government politicians, crony capitalists, environmentalist wackos, MSM, academics, "scientists" on the government dole. did I leave anyone out? Is there any reason why any sane person would believe a word of the propaganda that these purveyors of doom fling at us? NOPE.; 4/22/12, 10:37 AM
Seeing Red said...: Himalayan glaciers actually GAINING ice, space scans show

An inconvenient truth

new study of survey data gleaned from space has shown a vast region of Himalayan glaciers is actually gaining ice steadily, mystifying climate scientists who had thought the planet's "third pole" to be melting.

The study was carried out by comparing two sets of space data, the first gathered by instruments aboard the space shuttle Endeavour in 2000 and the second by the French SPOT5 satellite in 2008. The results were unequivocal. Across the targeted 5,615km2 region of the Karakorum mountains lying on the Chinese border with India and Pakistan, the glaciers had gained substantial amounts of mass by the time the second survey was carried out. Satellite pictures had previously shown the glaciers there spreading to cover more area, but some climate scientists had argued that they might nonetheless be losing ice by becoming thinner: this has now been disproven....; 4/22/12, 11:40 AM
Crimso said...: "mystifying climate scientists"

It's not difficult to mystify any type of scientist who thinks they have "it" figured out ("it" depends on what ever their specialty is). I am painfully aware of how little we truly do know about what I study, and what I study is a class of enzymes that has been studied for over 40 years. Even simple parts of complex systems are full of surprises.

One guy even "proved" (in his doctoral dissertation) via computer modeling that a certain part of the mechanism of one of these enzymes was exactly the opposite of that indicated by every shred of experimental evidence. His dissertation committee signed off on it. They actually signed off on someone advancing the notion that theory trumps evidence. I can provide a name and an institution if I must (you can read his dissertation online), but would prefer to do so privately (don't like to laugh out loud at someone else's expense; it's not polite).; 4/22/12, 12:03 PM
John henry said...: Tyrone,

No. The way to avoid damnation is not by punishing ourselves. It is by punishing others.

Like the lady in another fora who criticizes my preference for coffee in K-Cups "An environmental nightmare" while jetting about the world on vacation trips.

Why are people allowd to say these kinds of things "Burn down their houses" and not suffer legal consequences?

John Henry

John Henry; 4/22/12, 12:33 PM
Carnifex said...: I was talking with an old farmer the other day. Been doin' it for 6 decades. He's seen everything. He believes in global warming. He see's it every year. But he tells me it's not the CO2. Plants need CO2 to survive and we need plants making oxygen to survive.

"Nope" he tells me, "it's that damned daylight savings time!"

"That hour of extra daylight is burning my crops right up"; 4/22/12, 7:45 PM
MadisonMan said...: I will caution you about extrapolating between two points.; 4/22/12, 10:04 PM
Paul said...: It is obvious that the 'climate change' extremist are just as bad as the animal rights extremist.

They are both terrorist organizations what will kill to achieve their idea of utopia'. They really believe the ends justify the means.

And later, if not climate change, then they 'saved' the world. And if there is climate change, well they still 'saved' the world. So it's a win-win in their book no matter how many they kill.

Not much different from Stalin or Mao or Hitler.; 4/22/12, 10:31 PM