Sunday 30 August 2009

I Should Have Known...

... shouldn't I? The least slighting reference to the eternal verities of the warmist creed and the Anonymouses of this world pitch in, bringing an unwelcome touch of bile to a blog normally characterised (I like to think) by good humour, good manners, sweetness and light - oh and foppish snorting of course. I'm not even a denier, merely a sceptic - it seems to me the only sustainable(!) position with a subject so vast and so little understood and in the face of warmist proposals that would, if fully enacted, give the world's economies more of a pasting than anything, ever, world wars included. To inflict that sort of thing on the world, you need to be absolutely sure of your ground - far surer than is possible in the present state of knowledge. The hysterical stridency of the warmists' assertions and their denunciations of other views look less like science to me than religion - this is the attitude of the religious zealot, priggishly asserting the purity and rigour of his belief, not the scientist rationally defending a theory. And the more prominent warmists don't endear themselves to the rest of us when their actions so conspicuously contradict their beliefs - e.g. Prince Charles recently jetting around South America with his huge entourage of retainers, warning us how little time we've got to 'save the planet' (the planet? I think the planet will be fine, thanks Chazza) while emitting more carbon that the rest of us would manage in a lifetime of Easyjet holidays. It seems that We - the unenlightened plebs - must mend our ways, not Them - the elect, the illuminati, the saved. A plague on 'em, I say (snorts foppishly and exits, vowing never to mention the subject again).

13 comments:

  1. Google alerts do make it increasingly hard to just have some good foppish snorty fun. At best you get Anonymous single-issue merchants roaming the blogscape looking for dissent to quash.

    At worst you describe a non-posh eco-warrior as a 'fabulously bad poet' and the man himself comes and does a de Botton on you.

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  2. Ah brilliant! What larks...

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  3. "Dumb rednecks on the right, foppish snorters on the left, but still I stood firm."

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  4. Remember the mantra, "Nothing is ever simple."

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  5. Yes, come the Revolution we will cut them off at the light bulbs! Even so, I wonder what Prince Charles is doing in South America. Perhaps his huge retinue of "restrainers" have told him that he's on a tour of the Scottish Highlands. Expect to see tossing the capybara introduced at the next Highland Games.

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  6. It's a shame that you managed to miss the point so completely, Nige. You got the point backwards on how predictions work - and that has nothing to do with being a warmist. it's a simple matter of mathematics. But why should you care? It's much easier to make cheap remarks, assisted by the willing folly of a small coterie. By all means, remain locked in a provincial slumber of ignorance. You have the right to your own intellectual dishonesty, but it does you no credit. As for the idiocy of Brit, suggesting that people want to squash dissent - well, perhaps Brit would like to reflect on his inability to offer a serious or sustained argument on these issues. Glib remarks and dishonest blog postings are a poor substitute for real discussion.

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  7. well, perhaps Brit would like to reflect on his inability to offer a serious or sustained argument on these issues.

    Um... nah, you're all right mate.

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  8. Okay then Anon, could you tell me where's the evidence that longterm forecasting is any better than short-term - and please also tell me what is short and what is long term when you're dealing with climate change? Seems to me the warmists are thinking very short-term indeed, stressing the problem is immediate and urgent - we've got till 2020 to save the planet etc - or is that longterm, therefore more reliable?

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  9. Well, I'm glad somebody raised this point. I demand less snorting and more foppishness.

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  10. Who's a warmist? Not me -- I'm a scientist. I trust the scientific method, and am confident in the strength of the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis in its broadest outlines. "Strength", not "truth", because "truth" and its attendant certainty don't exist in science.

    So, what to do? I don't know. But I'm certain about two things. First, multi-national treaties are useless mechanisms for accomplishing anything. If they worked, there would be far fewer middle-aged American reservists and far more 20-year-old Europeans in Afghanistan. Second, there will be no magic moment in the future when the global warming question is "answered".

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  11. What's a Google alert?

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  12. Jeepers, Anon- you couldn't come off sounding like more of a pompous, self righteous tosser had you tried. Or were you trying?

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