This is chapter two from Donna LaFramboise's book
The Delinquent Teenager: "Showered With Praise"
For an introduction explaining why I'm reviewing this piece of work, please click here.
{Courier font identifies LaFramboise's words
Laframboise, (2011-10-09). T D T W W M W T C E (Kindle Locations 195-201). Ivy Avenue Press. Kindle Edition. }
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2 - Showered With Praise
The IPCC has lounged, for more than two decades, in a large comfy chair atop a pedestal...{she goes on for another 80 words}
Look at this wording - it has nothing to do with investigative journalism and everything with melodrama and playing up emotions and prejudices.
Her next paragraph, she misrepresents and plays up her "Climate Bible" melodrama and makes the false claim that "all agree with its conclusions."
Nonsense - the scientific discussion surrounding the IPCC compilation and the assimilation of newer information remains lively and dynamic. You can find out for yourself by looking closer at what the IPCC actually wrote or writes {http://www.ipcc.ch}.
They say the Climate Bible is written by thousands of the world's top experts who all agree with its conclusions...{followed by another hundred fifty words}...Well it's fact that the IPCC report is about the studies that thousands of scientists have taken part in, but Donna is trying to give it a villainous undercurrent.
Donna, it's like your starting attitude is that everyone is lying and then you take it from there. No one has ever claimed 100% unity, controversial ideas are discussed and there's an undercurrent of always needing more information. Nothing at all like this cartoon Donna is drawing for her audience.
Summing up her rant against the Nobel committee she claims:
If you know a bit about history, though, that Nobel speech may have left you uneasy. This is how it ended: "Action is needed now. Climate changes are already moving beyond human control."
Let us be sensible for a moment. Planet Earth is 4.5 billion years old. During that time it has endured all sorts of perfectly natural climate transformations. . .
"Let us be sensible!" and then Donna plays this game of pretending we can place the past century into the context of Earth's 4.5 billion years of evolutionary turmoil.
This underscores a profound lack of appreciation for our atmosphere as the product of Earth's evolutionary process.
It is also blind to the fact that during the past few tens of thousands years, and even more so during the past few thousand years - Earth had arrived at a very special climatic plateau. One that certainly wasn't going to last, but one that made it possible for humanity to develop into society.
This climatic plateau was a very special finely balanced thing - LaFramboise wants us to remain ignorant to all that.
To suggest that the climate has ever been within human control is surely a bit silly. Mark Twain once observed that: "...{this 50 word wanton diversion is} not worth a brass farthing."
Then Donna launches in on:
... environmentalism has become a substitute religion. It is their worldview, the lens through which they interpret everything.
Here we have what's called a Straw-man: Fabricate a creature of your own imagination tailored to the fears and feeling of your audience. Then build your story around that falsehood.
More importantly, notice that Donna once again reveals a contempt for the appreciation that this so-called "environment" is our life support system.
Instead listening to her rhetoric you'd think our "environment" was an enemy.
... For half a century we've taught our children that the planet is fragile, that humans treat it carelessly, and that we are on the brink of ecological disaster. Smart individuals armed with plenty of facts and figures argue that the opposite is actually the case. They say the state of the world is steadily improving, that it's becoming cleaner and healthier. But their voices barely register.
Notice this wording, it is pure advocacy. An investigative reporter is supposed to present, then unravel evidence - but, here again assertions are made but no evidence is present, Donna simply assumes and we're supposed to trust her word.
Ms. LaFramboise what evidence can you produce to support your claim that our planet's biosphere is getting healthier?
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The following is barely scratching the surface of evidence of serious degradatioin:
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Worldwatch Report #181: Global Environmental Change: The Threat to Human Health
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"Many indicators regarding the health of the world's environment remain firmly in the red. Trends such as climate change, water scarcity, air pollution and ecosystem degradation all continue to threaten our finite stock of natural capital and the ability of our economy to provide sustainable growth for all."
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State of the planet, in graphics
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The larger point is that because we have been told so frequently that humans are a threat to the planet we are all predisposed to believe that our actions might trigger dangerous climate change. Most of us have never seriously questioned this idea. . . .
Donna, what is this book about?
Are you talking about the foolishness of the masses?
Or are you talking about climate change?
And if you are talking about climate change, why don't you mention all the science behind the physics of greenhouse gases?
Your above words make it sound like the science is a popularity contest.
This is why the IPCC has received so little scrutiny. This is why no one noticed that conflict-of-interest guidelines were missing. {because} We all made the mistake of believing the IPCC was a gem of an organization simply because it is connected to protecting the environment.~ ~ ~
Donna makes so many melodramatic assumptions it's a joke. And what is this idea she's trying to feed us that anything less than superhuman perfection is worth dripping contempt? That the IPCC has been a failure - well, where's the evidence. Words crafted to appeal to emotions aren't enough.
Ms. LaFramboise come on, traffic cops and wild youngsters and what not - and you advertise yourself as an "Investigative Journalist"?
. . . The implication is that the IPCC has procedures and that these procedures are followed diligently. But while the IPCC has taken the time to write down some rules of the road, it has never hired any traffic cops. Since many people exceed the speed limit when police officers are plentiful, what do we suppose happens when they're entirely absent? In the real world, when undisciplined youngsters slide behind the wheel of a fast car, how many of them can be counted on to behave?
Look at this wording - talk about a melodramatic progression
Implication: Procedures followed diligently.
Does Donna discuss the rules that were in place?
Does she discuss any examples of breaches?
No it's make believe stories about cops and wild teenagers... this is LaFramboise substitute for solid information.
Donna, what I find irritating about your fairytale is that these proceeding were and are open to the concerned scientists and experts, there was/is constant discussion, there was/are conflicts, there was/is communication, there was/is the generations old scientific truth of other scientists looking over each other's shoulders. And this information becomes available to those who want to find it.
You say this was not so - but you have yet to produce evidence to support your claim, just a lot of melodramatic rhetoric!
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