{updated with some information regarding the interviewer and his for profit "think tank" 3/8/15}
Now I get to one of the architects and a Godfather of 'slander as a weapon for scientific persuasion' and profit, Dr. Richard Lindzen.
I submit this text-book example of why he deserves that honorific. I found it in one of Dr. Dessler's video shorts, though the original is from an interview at the Center for Industrial Progress' "Power Hour." This is only 2:20 minutes long, but it says plenty.
Now I get to one of the architects and a Godfather of 'slander as a weapon for scientific persuasion' and profit, Dr. Richard Lindzen.
I submit this text-book example of why he deserves that honorific. I found it in one of Dr. Dessler's video shorts, though the original is from an interview at the Center for Industrial Progress' "Power Hour." This is only 2:20 minutes long, but it says plenty.
Lindzen talks about environmentalists
(there is no visual) |
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0:00 Lindzen: ... you're touching on something interesting, which is environmentalism, whatever it's nastiness and ugliness, it is largely an urban phenomena. And I think it really, really depends on people having no sense of what nature is at all.
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What an astoundingly hostile and ignorant thing to say.
"Environmentalism" is a term defining an attitude towards recognizing the biological webs that sustain our planet's life support system - also known as our biosphere.
It's not a people, nor a party - but Lindzen won't allow himself to recognize that. All he sees is enemies.
It's not a people, nor a party - but Lindzen won't allow himself to recognize that. All he sees is enemies.
Listen to Lindzen going straight for the jugular:
"environmentalism = nastiness and ugliness"
There's nothing rational about it, it's political theater and hate mongering for votes and profit, nothing more.
"environmentalism, political and ethical movement that seeks to improve and protect the quality of the natural environment through changes to environmentally harmful human activities; through the adoption of forms of political, economic, and social organization that are thought to be necessary for, or at least conducive to, the benign treatment of the environment by humans; and through a reassessment of humanity’s relationship with nature.
In various ways, environmentalism claims that living things other than humans, and the natural environment as a whole, are deserving of consideration in reasoning about the morality of political, economic, and social policies."
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Lindzen: It depends on attracting people for whom nature itself is almost a meaningless concept, and they'll believe anything.
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As meaningless a concept as it is for Dr. Lindzen?
The man who willfully ignores down to Earth natural facts, such as:
§ The evidence that our burning of fossil fuels is causing our "global heat distribution engine" to warm up.
§ That warming (read, energizing) our global heat distribution engine impact the rhythms of the global biosphere that humanity and society has developed within.
§ That a warming climate system energizes our atmosphere's hydrology, both by increasing the amount of water the troposphere holds and by increasing the energy that needs to be dissipated?
§ That our food supply systems dependent on the established rhythms of our 'current' seasons and rain patterns.
§ That increasingly warming planet will cause it's cryosphere to continue melting at increasing rates.
§ That melting and warming cause global sea levels to rise.
§ That rising sea levels wll impact coastal installations such a shipping ports, oil refineries, coastal cities and subsurface infrastructure, tourist hotel strips, and barrier island real estate holdings, estuaries and water-tables, to mention but a few.
Sea level rise blog
Dr. Lindzen doesn't even seem to comprehend that the math of compounding interest is for real. And that warming trends are for real.
The man is in no position to talk about anyone else's disconnect from the "nature" that sustains us!
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0:35 I think, how should I put it, in America it's much clearer than elsewhere, that these things have become right/left issues and you almost have the feeling with people like (John) Holdren and (Paul) Ehrlich and people on the left and their ilk.
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I question the moral fiber of a person capable of such profound and malcious categorizing, labeling and exterminating of respected reputations and ideas, with a wave of his imperious hand.
Not the slightest curiosity of what these highly accomplished individuals might have to teach us. Instead our Dr. Lindzen has his litmus test and depends on slander for easy dismissal of voices he doesn't want to hear.
Why do we allow it?
Don't we need all sides to work out realistic solutions?
Not the slightest curiosity of what these highly accomplished individuals might have to teach us. Instead our Dr. Lindzen has his litmus test and depends on slander for easy dismissal of voices he doesn't want to hear.
Why do we allow it?
Don't we need all sides to work out realistic solutions?
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Lindzen: That their greatest enemy is prosperity, and ah, without, if you could get a prosperity and dependent population that would be docile.
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It's like some cheap Italian Opera: the bad environmentalists who hate our way of life, waa, waa, waa… It never crosses Dr. Lindzen's mind, that most environmentally conscientious people are as in love with modern gadgets and marvels, as he is?
But these people appreciate that we can't hide from the real harm all those wonderful modern marvels are causing to the web of life that sustains us.
And their "environmentalism" was/is their way of trying to achieve a sustainable society where our children could continue enjoying our prosperity - rather than the current guaranteed dive bomb into challenges and terrors we can't even imagine yet, that climate science denialism is steering us into.
But these people appreciate that we can't hide from the real harm all those wonderful modern marvels are causing to the web of life that sustains us.
And their "environmentalism" was/is their way of trying to achieve a sustainable society where our children could continue enjoying our prosperity - rather than the current guaranteed dive bomb into challenges and terrors we can't even imagine yet, that climate science denialism is steering us into.
Why don't the super smart Lindzens of the world ever stop to realize that our marvelous modern society is dependent on this "environment" he/they display such disregard for?
Dr. Lindzen's contempt is also reflected in the fact that he discourages learning about our planet's 'global heat distribution engine' - instead seeming to have a pathological focus on 'economy' and 'free market business' as though that's more powerful than our planet's life support systems that made all this possible in the first place.
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Alex Epstein (past fellow of the Ayn Rand Institute.): And have a low environmental impact?
1:10 Lindzen: I don't think they care about it anymore than the Soviet Union cared about it, to be honest. It's just a vehicle. There's nothing in the environmental movement that if you look at it carefully is actually concerned with the environment, they just use it as a kind of device.
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This one is very telling.
HELLO DR. LINDZEN it's 2015, wake up, the Cold War is over! Though this highlights Dr. Lindzen's problem, he's still trapped within the mind warp of the Cold Warrior and is blind to everything else.
HELLO DR. LINDZEN it's 2015, wake up, the Cold War is over! Though this highlights Dr. Lindzen's problem, he's still trapped within the mind warp of the Cold Warrior and is blind to everything else.
As for looking at it carefully, Lindzen has never attempted to do that, he's content with cheap talk and name-calling, as is his audience.
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Alex: What about the non-human environment?
1:35 Lindzen: Well like what? (in a tone bewilderment)
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Listen to the tone in the man's voice. He can't even conceive of the notion.
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Alex: Well like the kangaroo rat that they save at the expense of a home.
1:45 Lindzen: What about a kangaroo rat?
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This got a chuckle outta me, now I shared Lindzen's confusion, where did that kangaroo rat come from?
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Alex: I'm just saying that their core belief seems to be that they're willing to sacrifice human well-being to wilderness. Untouched nature.
2:00 Lindzen: Yeah, I think that's just a device, to control. I don't think it's a real concern. If you can pass a radical enough law about endangered species that's another mode of control.
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Now I get what Alex was driving at. But, he's mistaken. The battle to protect "untouched nature" was lost around the time of the Great War (WWI and WWII). Environmentalism has since been reduced to attempting to save remnant patches of relatively unspoiled biodiversity.
But, more important than that - "environmentalism" is about "Earth Appreciation" after all this planet nurtured mankind and makes our existence possible - our health and wellbeing in directly linked to our biosphere's health and wellbeing. Something Republicans and libertarians do their best to ignore!
I mean curiosity and learning about the incredible folds within folds of harmonic complexity cascading down the river of time that make up this world surrounding us. All those communities and networks and dynamic circulation patterns and interactions that make Earth the wondrous, unique place it is.
But wait, there's more! The purely pragmatic, self interested, angle - our society is absolutely dependent on those folds of complexity and fairly benign and predictable weather patterns. Environmentalism is about better understanding and appreciating those patterns that make our existence possible, in the first place!
What kind of fools are willfully blind to the realities of the planet that sustains us? Believing in a "Holy" book and a Business Plan with every ounce of one's being doesn't change the rules our planet has abided by since the beginnings of time.
Dr. Lindzen, environmentalism is about accepting the geophysical realities of our planet Earth. Why do you hold all of that in such contempt? Why do you advocate willful ignorance?
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Some information about this Alex character and his Randian for profit think tank:
"Center for Industrial Progress"
Some information about this Alex character and his Randian for profit think tank:
"Center for Industrial Progress"
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Review: “The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels”. Really?
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CPAC panelist (Alex Epstein) accuses climate activists of “human racism”
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CPAC Panelist: 'Human Racism' Drives Climate Change Concern
Miranda Blue on Saturday, 3/8/2014
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Global Warming's Denier Elite
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Dissecting professor Lindzen's intrinsic obtuseness:
3 comments:
It's a well known fact that environmentalists tend to be public sector people working in cities.
E.g. in Scotland the Green party has MSPs in Glasgow and Edinburgh.
It's also true that green party supporters tend to fly more often, associated with that is their relative wealth and therefore higher "carbon footprint".
I notice you don't offer any supporting evidence - but I'm sure you're sure of your belief.
More important what does that have to do with honesty learning about our planet?
Hypocrisy is a favorite whipping boy of the right. Celebrities who call for climate action, for example, are hypocrites, because they still fly, live in big houses, use limousines, etc. Celebrities who ignore climate change and its threat to the planet and fly, live in big houses, use limousines, etc., are just fine. This is known as a double standard.
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