NPR does not understand why the public is not more panicked about Global Warming.
It’s the cognitive dissonance, stupid! As we watch the world’s chummy elite eschew video conferencing in order to gather in Copenhagen while amassing a huge carbon footprint with their planes, trains, automobiles, printed programs, photographers, kleig lights, etc, we find it difficult to believe that the rest of us must hang our laundry out to dry and give up our incandescent light bulbs in order to save the planet.
Now, after ignoring the Climategate story for over two weeks, the “independent” media prepares sing as one voice about Climate, Copenhagen and the need for statism to save the planet, the press still does not understand why we do not believe them.
Says Instapundit: If they were really worried about global warming they’d be doing this by Skype. But they live in a culture of entitlement. Energy conservation and carbon limits, like taxes, are for the little people.
As I wrote last year:
. . .if this “crisis” is as real as we are being told, then these steps should be taken immediately:
* Declare a 2 or 3 year moratorium on all rock/pop concerts, in every venue, but especially in stadiums and at night. Gaia could live for several hundred years more just on the absence of match-lighted power ballads, the darkening of stage and stadium lights, the canceled pyrotechnics, the unplugged amplifiers and garaged roadie trucks and buses, the grounded private jets, and the unprinted commemorative posters. I am a fan of U2, but if not lighting a few million Hanukkah candles could do so much, then perhaps canceling their splendidly ironic ZOO-TV tour of 1992-3 could have, all by itself, saved the planet for all time: each one of its 157 shows — just the shows themselves — used one million watts of power.
* Cancel [all] Olympics — [All] Olympics will require enormous amounts of energy to transport and house hundreds of thousands of athletes, spectators, and journalists. Consider all the energy wasted in lighting arenas and transmitting images and commentary. Consider the deforestation resulting from all of those programs and paper sports-drink cups. In a “crisis,” we ought not be amusing ourselves with athletics. In fact, let’s cancel baseball and football, hockey and all ice-dancing, too, until the planet can be officially declared “saved.”
* Suspend all film and nonessential television production — In a time of genuine “crisis” we cannot in good conscience fire up those klieg lights, blow up those cars, chauffeur those stars, burn that petroleum-based film, or fly over to Cannes — privately, of course — for promotional purposes or dress fittings. “What,” you cry, “no new Die Hards or Rambos?” Well, if this is a “crisis” we’re going to have to act like it’s a crisis. I know it’s hard, but we must be brave — after all, we’re trying to save the world here.
If the elites are not going to do all that (and yes, destroy large swaths of the economy, but come on -the earth is dying!) then they deserve only our ridicule.
And -more cognitive dissonance- if these are the people who, we are told, champion science above faith and reason, shouldn’t they care about the bastardization of scientific methodology? Shouldn’t they be livid to know that the “science” behind their narrative has been politicized, distorted and “tricked” or that the raw data upon which it is all supposedly based has been “thrown away?”
Apparently, they are not mad, at all, about the bad science. They are simply offended that it was exposed! (Don’t miss the pics at that link).
The phonies are gathering in tolerant Copenhagen. We are breathlessly assured that the head phony -not Al Gore, who has become the dreadful “poet laureate of Climate Change”, but Barack Obama -is going to descend unto that City of Snow and save the planet by virtue of his winsome smile and -some suggest- some non-legislative boondoggling.
And if that is true -if King President Obama (with his socialist Global Warming Czar) plans an end-run around Congress – bypassing the legislative branch and completely disrespecting the will of the American people (because he knows better than we do, of course) then that only means that the Tyrant-in-Trainingpants is feeling like a big boy, now.
This is pretty serious, folks.
Remember the last 8 years, when we heard continuously from the left and the press that “arrogant” President Bush was disrespecting congress, wielding too much power and acting like an Imperialist? Projection, again.
Roger Simon says Obama rescheduled Copenhagen in order to
Related:
American Physicists: Deplore corrupted science of Global Warming
Althouse: Al Gore is tryin’ real hard to be the shepherd
Even the UN: Understands
Was Russia Behind the Climategate exposure?
The Sauds call for a climategate investigation.
HillBuzz: Action Item
Stop all human activity, now! Or the planet will die!
Why they fell: The people who want to believe
The AGW Cuckoos Nest
Copenhagen opens: by trying to downplay Climategate. The press may cover that.
Ace
December 7th, 2009 | 3:40 pm | #1
I would be more impressed if leftist mayors were moving large cities inland.
If New Orleans and San Francisco are a heartbeat away from being washed to sea, their mayors ought to move to DEFCON 5 and evacuate.
It’s almost as if they know their cities are perfectly safe, and that the purpose of global warming hoax is… something else.
December 7th, 2009 | 3:40 pm | #2
They could certainly stand to use a lot less paper. I am constantly aghast at the waste of paper being made in offices. When I point this out, I get some glib response about recycling. But recycling is not efficient, it doesn’t generate as much as from the original & has unpleasant byproducts.
Better not to use what you don’t need, & indeed there is so much wastage. Even if you don’t give a toss about any environmental consequences, what about the money you’re squandering?
Possible hypocrisy alert as I read print magazines & books. But I do not simply throw paper around like it was going out of fashion.
Does this have to do with the fact that my only office experiences have been working in a voluntary organisation that received public money (which I don’t object to as it provided a service & is not beholden politically, but still) & working for the mail service in my second job?
Most of my working life has been spent with large corporations in the private sector. They tend to go to enormous lengths to, for example, make use of wood that is an unwanted byproduct of manufacturing, or to avoid leaving lights on, or to generally be as energy-efficient as possible. Perhaps because it’s their money rather than the public’s, eh?
Nick Cohen (I bet all the conservatives are embarrased to have been palling around with him because he temporarily agreed with your foreign policy, eh? Like the Hitch, he was always one of us really).
Plus, I wouldn’t listen to anything the House of Saud said about anything. (Unless they said breathing was good or it might be a good idea not to jump off a cliff). The fact that they are considered military allies is not by any means a thing to be celebrated.
Nutters close down nightclubs in Baghdad- there is something profoundly wrong with anyone who wants to suppress women’s beauty in such a way, especially using the state to do so, & what about the religion that motivates them.
December 7th, 2009 | 3:51 pm | #3
Mind you, I never labout the point. I don’t want to sound hectoring, & in fact I’ve never met one of the hectoring “greens” that supposedly exist in society. Perhaps they are only found in middle-class circles.
Plus, as a humdrum rank & file employee, even if I were the sort of person inclined to go on & on I’d be ignored.
So all I do is carry on donating to my woodland appeals, doing the odd spot of voluntary conservation work when I’ve got nothing else on, & cultivating my own garden (well, my parents’ garden- I haven’t got one myself but I persuaded them to plant trees).
I’m sure I’ve said it before but actually, in a lot of ways big government is the environmental problem rather than the solution. I accuse the farm subsidies system in a similar way.
What is generally thought in these parts about GM? I am not against it per se, but I object to the ways in which as it currently exists it tends to deliver power to gene producing & fertiliser corporations, to reduce biodiversity in plant stock, & to create “deserts” in cultivated areas in which wildlife cannot thrive (although, admittedly, non-GM intensive farming does a good enough job of that). But as I say, I do not sit here pronouncing that it should be ruled out for eternity, just that we should be sceptical about what is on the table. You won’t find me eating it, though in all likelihood you do yourselves in America unless you limit yourselves to organic produce.
I am more pro-nuclear. The likes of Monbiot have shown a willingness to change their minds on the issue. But, alongside the ones who are permanently anti-nuclear for ideological reasons (whom I oppose) there are sceptics who raise worthwhile concerns.
December 7th, 2009 | 5:37 pm | #4
The only thing more stubborn than facts, are the “progressives”.
December 7th, 2009 | 9:10 pm | #5
I heard that report on NPR, about the shifting polls and growing skepticism re: climate change, on the way into work this morning. Talk about cognitive dissonance. This was my favorite part:
“…This seems irrational,” she says. “And in that sense, it’s challenging the basic premise that we have of an enlightened, democratic, modern society.” Norgaard studied this shift in public opinion and found that as people start to feel overwhelmed by the scope of the problem, they simply turn away from the topic. It’s a form of denial, she says….”
To recap: people who are becoming more skeptical about climate change are: irrational; the opposite of enlightened and modern; overwhelmed; and in denial! They also mentioned the some sort of small but well-organized opposition that is “having a field day” with the email scandal.
Amazing, even by NPR standards.
December 7th, 2009 | 10:35 pm | #6
Meanwhile, out in California, they’re predicting snow, in Sacramento.
If we’re really having global warming, why does it seem like the weather’s getting colder all the time.
December 7th, 2009 | 10:37 pm | #7
And, yes, if the elites were seriously worried, they’d cancel all concerts, most T.V. shows, big political campaigns and stop flying all over the planet for global warming conferences.
December 7th, 2009 | 11:11 pm | #8
[...] The din begins. If you don’t believe, you’re a heretic. Let the auto de fé begin! [...]
December 7th, 2009 | 11:45 pm | #9
This morning I saw a promo on one of the major news networks for a program that was going to show you what it would be like if the “worst-case scenario” about global warming were true. That would be fine, as long as they also did one on what the “best-case scenario” was… but it’s not forthcoming.
I’m sure a lot of carbon was produced in making the show. AS IT WAS, no doubt, in producing the awful sculpture of the “skeletal humans” in the shallow pond. How much money and carbon was used in making those statues? In transporting them to Denmark? In excavating the pond? In pouring concrete to contain the water? In installing the statues? In filling it with water? In uninstalling the statues (one can only hope they won’t stay there forever!) after it’s over?
And carbon dioxide is not a pollutant!!!!!
December 8th, 2009 | 12:53 am | #10
It’s obvious that the very people wanting us to panic about global warming don’t belive in it themselves. Otherwise, they just wouldn’t be doing things such as that “worst case scenrio” program; talk about your wasted carbon credits!
December 8th, 2009 | 12:53 pm | #11
[...] comes the official announcement that Obamalinsky has declared–by fiat–that he can take control of the entire U.S. economy by virtue of declaring that Carbon Dioxide is an “endangering” pollutant. An emergency! [...]
December 8th, 2009 | 4:28 pm | #12
[...] The Anchoress – Cognitive Dissonance & Obama’s Powergrab [...]
December 8th, 2009 | 6:04 pm | #13
Cancel all bottled drinks which fizz when opened. That’s co2 going right into the atmosphere. What does go down the throat eventually comes out of the body via one of its two ports.
December 9th, 2009 | 10:23 am | #14
There are deceivers on both sides.
The climate crisis (which you may choose to deny) is moving in parallel to the economic crisis (which only Holocaust deniers and flat earth society members might deny).
Environmental degradation, whether warming or just pollution, is linked to unsustainable unmanaged growth.
The believers are folks who see a major sea change coming, which is as much economic as it is climate-related. They want to try to temper collapse into a manageable, necessary, even healthy decline. I wish them luck; they are too few to effect the change they need to. Practice being poor; it will be a useful social skill in the future.
The nay-sayers are defending an unsustainable standard of living because they don’t want to change. The standard of living is built on the backs not only of their invisible fellow citizens, but much of the rest of the world. ‘American self-interest’ is code for keeping ‘em down where they are supposed to be. Except the gig is up. It is laughable that we think we are going to tell the Indian and Chinese billions to slow their growth while ‘I’ve got mine’ America sits by with a ‘who, me?’ expression on her face.
Maybe in the big picture, the economic crisis is the world’s way of cooling the planet.
December 12th, 2009 | 7:24 pm | #15
[...] economy by declaring it entirely subject to EPA regulation due to the menace of carbon dioxide, see The Anchoress from [...]
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