Global warming must be a lie because, if it were not, it would take large scale government action to deal with it, and big government and the loss of our freedom is the greatest danger that we all face.
As I have argued elsewhere understanding that bit of nonsense is fundamental to understanding how Climaticide denialists think and why they care so little about science.
I have defined four principle categories of denialists.
- Plutocrats
- Shills
- Literate conservative/libertarian ideologues
- The right-wing booboisie
Today I propose to illustrate my earlier argument with a selection of denialist quotations from these four categories. You can find these quotes all over the web. For the most part I present the quotations in no particular order. I trust you will have no trouble either identifying the common elements in each of the quotes nor in linking the quote to the appropriate category of denialist.
Still, for what it's worth, I will give you my take on how the categories relate to each other just below the fold.
For the plutocrats, ideology is mostly a cover for their greed and a thin salve for whatever conscience they have left. For the shills (scientists and academics paid by the plutocrats to deny global warming), ideology is an indispensable tool, required by their corporate masters, and useful in providing intellectual ammunition to categories 3 and 4 and for bamboozling the uninformed public at large. For information on the relationships between the plutocrats and the shills follow this link and click on MAP EXXON'S NETWORK.
And now for the quotes: [NOTE: All emphases are mine. Other than that, all quotes are unedited. I didn't have the time to place a "sic" after every misspelling.]
From biblebelievers.com
If the Humanists really believed the world was getting warmer, they would be telling us not to be alarmed because "Man will rise to the occasion!" Instead, they huddle in the corner like terrified mice. Why? Because they want Americans to huddle in the corner like terrified mice so they can gain more power over us. Humanists hate America.
I have said it time and time again. The goal of environmentalism and animal rightism is not to "save the earth." Their goal is to destroy the American economy. Why? Because a strong America is a detriment to a One World government! That's why over 160 nations were exempted from the environmental restrictions placed on the U.S. at Kyoto, Japan. The nations with the dirtiest air were exempted while stricter regulations were imposed on America--the nation that has done the most to clean up its environment.
From TennesseeFree.com
At some point the average guy on the street will have to wise up and realize that this is all just a bunch of idiocy, conjured up for the purpose of empowering government and reducing liberty.
In the United States, we even have people on the federal government’s payroll, calling for oil company executives, who are guilty of the crime of engaging in a debate, to be tried and convicted of "high crimes against humanity and nature".
We live in dangerous times folks. These big government authoritarians want to run every part of your life. They want to control everything you do. People wake up.
From the reader comments at Political Punch (MSNBC.com)
You simple minded fool.The idea that global warming is man made has not been determined beyond a reasonable doubt.It's what is called a theory (look up the definition).You call people who don't believe in this junk science numbskulls.You sir/madam are an idiot and have bought the lie hook line and sinker.I could give you a list as long as your arm of scientist who disagree with the so called prevailing attitude that global warming is man made but I am most confident that you are to blind and ignorant to do any real thinking of your own so I will not waste my time. If you want to be taxed at a higher rate and give up your individual freedoms to the "Almighty Government Bureaucracy" ,who preach this nonsense ,then by all means DO IT. As for me I will not be lead like a sheep down the road of propaganda and lies.And please stop with the nonsense that everyone who disagrees with this lie is somehow a right wing nut.Surely you are more intelligent than that.But then again.......maybe your not.
From syndicated columnist and Fox News Watch panelist Cal Thomasat Real Clear Poltitics
Instead of buying into the claims of global warming alarmists who seek more control over our lives through big government intrusion, McCain should demand a debate on the issue. Global warming cult leaders won't debate. Al Gore has refused every debate challenge, asserting the facts are undeniable and that global warming is real. That's another mark of a cult leader; he will tolerate no doubters.
From Vaclav Klaus, President of the Czech Republic on CBSNEWS.COM
Centralized planners with "megalomaniac ambitions" are now working to restrain democratic development and economic activity under the guise of environmentalism, said Vaclav Klaus, president of the Czech Republic. He spoke Tuesday morning at conference in New York City
From Freedom Advocates
The Big Lie: The notion that global warming is man-made is a big lie.
The science of worldwide climate is complex. That makes the opportunity to take advantage of this lie great:
* Complex science issues are easy to selectively define as a crisis.
* Big government advocates and politicians looking for more power need a crisis to ‘save us from’. Global warming is that.
* Environmental non-government organizations (NGOs) need something to save...global warming lets them save the world.
* Many big business interests join environmentalists and politicians to form PPPs (public-private partnerships). They gain access to power and public funds.
* The current Democrat and Republican presidential candidates buy into man-made global warming crisis as agents of the new world order.
From Frontiers of Freedom (See more at the ExxonSecrets Factsheet)
What these political global warming useful idiots ignore is the earth is actually in a cooling cycle that even government agencies have acknowledged. Furthermore the simple scientific truth is that the earth’s atmosphere contains 0.038% carbon dioxide and water vapor makes up most of the rest. If the earth is warming, and obviously it has not during the last decade, any role played by carbon dioxide is negligible. But of course the politicos and leftists won’t accept that because their entire agenda depends on selling it to a gullible public.
FromS. Fred Singer at International Society for Individual Liberty
In the past few years there has been increasing concern about global climate change on the part of the media, politicians, and the public. It has been stimulated by the idea that human activities may influence global climate adversely and that therefore corrective action is required on the part of governments. Recent evidence suggests that this concern is misplaced. Human activities are not influencing the global climate in a perceptible way. Climate will continue to change, as it always has in the past, warming and cooling on different time scales and for different reasons, regardless of human action. I would also argue that – should it occur – a modest warming would be on the whole beneficial.
From Peter Ferrara at National Review Online
Global warming has nothing to do with climate or science. What it is all about is the great, historic class struggle between working people and the ruling classes.
Global warming is a great excuse for a massive expansion of government power. That, not science, is why the overlords, from the New York Times to the United Nations to Al Gore, so heartily embrace it.
The U.N. thinks global warming is a perfect reason for the U.N. to be transformed into a world government. So how long do you think it took for the world-class bureaucrats at Turtle Bay to conclude that global warming was real and caused by humans?
CORRECTION: June 29, 2008 Thanks to the alert reader who emailed me to point out that shelleytherepublican.com, quoted immediately below, is actually satire. I apologize for not having caught this myself. I do find it interesting that a satirical site like STR, at least at first glance, is nearly indistinguishable from many genuine right-wing sites (witness the other quotations in this diary.) But that's no excuse. I should have checked my facts more carefully. Please accept my apologies. Here's a link to an article about the guy behind shelleytherepublican.com and other similar sites.
From shelleytheRepublican.com
If you check who is believing in the modern big lie that is global warming you will see that it’s almost exclusively liberals. It’s a well known fact that liberalism is a sickness of the mind just like pedophilia and autism. Liberals are unable to live the good life, like normal Americans can. They can not enjoy the freedom, the wealth and justice the homeland offers to all of us. They have to create a climate of fear and mistrust in order to justify their own paranoia. The latest liberal invention is global warming, which is fake of course. There is no such think. The globe is much to big as to be influenced by us humans and God would never allow it to happen.
From Sheldon Richman at the Foundation for Economic Education (Although Richman as a libertarian rejects government action against Cimaticide, his analysis of how fear of government causes conservatives and libertarians to deny the reality of anthropogenic climate change is generally dispassionate and thoughtful.)
For advocates of individual liberty it is tempting to believe the skeptics are right because the other side is associated with statist solutions to climate change. Most solutions call for government control over the burning of fossil fuels. No advocate of free markets can be comfortable with a position that entails substantial taxes and subsidies to achieve a political objective -- reduction of carbon emissions -- especially when the solutions promise no more than negligible reductions in temperature.
From Joseph Farah at WorldNetDaily (More on Farah here.)
But think about the real absurdity of fighting "climate change" – the new apocalyptic menace.
As a political ax, it can't be beat. Any variation in the weather represents a reason for controlling human behavior by any means necessary and to any extent necessary.
In a few years, it will be evident to one and all they have been hoaxed by the doomsday salesmen about global warming. But there will always be shifts in the weather. And any time we experience those shifts that have occurred from the beginning of the world, there will be justification for draconian actions by government.
From Canadian "property rights" activist Ron Ewart at Climate Change Fraud
To illustrate the brainwashing of our kids, here is a short story. A while back we taught a science lesson to 10-year olds once a week. One of our subjects was the weather. We know quite a bit about the weather because of our experience as a pilot. When we asked the students what four things affect the weather, thinking we would get answers like the Sun, ocean currents, humidity, jet streams and the like, we were taken back when the first suggestion by one of the kids was global warming and the second was man-made pollutants. The term brainwashed instantly came to mind.
The basic premise of these pod invaders is that all humans are a stain on the Earth and must be regulated and taxed to keep them from harming themselves and the planet. They do not deserve freedom, much less property rights. To them, government is best suited to accomplish the task of enforcing the regulations, taxing the people, managing the land and water and saving Mother Earth. And government has grown to mean a small cadre of elite world individuals who control the money, the food, the water, the land and the energy (oil, coal, natural gas and nuclear). The rest of the 6.5 billion people are just pawns in the grand scheme of world domination.
From the Minnesota Free Market Institute
"Climate change" is not something induced by human beings or a "crisis" to be avoided; it is simply the reality of living on earth. To the extent that human activities may contribute to climate variability, the same can be said of termites, trees, and even the slow action of plate tectonics. It’s true, but what’s your point? Literally everything changes the state of the earth, all the time. Fighting change is like fighting gravity; good luck! Call me when you succeed.
The steady drumbeat of fear mongering has nothing to do with a "crisis" of climate change, because climate change is not a crisis. It was reality before human beings existed, and will be long after we are all buried.
However, it has everything to do with promoting the solution to the crisis of climate change: the demotion of individualism and liberty and the promotion of collective solutions and collectivism in general.
From Edwin J. Feulner, President of the Heritage Foundation (More on the Heritage Foundationhere.)
Few Americans understand what's really going on. Hint: The conservative revolution has robbed liberals of a vehicle for expanding the size and power of government. But a long-term environmental crisis, even one manufactured by alarmists, could change that.
The global-warming scenario provides advocates of big government with an excuse for tapping into the lifeline of the U.S. economy for the foreseeable future. Better yet, the current president will be long gone before most of the belt-tightening begins to pinch.
From
Charles Krauthammer in the Washington Post
Just as the ash heap of history beckoned, the intellectual left was handed the ultimate salvation: environmentalism. Now the experts will regulate your life not in the name of the proletariat or Fabian socialism but -- even better -- in the name of Earth itself.
Environmentalists are Gaia's priests, instructing us in her proper service and casting out those who refuse to genuflect. (See Newsweek above.) And having proclaimed the ultimate commandment -- carbon chastity -- they are preparing the supporting canonical legislation that will tell you how much you can travel, what kind of light you will read by, and at what temperature you may set your bedroom thermostat.
This final quotation, an excerpt from the NYT's, is interesting because it makes so plainly obvious that, for or the plutocrats, ideology is merely a convenient disguise to be slipped into when it is to their advantage and cast off when it is not. Note that in this quotation there is no condemnation of big government and no worries about loss of freedom. All there is is greed and an urgent concern that the plutocrats (in this case, Peabody Energy) get as big a slice of the big-government pie as possible.
From the New York Times
Coal executives say that they need government help primarily because oil prices are so volatile and the upfront construction costs are so high. "We’re not asking for everything. All we’re asking for is something," said Hunt Ramsbottom, chief executive of Rentech Inc., which is trying to build two plants at mines owned by Peabody Energy.
But coal executives anticipate potentially huge profits. Gregory H. Boyce, chief executive of Peabody Energy, based in St. Louis, which has $5.3 billion in sales, told an industry conference nearly two years ago that the value of Peabody’s coal reserves would skyrocket almost tenfold, to $3.6 trillion, if it sold all its coal in the form of liquid fuels [my link].
Coal industry lobbying has reached a fever pitch. The industry spent $6 million on federal lobbying in 2005 and 2006, three times what it spent each year from 2000 through 2004, according to calculations by Politicalmoneyline.com.
Peabody, which has quadrupled its annual lobbying budget to about $2 million since 2004, recently hired Richard A. Gephardt, the Missouri Democrat who was House majority leader from 1989 to 1995 and a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988 and 2004, to help make its case in Congress.
One of the most vociferous champions of coal-to-liquid fuels is the Southern States Energy Board, a group organized by governors from 16 states. Last year, the group published a study, which cost $500,000, that concluded that coal-to-liquid fuel could and should replace almost one-third of imported oil by 2030.
As it happens, the coal industry supplied much of the financing for the study and subsequent marketing. Peabody Energy contributed about $150,000 and the National Mining Association added $50,000, officials at the Southern States Energy Board said.
The inducements under discussion would not only subsidize up to 10 coal-to-liquid plants, but also guarantee a minimum market through long-term contracts with the Air Force and minimum prices for at least some producers.
"There is financial uncertainty, which is inhibiting the flow of private capital into the construction of coal-to-liquid facilities," said Mr. Boucher, who supports most of the proposals and is drafting portions of the energy bill.
Deny, lie, deny, lie, deny, lie until the danger is so patent and urgent that it can no longer be denied nor the lie believed, then, express your concern and offer to fix the problem with a solution (clean coal) that is in itself a lie, and, finally, lobby your heart out to make certain that the taxpayer billions go to you instead of to real sustainable energy companies.
Hmm, could this be a crime against humanity?
[Crossposted at Climaticide Chronicles]