The Mencken quote is interesting in that the nutters are saving us from They I spoke of, saving us from the evil leftists that want to transfer all of our wealth. He was talking about corporations funding PR denying climate science, no? The chemistry of climate science is not an imaginary hobgoblin: it's known science. The evil They lobby to control the world is imaginary hobgoblin that conspiracy nutters speak of.

Who's ruling the world again? The leftist hobgoblins who want to transfer all of our wealth to poor countries, or the energy industry who sucks it out of those otherwise poor countries, or the governments who centralize that wealth and don't utilize it to bring their country into the 21st century? 

They hypocrisy is strong here. Imaginary leftists hobgoblins.... but utter silence about the known and documented efforts of the energy industry to challenge known science.

As far as the rest of the quotes, many of them are nutters, or saying nutty crap. I wouldn't be surprised if some are taken out of context either. I don't know what your point is posting all those quotes. Is it supposed to support your case that global warming is a conspiracy to transfer wealth and control us?

LOL. And that is the point, satire.

I too have been touched by his noodle appendage.

Pastafarians unite!

One of Mogul's copy and pasted quotes Paul Watson SeaShepard.org would kick Mogul's ass, as he undoubtedly believes in global warning and human's are causing climate change. Paul left Green Peace because they simply became and organization to raise money, so they can raise more money - and he wanted to actually do something to save whales and dolphins, besides talking about it. And he puts his life on the line every year

Though it's probably a waste of my time to acquiesce to your injection of noise and distraction in a subject that should contain facts and information, I thought I'd review a few of these quotes and see if I agreed with any of them.

So I found the source of your copy/paste of quotes here. It didn't take long.

It's a denialist aggregator blog, linking to 'stories' from other blogs. Hey, it has graphs! Must be sciency! Links to other denialist blogs, a who's who of the denialist industry.

Sadly lacking, no links to actual peer reviewed science from scientific research bodies. Which is a good thing, because they're all in on the conspiracy, no? We cannot trust those tricksey scientists, we're smarter than that!

Instead of you being lazy and just copy/pasting a bunch stuff, how about pick one or two things from that blog and let's review them thoroughly. You know, study the sources of information, validate the sources, qualify the information.

Just for giggles I looked at a few quotes:

| Quote by Sir John Houghton, pompous lead editor of first three IPCC reports: “If we want a good environmental policy in the future we’ll have to have a disaster.” 

Since Houghton is editor of the IPCC, I figured I'd take a look at this quote. Do you have a source for it? The blog didn't. But I found this when looking for the source:

Fabricated quote used to discredit climate scientist. Sir John Houghton explains  to Steve Connor how global warming sceptics have misrepresented his views

How many more of these quotes that you merely copy/pasted from a denier blog are fabricated? I tried to source a few others but quit since searching leads to more regurgitation of the same source, the denialist blog itself or blogs that merely copy/pasted the quotes.

Do you consider this healthy skepticism or objectivity? It is neither: it's denial. 
 

Some of the quotes from Mogul's link I agree with, some I don't. But irony abounds with stuff. A favorite boogey man (hobgoblin?) of the right is Saul Alinsky. A key concept from Rules for Radicals:

Rule 11: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, polarize it. Don't try to attack abstract corporations or bureaucracies. Identify a responsible individual. Ignore attempts to shift or spread the blame.

The targets are environmentalists and now climate scientists. Al Gore is the big daddy of hobgoblins, also Soros. Ironically, Alinksy himself is a hobgoblin but his methods have been wholly embraced by the right nowadays.

I haven't been able to verify any quote's from Mogul's link. All the search results lead to copies of the same link.

No credibility here. Maybe Mogul can provide some real sourcing to this information. Or he's in on the conspiracy.

I want to be in on one but nobody is hiring right now.

Quote by George Monbiot, a UK Guardian environmental journalist: "...every time someone dies as a result of floods in Bangladesh, an airline executive should be dragged out of his office and drowned."

I found the source for this quote because it's on an OpEd. It does not support what Mogul inferred it does, but Monbiot actually wrote it. Here's the entire quote:

There was one proposal in Sir Rod Eddington's report to the Treasury with which, when I first read it, I wholeheartedly agreed. He insists that "the transport sector, including aviation, should meet its full environmental costs". Quite right too: every time someone dies as a result of floods in Bangladesh, an airline executive should be dragged out of his office and drowned.

Reading on, I realised that this is not exactly what he had in mind. Instead, he meant that airports can keep expanding and the capacity of roads can be increased, as long as people pay more money for their pollution. He has even been so kind as to put a price on other people's lives: £70 per tonne of carbon. This, we discover, is the "social cost" of global warming, derived by the British government's department for the environment, and unquestioningly accepted by Eddington, who was charged by Gordon Brown with keeping the country moving.

I don't know what the problem with this statement is here.

Reading on, I realised that this is not exactly what he had in mind. Instead, he meant that airports can keep expanding and the capacity of roads can be increased, as long as people pay more money for their pollution. He has even been so kind as to put a price on other people's lives: £70 per tonne of carbon. This, we discover, is the "social cost" of global warming, derived by the British government's department for the environment, and unquestioningly accepted by Eddington, who was charged by Gordon Brown with keeping the country moving.

I don't know what the problem with this statement is here.


Hey BigPapa...Have you taken a glance at Britain's economy lately...? THAT's the problem you hapless dolt!  Anyone with any notion of economic reality knows that building a restrictive system to monetize the ABSENCE of means of production [via carbon trading] is the most ridiculous and unworkable notion anyone has ever had if you're interested in preserving our way of life!  IT IS INSANE! 

And no...I didn't waste my time "vetting" every quote that I posted or the site on which I found them--I have children to raise and a business to run and don't really care if the quotes you cherry picked meet your "scientific burden of proof."  The FACT is that many of these people--Often in positions of significant authority--Have said/do say things like this--It's on YOUTUBE and in their books and speeches.  They ARE moving to reshape our global economy based on, at best, an exaggerated circumstance, supporting evidence for which they purchase with billions of OUR tax dollars.  If you'd spend some of the energy you waste "poo-pooing" skeptics actually listening to their own words and understanding the regulations they attempt to pass or have already passed, you may enlighten yourself.

Bottom line, whatever science exists behind AGW claims has long become irrelevent--Prominent AGW proponents have stated that even if we shut down the entire US economy, we'd not put a dent in global CO2 levels.  So why the HELL would we agree to cripple our means of production, finance and livelihoods at the behest of "globalists"?  Because it's fashionable?  Or because elitists like yourself say we should?  Nope.  I want to hear these faultless scientists explain to me how trillions of dollars of wealth transfer via Carbon Trading is going to help solve our "climate crisis..."  Worst case, we can look forward to a coming ocean front real estate boon.

The true danger to us humans is that the issue has been completely and utterly hi-jacked by people with a primary aim of destroying the Western way of life and/or of redistributing wealth from thriving western societies to others.  This is not conspiracy, speculation or "hobgoblins."  These changes are being codified as law and our Consitutionally protected liberties and national sovereignty are being subverted more with each passing day, all in the name of "saving the planet." 

You can choose to poo-poo those of us with the insight and wisdom to see the red herring of AGW and slippery slope we now ride toward the gulch if you want, but I will choose to react to and address the true dangers of "climate change" which have NOTHING to do with climate.

Did I just called an elitist? That's a first.

So I take it you're not going to stick with one quote or peice of information and investigate it with me thoroughly? 

BigPapa that's not what he said. You discredit any sources that doesn't meet your standards. If anyone other than a climatologist that are supports voices descension you say they have no relevancy. You point out flaws of the deniers while you ignore many of the same or similar flaws of the supporters.

That's not true at all, at least disingenuous. What of your standards, and Mogul's standards? Mine seem to be of a much higher standard. The only standard you or Mogul seem to adhere to is that the information contradicts mine or reinforces your worldview. That is not objective.

I am asking for veracity, confirmation, and Mogul cannot deliver. Another blog with a copy pasted quote is not veracity and confirmation. That is pathetically lazy and unthinking. A climate change denial blog that links to other climate change denial blogs that are rife with fuel industry PR influences or pseudo science (meaning not peer reviewed by scientists) is not veracity and confirmation. It is hearsay, myth, public relations, and gossip. This is not thinking or objective review.

How about some consistency? How about we stick to some modicum of scrutiny and verification? How about you or Mogul apply the same level of objective scrutiny applied to climate scientists that you do the deniers? 

Voices of dissention would be actual climate scientists with actual climate science showing evidence contrary to the consensus. If any climate scientist came up with this information and it survived peer review, he would be very famous and a household name. Not to mention we could all breath a sigh of relief and save billions of dollars better spent on other wasteful things. Science is full of skepticism, it's built in the process. The real skeptical scientist will blow up their careers if they challenge consensus with quality science, because they can change the consensus. But the other scientists have to review the new information.

Exxon has spent millions on PR about climate science. They have not spent any on actual climate science. The $ sent to actual scientists goes to scientists misinterpreting the studies that other scientists did, then giving talks on that science. It's a sham. If there was some skeptical science arrived to by Exxon funded scientists we would have seen it by now. But we haven't because it doesn't exist.

The only possible way to reconcile with this fact is to assume there is a conspiracy between the vast majority of climate scientists. And that is exactly what is happening as displayed multiple times in this thread.

So far the only voices of dissent or skeptics presented in this thread are not that, they are deniers. That is not my problem or my isssue, it is yours. If you want to equivocate between bloggers/talking heads/non-scientists and real climate scientists, that's your mistake not mine. If there is actual peer reviewed climate science that contradicts or doesn't reconcile with the consensus (there is some out there), bring it.

That I have the temerity to point out the obvious logical failings of this... I must be on the conspiracy too! Except I've not received any payments from the Carbon Trading Illuminati... yet...

I thought the problem is climate change or the alleged conspiracy to fake climate change to control the world.

So your issue is you think it will cost too much.

How much will it cost if large sections of the population need to migrate because of sea level rise and large regions of agricultural land need to move due to changing weather patterns (look at Texas, Russia wheat production). You don't think that will be a pittance to your worst case scenario for carbon trading assessments? 

But let's consider how much it will cost to mitigate.

The world cannot afford to wait before tackling climate change, the UK prime minister has warned.

A report by economist Sir Nicholas Stern suggests that global warming could shrink the global economy by 20%.

But taking action now would cost just 1% of global gross domestic product, the 700-page study says.

Tony Blair said the Stern Review showed that scientific evidence of global warming was "overwhelming" and its consequences "disastrous".

International response

The review coincides with the release of new data by the United Nations showing an upward trend in emission of greenhouse gases - a development for which Sir Nicholas said that rich countries must shoulder most of the responsibility.

It is faulty logic to consider how much it costs to mitigate climate change without considering how much it will cost to ignore it. The logical hedge against considering how much it will cost to ignore it is to believe that the scientific community is fomenting a hoax about a problem that doesn't exist.



Maybe you should spend some of your very valuable time vetting the sources of your information, sparing me my valuable time have to look through it and conclude that it is a bunch of regurgitated misinformation echo chambered by motivated partisans fueled by energy industry propagandists. So spare me the outrage about your precious time. In the time it took you to type this frenetic missive you could have reviewed the sources of one or two quotes and chosen to discuss them thoroughly instead of a mass of copy/pasted disinformation that I had the termerity to review.

You clearly don't understand what 'cherry pick' means here. That would mean I studied all the quotes and only chose the few that would, ignoring the rest, make my case. Funny you bring that up, it's a common method applied by scientists hired by think tanks funded by Exxon.

But I did not cherry pick: I looked through the first climate scientists or similar quotes I could, discarded the ones I could not verify (because all links pointed back to the same list of quotes), and stuck with the ones I could.

I wish you would do the same.


Says the man who copy/pastes supposed quotes from a denier website to build a case that there is some globalist conspiracy to control the world economy using the hoax of global warming. Your triumphal assertions are supported by your hollow evidence, therefore they have no merit. However, they sound powerful. This is why the denialist snake oil salesmen and women make up for the resounding lack of fact and support for their positions with style over substance, brash claims, and appeals to ignorance.

But there is no substance.

So if you want to have a real conversation stick to real methods of discourse where quality of information and source matter, quality over quantity matter, and where science is confirmed with other science, not blogs with spurious errate like quotes from alleged leftists in on some conspiracy.

This isn't really much of an argument. This is a discussion on a forum that at times threatens to almost become a debate. It is not a child and a donkey trying to communicate: it is multiple adults communicating with many other adults reading for the record, in perpetuity, as long as there is electricity to transmit all the electrons on this web page.

I'm sure you don't mean we're merely two kids arguing: that would be a mistake.  A similar mistake such as equivocating lawyers who work at PR firms and get interviews on Fox News to actual climate scientists who study climate science and conclude that the earth is warming from human activity.

Maybe you're inferring that I'm wasting my time talking to ignorant people. I would be wasting my time if I was talking to ignorant people and thinking I could change their mind. They are so invested in their rejection of reality that I might actually be making them further embrace it. 

But I am not doing it for them. I am doing it for all others who might not understand the issues and are interested in learning. For the others on the fence, not sure of who to believe. This group of peope who are unsure actually grew in the later part of the 90's... why is that? It was going the other way for a long time.

Is it because a group of maverick hero scientists went against the status quo and dared to tell the truth,  being this is a hoax and the earth is not really warming or that humans are not really the cause? That is the position of the PR groups and think tanks with financial ties to energy industry, which are also tied to ideological groups such as the John Birch Society invested in one world paranoia and conspiracy.

Or is it because the PR campaign by the fuel industry to question the scientific consensus is actually working, delaying change, challenging scientific consensus with PR campaigns and pseudo science? 

I hope many continue review these facts at hand, and the science of human caused climate change. I did after believing for many years many of the canards being stated repeatedly in this forum: the earth has changed before, it will be OK, 'why is Greenland called Greenland, huh?'

I believed the Fox News BS. But after a while, I had to find out for myself. And I did. So I hope others do the same, and I want to be sure to counter disinformation with quality information, illogic and ignorance with logic and reason. I only have so much time, and sometimes I don't have the time to do this, but sometimes I do. And when I do, it's my way of 'doing something.' So I'm not wasting my time at all.

Plus, I'm really tired of talking about Apple and tie wraps vs velcro. I am really considering a screed on HDMI but Mogul beat them out! Good job.