Culture

Climate Hustle: In Which Yours Truly Becomes A Movie Star. Updates From Last Night

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I’m thinking of hiring the same security firm Mark “I’m No Fan Of Guns Unless They’re Used To Protect Me” Zuckerberg. Just like he, I’ll be a big star and in need to protection to keep the adoring throngs at bay.

For the delicious news is that I will become a bona fide Movie Star tonight. At 7 PM (in every time zone). In a theatre near you. Ladies and gentlemen, or reasonable facsimiles thereof, I bring you…

Climate Hustle!

Scorching temperatures. Melting ice caps. Killer hurricanes and tornadoes. Disappearing polar bears. The end of civilization as we know it! Are emissions from our cars, factories, and farms causing catastrophic climate change? Is there a genuine scientific consensus? Or is man-made “global warming” an overheated environmental con job being used to push for increased government regulations and a new “Green” energy agenda?…

CLIMATE HUSTLE, hosted by award-winning investigative journalist Marc Morano, reveals the history of climate scares including global cooling; debunks outrageous claims about temperatures, extreme weather, and the so-called “consensus;” exposes the increasingly shrill calls to “act immediately before it’s too late,” and in perhaps the film’s most important section, profiles key scientists who used to believe in climate alarm but have since converted to skepticism.

Bill Nye Warns Film is ‘Not in Our National Interest’ There may be no better reason to see it than that.

Thomas Richard at Examiner.com has seen the movie and says “Climate Hustle is a smart, energetic global warming documentary.” “…eloquent and viciously clever.”

The film includes a canyon full of frightening climate change statements from the world’s biggest media tycoons, supersized politicians, and vaunted personalities like Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo. From rising seas to extreme weather events to melting ice sheets to famine and disease, an all-too-familiar bombardment of alarming newscasts gets compressed into a few minutes. You’ve heard the debate is over, the science is settled, and the time to act is now. But are all those things really true? Are you being hustled?

Which reminds me: don’t miss this podcast, which has a news clip from 1971 in which an official from the National Science Foundation said mankind was causing global cooling.

Our friend Paul Driessen said (via email; I don’t have a link):

I saw Climate Hustle April 14, at its U.S. premiere on Capitol Hill in Washington. The film is informative and entertaining, pointed and humorous. As meteorologist Anthony Watts says, it is wickedly effective in its using slapstick humor and the words and deeds of climate alarmists to make you laugh at them.

Marita Noon also saw the movie: “On Climate, We’re Manipulated By Sleight Of Hand.

Repeatedly throughout the past couple of decades, we’ve been pummeled with dire predictions and told “time is short.” In 1989, the UN predicted “Global warming would destroy entire nations by 2000.” In 2007, we were told: “Scientists believe we have less than ten years to bring emissions under control to prevent a catastrophe.” In 2008, Britain’s Prince Charles said we only had 100 months left to solve the problem. Gore, in 2009, said: “We have to do it this year.” Yet, as the film demonstrates, scientists don’t want to talk about their failed predictions…

Meanwhile, scientists who don’t agree with the “leaders” are accused, by the likes of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., of “treason.” He wants them “in jail.”

Yes, as Climate Hustle makes clear, there are dissenting scientists—but they are marginalized, even called “kooks.” If they speak out, they are insulted, ignored, ridiculed, ostracized, called heretics, hurt professionally, and even terminated for divergent views. This is not the scientific method.

Well, kooks we may be, but we’re at least well dressed. I hope viewers like as much as I do the tie I wore in the film. There is a clear dichotomy of preference for that tie. Many sad people can’t see its beauty.

Yes, I’d rather talk about men’s fashion than global cooling. I mean global warming. That we can’t get actual scientists to realize thirty years of busted forecasts means their theory is wrong is too depressing to contemplate, and if I never ever say another word on this stupid subject it will be too soon (a cliche, but an appropriate one).

I haven’t seen the movie yet, and won’t tonight, either, unfortunately, because I’m in San Francisco, and San Francisco is too enlightened to allow a showing. I’ll rely on you, dear reader, to watch for me. Report back here of your awe and wonder.

Incidentally, I’m in San Francisco. If there are any earthquakes, you’ll know why. If anybody out there wants a talk, seminar, or whatnot, this is the time to ask. Use the Contact Page.

Update Turns out I am going. I’ll be at the Pleasant Hill Century 16 tonight (just north of Walnut Creek). I was invited by a generous reader, who also promises burgers and beers at the Fuddruckers which is apparently near the theater.

Update More reviews. Another.

Update Movie was a great success. About 200 people in the audience in Pleasant Hill, which I find remarkable. The popcorn flowed; bonhomie overflowed. Spontaneous applause at the end. Lot of folks stuck around to chat afterwards. Even better, I got to meet three regular readers! I didn’t ask permission to name them, so I can’t (they may not want to admit it). But heartfelt thanks to them for making the trek. It was deeply appreciated.

Categories: Culture, Fun

40 replies »

  1. No nearby venues

    I’ll have to wait for the DVD release

    Back when Inconvenient Truth came out
    someone had arranged “free” video rental

    I didn’t want to pay the price of watching it

  2. Paul Driessen seems inclined to use email which makes referencing his ideas difficult.

    Wyoming is an imaginary place, so we won’t be seeing the film either. Oh, sigh…

    Say, with all that oil business money, why did it take so long to make an informative, convincing film showing the fraud? I mean, everyone knows oil companies are rich and were considerably richer two years ago. So where was the movie then? Why not two or three or four such movies to prove just how rich and powerful the oil companies are compared to the Federal Government? Inquiring minds want to know.

  3. All,

    Don’t mind Lee. He’s a good fellow, but he unfortunately thinks government-funded scientists are excused from the obligation to provide theories that make skillful predictions of reality.

  4. John B() – your post is the most poetic thing I’ve read on the internet in months. Bravo, good sir.

  5. “he unfortunately thinks government-funded scientists are excused from the obligation to provide theories that make skillful predictions of reality.”

    Not really: no such obligation exists, so they can’t be excused from it.

    Usually the terms of a government research grant obligate the grantee to be honest and to expend the resources granted in an attempt to further knowledge about the problem described in the grant application. The scientist obviously can not promise to succeed in any nontrivial endeavor, and not be obligated to.

  6. Lee, “Not really: no such obligation exists …”

    Possibly not, but in an honest granting agency the continued failure to do so would quickly lead to the disappearance of funds so that they could be directed to more successful areas of research. You should be more careful about letting the truth slip out or they will be coming after you next.

  7. I’m afraid to go. I live in Virginia and the attorney general “Red” Herring has joined other Democrat AGs to fight climate change by putting people like Mark Morano in jail.

  8. Lee provides balance and keeps everyone up on what the global warming folks are up to. One cannot debunk global warming if one does not know what is being said about the theory from both sides.

    As for providing effective models, few things the government does provides effective services, so why should global warming be any different?

  9. Ray: Just wear a dress and claim your “Clara”. Add a blonde wig and giggle a lot.

    I note on DeSMog, there’s no comments allowed. Interesting, considering how much the article compained about not being given tickets, not getting answers, etc, etc. and insinuated this meant Morano was hiding something or lacked adequate answers. Seems the global warming crowd can’t stand to be treated as they treat others.

  10. I didn’t want to pay the price of watching it (Inconvenient Truth)

    … and I’ve watched “Plan 9 From Outer Space” (3 times!)

    OMGosh

    Just wear a dress and claim your “Clara”

    I’ve never seen Ed Wood’s “Glenn or Glenda”

    Lee – IMAGINE – a Red Carpet Fakery

    Like any one wants actual sycophants that cheer on Leonardo DiCrappio. Mark Ruffallo, George Clooney, …

  11. “and if I never have to say another stupid word on this subject again, it will be …”
    It’s a war of attrition. In my view you have done enough.
    However your will just has to be stronger than their won’t.
    Same goes for all the scientists and writers on the side of reality and truth.
    What an achievement given all the flack.
    I’ll see it at some point.

  12. Virginia ,

    There is a showing at AMC Tysons Corner 16
    and at Regal Fairfax Towne Center 10

  13. You all probably realize that: “Scientists believe we have less than ten years to bring emissions under control to prevent a catastrophe,” “In 2008, Britain’s Prince Charles said we only had 100 months left to solve the problem,” and “Gore, in 2009, said: “We have to do it this year.” could certainly be true. “Scientists,” Prince Charles, and Gore did not say that their time frame would be the onset of catastrophe, only that their time frame was about preventing a future catastrophe. If coal hauling freight train learns that the track is out when it’s a mile away, it will derail since it cannot stop within that distance (typically). But the calamity doesn’t come when the warning is given at a mile from the outage.

    The quote above those (“Global warming would destroy entire nations by 2000”) is a misquote. The actual statement was “senior environmental official at the United Nations, Noel Brown, says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the earth by rising sea levels if global warming is not reversed by the year 2000.” Thus, it’s arguably (the statement is somewhat ambiguous) subject to the same consideration as the others I’ve cited.

    If I were within range, I’d go see the movie just to see Dr. Briggs’ tie. But I’m not so I’ll wait until it’s free on Netflix or some such. Just as a data point, I’ve not seen “An Inconvenient Truth” either.

  14. Rob Ryan: What you say is true, but it’s also true that the technique is used by psychics to avoid failure in predictions. That’s a real possibliity in this case—avoiding any responsibility. It’s still a dangerous statement, as people like myself will simply answer that it’s too late now, so why try? In your example, the coal train engineer would be wise to bail off the train if possible, rather than trying to prevent the inevitable. I’m not saying you’re wrong, just that the way people view warnings decades out is often with suspicion and disbelief, especially when it’s a model. If the train was told a model predicted an outage 100 miles down the track, how much credence would the engineer put in the model, if it has never been tested? (I’m getting this image in my head of engineers everywhere freaking out minute by minute as models change with new data and adjustments, changing the outage range and severity—sorry, my mind just runs around by itself sometimes!) This is as much about perception as fact, even more so maybe. That’s why “An Inconvenient Truth” sold so well, besides people love disasters. I haven’t seen it either and don’t really plan to.

  15. LOL! I love when the sleazy cons use the word “shrill.” Makes ’em feel like manly men. Hey guys, ya’ know Al Bundy was the lovable moron, right? He wasn’t supposed to be a beacon of intellectualism. Lowbrows.

    JMJ

  16. Jersey – who used the word “shrill” in this blog post? I don’t see it. Are you saying we are “lowbrows” here? Are you are a highbrow? You don’t look it by your photo. (I like your photo, by the way.) And if you are a highbrow why do you hang out in such a lowbrow dive as this? You never seem to make much sense. Why are you here?

  17. Back from the movie; viewed in Westminster, Colorado (about 20 minutes from Boulder). Roughly 120 in the audience, mostly gray hairs, though there were some who had the Boulder “look”. Took my daughters and granddaughter, the latter being the only youngster in the audience, which disappointed me. A well done movie although the sound was too low. As one who is well on top of the CAGW bull-puckey, it was fun seeing the folks we have come to love and respect for their anti-CAGW stances. WB’s comment on how his stance has affected his career was illuminating and demonstrates his integrity. Nothing new in the movie for me, but my family got quite a bit out of it and appreciated my taking them. A number of audience laughs were elicited and there were no groans or boos so presumably the audience was generally anti-CAGW. I was hoping to stick around to see if any of the audience got into discussions, but the grandkid has school tomorrow and we had to get going. Kudos to the producer, those who appeared, and to you Briggs. I truly appreciate your principled stand.

  18. Dean

    Not sure

    But I THINK JMJ meant “shill” (i.e., cons calling progs “shills” is like
    the pot calling the kettle black – or in the case of cons
    the night calling the kettle black – cause there’s nothing as black as night)

    JMJ is truly an anachronism

  19. Darn:

    I SHOULD have used a coal mine analogy above

    Climate IS the discussion, here

  20. JMJ: How would you know what a manly man feels like?

    I will keep count now of how many times I read the word “shrill” in liberal websites and get back to you.

    Dean: It’s in the first shaded block in the post. (Jersey is here because he just happened. That’s the liberal atheist way, you know.)

  21. Really, Lee, youtube? Isn’t that like getting my science from Bill Nye, the children’s comedian guy?

  22. Lee Philips: Yes, I know what is on YouTube COULD be true (which to most warmists means it is, of course). However, I’m not likely to take the time to check out a crayon coloring book explaining quantum mechanics. Some things are just too far fetched to bother with. (I quit taking on-line classes that were on YouTube—If the university can’t make videos and website, I see no reason to waste my time on them. Again, they could be right. However, they did not care enough to put any effort into the course, so why bother?)

  23. I saw the film in Kennesaw, a northern suburb of Atlanta. There were something less than a hundred people in attendance, and quite a few had grey hair like mine. There were a few millennials.

    Theater was the AMC 24, and there weren’t very many people attending any of the movies.

    The documentary was very good, and I felt very pleased to see our hero, W M Briggs, in his role. I didn’t notice his tie, but I did notice his hat. No more comments on his dress.

    I left right after the Sarah Palin panel started. I had to go to the bathroom, and it seemed like a good time to leave. Why did CFACT show the panel?

  24. “don’t miss this podcast, which has a news clip from 1971 in which an official from the National Science Foundation said mankind was causing global cooling”

    The following is what I heard when I listened to the podcast. There was nothing about the official putting the blame on mankind, was there?

    “It seems that late summer in Chicago’s been cooler than usual, so maybe there is something to the claim that the Earth is heading for another ice age. An official of the National Science Foundation says the average temperature of the Earth’s climate has dropped substantially since 1940 and that the period of maximum warmth in the northern hemisphere was 6,000 years ago.”

  25. Jack K,

    See http://realclimatescience.com/ for a host of old clips from the 70s which unambiguously ascribe global cooling to man. And anyway, did we have ice-age-worthy global cooling? No, sir, we did not. Experts are often wrong about hideously complex systems like the climate (and culture).

  26. Hey, I’m on your side re: global warming, but you were pretty explicit about what we were going to hear in the podcast, and it just isn’t correct, that’s all.

  27. Jack K,

    The official from the NSF said there was a coolin’ a comin’. The coolin’, she never a’come.

    Therefore he was wrong. Why is was wrong was because, as is easily discovered (at the link I gave and spoke of in the podcast, too). The why is they incorrectly specified too much causative power to man.

    Like, we agree, they’re doing again now.

  28. Briggs,
    Is there another audio clip in the podcast that I missed? Because as you saw, I transcribed the news clip (you’re welcome), and it doesn’t match what you wrote, which was
    “don’t miss this podcast, which has a news clip from 1971 in which an official from the National Science Foundation said mankind was causing global cooling”
    Why is correcting mistakes such an impossible ask in this new world we live in?

  29. Jack Kennedy:

    “Why is correcting mistakes such an impossible ask in this new world we live in?”

    It’s not a problem for me, the people I work with, or legitimate scientists and intellectuals, who have learned to accept that they can not avoid making mistakes, and are grateful to have them pointed out.

    When you encounter someone who will perform a variety of contortions to pretend that there really is no mistake, when there obviously is, it’s a clue that truth is not a priority.

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