In a talk at some “sustainability” something-or-other seminar—one this is sure: we’re not going to soon run out of climate conclaves—academic Donald Brown told his audience (25 min. mark) that the people who are not as afraid as he that the world will soon end are committing crimes against humanity. If Brown is right, this put yours truly well into the company of such noted transgressors as Mao, Stalin, Pot and other socialist dictators.
Or maybe Brown hadn’t meant that level of heinousness and instead envisioned lesser culprits, such as the guy who invented the car alarm or whoever it was that thought up the Sony Walkman (which has morphed into our ubiquitous present-day thinking suppression devices).
Anyway, here’s what happened.
Marc Morano at Climate Depot placed Brown’s image and his email in earlier articles on that site in posts which outlined Brown’s views on this and that climate topic. Brown thought that showing his publicly available email and head shot—which are not hidden and are trivially easy to find at Penn State—represented “intimidation.”
This, so Brown claims, led to him receiving emails some of which were scatological and others which threatened death. I unfortunately believe him. There are a lot of knuckleheads out there and the (pseudo) anonymity of the internet fills some with a pathetic false bravery. I wish these foolish souls would think better.
Of course, Morano himself hauls in plenty of scathing missives daily, as do others who run blogs expressing doubt that we should let government “solve” climate change.
Your truly hasn’t received any death threats, but I get plenty of things like this one from yesterday, “I know you are an extreme political right winger, but now you’ve become a ringleader of a hate group.” Ringleader—I presume my interlocutor did not mean in the Tolkienian sense—is a promotion of sorts, up from Lone Wolf. But I’ve still got a ways to go before I reach Mastermind.
Brown, who was dressed a priest (without the collar), early in his talk said that skepticism about climate change should be “encouraged.” But he wants it separated from “disinformation,” which he defines as that which departs from the “consensus.” Brown’s position is thus like that of the dictatorship which claims voting is every citizen’s right, but which produces ballots on which there is only one candidate.
He says that those who speak against the consensus are engaged in an organized “campaign” funded by oil companies and “right wing” groups. This might be true, but none of those funds have managed to trickle down my way. But now that I’m a Ringleader, perhaps I can expect a raise in pay?
Somehow Brown forgot to mention that the funding to spread the “climate catastrophe” message dwarfs, by at least one, possibly two, maybe even three, orders of magnitude any monies skeptics receive. Nearly every government dumps tens and tens and more tens of millions each year on the “problem,” a good chunk of which ends up in the pockets of people like Donald Brown. And then there’s the money sucked in and pumped out by Greenpeace, the Environmental Defense Fund, Sierra-blah-blah-blah. Skeptics run on alms, consensus members and their hangers on are clothed in gold.
The whole of his talk is to convince that a conspiracy exists to gull the public. In a separate work he hints of dark rooms and speaks of a “climate change disinformation campaign.” He claims skeptics “are guilty of exacerbating risks to our collective well-being and of undermining society.”
He claims the “moral outrage” caused by skeptics “should motivate a movement at least as ferocious as the Occupy Wallstreet movement.” And in his talk he says that climate skeptics are guilty of a “new crime against humanity. [Skepticism] is really evil stuff. It is nasty.”
Donald Brown is not the first to croak out this tune. He accepts the “consensus” as a given, as unquestionable in its outline, its warnings certain. But he is not simply filled with wonder that others doubt his faith, which would be natural. He is instead outraged. He wants action. He walks up to the line, over which is to ask that government silence his enemies, and hovers there. He would cross that line if he could be sure of support from enough of his colleagues.
Congratulations on your promotion to ringleader. I suspect the following:
MansContributionToWarming = (YourOilFunding + YourRightWingerFunds) + APittance
Extremism is the shelter of the weak-minded.
– Jeff ID
We are all going to die from climate change of one sort or another. In the 1970s, Erlich claimed millions would die from famine in the 1980s caused by global cooling. When global cooling didn’t work out the doomsayers just changed their message that we were all going to die by global warming. Now that global warming has apparently stopped the doomsday merchants seem to be getting a little hysterical.
Almost got it wrong in your last paragraph… I read ‘Donald Brown is not the first Crook-‘
…but then I went back and read the line again. Not sure I see anything different.
Now that you’re a Ringleader you should get some business cards printed up and go on the road like our pal A. Din. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Have_Gun%E2%80%93Will_Travel
Perhaps you could have a contest for the best tag line, “Have Reason — Will Travel” for example.
“Have Blog — Will Travel Anyway”
“Have Ring — Will Lead”
…??
—
The Sony Walkman was nowhere near as heinous as the Boom Box. You can do what you want in the privacy of your own head but Openly, in Public? Really.
WMS — A Weapon of Mass Suppression
DAV, in that case MIkey Mann would be saying — Have rings will play hockey
“Extremism is the shelter of the weak-minded.”
What is a remarkably stupid little saying: any action that has a high price-tag (of some kind) attached to it requires ‘extremism’.
The proper opposite of ‘extremism’ is ‘inertness’. Also true would be ‘weakness’. Pathetic slug would also fit.
“And in his talk he says that climate skeptics are guilty of a “new crime against humanity. [Skepticism] is really evil stuff. It is nasty.—
Here is a perfect example. Again. Clearly talking to hippies does NOTHING. Clearly talking to people who have been infected with the mindlessness of the hippies, does NOTHING. (Lets not even get started with the extreme uselessness of ‘writing’.) So, of course, the ‘solution’ to all problems is… to talk to (‘debate’ with) them.
Underlying this gem of ass-ramming stupidity is the assumption that evil people can be moved from their paths by TALKING to them. (Cue an insane giggle.)
Secondly we are given the false dilemma: either we ‘debate’ (i.e. do absolutely nothing), or else we kill each other. Given what the hippies are doing to the world, the 2nd option is becoming more and more viable – civil war, with all the death it entails. This is the CONSEQUENCE of being inert – and it is at its root the FAULT of the hippies – they are the ones forcing these decision trees.
A third alternative, which while violent does not devolve to murder, is to grow up and “mark them, and avoid them”: once a hippie has been identified, do not talk to it, do not acknowledge it (except perhaps to spit in its face) OR anything it may say, do, or write. This will work: “If done right, no defense”, to quote a certain filthy hippie.
But this option is no longer possible. It would require the salt to still be salt. Not the lake of puke it has become. ‘Christians’ can no longer step apart from the hippies, because they HAVE BECOME like the hippies: the phenomenon of pseudo-Christian Ghandi-love. Where the bible (KJV) is ‘interpreted’ so as to ‘fit-in’ with Hindu sensibilities, and Muslim sensibilities, and hippie sensibilities, and Satanist sensibilities (seriously, of course), etc. etc. etc.
Christianity is dead: what is left is a great game of pretense. The Catholic church has always been devoid of the Lord, and also deeply corrupt: and now its ways are the ways of all the churches.
I am saying this as someone who first realized that devils exist, and then acted as per the dictates of logic: the ‘Christians’ of today are serving the ‘god’ of forces. This is not hard to check – but first you have to realize that you can in fact check things by yourself (i.e. no priest or pastor required), and then you have to go and actually do it. Such a tiny hurdle: and yet it blocks essentially everyone.
But I am realizing that this is not the right forum for any of this: matters of truth and reason, as per the bible, have no value here. Not unless those two have first been ‘defined’ by some damned Greek philosopher or similar. I may as well try discussing devils on one of those ‘angels’ forums.
Here is a last truth: if the Holy Spirit does not grant understanding, no IQ, no book, no teacher will EVER grant it. What follows from this, directly, is that those understandings not granted by the Holy Spirit, are corrupt: either forever in the case of the damned, or otherwise until correction occurs.
Maybe someone should ask Donald why he thinks Americans will ever be worried about a few parts per million of carbon when they don’t seem to be worried about a 40% budget deficit?
“I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had.
Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.
There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period.â€
-Michael Crichton
Apparently the ” “climate change crowd” (aka AGW crowd) seem to think that weather & climate is going “unmanageable” or (as I’ve seen it) “spinning out of control”, I would like to know – when did they think it was in control?
Weather is basically seasonal with a large amount of random events overlaying it.
Have a look at http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/bad-weather/ to see how variable the weather can be.
They (climate change crowd ) sound like weather deniers to me.
I do believe climate changes, and humans can do nothing about it.
Can I join your “well-orchestrated and funded campaign of disinformation”? Please? Pretty Please?
You’ve disqualified yourself from the “Fellowship of the Ring” of course, and the approbation of its founder Michael “lonesome pine” Mann. He & Briffa only used one tree for the most important part of their “you ain’t seen smoothing ’til you’ve seen this” hockey-stick reconstructions (warning: may contain traces of thermometer readings). Mann & Briffa believe “if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen Yamal”.
MostlyHarmless,
Yes! All are welcome. Of course, there is a small initiation fee…
Welcome to the vast right-wing conspiracy. You will receive your official decoder ring in regular mail in 2 to 4 weeks.
Morality game over, just like Hansen’s climate game. Don’t you understand? Every tornado, wildfire, flood, thunderstorm, dry spell, … whatever… is now the result of skeptics’ opposition to government interventions that would bring the beasty nasty climate under control. The gulag and insane asylums would be fitting destinations for such cads.
Brown should be asked to produce the alleged death threats emails (redacted to protect the guilty while the police authorities investigate and prosecute the offenders, if there really are any).
We have just sorted through a whole pile of false reports of death threats from Australia, which turned out to be non-existent.
If he fails to produce at least confirmation from the authorities that they are in fact investigating credible death threats, then we can assumed that he is pulling the Australian trick.
Donald A. Brown is a Lawyer!
He is not a scientist.
He is not an “ethicist!” (Whatever the heck that is!)
Don Brown is a lawyer!
He was appointed by Clinton to some board, and by the Dem Gov. Rendell in PA to another.
What can these whacky enviro-whackos be thinking?
They put a lawyer out front of their “ethics” crusade!
Too rich.
“He has a bachelor of science from Drexel University in Commerce and Engineering Sciences, a JD from Seton Hall University School of Law, and a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies with a major in philosophy and art.”
“The whole of his talk is to convince that a conspiracy exists to gull the public.”
And he is absolutely correct. In fact that may be the most concise summation of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Change that I have seen so far.