The following idea has been stewing around in my head for a little while now, but as I referred to it in a comment on WTD, I figure that I might write it up now.
What is an Alarmist?
Wikipedia tells us that “alarmism is excessive or exaggerated alarm about a real or imagined threat”.
So, to be an alarmist, one is said to be inflating a potential threat beyond anything realistic.
I cannot speak for all the writers out there, however I know that those who I link to, as well as the work that I provide here, are all based on the wealth of science available. Where others have referred to the 4th IPCC report, it’s even likely that potential risks in continuing mismanagement of resources and pollutants are somewhat played down. From experience with working on scientific governmental reports, I know that there is a push to find some positive spin of everything.
If you care to look through the posts on this blog or those in the blogs that I’ve linked you, you will find thoughtful, evidence rich pieces (ie. lots of references to relevant scientific literature and explanations) that lead to concern. You don’t find anyone invoking fear or rallying up the readers into outrage against some establishment.
This is quite clearly NOT the work done by alarmists.
Now, if we look at the opponents of reason; from the misinformation of WUWT or Monckton, to the rally-talk of Donna Laframboise or Jo Nova and then to all those who spread out from such resources, once sufficiently inspired, to parrot off their work in various other comment threads; we see something else.
Here, the treat is a Green Agenda. The IPCC reports, Mann and co. and over a century and a half scientific investigation are all designed to one day, shift the masses into a perpetual state of poverty, with others excelling to dizzying heights of wealth, all under a single communistic world government.
Their evidence? A few mined quotes, some confused interpretations of the data (by unrelated scientists, reporters and whatever Monckton can be called), which have continuously been shown to be wrong and most importantly – a whole heap of emotions (mainly anger).
While concern expressed at this blog and those I link to, try to remain level-headed and focused on what recent studies have revealed, our main opposition is a non-technical group who simply holds up some emails, re-interpreted IPCC graphs and insane conclusions (such as the Urban Heat Island effect or solar activity being the cause of the change to the global temperature anomaly over the past century) all while demanding that we should be angry that our free speech is at risk.
Honestly, how could the IPCC lie about the findings of so many scientists? We wouldn’t need this band, “willing to stand up [against reason, if the truth be known]” , for every single scientist involved would have made a stand against the misinterpretation of their work.
If there was a plot to take over the world, would this one small band be all that stands between democracy and oppression? Of course not (every time I think of this bloody silliness, I’m reminded of that WB’s cartoon, “Pinky and the Brain” – I can’t help but laugh).
No, quite frankly “alarmism is excessive or exaggerated alarm about a real or imagined threat” and as far as I can tell, those who label the rest of us alarmists are the only group that hold onto imagined threats. The rally style of Nova and Laframoise is nothing but excessive alarm of this imagined threat.
It’s obvious that the same group that deny the validity of the scientific evidences are the true alarmists.
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