Climate change denial: How the agents of denial will cause de-industrialisation

I’ll most likely avoid blogging over this coming weekend (weekend is family time), however, I feel compelled to end this week by repeating myself ever more bluntly.

As demonstrated above, you give some mice a huge supply of a resource, they don’t just eat until their little bellies are full; they breed and their numbers explode until you have a huge population. Now the resource doesn’t look so big in comparison and soon depletes. What isn’t shown in the video above is the smelly aftermath; the starving death of the masses of mice.

What morons like Minchin, Monckton and others like them fail to see is that discussions regarding changes to our practices that shift us away from fossil fuels are not an attempt to de-industrialise the western world; in fact, it is the very opposite.

I tried to make it very clear in my last post that currently, the process from our primary food production to our plates is one that is heavily dependent black gold. Without fossils fuels, we fail to produce enough fertilizers, fail to power machines to move the produce and work the land, fail to process this raw material, fail to bring it to your local shop and fail to keep it long enough to be used efficiently. Currently we waste a hell of a lot of food, but that’s another topic. Without fossil fuels, we would be forced back to a state before the industrial revolution – and following all the destruction of natural resources and the degradation of landscapes we’ve caused to date, we certainly wouldn’t have the ability to meet the needs of the population. Throw in the effects of climate change, endless population growth and peak oil projections, 2100 is looking a lot like a farm at the tail end of a mouse plague.

It isn’t green so much, that we talk about finding more efficient means to do what we already do, nor is it green to urge that we give more appreciation to biodiversity and the copious services other species provide. No, it is practical.

If the concern is over the required economic shifts, doesn’t it make sense that we start the shift earlier rather than later so that the bend isn’t so sharp and the inertia jar doesn’t cause whiplash? Fossil fuels are a finite supply and we’ve lived too long on easy energy. Yet these days will come to an end over the next century and if our growth in numbers and in personal usage continues, it’ll happen sooner rather than later.

What is required is educated dialogue and practical measures to ensure that we can continue to live and prosper. Our future will not continue to ride on the back of this oily beast; it must be by other methods and will certainly employ more natural services. For instance, it is very energetic to produce fixed nitrogen that is usable for plants, yet legumes do this for us. Compost is also a wonderful source. Together, they cannot meet our current nitrogen needs, but the problem won’t go away by ignoring it and it certainly won’t be addressed while we give paranoid conspiracies the time of day. This is what I mean by open, educated dialogue – not this absurd “balanced argument” the media encourages (putting Monckton in a debate against a climate expert is as balanced as putting a Tono-Bungay salesman up against a medical doctor – who do you believer? A “travelling wonder elixir show” or someone who has earned their title through years of research and study?).

The future can be wonderful and we can continue to be successful as a species, but not on business-as-usual methods. We have been sloppy, but we can change. It is people like those mentioned above and others I’ve previously mentioned in other posts who will lead us to de-industrialisation, not practical measures to improve our actions.

Have a good weekend all!

Related posts;

Jelly Bean Junkies: Monckton screams Biofuel Propaganda

Republican John Shimkus and his bi-polar God.

Confusing the public: “Science” should avoid the denial gravy train.

Ignorance is… A quick review of pointless opposition climate change science

Is Monckton working for an Amish conspiracy? How the future is more than debate over climate change.

The distance in consumption; where should we put our plate?

The ways we choose our fate – the real tragedy of environmental ignorance

Bad journalism and The Agents of Doubt

Ecolomics – a potential love-child between Economy and Ecology?

An unfortunate rebuttal to those who should be ignored

Mr. Minchin and the Enviro-Communist?

This is NO debate – rather science against the smooth talk

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Watt’s here? Watt a waste of fuel.

Mike, over at “Watching the Deniers”, posted about Anthony Watts upcoming Australia tour. I couldn’t help but initially want to go to the event, however, I’ve since changed my mind; certainly not when it means paying this weather man my cash just to hear the spill first hand. Looking at the likes of him and Monckton it goes to show, if you want a nice world trip, make sure you can make soup from a stone – a stone that keeps business-as-usual on even keel and heading down a dead-end path.

One can’t help but write off these two and others like them, such as Jo Nova, Donna Laframboise, Tony Abbot, Andrew Bolt, John Shimkus and a handful of others, as nothing more than denialists. As Michael Shermer correctly states in Living with Denial: When a sceptic isn’t a sceptic, “no matter how much evidence is laid out before them they continue to deny the claim.”

That goes for anyone who still refers to Climategate as evidence of wrong-doing on the climate scientists behalf after two investigations have been carried out and acquitted the involved scientist of unethical practices. To continue to harp on about the stolen emails as anything more than theft of personal information is refuting the evidence and thus a case of denial. As for the science and what the studies are finding, well that is left to debate among the appropriate scientists who will continue to do their research and nut it out in a professional matter, the rest of us are not the authority; the vast amount of bloggers and media discussing the issue demonstrate a lack of scientific understanding and a far too egotistical to merit any interest.

Climate is changing and we are involved; the science is pointing to these facts and the scientists doing the research have proven themselves professional in their field. As I like to do, I’ll again make the point that climate change is only one issue of a whole host that require urgent attention (see here and here for example) all of which lead us away from fossil fuels sooner rather than later. By all means, debate the political ramifications, for that is far from a clear path at this point. The science is good, making the vast amount of this discussion pointless: aim it towards arguing over the changes to policies that are needed.

However;

Relying on Anthony Watts for your climate science is like asking a dentist for a second opinion when a neurologist tells you that they’ve found a brain tumour.

Trusting Monckton’s fears of a nazi world government plot instead of the voice of multi-generational farmers who have watched their lands change is like buying up home security equipment from a door-to-door salesman whose sale pitch relies on him once being abducted by aliens because his house wasn’t properly locked.

There’s no point finding a metaphor for the others mentioned above;

Jo’s site lets all forms of absurdity float through that one can only conclude that when she refers to herself as a science communicator, she really means science fiction communicator. I’d like to point out that, although she illustrates clever use of the English language, Arthur C. Clark was more so and he also used tid-bits of scientific understanding and imagination to elaborate ideas and construct his work. Although his work of this nature was placed under the heading of fiction; he never illustrated such illusions of truth. Mike makes a great point about Jo here).

Donna needs no real mention; she cannot even tell the difference between weather and climate and so should be ignored (and I wouldn’t be surprised if she largely is outside of the FOX audience base).

Tony Abbot said the other day that he doesn’t always tell the truth (well he is a politician after all, so no real surprise) and has told school students that it was warmer when Jesus was alive… I don’t think I need to go too far into this.

Andrew quotes Watts often… all I need to say is that he’s found a reference that agrees with his beliefs and not beliefs based on critical evaluation of the evidence. As Shermer states in his piece; it’s a clear indication of denial.

What troubles me the most about this blatant attack on reason by these people is that while the bulk of us discuss all this, we ignore the ever increasing CO2 concentration, the decreasing pH of our oceans, continuing species loss from a wide range of human impacts (one of which is climate change), continuously degradation of agricultural lands, a slow but steady increase in the costs of food (especially fresh food), power and clean water, and the inevitable depletion of our primary power source with little sensible progress aimed at providing alternative high grade sources (BraveNewClimate is one of the few sources aimed at discussing this).

Some of the people discussed above were among those screaming for the heads of the involved scientists following the release of the stolen emails. With all the media released on “Climategate” where have been the corrections? Which of these people can prove that they are not denialists by changing their views following the findings of the investigations?

Nothing has changed (in many cases many people still think Climategate exists and the investigations were corrupt).

I believe these people should be held accountable for the propaganda that they spread which ensures inaction remains as long as possible. Still, Anthony hopes on a plane to visit Australia, following a long tradition of denial that we as a population seem slow to catch on to.