The new climate denial + The kaleidoscopic views of climate-change deniers

[C C]

The New Climate Denial
https://counterhate.com/research/new-climate-denial/

EXCERPT: In this report, for the first time, researchers [...] have quantified the startling and important rise over the past five years in what we call “New Denial” — the departure from rejection of anthropogenic climate change, to attacks on climate science and scientists, and rhetoric seeking to undermine confidence in solutions to climate change. “New Denial” claims now constitute 70% of all climate denial claims made on YouTube, up from 35% six years ago... (MORE - details)

THE REPORT (PDF): https://counterhate.com/wp-content/uploa..._FINAL.pdf

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The kaleidoscopic views of climate-change deniers
https://www.acsh.org/news/2024/01/18/kal...iers-17587

INTRO (Barbara Pfeffer): The Roman politician Cicero once said, “When there is no basis for an argument, abuse the plaintiff.” Some interpret this to mean that the best defense is a good offense. I’ve another interpretation: When you have no explanation – deflect, defer, confound, and confuse the listener with irrelevancies. That about sums up the latest rhetoric of climate change deniers.

Because climate-change deniers are no longer able to say, with a straight face, that the climate isn’t changing, they resort to a host of irrelevancies. First, it was that the phenomenon was natural, the climate has always changed. This may be true, but it is also irrelevant since climate change has wreaked enormous environmental damage, and we need to worry about future trends. Claiming this is a natural phenomenon to justify their “do nothing” response is sheer lunacy. Imagine if a (natural) meteor was hurtling towards Earth - shortly to cause its oblivion. Can you just imagine these hide-your-head-in-the-sand birds saying, “Well, it’s a natural event, so why do anything?” The relevancy of the response, however, goes to what we should do about the situation, not to deny outright its existence.

The latest rejoinder of the climate ostriches is that global cooling causes more deaths than global warming. The refrain is eagerly grasped by those in need of a new mantra. With global cooling the real villain, anti-responders claim we should focus on that - a classic example of deflect, defer, confound, and confuse. Some anti-global warming activists advise that carbon-cutting will only slow future deaths, and only slightly, advising air conditioning as the prudent response, even as they ignore the warming effects of those air conditioners.

“Even if all the world's ambitious carbon-cutting promises were magically enacted, these policies would only slow future warming. Stronger heat waves would still kill more people, just slightly fewer than they would have. A sensible response would focus first on resilience, meaning more air conditioning and cooler cities through greenery and water features”- Bjorn Lundberg

Let’s assume this contention is true – that more people die (directly) from global cooling than global heating. What does that have to do with minimizing deaths from global warming? Why shouldn’t we mitigate climate change by simultaneously addressing both concerns? (MORE - details)

RELATED (scivillage): Energy info matters more than ever - it’s time to reform the IEA

[Syne]

"Climate-change denier" is a dishonest misnomer, at best. They changed "global warming" to "climate change" and just presumed that denial of one equated to denial of the other. It doesn't. Everyone universally agrees that the climate has always changed and will always do so. That's exactly why they changed the language they used. So they could be more slippery and gain more support from people who don't really pay attention that "climate-change" is just a truism.

Now if they were honest, they could point to legit "catastrophic climate-change deniers." But that would be admitting that they're all just hysterical... which this article seems to typify, with its allusion to "a meteor hurtling towards Earth."

[confused2]

Personally I'd like to see a nice clean planet powered by the Sun.
In the long term it is the only way forward.
Many people think we should wait until fossil fuels have run out before attempting a sustainable approach - effectively having it forced on us rather than choosing it. Rising CO2 levels suggest we should maybe think about sooner rather than later - not even waiting to exhaust fossil fuel reserves.
Ideally the only people against a sustainable planet should be those with shares in the fossil fuel industry but there seem to be many more than that - for reasons that aren't always entirely clear.

[Syne]

Ah, the old myth of "peak-oil." That myth has been promulgated for over 100 years.

A "clean planet" relies on getting the heaviest polluters, like China, in line. Shy of WWIII, that ain't gonna happen.
A "sustainable planet" is one where people can actually afford a half-decent standard of living. Not one where more and more people are priced out of the middle-class simply due to rising energy costs. Not to mention the huge infrastructure needed, that even the greenest states/countries have yet to build.

All just pie in the sky wish fulfillment to appease the masses, or fearmongering hysterics to threaten them into political line.

[Secular Sanity]

I haven’t heard much talk about the Great Reset or the WEF on this forum, why?

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/06/n...eat-reset/

[Syne]

The Great Reset has been stained with Q-Anon conspiracy, but the WEF has explicitly stated some of those goals.

Their latest gem is that, with AI prediction, no one will ever need to vote again. Just the power hungry grabbing at more power.

[Yazata]

The New Climate Denial
https://counterhate.com/research/new-climate-denial/

EXCERPT: In this report, for the first time, researchers [...] have quantified the startling and important rise over the past five years in what we call “New Denial”

"Skepticism" is a more accurate word than "denial".

— the departure from rejection of anthropogenic climate change, to attacks on climate science and scientists,

They aren't mutually exclusive categories. Those of us who are skeptical about the etiology and severity of climate change are likely to also be critical of the kind of activists who demand that the US and Europe (but not China for some reason) reverse the industrial revolution and return to some idealized vision of medieval village life. Especially when those same activists try to reach their utopian goals by undemocratic and totalitarian means.

It isn't that we are "attacking" science or scientists. We are simply expressing our unwillingness to credulously accept everything told to us in the holy name of 'Science'. Especially when science has become increasingly confused with and indistinguishable from political activism in today's universities. We are just saying that we no longer unquestioningly trust scientists as many people used to do in previous decades.

The kaleidoscopic views of climate-change deniers
https://www.acsh.org/news/2024/01/18/kal...iers-17587

INTRO (Barbara Pfeffer): The Roman politician Cicero once said, “When there is no basis for an argument, abuse the plaintiff.” Some interpret this to mean that the best defense is a good offense. I’ve another interpretation: When you have no explanation – deflect, defer, confound, and confuse the listener with irrelevancies. That about sums up the latest rhetoric of climate change deniers.

And isn't that precisely what Barbara Pfeffer is doing here? She ignores her opponents' arguments and moves straight to an ad-hominem attack on those she insultingly calls "deniers".

Because climate-change deniers are no longer able to say, with a straight face, that the climate isn’t changing

It depends on the time-scale. About 12,000 years ago, the last ice-age was winding down. There appear to have been periods in Earth's history when the Earth was warmer than today and lacked polar icecaps. And there is the "snowball Earth" idea that hypothesizes that polar icecaps extended all the way to the equator. So the evidence suggests (but doesn't prove) that the Earth's climate has a much larger range of natural variation than anything observed in human history.

But changing on a short time-scale? Not so much. The data seems to indicate a 1.6 degree C rise in mean global temperatures since the mid 19th century. That doesn't seem to be anything to panic about. It clearly doesn't justify the "extinction level event", "Earth on fire" rhetoric that we hear so often. Frankly, I haven't really noticed much change during my lifetime. Whatever it is, it isn't the apocalypse.

they resort to a host of irrelevancies. First, it was that the phenomenon was natural, the climate has always changed. This may be true, but it is also irrelevant since climate change has wreaked enormous environmental damage

What enormous environmental damage? Activists can't just blame every extreme weather event on anthropogenic climate change without any evidence of actual causal relation between the two besides their speculations. We needn't accept the implicit claim that extreme weather events never occurred until the last century and wouldn't happen today if it weren't for evil capitalism.

and we need to worry about future trends.

None of us, including the scientists, have the ability to perceive the future. All the scientists have are their models, which by their very nature are untested. And given the increasing politicization of "climate science", one justifiably questions whether those models were created to produce the results their creators already wanted for totally unscientific reasons. Would we ever hear about a model that didn't produce the desired results? Would it even be publishable in today's journals?

Claiming this is a natural phenomenon to justify their “do nothing” response is sheer lunacy.

No more so than demanding total global social and economic transformation based only on what appears to be alarmist hysteria mixed with exaggeration and speculation. That appears to be lunacy as well.

Let’s assume this contention is true – that more people die (directly) from global cooling than global heating. What does that have to do with minimizing deaths from global warming?

If it's true that more people die from cold than from heat, then reducing cold weather might arguably reduce those excess deaths. This 'global cooling' argument isn't my argument, but on the face of it, it does make sense.

My argument is more along the lines that all of the global-warming hysteria is aimed at driving social change in the West. But again, the data shows that most of the 1.6 degree C rise in global mean temperatures since the industrial revolution has come since 1990. This was a period of deindustrialization in the West.

So (assuming it was human caused, a big unproven assumption) what was responsible? Certainly not American or European gas stoves. It won't be put right by Europeans eating bugs.

Since 1990 the big world historical event was the (very dirty) industrialization of China. Today China alone is responsible for more than half the world's production of greenhouse gasses. Yet we never hear a peep about China. It's always about transforming ourselves. (Into... what?)

[Syne]

It would like mean transforming ourselves into vassal states of China, as they continue to steal technology and we progressively cede our economic and military competitiveness. If that should happen, everywhere becomes as polluted as China, to serve their demands. Gone would be all the amazing progress of a clean environment already achieved by the West.

Makes me wonder though. Where do you live (or how short is your memory) that you can't recognize what amazing progress has been made, even just since the 60s and 70s. And all without demanding people be poor and live a lesser quality of life.

[confused2]

Today China alone is responsible for more than half the world's production of greenhouse gasses.

Source?
From Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co..._emissions
In 2022 Total: China 29.161% (US 11.188%) per capita: China 10.95 (tons?) US 17.9 UK 6.27 Average 6.76

..Yet we never hear a peep about China.

Chinese officials point out that the highest per capita emissions have long been and still are in the developed countries, not in China.[53] They implied that it is the developed nations who should shoulder a comparable portion of the global cost for reversing the world's emissions, consistent with the polluter pays principle.[54]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_policy_of_China

The low UK figure probably doesn't include imported goods (made in China?). We're an undeveloping nation - we peaked about 50 years ago.

Edit - I'm still with the nice clean, sustainable planet. If you don't want that .. don't do it.

[Syne]

Per capita is a bullshit figure, since it only takes into account population and not land mass. This is most evident in the fact that Canada pollutes more, per capita, than Russia, the US, or China. That's much more a factor of their relatively low population, and the same goes for China's relatively massive population. About 1.4 billion Chinese vs 336 million Americans. The US, Canada, and China are all fairly similar in geographic size. China produces almost three times the pollution the US does, as a percentage of worldwide pollution.

China emits more greenhouse gas than the entire developed world combined, a new report has claimed.

The research by Rhodium Group says China emitted 27% of the world's greenhouse gases in 2019.

The US was the second-largest emitter at 11% while India was third with 6.6% of emissions, the think tank said.
- https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-57018837

But again, where do you live that is so polluted? Here in the US, I don't see any signs of pollution whatsoever. IOW, very clean and sustainable.
Maybe you should move out of your shithole.