Richard, are you sure you want your T-shirt to say "Avertable" and not "Avertible"? My fellow schoolboys would have chosen instinctively. Of course "Avoidable" would have averted the problem.

A cynic is someone who's sceptical, and quite possibly dogmatically sceptical, about people's motivations.

There's ample reason to be sceptical about not only CAGW but also the motives of those advocating policies based on it.

...and there's ample reason to be sceptical about the reasons and motives of those opposing it.

Mike Jackson, questioning people motives isn't very useful; it gets personal and nasty. But since Cosmic makes an assertion about my motives (he doesn't specify me directly, I am nobody, but I find it difficult not to feel included), I see no reason not to suggest an alternative. Is one more 'gnomic' than the other?

97% of sceptics are sceptics because of the lavish funding I provide them. I think this amply confirms Mr Bucket's first assertion.

‘Climate Owls’ versus ‘Climate Roosters’?

A recently book by Richard Landes on millennial movements uses ‘apocalyptic roosters’ in contrast to ‘anti-apocalyptic owls’ to liven up (or ‘help conceptualize’ as he puts it) his analysis. The roosters are loud and pushy, the owls wise and reserved. But mostly roosters ‘dare not crow’ since ‘to do so would risk swift reaction: ridicule, retaliation, repression’. The owls on the other had can turn quite nasty when sufficiently provoked – but that is when they are the establishment, and the roosters not. The climate movement has a claim to being the establishment, and so their roosters are on the battlements while the owls are stuck in the woods and marshes beyond.

Landes looks at many apocalyptic movements, and notes of course that they have always been wrong. Which immediately made me think this: but the political agitator, the financial manipulator, the charity fundraiser and the evangelical recruiter might note that while all apocalyptic movements are wrong, some are useful, and carry on making hay in the promising environment CAGW has brought about for all of them.

Perhaps they feel secure about something that seems so incapable of disproof as an apocalyptic vision whose big whammy is perhaps 100 years or more away? Can they keep crowing and crowing while the owls make feeble hooting sounds in the distance? Or are doors to the castles being opened by sympathisers keen to get a better night’s sleep by embarrassing the roosters into silence? Or am I getting carried away by this analogy, as I fear does Landes in his book from time to time!?

[The book is 'Heaven on Earth; The Varieties of the Millennial Experience', Richard Landes, OUP, 2011]

The book, by the way, gives very little attention to CAGW. Landes calls it AGW, and generally seems more convinced by the AGW roosters than the sceptic owls! His main puzzle is over the contrast between the establishment’s acceptance of AGW but their refusal to take the threat of what he calls GJW sufficiently seriously. GJW is Global Jihadi Warming. How peculiar is that? Landes seems to see himself as something of a rooster on each, and my hunch is he is agonising over the fact that his ‘liberal’ chums in the academy are happy with being roosters for one but not the other.

Anyway, I am not convinced that roosters and owls are ideal as labels for players in the debate over climate, but they are fresher than alarmist and sceptic, and less offensive than eco-fascist and denier.

I think that cynic is worth a shot, but in 'apocalypse cynic' or 'catastrophe cynic' but not 'climate cynic' or 'climate change cynic' since I still have hope that climate studies will regain respect one day. If they do, they will do so in a changing climate.

Have they always been wrong? What about CFCs?

Mar 26, 2013 at 5:40 PM rhoda

Rhoda,

I did not get where I am by needlessly throwing away money, notwithstanding the billions available to me in my sceptic-funding slush funds.

I regret that my records show that you are in the 3% who we refer to as ICCS's (Intrinsic Climate Change Sceptics).

This represents that category of people who by their contrary nature (or other personality defect) have always been dyed-in-the-wool sceptics, without the need for payment of viewpoint-adjusting disbursements. Accordingly no payments are due to you. However, as the head of MI5 used to say, "An agent motivated by idealism is immensely more dangerous than one motivated by avarice". I hope this thought will provide some solace as you struggle to find the wherewithal to pay your heating bill.

Y'all seem to think there is only financial motivation. This seems a little unimaginative.

Mr Bucket,

There seems to be an unpleasant implication in what you say but, as usual, you avoid being explicit.

What other forms of 'motivation' are you insinuating that I employ to stimulate active climate scepticism? Please be explicit.

What do you mean by refusal to engage? I've had many long discussions on varied subjects with many people here, including you - that is why I come back, because I enjoy such discussions. I don't change my mind very often, but neither to my correspondents. I also tease from time to time and maybe that is what upsets you. I have noticed a lack of any sense of humour here.

On CFCs I think the evidence was clear and I have not heard of great economic damage being caused by their phase-out. On Booker, a man who has written 42 articles on white asbestos, I'm amazed that the Telegraph retains him and that he has any readers. Since we were talking about motivation above, one has to wonder what is his motivation. Why would he be so prolific on a subject about which nobody cares? Does he write about the evils of air pollution in cities and how a switch to electric vehicles could help save thousands of lives a year? Perhaps, I don't read him. If not, why not? I guess the fact that he denies AGW and hates the BBC makes him your ally (my enemy's enemy is my friend, sort of), but you must have a very forgiving nature after all of his untruths. Other readers can refer to Richard Wilson's blog and search for Booker or Bridle (Booker's guru on asbestos).

I've used 'heretic' to refer to those who oppose the climate and CO2 apocalyptic faith in a couple of comments on BH today. Seemed appropriate enough.

Good point, Martin A. I guess I can only use the term for those who were once believers of the true faith of CAGW, but have determined a new line - a lukewarmer perhaps who was once a bona fide hysterical? But for those who never had the faith at all and still don't, I guess CAGW heathen would be a bit better but perhaps not perfect. Back to being cynical ...

BB,

A cynic is sceptical about people's motives and in particular is ready to explore the idea that they are base - to do with personal advantage, usually money - or that they have some other self-seeking agenda which they wish to advance under false colours because they couldn't be sold on their merits; people wouldn't understand.

Following the money, on the side promoting CAGW, we have governments sponsoring research to promote this view and all sorts of jobs depending on people believing it. Everything from local government climate change outreach officers, to DECC, to the IPCC. The Met Office has been transformed from a staid Civil Service department to a propaganda operation recently run by a leading light in the WWF. We have well heeled groups like the Grantham group hoping to get fatter on carbon trading and employing Bob Ward as a professional advocate, although I can't see why they believe this is a succesful hire. Hunreds of millions and the whole apparatus of states is being applied.

On the sceptic side I see a lot of engineers trained to make things that work within a budget, and a lot of people standing up and saying that on the evidence presented this is bollox and certainly no basis for far reaching policy decisions. I see no respect for scientism, unvalidated and unverifiable models treated as evidence, and worthies.

As far as the money goes Heartland, GWPF etc have maybe a couple of million a year each* , nothing compared with the sums expended on getting us to believe this stuff, but it goes a long way. I doubt that BH is giving up acountancy.

As for your place in this, I neither know nor care, and I certainly wouldn't single you out as someone hanging on the teat of what I see as a scam. I'd guess by your handle you are involved in software. Would you object to being called /dev/null?

If you want a really cynical view, all that coal oil and gas is not going to stay in the ground, the politics that say it should are tried and failed as in the USSR or refer to a sentimental version of the Middle Ages. We are about to see Darwinism in action. Climate Science isn't science at all. It's akin to reading chicken entrails, a sort of priestcraft.

* Unless you believe in Big Oil. Big Oil is not a lot of JR figures seeing their aim as fuelling gas guzzlers, it's Big Money and perfectly prepared to take advantage of this disgusting scam.

Cosmic, /dev/null sums me up well, but is perhaps a little gnomic for Mike Jackson. On engineers, in my experience they don't know diddly squat about natural sciences, so relying on them for anything but engineering is doubtful. On funding, you might be forgetting all those campaign contributions. Of course they don't buy votes or anything like that. But like I say, the footsoldiers here have other motivations beyond money. I have no reason to sully those motives, however much I might disagree with the ideas expressed.

I agree that the oil and gas will be dug up, until it becomes uneconomic. Grid parity is not so far off for solar in sunny places. Off-grid, solar is the future. And electrification of transport is a no-brainer for city traffic. Oil and gas are doomed in the west; they just don't know it yet.