Discussion > Gasland at the BFI in London
..the worst crime of all) the lengthy damage to science as a guiding force.
how true.
Martin A
diogenes
My reply to Nial concentrated on the "obvious" cure for an echo chamber, ie allowing and even encouraging views from what you might call the other side of the fence.
But I agree that there are differences of opinion within the BH community as well though outsiders (and trolls) tend not to see it that way.
And, as in any community we are not always in agreement with the same people all the time which is where we differ from the AGW fanatics where you have to agree with every word of Holy Writ or risk excommunication. All you are likely to get excommunicated for in the church of Bishop Hill is behaving like a total asshole — not for preaching heresy!
Mike Jackson
this is what I was looking for:
http://fracknation.com/
diogenes
Only just saw this throwaway remark five days ago, diog:
My points of similarity with you, Philip Bratby, Martin Brumby, AlecM, Richard "Wattis" Drake, geronimo etc are minuscule.
Checking the ever-reliable Wikipedia I find:
Richard Wattis also appeared on television, including a long-running role opposite Eric Sykes and Hattie Jacques in Sykes as their next-door neighbour, and appearances in Danger Man, The Prisoner, The Goodies, Hancock's Half Hour and Father, Dear Father. In 1957-58, he appeared as Peter Jamison in three episodes of an American sitcom filmed in Britain, Dick and the Duchess, starring Patrick O'Neal and Hazel Court.He was gay, in an era when this was a taboo subject, though unusually, in his role as Northbrook in The Prince and the Showgirl by gay playwright Terence Rattigan, he makes it clear near the beginning of the film that he is attracted to the title character portrayed by Laurence Olivier. He died of a heart attack in a Kensington restaurant in 1975 aged 62 years, in the middle of his favourite meal and claret.
It's all true except I can't stand claret. But how did you find out?
Richard Drake
diogenes (11:21AM) I gave you that link eight days ago!
John Shade
so you did John - it got lost in the personal invective directed at me by Bitbucket.
At http://www.cityunslicker.com/ , Nick Drew makes this critique:
Gasland is a rather well-made piece of pure polemic, quite easy on the eye and very beguiling for people who are in the market for an anti-energy diatribe. It is very cavalier (and sometimes outright dishonest) in its use of facts, and full of crafty non-sequiturs which any logician would spot, even if they knew nothing of the detail.Also, it has bugger-all to do with fracking (which is one of its main non-seqs) - it starts on fracking right enough, but about one-third of the way in then seamlessly segues into just an attack on the practices of the US natural gas industry in general. Somehow, people come away thinking they've seen a devastating case against fracking, but they haven't.
For completeness, let it be said that in some states of the USA there are virtually no environmental regulations at all (or if any, they are not enforced) and so there is a solid body of entirely legitimate attack that can be made on some genuine ongoing life-threatening health-hazards that would not be tolerated anywhere else this side of China. (If anyone disputes this I invite them to move with their families and live in the environs of the refinery belt at the Houston Ship Channel. No? Thought not)
Gasland's valid hits are scored on this ground - but again, this has very little to do with fracking.
diogenes
diogenes, I agree to a certain extent. There's only so many times you can state your case, and convince those who can be convinced. Endlessly shouting the same rhetoric over and over again, becoming more shrill and sarcastic each time, is desperate.
Defend AGW by all means, there are some aspects of it which are defensible, but defending all things on "that side", e.g. the Gaslands film, is stupid tribalism because it's total nonsense. AGW believeers seem to think that by admitting anything on their side might be rubbish, they are opening the gates to the barbarians.
On the contrary, it's the monolith we are against, if the real spectrum of scientific belief about AGW was public, instead of the stage-managed consensus, then there would be no "sceptic camp". It's by silencing dissenting belief that they have caused this, and ultimately their own downfall, and (in my opinion the worst crime of all) the lengthy damage to science as a guiding force.