"But how is it always almost too late, from 1988 onwards, but never actually too late"

Because this keeps a constant sense of urgency in the overall narrative, which in turn is a powerful motivator, partially or wholly bypassing logic and touching emotion in a majority of the audience.

"Sorry to sound heartless but what does too late mean?"

As you say earlier, this question is a fundamental one. But I wasn't sure whether you were asking it in a rhetorical sense, as you seem already to be on the trail of the fact that it doesn't have a logical resolution in most of the examples where 'too late' is deployed within CAGW. I suspect that if you pressed the individuals or organisations making the statements to such an answer (in an environment where they are constrained to actually reply civilly rather than just yelling 'denier' at you), then they wouldn't rightly know themselves, and you'd likely get lots of different and arm-wavy vague replies. So I figure the answer to the question is: it means anything to anyone. This is how the best scare narratives work, because anyone's personal interpretation of what 'too late' means, geared to their own level of understanding, is emphatically (albeit fuzzily in a logical sense) supplied by their underlying emotion.

Likely we disagree about how the 'too late' messages got into the narrative. But if you are indeed steering towards the presumption that there *isn't* a consistent or logical answer to what 'too late' could mean in many of the examples, and neither any surface sense at all in a 'permanently nearly too late' syndrome, then on these I certainly agree. And that's also why I believe your question is a fundamental one; it exposes the fact that there isn't a meaningful 'too late', that the sense of urgency is therefore false.

So hidden in CAGW dogma is not subtle tipping point between too late and not too late, but the fact that 'too late' is merely a device for attempting to weaken people's reason and let loose their emotive anxieties. From which it also becomes clear that the vaguer the date and the details are, the better it will be for the narrative. In this sense at least whenever a specific 'too late' date is given (usually the next conference), then this iteratively weakens the power of the device. People with no knowledge of the debate, still have memories.

Apr 8, 2014 at 9:12 PM | Richard Drake

I have great respect for Andrew Neil and hope he will ask some more of the hard questions, of which your question posed here is indeed high on the list.

Do you know what Andy I'd have said that if I could have. Perfect summation.

Apr 9, 2014 at 11:12 AM | geronimo

Thanks Geronimo :) But in fact I can't claim a particularly deep perception. In truth it's a pretty standard device that turns up in differing forms within cultural entities. There's a range of other devices that also get reused again and again, indeed CAGW incorporates some of these too. If we call Richard's one "it's too late", then some others are "we are special", "our times are special", and so on. And my favourite one: "the past is always better". These devices all work in a similar manner to the one above, engaging emotive drives and swamping reason. If you have a clear enough head to stay objective, none of them make any more sense under analysis than the "it's too late" that Richard 'outs' here. Some of them have fascinating histories.

Apr 11, 2014 at 11:59 PM | geoffchambers

I agree that the 'critical mass' of a narrative, as you put it, is indeed very important regarding dominant cultural ideas, and therefore so are the underlying mechanisms by which that critical mass is achieved, and these long long pre-date the modern university system.

I figure that 'militant atheism' as it is called, is a bigger problem than Dawkins and Dennet. I also find it supremely ironic that not only is Dawkins a very firm believer in CAGW, the echoes you hear plus the ones I reference above all leverage those same underlying mechanisms per the previous paragraph, to which we have been conditioned by a hundred millenia and more of spiritual belief. In essence, both militant atheism and CAGW derive their power from the same psychological levers as religions. Little surprise then that they look like religions, though indeed militant atheism has not yet achieved a critical mass and may never do so. CAGW has.

It used to be called "crying wolf" ...now it's called "crying polar bear !" stewgreen
Ha! Spot on.

Andy West. Yes, "too late" means whatever they user wants it to mean. However like the threat "or else", there has to be evidence of the danger or eventually the subject realises the threat is an empty one.

Geoff. Yes, there is a very quiet but very powerful revolution going on. Bit like an advancing glacier, moving very slowly but inexorably forward. People like Russell Brand call for a revolution but hardly anyone answers their rallying cries, simply because the public have already joined a side. I’ve mentioned it before, but a while back there was a BBC documentary wistfully asking why there hadn’t been a huge swing to the extreme left and a rejection of capitalism, given the trauma of the banking crash. I’m not sure that the programme truly answered the question but it did conclude it wasn’t going to happen.

Dawkins and his militant atheists are not a growing force either. They’re just another form of religion. Who wants to put that level of energy into not believing in god? It only gains any traction at all as a reaction against creationism being taught as a science and political correctness ramming non Christian religions down people’s throats.

The difficult fact for warmists and neo or traditional religious types is the public are relatively comfy and despite the moaning, know it. Going to church, cutting CO2, following any prescriptive dogma is hard work. Only the lure of salvation makes those things worthwhile and when faith is gone…

They need to rethink how they recruit the public to this new religion and stop using the same techniques used to flog dodgy goods.

Apr 12, 2014 at 1:37 PM | Andy West
"...the echoes you hear plus the ones I reference above all leverage..."

Um, I might have misunderstood your 'echoes' Geoff. I refer to: “Only a hundred months” ("it's almost too late"), “think of (save) the grandchildren..”, plus "our times are special", "we are special", "the past is always better", and more, some of which are even in conflict within particular entities like CAGW.

As to whether there's enough folks saying "we don't believe you", and what system they would employ instead that hopefully avoids religious or psuedo religious belief, then I for one have little knowledge.