The USSR? You mean the one that sent millions to prison camps just for dissent (or much less)? Where are the EU equivalents?

Or the one whose people lived in fear of being denounced by family, friends and neighbours? Where is that in the EU?

Well the USSR killed millions to set the table for the emergence of the new Socialist Man and still failed. Mao killed even more and still failed.
There is no reason to think the climate kooks and creeps will be any more successful. And watching their cartoonists, con-artists, loser politicians, and braying jackass office holders push the climate apocalypse is not only entertaining now; they will entertain and inform future generations as well.
We will muddle through.
We always do.

If I wished for it I'd only need to go live in Russia, a repressive state that may even desire to become the new USSR. Except that unlike thet EU, I doubt Russia attracts many people seeking a better life.

Where's the repression? A new USSR needs repression. Russia has it in spades. Where is it in the UK or EU?

Raff,
The modern repression is much more subtle: Ignore voices of dissent, don't attack them physically. Fund the hypesters and water carriers who echo and enhance the message; pretend they are independent, even better pretend they are some sort of charity.
Co-opt the political and journalist watchdogs. The USSR is so yesterday's corrupt repression. The modern way is to make sure everyone who cooperates gets well paid. Sort of the Chinese reform: Encourage the slaves to work hard, make a lot of money and do what they are told.

Hunter, skeptics wrote the book on repressing inconvenient facts, starting with tetra-ethyl lead, through tobacco to climate. You have to be well aware of your heritage. You are willing purveyors of the self interested message from powerful vested interests. Yet you somehow respect your hypesters and quack scientists, Lomborg, Salby etc, your fake charities such as GWPF and your supposed independent commenters like Matt King Coal.

stewgreen, Dung said, "We are the new USSR and there is no way back." He stated it as a fact. That is not a strawman it is just a silly opinion from someone ignorant of history. If Dung made a sensible point I would address that.

Raff,

skeptics wrote the book on repressing inconvenient facts, starting with tetra-ethyl lead, through tobacco to climate

Ah, so you assume we are the same people as tobacco deniers. I understand why you dislike us then, but you are mistaken in this belief (it is widely held amongst the alarmist community that we are a single historical entity outy to oppose anything)

Sure there may be some "serial deniers" in the camp here, in fact I'm sure there are, but we as a loose grouping are not the inheritors or linked to historical suppression of facts by other people at other times. Also, to label "sceptics" as such does a great disservice to science and scepticism.

Naughty, naughty.

"...skeptics wrote the book on repressing inconvenient facts, starting with tetra-ethyl lead, through tobacco to climate."

Raff, I seldom, no never, get offended by words even when, as they are here, meant to offend and I daresay draw a reaction. I'm making an exception for you. Indeed I'm not offended this time because it patently isn't true, not for me, not for anyone else on this site. You clearly don't know that so I'm left to assume that your an ignorant shit trying to offend complete strangers because they don't agree with your opinion.

Not the sort to chap I'd want to share a pint with, or have as a relative. Low life.

Is it possible that you are naive enough to think that your "skeptical" movement is somehow independent of the rich and powerful whose PR industry manufactured confusion, fear and doubt about TEL or tobacco etc? You might like to pretend to yourselves that your "skepticism" is because of your own special maverick nature, your ability to understand and filter just the right facts, that it owes nothing to Exxon or Heartland, the Kochs or any other sponsors of doubt. But it is a pretence and if you are at all honest with yourself you will know that.

Raff,
It is hard to believe that someone who is literate can also type the vacuous ignorant derivative tripe you posted about skeptics.
As to your projection of motive to skeptics, Eff you.

Raff,
As to your assertion that skeptics are the ones suppressing inconvenient facts- show us, please.
Your character seems to require you to make false combinations of pro-tobacco and skeptic of climate bs. I wonder why such deception is so important to you?
The only people getting rich from the climate crisis are the hypesters with their never ending "conferences" in expensive locales, the wind mill industry, sucking on the teat of the tax payer, and NGO's receiving special grants from governments to promote climate alarmism.
I would call you dumb but that would insult dumb people.
You are a parody of a climate kook- incapable of actual independent thought, reduced to a parrot's communication skill.
No wonder even in the UK, with both major parties co-opted into the climate crisis industry, the voters see through the obvious idiocratic mental activities your ilk confuses with intelligence.

Raff,

Is it possible that you are naive enough to think that your "skeptical" movement is somehow independent of the rich and powerful whose PR industry manufactured confusion, fear and doubt about TEL or tobacco etc?

It's not naiveté, Raff, it's the plain old application of Occam's Razor. I can speak for my own motivations, so I know I'm not in the pay of the rich and powerful. Judging by the fashion sense of those other sceptics I've met in real life, if they are being funded by nefarious oligarchs they're hiding their new found wealth very carefully. I daresay there are people who hide in this side of the argument who are in the pay of these mysterious top-hatted moustache-twirling villains you speak of, but I've never met one, and I bet you haven't either. Any blackguard disinformation-spreader won't be here, they'll be lobbying politicians. So if they're not here, they're not here.

You might like to pretend to yourselves that your "skepticism" is because of your own special maverick nature, your ability to understand and filter just the right facts, that it owes nothing to Exxon or Heartland, the Kochs or any other sponsors of doubt. But it is a pretence and if you are at all honest with yourself you will know that.

Raff, you are confirming my suspicion that scratch an alarmist and you will find a tin-foil hatted kook. You, my son, are in the fine tradition of those who 20 years ago believed that shady characters were hiding the facts about UFOs, or indeed from 20 year before that when the commies were under every bed, and even farther back when it was all the devil's work and you were looking for someone to burn.

When the world doesn't turn the way some weak-minded people think it should, they look for someone to blame. Since there's nobody obvious (because in reality there is no-one to blame!) then it follows in the weak-minded that the culprits must be hiding, and thus rich and powerful, doing their dastardly deeds from behind the curtain. Who gets the blame depends on the cultural context - in 1930s Europe, it was the Jews who were rich and powerful bad guys, manipulating the lives and money of ordinary people. If you look around, you will still see these kooks peddling that mythology.

Today, after 30 years of Hollywood telling us via science fiction that it's always the bad Company* who are out to get us, then it follows we have a generation of numbskulls who have replaced 'satan' in their addled brains with 'transnational corporations'. You, my friend, are the torch-shaking crowd for the 21st century, the moral crusader who is ready to use any means to bring down the sinners. It's a popular myth, and you've swallowed it, you moron.

But it's even easier to debunk your idea that the Kochs are subtly manipulating public opinion, but somehow the Raffs of this world are immune to it and continue to fight the Lord's Good Work against Sin, I mean the environmental cause against the evil Others who are trying to stop them. It's a simple logical chain which I'm sure even you can follow.

1. There is a technology or set of techniques which can manipulate public opinion
2. This technology is expensive, because only cape-wearing waxed-moustached oligarchs can afford it
3. This technology must be effective, because oligarchs didn't become oligarchs by throwing away money on stuff that doesn't work
4. This technology is used covertly, so that the targets don't even know they are being manipulated

OK so far?

Now, there are some logical conclusions from this.

A: If the technology is effective, then it is being used on the 'wining' side of the argument
B: If the technology is covert, then nobody can effectively say it's not being used on them, including alarmists.

I'd say it was equally, if not more, likely that you are the ones who have been manipulated. After all, you arethe ones who have been convinced of the need for change. You don't need to convince people to stay the same, no subtle techniques are required to let people carry on as they were before. All these 'calls to action' are nothing more than media manipulation of the inherently anti-corporate vibe which comes from popular media.

But since I'm not a tin-foil hatted conspiracist like you Raff, I'd say that there is no such technology.

We sceptics don't believe we are mavericks, we think we're just the regular sort of homo sapiens sapiens who have been fumbling about on this planet for quite a number of years. What we believe is that you alarmists are just the next-gen of well-meaning but ultimately foolish idiots we've always had to put up with since the times of pitchforks and ducking stools. Welcome to humanity.

*See this link Wikipedia: Evil Corporations

TheBigYinJames,
+10 for one of the best posts regarding the troll/fundamentalist and their delusions yet written.
And of course, sadly, it will likely be treated by Raff as pearls before swine.

Wow, did you really think it worth writing that? I have to admit that the ad-men are good at their jobs - you all do their clients' bidding willingly, quite unaware that you are the 'deliverable'.

It's an edited except from a long-promised essay I wrote a couple of years ago.

That's quite a poor comeback, Raff. I'd like to believe it was because it gave you pause for thought and dampened your powder a bit, but I suspect you're either a paid troll, or way out past the point of redemption. You're either paid to do this, or you're doing it for free because you have something of a screw loose. Either way, you are beyond rational debate. You really do believe you are John Connor fighting the evil Cyberdyne Corporation. Meanwhile the rest of us are rooted in a more mundane reality, where it's only human stupidity that threatens us all.

So now it's the ad-men who are twirling their capitalist moustaches is it? What happened to the top-hatted oligarchs?

LOL, I'd like to see these adverts. You do realise that countering an accusation that you're a tin-foil hatted loon with some more tin-foil hatted lunacy is sweet. Thanks for the laughs, son.

An exerpt - you mean you wrote more? It is utter twaddle. Good grief!

Denial related to the science of climate is one thing but now you insist on denial of your collective heritage. As I said before, it is a pretence and if you are honest with yourself you will know that. Try it (honesty).

Ah Raff, you're past your sell-by date here, I'm afraid.

I already had a blog conversation some time ago where I admitted we now occupy the same ground that was once occupied by the very charlatans you allude to. Their reasons for doing so were likely murky, but since they are unconnected with us so I see no reason to try to unravel them. Obviously you will choose to disbelieve that, since it suits your own little fictional inner narrative where you are on the side of right against the evil menace.

Your responses are utter mince.

You know your heritage is dirty, but you have clean hands, eh? How many others here can be so candid? None, at a guess. Thing is, the 'charlatans' didn't go away, they are still with you, some even celebrated by you, providing deliverables to the same agencies and end clients. If you all want to be clean, call them out, don't silently rely on their quackery. Except that without the quackery, there is nothing left.