A Word of Caution for the Chicken Littles...

I recently came across a column written by Ramesh Thakur, former UN Assistant Secretary General, and Brownstone Institute member. In this article he presents his case that the use of "the sky is falling" approach to climate activism is a losing proposition, and he draws similarities between their approach and the recently executed COVID event project, which deployed all the things that Climate Catastrophizing seems to call for.

Beware Catastrophizing Climate Models and Activists

In effect he draws nine similarities that when taken jointly, seem to spell trouble for people around the world.

I would like to post without drawing too heavily on multiple quotes, or this Op will become larger than most will enjoy reading... see the source for the full text... but a preliminary note must be offered: If you hate conservative views, you may not want to bother reading things you don't really want to hear.

The first is the revolting spectacle of the hypocrisy of the exalted elites who preach to the deplorables the proper etiquette of abstinence to deal with the emergency, and their own insouciant exemption from a restrictive lifestyle.

The old "Do as I say, not as I do" effect. Whether it be hoards of DAVOS attendees burning fuels willy-nilly to travel and hiring a Hooker Corps to ease the stress of their collective virtue signaling, or the Leaders of nations and principalities demanding lock-downs while they boogie down in restaurants serving caviar and fois gras at their fish and goose soiree. The truth is the fact that some people just don't have to follow the rules. And they laugh at you when you point that out.

A second common element between Covid and climate change is the mismatch between models that inform policy and data that contradict the models.

Testify Ramesh! Here as ATS we have volumes of data which contradict each other... the proponents of each pointing out how the others is unreliable or untrustworthy. Each calling the other 'disinformation' or straight out lies. There are desertions of "sides," vilification of persons, and the usual grief for asking difficult questions. Many rely on 'credentials,' Others point out the irony because it always turns out to be the 'credentialed' one's that falsify and 'game' the data. Or there are people who clearly are activists, stalwartly refusing to accept any data that might weaken their cause.

Third, the rapidly consolidating Censorship Industrial Complex covered both agendas until Elon Musk began releasing the Twitter Files to expose what was happening. This refers to the extraordinary censorship and suppression of dissenting voices, with extensive and possibly illegal collusion between governments and Big Tech—and, in the case of the pandemic, also Big Pharma and academia.

It's hard to pretend not to know that this happened. In particular, those in the ATS community know very well the elements that 'took action' and what action they took. Perhaps of all the lessons we can learn, the most important one to the conspiracy theory community lies here. They made all the claims of paranoia and tin-foil hats, and the ugly memery that accompanied it, quite literally moot.

Fourth, an important explanation for the spread of Covid and climate catastrophism is the promotion of fear and panic in the population as a means to spur drastic political action.

And, in keeping with the nature of those calling for that drastic action, they abused their authority beyond reason. "Emergency" became a chuckle-word back-stage... they knew what emergencies were good for... turns out they good for decimating middle income economies, wounding the intellects of generations of children, and enabling transfer of billions upon billions of dollars to who knows where.

A fifth common theme is the appeal to scientific authority. For this to work, scientific consensus is crucial.

Here I place the players of media... who took it upon themselves to 'tell' us what to listen to and what to ignore... as always with the mantra-turned-joke "Follow the science." Which meant, only the scientists "we" approve of... no others.

A sixth shared element is the enormous expansion of powers for the nanny state that bosses citizens and businesses because governments know best and can pick winners and losers.

"Trust me, I'm with the government." was never a more cruel contradiction.

Seventh, the moral framing has also been used to discount massive economic self-harm.

Ask any small business owner, shut down, marginalized, gutted and thrown into a death spiral... self harm is exactly what it was. At any other time in history, would this result ever have been 'acceptable' and if so, to whom?

Eighth, government policies in both agendas have served to greatly widen economic inequalities within and among nations with fat profits for Big Pharma and rent-seeking Green Energy.

Inequality is a dirty word... yet it is the result that seemed inevitable as they plunged different societies into stark decline, while further elevating the privileged to new heights.

The final common element is the subordination of state-based decision-making to international technocrats.

Yes, yes ... we all know that most of this turmoil and contention is centered around un-elected figures thrust into importance by other un-elected people.

In closing, the observations brought forth in this article definitely are worthy of consideration in my opinion. I hope you enjoy the read.

a reply to: Maxmars

Thank you for a well put together thread.

It is clear that We The People are under an intense threat coming from multiple directions.

Yet, those multiple directions are actually just multiple heads of the same Hydra.

One playbook has only one response and that is the Second Amendment.

Start taking away peoples life savings and the blow back will be intense. I hope and pray that White Hats can keep the lid on the pressure cooker that is presently Humanity.

P

If you hate conservative views, you may not want to bother reading things you don't really want to hear.

The truth is the truth just like a lie is a lie no matter how many times it is repeated. I marvel at those who have to tow a party line even when the facts are 180 degrees opposite of what they espouse. There have been so many forecast by those pushing the global warming crap and finally climate change that have come and passed; why would anyone take what they say with a grain of dog turd ?

It was a good move by them to change to climate change as that is the one thing most of us can be assured is happening on every planet in the solar system.

a reply to: Maxmars

First of, the link doesn't work...

From what you quoted...

It lays out the diffrent psychological vectors very well, but it fails to adress the motivator for all those important decision takers.

From the quotes you choose, it's definetly trying to avoid that topic out of a political bias...

In case you haven't figured, "follow the money" is still as applicable as it was 10 years ago...

Beware Catastrophizing Climate Models and Activists

I say "A Word of Caution for the Little Chickens"

Here are the last 3 paragraphs from the original, but read the whole article, powerful stuff. But first the About US portion from Resistance Press. Some very thought-provoking articles

resistancepress.com...

About
Who We Are

The Resistance Press is a privately-owned company providing a forum for value-added discourse and commentary on public affairs. This forum debates governmental actions, the economy, and current affairs. Our content is not limited to any geography or nation. Our articles are submitted by both professionals and the public, from our skilled columnists, and from reposting content originating on other sites.

Our Goal


Resistance Press’ goal is to serve as an alternative online media provider. Our objective is to provide a non-partisan and accurate view of any issue. In contrast , we believe that the modern media is focused on selling the views of their large corporate and political backers. This has led to an increasingly sensationalistic offering containing bias and misleading information. . The media has, in effect, become a propaganda engine for the “Davos Crowd”.

Resistance Press is a refuge for those seeking sober news, analysis, and opinion, free from any ideological, financial, or political bondage. If this mandate is taken to be “controversial”, then we proudly accept the

We also seek to resist the tendency of the press to present biased political views. . In a democracy, an important role of the media is to provide information on the workings of political actors. Therefore, we commit to exposing the political class’s dishonesty, corruption, exploitation, and/or lunacy, irrespective of partisan leanings.

“No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free, no one ever will. If virtuous, it need not fear the fair operation of attack and defense. Nature has given to man no other means of sifting out the truth, either in religion, law, or politics.”

― Thomas Jefferson

resistancepress.com...

In the triumph of luxury politics, the costs of the rich suffused in the golden glow of virtue are borne by the poor. Should a billion more Chinese and Indians have stayed poor and destitute over the last four decades, so Westerners could feel virtuous-green? Alternatively, for post-industrial societies, climate action will require cutbacks to living standards as subsidies rise, power prices go up, reliability comes down and jobs are lost.

Attempts to assess the balance of costs and benefits of Covid and climate policies are shouted down as immoral and evil, putting profits before lives. But neither health nor climate policy can dictate economic, development, energy and other policies. All governments work to balance multiple competing policy priorities. What is the sweet spot that ensures reliable, affordable and clean energy security without big job losses? Or the sweet spot of affordable, accessible and efficient public health delivery that does not compromise the nation’s ability to educate its young, look after the elderly and vulnerable and ensure decent jobs and life opportunities for families?

The final common element is the subordination of state-based decision-making to international technocrats. This is best exemplified in the proliferation of the global climate change bureaucracies and the promise—threat?—of a new global pandemic treaty whose custodian will be a mighty World Health Organisation. In both cases, the dedicated international bureaucracy will have a powerful vested interest in ongoing climate crises and serially repeating pandemics.

Nice article, thank you.

I can't believe how wrong they got it, coming out with the whole "climate change" sky is falling BS.

If they would have just came out with "We need to clean up pollution and waste", I could have gotten behind it.

But instead of cleaning up the mess we made, we now go full retard on solar, wind turbines and batteries.

Where are those parts going to go, when they stop working 5, 10 years down the road?

Just look at the tech for our current "Electric" car.
Those batteries are going to be a HUGE problem.

On element two, I'd like to add from the quoted article because I believe this is really what the little people will 'feel' and be able to easily see.

The long track record of abysmally wrong catastrophist predictions on infectious diseases from the Pied Piper of Pandemic Porn, Professor Neil Ferguson, is if anything exceeded by the failures of climate change alarmist predictions. The most recent example of the drum roll of “The end is nigh and this is absolutely your last chance to avert the end of the world from climate collapse” is yet another Chicken Little Sixth Assessment Report from the indefatigable Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

At some point the IPCC morphed from a team of scientists into activists. “There is a rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all,” the report warns us. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called it a “survival guide for humanity.” But a one-time climate action journalist-turned-sceptic, Michael Shellenberger, described the UN as a “Climate Disinformation Threat Actor.”

But the disinfo is so massive and strong, it's hard not to let it get into your head.

Over time, disinformation can affect memory and influence actions of those who become emotionally connected or “brainwashed,” even after that incorrect information is retracted. The role of social media should not be underrated, especially among millennials and today’s youth, as disinformation coming from the US government through those portals has been nothing short of a disinformation tsunami.

www.newstarget.com...

Eventually people will get 'burnt out' on the constant pelting of TEOTWAWKI via climate change and the pendulum will swing the other way. Hopefully we will find ourselves snugly somewhere in the middle and have both care and flexibility in our thinking mixed with real science and real life. The scientists have done a great job of becoming climate evangelist without following ALL the data.

Chicken Littles indeed.



a reply to: Terpene

The link does work. Go along the top tab to "articles" & click on it, scroll down the page past the pull down tab and the article is there, no paywall.

I had to submit to the idea we were all doomed. the tipping point/point of no return had been reached several times, so the only conclusion to be reached is, we are all going to die. eventually. I have started to prepare for the end. I hope all others have as well. Make no mistake, death is coming. You cannot escape it. Nobody gets out of here alive. Nobody.

a reply to: Maxmars

Fabulous OP. Really enjoyed it. Wish I had the time to comment on the "effects" of the policies described and pursued. I would do so in this manner.

The first is the revolting spectacle of the hypocrisy of the exalted elites who preach to the deplorables the proper etiquette of abstinence to deal with the emergency, and their own insouciant exemption from a restrictive lifestyle.

Effect? Hypocrisy breeds contempt and contempt results in people no longer listening to nor following the advice of the exalted elites who find themselves ever more preaching to the choir but otherwise being unheard and unheeded.

A second common element between Covid and climate change is the mismatch between models that inform policy and data that contradict the models.

Effect? An overall dumbing down effect as people stop trusting either the models or the data and therefore abandon pursuit of inquiry because al the data and models built therefrom are seen as entirely suspect. This dumbing down effect leads to a total breakdown in communication in that anyone who try's to discuss a subject model or to quote data finds the intendend audience glazing over and walking away.

Third, the rapidly consolidating Censorship Industrial Complex covered both agendas until Elon Musk began releasing the Twitter Files to expose what was happening. This refers to the extraordinary censorship and suppression of dissenting voices, with extensive and possibly illegal collusion between governments and Big Tech—and, in the case of the pandemic, also Big Pharma and academia.

Effect? The shrinking of the Internet to the point that it's barely useable as a news source or a place to research alternative views. The result is that if we imagine the Internet before this happened as a noisy, bustling marketplace, today, it more resembles the erie quiet of Downtown Detroit, only now and again punctuated by the crack of gunfire. Censorship has also totally eroded trust in so-called "approved" sources to the point that anymore it's more believable that the exact opposite of what is printed is actually the truth rather than the lie that is asserted. And a consequence of this has been that it has elevated those in the approved sources to the hight of contemptability. A sort of reverse Conkrite effect.

Fourth, an important explanation for the spread of Covid and climate catastrophism is the promotion of fear and panic in the population as a means to spur drastic political action.

Effect? The peculiar effect I've observed from this has been an enormous rise in distrust in everyone of everyone else and in business enterprises to such an extent that it's severely impacted the economy. Economic activity is paltry compared to what it would have been without the promotion of fear and panic. Ever more people are reluctant to even leave their homes; they shop online when ever possible. They distrust retailers and ever more loath the in-person shopping experience. I expect at this point that economic activity will continue a percipitous decline.

A fifth common theme is the appeal to scientific authority. For this to work, scientific consensus is crucial.

Effect? total disdain for any scientific explanation for much of anything. "Follow the Science" has come to mean "shut-up and agree or else". I'm not sure just what science even is anymore and worse, because it can't be trusted, I don't care. This will ulimately result in a slowing of human and technological progress. When you stop going forward, you start slipping backward. So, for example, a friend of mine who, until recently, had used a variety of small wheeled vehicles to get around and work his ranch, (about 4,000 acres) has found it so difficult and expensive to fuel and maintain them that he's recently purchased several, (4 I think) "working" horses to use for the daily chores. Is that progress?

More later

originally posted by: chiefsmom

If they would have just came out with "We need to clean up pollution and waste", I could have gotten behind it.

But instead of cleaning up the mess we made, we now go full retard on solar, wind turbines and batteries.

This finally dawned on me, its just like the crime ridden cities.
These sick people literally don't care about the environment.

This is all for money and power.
The ecosystems be dammed.

a reply to: Maxmars
Hear, hear. Dilly-dilly. Slay dragons.

a reply to: Maxmars

Nice opinion piece you've got there!
How about some hard data tho?

Checking 20 years worth of projections shows that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has consistently underestimated the pace and impacts of global warming

Climate Science Predictions Prove Too Conservative

Climate models used by the UN's IPCC and others to project climate change are not accurately reflecting what the Arctic's future will be, experts say.

Arctic climate modelling too conservative

a reply to: TonyS

I like your reference to Detroit and the story about your friend who went back to draft animals over motorized vehicles due to cost.

But when you speak of progress, as in moving forward rather than back, we are merely speaking of movement. Otherwise you can progress toward disaster making a regression backward, away from the cliff so to speak, a good thing.

Horses are fraught with difficultly and expenses. Food, housing, bedding, cleaning up after them, taking them to, and paying for vet services, etc. It would take some Jetsons era technology to makes things cheaper and easier, as if that was any kind of a good thing for the human condition to begin with.

Also, using draft animals over machines is really a form of adaptation to a changing situation. If it works then it is a good thing, unless we apply the same idea to human labor and bring back slavery, that would be a step backwards to be sure. Maybe we need our relationships with working animals to move forward in other areas of our development.

originally posted by: Insurrectile
a reply to: Maxmars
How about some hard data tho?

Hard data? From the very same proven liars and gaslighters?

You just proved the premise of the OP in spades, but the funniest thing is you don't even realize it, and probably won't even after having it pointed out to you.

Rotflmao!!!

a reply to: MichiganSwampBuck

Draft animals aside, if you step baack and look at this situation you realize that what the WEF and Climate Change religion is really all about is putting into place a Zero growth economy. A zero growth economy only works in a country/region/society that has a negative fertility rate such that it's reproducing people at a rate below the replacement rate.

It's obvious that "they" don't want to pursue solutions that would provide abundance. A guy on C2C pointed out that Nuclear reactors could easily solve our energy problems, but they've put in a place a regulatory scheme that prohibits construction of new plants. Even though Nuclear power is not damaging to the environment, folks like the Sierra Club hate Nuclear power and his conclusion was that they hate Nuclear because..........it works. They want to end abundance and want to achieve some position of economic stasis.

Viewed from 30,000 feet, assuming that ET Aliens exist and are flying about from one solar system to another, they would look down on this planet and say to themselves.........as to technological/social progress, this planet is going BACKWARDS.

a reply to: Insurrectile

I will assume that the object of the reports you link to are to disseminate the truth. That seems fair.

But to add a single question...

In what world are "models" ever completely accurate?

The problem with accepting models is that you must presume the formulas and application of "statistical interpretation" as consistent with reality. Since we are only learning of that reality, we must accept that the body of knowledge relied upon can't possibly be complete, and are likely full of suppositions and presumptions of their own.

But faith is hard to argue against, and the ideologues who must tell us we are all going to die, say so based upon no small amount of faith in modelling. And their 'accreditation' by the amplifiers will necessarily reject anything that speaks to a contrary faith.

Excellent thread.

Unfortunately more and more people are seeing through the lies. So the Global Warmers... well, they have to make global warming real. Artificially if necessary. Yes, ecoterrorism.

Here's when they made it snow and then blamed it on Global Warming: www.abovetopsecret.com...

Here's the powder used to eliminate clouds and bring artificial droughts: www.abovetopsecret.com...

originally posted by: TonyS
a reply to: MichiganSwampBuck

Draft animals aside, if you step baack and look at this situation you realize that what the WEF and Climate Change religion is really all about is putting into place a Zero growth economy. A zero growth economy only works in a country/region/society that has a negative fertility rate such that it's reproducing people at a rate below the replacement rate.

It's obvious that "they" don't want to pursue solutions that would provide abundance. A guy on C2C pointed out that Nuclear reactors could easily solve our energy problems, but they've put in a place a regulatory scheme that prohibits construction of new plants. Even though Nuclear power is not damaging to the environment, folks like the Sierra Club hate Nuclear power and his conclusion was that they hate Nuclear because..........it works. They want to end abundance and want to achieve some position of economic stasis.

Viewed from 30,000 feet, assuming that ET Aliens exist and are flying about from one solar system to another, they would look down on this planet and say to themselves.........as to technological/social progress, this planet is going BACKWARDS.

I'm trying to be somewhat optimistic but I do feel as if what post modern humanity believes to be progress may just be progress to a speedy demise. What would be the hallmarks of humanity in terms of "progress"? Everyone will have a different idea of what "progress" is, all I can say is that progress is forward motion toward something, in this, something like extinction.

originally posted by: network dude
I had to submit to the idea we were all doomed. the tipping point/point of no return had been reached several times, so the only conclusion to be reached is, we are all going to die. eventually. I have started to prepare for the end. I hope all others have as well. Make no mistake, death is coming. You cannot escape it. Nobody gets out of here alive. Nobody.

We all think we want to meet our God when we leave this earth. I prefer to do it some other day other than this one has been my moto. I want to meet God, just not today. There will come a day when that will change and I hope I get to see it in the distant future with no painful stretch of sickness, please.


Al Gore was at my alma mater teaching when they invented a Hydrogen car that was designed to produce H2 on demand. He never once promoted it when attacking "big oil" as he and Clinton called it.