[Plantagenet]

... attacking activists who most would classify as on the side of rightness and good .....

Greer isn't attacking activists for being on the "side of rightness and good"---Greer is pointing out that they've failed the side of rightness and good.

Greer is just telling the truth. While Obama and McKibben and most other "climate change opponents" are cheering the Paris Accord signed at the COP 21 meeting and claiming it will stop the earth from warming more than 2°C, Greer is simply stating the obvious---no it won't.

Greer is right on this one. Climate Change opponents like Obama and McKibben and the UN and Greenpeace and the Sierra Club and 350.org etc. etc. have failed---instead of taking steps to actually stop global warming they have put together a sham, fraudulent agreement that does about nothing.

I'm not a big Greer fan, but he's 100% right on this one.

Cheers!

[dohboi]

KJ, see my note on the other thread. Thanks you.

Note specifically CoD 3.1.6 on posting nonos:

Repetitive messages: This includes cross-posting...

the-peakoil-com-code-of-conduct-t40311.html

[Plantagenet]

Here's another FAIL by those supposedly on the side of "rightness and good"

There is a ballot initiative on the ballot in November in Washington State to institute a carbon tax to reduce CO2 emissions and ameliorate AGW.

And who is opposing instituting a carbon tax in liberal Washington State?

Why---the Ds, of course!

carbon-taxes-face-democratic-opposition

The whole idea that we shouldn't criticize the Ds or Obama or McKibben or anyone else because they say nice sounding things is silly. You have to look past what they say and figure out what people actually DO. And in too many cases those who say they are on the side of "rightness and good" turn out to be the ones screwing things up.


Ds oppose carbon tax initiative in Washington state

[ennui2]

Good luck getting the republicans to support a carbon tax. Planty, your partisan loyalty is twisted beyond recognition.

[Plantagenet]

... getting the republicans to support a carbon tax.

Why waste your time on that impossible task?

The Rs are irrelevant in Washington State anyway. Washington state is a very liberal state with mostly liberal D voters and the D party mostly controls state politics there.

When the D party in Washington state came out in opposition to a carbon tax, that pretty much sunk the statewide carbon tax. Your idea that you can get the Rs to support it instead is ridiculous.

The fiasco in Washington state is another clear example of the Ds saying they are climate change opponents (or on the side "rightness and good" as you phrased it in in your charmingly childish way) when in actuality the Ds all too often act by only passing ineffectual or poorly designed laws while blocking more meaningful legislation that would actually limit carbon emissions.

Another classic example of this are the ethanol biofuels that the Obama administration loves so much. Another study has just shown the biofuels actually result in the release of more CO2 then normal fuels---but for purely political reasons the Ds ignore the science and continue to back biofuels, thereby making climate change worse.

biofuels-bad-environment

Cheers!

[ennui2]

When the D party in Washington state came out in opposition to a carbon tax, that pretty much sunk the statewide carbon tax. Your idea that you can get the Rs to support it instead is ridiculous.

I love how you twist and turn to blame the democrats when the republicans won't even acknowledge AGW is real.

[careinke]

When the D party in Washington state came out in opposition to a carbon tax, that pretty much sunk the statewide carbon tax. Your idea that you can get the Rs to support it instead is ridiculous.

I love how you twist and turn to blame the democrats when the republicans won't even acknowledge AGW is real.

I love how you ignore the fact that the Dims killed the carbon tax in WA.

I love how you ignore the fact their are NO Dim supporters of the only proposed national consumption tax (which includes carbon), yet plenty of Rethugs back it.

Watch the action and don't believe the rhetoric.

[dohboi]

Sheeesh, must every thread devolve into partisan one-up-man-ship these days, or be taken over by KJ's idiocies? Can we at least try to stay on topic, folks?

[ROCKMAN]

A simple question: failing at what? Or an even better question: what has been achieved by CC beleivers given that today the world is producing as much or may GHG then ever before in history? If wining the argument and so far losing the war makes them feel proud of themselves so be it. But atmospheric CO2 levels continue to increase.

So who is really failing when it comes to the actual reality? It reminds me of the oil sands pipeline opponents claiming victory despite the fact that imports continued to increase y-o-y. The only factor that has hurt oil sands development has been lower oil prices.

[ennui2]

I love how you ignore the fact that the Dims killed the carbon tax in WA.
I love how you ignore the fact their are NO Dim supporters of the only proposed national consumption tax (which includes carbon), yet plenty of Rethugs back it.
Watch the action and don't believe the rhetoric.

Could you please speak english instead of a string of neologisms?

[regardingpo]

A simple question: failing at what? Or an even better question: what has been achieved by CC beleivers given that today the world is producing as much or may GHG then ever before in history? If wining the argument and so far losing the war makes them feel proud of themselves so be it. But atmospheric CO2 levels continue to increase.

So who is really failing when it comes to the actual reality? It reminds me of the oil sands pipeline opponents claiming victory despite the fact that imports continued to increase y-o-y. The only factor that has hurt oil sands development has been lower oil prices.

The title of this topic is confusing. By "CC opponents" the topic creator is referring to people who are trying to prevent CC from happening, so he really should've written "CC activists". Greer's articles are trying to explain why CC activism is failing.

[dohboi]

Which again prompts (but doesn't 'beg' ) the question--is Greer NOT against climate change? Does he think CC is a wonderful thing? If he thinks it's bad, then his criticisms should be presented as self criticisms, which they don't seem to be. So either he thinks CC is a wonderful thing, or he thinks it doesn't exist (or some vacilating combination thereof), which puts him on a par with Rush Limbaugh or one of the many idiotic Repug law makers.

As robertscribbler recently wrote, “None of us are bystanders when it comes to climate change.”

https://robertscribbler.com/2016/08/30/ ... ment-91600

We're all both involved in creating the problem and are all going to be hit by consequences if we haven't been already. So we all have some moral responsibility both to reduce our contribution to the problem and to work at whatever we see as potentially effective way to bend our path away from the most destructive one, which we are now on.

[tmazanec1]

Well, in his Star Reach novel he has GW raising the Sea level to the extent of Dubia ( http://www.worlddreambank.org/D/DUBIA.HTM ) and he has frequently chided humanity's tendency to use the atmosphere as a sewer, so he does not seem to be a Denialist to me.
And I thought opponents would obviously be people opposed to letting us change the climate, sorry.

[dohboi]

That's why I call him a crypto-denialist. He will say some nice words in that direction, but then belies that in other ways. But you can make your own judgement. He certainly has had some interesting observations sometimes in other areas.

[regardingpo]

Which again prompts (but doesn't 'beg' ) the question--is Greer NOT against climate change? Does he think CC is a wonderful thing? If he thinks it's bad, then his criticisms should be presented as self criticisms, which they don't seem to be.

Of course it's not self criticism, his articles read like: "Here's what you morons are doing wrong. On the other hand, I am perfect and I know everything." Crypto-denialist is a pretty vague term, I take it to mean someone who is trying to undermine CC activism through more opaque means.

This is what I see when I read his article: "You CC activist are failing for all these reasons and you will keep failing and then the sky will fall and you will all have to live in the woods like I do! THE DRUID HAS SPOKEN!
P.S. Buy my book."

[Plantagenet]

Greer….CC denier….?...-- his criticisms should be presented as self criticisms, which they don't seem to be.

Of course it's not self criticism, his articles read like: "Here's what you morons are doing wrong. On the other hand, I am perfect and I know everything."

Did anybody else even bother to read Greers article on CC? Its the first link in the first post of thread.

#1. Greer's article makes it very clear that he is not a CC denier.

#2. The criticisms in his post are not directed at "you morons" but rather at politicians and the leaders of the anti-CC movement, and their failure in Paris to enact a UN climate treaty that actually does anything about CC.

This, it seems to me, is very reasonable and well deserved criticism. What exactly is the point of an international UN treaty to stop climate change that does't actually stop climate change? Will the treaty actually limit global warming to 2° C? How can Obama and the other signatories be so dumb as to think we can stop global warming without reducing CO2 and CH4 emissions? Was the whole charade of the UN climate treaty talks and the Paris Accord all just a big show to allow Obama and others to pretend they've dealt with the CC problem when they actually haven't? To sum up: Why did climate change opponents fail in Paris?

Cheers!

[dohboi]

I'm shocked, shocked that Plant would bring up Obama in this or any other context!!!

P, if you actually read past the firs couple of paragraphs, he is indeed criticizing, not politicians, but climate activists. And his main points are mostly just wrong.

He claims that the movement is lead by scientists, which is blatantly false. McKibben is probably the most prominent activist, and he is not a scientist. Of course, then he hedges the remark by with "or directed by scientists."

WTF? Are they supposed to completely ignore the science that establishes the issue that they are working on.

He's very good, here and elsewhere, at sounding to the casual observer like he is saying something coherent, when he is actually mostly spouting incoherent garbage.

His second claim is that the movement made the 'mistake' that "it formulated its campaign in purely negative terms.

This from the guy who just opened this very essay with:

...much of North America is sweltering under near-tropical heat and humidity. Parts of the Middle East have set all-time high temperatures for the Old World, coming within a few degrees of Death Valley’s global record. The melting of the Greenland ice cap has tripled in recent years, and reports from the arctic coast of Siberia describe vast swathes of tundra bubbling with methane as the permafrost underneath them melts in 80°F weather. Far to the south, seawater pours through the streets of Miami Beach whenever a high tide coincides with an onshore wind; the slowing of the Gulf Stream, as the ocean’s deep water circulation slows to a crawl, is causing seawater to pile up off the Atlantic coast of the US, amplifying the effect of sea level rise.

All these things are harbingers of a profoundly troubled future....

Again, WTF??

So it's ok for him to open with all the negatives, but no one in the CC movement for the last few decades ever should have mentioned any of the negative things we know to be coming down the pike.

And frankly, it is also not the case that the main stream movement always focused on the 'negative.' To my mind they spent far too much effort proclaiming how wonderful a society run purely on renewables would be and not enough pointing out the horrors we were unleashing. To the point that people heard so much about the promise of alternatives that the vast majority are sure that we are much further along that road than we really are; actually, we're barely even tying our shoes (only in the low single digits of global energy use are produced by non-hydro renewables) while most people think we're well on the way (most people think we already generate 1/4 to 1/2 of our energy from renewable). That kind of 'positivity' makes people complacent rather than energized.

And it gets worse from there, but I'll let you all exercise your own critical facilities in pulling apart this bs if you are so inclined.

The larger point is...what has Greer been doing about the issue all these years, if he really thinks it's an issue?

Ignoring the science?? Yeah, that's a great idea. (NOT)

Being polyannishly cheery all the time about everything? He certainly hasn't been that, nor should he have been.

Never using any fossil-fuel powered devices or travel? As far as I understand, he does fly around a bit, and is not living any kind of Amish life style.

So again, either he really doesn't believe in GW in spite of his words in that direction (hence the 'cryptic' in my assessment of his stance), or he is just talking horseshit, accusing others either of doing things that he also does, or of not doing things that they shouldn't do anyway.

[jjhman]

It occurs to me that with the ususal mean-spirited, partisan back and forth no one has said WHY the Washington Dems oppose the legislation. That matters a lot more than whether/if/when/how they opposed it.

It's like watching CNN.

[ennui2]

I find most of what passes for 'activism' in the blogosphere to be mostly about these people's quest for attention and followers rather than their desire to actually move the needle on any of these issues.

The more you stir the pot the more attention you get. I mean witness the fact that his post convinced someone to start a thread about it. It's gotta be partly a schtick on his part, not unlike, let's say, Donald Trump talking about small hands and alluding to menstruation.

[Plantagenet]

It occurs to me that with the ususal mean-spirited, partisan back and forth no one has said WHY the Washington Dems oppose the legislation. That matters a lot more than whether/if/when/how they opposed it.

I linked to the original article in my post about this---thats all in the original article. I didn't say what the D's problem with the Carbon tax is because their reasoning is so ridiculous.

But to save you the bother of clicking on the link I provided I'll summarize the salient points on this for you here.

The people who wrote the initiative are worried that the carbon tax will unfairly impact poor people by causing an increase in the cost of gasoline, for instance, so they propose to offset this with other tax cuts to reduce the impact of the carbon tax on the poor.

I-732 website---a grassroots movement for a carbon tax in Washington state

The Washington State D party say they oppose the carbon tax initiative precisely because it is revenue neutral. The Washington State Ds say they oppose the carbon tax initiative because the tax revenue obtained from the carbon tax would be used to offset other taxes---for instance to reduce the sales tax. They say any taxes collected on carbon should be over and above the pre-existing taxes. The Ds apparently oppose the carbon tax initiative because it tries to be fair to the poor and other people by cutting their existing taxes to balance out the new carbon tax.

Sounds like an excuse to me. The bottom line is the D party in Washington is trying to sabotage an initiative that would institute a carbon tax in order to reduce FF consumption and combat climate change---and its reprehensible for the Ds to do that.

Cheers!