Have recently chosen to engage with the deniers. You do not, of course, need ask which deniers I refer to. So here is a list of my replies to some of their unreasoning; names have been changed to protect the approximately ignorant. I’ve used headings to cluster my replies.
Greens started/promote bush fires:
Duane, I think most of the experts agree that the current fires are not a direct result of Greens policies or the ‘locking up of national parks by greenies’, as is often cited on strings related to climate change, our current drought and bushfire regimes. I suspect that is a truth many denialists find unpalatable: see
Thank the great celestial teapot you told me, Tiny. Otherwise I might listen to these expert commentators:
Certainly it matters that fires start, regardless of how. Some (but not most, as has been suggested) are the work of arsonists but more are inadvertently begun via human agency and some originate with natural causes.
Dougy, the article you sourced from the volunteerfirefighters organisation was in fact written by Miranda Devine and we all know what her stance on climate change (& in fact anything that smacks of humanism or reasoned science) is. Wikipedia (2019) notes that “Miranda Devine is a conservative Australian columnist and writer. Her column, formerly printed twice weekly in Fairfax Media newspapers The Sydney Morning Herald and The Sun-Herald, now appears in the News Limited newspapers Daily Telegraph, Sunday Telegraph, Melbourne’s Sunday Herald Sun and Perth’s Sunday Times.” I certainly know her from her stints on the notorious Sky News. That the Volunteer Firefighters group seem to differ in their views from “former fire chiefs from across Australia (who) have urged the federal government to declare a climate emergency amid catastrophic bushfires which have roared across NSW and Queensland” puzzles me. Most of the sources I have read on the fires do NOT blame Greens policies and a lack of controlled burns in forested areas (including by national parks officers) but in fact lay the blame squarely at the feet of excessive and prolonged heat at times when burning normally occurs. Coupled with unprecedented winds this narrowed the window of opportunity for fuel reduction strategies. Those conditions have been strongly correlated with climate change. Has the less than divinely perspicacious Miranda dealt with any of this in her climate change denying piece – I think not.
Stereotyping of protestors:
Do you have to know them (I assume [the protestors] are who you meant) and are you wrong in your character assessments? Phineas, if I say yes will you take offence and adopt a stance of umbrage. Stereotyping, categorising based on boorish anti this and that mindsets and so on serve no purpose in any real resolution of an issue. Does the world have an issue with climate change? I obviously believe we do. So do most of the worl’s reputable climate scientists, a number of engineers, politicians and, I suspect, the majority of thinking humans. What is sad is that Australia’s recidivist and inept government apparently do not, or at least don’t care enough about such a belief to DO ANYTHING significant about it. Ciao.
Fraudulent evidence/right-wing views:
John Stossel is a libertarian journalist who has worked for a number of networks, among them Fox. He supports Donald J Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Accord. According to Wikipedia (2019), ‘Stossel has written three books. “Give Me a Break: How I Exposed Hucksters, Cheats, and Scam Artists and Became the Scourge of the Liberal Media” is a 2005 autobiography from Harper Perennial documenting his career and philosophical transition from liberalism to libertarianism. It describes his opposition to government regulation, his belief in free market and private enterprise, support for tort reform, and advocacy for shifting social services from the government to private charities. It was a New York Times bestseller for 11 weeks. “Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity: Get Out the Shovel – Why Everything You Know Is Wrong,” published in 2007 by Hyperion, questions the validity of various conventional wisdoms, and argues that the belief he is conservative is untrue. On April 10, 2012, Threshold Editions, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, published Stossel’s third book “No, They Can’t: Why Government Fails – But Individuals Succeed”. It argues that government policies meant to solve problems instead produce new ones, and that free individuals and the private sector perform tasks more efficiently than the government does.’
Note the following; ‘his opposition to government regulation… belief in the free market… advocacy for shifting social services from the government to private charities.’ In short, he is a neo-liberalist whose values are those of the 1% of wealth holders. Apart from the danger of listening to the homo economicus selfish rantings of the neo-liberal perspective I often wonder why so many of the alleged ‘quiet Australians’ – who are NOT among the world’s monetary elites and are NEVER really served by the ruling elite policies – give heed to them and trot them out when any debate about human rights is being aired.
A fraudulent image used to promote denialism
Ottmar Endenhoffer is one of the world’s leading experts on climate change policy, environmental and energy policy, and energy economics. Edenhofer currently holds the professorship of the Economics of Climate Change at the Technical University of Berlin. He is designated director and chief economist of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) as well as director of the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change (MCC). From 2008 to 2015 he served as one of the co-chairs of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group III “Mitigation of Climate Change”.
Among other functions, he is a member of the OECD Advisory Council “Growth, Investment and the Low-Carbon Transition”, a member of the High-Level Commission on Carbon Prices, a member of the Advisory Committee of the Green Growth Knowledge Platform (GGKP), and a member of the German Academy of Science and Engineering (acatech). I Edenhofer says that his interest in philosophy and economics was influenced by his readings of the works of Henry George,[10] Karl Marx, Max Weber, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and John Dewey. Regarding climate change he says: “Denying out and out that climate change is a problem for humanity, as some cynics do, is an unethical, unacceptable position.”
Edenhofer favours cap-and-trade over a direct carbon tax as the most efficient method to reduce greenhouse emissions and encourage innovation to preserve the climate. He feels strongly that moving the global economy to a low-carbon threshold requires huge increases in the use of renewable energy across all economic sectors.’ [Wikipedia, 2019, and the article is refernced and peer reviewed.’] Can you tell me where you sourced the image and text used above and reproduced by me below; I strongly doubt he ever said such a thing and suspect it is fraudulent.
Regarding other problems (Chinese imperialism, child porn/grooming):
Distractions, Bronwyn and Kyliie. Yes, both are important issues but most people put the climate emergency at the head of their list. It is an existential threat to everyone (even the naysayers) while China’s alleged imperial motivations (just like Britian and France’s and the USA’s of the past) offer a lesser threat. The grooming and abuse of children is an evil, yes. From a purely logistical perpsective, though, it is not as great a problem as climate change is now and will be in the immediate future. We are tipped into climate anarchy already and everything might go if we do nothing much about it
Re general exhaustion over the climate denying trolls:
Aagh, if I have to read one more ‘why aren’t they in school, AC mustn’t be working in their classrooms, wouldn’t happen on a weekend, arsonists started all/most of the fires, the Greens stopped them back burning, it’s a left-wing/UN conspiracy…’ and so on and on and on, you’ll regret it. You’ve driven me to poetry.
We’ve sown the tapestry of our own unmaking,
all sooty black and coal seamed.
Tipped ourselves into misery,
while oily Nero fiddles with the national accounts
and trolls make merry with truth’s wan body
under damaged bridges.
Inkstained fingers 