{"id":20104,"date":"2009-12-09T08:01:49","date_gmt":"2009-12-09T13:01:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=20104"},"modified":"2009-12-09T08:12:52","modified_gmt":"2009-12-09T13:12:52","slug":"20104","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/daily-astrology\/20104\/","title":{"rendered":"The courage to do nothing?"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Skeptic does not mean him who doubts, but him who investigates or researches as opposed to him who asserts and thinks that he has found.” <\/em>[Miguel de Unamuno, “Essays and Soliloquies,” 1924, referenced from Etymology Online<\/a>]<\/p>\n

Well, go tell that to climate change skeptics. Here is the question: who exactly is perpetuating the global conspiracy to fool us into believing that the world is heating up? I agree that it’s possible, sure. Anything is. But it would be an elaborate conspiracy, if it existed. Expensive and complicated and time consuming and all of that, and we would need a motive. We would need a motive for such a cynical gesture, the big Chicken Little in the sky. Plucking everyone’s heart strings about orphaned penguins and polar bears, by people who have it in for our plastic way of life.<\/p>\n

Why, climate change scientists and activists and the people who believe them are just like…Osama bin Laden.<\/p>\n

Now that the timing is apparent, the recent release of the ‘climategate’ memos, the ones supposedly revealing that the world is really cooling off (which to any competent scientists who made it past 4th grade explains the ice caps melting<\/em>) is starting to look like the work of the Yes Men’s evil twins. However, we don’t know who they are. Hacked private emails? Posted to some other climatologist’s website?<\/p>\n

We have the memos but not an international dragnet for the hackers? And it seems that stolen, decade-old intellectual property is getting more attention than actual scientific data?<\/p>\n

I am loathe to mention the skeptic angle. Skeptics remind me of going out to dinner with someone who chews their food but does not swallow. I’ve waited on it, just like I waited on Tiger Woods. That turned out to be a real story: the use of marriage to perpetuate a fraud on the public. The purpose of the fraud was so that everyone involved could make a lot of money, based on a false image (including his wife). Money is usually the motive for a conspiracy. You can look at any documented conspiracy and easily figure out who profited wildly. So, imagining this pattern is valid, and that taking huge risks would call for the motivation of some fabulous reward, who exactly would be behind the hoax?<\/p>\n

Let’s consider this bit, which I found in the Brit newspaper<\/a>, The Telegraph<\/em>; one of the serious UK dailies, not The Daily Star<\/em>. The Telegraph’<\/em>s horoscope is written by Catherine Tennant, a gifted astrologer.<\/p>\n

As 15,000 people gathered down the road for the world\u2019s biggest summit on change and the Met Office released figures showing the noughties were the warmest decade on record, around 50 people gathered to hear about the alternative view.<\/p>\n

The two-day schedule boasted serious scientists from the universities of Adelaide, Stockholm and Western Australia. They argued that global warming was a natural phenomenon caused by solar activity and the natural rise in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. They questioned sea level rise and the melting of the ice caps and most of all the \u201cglobal conspiracy\u201d happening up the road.<\/p>\n

The meeting was organised by Danish group Climate Sense and the lobby group Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT).<\/p>\n

Craig Rucker, Executive Director of CFACT, admitted the organisation have taken funding from Exxon Mobil in the past but pointed out that many environmental groups are also receiving funding from major corporations and are currently receiving far more cash to support the climate change argument.<\/p>\n

He argued that the world should have the courage to \u201cdo nothing until the science is clear\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe think there is no consensus on climate change and there should not be a treaty from Copenhagen based on a lack of consensus,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The audience, that was almost exclusively male and middle-aged, nodded in agreement.<\/p>\n

They may be small in number but television cameras squashed into the tiny room and the ongoing \u2018climategate\u2019 scandal will ensure the sceptics continue to get coverage.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Okay so should we be shocked that CFACT “used to” get money from ExxonMobil? To me that sounds like it was started by ExxonMobil. Which has all the reason in the world to make sure that we think that climate change is not happening. Skeptics usually have one philosophical MO: toss out the precautionary principle<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“The principle implies that there is a responsibility to intervene and protect the public from exposure to harm where scientific investigation discovers a plausible risk in the course of having screened for other suspected causes. The protections that mitigate suspected risks can be relaxed only if further scientific findings emerge that more robustly support an alternative explanation.”<\/p>\n

I would love to be staying in the same hotel as all the skeptics. (I know they probably don’t have their own hotel, but you never know.) And let’s imagine that it’s 3:30 am before a busy day and the fire alarm goes off. Would they stay in bed, awaiting proof that there’s an actual fire? You know, would they have the courage to do nothing?<\/p>\n

Or would they apply the precautionary principle, and be out on the chilly streets of Copenhagen, kidding around just like everyone else would, while the Fire Department investigates?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Skeptic does not mean him who doubts, but him who investigates or researches as opposed to him who asserts and thinks that he has found.” [Miguel de Unamuno, “Essays and Soliloquies,” 1924, referenced from Etymology Online] Well, go tell that to climate change skeptics. Here is the question: who exactly is perpetuating the global conspiracy … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20104"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20104\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}