British Upper-Class Twits Saving the Planet
A new breed of environmental activist is on the warpath in Britain — and “breeding” is the operative word. With names like Lily, Tilly, and Joss they sound like characters in a BBC costume drama, or the guest list for a society ball. They are the scions of the great and the good, and they have nothing better to do than save the planet.
The class-obsessed British media has got itself into quite a lather over last week’s protest at Stansted, London’s third airport. The protest itself was little more than a stunt, although it raised troubling questions about security at the airport when around 50 protesters cut through the perimeter fence, causing hundreds of flights to be canceled or delayed.
What got the media so excited was the fact that these weren’t your average extremists. They were variously labeled as “middle-class militants” (middle-class in the British vernacular being shorthand for educated and well-off), “designer demonstrators,” and “the bolshie Barbour brigade” (Barbour is a brand of outdoor clothing favored by the country set).
Joss Garman, 23, who founded Plane Stupid, the group that staged the protest, claimed the protesters were “not the sort of people who usually go in for activist stuff,” and were “educated, scientifically literate, passionate and eloquent.” His point is clear: we are supposed to take these activists seriously because they are “clever” and “well-brought-up.” How could they be wrong?
They’ve certainly had as good an education as money can buy, and they’re clearly passionate. Tilly, 21, explained: “If we fail, it will be the people on this runway, and our children, who’ll live with the consequences.” Lily, also 21, said: “Being arrested is a terrifying prospect, but not nearly as terrifying as the threat of climate change.”
But “scientifically literate”? Are any of them remotely aware that there remains not a shred of evidence to suggest that the modest warming of the last hundred years or so is outside the natural range of variation in the earth’s temperature, or is man-made? Or that we’re entering a second decade without any increase in warming, and that recent trends don’t come close to matching the predictions of the alarmists?
(You’ll find comparisons between actual temperature records and the various predictions made by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change here. Doubtless this will provoke the usual excitement in the comments, so if you know different be sure to post the relevant links there. While you’re at it you might want to email the IPCC, Al Gore, and the world’s major scientific organizations, who between them have failed to produce evidence to support their theories despite having combined budgets running to hundreds of millions of dollars, and tens of thousands of staff.)
You can be passionate about science, but the passion Garman is talking about is passion in place of science. Like most extremists, climate change activists are driven in part by a fear of genuine science that borders on superstition, and by a susceptibility to group-think that’s little short of mass hysteria. The “posh kids” of Plane Stupid suffer from special pathologies of their own: guilt over the worthlessness of their privileged lives, the urge to do something “important,” and the thrill of casting off the shackles of polite society by breaking the law, just a little bit. (“Mummy! I spent the night in a cell! With real criminals!”)
“Of course, they won’t be flying to the cheap European destinations served by the low-cost airlines that operate out of the airport; they’ll be visiting the family villa in Tuscany, or jetting off to Africa to spend a year hanging out with “authentic” native types.”
Actually many flights out of Stansted do go to places like Tuscany and are often full of these people visiting their weekend homes there.
Is Lily really such a posh name? It sounds more like the name of an East End matriarch, rather like Violet or Ethel.
Joseph Schumpeter long ago warned that civilization is threatened by the pampered sons and daughters of the affluent class. These brats have too much time on their hands. They also instinctively wish to bite the hand that feeds them. We should treat them with scorn, if not outright contempt.
In the Middle Ages, the Crusades were a convenient way to get these idiots killed off so they wouldn’t bother regular people. The unmarriable daughters were shipped off to the nunnery.
“While you’re at it you might want to email the IPCC, Al Gore, and the world’s major scientific organizations, who between them have failed to produce evidence to support their theories despite having combined budgets running to hundreds of millions of dollars, and tens of thousands of staff.”
Well creationists pretend there’s no evidence for evolution, so I guess it makes sense that climate truthers pretend there’s no evidence for climate change.
http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/wg1-report.html
Don’t click on the above report. IT DOESN’T EXIST!!
Plato also warned that the sons of the wealthy would use their position to overturn the political order. Anyway, the looming environmental disaster has replaced the atomic bomb as the source of posturing fatalism among the western elite. When I was growing up, the leftists did drugs and had group sex because Reagan was going to bring on armageddon and blow up the world so you may as well live fast before we all burn to death, or worse, live through the radiation poisoning. Now, the fad is global climate change and the attendant disasters that will surely follow as “the earth” or “mother earth” or some other vaguely anthropomorphized concept of flora and fauna that is mad at me for flying to see my parents for Christmas, resets the biological clock in order to protect itself against the SUV’s that still remain on the roads.
My begrudging respect for the well-done satire, Mr.McNally. While personally I have battled the malignant forces of venture capitalism, carbon trading and civilization for 20 years now, even I had a chuckle over your wicked invention of a name like “Plane Stupid.”
Boris, the true believers like yourself have set up a simplistic test to prove your hypothesis (it doesn’t yet qualify as a theory). If the Earth begins to warm at an increasing rate as carbon increases, it is affirmed to the point that it qualifies as a theory. If not, the hypothesis is disproved.
Since it is getting colder, a biased bureaucratic report isn’t going to convince anyone.
“If the Earth begins to warm at an increasing rate as carbon increases, it is affirmed to the point that it qualifies as a theory.”
Haven’t read the AR4, have you? Didn’t notice it was written by scientists, did you?
Oh dear, oh dear,
Lily, Tilly and Joss sound like frightful oiks, a bunch of nou arrivistes (nou = abbrev. nouveau riche) The truly high born in the south of England would call their children Rupert or Jeremy for boys and Lucinda or Jemima for girls.
In my part of England the north, it is different. Even posh kids are hard and any boy named Rupert would have the crap kicked out of him by classmates.
open offer of 25% on the dollar for coastal properties before they’re submerged by global warming. i also buy,sell, and trade personal and commercial carbon footprint credit vouchers. don’t miss out on the next bubble, you know
the politicians aren’t. toxic mortgage backed derivatives coming soon to a broker near you from the boys at goldmann.
Oh, now I see. boris says people who question AGW are the same as creationists. Therefore it must be true.
“Written by scientists” So what? Don’t give me the Al Gore B.S. about a scientific consensus. It’s not getting warmer.
Scientists wrote this:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10783
And satellites captured these plots:
http://junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/All_Comp.png
All these quotes are from scientists:
http://www.moonbattery.com/archives/2008/12/among_scientist.html
“So what?”
So you were wrong.
“It’s not getting warmer.”
Right. Every year of the twenty-first century is warmer than every year of the twentieth except 1998. And it’s not getting warmer?
“Scientists wrote this”
One scientist wrote it. Couldn’t get it in a journal, but he wrote it.
“And satellites captured these plots:”
That show a warming trend.
“All these quotes are from scientists”
Yay! Quotes! Now, where is their research…..? Hmmmm….I think I’ve found what doesn’t exist.
Big deal! We have the same set of idiots here in America…..we call them liberals or Democrats. Their mascots are Pelosi, Reid and “The One”, the Obamasiah. We’re never going to get rid of them or their accompaning irritation. They just “flit” to another twit “cause”.
In Canada, the warmists call themselves “socialists for justice”. Global Warming is simply another tactic for waging the people’s war against global imperialism. But of course! It’s frightfully simple and works like a hot damn!
The problem with global warming alarmists is that they refuse to actually debate about it except to say “it is decided, I won’t look at your data because mine is immaculate.” (although it must be constantly revised because it always seem to come out wrong in observation.)
Harsh winter storms and lower than normal temps this month are said to be proof of global warming. If the temperatures were higher than normal or expected then that would also be proof of global warming.
It just goes to show that debating someones “religion” just isn’t worth the breath.
Boris:
Very few doubt that the climate was warming in the latter years of the twentieth century. But the data clearly show that it has been cooling since. If you know any mathematics at all, you are aware that as a function rolls through a maximum the values just past the peak are rather close to it – but he slope has changed sign. Moreover, the maximum n the response to virtually any driven phenomenon comes some considerable time after the driver itself tops out. As a trivial example, maximum sunlight is the northern US is in June, but the temperature ordinarily peaks in August, and doesn’t really begin to drop until October or so.
The claimed “scientific consensus” on this subject is a crock, and is a bit of a scandal given the munificent rewards offered, particularly to younger scientists, if they will just “sign on”, and the dire consequences threatened to those who take a more realistic view of the data.
Well, the Aussies are bailing out on this, much to the (highly entertaining) rage and despair of the loony left there. The left-wing PM promised to cut Australia’s carbon emissions by 25% when he was running, but after considering what that would do to the economy, he’s had second thoughts. The outraged cries and moans from the comrades Down Under (linked to by Tim Blair) are pure comedy gold:
Yet again I am ashamed to be Australian.”
“We are doomed by these targets – I just hope Heather Ridout and the coal lobby are the first to suffer from the climate change catastrophe. Money and jobs don’t matter when you are starving and can’t breathe – wake up and get real – stop murdering us.”
“A tragic day for our world …”
“I’m sorry for my (and everyone else’s) children.”
“The patient planet is gravely ill, why mete out the remedy and wait till the moment of death to act?”
“This is one of the saddest days of my life as an Australian.”
“What will happen to our children …”
“I am ashamed to be Australian, and ashamed of Rudd for his fatal procrastination.”
“Kevin you have failed your mother, planet Earth.DO IT OR WE DIE.”
SMH reader Ian makes the standard leftist threat:
“I’m moving to europe and changing my nationality to anything else.”
Maybe he’ll move to Germany. And the finest missive of them all comes from bewildering Brendan Wynter:
“Most people who are worried about climate change have pets. A lot of the climate change skeptics also have pets. I have not pets.”
Blair left out a few of my favorites, including “Ask a polar bear if his habitat isn’t threatened.” Sure, be my guest, ask him. Better yet, offer yourself to him as lunch – he’ll be quite satisfied with his habitat then.
I can only hope that Obama also wakes up, discovers reality and plays Judas,sending Boris and all our other credulous bunny huggers into a similiarly amusing frenzy.
Oh, here’s the link to that story. Enjoy the comments, they’re comedy gold. Just warmed my heart on this icy cold day here in the midwest to see so many lefties sniveling and whining about a leader they had thought was one of their own:
http://blogs.smh.com.au/environment/archives/2008/12/the_federal_government_has_rul.html?page=fullpage
ONLY NUCLEAR POWER WILL SAVE THE PLANET
Conventional wisdom and anti-nuke enviro propaganda will keep us dependent of fossil fuels:
http://greensrealworld.blogspot.com/2008/12/smart-clean-plentiful-power-to-people.html
They are a good argument for a stiff estate tax.
Hey Boris, I don’t see your Rodina signing on to the carbon tax regime. What’s the matter, russky? But you want to see the U.S.A.’s economy mangled by enacting an economic policy that is shackled to energy policy that is anchored to junk science. You know that it will depress our economy, which is why you like it. Even Vladimir Putin called Anthropogenic Global Warming “junk science” some years ago. And that’s why Russia won’t sign on to the Kyoto Protocols, but insists that the United States does.
I work for a small investment firm and we actually do have an in-house economist. He did some modeling about what the hard cap and trade/carbon tax regime would mean for our economy. It would shave off anywhere from 1 to 3 percent of GDP growth. And all done in order to satisfy the cynical assertion of a hypothesis that is disproven and flatly an error of huge proportions.
These dolts protesting at Stanstead fancy themselves young intellectuals, when they are nothing of the sort.
And you, Boris, and your nation are flat out hypocrites on this issue.
Oh, well, if Putin says it’s junk science, he must be right.
Do you think every person named Boris is a Russian citizen?
In all reality the English, and the rest of Europe, have more important and immediate dangers to deal with than “climate change” and that is the real and present danger of Islamization. Political Correctness and multiculturalism is a disease and the behavior of the Plane Stupid folks is merely a symptom.
Boris,
I distinctly remember you during the Soviet, er Russian, invasion of Georgia this past summer and you carrying the water for the Rodina.
I made an educated guess about you, is all. But no, not all persons named Boris are Russian. In your case, it’s likely.
Plane Stupid is a great name and, if stereotypes are right, very British in poking fun themselves (if unconsciously).
A very nice movie on eco-arrogance is Mine Your Own Business. It starts off in a Romanian town where mining has been going on since Roman days. The Communists left a mess that a private company promises to clean up if allowed to reopen mines with modern investment and gear. Of course the “greens” oppose, distort, and even lie. There are visits to Madagascar where eco-freakos have held up development, their local yacht-owning head bozo whose children are schooled in South Africa, global not local, and says the poor have better lives due to a lack of stress. There’s a trip to Latin America for more of the same, “greens” seeking to keep people poor, malnourished, but “natural.”
I thought the movie worth the money, if a bit short. There are few movies funded to show the other side on environmentalism. This one is worth supporting.
http://www.mineyourownbusiness.org/
‘Is Lily really such a posh name? It sounds more like the name of an East End matriarch, rather like Violet or Ethel.”
I sounds East End to me too, though I’m an American and may not be up on the latest trendy names in Britain, or what was trendy 30 years ago when this lot was being born. What sounds posh – Jane or Susan or names like that?
Well they have an example is silver-foot in mouth Enviromental oik Zack Goldsmith. What is funny is the in spite of all his wealth and his snobby mates (including Conservative Leader David Cameron his enviroloon mag is going under).
Lilly is more middle-class than upper-class. (I have a good working-class wife from North London who is au fait with these things. Rupert isn’t that posh either…as many people named their children after Rupert the Bear.
Boris…In case you’re interested in a senate report on global warming: http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.SenateReport#report
I know how depressed you global warming fanatics can get so I thought I’d share a bit more on the subject to maybe cheer you up! Enjoy!
Never could understand why the Republicans don’t give a crap about our planet, the only home we have in this universe. Can someone explain that?
Jack…Your comment shows your immaturity. Republicans care about Mother Earth, we just decry people profiting off of lies about her state of being. Have you never listened to ANYONE who is telling you that Al Gore and his ilk have sold you a bill of goods or do you just take everything at face value? Do you never scratch below the surface on any issue Jack? You do your country and your planet a disservice when you buy into everything you are spoonfed by those wanting to profit from you. A little research on your part on the whole global warming issue would do you good Jack.
United Nations WHO ICD10 diseases:
http://www.helsinki.fi/~pjojala/ICD10_WHO.htm
Statistics of the medical contribution of Jewish population to the host country in terms of inventions, science and technology:
http://www.helsinki.fi/~pjojala/Indicator.html
The relatively speaking greater proportion of women among the Jewish scientists is weird. In the 1000 or so Nobel laureates in sciences, there are only about dozen females, over 1/3 of which were Jewish.
One way to keep a job, make it indispensable, like Gore and the pseudo scientists.
Thinking Person, you’re obviously the immature one. Your post proves my point. Why do you people want to pick a fight with someone who is just pointing out the obvious. Do you not agree that auto exhaust is unhealthy? Never mind the tons of harmful emissions from factories, coal production and usage, plastic production and waste. You people just want to ignore the harmful effects of it burning fossil fuels. Just got into your garage, close the door and start the engine, you’ll know soon enough how harmful it is. So why not support people that want to reduce these gases? With China’s population now beginning to drive more and more, we can expect the number of cars on their roads to exceed ours in a decade. Will you want to wait till then to address this issue. Get off your ass and stop trying to attack anyone that doesn’t follow along with Republican rhetoric and backwards thinking. Do what’s good for the planet. You people are only concerned about how much you can make not how many lives you can save.
Jack, please calm down and stop to think fora while. If all of China has cars, how do you think the rest of the world not having them will help?
As for the emotional rhetoric of ‘doing what’s good for the planet’ it might be worth considering that we really don’t know very much about what is good for the planet. For all we know, burning off fossil fuels may be helping the planet more than not.
Of course you can listen to the Gores and all the others who make a very good living indeed from reciting doom and gloom and demanding more controls and even taxes. That’s fine; it’s your privilege to believe what you wish. But when those who so earnestly believe all this would like to deny others a freedom of movement while retaining theirs as it suits them (flying to Planet saving conferences in nice places, flying to collect international prizes) then you have to wonder about some of them.
funny, back (more years than i care to admit, but i was in middle school for the first ‘earth day’) in my high school days, the same groups of scientists were screeching about a coming ‘ice age’, and claimed that it was caused by the same things that they now accuse of being the cause of ‘global warming’…hysteria and hyperbole seem to fit in both eras…if al gore is serious about saving the planet, why doesn’t he put HIS lifestyle where his mouth is? ‘carbon offset’, my aunt tillie’s bloomers-rank hypocrisy is what it is!
Jack:Fossil fuels unhhealthy? Not as unhealthy as dying because the ambulance/rickshaw/horse drawn, ecologically correcrt vehicle,couldn’t reach you in time to save your life.
Again Jack….You are much too willing to accept the status quo. Why you don’t do your own research on global warming and let yourself be led around by Al Gore is beyond me. I guess doing your own investigating would be too much for you? You’ll have to answer that for yourself. Of course, I do have to call you to task for saying that the GOP doesn’t care about the envoirnment (ie your post mentioned exhaust). Wrong. We do care. The difference here is that we’re willing to help end the problem with smart use of technology, clean coal, etc, while you’re ready to take us back to the dark ages with shady science. A huge difference. Jack, do some homework bub.
If you guys are looking for alternative fuel sources you could always burn all of the strawmen you keep setting up on this thread. One nonexistent parody of a liberal environmental position could keep a hospital running for three days.
And for the record, invoking function-talk only works if you can capture the function in an equation. But if you could do that, there would be no global warming debate. If you don’t know how the function proceeds, you can’t assume that it’s just a regular old boring wave. So that sort of argument amounts to a “data-bomb”: a pile of true but irrelevant facts intended to support a conclusion that it cannot.