(The photo is of James Delingpole, blogger extraordinaire. His writings, along with the copious links contained therein, are probably the best source of information on the subject I write about below. His is a blog for the Daily Telegraph - an unlikely resource for Pale Green Vortex, it may be thought. But a voice of truth cannot be ignored, whatever its origin.....)
'Coming out' is a term once the preserve of homosexuals. To come out required considerable courage, putting at risk relationships with family and friends, endangering chances of success in the workplace, and invoking the spectre of social estrangement and hostility, violence even, from those who regarded your position as wrong, wicked or sinful.
Today, a new object has emerged as the butt of a blind prejudice which, in some circles at least, seems deemed acceptable. This is the Human-Made (Anthropogenic) Global Warming sceptic - AGW sceptic for short. Think I'm exaggerating? Ask Peter Taylor, subject to vicious ad hominem attacks from former colleagues in Greenpeace and the like, following his work questioning the validity of the AGW theory (and, remember, it is a theory, a hypothesis, not a proven fact). Ask David Bellamy. Ask a host of scientists who have in essence put their livelihood at risk by daring to question the received wisdom of AGW. No manner of insult, abuse, half-truth, lies, and attempt at suppression, is out-of-court in dealing with these renegade and extremely dangerous individuals. It often falls to retired members of the scientific community - no longer needing to toe the line in order to get funding for their work - to blow the whistle on the pseudo and false science that fuels the AGW juggernaut.
The nasty side of the AGW camp really came out in the recent scandal surounding the 10:10 snuff movie. 10:10 is a movement aiming at reducing our carbon footprint by 10% every year. In a nutshell, its video nasty (involving such luminaries as Richard Curtis of 'Love Actually' fame, Gillian 'X Files' Anderson, and members of Tottenham Hotspur football club) portrays sceptics getting gorily blown to pieces for their doubts. Remarkably, this was intended to be rather funny, which in itself says something about the mindset behind it all. Think for a moment. Could a similar movie be made and purport to be a jolly laugh if, instead of AGW sceptics, it was blowing up Jews? Or members of the Taleban? Or homosexuals? I think not.
Another giveaway to the dark side of the Warmist agenda is the appelation given to those who dare to disagree. They are termed 'deniers'. Ring any bells?
So I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and hereby declare myself an AGW sceptic. After a fair bit of weighing up the evidence, and while not doubting that human activity must have some effect on global climate, I seriously question the claim of its overriding significance.
My own credentials for taking such a stand are not so hopeless. I undertook some study of the theoretical mechanics of human activity's influence on climate at Oxford University during the 1970s, decades before the topic hit the mainstream. More recently, I was one of those who read James Lovelock's apocalyptic 'Revenge of Gaia' and began to get worried. However, as the years have passed, I have come to see how economic, political, and academic power-and-money agendas have usurped the cause, twisting the matter beyond belief. The result has been the birth of a new religion, Warmism. And, as often happens with religion, it is built on shaky ground. In this case, the belief of the faithful is based on dodgy, selective and sometimes manipulated statistics; amateurish computer models; and an ideology that, ironically, is rather life-hating.
The philosophical paradox is that these so-called environmentalists fail to see the greater environment at all. They are a cross between Old Testament believers, seeing humanity as the centre of everything, and pre-Galileo scientists, who missed the bigger environmental picture altogether, and the greater significance of that huge golden mass around which our little Earth circles. Psychologically, the cult of AGW feeds on a sense of the innate wickedness of human activity, which in turn has its roots in the doctrine of Original Sin. Financially, AGW is the fraud and scam of the age, meaning big bucks for the few and higher taxes for the masses. And politically it is an excuse for further fear-mongering to justify more interfering with peoples' lives and eroding any remaining vestiges of democracy.
More to be said, more to be said.........
