The Church of the Very Sad Polar Bears

Ping Pong Seacole Schnitzel

How will this affect the ratings war?

Sir Graphus

You're absolutely right to compare climate change with religion: this is exactly how it is taught in schools. The word "sustainability" is imbued with an aura, especially from the lips of teachers.

And, indeed, it is a total substitute for the religion that used to be taught in schools.

Furthermore, just like the wishy washy way religion was taught in schools, the brand of environmentalism is wishy washy; it'll all be OK if we recycle properly and remember to turn the lights off when we leave a room.

Meanwhile, school trips multiply and go further and further afield.

GeoffM

If the Climate Change wonks really believed thay had the evidence then they would be happy to debate it.

As it is they scream at and insult anyone who dissents - just like some mediaeval religious nutcases.

I'm sure that, if they could, they would be tying us all up to stakes and increasing our personal carbon footprints one last time.

Why do they do it? We all know that pollution is bad, we all agree that we need to be more economical with energy - if only to impoverish the Arabs and all the other dodgy petro-countries.

We all know - it's so that the Third World can blackmail the First World. That's all.

But what about population growth? Its never spoken about and yet it drives everything.

And where is that happening - in the Third World and from Third Worlders migrating to the First World.

Its making the UK/EU very unpleasant. Food, water, energy, national security are all suffering due to a vast growth in population.

ed hall

Monbiot's article is one of the most charmless, moronic and offensive I have read in many a (pollution-obscured) moon.

vitriolic seacole

Given the high number of selfish, greedy pigs snuffling around the litigation gravy train these days, (usually smarty left wing types) anyone who doesn't hire staff on a freelance basis has either had, or is in for, a big shock.

John Levett

I suspect that my belief in the force of gravity would not be accepted as an equivalent in religion and the reason for that would be based on a genuine scientific consensus sufficient to render the force of gravity as an as yet unassailable fact.

I'm delighted that the British judicial system has correctly placed Moonbat and his followers in the barking religions camp.

Unfortunately, it brings the prospect of heresy trials and concentration camps ever closer for we climate agnostics.

Dixon

Never mind that Seacle, I wanna know what you make of the Lashkar-e-toy-bear incident: Goldilocks in Kashmir!

According to Jihadwatch they were about to eat his pudding when attacked!

Dixon

However, as you insist upon discussing those other bears ( the ones that attend conferences ) its worth noting ( ah, bearing in mind ) the idiocy of their choice as a mascot by envirofascists. They seem to think polar bears actually live on ice, in both senses. Presumeably because the only pictures you ever see of them, other than at conferences, they are running about in snow. The irony is that of course, the shrinking of ice cover ( where it occurs, which is debatable ) actually benefits their lifestyle and their numbers.

Dixon

Bearing greatly upon consideration of climate-change hysteria as a religion is the fact that its recurring theme is how ones conduct affects events occuring after ones death. This is the only thing which ALL religions ( including Budhism ) share and is absolutely vital to neo-environmentalism ( as opposed to the old sort, that addressed tangible issues such as Bhopal and hormones in the food chain ). For if one doesnt give a monkeys what happens in a notional world after ones death, then neo-environmentalism has no relevance whatsoever.

As a matter of fact, in response to some earhole bleating about why people dont voluntarily "alter their behaviour" ( a most chilling phrase ) in New Scientist a couple of months back I wrote in to pose the simple question, if "climate change" doesnt affect me personally, materially, within my few remaining years, why should I give a damn? To my amazement, they published this, although changing the end to "why should I care". However, they never published a putative response. Only more articles by other sinister hysterics hot on the heels of the last one.

Lesson: to neo-environmentalists, rational questions are water off a ducks back.

rod seacole liddle

It is such arrogance of Moonbat; the smugness, the certitude, the bad writing, almost convinces that he is wrong about everything. And he probably ISN'T wrong about everything. Just a lot of things.

workie ticket

It doesnt matter if AGW exists (which IMO it doesnt) because your picture shows that polar bears can live quite happily in a supportive inclusive multispecies human environment.

He looks glum only because he's thinks he's picked the wrong seat and the 2 white shapes in front of him are lady polar bears.

Dixon

But your position on this bears contrast with the one you took on Nutt at the Times. As I said there, the problem with the Nutts of this world is that they become "experts" in a narrow field because they are narrowly obsessed with the one topic. A large proportion of such "experts" in fact exhibit a mild form of autism. Nutt is a good example. People like that, incapable as he seems of empathically anticipating the impact of his statements on listeners , also have a deficient capacity for understanding that there are issues outside of their narrow focus.

Like Nutt, the neo-environmentalists presuppose answers to questions they have never been asked or have everconsidered. For example, if it were established as a fact that 400,000 children in the 3rd world will die as a result of my lifestyle, using 100 watt lightbulbs, etc ( ridiculous as it seems, a claim made this week by some charity or other supported by the evidence of one "midge ure" whatever that is ) WHY SHOULD I GIVE A MONKEYS?

Now they might say that makes me a nasty person. But such a judgement would be a recourse to emotion, not reason. I contend there is not one rational argument of any kind to support the contention that I should care one whit about the effects ( were they shown ) of my lifestyle and that of my cohort ( friends, elective community etc ) on anyone not in that circle of consideration.

As a matter of fact I dont. Because I really cannot think of a reason why I should.

Sir Graphus

When the ice caps melt, will the polar bears be subject to racist attacks from the brown bears and black bears with whom they will be required to co-exist.

What do you intend to do about this?

workie ticket

Moonbat is one of the best of his kind on the Left. He just reeks of the Stalinist intolerance of dissent, in this case for the old.

So deniers are now either too old or borderline mentally ill. I wonder what the climate loons will discover next...

Hawkeye

Look at the bright side, if climate change is now a religion then it cannot advertise itself, it cannot proseltyse for followers through the media and it is bound by all the other laws which religions are subject to.

Could be some pluses in there if we no longer have to listen to the loonies and moonbats....

James

Moonbat does not even have the intelligence to realise that one of the main reasons for the increase in scepticism is the fanatical ranting hysteria of people like him.

vitriolic seacole

Since the apple seldom falls far from the tree, I wonder whether today's enviro-facsists spent their childhood running round Greenham Common all feral and free while their 'wimmin-mothers' campaigned for 'Life on Earth'.

Hu Flung Dung

The only consolation is that ever fewer people are now willing to give the Al Gore's and George Monbiot's of this world the time of day.

EC

Thanks Rod! I've just trod in some Grauniad.

When Monbiot says ...

"My fiercest opponents on global warming tend to be in their 60s and 70s. This offers a fascinating, if chilling, insight into human psychology"

... does this mean, despite the hairdo, he's downgraded you from Category A to B or maybe even C?

It wasn't all that long ago when, on his unit's website, he was monstering you thus:

"I won’t bother trying to answer Rod Liddle, whose post was penned in nothing but bile and saliva."

http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2009/09/23/it-doesnt-get-madder-than-this/

So what's the next move? An invitation to The Spectator Editors' Dinner on the 19th? Now that the religion has legal status you could even ask him to say grace! But would the sorbet remain frozen?

btw The Clive James piece was great. Tangentially er.. thanks.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8322513.stm

rod seacole liddle

Dixon - the autism point is interesting and compelling. I think you are right, to a degree. I still think that Nutt is basically on the right track, however.

Monbiot is a shockingly bad writer, even by Grauniad op ed standards (weird how their marginal writers - Barton, Gold, Petridis - are the best in the business). But there is no skill or wit to Monbiot, no depth and no base. If I were a chippy, inverted, snob I would say that it is at least partly a consequence of his privileged upbringing. And in fact I AM a chippy, inverted snob.......

RobP

If climate change is a religion, are they allowed to open faith schools?

Charlie

Am I the only one to have heard a recent BBC prog featuring a senior forecaster at the Met Office and a Prof agreeing that we are now in a phase of global COOLING and worrying how they could convince us lot that after ths phase, it's going to get even hotter?

Bill Jordan

This is great news, knew it all the time. Climate change a religion - four square with the inventions of St Paul and the rantings of psycho-killer Mohammed.

sahara seacole

I wonder how the planet coped before the Moonbats and Gores got on the money-for-old-rope bandwagon. I mean, did the deserts of the Triassic period and the wastelands of the Ice Ages exist or not, for heaven's sake. And if they did, what caused them? Climate change? Yeah. Likelihood that climate is changing again? Yeah. Any likelihood we can reverse the process? Neah.

baron Pipin II

Man’s activity – flying, cooking, driving, steel bashing and the rest – accounts for around 4% of the world’s aggregate annual discharge of CO2, nature releases the bulk - see Bill Bryson ‘the History of nearly everything’. Nothing short of all the 6bn people who inhabit this planet dropping dead can produce any meaningful reduction in the aggregate. Asking us to drive slower, switch bulbs, chew carrots or whatever is akin to telling people to pee into the ocean to stop a tsunami. Marginal at best, and totally worthless at worst. And only good for men who don’t mind wearing wet trousers anyway.

Can you figure what the names of the two leading protagonists (here and in the US) rhyme with. That should have been a warning.

logdon

Climate change a new religion? And they actually take this seriously?

I read it and realised we are all doomed, that is unless we reinstate crucifixion.

Upside down for good measure.

Fergus Pickering

Sorry, Bill Jordan, but what exactly are the inventions of Saint Paul? If you are referring to the life of JC, that would have to be the inventions of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, wouldn't it?

Lungfish

I'm going to drag that poor overworked 'elephant in the room' out again. This time he's trumpeting about third world population growth but as usual nobody wants to be seen to be lecturing brown people. I agree with everything GeoffM had to say, only to add that the UK should be at the forefront of the new technology development needed to combat our over reliance on oil and Gas. Its all going to run out or become extremely expensive soon so lets get ahead of the game and invest in energy of the future.
Here endeth the lesson.

Kittler

Elderly resistance to the notion of climate change.
Do any other oldies out there remember back in the 50,s and 60,s some chilly winters and being informed that another Ice Age was imminent?

Baron Pipin II

What will Richard Dawkins, one of the other famous members of the Zealotry Club do? Will he embrace the court judgment and argue in favour of it, or will he attack it with his usual charm, wit, and depth of argument?

More to the point, what will George do as the support for his new religion slips away? It wouldn’t shock me at all if the ecochondriacs’ leadership mounted a vigorous lobbying campaign to have a new piece of legislation banning any criticism of the AGW tenets enacted as a matter of urgency. Gordon may not refuse. Think of all the taxing opportunities it would entail, all in the name of high moral certitudes for the benefit of the generations to come.

PS: Logdon, sorry to say it, but you’re a touch slow on the uptake. We’ve been doomed for some time. Your proposed solution, commendable that it is, won’t cut it either. Are you not aware that any dead organic matter releases a sizeable amount of CO2? Whichever way the wooden base may point.

Lungfish

Now that Simon Mann is out we could launch an invasion to liberate the poor oppressed people of Equitorial Guinea. We could then agree to some advantageous oil concessions. The locals would be dancing in the streets and welcome us with open arms just as they did in Iraq. Everybody wins, cheap plentiful oil for us and a nice democratic government for them.

Baron Pipin II

Sorry to drag Lungfish’s elephant out again, but please listen to this: The suns sends out radiation throughout the spectrum – from infrared through visible to ultraviolet. This radiation hits the earth. Around a third of it gets reflected back into space at infrared frequency. In the earth atmosphere this reflected radiation gets absorbed by the greenhouse gasses, e.g. CO2, methane. These pass it, in a form of kinetic energy (molecule vibration), to other e.g. water molecules, which make up the bulk of the atmosphere. It is these molecules that trap the heat, and the earth warms up.

The above gives a short, correct summary of the case for global warming. The mechanism cannot be faulted. What can be questioned is the magnitude of the heat trapping cycle.

We’re told that in the last 200 years or so, the density of the CO2 molecules in earth atmosphere got hiked from 280ppm (parts per million) to 380ppm, or from 0.028% to 0.038%. If the density hits 400ppm, we are all doomed, life as we know it ceases to exists.

For a number of years, I’ve been trying to convince the ecochondriacs to conduct an easy experiment, and sell the results to the BBC, or post it on Utube. Get a cylindrical glass tube, stick an infrared energy source one end, and a sensitive temperature measuring gauge at the other. Fill the tube with air and dope it alternatively with 0.028% and 0.038% of CO2. Measure the temperature difference. Voila.

The result of my endeavor? Mostly, I’ve been ignored, told that it cannot be done because a lab tube (too small) cannot properly represent the earth atmosphere (big), or called a ‘f….g’ retard.

sahara seacole

Kittler. Yes, I do, although I resent being lumped in with the oldies. I also remember a visit to the Commonwealth Institute in 1966 and nearly soiling my regulation school knickers when we were told that the world population was increasing so rapidly that by the year 2010 there'd be no room for anyone to move around. Anyone here from the CI? If so, I demand an apology.

Lungfish

Well I was born in 66 and I can well remember the 'new ice age' scaremongering cobblers in the seventies. What is it with teachers?, do they enjoy putting the wind up defenceless kids with tales of doom?

daniel maris

Monbiot - the bloke who travels the planet constantly spewing carbon into the atmosphere. Just as Gore had the lights on throughout his 24 room mansion.
Just as Radiohead probably do more to add carbon to the planet with one gig than a whole city of 10,000 people do in a year. All they had to do was ask people not to buy their records or come to their gigs and huge amounts of carbon production would have been saved! And just like Prince Phillip ("we must reduce our population") had four kids.

Actually there is a lot that makes good sense in green economics (e.g. the benefits to the domestic economy flowing from a green energy programme) but these climate change lunatics simply serve to discredit those good elements.

Tubb

There is a very good essay on 'Global Warming as a Religion' by Prof John Brignell at http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/religion.htm

Dixon

"sahara seacole
November 4th, 2009 8:32pm
Kittler. Yes, I do, although I resent being lumped in with the oldies. I also remember a visit to the Commonwealth Institute in 1966 and nearly soiling my regulation school knickers when we were told that the world population was increasing so rapidly that by the year 2010 there'd be no room for anyone to move around. Anyone here from the CI? If so, I demand an apology."

Soylent green and all that.

But you know, there was recently on Newsnight the very balmy spectacle of one of these hysteriozealotofascianutts ( a portmantel-piece term ) not exactly having to eat his words but having his face rubbed in them and then their being force-fed down his throat. This being the "Ex Europe Minister" Dennis McShane, who had a few months back been promoting a heavy criminalisation of almost all sex between unmarried adults on the grounds that this was the only way to stem the vast trade in sex slaves being shipped into the country. They had a clip of him in The House stating an estimate of 25,000 sex-slaves in Britain at a minimum. Now, Paxman had him there first facing the fact that this figure was based on research by the Daily Mail, then having him answer to the fact that a gigantic police operation the length and breadth of the country costing a few banks and a leg or two had found precisely zero sex slaves and obtained five prosecutions resulting in only two convictions for people trafficking.

Didnt the little scum-bag writhe. It was like watching StGeorge ( picture Paxo ) kebabbing a particulary loathsome slimy little dragon.

Very satisfying.

So you see, Monbiot may have to live to regret his zealotry...when hes old...and only elderly people believe in AGW, and are denounced as loonies. They can wheel him out for a party piece now and again.

Pot Head

The bunch of coffin dodgers on this comment thread rather make Monbiots point.

Lungfish

Pothead- Your brain is obviously skunk addled you young whipper snapper.

hiro

Guardian is easily one of the best newspapers in the world. The columnists are a bore, though. Always a bore. A predictable bore. Cohen on a Sunday is good though. Sharp as a knife and not too partisan.

David Ossitt

“that climate change is occurring (which it may be) but that it’s existence cannot even be challenged”

I have never doubted that there is change; however I can not and will not accept that man is the cause.

But the eco-warriors that one meets go popeyed with rage, if one disagrees with their mad ravings.

I derive much pleasure from goading them into near hysteria.

Noa Zrk

Guardian is easily one of the best newspapers in the world.

As Blackadder said; soft and thoroughly absorbent.

Susan Hill

Almost as alarming as Moonbat is Jonathan Porridge. He said the other day that an environmental catastrophe was needed on a huge scale to convince governments to take drastic measures to enforce people's'carbon emissions. See, the weather just won't play ball and he is becoming hysterical about it. But think about what he said and it is chilling - he is actually wishing for a major catastrophe, in which many thousands of people would almost certainly die, in order to be proved right. That is terrifying. He is an even more dangerous eco-fascist than Moonbat. He is probably actually praying for God to pour down fire, brimstone, flood, tempest, hurricane ANYTHING...

Archie Wedderspoon

Lungfish 9.25pm - I suspect teacher s are into these scares as a result of the banning of corporal punishment. They have to get back at the little bastards somehow.