George Monbiot of the left-leaning British newspaper The Guardian has a must-read column in which he admits that because of a whole series of intellectual mistakes, the global green movement’s policy prescriptions are hopelessly flawed.
Read the whole piece for a thoughtful and brutally clear expose of the intellectual bankruptcy of the green movement from one of the smartest people in it. This is what I’ve been getting at for more than a year here: regardless of what is happening to Planet Earth, the green movement does not have coherent and workable solutions.
Greens like to have it both ways. They warn darkly about “peak oil” and global resource shortages that will destroy our industrial economy in its tracks — but also warn that runaway economic growth will destroy the planet through the uncontrolled effects of mass industrial productions. Both doomsday scenarios cannot be true; one cannot simultaneously die of both starvation and gluttony.
Monbiot gets it, and furthermore concedes one of the main arguments of the anti-green case. The ‘problem’ is not a shortage of carbon rich non-renewable futures. The problem is the abundance of these fuels.
As he said, read the whole thing – to see for yourself as one of the smartest people in the “green” movement explains to Guardian readers what the average anonymous commentor at SDA or WUWT could have told them.
One just has to love the term “intellectual mistakes”.
Everything the greens touch turns to lead.
– ban DDT – millions die every year from malaria.
– ban incandescent lights, mercury production soars and will be disposed of in landfills contaminating ground water.
– windmill farms, horrendously expensive inconsistent power.
– bio-fuels, skyrocketing food prices and large tracks of virgin land being cleared to make room for more.
They don’t think, it’s all knee jerk to raise funding for their pathetic causes.
“the global green movement’s policy prescriptions are hopelessly flawed.”
“Lizzie May’s Green Party policy prescriptions are hopelessly flawed.
That mouth that roared and flushed hundreds of $billions of dollars down the public policy drain.
Wonder how many schools, hospitals and highways that money would buy? How many promising cures for cancer or Parkinson disease didn’t get funded, how many real scientists wait in obscurity as other professors ride the Global Warming Gravy train . . .
The immorality of the global warming scam and all its many scammers and Eco-Grifters – yes this means you Suzuki, is beyond comprehension.
They have no shame.
Suzuki Quote
” I do despair. My wife and I huddle at night and weep for our helplessness. We are losing big-time …….”
More cuddling coming up.
Yeah….
Islam is not a religion but a political movement.
CO2 AGW is not science but actually sophistry to further a political movement.
Hopefully both have reached their high-tide mark.
The biggest problem is the culture of growth we instill in our business community. We have to change our policies to reflect zero growth, we have to accept the fact the Canada’s population is not growing and stop trying increase it through excessive immigration. The pressure to stop immmigration is growing world-wide and that will force the over-populated countries to start dealing with their issues directly. They need to educate their people, stop having huge families they can’t sustain and modify their traditions. Otherwise nature will look after their problem for them, ie. natural disasters, plaques, starvation.
A lefty that despairs the state and it’s obsession with the race to the bottom. How did this moron actually come to grips with the futility of his belief system?
Mr. Monbiot outlined the problems (and I respect him for being able to adjust his views to reflect his clearer understanding.) However, he did not have any suggestions to make at all. The commentors, however, mentioned over-population, a subject that has been taboo since the 1980’s. Like most aspects of human behavior, I don’t think that population is amenable to regulation except in repressive systems such as China. As usual, the unintended consequences come to bite you in the a$$. Because of the favoring of boy children, China is faced with a shortage of females for the males who are now be looking for a mate. The traditional structure of family, the underpinning of society has been gravely altered. It seems a high price to pay though humans are resilient. Perhaps polyandry will become acceptable in such a society. Who knows?
Yet, I think that many of our problems: famine, war, destruction of the environment can be traced back to the fact that too many people occupy this earth. However, like many things about this planet, this too is a self-regulating system. One way or another, this will solve itself.
Mr. Monbiot points out the futility of trying to persuade people to accept more primitive living conditions to benefit “the planet”. If anything, when people are afraid that the goodies are running out, they will try even harder to hang on.
George Monbiot is one of the smartest people in the green movement? Good grief! This idiot doesn’t understand that CO2 is plant food, not a pollutant and that plants and nature love the stuff as well as heat. On this issue the man is a veritable 2 digit IQ moron.
“History shows us that wherever large-scale collapse has occurred, psychopaths take over. This is hardly conducive to the rational use of natural assets.”
And thank God for that or nothing would ever get done and we would all die of whimpering. A rational committee would relegate us to document our deaths and file it in triplicate.
Posted by: sasquatch at May 7, 2011 9:23 AM
Sums up brilliantly.
Speaking of the wisdom of the average anon. SDA commenter, where are all those dip-shite polar bear kissers who came to SDA just to call us knuckle draggers for seeing AGW as a scientific farce and a political cash grab? I wish they’d show the balls to come back here and either admit they were wrong or take a well deserved brow beating for still putting faith in disproven AGW theories.
This dark night of the Moonbat soul routine has really cheered me up; I love a little schadenfreude in the morning. Quoth George:
“His (Simon Failie’s) article exposes a remarkable but seldom noticed problem: that most of those who advocate an off-grid, land-based economy have made no provision for manufactures.”
No, George. Lots of people noticed. People in comas noticed.
“In east Africa, for example, I’ve seen how, when supplies of paraffin or kerosene are disrupted, people don’t give up cooking; they cut down more trees. History shows us that wherever large-scale collapse has occurred, psychopaths take over.”
Because wanting to feed your family makes you a psychopath. I’m sure George is ferociously anti-colonial; and yet, at the same time, he does feel it’s frightfully selfish of the dark poor people not to just, you know, die for the nice crusading Englishman who has their best interests at heart really.
Walter Russell Mead says: “(Monbiot) acknowledges that there is no prospect for democratic politics to impose the draconian limits on consumption and economic activity that green dogma requires.”
Well now, as they say, that’s not a bug. That’s a feature. That’s the feature.
But look at the money these scum extorted through the so called MSM. The enemy is the CBC CTV Globe Star ABC CBS NBC etal and every other DIRTY rag that shoved this money stealing modern day tulip bulb scam down our throats. Suzuki is huddling all right with millions of stolen dollars along with Gore Freidman Moonbat Weaver Mann etc. What’s the matter George, a little afraid of pitchforks and torches, now this SCAM is finally resonating with the average doofus NDPEE voter? You SCAM artists have drained the public coffers, there is nothing left for health-care, roads, and necessities, well done useful idiots, mea-culpa George.
I assume when Kate said “smartest” she was being sarcastic.
Suzukibus peccatoribus!
“to abandon magical thinking and to recognise the contradictions we confront.”
Faint hope,Georgie,magical thinking is simply easier,requires no research or critique of one’s own thought.
Unfortunately, we’ve just had a “magical thinker” promoted to our Parliament in the person of Elizabeth May.
The link to this article needs to be sent to our MP’s,as the government seems to not acknowledge any controversy with “climate change” .
Each time he wrote ‘tar sands’ confirmed his delusions.
So, tar is being extracted from the sands? Buffoon.
Somehow, the “smartest” people in the environmentalism movement failed to realize that a fairly simple flow chart would have corrected their leaps of faith and contradictory reasoning.
The comment section of GM’s column and the obsession about population control further reveals their bizarre, unrealistic approach. The pop control moderates, the same movement that cannot get people to accept twisty bulbs or public transport, thinks it can persuade families to have fewer kids “for the good of the planet”. Meanwhile population control extremists, who call climate change deniers monsters, advocate China-like force or epidemic disease to accomplish rapid depopulation. Both factions claim that protecting the planet will benefit future generations and are only interested in doing what it best “for the children”. Yeah, sure you do.
Yay, he’s the tallest midget!
“Smartest Idiot”, put that on a coffee cup, fill it with hot coffee, hand it to him, step back and ask him what time it is.
Glasnost @ 8:45 – Isn’t “intellectual mistakes” redundant?
Well, maybe this is the “Tipping Point we have all waited for. He seems to be respected in the squirrel community, and by the way, I would pay a pension cheque to to download a video of Suzuki crying and huddling up at night.. I would have it on a loop, running in every room in the house.. Send in Seal Six please.
The Cap & Trade Scam got a hushed boo during the Republican SC debate..
Ex-Gov (minn) had supported Cap & Trade.. Has since realized he made a mistake.
I think that anyone stupid enough to fall into the AGW scam would fit into one of the following two catagories.
A) He or she took a Soros EU/UN bribe…
b) He or she is not a living breathing American.
The Presidential bid by Tim Pawlenty is doomed
Jmho
‘Posted by: sasquatch at May 7, 2011 9:23 AM
Sums up brilliantly.’
Posted by Ab Fromen @9;40 I second that statement.
Agree with Sasquatch. Someone once pointed out that the greater the contortions of reasoning and contradictions of a particular position, the greater the likelihood that a fundamental truth was being ignored. So it is with the so-called “Green” movement. The “Green” movement has only a marriage of convenience with concern for the environment and is simply a smokescreen for the back-door implementation of the economic train wreck which is Marxism.
Until the members of the “Green” movement acquire the intellectual honesty to face up to that, dump it and move to concern for genuine environmental issues, they will continue to look, and sound like alcoholics in denial — hypocritical, disingenuous, and juvenile. I won’t hold my breath.
George Moonbat is a great icon of our own Elizardbreath May. May would drool over every word Moonbat would write or say. I wonder how she will swallow this?
Not to worry your little magic thinking head, Lizzy. I didn’t see a single word in the article where George actually wished the nanny state away.
SYF @12:10
Sorry, I just can’t get too worked up over the “tar” vs “oil” controversy with respect to the petroleum deposit at Athabaska.
Back in the day, when the stuff first came to the attention of European explorers, they called it “tar”, because it’s black, and sticky, and has a pungent odour. “Tar” in this usage is simply a descriptive term, not a genetic term.
Somewhere, in the intervening years, “tar” has acquired an undeservedly bad reputation. I don’t know why. It’s very useful stuff: seals roofs, caulks boat hulls, builds roads, adheres feathers, you name it. Gaia’s duct tape, if you will.
The industry, in an attempt to polish its image, has attempted to control the narrative by naming the deposit an “oil sand”, which is genetically correct, but a little lacking on the descriptive end.
As far as I’m concerned, let the greentards persist in their belief that they somehow hurt the industry by hanging the “tar” appellation on it.
The best description to use is neither “tar sands” nor “oil sands.” Try “money sands” on for size.
“Somewhere, in the intervening years, “tar” has acquired an undeservedly bad reputation. I don’t know why. It’s very useful stuff: seals roofs, caulks boat hulls, builds roads, adheres feathers, you name it.”
Yes,Gord,I’d like to apply some of it to the SOB’s trying to destroy our economy with their climate scare BS!
When I was a kid in school,1950’s,we always referred to it as the Alberta tar sands. Doesn’t matter what you call ’em,as long as you realize how important they are to our economy.
Great post Kate. Shows up the hypocrisy of the Luddites well.
How much suffering misery and starvation have the global leftarded ecnonut’s bestowed upon third world residents? That’s the scary thing,they are suppose to be the smart ones, the compassionate ones yet they’ve hyjacked the environment for profit and people are suffering because of their “One global economy agenda” tarted up as Climate Change.
I assume when Kate said “smartest” she was being sarcastic.
Well, smartest in the green movement. It’s just that a shriveled geranium would be among the smartest people in the green movement.
George looses marks when he says tar sands, shale gas, NGLs, and shale oil are alternates to “real” oil and gas. These alternates ARE oil and gas. You won’t be filling your gas tank with tar sand.
He has seen the futility of the green movement’s policy. Now if he would only see the falacies in their “science.”
As someone who has worked in a third world country and married a woman from another, I can honestly say that only the rich can afford to care about the environment. The green’s policies are the road to true poverty and ironically to environmental destruction. (Canada’s poor are wealth on world scale.).
The Environmental will be saved by not adopting old failed technologies but by bettering existing tech and developing new tech.
“Suzuki Quote
” I do despair. My wife and I huddle at night and weep for our helplessness. We are losing big-time …….”
Whatever turns ya on…or gets ya through the night.
Barf.
Leave me and all other sane people out of it!
gordinkneehill – it also has to do with the portion that is wanted, and for what. When looking to pitch-seal a canoe, it’s the heavier fraction (tar) that was desired. Now we’re after the lighter fraction (oil). The surface geology mapping I worked at in the 90’s found both, some had augers dripping with what looked like 10,000km oil change f-150 crankcase, some that resisted 50 hammer hits for a split-spoon sample. There’s a lot of different hydro-carbons in that there (entirely natural) oil spill.
one of the smartest people in the “green” movement
It’s a relative adjective.
Kinda means “sharpest of all the ping pong balls”.
IMHO, one of the most heinous lies perpetrated upon my generation is the whole concept “organic”. There is as much -hard- evidence supporting the contention that “organically” grown food is better for you as there is supporting those guys who think Elvis is still alive.
George Monbiot has know this for a long, long time. What has changed is he needs to find a new spot on the gravy train, because his old one is going to dry up by next year.
That’s what makes him “one of the smartest people in the “green” movement”. He knows to fold when he’s holding a pair of twos and a joker.
one of the most heinous lies perpetrated upon my generation is the whole concept “organic”.
Gosh Phantom, is someone strapping you down and forcing you to eat organic food? Last time I checked it was a free will choice, just like you drinking yourself into a stupor every night if that’s your thing. Please DO NOT eat organic food with fewer chemicals and pesticides, that way you will die sooner and hopefully be less of a burden on our health care system. Organic food is like helmets, only those with something worthwhile to protect need to wear them.
North_of_60,
I’m OK with you wearing your helmet while chomping on granola.
Just one question – while everyone (I do mean everyone) in Canada was eating “organic” … life expectancy was about 1/2 of what it is today … do you attribute this to the lack of good helmet technology?
You go dude. Just keep channeling all that anger from the drugs and chemicals in your body from industrial meat and processed ‘food’ at inordinately healthy people like myself who don’t care if you work yourself into an apoplectic fit and give yourself a coronary. I could go piss on the graves of people 2/3ds my age that are already gone from committing slow suicide. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not in any way trying to convince you to change your lifestyle or diet. My body mass index is 22 and I’m not on any maintenance meds, how about you?
Oh, to answer your question. The ones who didn’t die from preventable diseases like smallpox, cholera, typhus, polio, diphtheria, or childbirth, or workplace accidents and hazardous chemicals, or wars, or smoking, or childhood diseases, actually lived to a ripe old age.
While I am with ∞² on the freedom to choose, organic is in my opinion idiocy. Said as a man who has had kidney disease for 28 years and 2 kidney transplants, who relies on chemicals to stay alive. I’m a fan of all “industrial meat”, high yield crops from those evil chemicals.
Now before you go off on a religious tirade about how evil chemicals in food caused my kidney’s to fail, it was predetermined by a particular genetic weakness.
Simply my choice to go on living as a 57 year old dependent on chemicals and eating nice fat juicy “industrial meat”. My part to save the planet and ensure the success of a heathy food supply for those who don’t drive Porsches.
The “Organics” are as daft as the frickin’ AGW propeller heads.
Somehow, (their meme)- commercial fertilizer that a plant will uptake for its needs, or GMO advancements will infect the end consumer with horrendous consequences.
What the plant is thinking: ‘Gimme summa dat N, summa dat P, some K, S and a little dose of the other micro-nutrients I have a cravin’ for, and I’m good.’
How many of the scardy’s even know that ‘organic’ possibly means grown in animal (sometimes human) urine/excrement? (My mouth’s watering already!
Or that pesticide/fungicide treatments are thoroughly tested by a host of gov’t agencies
to assure public safety; but organic might mean produce inundated by egg-laying or infecting vermin that has very little in the way of control?
What I see, organic proponents have too much money, in which case I say, spend it on this cause, you’ll likely do less damage than getting involved in the important matters of state.
A few facts might help with the organic food controversy.
1. All cancer rates on an age-adjusted basis have remained stable or declined, post WW2, with the sole exception of lung cancer and AIDs-related cancers. In particular relevant to the claims about the benefits of organic food, stomach cancer has declined. Therefore there is no evidence of any kind of food additives over the same period having any effect upon cancer rates or mortality.
2. The principal hazard from food over the same period has been from microbial and fungal infections. Neither of these conditions is averted by switching from conventional to organic foods. Indeed, these conditions are likely worse for organics, given their reliance upon natural fertilizers.
3. The decline in stomach cancer is generally attributed to the availability of fresh fruit and vegetables year round. So eating locally produced organics only may have significant adverse effects.
North of 60 offers not the slightest shred of evidence that any of his claims about organics have any truth whatsoever. He’s just another food fetishist.
This is what is so great about the results of last election, we have gone from worrying about Tugaban Jack forming a coalition to debating Organic Foods. Have a great weekend.
What the Greens do is talk about gluttony one day and starvation the next and count on the rest of us to forget what they said. Works too. ‘Cept for blogs like this one.
North_of_60, I am sad to inform you that the benefits of “organic” food have never been scientifically demonstrated. This means there is zero -measurable- difference between the actual produce on a chemical level, and zero difference in its -measurable- effects on the people who eat it.
If you slap an organic sticker on a green pepper from the most heinous factory farm in the whole Imperial Valley of California, it is 100% identical to the one I grew in my back yard and did not spray.
Yes – always interesting when a zealot turns.