The key to any democracy is a well-educated public capable of critical thinking so that they may make their own well-informed decisions.

So far, your movement has not been educating, it has been fear-mongering and shouting down its critics. In the short term this may generate the fear-factor needed to push through an agenda. However, you’ve been bombarding the public with apocalyptic doomsaying for almost 20 years, with ever increasing frequency and intensity of alarmism. You have to keep running faster to stay in the same place, and you’re at the point where you can’t run any faster. You’ve completely desensitised the public to these issues.

When you’re preaching doom and the average joe can look up outside and not see raining balls of firey grimstone, is it any surprise that things have come to a head? You have no one to blame but yourselves. You chose fear over logic, suppression over debate, propaganda over education, and now it’s reached a critical point where the alarmism is becoming nonsensical to even the apathetic masses. Call it peak-alarmism, if you will.

Truly, Copenhagen is the “last chance” for your movement as a whole, this is as good as it’s going to get and it’s all downhill from here.

Looks like the Climate Sense conference in Copenhagen got some coverage, which I will post here for contrast.

Climate Skeptics, or Climate Realists?
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

@ Mike - You’re right, people are unlikely to act on something that is “probably” occurring and “might” impacts us in the next fifty years. For the majority there is no sense of imminent risk (burning balls of brimstone) so nothing to compel them to act. You’re also right that doomsaying and fear doesn’t translate into action - rather it tends to lead to the opposite. Apathy and head burying.

I would contend however, that while there may be a sense of doomsaying among climatologists and those actively involved in the debate, for the most part this hasn’t reached the masses. I got interested in the topic through my PhD - otherwise I’d have been none the wiser (except in a vague sense). Same goes for most of my friends, colleagues, neighbours and classmates - and they’re all well educated, read the newspapers, watch the news.

I’d actually say that considering there is a consensus that Climate Change is a major threat to human existence I don’t think there has been a great enough sense of urgency.

What has actually been said and done that would make the average person think they’re facing impending doom? There’s been a whole lot of talk - but politicians are hardly falling over themselves to cut emissions at any cost. Most people look to others for cues on how to act - and by observing the actions of our leaders then one could only conclude that the threat must be minor.

It’s a vicious circle. Politicians won’t act without a mandate. People won’t ask for action unless they see a problem with their own eyes (again the brimstone) or they sense there is a major threat based on the actions of their government.

In the case of terrorism and the financial crisis a mandate for action was achieved because people could witness the fall-out with their own eyes, and because their leaders were in a flurry of activity. With climate change there are graphs, pictures of polar bears and some sluggish meetings. Not enough to convince the average person to vote for change.

A good article.

1) The Club of Rome in their “The First Global Revolution” open write, that to save environment, we must first get rid of democracy.

2) Once we get REAL evidence, that there is a catastrophic manmade climae disaster, there will remain almost no skeptics. But so far - no evidence. So why should people make any sacrifices.

Please don’t use that word, consensus, when there is none. Not even the theory of gravity has a consensus. It’s a word for politicians, not for science.

I think the fact that politicians are all talk on this issue speaks volumes on its own towards the legitimacy of the science. I mean, since when did anyone believe the words of a politician anyway, who are some of the most bold-faced liars on the planet. No one notices the elephant in the room that is the global warming gravy train. And yes, Big Oil included, for all the would-be distractions.

For some reason people find it extremely difficult to comprehend how so many people could get it wrong or outright lie to them. And while I don’t quote religous lines often, the greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.

If the science is so infallible, why is no one educating the public about it? I would wager many, perhaps most people’s views were suaded by Al Gore’s diabolical movie An Inconvenient Truth. A movie by a politician, really now.

Instead of education, we are told we are too stupid to understand the science, so we should trust the experts and anonymous authorities. We are then spoonfed artificial stories of “consensus”, when no such thing exists in science.

I don’t know why many of the people of this forum cling so desperately to the hockey stick interpretation of historical temperatures. Perhaps this is because it is the only real piece of observational evidence they have, to show that present temperatures are outside the range of natural variability. They go so far as to rewrite history on a regular basis.

When there are so many independant studies that suggest otherwise, that the medieval warm period was warmer, that the meteorological records began during the minima of the little ice age, that present rates of warming are not unusual or outside the range of natural variability. The IPCC produces models that say natural variability cannot account for the warming and say this is “proof” that the warming must be manmade. This is argument from ignorance, and is not a proof of anything. Especially since their models failed to account for the natural variablity that produced this decade’s slight cooling trend. Then there is the evidence that the temperature record itself has been doctored into producing an artificial warming bias. The basic science shows that CO2 produces about as much warming as it’s ever going to get at 300ppm.

Then there are the solutions to the supposed problems. Exactly what do the environmentalists expect? That all coal plants be shutdown tomorrow and all energy replaced with solar and wind? This is a pipe dream and it will never happen, no matter how much you want it to, you’re just wasting effort where it could be put to better use, on real environmental problems. This entire movement, is a colossal waste of human energy and resources, to the point that people are literally suffering/dying from it.

It’s also hard to take environmentalists seriously, when the most viable short-term option, nuclear energy, is immediately shot down as a solution.

To many environmentalists, global warming/climate change is just a means to an end, they couldn’t care less about the science or proposing real feasible solutions to the “problem”. They are just as much talk as the politicians, and perhaps even worse liars.

So what is going to come out of Copenhagen, for all the hype, all the alarmism? Nothing.

What they are discussing now is how they are going to take money from poor people in rich countries, and give it to rich people in poor countries; to paraphrase one of the speakers in the videos I posted above. And the gravy train steams ahead, but only for so long. Hopefully the fallout from Copenhagen will be so large that the entire establishment, and environmentalists, tear themselves apart.

@ Vitezslav - it’s always a double edged sword when you compliment a blog on this forum! Not sure whether to be happy or concerned!

a) I think that for the masses to undergo massive sacrifices they either need to be forced by circumstance (i.e. things turn bad - impending threats, famine, war, disease) or the decision has to be made for them. Of course option 2 comes with its own dangers… as you’ve pointed out.

b) until the general population are convinced that the science is absolute, yes you’re right - it will be difficult to motivate action of the sort being asked of people.

I think it is kind of a myth that the popuation will always vote populist. The thing is that politicians are too afraid of losing power, and often treat the voters as children. I think that if the politicians had the courage to say that this is what needs to be done, he or she would be respected, and voted for as well.

@ Daniel - I think if people are convinced that it is in their best interest to make an immediate sacrifice then they might vote for otherwise unpopular measures. Perhaps, yes, if the politicians took a stronger stance then people might be more inclined to support action - but there is this vicious circle of politicians needing a mandate to acting, and people needing to be convinced to provide that mandate. Both sides need to be convinced of a problem - i.e. the financial crisis.

Hope you are proud of yourselves, producing this sort of trash. The hockeystick rears its ugly head.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDubnFU3BXE

I don’t think childish pranks are limited to any one group I’m afraid! More of a statement on youth than anything to do with Climate Change.

You touched what is probably at the heart of the problem: the political system does not help in any way when trying to solve a problem that requires a medium-long term vision.

Politicians are there to get elected, so they say what people like to hear.

If 100% of scientists agreed that the Earth is round and 70% of the population believed that the Earth is flat, a politicians would say “well, it’s a little flat, and a little round”.

Ah, the art of compromise!

@ Frederico - I’m afraid you’re probably right. Unfortunately, as much as we blame our leaders for our failures, they tend to be a reflection of our own failings!

This is more complex! There is not just one answer why democtracy so far havent worked perfecty as we would love to and why there is not a comunism overall.
Imagine compromiss among extreme diverse opinions about climate change on this platform?  I dont ..

@ Jodi
true. I think George Carlin put it best:

“Now, there’s one thing you might have noticed I don’t complain about: politicians. Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says they suck. Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don’t fall out of the sky. They don’t pass through a membrane from another reality. They come from American parents and American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses and American universities, and they are elected by American citizens. This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to offer. It’s what our system produces: Garbage in, garbage out. If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you’re going to get selfish, ignorant leaders. Term limits ain’t going to do any good; you’re just going to end up with a brand new bunch of selfish, ignorant Americans. So, maybe, maybe, maybe, it’s not the politicians who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here… like, the public. Yeah, the public sucks. There’s a nice campaign slogan for somebody: ‘The Public Sucks. F*ck Hope.’”

@ Frederico - great quote. Thanks.

Sometimes comedians have the most profound insights. Bill Hicks was a great example of this, too.