Gravity is a Hoax!!!

Here’s a link to an irresistible cartoon from Mark Fiore. It shows that it isn’t just the Climategate emails that show scientists in a human light. Using the same sort of logic as a lot of the denier maroons who are trumpeting the Climategate emails as some sort of proof of conspiracy, cover up and fraud, Fiore “proves” that gravity, matter, Earth and our solar system are hoaxes too.

Edit - originally I couldn't embed this Flash animation – it's really worth going to the website as a bonus. Look at the rest of Mark’s cartoons too.

http://www.markfiore.com/political/watch-climate-gate-science-animation

Climate Crock of the week vs Climategate

Somewhat more restrained in tone, Peter Sinclair’s latest Climate Crock video socks it to sniggering denialist “Climategate” idiots by comparing them to Beavis and Butthead. Now, I consider this very unfair to B&B because they were only ever going to affect a few people around them with their moronic, uber-selfish outlook, but climate denialists, if any more people give then houseroom, could do for the whole planet and all the people – no contest really is it? Denialists are WAAAY worse than Beavis and Butthead!

 

Climategate almost meets Crock of the week

Here's a masterfully sarcastic takedown by Potholer54 of the idiotically deceitful mania of the PR blitz currently being mounted by denialists, over the Climategate hacked emails. It clearly shows that these obstructive characters will say anything, or distort anything, to bolster their irrational blinkered views.

They are not "sceptics" as they like to portray themselves - sceptics look at all sides of the evidence and draw a balanced conclusion. They are deniers, plain and simple - they deny science - they deny evidence - they embrace and regurgitate fallacious logic and will only accept anything if it can be twisted to support the conclusion that they want to come to! Anything else gets ignored. Mad, bad and dangerous to know, if these astonishingly irresponsible types get their way, they will eventually be guilty of the deaths of countless millions. They hate being called deniers because they think they are being compared with Holocaust deniers - they are not - they are being compared with the type of person one may see on the Jeremy Kyle show who is in denial about their drinking or their partner's infidelity etc - a psychological state of avoiding confronting reality. However, come to think of it, climate science denial could end up killing more people than Adolf ever did...

Climategate

A storm in a tea cup being ruthlessly exploited by the denialists - or obstructionists if that makes them feel happier, because they really can't seem to see that they're like the man who "hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest" (from"The Boxer" written by Paul Simon).

Here’s a link to the Climate progess blog which features an audio link of a press call yesterday featuring three major climate scientists taking questions from such as Newsweek, Revkin of the New YorkTimes etc about the “Climategate” emails. It’s about 50 minutes long.

Exclusive audio of press call today with Michael Mann, Gavin Schmidt, and Michael Oppenheimer on “Climate Science: Setting the Record Straight”

December 4, 2009

350

On 24 October, people in 181 countries came together to speak with one voice on the most urgent issue of our times: the climate crisis. Through http://www.350.org, people in every corner of the planet coordinated the most widespread day of environmental action in the planet's history. At over 5200 events around the world, people gathered to call for strong action and bold leadership on the climate crisis. By the days end, it was clear: people of all kinds in just about every place on earth are calling for a fair, ambitious, and binding global climate treaty.

Of course, there are also still far too many numbskulls who think everything will be all right, like latter day Annies chanting “the sun’ll come out tomorra – bet your bottom dollar…”

Collapse/Easter Island bunny

I referenced Jared Diamond in the last post and his book Collapse: how societies choose to succeed or fail.

Sometimes people haven’t got too much time to investigate so here is a cartoon that just about sums up the basic theme of the book. It's probably better to go to the source to see the cartoon full size as the details are a little small here.

The Easter Islanders ruined the productivity of their island and as a direct consequence their society died out. Diamond analyses this collapse and also other, less well known, historical examples.

Ponzi vs. environment – who wins?

The following is borrowed and adapted from greenheartglobal blog

The common understanding amongst too many movers and shakers in our modern world, and those who blindly follow them, is that no matter how much garbage, pollution and climate altering gases we throw at it, the planet can absorb it - the natural systems of biodiversity will absorb the impact of our expansionism without damage and no matter how many resources we use up, there will always be more. Unfortunately, this is a grossly false understanding, the consequences of which will increasingly bite us in the very near future - not that the nibbling hasn't already started... This is why we’re now facing climate change and looming environmental devastation, resource shortages, famine etc.

David P. Barash’s, from The Chronicle of Higher Education had a very interesting article discussing how our relationship to the environment is akin to a Ponzi Scheme.

He makes the case that modern civilization’s exploitation of the natural environment is not unlike the way Madoff exploited his investors, predicated on the illusion that it will always be possible to make future payments owing to yet more exploitation down the road: more suckers, more growth, more GNP, based on the fraudulent idea of hope.

Here is a photo of the man after whom Ponzi schemes are named.

Here is the Wikipedia definition of a Ponzi Scheme to give you some context:

A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to separate investors from their own money or money paid by subsequent investors, rather than from any actual profit earned. The Ponzi scheme usually offers returns that other investments cannot guarantee in order to entice new investors, in the form of short-term returns that are either abnormally high or unusually consistent. The perpetuation of the returns that a Ponzi scheme advertises and pays requires an ever-increasing flow of money from investors in order to keep the scheme going.

The system is destined to collapse because the earnings, if any, are less than the payments. Usually, the scheme is interrupted by legal authorities before it collapses because a Ponzi scheme is suspected or because the promoter is selling unregistered securities. As more investors become involved, the likelihood of the scheme coming to the attention of authorities increases.

When you have read and digested this definition, see how closely the basic modus operandi of a Ponzi scheme matches that of the ideology of unending, ever-expanding economic growth. This is what our entire civilisation has been based on since the industrial revolution. Everything we know, every mainstream way of doing things is based on a set of beliefs that have passed their “use-by” date. Try reading “Collapse” by Jared Diamond to get an idea of how stupid humans can be in large numbers. To those who scoff at the idea that we could ruin the environment sufficiently to sabotage our civilisation – GET REAL!! Diamond’s book clearly shows that societies have done this very thing many times in the past at their local level. It’s just that now we’re again headed the same way but on a much larger scale that is entraining the whole planet.

Greenheart global finish off by saying:

Economy and Ecology follow the same fundamental principles. And one of those is that growth and development are finite. The naïve assumption of an infinite, resource rich environment is dangerous and must be addressed… It is widely assumed that a healthy, clean environment is affordable only when a country’s economy is strong. The reality is precisely the opposite: A strong economy is possible only when the environment on which it depends is healthy and strong. A related reality is that endless growth is literally impossible, for economies no less than for organisms, just as Ponzi schemes that depend on an endless supply of new subscribers are certain to be unsustainable. No one is innocent, and no one gets off the hook.

In the end, “we are also Ponzis and Madoffs who profit from economic schemes that are fundamentally unsustainable and thus, in the deepest sense, frauds. Madoff eventually got 150 years in the slammer and worldwide derision. What’s in store for the rest of us?”