My belated condolences. I always enjoyed reading his posts and will miss his insight and wide ranging views. May hew…
So, where are we now with global warming?
Politicians world-wide got into the “save the planet” business for two reasons; electorates were convinced the planet needed saving and would vote for candidates who said they’d do just that and wouldn’t vote for candidates who said it was all hysteria, which it was and which most of them knew it was. That is political reality. Once they had been voted in, they stared spending the money because up to a couple of years ago, the economies were rich or apparently so.
One way or another, they have had to get out of the save the planet business because the money is simply no longer there. All over the world, economies are either very fragile or in some cases on life support. Climategate was pivotal in undermining the credibility of the ‘science’ which supported the hysteria. It also gave politicians a solid excuse to back away from funding pledges, though you’ll never hear any of them admit that.
People no longer really believe or care about the whole thing because as recession bites their concerns return to the necessities of the life. In last year’s mid-term elections in America, every Republican candidate was a declared climate sceptic and indeed in some cases were replacements for candidates who were still pressing the climate alarm button.
The message to politicians is clear; vocal scepticism gains them votes, global warming alarmism loses them votes. They will always go with what gains them votes and dump what policies lose votes. You won’t be hearing much about global warming in next year’s presidential election in America.
For the climate alarmists, the available responses to this sea change in the political landscape are really limited. The consensus response seems to be that it’s a communications issue. If they can just keep explaining the situation better and harder, then they’ll regain the mob. What is of course missing from this bunker mentality response is that it’s not a communications problem; it’s a credibility problem.
At grass-roots level, people don’t believe it any more, if they ever did at all. The MSM (main stream media) are still pushing the message but even they are backing off it too. They call it “climate fatigue” and it doesn’t sell many papers these days. The global warming craze, like the hula hoop, Rubik’s cube and bobby socks, has run its course.
The rational response would be to change their approach but this implies a complete policy revision. This cannot be done without risking schism in the church of climatology. Too much symbolic ideology is invested in wind, solar and wave power, which as subsidies dry up, are rapidly becoming financially unviable. Dumping these in favour of the only real alternative, nuclear power, would lose the foot soldiers of the movement.
The global warming monster is not dead but its back is broken. I think that politically there will be no grand volte-face away from it but rather a quiet retreat and it will suffer death by lack of funding.
©Pointman
Related article : The death of the AGW belief system.
Pointman's 
Pointman
“The consensus response seems to be that it’s a communications issue. If they can just keep explaining the situation better and harder, then they’ll regain the mob. What is of course missing from this bunker mentality response is that it’s not a communications problem; it’s a credibility problem.”
This scenario, just as you describe it, exactly explains the situation in Australia.
When PM Gillard recently announced she was introducing a Carbon Price in 2012 (despite adamantly denying such intentions pre-election six months ago), she declared that it would be with Community Consensus and to that end established the Climate Change Committee, chaired by that paleontologist-morphed-into-govt-Climate-Adviser Tim Flannery (the Flim Flam Man).
Poor Tim, for a lousy $172,000 a year, his brief is to tote his ‘expert’ Committee around the countryside to take his Climate Catastrophe message to the great unwashed (and ignorant) masses – that’s us folks.
So far there have been two public meetings, one in regional Victoria and last night, one in Ipswich Queensland which was televised on the ABC. Moderated by an ABC Media hack, the public were admonished that “this is not a debate” and cat-calls quelled by an appeal to “afford our expert panel due respect”.
It was expected that the audience would sit quietly and listen attentively, fully receptive to their ‘re-education’ and later disperse quietly to gratefully accept that their best interests would be served and our Nation saved by our venerable Leaders.
Fat chance. Sydney radio talk-back audiences were today outraged at the one-sided implausible explanations these ‘experts’ delivered. People bitterly resented being treated like children, forbidden to challenge the lies and utter rubbish being shoved down their throats such as higher levels of Co2 causes “toxicity” in plants and “lowers nutrition levels”.
You’re right – “The global warming monster is not dead but its back is broken.”………. and its ‘legs’ as well.
It no longer has any ‘currency’ in this country. Thinking people have finally been woken from their complacency and even Labor MPs and Union leaders are demanding details, information and justification for visiting this crippling blow to the Australian Economy.
“As a result of that political overreach Gillard now can’t deal with the more moderate Coalition and realises the outcome the Greens will demand, in keeping with Milne’s warning, may not be saleable.”
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/commentary/pm-feels-the-tax-heat-from-all-sides/story-e6frgd0x-1226035609345
“Death by lack of funding” is one thing – being beaten to death by a lot of angry Aussies is a lot more likely and a lot of political careers will go with it.
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One of the things to realize about the media is that it will run in cycles along with warming/cooling. In a few years, as the climate gradually cools, the media will start running with ice age stories. A few years later, when it starts to warm a bit, they will forget the cooling and start running with the warming scares. Scare stories sell papers, so the scares will continue.
They’ve done both before, more than once. Here’s a pdf that shows those media cycles.
As far as any real warming? As you basically said, there’s no power (votes) or money (funding) in promoting climate reason, until recently when the votes look to be on the skeptical side.
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The Brisbane newspaper (Courier-Mail) isn’t convinced of the global warming demise. It still continues to blindly print alarmist propaganda without any investigative journalism on the subject. This is the rag I particularly want to see suffer a painful climbdown in the near future.
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Check out the Flim Flam Man for yourselves………
*http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeNDSeknn_c&feature=related
or even better………… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrDQDAR5HE8&NR=1&feature=fvwp
This is the highly paid drop-kick who is ‘Climate Science Adviser’ to the Australian Government.
In his deranged mind humanity is becoming a supra-organism which can ‘give back’ to Mother Gaia, we are likened to an ant colony where only a few are allowed to breed and the rest are workers, where our climate tipping-point was passed in the 1990s and our future climate catastrophe will see dead purple slimy oceans that rise 80 metres, the colour of the sky will change and Greenland will be the only habitable place on the planet.
Poor Timmy is in serious need of a tailor for a nice new jacket – the kind with extra long sleeves that tie up in the back.
Denton’s program was cleverly called ‘Enough Rope’ for a very good reason – the more he played out the noose to Flannery, the tighter the fool wound it round his own neck.
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More on our scientific Climate Commisioner
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/do-not-feel-afraid-gaia-is-with-us/story-fn6b3v4f-1225980669696
I have been busy becoming an extremist at parliment house demonstrating against the carbon tax. I wonder Black Swan if Tim could be persuaded to join Mother Earth? His other great revelation is that is will take a 1000 years to notice a change if we reduce emmisions.
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G’day MikeO
Thanks so much for your link to Tim Blair’s extraordinary account of the Flim Flam Man’s precarious mental state. Each time I’m in need of a good fit of side-splitting laughter I’ll pull it up for another read – it’s a bloody ripper.
I won’t be in Canberra again till later in the year and I really hope my trip coincides with another anti-Carbon Dioxide Tax rally. I’ll be there with my “Ditch the Bitch” placard ….. LOL
Good to know you’re there to represent those of us who can’t be.
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Sunday May 8, 10 am Andrew Bolt starts his own TV show on Channel 10. Sarah Rinehart has significant share holding in channel 10 and is a major miner affected by the Carbon Tax. The MSM is turning, opposition is coming of the wordwork. Every day there is another bad story for the Government. The rank and file of major unions have turned saying it had better not affect them.
If you come to Canberra maybe a meeting could be facilitated through Pointman?
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OOPS Gina Rinehart
“Hancock Prospecting boss Gina Rinehart has been named Australia’s richest person – the first woman to be recognised – after seeing her wealth rise $7 billion in the past year”.
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Oooops, sorry Pointman, don’t know what I did wrong there.
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No problem Swan. It seems to be random whether the link becomes embedded nowadays. I’ve edited the link and inserted an asterisk before it. To play the link, just copy it (without the asterisk) into a new tab or browser window.
Pointman
Good link BTW!
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Thanks P.
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The alarmists are in full retreat in the States, despite the efforts of the NYT – Krugman, Google, GISS mouthpiece Hansen – and gob of Mann @ Penn’ State Uni’ not forgetting, high priest Al Gore whose edicts, cant and guff is now garbled, ever growing fainter – drifting, the signal now barely audible background static.
The ‘lets get it together’ verbal diarrhoea fest in Bangkok concluded with nothing concluded and delegates hopelessly in disarray, this ‘holiday’ in the sun for a bunch of AGW fanatics was sponsored by the UN paid for mainly by the Americans – soon they must pull the plug on this wasteful expenditure of tax dollars, surely?
It seems some in Bangkok are turning to the almighty for guidance.
Bangkok was supposed to pave the way and calm nerves and [I hate this cliched rot] – ‘set a framework’ for, the forthcoming beano in UN/IPCC climate conference in South Africa. The portents are black, GOOD. Hopefully, Durban, will be an all out war, the chances of a renewal of the damnable Kyoto protocol which are holed – witness Japan’s reluctance to resign….. and with luck Kyoto is sinking beneath the beautiful seas around the coast of Durban.
It is time for this unedifying spectacle of UN/IPCC meetings of corrupt minds with gullible useful idiots was put a stop to – sooner, rather than later.
Though the idea of halting the freebies must be anathema to most involved in this madness. I can see their point, all expenses paid holidays, five star hotels in exotic locations, first class travel and limousine chauffeured transport, girls, booze and no doubt mind bending drugs of choice- whats not to like?? – A bit like being a EU commissioner!
Your headline, I agree with your premise P, with luck and because of public apathy, the AGW rot is dying on it’s wobbly feet and hooray for that!
However, we must still keep vigilant, there is still a country where the AGW alarmism is alive and kicking and showing no sign of dying out. Like Conan Doyle’s dinosaurs living on a remote table mountain plateau, cut off from the rest of the world but thriving in their own little lalaland.
A country where………..
Councils still recruit ‘global warming coordinators’, recycling officers and a myriad of other non-posts. A country indeed which started, then nurtured and perpetuates the AGW myth.
A country which passed a law legitimising the fallacy of AGW, where nigh on, all of it’s political representatives even though some were and still are sceptical, signed up to the Climate Change Act.
Glory be! What an act of perfidy!
A country where the government funded weather prediction agency is an advocate and cheerleader for said fallacious notion -that of, Man Made Global Warming, two departments of state are dyed in the wool believers and where unelected Quangos full of ‘on message’ managers and civil servants, run and rule central government.
A country who’s academic institutions are riddled with adherents of the new religion to an extent where the academic standards and empiricism is dying out. Yes, also a land where, in it’s schools AGW is the orthodoxy.
Universities, schools, civil servants, town halls, central government, the political elite, the MSM, inclusive of all of the main newspapers ….all trumpet the new religion, the debate has been shut down, being sceptical about AGW is stigmatised as much as [so called] racism – in both cases the opposite point of view cannot be made – is this sanity? I think not.
The citizens of said country are treated with no respect are: browbeaten, told they are thick, taken for granted told what to do and ever treated with such condescending contempt.
Then, the people are taxed and taxed agin – squeezed like an orange until the pips are squeaking. Daft? you bet………..here is one small example of how stupid it all is, each energy bill payer forfeits in the UK £45 pa to pay for the cost of energy companies explaining to their customers, how to reduce their bills! Kafkaesque is it not?
Sadly and very worryingly, there is a long way to go in Britain P.
In the end, there will be: a reckoning. Good God there has to be.
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The excellent piece by Chris Booker this week outlines some serious delusions or fantasies in the form of, the EU, Libya – Afghanistan – Iraq and of course the AGW scam.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/8440423/What-happens-when-the-great-fantasies-like-wind-power-or-European-Union-collide-with-reality.html
However my concern is that there are more ghosts in the closet
Worldwide considerations:-
The ‘American Dream’ may be finished
The EU political integration ruled by Brussels
The end of the ‘Nuclear Energy’ dream
The dollar as a reserve currency
The growing energy resource gap
The potential of food and water resource shortfalls
Destruction of confidence in politicians
Destruction of confidence in banksters
Destruction of confidence in the ‘Scientific Method’ not just on AGW
Financial meltdown of the world economy
The capitalist dream of continued growth – no longer sustainable
UK considerations
University fees – Another form of taxation
NHS funding – Another U turn
Diminishing education standards
Ten years to replacing electricity generation – Lights out by 2015
Lemming’s attitude to renewables
The LibCon coalition may be past its sell by date
Conclusions
Some may regard my lists as extreme but all I can request is the recognition of these pitfalls, almost impossible to put such things in order of risk.
The sun is out, holidays beckon so perhaps all the above is just a bad dream, and we will all wake up, and all will be peace and light again.
We can only live in hope !
Unfortunately AGW implementation is only part of the problem !
motm.
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Excellent summary Pointman.
Best Regards
OL
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Ta OL, best of luck with your new project.
Pointman
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Well there’s Good News and there’s Bad News.
Apparently the 2012 Olympics is managing a 50% reduction on carbon emissions (not quite sure how that works) but it is not going to make its target on Renewable Energy. Oh Dear……
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-13034546
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Perhaps the atheletes have to skip every second breath?
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Motm,
You are right sir, BTW P will try to log in for a chat soon!
Be good.
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Splendid post P.
I think Ed is right…Britain invented this steaming mound of manure for political purposes. We are still way ‘ahead’ of all international competition for shear barminess…what with the ‘climate change act’ and evidence that our resident crooks in charge intend to ‘abide by the law’ and see our self destruction through to the letter…(our great Chancellor Osbourne, sneaking in a £16 per ton CO2 charge on industry in the last budget as but one example).
Britain started this un-holy mess and must therefore now lead by example by renouncing it…he he…if pigs could fly!
Hope to catch up in ‘chat’ this evening bud…hope all is well.
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http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/article/TMG8445588/Worlds-first-carbon-neutral-bra.html
Cheer-up chaps – this should give you a bit of ‘Global Warming’…….
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Uplifting news indeed …
Pointman
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Another gem from Aussie journalist Tim Blair………
Left is a gift that keeps on giving
“SUSTAINABILITY is important. That’s why, many years ago, I decided to base almost all of my columns on making fun of left-wing blundering and idiocy.”
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/left-is-a-gift-that-keeps-on-giving/story-e6frezz0-1226040543321
A visit to Tim’s blog and it’s Comments section is fairly indicative of how the average Australian now views the Gangrene/Labor Carbon scam. And about time too.
Also, a really good appraisal of how convoluted and unworkable a Carbon Dioxide Tax will be…….
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/totting-up-carbon-tax-is-anyting-but-a-piece-of-cake/story-e6frg6zo-1226040594836
There is no way these fools will get this rubbish through the Parliament, even when the Gangrenes hold the balance of power in the Senate from July.
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