A lot of people have gained power and wealth through promoting the idea that CO2 is the center of the universe.
Nature has not cooperated, and now they are desperate to silence the heretics. Their lies and attacks are becoming shriller and shriller every day, but ultimately they will be remembered as the biggest scientific religious scumbags in five centuries.
I have observed that the latest studies on climate sensitivity, new data on water vapour content, etc., have not been commented on much by the leaders of the movement. It seems to be left now to third and forth tier academics who seem to know much less than the average sceptic, and whose strategy consists of calling everyone who doesn’t agree with them names.
This might be too much info for a comment, and I’ll keep it as short as possible.
I spent the three years prior to 2010 studying human psychology, memetics including NLP, biology and microbiology, psychocybernetics and a few other modern sciences. One of the more interesting subjects to me was Spiral Dynamics and Value Memes (Clare Graves) along with the heirachy of human psychological development. The heirachy of value memes (the spiral) demonstrates the stages of human development as individuals, groups and societies.
V-meme studies have shown that about 10-15% in the second stage(purple) where spirituality and tribal family are most important, 30% of humans have reached the third stage(Red) which is the egocentric power god thought model (I know everything and I’ll do what I want), and 50% have reached the fourth (Blue) truthforce stage which is where the higher power (Religion – God, Buddha, the voices; Work – the CEO; Government – the President/PM/King; Environmental Movement – WWF, Greenpeace, IPCC, NASA, etc) is the source of all wisdom and power and we must follow the rules or else we’ll: burn in hell; get the sack; go to jail.
About 5% have reached the fifth (Orange) Entreprenuerial Striver (thinks for oneself) stage upon which the modern business ethic, economic, scientific and engineering development is based, and about 1-2% have reached the sixth (Green) Egalitarian vmeme where we are one with the environment/ all living creatures/ community and everyone gets a say, but little is achieved.
While most individuals are a mix of these vmemes, it is apparent to me that the Alarmists are predominately in the blue vmeme and function by being ordered around by various other people. It is no different from religion, government service or employment in general. They unquestioningly believe everything they are told and react very strongly when their belief is challenged even by verifiable facts. (e.g. the earth is 5-10,000 years old according to one book and 4 billion years old according to others.)
I guess my (long winded) point is that Steve’s observation of the connection between the evangelical scientific/religious like beliefs of the Alarmists is correct and can be described in modern psychology. My observation is that it is nigh on impossible to convince a blue vmeme Alarmist that their worldview is incorrect and that they are regurgitating other peoples ideas, unless and until they have a major shift up the spiral towards orange. The chances of that happening are likely less than 1 in 10. That is why they are stuck in their beliefs. It would only be when we have an ice age that they’d question their beliefs about CAGW. And yet we shouldn’t give up, because we are fighting the egocentric power gods (Gillard, Hansen, Gore et al) who are manipulating the blue vmeme majority to get the votes for their monetary and taxation scams.
Apologies for taking so much space, but I thought you readers might be interested. Cheers.
Hi Andy
Interesting comment. I haven’t studied in the same schools of modern psychology as you have but I have studied colour-psychology for some years and have found that my understanding of individuals, groups and social-political movements has been much enhanced by a knowledge of the colours that they associate and identify with as your comment suggests. A surprisingly large amount of serious research has been done on this subject already and some of it goes back thousands of years since virtually all of the ancient cultures of the world were interested in it and studied it intensively in their schools of esoteric wisdom. In modern times it has been investigated by the Swiss psychologist Dr Max Lüscher who has developed some incisive personality tests by examining the relationships between people’s personality-traits and their colour-preferences empirically.
People are complex creatures though and are usually operating in an ever-shifting combination of different colour-related modes at any one time, although there is normally one colour-mode that predominates for most of the time in each of us. A person’s predominant colour-mode is usually indicated by the colour that they most identify with and select as their favourite when presented with a range of colours to choose from. The same applies to social-political movements apparently.
Here, very briefly, is a list of different social-political movements associated with the colours of the spectrum that is suggested in the books ‘Nuclear Evolution’ and ‘The Rise of the Phoenix’ by Christopher Hills (publ. University of the Trees Press 1977 & 1979):
RED – Materialist movement – believes in the primacy of physical matter-energy and seeks universal domination through physical force and technology;
ORANGE – Collectivist movement – believes in the primacy of ‘people’s power’ and seeks to subordinate individual views and realities to group norms and consensus opinions;
YELLOW – Intellectual movement – believes in the primacy of knowledge and education and seeks to establish the rulership of experts in society;
GREEN – Acquisitive movement – believes in the primacy of ownership and seeks to pile up wealth and property without limit;
BLUE – Conservative movement – believes in the primacy of authority and seeks to stabilise conditions and preserve the status quo;
INDIGO – Futurist movement – believes in higher evolutionary possibilities in man and the universe and seeks to bring these into actualization in society;
VIOLET – Visionary movement – believes in the primacy of imagination and the god-like nature of man and seeks to express the divine nature of the universe through the arts, mysticism, magical rites and miracles.
There are also two further types of movements that are associated with non-spectral colours as follows:
BLACK – Totalitarian movement – believes in the absolute primacy of its own arbitrary will and rejects all conformity to all wills and authorities other than its own, seeking its own absolute rule of the entire universe.
WHITE – Pure-heart movement – believes in the essential goodness in everything and seeks nothing but to share the heavenly state of existence with all beings.
Of course there are many non-spectral colours besides and they may also have particular social movements associated with them.
The modern Environmentalist-Green movement is not a purely ‘green’ movement according to the above taxonomy, although if the noted acquisitiveness of its highly-entrepreneurial leading members is any guide, green is certainly its predominant colour. As James Delingpole has observed (see his book ‘Watermelons’) the movement is only green on the outside while it is red (an allusion to materialistic Marxism) on the inside, although if we examine it closely enough we can also find elements of all the other colour-movements in it too.
Just some more food for thought.