If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.

- George Washington

Monday 22 November 2010

Science Fact?

I've never been a big fan of Science Fiction, although I have read a fair bit over the years. I have no time for the scary-alien stuff, but there are some very thoughtful and thought-provoking books out there. Robert Heinlein's Stranger In A Strange Land is obviously a classic of the genre, and I would also include one of the two most prescient books I have ever read, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (the other is Nineteen Eighty-Four): books that describe a possible future society, which are both believable and chilling. If SF doesn't go down the 'warring tribes' route (like the Mad Max films), then it is usually a World Government theme, where the people's freedoms have all been taken away 'for their own good', and life is superficially happy (or not) but ultimately purposeless and trivial. In the past, I have cheerfully dismissed this as - well, fiction, as that is what it was. After all, it couldn't happen here, because a) no government would want that level of control, and b) people wouldn't let it happen. No siree.

Then I came across this, thanks to Cats. The article is interesting, but the real interest is in the mass of quotations which support the notion that our leaders really want a World Government, and that the climate change con is simply an instrument to get people's willing compliance for changes that will make the New World Order possible. This idea has been at the back of my mind for some time, but I have always dismissed the more extreme expressions of it as tin-hat paranoia. But the quotations in the article (and there are masses), if genuine, really frighten me. None of the quotes are referenced, and it will be a fair piece of work to track them all down and verify them, but that may be worth doing. If they are genuine, then we have a lot to be worried about, and we need to wake up to the situation fast.

I won't list them all, but here are some examples:
Quote by Mikhail Gorbachev, communist and former leader of U.S.S.R.: "The emerging 'environmentalization' of our civilization and the need for vigorous action in the interest of the entire global community will inevitably have multiple political consequences. Perhaps the most important of them will be a gradual change in the status of the United Nations. Inevitably, it must assume some aspects of a world government."

Quote by Gordon Brown, former British prime minister: "A New World Order is required to deal with the Climate Change crisis."

Quote by David Brower, a founder of the Sierra Club: "Childbearing should be a punishable crime against society, unless the parents hold a government license. All potential parents should be required to use contraceptive chemicals, the government issuing antidotes to citizens chosen for childbearing."

Quote by Club of Rome: “In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill....All these dangers are caused by human intervention....and thus the “real enemy, then, is humanity itself....believe humanity requires a common motivation, namely a common adversary in order to realize world government. It does not matter if this common enemy is “a real one or….one invented for the purpose.”

Quote by Maurice Strong, a wealthy elitist and primary power behind UN throne: “Isn't the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn't it our responsibility to bring that about?”

Quote by David Foreman, co-founder of Earth First!: “My three main goals would be to reduce human population to about 100 million worldwide, destroy the industrial infrastructure and see wilderness, with it’s full complement of species, returning throughout the world.”

Quote by Robert Muller, former UN Assistant Secretary General: “In my view, after fifty years of service in the United National system, I perceive the utmost urgency and absolute necessity for proper Earth government. There is no shadow of a doubt that the present political and economic systems are no longer appropriate and will lead to the end of life evolution on this planet. We must therefore absolutely and urgently look for new ways.”

Quote by James Lovelock, known as founder of 'Gaia' concept: “I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while.”

Quote by Jeremy Rifkin, Greenhouse Crisis Foundation: “The prospect of cheap fusion energy is the worst thing that could happen to the planet.”

Quote by Ted Turner, billionaire, founder of CNN and major UN donor: “A total population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal.”

Quote by John Holdren, President Obama's science czar: "There exists ample authority under which population growth could be regulated...It has been concluded that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society."

Quote by UK's Keith Farnish, environmental writer, philosopher and activist: "The only way to prevent global ecological collapse and thus ensure the survival of humanity is to rid the world of Industrial Civilization...Unloading essentially means the removal of an existing burden: for instance, removing grazing domesticated animals, razing cities to the ground, blowing up dams and switching off the greenhouse gas emissions machine."

Quote by Club of Rome: "Democracy is not a panacea. It cannot organize everything and it is unaware of its own limits. These facts must be faced squarely. Sacrilegious though this may sound, democracy is no longer well suited for the tasks ahead. The complexity and the technical nature of many of today’s problems do not always allow elected representatives to make competent decisions at the right time."

Quote by Michael Oppenheimer, major environmentalist: "The only hope for the world is to make sure there is not another United States. We can't let other countries have the same number of cars, the amount of industrialization, we have in the US. We have to stop these Third World countries right where they are."

Quote by emeritus professor Daniel Botkin :"The only way to get our society to truly change is to frighten people with the possibility of a catastrophe."

Quote by Stephen Schneider, Stanford Univ., environmentalist: "That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have."

Quote from Monika Kopacz, atmospheric scientist: "It is no secret that a lot of climate-change research is subject to opinion, that climate models sometimes disagree even on the signs of the future changes (e.g. drier vs. wetter future climate). The problem is, only sensational exaggeration makes the kind of story that will get politicians’ — and readers’ — attention. So, yes, climate scientists might exaggerate, but in today’s world, this is the only way to assure any political action and thus more federal financing to reduce the scientific uncertainty."

Quote by Christine Stewart, former Canadian Environment Minister: “No matter if the science is all phoney, there are collateral environmental benefits.... climate change [provides] the greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the world.”

Quote by Timoth Wirth, U.S./UN functionary, former elected Democrat: “We’ve got to ride the global-warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic policy and environmental policy.”

Quote by Richard Benedik, former U.S./UN bureaucrat: "A global climate treaty must be implemented even if there is no scientific evidence to back the greenhouse effect."

Quote by David Frame, climate modeler, Oxford University: “Rather than seeing models as describing literal truth, we ought to see them as convenient fictions which try to provide something useful.”
Strangely enough, the most significant of these quotations for me are the two referring to nuclear fusion:
Quote by Jeremy Rifkin, Greenhouse Crisis Foundation: “The prospect of cheap fusion energy is the worst thing that could happen to the planet.”

Quote by Amory Lovins, scientist, Rocky Mountain Institute: "Complex technology of any sort is an assault on human dignity. It would be little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy, because of what we might do with it."
I had always assumed that the Green objection to energy use, and specifically nuclear energy, was that it was environmentally damaging, and then when a clean and cheap source of energy was developed (and for my generation that has always been fusion), everyone would welcome it and be happy that all the world could share the advantages of plentiful energy that we have had for some time. Apparently not. Plentiful energy, it seems, is a Bad Thing per se, even if it does no harm to the planet. That revelation is frankly shocking to me. I can't see why anyone would object to lots of clean, cheap energy, unless they hate the human race - and that, I'm sorry to say, seems to be a constant theme of the discourse.

Go and have a read - there are tons more like these.

We need to wake up to this.

14 comments:

  1. Let's leave aside any nitpicking about selective quoting of opinions - opinions mind - and context.


    Let's say that with some exceptions those opinions they break down roughly into two themes. 1) climate change is with us - we probably contribute to it and whether we do or not we can certainly make it worse - and people need to believe it. 2) The world is overpopulated. That a fair enough, if (Brent) crude summary of all that stuff?

    Now, the first only becomes objectionable if climate change isn't happening. Me, I reckon it's an ice-age we're looking at. Isn't it the case that the arctic is free of ice during an ice-age? But, never mind me. If climate change isn't happening after ten thousand years of relative stability it will be the first time.

    The last time it happened we got by because there were so few of us and we all lived off the land. Which brings us to point two. How the sweet fuck do you think we're get by this time?

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  2. The general public have swallowed the climate change nonsense so far. They are sure that it's someone else's fault and someone else will have to pay for it.

    When the price of energy really starts to rise, to pay for the subsidies for windmills and solar rubbish, they will turn nasty.

    The irony is that there is a little bit of truth in the greenhouse gas idea. But it's totally discredited by the lies and hysteria.

    The whole thing has been hijacked by scientists chasing easy funding, salesmen flogging ecotrash, and greenies who hate the human race.

    We all know the result of crying "Wolf!"

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  3. 'The whole thing has been hijacked by scientists chasing easy funding'

    But what if they find, with their funding, that there is no climate change? Strangely, almost none of them do.

    There is a differnece between (most) climate researchers and 'greenies; I agree about the latter, 100%. Those people who are supposed to love the planet are some of the most aggressive people-hating people you will ever meet. According to them we are not part of the planet. I still maintain, just for the record, that an oil refinery is one of the most beautiful sights in nature. What the ecofascists forget is that everything humans do is part of nature. My point above is about the soundness of arguments. My own argument above has some unsound arguments in it.

    But change is coming, and it will kill most of us off. That point I do not shift on.

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  4. I agree that a lot of the quotes above are opinion, and the list is a very mixed bag, ranging from the anti-human comments of unknown Malthusians, right up to remarks by well-known politicians. What I would like to do is to track down every one of those quotes and get a proper reference so they can be verified and put into context. After that little exercise, it might be easier to sort the wheat from the chaff.

    However, my main reason in posting was not the climate change thing, or the population thing; it was the 'world government' thing, which to me was a bit of a surprise. Perhaps I am too innocent, but I thought that NWO was a conspiracy theory - many of the quotes here rather suggest that, to the people at the top, it's more than that. It opened my eyes a bit, in the same way that they would if I read a secret email from Bush to Blair saying "bringin' down them thar twin towers was the best thing we ever did, and thanks for the Semtex". Well, maybe not quite, but you get the picture. The admissions about how the climate 'evidence' is being deliberately exaggerated/invented for political reasons is quite revealing, too.

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  5. I see no reason to believe in the world government NWO Bilderberger meme. As one of the Bilderberger group said, if we are running the world we should be bloody ashamed of ourselves.

    The planet is facing a crisis. It is very near in geolgical terms, except that in geolgical terms it doesn't matter. It only matters in human terms. We are nearing the end of an interglacial and the present level of human population, if that level still exists when it bites, will be wiped out. I don't believe for a second that anything will be done about it by democratic governments, unless their constituents demand it, and decide that they no longer wish to replace themselves. The can still have fun practising.

    One totalitarian government has been trying to do something about it fro a while now but for its own immediate political ends, not for the sake of the planet.

    It may not be imminent, in the sense of something that will happen as near as in our grandchildren's lifetimes, but it will happen. Maybe we should just let rip and to hell with the consequences. Let it find its own level.

    But there is no conspiracy. There are only warnings. Suggesting otherwise is what I object to about your post, Richard.

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  6. I'd agree with your second paragraph, although perhaps not with the word 'crisis'. The planet is heading for some big changes, but then it always has and always will, whatever we trivial humans do or don't do. It's only a crisis from the point of view of our feeble and somewhat recent occupation of it. We see the occasional high (or low) temperature, the odd unexpected 'weather event', and we think there's permanent and catastrophic trend, because we are thinking in terms of our lifetime and (perhaps) recorded history. We forget that we are in a brief interglacial period, that Antarctica was once equatorial, that the atmosphere was once filled with sulphur and not oxygen - all of which adds a bit of perspective to the debate.

    You object to my suggestion of a conspiracy. Not sure I actually did that - I was just expressing surprise that some of the dafter theories appear to have more of a basis in fact than I had realised.

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  7. I sse nothing in what you quote to suggest that any of the dafter theories have any basis in fact. A large number of very different people with very different backgrounds and personal circumstances (are expressing the view that neither our current energy consumption or population level is sustainable. Are Ted Turner $worth - forget it- and a post-doctoral researcher, Monika Kopacz, on a salary of $Crud - - really working together?

    We have never been so fragile. What they say is mostly sane observation. How does that support any conspiracy theory or make any such theory look less daft?

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  8. I haven't suggested anything has a basis in fact - quite the reverse. Comment 4: "What I would like to do is to track down every one of those quotes and get a proper reference so they can be verified and put into context. "

    If you have read the original post as promoting any conspiracy theory, then you have misunderstood. Gist of the post: these quotations are superficially alarming. If true, then people need to be more aware of what is being plotted for them. Verification needed.

    And the stuff about overpopulation may be sane observation, but I find the remedies being proposed more than a little unacceptable. Enforced sterilisation and state-approved breeding licences come straight from Huxley's nightmare.

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  9. I don't buy into the theory that lizards, masons, etc are running the world, either. But worldgov is an attractive idea, superficially. I understand why well-meaning people desire it. They're wrong.

    In the haystack of scifi, there are many shiny needles that warn of potential future problems. For entertainment, I prefer the optimistic authors like Larry Niven, but we owe a great debt to the dystopian authors.

    It may be true that humans are at plague proportions, way beyond the planet's capacity in the long term. But if we reduced the population to one thousandth, and survived five hundred times longer, that wouldn't actually be a gain. And the power needed to achieve it in less than twenty generations, would scar our humanity horribly. You can fiddle with the numbers, but my point is valid, I think.

    Personally, I think something will turn up. And anything that would actually drive us extinct, well, no amount of population engineering would protecet against that.

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  10. Still not with you Richard. What remedies are being proposed, apart from one nut talking about licensing parenthood? (Not the same as taxpayers refusing to pay for it if parents can't pay themselves which I suspect we might agree on).

    Is anyone advocating mass murder? No. That will come though, although it will be called 'war', if things go on as they are.

    Take Turner. The world population must be reduced by about 95%. Whether there is going to be another ice age or runaway warming he is right. Is he suggesting killing people? Or sterilising people? It's just an observation. It won't happen. He knows that.

    No, we'll sort it out in the same old way: war like you've never seen, famine, and pestilence. Much better eh? Natural.

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  11. I rather think some sort of world government would be inevitable for mankind to survive in it's current form, and that the dystopians are broadly correct in their definition of the form it will take. There again, that's not much of an extrapolation to make - seems to me that we're sleepwalking into that right now, at least in the developed world. Look at the relentless mission creep of the EU from trading bloc to federated superstate for a fairly clear example of the way central regulation is an inevitable consequence of being driven by a global market economy. And, as that's where the money is, that's where the power collects. The people grumble about it, from time to time, before settling back to watch their prime-time celebrity TV, not realising they already have ultimately purposeless and trivial lives...

    I also believe that, whilst climate change could be the catalyst that allows the formation of some sort of benevolent world steering committee which will eventually become the kernel of world government, it probably isn't an issue with enough weight behind it to overcome the disparity between nations at this time. It would require too great a subsidy from the wealthy to drag everyone up to a level where there is enough commonality to work. (Interestingly, cheap, sustainable power could be the catalyst that actually would enable third world development to take place and make global equality possible).

    Whether there is an actual agenda, rather than just a repeat of the drift towards hegemony that all empires have demonstrated in the past is another question. I doubt it, somehow. Our leaders simply don't demonstrate that kind of vision, or capability of setting genuine social direction. There are, of course, plenty of dickheads shouting from the sidelines, as per these quotes - and no doubt at least some of them see themselves as Illuminati-like manipulators steering mankind towards some ideal state. Evidence suggests, though, that they're more like greedy bastards furthering their own personal wealth.

    Driven or not, though: without some sort of rapid spiritual evolution for humanity, any New World Order would simply be a repeat of the same brutish, hierarchical Old World Order, but bigger. And that really is the issue: too many people, expanding in a finite environment. The shape of society may be a source of discomfort to some of the individuals within it, but it's the size of it that will trigger the next limiting factor. Unless there is some sort of random global extinction event, or space colonisation becomes possible, the choice comes down to centralised resource management or waiting for a catastrophic tipping point. (The latter may, of course, creep up on us before the former is ever a viable possibility). I'm not an AGW believer, so I tend to view climate change as falling in the random extinction category, but there are plenty of variants of the four horsemen that could easily be kicked off just by human action or inaction. Every closed-system ecological experiment shows that, sooner or later, if overcrowding fails to lead naturally to mass starvation or disease, the dominant population will eventually turn on itself to thin out the numbers. No need for active population reduction in those circumstances - all we need to do is nothing for a while longer.

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  12. Cock-up, rather then conspiracy?

    Maybe so. There are plenty of historical precedents, after all.

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  13. I've said before, Richard, but this blog is full of intelligent thinking and writing! Are you lot bikers or bloody philosophers? I mean, nobody says anything stupid, to laugh at!

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  14. /blush/

    Thank you for those kind words. Seriously, I think I am quite lucky with my readership. This is not a high-traffic blog, and there are only half-a-dozen or so who comment regularly, but the standard of debate is always good. I often shoot from the hip in my posts - usually from frustration or stupidity - but my commenters usually bring me back to earth.

    I find that motorcyclists tend to share a certain independence of mind and don't like being nannied. The comments are full of intelligent thinking and writing because I have been lucky enough to attract some good minds. As for nobody saying anything stupid - they leave all that to me, kniowing it is in capable hands.

    Thanks for the nice words, much appreciated.

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