Banged up by a criminal bloody headline.

30/7/2016

A pissed off polar bear sniffing something

In my Herald column this week, I said climate change denial ought be seen as a crime in order to express how gravely it should be viewed. Unfortunately, it ran under the headline 'Why Climate Change Should be a Criminal Offence', i.e. let’s bang people up for thought crimes. I didn’t write that and I sure as hell don’t believe it.

"That decision was bloody criminal!" on a football filed is never a call for legal sanction against the referee.

Similarly, "Olympic athletes ought be seen as ambassadors of their country" is not a suggestion we give them diplomatic immunity.

You get the picture.

I don’t believe any rational person could read my column and think I wanted to criminalise anything.

But that's what the headline said. Despite two emails and one phone call to the paper, that misleading headline remains online. It has now been linked to my university's newsletter. Terrific.

While I’m disappointed that right-thinking people may be left with the impression that I want to curtail free speech, I’m more gutted that I had to address such a silly red herring with the climate change deniers who flooded my email inbox.

I would have preferred to spend that time calling them complete twonks.

* Shayne Currie, the editor of the Herald has jumped onto this and sorted it out. He's a good man.

13 Comments

James Green

1/8/2016 01:26:47 pm

You are approaching this from the wrong tack. Think, what is the purpose of religion? Religion is a collective belief in an absurd concept (it has to be absurd or it doesn't work). By publicly stating your belief in that concept you show that you are part of the group.

Climate change denial shows a strong similarity to this dynamic, it is a new type of religion. As atheism takes hold in the west there is a more pronounced split between liberals and conservatives than there is between tYou are approaching this from the wrong tack. Think, what is the purpose of religion? Religion is a collective belief in an absurd concept (it has to be absurd or it doesn't work). By publicly stating your belief in that concept you show that you are part of the group.

Climate change denial shows a strong similarity to this dynamic, it is a new type of religion. As atheism takes hold in the west there is a more pronounced split between liberals and conservatives than there is between the various old religions.

I think this also goes some way to explaining the recent revival of Flat-Earthers (sadly that is not a metaphor).

What can be done? There are only two options to deal with heretics: kill them or convert them. Punishing or persecuting people to convince them that they are wrong will only make them more tightly cling to their absurd beliefs. Science isn't a religion and I think it can't be. We need a non-theistic religion that promotes science without being science itself. Something that contains only small incongruencies with science that you can get people to convert to.

Also this 97% of climate scientists statistic has always been very hard for me to comprehend. I can't understand why it isn't 100%.he various old religions.

I think this also goes some way to explaining the recent revival of Flat-Earthers (sadly that is not a metaphor).

What can be done? There are only two options to deal with heretics: kill them or convert them. Punishing or persecuting people to convince them that they are wrong will only make them more tightly cling to their absurd beliefs. Science isn't a religion and I think it can't be. We need a non-theistic religion that promotes science without being science itself. Something that contains only small incongruencies with science that you can get people to convert to.

Also this 97% of climate scientists statistic has always been very hard for me to comprehend. I can't understand why it isn't 100%.

Andy Welch

1/8/2016 08:52:17 pm

The 97% figure is misleading and wrong. Worse than wrong - because it is a conveniently appealing fact, no-one ever blothers to look further into it. Apart from your 'heretics'
A textual analyis of climate papers can't with any credibility put words into the mouths of those so "canvassed" - in fact the paper does put words into many mouths - many of whom are quite annoyed about it and have demanded to be excluded from the "study" and removed from the result. Am I correct in assuming that you know very little about the methodology of this "reseach" ?
Jarrod Gilberts article in the herald was nothing other than ridiculous - an insultingly simplistic moralising rant which did nothing at all to defend science and everything to encourage moralising over proof.
It's the sun stupid, and the earth is cooling. You are your ilk are referred variously as "the chattering classes" - those who often pronounc on others from a viewpoint of comfortable ignorance. You project some sort of doom into the future when in face billions are living it now - and simply don't interest you.

2/8/2016 01:16:37 pm

http://theconversation.com/consensus-confirmed-over-90-of-climate-scientists-believe-were-causing-global-warming-57654

https://62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/files/118467/width754/image-20160413-15861-55sch7.jpg

1/8/2016 08:52:32 pm

1/8/2016 08:52:48 pm

papernow.org link

26/7/2019 10:27:16 pm

I will never understand those people who cannot even care for what’s happening in our environment. I don’t know if they are just too insensitive, or they do not feel the problem yet. Hopefully, more and more people will learn the idea of saving the environment and participate with the process of saving the environment. What is the problem right now is the fact that some people do not really care about the real picture. They seemed to be unbothered and wouldn’t care until our lives will be put in danger.

1/8/2016 08:53:06 pm

1/8/2016 01:28:49 pm

Just delete my first comment. The formatting is too fucked up to read. This is a repost.

You are approaching this from the wrong tack. Think, what is the purpose of religion? Religion is a collective belief in an absurd concept (it has to be absurd or it doesn't work). By publicly stating your belief in that concept you show that you are part of the group.

Climate change denial shows a strong similarity to this dynamic, it is a new type of religion. As atheism takes hold in the west there is a more pronounced split between liberals and conservatives than there is between the various old religions.

I think this also goes some way to explaining the recent revival of Flat-Earthers (sadly that is not a metaphor).

What can be done? There are only two options to deal with heretics: kill them or convert them. Punishing or persecuting people to convince them that they are wrong will only make them more tightly cling to their absurd beliefs. Science isn't a religion and I think it can't be. We need a non-theistic religion that promotes science without being science itself. Something that contains only small incongruencies with science that you can get people to convert to.

Also this 97% of climate scientists statistic has always been very hard for me to comprehend. I can't understand why it isn't 100%.

10/8/2016 06:07:38 am

I think you are a complete twonk.

Christopher Smith link

29/8/2016 06:45:16 am

I reserve the right to change my mind in the face of superior evidence.

29/8/2016 06:45:33 am

29/8/2016 10:38:41 am

I reserve the right to change my mind in the face of superior evidence.

https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/moore-positive-impact-of-human-co2-emissions.pdf

Mark Hadfield

29/8/2016 02:59:44 pm

Well, Jarrod, you shouldn't be all that surprised to be taken literally. Figures of speech are a bitch, eh? (I mean that figuratively, of course.) And then in the first comment James Green says, "There are only two options to deal with heretics: kill them or convert them." Er, quite. Me, I prefer to ignore and mock them.

Banged up by a criminal bloody headline.

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