One day it will be recognised how the Met Office’s betrayal of proper science played a key part in creating the most expensive scare story the world has ever known, the colossal bill for which we will all be paying for decades to come.
Meanwhile, it is not just here that this latest fiasco, reported in many countries, has been raising eyebrows. Our ministers love to boast that British science commands respect throughout the world, They should note that the sorry record of our Met Office is beginning to do that reputation no good at all.
I have filed this under “UK affairs” and “science and technology”. Perhaps, when it comes to the Met Office and such places, we need another topic code: “propaganda”.
Now some folk, such as libertarian Charles Steele, who is based in the US, get a bit exercised by those libertarians who, for example, pounce on the shenanigans of the CAGW alarmists. And he has a good point of course: whether the world is or is not heating up or not is not, specifically, anything to do with whether one favours free markets over state planning, collectivism or individualism, natural rights or serfdom, etc. (Science respects no ideologies). But – and it is a damn big but – it is a matter of inescapable, practical fact that the vast majority of those pushing the CAGW case are collectivists of one sort of another. Steele and others might try and reject that as they might reject that water flows downhill.
So while it is entirely possible for, say, a hardcore socialist to rejoice if the doom-mongers are proven wrong (the older type of socialist often liked to produce posters full of jolly workers in front of smoky factories), the fact is that showing the CAGW prediction to be the pack of bullshit that it is seems to be positive for a libertarian point of view. For what this will hopefully show is the dangers of when scientists become compromised by the rewards and incentives dangled in front of them by the State. I am sure some of the CAGW scientists are objective and high-minded. But if what Booker says about the Met Office’s behaviour is even half-true, a good many of them are nothing of the sort.
“… whether the world is or is not heating up or not is not …”
uh, what?
The Met Office isn’t the only institution that has tarnished the reputation of British science. I’d include the Lancet, Nature, and the Royal Society in that list. All tarnished by left wing politics in the final analysis.
Is it somewhat ironic that as the march through the institutions nears completion, those institutions lose the respect of a larger and larger proportion of the people?
Nature: Indeed, chuck….
As a matter of interest, Scientific American (which is cited by Mr. Steele as a bolster for his opinion, but which has also lost its once-fine reputation to its apparent practice of publishing to an agenda) is now being folded into Nature Publishing Group, per their article at
http://international.macmillan.com/MediaArticle.aspx?id=1678
which commences:
As one would gather from the URL above, N.P.G. is owned by Macmillan Publishers Ltd., which is itself the property of Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH, of Stuttgart:
http://international.macmillan.com/AboutUs.aspx?id=424
Here’s the first paragraph from the “About” webpage cited:
This is indeed an institution that has been marched through right to the head of their governors when the chap who had previously wrecked the morals and swelled the coffers of the WWF took it upon himself to do the same for the Met Office by becoming Chairman there for six years. He’s gone now. For a neat summary of the most recent deceits and legerdemain of the MO, see: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/14/has-the-met-office-committed-fraud/
If I must engage a climate evangelist in religious debate, I try to keep it short, and tell him, “No, we’re not handing over control of the economy to your church.” They can’t get what they want without imposing a tyranny. They haven’t even come close to making the case for dictatorship.
These people aren’t smart enough to run our lives. Whether or not intellectuals are smarter than other people, they surely have a highly developed capacity to rationalize. They can be talked into any silly goddamned old idea, if the right appeals are made to their vanity.
I’m not about to be pushed around by someone who hasn’t got Albert Gore Jr. figured out yet.
These people aren’t smart enough to run our lives.
How true, even on their own “energy saving” philosophy they fail dismally, whilst depleting my wallet. As I dispose of yet another CFL I purchased less than 2 years ago, I often wonder why the smart money and subsidies didn’t invest in the LEDs I have as replacements, which really do save energy by simply lasting longer.
I liken my eco-overlords to those of the Chinese “Great Leap Forward”.
Mike James,
I think that’s quite an astute observation. “To rationalize” is far from synonymous with “to reason,” as I once tried my darndest to point out to someone. Never thought to apply it to the intelligentsia. Amazing how obvious some things are when somebody else points them out. 🙂
QOTD, please.
Second PFP!
Old news.
This is from 2009:
“How do you like the government agency that makes official climate predictions, and pushes industry and local government to act on “climate change” to be headed up by a green alarmist and activist? It’s well known that in the USA the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies is headed up by the climate alarmist and activist James Hansen, who encourages criminal misdemeanours in USA and criminal damage in UK. But what of the UK? The situation is even worse. The UK Meteorological Office, whose Hadley Centre runs the IPCC scientific assessment (“Working Group 1”), is now a department of the UK Ministry of Defence. And its Chairman is none other than Robert Napier, a green activist and alarmist with tentacles into some of the world’s most powerful drivers of climate alarmism and social control.”
http://buythetruth.wordpress.com/2009/08/24/eco-imperialism-every-environmentalists-dream/
they surely have a highly developed capacity to rationalize.
Yes indeed, brilliant people can bullshit themselves brilliantly, which is an indication of just how brilliant they truly are 😉 Only Superman could have deflowered Supergirl, it’s like that.
Another scam is Outer Space Law, Google it for a laugh, and
A doyen of the Australian Left was deeply disappointed beings from outer space had not congratulated him on the job he was doing.
Ho hum, looks like that settled consensus wasn’t quite so settled after all.
Does this mean the Met Office are deniers and anti-science charlatans?
Collectivist ideologues love trojan horses. Far too much of the conventional wisdom about climate, or the environment in general, is actually collectivist ideology hiding behind a group of pseudo-scientific claims that there are crises which justify an unending series of state interventions in every aspect of our lives.
It is related to the same ruse that’s been used for decades in economic matters—statist policies bring about economic problems, which are then blamed on the imperfections in the economic system, and then used as justifications for further state action.
In these as well as any number of other examples, when the collectivist policy intended to solve the problem fails, or makes it worse, as is invariably the case, then the worsened situation is immediately blamed on the economic systems’ deeper problems, and the solution is, of course, even more state control and programs.
They don’t know what they’re doing. They never have, as is amply demonstrated throughout history, and especially by the catastrophic events of the past century, when the exalted state ran rampant across the globe, leaving nothing but death and destruction behind it.
Anyone who is foolish enough to believe that ever increasing state powers are the only viable solution to any problem or problems, regardless of the alleged nature of the situation, has identified themselves as unqualified to offer any advice or direction to rational people.
The advocates of the state must be held to answer for the gruesome mistakes that position has already caused, before they dare to assert their fitness to direct society in the future.
“In effect, the WWF has infiltrated the British government. Out in the open. In broad daylight. And nobody noticed.” So spake Donna Laframboise back in 2010. Her interest was piqued by a Met Office lackey called Alex Hill declaring that he would not invest in the Scottish ski industry. Nice for a civil servant to share his views like that. More here: http://donnalaframboise.mensnewsdaily.com/2010/12/world-wildlife-fund-infiltrates-uk-government/. The Met Office stinks. And it has caused a great deal of harm in the UK in recent years.
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