Iain,That really tells me all I need to know. Anyone who seeks to constrain debate on this hugely important issue is adopting the tactics of crypto-fascists. They act as if scientists are in one hundred per cent agreement. They are not. The hubris and condescension in this email is almost beyond parody.
We have a policy at Greenpeace that we no longer debate people who don’t accept the scientific reality of anthropogenic climate change. It’s similar to the policy undertaken by cancer specialists who used to debate the tobacco industry but discontinued doing so. To paraphrase Richard Dawkins, if we debated Dominic Lawson on climate change it would look great on his CV, not so good on ours.
I would make clear that that doesn’t mean I don’t think there should be freedom of speech for people with DL’s view, there should be. He is welcome to write about it and speak on it all he wishes, even though I disagree. But by debating him and his fellow-travelers we perpetuate the myth that this is a ‘he said/she said’ issue, a 50/50 where there is still a debate.
I’d debate Bjorn Lomborg, who accepts the science but disagrees vehemently on the need to take action on climate change. But not Dominic Lawson.
All the best
Ben
My intention was to have two 'political' figures and two scientists taking part. Let's hope the Green Party or Friends of the Earth have a more open and democratic approach than GREENPEACE.
UPDATE: There's an interesting article HERE on the subject of closing down the debate.
UPDATE 12.30am: I accept the original language in this post was slightly OTT and have edited it accordingly. Ben Stewart and I have spoken this evening. I wouldn't say we have had a meeting of minds, but that was probably asking too much.
UPDATE: Thursday (this is posted above in a separate post, but needs to be copied here too)
Ben Stewart: An Apology
Sometimes when you write instanteanous responses to things you go over the top - it doesn't matter whether it's on an email or a blog. It happens. I did this on Tuesday in my Greenpeace post HERE. While I don't retract the thrust of the post (that Greenpeace are acting outrageously in seeking to close down the climate change debate) I did indeed use inappropriate and intemperate language regarding Ben Stewart and I'd like to apologise to him for that. He hasn't asked for an apology, but on reflection he deserves one.
186 comments:
Greenpeace have always been intellectually dishonest. We pay far too much attention to them.
The eco-nazis do not want debate, or the facts to come out. Mother earth survived 3 billion years before mankind and will survive another 3 billion when we have gone,
I presume you and he mean "debate with", or is this some new media-speak that I haven't caught up with yet?
I disagree with Greenpeace on this point - I think they should take on those who deny climate change is being caused by man, because it's an important debate and there are points to be made on both sides.
However, from a science background I can see where they're driving at. It's a fundamental problem of media coverage which came up in acute form over the MMR controversy (in which, incidentally, a large number of Conservative politicians were extremely irresponsible). The electronic media, with its duty to be 'balanced', too often would have one of the Andrew Wakefield-allied scientists asserting a link between MMR and illness, and then 'balance' that with the Chief Medical Officer stating there was no link.
The problem with that approach is that it gives a totally misleading impression about the state of the debate: those asserting a link were a tiny group of cranks who typically had no specialism in the area they were commenting on, while practically everyone who knew anything about it said there was no link. It really didn't matter when presenters said that the overwhelming weight of opinion was on that side, because they had already got equal time, because it had been 'balanced'.
Media coverage needs to take more account of the way science works. This is especially difficult when so many media professionals are arts graduates who wouldn't know one end of a test tube from the other.
Getting a bit nasty Iain. Is that what happens when people don't accept your invitations? If Friends of the earth turn you down are we to expect a similar mauling on your page? If you think that "intellectually, he is not fit to lick Lawson's boots" why invite him in the first place?
Something like Cameron not wishing to debate the European Union.
Greenpeace do not debate, they have a Stalinesque attitude to debate. Do as we say or be crushed.
Having just had 2 1/2 inches of rain in 48 hours global warming is the least of my problems. We have ducks swimming around the sugar beet.
Iain, I think you might be over reacting to the letter - or feeling slightly emotional?? I think the letter is pretty reasonable. His response is direct and brutally honest - but why not? It might not be 'charming' - but it seems pretty harmless.
Anyway, trying to fight man made global warming is a bit like trying to bail out the Titanic with an egg cup.
I would rather people discuss 'fighting pollution' than 'global warming'... fighting pollution is at least possible.
Greenpeace are being entirely reasonable, you're not. You talk about scientists not being in "100% agreement" - scientists are never in 100% agreement. There are people that don't accept heliocentricity, the big bang, evolution, and climate change. In each case the objectors are a tiny, tiny minority, usually poorly informed, and almost always motivated not by flaws in the science, but by a dislike of the conclusions.
Science is never 100%, that's its essence. The case for anthropogenic climate change is as strong as anything else in science, and that seems to be good enough for you on other topics.
I was once open to be convinced on the man-made part of climate change. That was before the politicians jumped on the bandwagon to use it as a means of raising more tax. These days I find it very difficult to take any of the green issues seriously. I know that I am not alone having this attitude. Current policies are counterproductive. Oppressive taxation on everything that isn’t banned is not the way to get people on side.
Ben Stewart should have simply said what he really meant and wrote:
------------
Iain,
We have a policy at Greenpeace that we no longer debate people who counter our arguments with other scientific information that we find difficult to refute. Basically those people who do not readily accept our version of the argument make us look bad when they use logic and reason.
Everyone is entitled to freedom of speech, but we will not give them a chance to question our deeply held convictions.
It is our ball and only people we like, or who we feel we can beat at the game can play, because they play by our rules. Dominic is too hard an opponent so we are taking our ball home now.
------------
I think the Greenpeace response was eminently reasonable if a little pompous. Your reaction seems rather ott and more than a little pompous. Perhaps they should just have said "no thanks"...
By the way, how do you now feel that you could have prepared yourself for this (fairly predictable) response?
I heard on LBC radio that cases of autism increase tenfold after the inception of MMR. Does anyone know if this statistic is true?
Iain, you need to read your Karl Popper!
It's not closing down debate, it's just not wanting to give airtime to loons. Imagine if, for example, someone believed gays were less intelligent and therefore unable to vote, would you invite the Electoral Commission in to debate with him? I should hope not...
As usual, your indignation tends to reveal your reactionary style and ignorance. I'm not sure I'd want you as my MP, too quick to open your mouth (OK this is a blog) but you'd be putty in the hands of a lobbyist...
You've completely lost the plot here. The man says "I don't deny him his freedom of speech". You are denying him his freedom not to speak, because you accuse him in this way just because he adopts a perfectly reputable position, which he compares with another analogous position. It is hardly likely to promote the cause of Doughty Street as putatively a sensible place of political debate if you behave in this way with someone's email turning down your invitation, just because they do it in a way you personally disapprove of.
The climate is an industry for many scientists. They are relying on the blind trust of the people. Some people will believe anything, as this Penn and Teller video shows.
http://dailyreferendum.blogspot.com/2007/05/climate-change-my-arse-part-8-penn-and.html
"science is never 100%, that's it's essence". WTF?????? so e=mc2 give or take a smidgeon does it?? What a load of old bollocks oop north
I agree with David Boothroyd on his second point entirely.
Anon 3:44 has a point too. Iain does take incredibly reactionary so often. Though I guess this is only to make the blog interesting.
I'm not surprised that they don't want to debate. Their climate change agenda is based on a thin vaneer of questionable facts and blatant propaganda.
Didn't many of the proponents talk about global cooling not that long ago....
We're all gonna die
We're all gonna die
...
Trumpeter Lanfried said...
Greenpeace have always been intellectually dishonest.
and massively popular and successful?
I suppose the comparison between deniers of the link between cancer and tobacco and of the link between human activity and global warming has some merit, though of course the difference is that millions more will die or be affected by climate chaos than by a drug created to hook people to a carcinogenic.
I applaud Greenpeace's stance. I suppose if you have your own tv station you can get anybody on to deate with you anything you like? Why dont you get those mad MI5 lot from Spiked/ Institute of Ideas on - they'll agree with you - its all down to moonbeams!
How very interesting to see that several people here actually agree with Greenpeace that the debate should be shut down.
I can very happily accept people turning down invitations. It happens all the time. Dates clash, people not available etc, but to actually say that they are not willing to debate a respected former national newspaper editor I find astonishing. Someone used the word 'loon'. That word should apply to them rather than Dominic Lawson.
Oop Norf talks about a tiny minority. It is far more than that. If I thought these people were loons do you really think I would want them on the channel?
Anonymous at 3.44, I admit to being ignorant of Popper's views on this. Please do enlighten. I don;t apologise for being indignant, but I'm not sure how wanting to further debate can be described as reactionary!
The last time the warmers took part in a debate with the sceptics they came off badly. I don't suppose they're going to risk it again.
If they did appear, people might start asking questions about why access to data is being refused, why it is almost impossible to see the reviewers comments on the IPCC report draft, why the quality of the land-based temperature measurements is so laughably bad (temperature gauges next to heat sources for heaven's sake!) and so on.
The difference between Big Bang theory and CO2 theory is that disagreement on Big Bang won't affect economic and social policy.
To pretend that "the debate is over" is to pretend that there is only one answer which involves plunging everyone into poverty which is, as we all know, the green movement's real aim.
Green facism is just another symptom of the politics of envy. As John Redwood has pointed out, the US is cutting its CO2 emissions faster that the EU without taxing its citizens into submission.
Let's have the debate in the open.
I agree with others that the Greenpeace response is sensible. We are relying on such organizations to drive the agenda on this issue. Sitting around on sofas arguing with ill-informed contrarians such as Dominic Lawson is an utter and total waste of their time.
iltrsI think some of you guys are missing the point.
The effect of man's activity on climate change is absolutely not definitive. There most certainly is genuine debate on this.
For someone from Greenpeace to put their fingers in their ears and say 'la, la, la, la' when someone opposes their argument is childish.
If Greenpeace's argument is so strong then surely it can withstand a challenge, even by Dominic Lawson?
Having just had 2 1/2 inches of rain in 48 hours global warming is the least of my problems.
Moron.
webcrcwIain says " Dates clash, people not available etc, but to actually say that they are not willing to debate a respected former national newspaper editor I find astonishing. "
Why astonishing? He outlined his reasons (very clearly) for not wanting to participate in the debate. He was very direct and straight forward about the whole thing. I should think it would be more offensive if he sent you a generic reply that simply said 'sorry, can't accept'.
His lively response to your kind invitation demonstrates that he is very passionate about what he is doing - and I think you should respect his stance.
Also, he did offer you an olive branch by suggesting an alternative guest....
I think you have over reacted...
(sorry?!)
Ah, that Dominic Lawson. The famous climatologist, yes?
Can you get jade Goody on to talk about particle physics?
Really Iain .... you are being far too respectful of Lawson. Just because he is an ex-broadsheet editor doesn't mean his pedestal is any higher than the next man's.
I have debated with him in the columns of the Indie and, quite frankly, he is the most condescending , arrogant apologist for big business interests writing in the UK today. He's about as unbalanced as the BBC.
Freedom of speech also means freedom to choose not to speak. However much the contrarians clutch to the straws of poor, non peer reviewed pseudoscience that doesn't make it any more true. Iain's argument surely leads to complete chaos and irrational debate if let's say we debate subjects like, Is the Earth flat? Does the Earth orbit the moon? Does HIV cause AIDS? Is MMR linked to autism? Was Al-Qai'da responsible for 9/11? Is the US government hiding aliens at Area 51? And on and on and on.
that should start off saying ' Iain says'...
must be my mac...
At least he was politer than you Iain when turning down the invitation to debate. He didn't call you a 'prick' for starters.
For many years Greenpeace has operated at the edge of legality and acceptability. This doesn't surprise me one little bit. They have always regarded themselves as unquestionably right, despite being forced to retract on numerous occasions. It is simply arrogance - which endears no-one to their cause. And this despite their multitudinous demands for 'dialogue' of various sorts in the past.
The fact that they will now only talk to those of like mind will ultimately lead to them only talking to themselves. And all we know what that means...
You usually go silent when challanged, Iain. At least this guy took the time to reply.
Although I'm not a support I seem to remember that 18DS won't have the BNP on. If it's okay for 18DS to pick and choose who they debate with why not Greenpeace?
Brent Spar
Greenpeace are absolutely not being "enviro-fascists" - what an unreasonable way to describe them.
Their position is completely reasonable. After decades of research, climatologists are fairly convinced that human activity is causing climate change.
Of course there are always dissenters, but in this field they are a tiny minority.
Greenpeace used to be considered the cranks that everybody else ignored. Now that climate change is accepted, the tables have turned.
Who can blame them for not wanting to waste their breath arguing with somebody who has no scientific credentials?
Come off it, Iain. If Greenpeace had replied demanding that you cancel the event and never mention the subject again, then you might have a point about them wanting to "shut down the debate".
As it is, they simply expressed their perfectly reasonable preference not to take part. Not only that, but they even went out of their way to emphasise that people like Lawson should be free to express their views as often and loudly as they wish.
How on earth you get from there to your hysterical accusations of 'crypto-fascist' tactics is beyond me. It certainly doesn't bode well for the intellectual level of your proposed debate.
Iain, "Enviro-Fascists" is going it a bit. There are subjects such as the role of HIV in AIDS, the carcinogenic effects of tobacco and MMR where there is no real scientific debate and where scientists are within their rights not to give spurious legitimacy to the lunatic fringe that takes a contrary position. I have to say that I agree with you that whether global warming is taking place is not yet in that category, but the weight of scientific opinion is certainly running in favour of Greenpeace at present. If you're that concerned, you should simply formulate a policy of not inviting representatives of organisations that seek to place a restriction on who you invite. If I were you, I would chalk it up to experience.
peter said "climatologists are fairly convinced that human activity is causing climate change."
That is absolutely not the case.
Lazy commentators and fascist eco groups are happy to pick and choose which research they accept, ignoring any contrary opinions.
Read Iain's linked article. When Gallileo was forced to recant his view on the universe he said "but it moves" i.e. the truth is still the truth even if you deny it.
No one answered Ian's request for enlightenment about Karl Popper. For an answer see Popper's Wikipedia entry; "Popper is perhaps best known for repudiating the classical observationalist-inductivist account of scientific method by advancing empirical falsifiability as the criterion for distinguishing scientific theory from non-science".
In other words a scientific law is a falsifiable hypothesis that stands as long as no one can observe a counter-example.
The theory that humans cause global warming can not be tested and is therefore not a scientific statement.
The statement that an increase in CO2 produces an increase in temperature has been tested, and conditions found where increasing CO2 has been followed by declining temperatures. Therefore it's a scientific statement and false.
To conclude: the statement that haumans cause climate change is not a scientific statement but a non-scientific statement such as 'We're all doomed'.
Cutting CO2 emissions has a long history as a solution in search of a problem. Time was when it was supposed to be the solution to global cooling.
Funnily enough, it always involves no restoration (indeed, the further destruction) of high-wage, high-skilled, high-status jobs for the working classes in general and for working-class men in particular, plus little or no economic growth in the poorer parts of the world.
Such jobs would also be created, in an entirely "carbon neutral" way, by nuclear power, which offers independence from Arab oil and Russian gas. The super-rich, super-posh Greenpeace lobby is dead against that, too. How very odd...
The central question remains - if Greenpeace's argument is so strong, why won't they make it?
It appears we can argue about trivial things the existence of God, or about Darwin's theory of evolution. But for Greenpeace there can be no argument about their weak theories on climate change.
They are truly a eco-fascist organisation.
Anonymous said...
Having just had 2 1/2 inches of rain in 48 hours global warming is the least of my problems.
Moron.
Like GREENPEACE you appear to be totally incapable of intelligent debate.
Iain I'd empty chair them!
The report of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change sized up the causes and consequences of climate change. The group asserts with more than 90% confidence that carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases from human activities have been the main causes of warming since 1950.
In science we are taught to rely on statistical significance (probablity >95%, p<0.05) to determine whether something is likely to be correct. A probablity of 90% has a p value =0.1 i.e. not signifiant. I am not a climatologist but this p value does suggest that the debate is still open.
If the probablity was >95% then I am certain that we would have been informed of this.
I'm not sure I would call labelling people who decline your invitation "crypto-fascists" is open and democratic. Sounds more like the tactic of a bully boy if you ask me. Boasting about it indicates the paucity of your material. I think 18 Doughty Street may be looking round for a new front man before long...
Bring on the Bjorn monster! He is so right.
Having just read Anonymous calling me a moron makes me feel good. Dear Anonymous buy yourself some testicles, I hear Tesco's have them on BOGOF.
Guido Fawkes has been deleting furiously, any reference to this link without commenting - what does he have to hide?
GLOBAL WARNING
The driven car,
the farting cow,
there is no hope
for humans now ....
Alan Douglas
http://guidoforks.blogspot.com/2007/02/tory-student-leader-in-racist-party.html It would help if I gave u the link!
http://guidoforks.blogspot.com/2007/02/tory-student-leader-in-racist-party.html
A lot of the green astroturfers here have suggested that Dominic Lawson is not a scientist. Is Ben Stewart? Or is he just an evangelist?
The standard of debate on here, and the understanding of scientific process is very poor.
But what is clear is that you are in essence seeking a political settlement over a scientific theory, that is accepted by a reasonable consensus in the informed scientific community.
The Greenpeace e-mail to you is essentially correct in its approach.
Perhaps if you had nine guests putting the man made global warming case and one wild eyed nutter funded by a vested interest putting the case against then you would have a representative debate :-)
But where could one find the 'wild eyed nutter'?
You have a point - they do seem to cluster together so ... getting just one on its own might be difficult :-)
Theo Spark: Go back to your tits and amateurish 'photoshopping'.
I hold no candle for Greenpeace, but I think calling them 'fascists' because they won't appear on 18 Doughty Street is a bit strong, no? I remember socialists at university labelling everyone they disagreed with as 'fascist'. I thought then, and still do, that 'fascists' were people who believed in the supremacy of the state over the individual etc etc, not people who disagreed (back then) with the Glasgow University Labour Party or (now) the desirability of debating climate change with Dominic Lawson.
I don't even agree with Ben Stewart's position (that anthropogenic climate change is 'proven' (incidentally Karl Popper doesn't help with climate change, I don't think -- now that would be an interesting debate -- how can falsificationism be applied to the non-experimental setup of everything we belong to, including ourselves? I think David Hume more useful than Karl Popper)) but I think his analogy - for someone who *does* hold his position - is completely coherent. If you believe the anthropogenic hypothesis with probability 1 (or close to) then clearly you wouldn't give your time to providing 'balance' to someone who doesn't believe as you do.
BTW I'm not a climate change 'denier' either, who come in at least two camps -- the sceptical/realist wing (I think Dominic Lawson is here) and the nutters, who see some sort of crypto-commie plot to force us all back into caves. As a matter of fact (silver linings etc etc) Ben Stewart's suggestion - that you invite Bjorn Lomborg - is a great one. A trained statistician nearly *always* has something more useful to offer than just his/her opinion, no? :-0)
I thought the response was fair enough. Dominic Lawson is not a scientist so if the other chap doesn't want to take part then ok. It looks like there wasn't much room for reasoned debate there so you've lost nothing.
I saw an online debate recently with a religious bod and Chris Hitchens (the religious nut was not his brother) wherein the religious chap seemed to say that all you had to do was look at a womans neck or drink beer or see bees playing in the flowers to know that God exists. That, to me, is not evidence, except of someone who so firmly believes what they choose they will not be reasoned out of it. They weren't reasoned into it - they just believe because they want to. I responded that it rather depends on the woman, the beer and whether said bees had just stung your child and induced anaphylactic shock.
Unless you are prepared to debate evidence, it's just personal choice.
I totally agree, Iain. What Greenpeace did at Auschwitz was monstrous.
For an example of how Greenpeace manipulate the scientific evidence to fit their agenda one need look no further than their campaign against the deep sea disposal of the Brent Spar Storage Buoy in 1995. See http://www.parliament.uk/post/pn065.pdf
I agree that journalists love controversy and to that end will sometimes confront a mainstream scientist with a flat-earth nutter. But whereas the reality of global warming is generally accepted, the suggested causes are still very much in question.
This is the crucial distinction which Greenpeace prefer not to discuss; and judging by some of the posts above, their propaganda has been very successful.
Making jokes about Katyn and now calling Greenpeace fascists? Just what the new Conservative party needs!
More power to you, Iain.
But, Anonymous 5:26, you are the one "seeking a political settlement over a scientific theory, which is accepted by a reasonable consensus in the informed scientific community", since "consensus" is a political, not a scientific, concept. Scientifically, so what if there is a "consensus"? That "consensus" might still be wrong.
I note that no one has answered my previous points about the long history and recurring themes of the CO2 debate, about the super-rich and super-posh character of Greenpeace and its supporters, and about their mysterious opposition to "carbon neutral" nuclear power. Funny, that.
off thread
Will we be giving your comments on the Brady resignation soon???
Be careful Dave (Benito)Cameron does not take dissent lightly!!
Greenpeace's Ben Stewart didn't say he couldn't go on 18DS because he was already committed elsewhere. He said Greenpeace will only debate with people who agree with them, and Dominic Lawson doesn't, so they're not talking to him.
That's it then - anyone who doesn't agree with Greenpeace is a non-person.
Democracy anyone? Or shall we have Green Fascism instead?
Don't think we need debate that either.........
Firstly, Nigel Lawson deserves no respect when it comes to his views on Climate Change. They are simple irrelevant. He has no Scientific background and is just capable to simply reiterating his opinions based on the science he chooses to accept. To have a legitimate debate on the subject you should have invited two Climatologist who have come to opposing conclusions based on the outcome of their scientific research.
To Have Mr Lawson talk about the evidence for or against Climate Change is equivalent to have Al Gore on to champion the other side and is pointless since he has none. Ben Stewart is also not a scientist. Both are polemics, not scientists. The Green Peace guy has made a legitimate point. He isn't compelled to debate with anyone...that's the beauty of Freedom of Speech- the same way the Government doesn't have to have debates with the National Front when it come to making decisions about race relation legislation.
Scientific theory doesn't need to be debated, it is not ideology. The theory has to be tested and researched. Debate will not decide whether a scientific conclusion is correct or not. A debate is probably necessary on whether we choose implement economic polices that are aimed at minimising the detrimental effects of rising temperatures (man-made or not). We should be concentrating on energy security- which is a debate that can be had without any conclusion on whether Climate Change is man made. We are running out of Fossil fuels and our North Sea reserves are low, surely we should be looking looking into alternatives.
Lawson and Al Gore add nothing to the situation and offer no Economic solutions to the effects of rising temperatures or energy security. And accusations made by both sides of censorship are counter productive, infantile and a waste of time. The word fascist is thrown around far too quickly at those with opposing views.
Iain, your view on the matter has clouded what you wrote, significantly, shame.
Would an Irving denying the holocaust and a response from Jonathan Sachs eliciit the same response?
Probably not.
Iain - I don't really see the point of another discussion between two people on the topic of whether global warming exists.
What would have made for a more interesting debate is to take the approach of "if global warming is such a threat, why not nuclear?".
Hey Iain, you and Ken Livingstone should get together and compare your lists of Nazis.
"forgive me father for i have a large carbon footprint" climate change the new religion and people will fight for their dogma as always.A simple glance at the output of the sun will tell you whats happening turn the gas up and the kettle boils faster.praying to the sun might help but taxing rubbish will not.listening
to al gore will rot your brain hes just pissed he didnt get in the whitehouse and while he sulked this bandwagon drove by with its door open.
Dominic Lawson has enough publicity without Greenpeace adding to it.
I don't give Greenpeace a monthly donation for them to spend their time bickering with Lawson.
Sadly, Iain, I don't think you or Ben come out of this little episode smelling of roses. The language used was on both sides was completely OTT.
I used to be a member of GreenPeace -- paying my £3 each month -- until they invaded a GM farm and burnt the entire crop. The field, where GM vegetables were growing, was a. legal and b. designed to assess if there were were any health risks associated with GM food, so they were necessary. The idea that people in continents like Africa may prefer eating GM food to starving to death completely went over their heads. And my sub was just going to help pay for lawyers' free to prevent them from going to jail. That said, they do some very good work.
But returning to the main subject, 18DS is free to invite whoever they so wish. And people are allowed to turn them down - for whatever reason(s).
Scoredraw 0:0
Iain you are overeacting and your reasoning for describing Greenpeace as envirofacists is pitiful. I happen to agree with Dominic Lawson's views on this but to label him as some intellectual giant is overegging it. You are far too judgmental. Perhaps your irritaion at his refusal has affected your judgement.
How the Enviro-Fascists Are Trying to Close Down the Climate Change Debate
Isn't their favoured response to accuse you of being delusional ?
If you do manage to get "both sides of the arguement" up for the debate, could you please ask them whether they know (for sure) where all the recycled rubbish goes. I am not convinced it is all used for the purpose of recycling. I understand quite a lot is shipped to China and elsewhere for landfill. Are we all just wasting our time?
I am outraged and infuriated that this comment section seems to be polluted with people who have are signed up eco religionists or have some other secret madness they are concealing. I can't say my hopes of this confused band of half wits was ever high and this of you who favour PR might want to look at the fact they are busy deciding who will govenr in Scotland . Look forward to returning to the wood fire and bodkin some time soon which is what they would actually like. Green peace are not up to a debate about the science because for them to be able to claim greater access to these supposed ly unquestionable truths is the camaflouge of their political argument which they have consistently misrepresented . Without this mystery religion their statist plot and design for reduced personal freedom and world government , the EU etc. is shown for the naked quest for power it is . Not only have they lied about it for political reasons but scientists have lied about the nature of science and their evidence to justify grants .They also lie about the implications of any policy they suggest. This has been well documented and even the New Scientist they felt obliged to include this contrary point of view last week . In fact in the recent summary of problems with the science the fact that the science had in the past been mis represented by many of the faithful is a given , in a reconstitution of the arguments in a more defensive light . . When I think the worst and stupidest things that have been done anywhere these reasonable proposals had the backing of science. Yes including genocide. Science will generally say whatever it is paid to and is childishly stupid about a sense of proportion. New Statesman’s Green collumn carried a more reasonable piece recently admitting that the science was driven by subjective desires that proceeded it . They of course are obliged to keep reasonable within the bounds of the sane and not , like Green Peace disappear to do some bizarre dance of this initiated in cloaks with macabre incantations of doom
Richard Dawkins did not himself say the “ CV “ line he quotes it from a colleague , an Australian one is all he says He is himself considerable mode conflicted about turning up to speak to “ Creationists “ for gods sake ,than this pompous prat is about talking to an entirely reasonable point of view.
Liar Liar Liar Ben Stewart you are not a svcientists you have no idea. You don’t arrive because you will lose , because your past lies will be exposed and because the implicit politics of the whole fraud will be seen for what it is . You can accept by the way degrees of the anthropocentric case ( which i do) and still agree all this will be true of Green peace which does not have a monopoly on reasonable concern . It does have a monopoly on stupid arrogant self important child people who will not play unless they are allowed to win .
The set piece interview
The friendly BBC man
The show trial
The game of propoganda
This is all they have to give us . They have shown themselves for the dangerous politically motivated power hungry fools they are. Perhaps its good thing we can all see
Let's be clear here, Greenpeace, along with many others who are politically of the left, have chosen the "fight" against, what they claim is man made, global warming as their next article of faith.
When the left lost economic socialism as their fundamental belief system, in the face of its total collapse as a governing force, they needed a new article of faith pretty quickly. At that time they chose anti racism and the need for political correctness and they then largely won those arguments, as evidenced by the way the failed doctrine of multiculturalism has been allowed to flourish whilst the massive social problems it has caused are ignored or blamed on whatever or wherever being "horribly white".
Now that they think they have won that battle, and since even the terminally woolly minded left can see that much of what they have imposed in this area is failing and bringing them into public disrepute, they need another, newer, article of faith.
How convenient for them therefore that along comes one of the planet's regular periods of warming.Although this is part of a cycle that is older than humankind, by misusing that they can then reinvigorate their cohorts, whilst at the same time having a really good go at things, such as cars and air travel, that they viscerally hate, in an entirely envious way, anyway.
Greenpeace will not debate climate change with anyone who doesn't subscribe to their religious belief that it is all man made and that it is so dangerous that it requires radical measures, and of course yet more taxation, immediately to avoid total disaster. This is nothing more than a belief, and one that is considerably more hollywood than it is science lab.
The science is not incontrovertible on global warming, the only thing that it not argued is that the planet is getting warmer again. However there are many different scientific interpretations of the reasons for that, how serious it is and what action needs to be taken about it.If Greenpeace had genuine courage in the science that "proves" their article of faith then they would be happy to debate it safe in the knowledge that it was solid. The refusal to debate simply highlights the fact that they, and those that agree with that view, have a religious belief and not a scientific certainty and so cannot articulate an argument to prove their position against someone who opposes their view and also has a grasp of the science involved.
Ultimately Greenpeace's stance substantiates Dominic Lawson's. How very stupid of them.
newmania is an attention-seeking douche-bag
How to make Greenpeace happy. Commit the nation to:
No oil, coal or gas.
No nuclear reactors.
No platform for climate deniers.
Lots of windmills ...
... and things.
Err, that's it.
Is this is as bad as Chris Huhune writing toc Channel 4 begging the 'Great Climate Cahnge Swindle' wasn't shown?
I cannot believe this post or a number of these comments. 100% in agreement with Greenpeace - Bjorn Lomborg would be a far more plausible candidate to have a discussion with. The time for debating climate change science has gone, the time for dealing with it is here. That is what debates on the topic should be about and what 1000s of scientists and IPCC agree on - Dominic Lawson is not trained in the area and has no credence on this issue in my humble opinion
Ben Stewart did make a revealing admission, I thought - that talking to the other side wouldn't look too good on the Greenpeace CV. Too right, it would lose them face with their environmental fellows. There would be suspicion of the purity of their eco-beliefs, a risk of schism in the One True Church of Global Warming.
Actually they're right in one respect. There's no point in debating anything with single-issue fanatics. They'll never change, since to do so would destroy them.
Newmania, dear boy, PLEASE STOP SHOUTING. It's deafening.
Science has already ended the "Climate Change Debate", not the so-called enviro-fascists.
Ben Stewart makes sense.
Joe said:
"I cannot believe this post or a number of these comments."
Joe you better believe it. There are far more sceptics than the media would have the public think.
This is not an anti man-made climate change blog. This blog is read by the left and right. What you are seeing in the comments is an approximation of what the public actually thinks and not what the media believes we think.
Man-made climate change scepticism is growing and the need for debate is growing stronger.
Joe said...6:54 PM
In reply to your comment: so if Greenpeace say the discussion's closed, it's closed? What give's your organisation such rights over others in this debate?
Don't stamp your foot like that or you'll be called childish.
The debate isn't over until all the questions are in and answered satisfactory.
More climate change hypocrisy:
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8PE57FG2&show_article=1
"In science we are taught to rely on statistical significance (probablity >95%, p<0.05) to determine whether something is likely to be correct. A probablity of 90% has a p value =0.1 i.e. not signifiant. I am not a climatologist but this p value does suggest that the debate is still open."
Is that Mickey Mouse science? :-D
Think about it -- what kind of risks are you willing to take at 1 miss out of 20? Hope it isn't all too many...!
Iain, that Greenpeace dude wimping out is no problem. Grab a stuffed Knut(the cute polar bear) and place it in a seat with the relevant Greenpeace pamphlets to cite from and to discuss with. Should be a hoot and taking apart the marketing blurb is just as well as engaging their 'expert'. ;)
Anonymous said...
Iain, you need to read your Karl Popper!
Anon, you really need to read your
Thomas Kuhn!
Popper ultimately collapses into reliance on mythology and his puttative 'scientific method' into cherry picking a preferred myth.
As such he cannot establish that science - and science or any theory - is the supreme form of knowledge.
So Iain can do what we bl**dy well likes!
B*gger, will I learn to read what I've typed before posting? No way. That should have said:
Anonymous said...
Iain, you need to read your Karl Popper!
Anon, you really need to read your
Thomas Kuhn!
Popper ultimately collapses into reliance on mythology and his putative 'scientific method' into cherry picking a preferred myth.
As such he cannot establish that science - any science or any theory - is the supreme form of knowledge.
So Iain can do what he bl**dy well likes!
Where can I get my Greenpeace armband and jack boots, Iain? Where are they building the ovens? What symbol will they make climate change deniers wear?
How about this: You're an idiot.
I Can Use Bold Text said...
newmania is an attention-seeking douche-bag
newmania is a lot more lucid and entertaining poster than you. Good dancer too, so be quiet!
Actually Newmania's right about the whole global warming thing becoming a religion. I just thought he made the point better, and louder, than me. And that Peter Hitchens made it better than both of us on... Question Time was it? Yup, the Rick Astley of journalism nailed the argument again.
In the debate you're going to have Iain, can you include an energy expert to comment on the net carbon footprint of proposed solutions to global warming and an economist to tell us how much it's going to cost and whether changes to house building projects will cause an even bigger problem for 1st time buyers?
Sounds to me much like David Cameron's strategy on Grammar schools.
Steve McIntyre was nominated to serve as an Expert Reviewer for the Working Group I contribution to the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis.
The following is a brief statement on his experience as a IPCC Expert Reviewer:
One of the most important IPCC representations is the supposedly tremendous quality control of its review process. I’ve mentioned in passing on a number of occasions that, when I sought to obtain supporting data for then unpublished articles, IPCC threatened to expel me as a reviewer.
When Steve tried to get the supporting data for the unpublished articles he was asked to review, this is the reply he received:
The IPCC process assesses published literature, it does not involve carrying out research, nor do we have the mandate or resources to operate as a clearing house for the massive amounts of data that are used in the climate science community or referred to in the literature used by our authors.
So lets get this straight, out of the 2500 scientists on the IPCC consensus, 1200 are employed as "expert reviewers". These experts are reviewing and recommending unpublished articles without access to the supporting data. This tells me that any Tom, Dick or Harry can submit a scientific article which will be published by the IPCC without any genuine scrutiny of their work.
You can read Steve's full story at:
http://dailyreferendum.blogspot.com/2007/03/climate-change-my-arse-part-5-no-data.html
canvas said...
Iain, I think you might be over reacting to the letter - or feeling slightly emotional??
Why are you attacking Iain instead of his argument?
Ad hominem attacks - such as yours here - are invariably smoke and mirrors affairs, invariably designed to conceal gaping holes in the attacker's argument and often an emotional and evasive device.
So, cut out the ad hominem, please, canvas
Anonymous said...
Where can I get my Greenpeace armband and jack boots, Iain? Where are they building the ovens? What symbol will they make climate change deniers wear?
Nazism is a form of fascism but not the only one dear.
Richard Dawkins is funded with Microsoft money and that is a huge threat to the planet and free thinking everywhere.......
Could I just underline the Brent Spa incident which should have destroyed Greenpeace's credibility for all time?
The GP campaign was based on outright lies - which they later 'admitted' to on its own site.
(Brent Spar - the scientific debate
During the campaign to stop the dumping of the Brent Spar, it has been claimed in some media reports that Greenpeace based its activities on emotion and dogma to the exclusion of science.
A scientific debate has ensued, which has included some attacks on our stance by scientists, including an Opinion piece in the journal Nature.but so powerful and effective is this organisation, Shell was forced to use extreme measures in its defence.)
Er, extreme measures in defending itself against 'emotion and dogma to the exclusion of science'.
But such was the sheer violence of the unfoundfed attack, Shell's business was badly boycotted and some petrol stations burnt out. And on who's say-so?
The Brent Spa campaign is now a test case for CSR and company security issues.
Indeed, Shell was been tipped off that the Brent Spa lie was only the beginning of a campaign against it.
So they hired private intelligence company Hakluyt to penetrate GP and find out what was coming next. And Hakluyt's man did head off the next attack. This story was exposed by the Sunday Times' Insight team.
But this sort of nonsense is what happens when Greenpeace is allowed to run away with its own arrogance.
And they've tried this before. I read at lot of enviro-apocolypse stuff in the early 1980s that was published in the 1970s. Global food and water shortages, soil poisoned by 2000,oil all used up blah, blah.
We've been here before.
oop north said "scientists are never in 100% agreement. There are people that don't accept heliocentricity, the big bang, evolution, and climate change."
I presume religious fundamentalists dont believe the first three and that the last is God's Will. But enough of nutters who in the main dont earn a living as scientists.
Scientists believe 100% in science; however with regard to the big bang and climate change, those issues are rather ones of extrapolation not predictition from scientific laws.
With a previous contributor, I myself would much prefer a discourse on particle physics by Jane Goody, that listen to a debate on scientific matters between two people without scientific knowledge.
Why not invite, searately, a believer to debate with a scientific non-believer and a non-believer to debate with a scientific believer. Now that would be fun! Have I just revealed myself to be a sadist?
michael fish (retd) said...
Iain you are overeacting..You are far too judgmental. Perhaps your irritaion at his refusal has affected your judgement.
michael fish,
Pot to kettle? Are you sure that YOU are not too judgmental too? Looks that way to me.
Note:
My earlier posting said Shell hired intelligence agency Hakluyt. In fact, it was BP who was next in the firing line after Shell/Brent Spa, and they admitted to hiring Hakluyt.
I agree entirely with Newmania.
CAN YOU HEAR ME?
ANON says "Ad hominem attacks - such as yours here - are invariably smoke and mirrors affairs, invariably designed to conceal gaping holes in the attacker's argument and often an emotional and evasive device.
So, cut out the ad hominem, please, canvas"
No, I explained my reasons very clearly - why shouldn't I say that I think Iain has over reacted if that is how I feel? It's perfectly acceptable to disagree with Iain's comments.
While restoring the house the architect arranged for grants and VAT reductions on installing solar panels (including ones that generate electricity) and triple glazing and thick roof insulation.
So there is free heating, hot water, electricity, and excess electricity can be sold off to the national grid once the very reduced installation costs are paid.
Whatever is causing the warm-up it must help to use this technology.
Why is the Chancellor not offering these arrangements in the UK? It's funded by the European Union.
"Intellectually, he is not fit to lick Lawson's boots"
Is there a space below 'complete arse' Iain?
I don't think your article stands up much to intellectual argument either. He's clearly said he's not against debate or free speech, just reckons that involving himself with the pondlife does more for the pondlife's status than for himself. Sounds very rational in terms of political advancement. Don't fight on the other man's chosen ground and all that. Wellington would agree, so would Montgomery. So would David Cameron.
David Lindsay, anyone who thinks that there is such a thing as " carbon neutral nuclear power' obviously has never studied a fuel cyle from extraction to disposal/storage/recycling.
Remember, the forces behind the Nuclear industry make tony balir seem a teller of truth of monstrous proportions in comparison.
Veee hef vays of mekking you debate!
In fect vee vill impose a mess debate!
If Greenpeace are so attached to the apparent consensus of scientists, why oppose so virulently the consensus supporting nuclear power and GM foods?
Iain, you went about this all wrong. Invite Friends of the Earth. Invite the Union of Concerned Scientists. Invite Michael Meacher if you absolutely must.
But Greenpeace is a filthy organisation full of liars and terrorists. You should treat them with the same contempt you treat the BNP. The BNP may be vile nazis, but they haven't killed anyone AFAIK. Greenpeace have.
Don't invite them on your show. Invite some of the more congenial Greenie wack jobs.
"If you had nine guests putting the man made global warming case and one wild eyed nutter funded by a vested interest putting the case against then you would have a representative debate."
I would love to see some figures showing what proportion of funding for research into global warming comes from the private sector, which I presume would include your idea of "vested interests", and what proportion of this privately-funded research denies anthropogenic climate change. I suspect both proportions are very small.
I believe that the vast majority of funding in this area comes from governments and that virtually all that funding has gone to scientists whose studies support the idea of anthropogenic climate change. It is possible that that is simply a reflection of the balance of scientific opinion, but if governments were committed to encouraging disinterested enquiry they would make it clear they also funded research from those in the minority.
There's a big stick being fashioned at the moment, it's name is "carbon footprint",and we are all going to be bashed mercilessly on the noggin with it.
They wont discuss as they are losing the agument. Increased sun spot activity is the cause and there is nothing we can do about it.
What happened to the hole in the ozone layer. Strange we dont hear about it any more. Perhaps its because its not there any more.
I thought the ozone layer was fixed - in a much shorter period of time than expected.
Joe - what makes you think that you can nominated the moment when the scientific debate is over?
Newmania is correct in his analysis. I suggest he sets up a blog he really is very good at it!
"Johnny Norfolk said...
They wont discuss as they are losing the agument. Increased sun spot activity is the cause and there is nothing we can do about it.
What happened to the hole in the ozone layer. Strange we dont hear about it any more. Perhaps its because its not there any more. "
Are you a bit special and not in the nice way. The example you have just mentioned above does not in the slightest way support your argument. Quite to the contrary. The Ozone layer hole does not exist today (or is considerably smaller than it was). This is not due to the science being wrong but because legislation was put in place that banned the use of CFCs in aerosols- which were the identified cause of the problem. So it's not strange that we don't hear about the ozone layer hole anymore....it's no longer a problem.
And the debated is not over....as such, there was never any debate in the first place. There is no debate involved in scientific findings and conclusion only theory, testing and analysis.
Anonymous 9:19
"He's clearly said he's not against debate or free speech..."
Well that's alright then. If he then demands that those who disagree with him should shut up, says that anyone who doesn't accept his opinion must be wrong, but then says he is not against free speech that's fine.
Do you not think that he might be either mistaken or dishonest? He clearly is trying to suppress freedom of speech and thought as far as he is able.
Agree wholeheartedly with Iain on this. Greenpeace are behaving as if the argument that climate change is being caused by human activity is a verifiable fact, like the Holocaust, for instance, when it can never be more than a theory, albeit a fairly compelling one in my view.
So there is free heating, hot water, electricity, and excess electricity can be sold off to the national grid once the very reduced installation costs are paid.
You obviously know nothing about electricity generation....and how many generating sets are on standby to cover the failure to supply by amateurs like yourself.
Personally I want contracts with those who supply the Grid from their photovoltaics or windmills - that if they fail to supply the KWh they are contracted to their house is at risk for breach of contract.
I want 100% availability of electricity not some dilletante pretending to generate electricity.
I think Greepeace has confirmed my view that man is not causing global warming, In refusing to debate rather than dictate they have lost the argument.
The attitude of their supporters on this blog also confirms it.
The high handedness is just unbelievable. Just who do they think they are with their jumped up opinions refusing to even contemplate they may be wrong. They have conned the government but they wont con free thinking people. Iain you should ensure the alterative reasons for Global Warming are put out in the absence of Greenpeace ( did they used to be the flat earth society?)
Paul( Linford) the point with the current state of science on it is that the old certainties are having to be reconsidered. I think an uncommitted person might well accept that there is a good case for concern that man`s activities were affecting the climate dangerously . The time scale and proportionality of it are very much up for grabs though . In the New Scientist’s survey of the questions, it is telling that they start , not from the certainties of the Green religion, but from the myths of the revisionists argument. They probe the myths for example . “ It was warmer in the middle ages than now “. This problem will not go away and in my view , others , like the relative importance of volcanoes seem well answered . Nor is there any good answer for the fact that following the second world war when the rise of CO2 reaching the atmosphere was exponential the globe got colder up to the 1975. The real problem though is that previous changes in the world’s temperature preceded increases in CO2 and everyone does now accept this as it can be verified from ice core samples . The Doom mongers are then reduced to claiming that the CO2 has an amplifying effect once the process is started which is very different from the “Scientific truth “ they have been selling for the past thirty years even though” All science agreed” they say. The relative importance of sun spots and other factors is all debateable and this makes a nonsense of their claims to be able to predict anything from their projections . The s may also account for the very obviously wrongness of all the predictions that science has thus far made testable by our having passed the date .. In other words its not that science has nothing to offer its more that it can demonstrate that Green Peace have lied about its truth and provenance for thirty years. Science can show us that Green Peace have convictions that predate science and we cannot therefore believe a word they say on it . The same is true of the eco funded research as you would expect. I suspect it is this problem that Green Peace do not like .Whether or not we should be concerned we can be quite certain that Green Peace and other committed worshippers have lost all the credibility they once had.
As Durkin revealed ‘scientists and journalists have founded entire careers on their assertions and they are not impartial . Those in favour of the EU and Global Law are delighted to have a problem that can only be tackled at Global level and for this reason encourage the construction of a Global emergency. Those wishing to raise taxes and apply social control are delighted to be able to clothe socialism in Green togs . This will be the other reason that Green peace will not turn up . They may be obliged to consider tax reducing strategies or indeed the implications for wealth of their collective notions . None of this can they survive politically or intellectually.Now they just repreat that science supports thenm like a mantra in the hope that noone will look to carefully at what this means and what is has meant.
Like the last Priests of the Old Egyptian god’s they are sitting trembling inside their temple as the world outside moves on. And I commend Iain for throwing one more rock at the door .
Great Post
You might also be interested in Eamonn Butler's report of his lunch with Piers Corbyn over at the Adam Smith blog.
http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/
Greenpeace uses much the same approach to keep its funds flowing and its supporters in line as did the late-Jerry Falwell.........in fact Eco-Fanatics are to Europeans what Falwell was to Americans
others , like the relative importance of volcanoes seem well answered
REALLY? Answered by whom?
The figures I have seen show that one big volcanic eruption can emit more CO2 in a few hours than an entire year's worth of industry.
Isn't the human contribution to CO2 emissions TINY?
I think it's better to conserve our limited natural resources but not by being tricked into doing so.
The greens also tell us that global warming will kill billions of people but they also want the population of the planet reduced to prevent this. Were people dying in their millions from a warmer climate a thousand years ago or were they dying from disease?
I'd rather we put our energies into helping Africa get rich and into developing cures for AIDS and cancer than into making ourselves poorer by taxing ourselves back to the subsistence economy.
anonymous at 4.55pm wrote "In science we are taught to rely on statistical significance (probablity >95%, p<0.05) to determine whether something is likely to be correct. A probablity of 90% has a p value =0.1 i.e. not signifiant. I am not a climatologist but this p value does suggest that the debate is still open."
This is such a woefully inadequate description of significance testing, which is itself irrelevant to the discussion about 'proving' the anthropogenic nature of climate change, that I despair. Really. Is this what our universities are teaching science students these days?
p-values are not probability statements about hypotheses.
In the framework of (Neyman-Pearson) hypothesis testing, hypotheses cannot admit probability (they are 'true' or 'false')
This is not how people think about science, which is one reason (of very many) why that whole Popperian falsificationist paradigm is pants with respect to experimental method.
This is particularly the case in a science such as climatology, where I can't actually see how one would run a controlled experiment (which planet is the control?).
This means that all enquiry concerning our human understanding (pun intended) has to be conducted within the subjectivist, Bayesian paradigm, where hypotheses *do* carry probability, composed of the correct mixture (by Bayes theorem) of empirical evidence and Your Own prior belief or scepticism in the theory.
This is really rather simple statistics and I think basic scientific philosophy. I do hope that when Greenpeace say 'the science is proven' they are not referring to any particular sequence of p-values (it's a simple thought experiment to see why this cannot prove anything). Likewise, I trust the sceptics are not manipulating the probability of the climate change hypothesis by 'loading' their prior with solid lumps of probability at 'false' so that no matter how much evidence is gathered, they will never believe it is happening.
18DS could profitably invest an hour into a discussion about scientific enquiry and the crass way in which the media manipulates it, or the sociology of the scientist who is not the 'objective' observer of truth (a fiction promulgated by the universities in the early 20th century I think), etc etc. Danny Finkelstein writes very well about these matters.
What symbol will they make climate change deniers wear?
well, some of them want to make it an offence.offence.
so can't be too long till they come up with a symbol.
Observer 6.02.
Surely you have missed Hatfield Girl's point? Her house is now almost self sufficient in electricity supply reequirements. She is not setting herself up as an independent supplier to the national grid. What she no longer requires from the national grid can be used elsewhere, which means that just a little less needs to be produced. If millions of others followed this strategy the decrease over time would be very substantial.
I once lived in a house with a solar water heater on the roof. Following its installation, I never again had to touch the wall switch to supplemement the heat produced during the day - a considerable saving to me in electricity costs.
This debate brings to mind the absolute certainty with which the medical establishment in the 1850s defended the miasma theory of disease, especially cholera. With virtual unanimity in a learned profession how could they possibly be wrong?
But they were wrong. The science was dodgy. And those who refused to debate the science were soon made to look very, very foolish.
uhhh.. Why would anyone who beleives the earth is round want to debate with flat earthists ?
Bin Domonic Lawson and invite Bjorn Lomborg surely.
Greenpeace are just saying there is no point in debating climate change. The point worth debating is if it is man made..
But you know that Iain - you just used the Greenpeace letter to do what you would otherwise have done in the interview... start a debate... get the point clearly made that there is little debate about climate change but much debate about it's cause...
Nicely done..
Surely you have missed Hatfield Girl's point? Her house is now almost self sufficient in electricity supply reequirements
Yes but how much energy did it take to get it that way and would it be possible outside an industrial context.
I think there is a case for tax breaks and incentives to be offered for enviroment friedly activity. What we actually have is fines restrictions and a load more bureaucrats.Its interesting that the Green qualifications of nuclear power are not somehow seen in the same light . That fat bat Emily Thornberry whiozsend her kids outside islignton to Grammar is the Green MP of the year. Her annual consumption would feed a small country. Its all gesture and she is a good example of the way the issue is hi jacked by the most deceitful for their own purposes
ED I don`t have the article to hand I `m afraid but I was chiefly making the point that the dubiety of Green assumptions is now a starting point even among their own kind. I was looking at it last night and felt this particuolar point was dealt with . I `ll have to look again
As an MEP, I have rather limited powers, but one thing I can do is give a platform to the good guys. On April 18th I organised a Counter-Consensual Climate Conference in the European parliament in Brussels (short account on my web-site at www.rogerhelmer.com), at which the key-note speaker was former Chancellor Lord Lawson of Blaby, plus a number of other speakers including economist Roger Bootle, and Neil O'Brien of Open Europe talking about the EU's failing Emissions Trading Scheme. Unlike Greenpeace, I was happy to debate with the opposition, so I also invited Swedish Green MEP Carl Schlyter. The event was well-attended, and generally regarded as a great success. We also showed the Channel 4 "Great Global Warming Swindle", and people who had seen nothing but alarmist propaganda were amazed to see the other side of the case. I am planning to publish a book of the presentations shortly.
Roger Helmer MEP
Hon. Chairman, The Freedom Association
an unusual public apology from the DCLG to energy assessors and home inspectors for the HIPs delay, here:
http://www.landlordexpert.co.uk/index.php?news=739
makes, er, interesting reading! in the context of this debate.
Tim I have seen it robustly defended although clearly it was a polemic . How do you explain the drop in world temperature from the emd of the Second World War until 1975 , the Medieaval warm period , the clear evidence that warming precedes CO 2 in the atmosphere in the ice record.
The case needs to be recast at elast and this does not suite Green Peace who want it unquestioned
Having seen both, "The Great Global Warming Swindle" and Al Gore's, "An Inconvenient Truth", I was absolutely astounded that Gore was awarded an Oscar for this load of self-serving schmalz. How anyone could take this guy seriously is beyond me and the whole program revolved around his family's Lebenslauf, which has bugger all to do with global warming, or anything else for that matter!
What did you expect, Iain?
Fascists are to be agreed with, not questioned.
I suggest you have a read of this:
http://ff.org/centers/csspp/pdf/20070316_notcrisis.pdf
(longish, but quite diverting and very revealing).
As Melanie Phillips commented "Now we can see why the global warming truth-deniers loudly insist ‘the debate is over’. When they are forced to take part in a proper debate, they lose."
You have to remember that eco-fascists not scientists; eco-fascisim simply being the new home for Marxists after they became too absurd even for sociology.
Plus, most scientists are introverted conformists with a strong herd instinct (-that's 'science' too). Give some of them money and tell them to 'prove' something to get more money and they will. Then most of the others will say its true and try to get some of the loot.
Anonymous 9:34...
I would say that you are both correct and wrong at the same time. Indeed, it is good that Hatfield Girl now supplies her own electricity (and I'd imagine that she saves a bundle by it) and if we all did the same with solar panels then everyone's energy requirements would be satisfied during the daytime... but at night, we'd have nothing. And that is the point Observer is trying to raise with his comment on 100% availability.
We take for granted that we have 24 hours a day of electricity supply, in any amount and for any duration... we're even robust enough to cope when everyone simultaneously turns on their kettle during an England world cup final half-time (as the anecdote goes).
Solar panels don't work without the sun and windmills don't work without wind... and there's no way that these events will reliably order themselves to keep us supplied 100% of the time.
Therefor, such micro-generation can not replace industrial generation for the forseeable future.
Crossfire said...
Greenpeace are just saying there is no point in debating climate change. The point worth debating is if it is man made..
That is not what Ben Stewart was saying at all. Stewart was saying he will have a discussion only with someone who shares his opinion that global warming is man-made.
The only issue he has with Lomborg is Lomborg's belief that no action should be taken to counter any man made influence. That is the nature of the debate he wants to have. Stewart does not want a debate with anyone on the science because his mind is closed to any argument that questions the science.
Iain, perhaps this debate at the Royal Geographical Society on Tuesday 30th October will interest you...
CAPITALISM CAN SAVE THE PLANET (with carbon trading we can solve the climate change crisis without damaging economic growth)
For the motion:
Eric Bettelheim
Anatole kaletsky
The Rt Hon Oliver Letwin MP
Against the motion:
Nigel Lawson, Baron Lawson of Blaby
David Rieff
Frances Cairncross
Chaired by Andrew Neil
Roger Helmer MEP said...
"On April 18th I organised a Counter-Consensual Climate Conference in the European parliament in Brussels".
Good for you. About time someone in political circles made a stand for truth and stood up to this wave of leftoid propagada. Even if it is only someone in the bloody EU. I shall rush to your blog to read the account.
An awful lot of the current attempts at conservation simply do not work, or are totally inefficient. Austria is one of the pioneers of the minimum fuel house and knowing several people who live in them, I can tell you that they are dreadfully hot in the summer and need supplementary fuel during the winter to maintain a comfortable temperature. What engineers have not resolved yet is the subject of air-exchange, without rising, or dropping, ambient temperatures. The other current fad is wind farms which, sad to say, are not so efficient, are a blot on the landscape, and incur service costs which exceed the value of the electricity they produce. The only truly efficient schemes we have here are the hydro-electric power generators and the rubbish incinerators near the cities which totally eliminate landfill and are able to pipe hot water for heating to thousands of homes and offices. They have well sorted the rubbish burning technology and there is no fine particle dust pumped into the atmosphere.
In my opinion the behaviour of the boss of NERC the government funded body which organises scientific research grants was worse., Last December,he declared his wish to "challenge those deniers" to a debate publicly or online.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1978470,00.html
I happen to know that one of the world's top academic sceptics accepted the challenge. Since then Mr Thorpe has declined to respond to any attempts at contact.
Apart from the inherent cowardice & dishonesty of such behaviour it is not a proper way for a recipient of public money to treat the public.
Bishop Hill is quite right that in the recent debate before the New York gliteratti the warming case was roundly beaten. I suspect this, rather than a stand of principle, is the reason the scaremongers won't debate. That plus the fact that, despite the fact that online comments on any newspaper, or indeed here, are strongly sceptical, the MSM can be relied on to still propagandise for the Greenpeace view.
"The report of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change sized up the causes and consequences of climate change. The group asserts with more than 90% confidence that carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases from human activities have been the main causes of warming since 1950."
I expect that in Gallileo's time there was significantly over 90% confidence that the earth was the centre of the universe.
I expect in Darwin's time there was significantly over 90% confidence that the earth was created in 7 days by a bloke with a beard.
"and massively popular and successful?"
Massively popular? You know the RSPB receives ~8 times the amount in donations as Greenpeace? The f**king RSPB!
Don't start me on Guide Dogs ...
Iain,
Whilst the IPCC may publish their appraisal of the publish scientific work it does not follow that their interpretation has 'Papal Infallability'.
As a scientist of long standing, I find the idea that a definitive conclusion can be drawn from such a topic, which covers so many individual scientific disciplines, hard to accept.
It is rather the scientific equivalent of the Tower of Babel when it comes to the scientist of one dicipline understanding in fine detail the theories of a scientist from a different discipline.
Greenpeace seem to have quite closed minds - so sad.
Tim you demonstrate that you are peeved and inarticulate The fatuous assertion that you above the debate does not make it so and you are unable to answer even my points. Your last remark implicitly accepts part of what we have all been saying which is that science on this subject is not trustworthy. . I would continue to keep a low profile , it suits you. Twit .
Anon 12.40 said The report of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change sized up the causes and consequences of climate change. The group asserts with more than 90% confidence that carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases from human activities have been the main causes of warming since 1950."
The world was cooling for most of this period up to 1975 and the UN entrust Zimbabawe with the chair of their sustainable economic development panel. ZIMBABWE!!! Do you seriously think what the UN has to say or fund is not loaded . Global problems need Global solutions hmmmmmm are you with me yet ?
"expect in Darwin's time there was significantly over 90% confidence that the earth was created in 7 days by a bloke with a beard."
Yes and the remark that it would look good on your CV and not mine was made about creationists . That by implication is what the Green religionists think of those who oppose them...if they understood what they were saying that is
I'm not quite at James Thurber's aunt's view of electricity leaking out of sockets without plugs in them, though I wouldn't be a bit surprized; obviously a constant and reliable electrical supply, at all times and through varying demand patterns, has solutions utterly different from the micro-generation of electricity.
On new build or total repairing build, what can be wrong with efficient insulation and heat and power generation from sunlight? (Wind mills are another discussion, and I'm against, just for the record).
Yes, none of this can be done without industrial processes and production; I don't expect to be
reduced to primitive to help with being green.
The setting up of this kind system is expensive, hence the use of regional grants and tax allowances, so that any new or refurbished building conforms to the standards. It's not done by penalties and expensive inspections and reports, it's done through the architects and surveyors, and local council building regulations
It's very popular, in urban blocks as well as rural housing.
Fiscal climate change is in even more need of a debate.
Anonymous (well one of you) i'll take tits over your twaddle anyday.
Would Greenpeace have a debate with the Scientologists?
One cult surely supports another??
ED surely cult is a mistype
This has probably already been said many times but I find what you write so ridiculous Iain that it's worth repeating - declining to debate something is not equivalent to shutting down debate. If we want to have a country where the law places minimal restrictions on our lives it requires us to make more non-legal judgements about others' behaviour etc. I'm sorry Greenpeace has a better understanding of freedom than a Conservative PPC hopeful.
Why was the comment by "Tim" directed at "Newmania" deleted??? I can't see the offense in saying that one does not need to justify oneself to another. It contained no swear words nor was it defamatory.
What a strange thing to sensor!
Environmentalists were quite happy to debate when they were trying to prove that man caused climate change.
Now that scepticism is rising they don't seem quite so keen on the idea.
When Communist collapsed a number of lefties, after sitting in a darkened room for a few months, went green. They brought with them, to the green movement, the habits of thought acquired through a lifetime of socialism.
From "No platform for fascists" it was a short step to "No platform for Climate change deniers."
Debate doesn't prove or disprove anything when it comes to scientific evidence..so why would Green Peace be using debate to prove man-made Climate Change. If they think they are then they are deluded.
Skeptics and Believers can keep on rising, who cares. What matters is the increased funding into the Scientific research and the rise in consequent evidence to make conclusion on. Only this will allow a more comprehensive view of the situation and strengthen/weaken the conclusions drawn. These bias and uninformed opinions from political commentators, journalists and polemics (like Greenpeace and Lawson) are completely meaningless.
It's funny that so many lay people think (from both sides) that they have some sort of authority on the subject when in fact they are just as ignorant as the majority. I keep hearing lots of unscientific tip bits like- Oh it's been the hottest summer in 50 years or in the 70s they thought we were heading for a mini ice age and my favorite...I think it is because of solar flars ..uh because I saw someone like Jemermy Clarkson, Nigella's Dad, Sian Berry (or some other vocal idiot convinced they know better than Climatologists) said it on a TV program or in some kook blog.
Oluseun,
I have to disagree, there is need for debate. If I'm being taxed on the evidence of scientists, then I deserve to understand why I'm being taxed. I will not blindly pay more tax based on questionable data. There are holes in the man made climate change argument, and I want them closed before I'm asked to hand over my money to Gordon Brown. I'm just another member of the public without any great understanding of the climate, but at the moment I find it easier to understand the sceptics arguments.
This needs to change before we are subjected to further green taxes.
Daily Referendum ...
The science well never be able to come to a closed decision. Climate Science is complicated (I do not everything understand myself). Most of it based on extrapolation and models.
Secondly. A debate is needed on what is the best way to combated Climate Change - if it is indeed man made. I am not convinced that Green taxes are the way forward anyway. There is no evidence supporting the claim that they will change people's behaviour or reduce CO2 emissions. There is no point taxing people for using the only available methods of transportation for example if the Governemnet doesn't provide alternative methods- like cheaper rail travel and improved public transport across the country. Increased investment into alternative energy and new Nuclear power stations.
And how exactly do you know that the current science is flawed or the data questionable? Who told you that, a Climatologist in the field or a Polemic. Or have come to that decision based on the fact that you don't like the solutions(green taxes) being proposed by politicians and don't want to change your current behavior so have chosen to accept on Polemics view other another's assertions. Or maybe it's because my Green pressure groups are proposing socialist solution to the problem. There are many capitalist solutions that could be adopted - such as creating a market in carbon or tax incentives for being green rather than penalties for not.
But sadly Greens and politicians are not listening. And many conservative have chosen to ignore the threat Climate Change may pose or simple deny there is a solution by declaring that it is not man made- instead of re-capturing the agenda by coming up with less painful, voter friendly and market driven solutions. Denial is much easier than actually sensibly solutions....that would require some work to be done and oh and intelligence.
Greenpeace, as well as other organisations with an interest in environmentalism, has been taking part in debate over climate change, the cause, the effects, and the possible solutions, for years and years and years.To accuse the organisation of being an enemy of debate doesn't stack up.
In the eighties when cliamtologists were still considering the evidence cautiously (as is the laudable nature of their field)Greenpeace made clear which evidence it relied on and openly discussed the issue with the (majority) dissenting. The arguments Greenpeace made were compelling, but still very open to challenge. That was 20 years ago.
Today us non-scientists are told that a large internationally respected group of scientists are 90% certain that climate change is anthropogenic in origin. I recognise that 90% is not 100%, but at the same time if you handed me a gun with ten chambers and nine bullets in it I wouldn't put it anywhere near my head.
I guess Greenpeace feel they have worked for years debating the basics and that right now they really should be putting their efforts, time and resources into looking at practical solutions to the problem. Even if you are with the 'probable not proven' camp, sure ly this makes sense?
There are lots of examples of the minority being proven right being bandied about here from both sides...flat earth etc etc etc.
I might add a more recent and perhaps more relevant example.
Greenpeace warned us about the whole developing in the ozone layer. They talked to good respected scientists who recognised the link with cluroflurocarbons. People were sceptical - they didn't want to change their fridges, or their deodorant etc (and probably used the word fascist carelessly then too). The causes of ozone depletion were never certain 100% (that is not how science works) nor were its effects.
But there was a consensus of opinion on prohability. Eventually having spent a lot of time debating the basics, Greenpeace started talking about the solutions. Governments listened and CFC's were phased out by 1996. In 2003 there was evidence that ozone depletion was slowing down as a result.
Just a thought.
Oluseun,
I haven't chosen to accept the Polemic's view. I'm a sceptic not a denier. There are very few deniers, but there are many who are unconvinced or sceptical.
The word denier is used far too frequently to describe people who are merely unconvinced. There are questions as to the extent of man's part in this (if any), time scales and what is the best way to tackle it.
Even though I agree with a many of your points, I maintain that the only way to convince the people is to present them with both sides of the argument. Blind faith has gone out of fashion.
oluseun [5.06 PM] You say: "I keep hearing lots of unscientific tip bits like ... in the 70s they thought we were heading for a mini ice age."
What's unscientific about the observation that the consensus on climate change has been turned on its head in less than thirty years? Rather pertinent to the discussion, I would have thought.
The whole global warming thing, and the debate idea, is pretty ridiculous to me. What does Greenpeace, or any of the green groups, have to gain by pushing for reductions in CO2 emissions? A lot of people act like there is some subversive agenda at work here. It's not like the green groups have a secret alliance with solar power manufacturers, they simply are pushing this forward because they feel it's right. They have nothing to gain on this. Interestingly, the groups pushing against it have everything to gain - coal, oil, and nuclear producers want nothing more than to build more plants and make more money for themselves. Seriously, when you look at who is for it, and who is against it, you have a much better idea of what the true issue is. As far as not debating the issue, I agree entirely. I don't debate racists on the issue of slavery, why debate oil company hacks on the issue of climate change?
I'm sorry but Trumpeter Lanfried what exactly is your point.
Are you trying to tell me that because theory based on pre-1970 climate trends been proven to be wrong by future measurements .....We should now write off all research in this field as being unreliable and fantasy. That is the nature of scientific research. Future work ever goes to support or contradict previous research. Research into trends doesn't stop when one scientist come to conclusion based on the analysis of his/her data.
I suppose on that premise all Climatology research is a waste of time. They had there chance in the 70s and royally f***ed that one up. So who cares about new research by completely different academics with new data and improved "COMPUTER" models etc have to say.
I think that you don't have any comprehension of the nature of Climate science or just science in general. Nothing can be proved beyond a doubt, scientifc research just "attempts" to collect accurate information about the shared reality and to model this in a way which can be used to make reliable, and quantitative "predictions" about events, past, present, and future, in line with observations. Revision is ongoing.
You sound like a pre-pubescent child whose dad broke a promise and now you can't trust anything he says.
Iain Dale now appears to be erasing any serious objection to his 'point' ENTIRELY. Knowing irony or shameless hypocrisy?
oluseun [8.57 PM] My point is:
1) A scientific theory, however widely accepted, is often falsified by later research.
2) That observation applies to the
theories current in 2007 just as it applied to the theories current in 1970 (unless you think that, for the first time in the history of the world, we now know all the answers.)
For good measure:
I do not believe that scientists are dispassionate commentators, uninfluenced by anything other than pure scientific research. On the contrary, I believe they are often under considerable pressure (through peer review of published papers, etc.) to conform to the prevailing consensus.
And when I see "scientific" views urged with passionate intensity I become even more cautious. There is a whiff of religion in the green agenda, and I am suspicious of it.
Wow, this must be one of those open debate things then.
views urged with passionate intensity? like yelling "eco-nazis"?
What does Greenpeace, or any of the green groups, have to gain by pushing for reductions in CO2 emissions? A lot of people act like there is some subversive agenda at work here.
Green Peace is motivated by ideas that come from pastoral and Christain ideas about technology and industrialisation which at heart they considered to be evil . In its ranks collectivism of a primitive sort is common and there have been similar groupings at most times since the Industrial revolution. The motley collection of scruffs with dogs on strings demonstrating against Capitalism would be typical of the membership . They have therefore been delighted to grasp what they think is “scientific evidence” which they hope will endorse their prejudices and scientists are of ours are keen to encourage ever more money earnt in the private sector into their gaping beaks . So who gets the funding the one who says “ we are all going to die “ Or the one who says it is a marginal worry somewhere middling in the political agenda. On top of this statists are rapturous to find an excuse for further bureaucracy and taxation and Global would be dictators are delighted to have an emergency worthy of to justify further removal of rights and national accountability.
Green Peace itself are more useful idiot than anything else but they are of course keen to pursue power for its own sake and like most fringe groups have little interest in either democracy or truth. Media is a for propaganda and votes are to only to achieve power when for our own good we will be pushed into line.
Oleseum that last post was conceited piffle. Scientists and Green Peace have been those most responsible for misrepresenting the nature of prjections and science itself for their own propoganda purposes. Calling them to account now is entirely reasonable when they have required other peoples money falsely.It is hardly likely that Scientists are going to decide their careers and livliehoods are redundant so I am less than convinced than you that endless scarce resources should be thrown at them.
Didn't one of Greenpeace's co-founders leave the organisation because he disagreed with their stance on man-made global climate change?
So what you are trying to convey is that Climate Scientists have a vested interest making their assertion unreliable.
Well I put it to you that industry, energy suppliers and Big Business also have a vested interest. And the latters' vested interest is worth a lot more money to them then research grants and academic funding.
The consequence of temperature rises being found to man made are greater for industry than the opposite outcome for Climatologists.
Scientific research will carry on in the field whatever the conclusion on this matter.
Scientific research will carry on in the field whatever the conclusion on this matter.
No doubt but those paying for it have a legitimate right to be heard and to maintain a sceptical view of the ex cathedra prnouncements of what is a highly polticised soft science.
No, scientific research will always be held back or undermined by fossil industries and others with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo... until the juice runs out or climate change takes us to a point of no return. Thanks, Conservatives, for your contribution to this process.
Thanks, Conservatives, for your contribution to this process.
A process you are unable to demonstrate is real . A conclusion you are unable to show is not fantasy . A "Fossil Industry " powerless compared to the governemntal forces ranged against it . The status quo ,you fool, is the EU and the Global Governance that constantly use this excuse to increase their power.
Thank you for the "Just give me the money and do as your told " argument which brings us right back to the shameful behaviour of Green peace.
Where do these people come from !
Oluseun held up the CFC debate as one where the "environmentalists" were proven correct. That is dubious. Certainly they got their ban & the ozone hole started closing. However they had predicted our CFC's were so persitent that it would take 50 years of ban to reverse the effect. Sceptics said that this hole was probably a natural effect cause by the Mount Erebus volcano letting out vast amounts of sulphur dioxide & that when it stopped the "hole2 would diminish. since both happened & the hole diminished it it unproven who was right but certainly the eco crowd got their timescale way wrong.
I have, on several other sites, asked for Green supporters to come up with a single catastrophe story, out of hundreds, the "environmentalists" came up with, which has been proven right over time. None of them have been able to.
Anon asks why greenpeace could possibly have an incentive to push this if it wasn't true. I doubt if they would receive many donations if they said there was nothing to be concerned about. Quacks have to make you feel ill before they can sell you snake oil.
Excellent example of doublethink from Newmania there.
He really is very good at this. He should get a weblog.
Anonymous May 31, 2007 12:39 PM said...
"Excellent example of doublethink from Newmania there."
Don't know why you said that, Newmania seems to me to have been particularly clear-thinking of late. Don't know what's got into him.
Anonymous 4:14 30/5/07
You are quite right, "...declining to debate something is not equivalent to shutting down debate". However lying about the nature of the debate with an effect of saying that the debate is closed is "...equivalent to shutting down debate".
That is what Ben Stewart was doing when he compared the debate on anthropogenic climate change to the debate on carcenogens in cigarette smoke. He is lying that the former debate is equivalent to one in which the statistics are well-defined and consistent, the mechanism understood and studies all agree.
* Smokers are statistically more likely to die of cancer
* We don't even know how much temperatures change before the satellite era, and how much observed change was due to statitical error. We cannot compare this with prehistoric data to come to the conclusions climate panickers have, because the prehistoric data are not good enough
* No areas of smoking have shown anything but increase in incidence of cancer
* The world's mean temperature appears to have been steady for about 5 years. Some areas appear to have cooled while others warm. From the mid 1940s to the mid 1970s the world seemed to cool.
* Cigarette smoke contains chemicals that are known to damage genetic material
* Humans have only provided 0.28% of the greenhouse effect. The mechanism by which this might warm the planet noticeably in amongst all other influences has been effectively guessed at. Most of those other influences have not been quantified. The pattern of temperature rise in the atmosphere is not consistent with greenhouse effect being the cause.
Oluseun
"...industry, energy suppliers and Big Business also have a vested interest. And the latters' vested interest is worth a lot more money to them then research grants and academic funding."
That is simply not true. I don't think it is a lie, you have just fallen for another climate change myth. Funding from government, NGOs and international political organisations such as the EU and UN for people trying to prove man-made climate change is vast, billions of dollars per annum. Everyone accuses those opposed to the idea of taking money to make false research, but in fact if the people are asked they say that they actually lose funding, or find it harder to acquire, due to their stance. The money from vested interests in industry is largely a myth.
Given that, are you saying that the climate hysterics' views are unreliable because their funding is dependent on their results? I would agree with you that funding sources distort results if the source has a fixed view. the view simply happens to be the opposite of what you assume.
... because some anonymous git says so.
That is what Ben Stewart was doing when he compared the debate on anthropogenic climate change to the debate on carcenogens in cigarette smoke. He is lying that the former debate is equivalent to one in which the statistics are well-defined and consistent, the mechanism understood and studies all agree.
I agree and he is still doing it under the "apology " thread where I have made a similiar point
Ecofascism appears to be an apt description for the behaviour of Ben Stewart and Green Peace on this. Stewart must have been aware that his arrogant statement that 'we no longer debate people who don’t accept the scientific reality of anthropogenic climate change' would be met with considerable anger out here and that your response would express that, understandable, anger, Iain.
What inference does Stewart expect his peers out here in the blogosphere to draw from such a statement? In particular, given that Stewart and Green Peace;
demand policies which would radically alter all of our lives;
base their demands on theories they refuse to properly elucidate or debate; refuse to debate these theories other than with scientists of GP's choosing; therefore appear to lack confidence in their theories; appear to implicitly suggest that the majority lack sufficient intellectual rigor for this debate (as a smoke and mirrors defence for GP's lack of confidence in their theories?); refuse to debate arguments which they cannot fully anticipate in advance; refuse to be accountable except to a very limited extent - on their terms; set themselves and the scientists they select up as an elite; refuse to debate with anyone elsei.e. ordinary members of the blogosphere; appear to regard their theories as akin to absolute truth; effectively claim superior intellects and/or knowledge to the majority of us; believe they have the right to control and alter the lives of the majority to fit these theories; refuse to allow these theories to be properly and rigorously tested
Green Peace on their website state: "The WTO is secretive, non-transparent and undemocratic. Meetings are by invitation only, are hidden from public view and are closed to direct public input."
Yet it seems to me that Green Peace are as non-transparent and undemocratic as they claim WTO are, since they will not engage in debate with the blogosphere.
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