Most climate denial comes from simple ignorance – people who are genuinely alarmed, embarrassed, and actually pissed, when they find out how they’ve been lied to and for how long.
Then, there’s the sociopaths. People for whom climate denial, science denial, and paranoia politics, are evidence of emotional or organic dysfunction.
This is part 2 of the discussion Chris Hayes convened on thursday night to discuss the willful ignorance of climate deniers stretching to bend a snowstorm into a refutation of 200 years of physics.
My own theory, based on long observation of the infantile, paranoid, “you are not the boss of me” strain of libertarianism often expressed by these folks, is that we need to review the way we toilet train children in this country. Something’s gone terribly wrong.
I’m a big believer in free discussion, but if you are having a free discussion and you notice the other guy is throwing up on your shoes, generally you make some adjustments.
Recent threads on this forum are causing me to review my policy on trolling. Stay tuned.
4 excessively long comments about nuclear power and bagging renewables in the comment thread of a post about trolls…thankyou EP for proving my point. The first four comments were on topic and then along you came and hijacked the thread. Well done. I would say to everyone who bought into it and allowed the off-topic nonsense to continue…. Remember the 2 rules about trolls…
1. Don’t feed the trolls
2. Refer to rule number 1
If you find it tiresome when I attempt to educate you as to the facts (like the Inconvenient Truths about Denmark and Germany vs. France and Ontario), there’s one very simple and easy thing you can do to get me to stop:
Agree with me.
See? No problem at all!
Sure. Just as soon as you agree that you are myopic concern troll whose only intention is to derail every thread you can.
See? No problem at all. Wanker.
Don’t you just love all that respect you get for your right to think for yourself and make up your own mind? So very polite and social. Not. Not interested in open and honest discussion. I feel so much better for having pinned back his ears with relish. He deserves it. He hates getting caught, but he begs you to catch his deception. Its an intellectual bar room brawl. He does not belong in class. Reform school. Or juvy. Get your bag o donuts out, Peter.
Wanker?
Is that the same thing as what we call on this side of the pond a Jerkoff?
Very appropriate title to bestow on someone who has worked so hard to earn it (and who did speak to us of “onanism” on an earlier thread).
You got it. Has a lot to do with self obsession.
I admit, my comments here do have a very concentrated focus on carbon (and to a lesser extent, methane) emissions. Those ARE the major greenhouse gases of concern to climate change, and this IS ClimateCrocks, is it not?
Roger Lambert asked what it would cost for new infrastructure, etc. to get the carbon out of the energy supply (presumably for the USA). I gave him an answer. Some “derailing”; I followed those rails directly to the information he sought. Based on my own scenario for how to do it, how can that be wrong? (Damn, is that more than 9 years old already?!)
But I threw the fly into the ointment. I mentioned that conventional “renewables” would not do, it needed nuclear energy. And that is when the usual suspects went ape.
I expected them to. You can call this “trolling”, if you like. That’s not how I see it. Cognitive dissonance is a real phenomenon. People do hold sets of memes, with lesser or greater degrees of epistemic closure resisting any attempt to pull their personal Overton window in a new direction (in an N-dimensional space). In this context, I stand for one simple idea: substituting zero-carbon energy available 24/7 for fossil-fired supplies is a great way to cut greenhouse gas emissions in general. In this, James Lovelock, James Hansen, George Monbiot, and a host of others—none of whom know me from Adam—have arrived at and support this same conclusion.
Now, given that
(a) de-carbonizing electric power is essential to stabilizing the climate, and
(b) nuclear energy is proven to be highly effective in achieving low-carbon electric supplies,
who is responsible for “derailing” threads? Me, whose only act is to mention such facts? Or those adherents of the Green religion who consider it heresy and get all up in arms about it?
Ewwwww-Pot asks “who is responsible for “derailing” threads? Me, whose only act is to mention such facts?”
If he could tear himself away from his mirror and stop admiring himself for a minute, he might be able to focus on what people have really said about his “derailing” threads. I for one have said more than once that I support Hansen, Lovelock, et al in their thoughts that nuclear power needs to be part of the mix.
I have pretty much given up on trying to sort out the truths (and E-Pot does speak some) from the ego-driven flood of comments he throws at us on all threads (whether pertinent to the topic or not). He is like “sea level daveburton” and I just scan his stuff any more rather really try to dissect it. Life is too short, and the youngdumbguys on Crock seem to have the energy to joust with the windmill that is E-Pot. Good luck getting him to listen.
Ewww-Pot says “….there’s one very simple and easy thing you can do to get me to stop: Agree with me”.
And that is not a joke, although he may have intended it to be. It’s obvious that he will NOT stop until everyone agrees with him. He will continue to bury us with the “long multi-part posts” that so clog the threads and annoy many of us (and are wearing the letters off our “delete” keys).
I would suspect that if we all DID agree with him in an attempt to shut him up, he would continue to bury us with evidence of his superior intellect and knowledge. His presence here driven not by concern over climate change and AGW and “crocks”, but by narcissism (and possibly a pay check for being “subversive”).
SBAN, E-Pot!
uknowispeaksense – Mercy! Please, Peter. Stop this torture. No more trolls. uknowispeaksense, I am flabbergasted. Would a troll have enough sense to stop drawing attention to themselves, going off topic, and trolling on a thread about whether trolls should be banned? Even when it is directly pointed out? Peter, this is barfing all over our shoes. Definitely. You have some misbehaving child behavior here. It will only get worse.
Amen, amen, and AMEN!
I could start picking holes in EP’s response, but there’s no point. The very fact he’s run up 4 long posts on an issue unrelated to the topic at hand should show any casual reader that he has an attachment to nuclear that exceed any rational reasoning.
Leave him be with his “precious” to play in his sandbox!
AMEN!
Peter – add one more to the list. No long multi part posts.
Ah, right. Don’t allow anyone you don’t already agree with to explain facts and concepts in detail. Wouldn’t want anyone to expand their understanding, it threatens the established dogma! Can’t have that (especially if the threat is echoed by the likes of Stewart Brand, James Lovelock and James Hansen).
Far, far better to spend one’s last efforts in a 21st-century Green ghost dance. Even if it fails to accomplish its avowed goals (thereby leaving the fossil fuel interests on top), those involved will remain spiritually pure in their Green-ness. And that’s what counts, isn’t it? Isn’t it?