Monday 25 May 2009

Life in a cold climate

It’s as cold as hell.  Colder than charity.  Colder than a ticket taker’s smile at the Rialto Theatre on Saturday night.  Colder than a West Coast well-digger’s arse.*

It’s cold outside.  And I’ve got to tell you, it’s pretty frigging cold inside too.

So what about that global warming, huh? Where’s the “global warming” now that Autumn’s not here? 

Muriel Newman covers the convenient name change for today’s fashionable catastrophism from “global warming” – a name too easily falsified – to “climate change” because climate changes all the time.  Changing the name “reframes” the debate.

    Re-framing is a technique used by politicians to make radical ideas more palatable to the public by replacing controversial expressions with language that evokes empathy, cooperation, and a sense of interconnectedness.[2] The concept is largely based on the work of George Lakoff, Professor of Linguistics at Berkley University and well known adviser to the environmental movement, who believes that if you control the language of a debate then you control the way that people think. . .
   
But what is a continuing surprise is how our political leaders could be so unaware of what is going on that they can be contemplating passing laws to combat catastrophic global warming when the climate stopped warming of its own accord more than a decade ago. Could this possibly be a modern day version of the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale “The Emperor Has No Clothes”, where everyone can see that the planet is cooling but with the country’s rulers claiming they are fighting global warming, loyal subjects are afraid to speak out for fear of ridicule or persecution? 
    Yet with global warming well and truly over and global cooling upon us, serious questions need to be asked. How can the government justify appropriating taxpayers’ money for schemes based on global warming when the warming stopped over a decade ago? Where are the government’s science advisers in all of this? Why are they not advising the government that we are now in a global cooling phase - and if they are advising the government of this, but the government is not listening, why not?
 

*Yes, customers, some of these quips have been pinched from Tom Waits.

5 comments:

StephenR said...

Well longtime Republican strategist Frank Luntz wrote in a 2003 memo:

It’s time for us to start talking about “climate change” instead of global warming and “conservation” instead of preservation.

1. “Climate change” is less frightening than “global warming”. As one focus group participant noted, climate change “sounds like you’re going from Pittsburgh to Fort Lauderdale.” While global warming has catastrophic connotations attached to it, climate change suggests a more controllable and less emotional challenge.
"First!"

hemi said...

What does IPCC (formed in 1988) stand for again?

Anonymous said...

hemi said...

What does IPCC (formed in 1988) stand for again?

International Proletariat for the Control of Civilization.

Or as Al Gore has written," more about population control and resolving our collective “spiritual” crisis through forced societal reeducation and a command/control reorganization of society structured around “environmental principles”,

Maksimovich

Ayrdale said...

“Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsiblity to bring that about?” - Maurice Strong, founder of the UN Environment Programme

...more at mickysmuses.blogspot.com

Richard Goode said...

Re-framing is a technique used by politicians to make radical ideas more palatable to the public by replacing controversial expressions with language that evokes empathy, cooperation, and a sense of interconnectedness.

Such as talking about "free enterprise" instead of "capitalism". You reckon Libz should give this re-framing thing a go?