12 Responses

1. I don’t think you get to the conspiracy theory level until you get to a few ringleaders on the Alarmist side. They do have a lot of useful idiots, however.

   As far as corporations being against alarmism… I’m sure most think it’s stupid but are going to do things differently so they can profit from it. Fads are a good medium for being able to charge more for less of a product.

2. You have left out real world climatologists and other scientists. They may collaborate, but I would not call them conspirators just because they agree and their studies continue to have alarming findings.

   To the opponents add the overall bad-science theory:
   Thousand scientists, almost every scientist in the world who does climate research, issues research they know is fraudulent because they have no ethics and only care about handouts,
   Plus the expert reviewers for every journal in the world the publishes climate research purposely publish this bad research,
   all work together to defraud the public and policy makers, the whole world of scientists have worked together under the auspices of the United Nations with cooperation and confidence.

   Its hard for me to imagine such a conspiracy, but that is what deniers believe. To reject the research that is published in the journals every month requires a belief in such a worldwide conspiracy of scientific fraud.

3. I don’t expect anyone to relate to this immediately. Name a time, place or question when a proponent has link reality with a theory. They just don’t understand the difference between the real and imaginary world. They won’t break it down to individual circumstances, instead they lump sum the whole universe into a neat little compository of rhetorical facts. Fine and dandy, most of the time it wouldn’t have any consequence if you agreed or disagreed.

   Ex: Billy Bob lives 40 miles from water. He has a old truck and plenty of petrol. The truck emits 1lb of CO2 per mile, but the truck can haul 500gals of water. Realist would look at this from one perspective, the alarmist from another. “What more can I say?”

4. The main conspiracy theory about AGW ‘opponents’ is certainly that they’re paid by oil companies. Although to be fair, there are many examples of this being true, and often the ‘conspiracy theory’ is supported with evidence of such funding (for example, Richard Lindzen – although to be fair, he no longer accepts funds from oil companies).
   http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2006/08/30/mits_inconvenient_scientist/
   http://dieoff.org/page82.htm

   As you note, another AGW ‘opponent’ conspiracy theory is that ‘opponent’ scientists can’t get grant money, and another is that peer-reviewed journals won’t publish their work. This is obviously not true, as ‘skeptics’ like Spencer and Lindzen have no problems getting grant money or getting published.

   Those are the only AGW opponent conspiracy theories I can think of (there’s nothing conspiratorial about being an anti-environmentalist). Note that only one of these conspiracy theories comes from AGW proponents.

   As for AGW proponents, the list is certainly much longer. They’re:

   Socialists/leftists/communists, trying to make the USA socialist
   Trying to establish NWO
   Just trying to create new taxes
   Just trying to make Al Gore rich
   Climate scientists are just trying to get grant money
   Trying to send us back to the stone age
   Fear mongering
   Environmentalists who just need a new cause to worry about

   The common thread here is that if you’re on shaky scientific footing, you have to come up with some other argument to justify your position. Conspiracy theories are an easy fallback position. They allow people to throw the science out the window, because the science is just part of the conspiracy theory! It’s not a coincidence that almost all of these conspiracy theories are produced by AGW ‘opponents’.

5. Here’s one that James E promotes from time-to-time: AGW proponents are in league with big oil to drive up prices.

   I know, I don’t get it either.

   EDIT: Don’t give me the thumbs down–it’s James E’s theory, see beow

6. What’s scary is that a lot of your points (on both sides) are true of a lot of people on both sides of the debate.

   There are global warming denialists paid for by big oil (and big coal and big natural gas). Aside from the paid shills (who are a minority of denialists) there isn’t really much in the way of conspiracy theories I can think of (maybe some people who think they’ll benefit from a warmer Earth).

   Much of the problem with what is often incorrectly called the ‘environmental’ movement (e.g. Greenpeace, FoE and the like) is that they see the global warming problem not as a problem to be solved but as a way to get people to accept things they otherwise would not accept (and won’t accept even with the threat of global warming, hence why those who listen to them aren’t solving global warming.

   Those of us who want the problem solved get extremely annoyed at those who see it as a means to a different end (destroying capitalism, fighting globalisation, going back to a more primitive time or whatever).

   Oh and there are people who think global warming is a conspiracy to get people to accept nuclear power.

7. I guess I’m an AGW. This is what I know: “Fighting Global Warming” would be beyond easy. If emissions destroy the environment, and over-using water out-taps rescources, and pesticides kill fish and contaminate everything, blah blah blah, where is the movement to quit driving to work, catch your own water, and grow your own food? THERE ISN’T ONE.

   Well fancy that.

   What is there?

   A desperate drive to step up the math and science education, to produce more and more engineers and economical whizzes, to compete on the global market, to out-succeed everyone else, to get more money. Everyone drives to work in a huge hurry, stops at taco bell on the way home, is exhausted working overtime to afford $100,000 solar panels and $20,000 wind turbines. Yeah, that makes a whole bunch of sense to me.

   If I were getting paid by oil corporations, I’d have running water and plenty of food for my kids.

   If I wanted grant money, I’d have to think up some reason to get a grant in the first place (any ideas?)

   And saying people are anti-environment because they are anti-environment is pretty clever. You almost got me there.

8. The funny thing about conspiracy theories is that sometimes there are conspiracies. Mostly they are just paranoid delusions. I doubt that most scientists are politicized as well. There are a couple of examples that come to my mind of highly polticized scientists, Hansen and Mann, and I cringe at even calling them scientists because they have strayed so far from it.

9. I will address the environmental agenda and those associated with it including AGW and why it is obvious certain groups in big oil are funding them. This financial interest first became obvious in the 50s when the push for nuclear power began running into very well funded corporate lawyers calling themselves environmental protectionists. These lawyers burned through millions of dollars of court time fighting every single proposed power plant until the plant builders and the government ran out of money to deal with the harassment in court. Where did all this money come from, it did not come from kids piggy banks that is for sure.

   Remember that Standard Oil and its associate companies bought up all of the coal companies by the end of the First World War. For details read Upton Sinclair’s King Coal and OIL. Every politician that has fought against nuclear power, space based solar generation and all other major alternative power sources to coal and oil has been funded by this major energy player including our new president and the Clintons, Jimmy Carter and JBJ. The leader of this group of financial speculators and predatory capitalists was even written into the Batman stories as the Penguin because of his love for wearing a Tux all the time and his distinctive walk. His brother who was a governor and vice president was also featured in Superman as a master criminal.

   But kids today are not as well informed and educated as we were when I went to school unfortunately and Inductive thinking has become the norm today as against the deductive reasoning I was raised to use.

10. Pro AGW
    – Anticapitalism/Anti human
    – Anti nuclear power
    – Anti any realistic energy plan
    – Evil
    – Treating AGW like religion

    Anti AGW (
    – Realistic energy plan using a mix of anything which provides cheap and efficient energy to all
    – Anti big government
    – Promoting safe nuclear power.
    – promoting any renewable energy source THAT IS CHEAP ADN EFFICIENT.
    – More concerned with science than the AGW religion.

11. I still think that AGW proponents are in bed with Big Ethanol, Big Hydrogen, Big Solar, and Big Wind.

    Now there’s a conspiracy.

12. I’m just fat up with the enviromental movement just because it has become the new “in fad thing”. Kind of like my mom was with The Sound Of Music movie when it came out. She didn’t go see it and poeple would say to her “What, you haven’t seen The Sound of Music.” She got so tired of hearing that that she refused to see it. That is how I feel about the whole global warming thing. I think it is happening, but sometime I am like “Good grief, get a life.” so to speak.