What'sUpWithThatWatts, et al.: #7/7 environmentalism and environmentalists - Dissecting Lindzen's intrinsic obtuseness

This is where it all started nearly three weeks ago. Now, with a few adjustments, it's the final chapter of my review of an interview by Alex Epstein with Professor Richard Lindzen on his "Power Hour" program. I took the time and trouble to transcribe much of it in order to focus on Lindzen's bizarre version of reality and to juxtapose it against history and the known science.

In this final installment we consider professor Lindzen's intrinsic obtuseness regarding environmentalism and environmentalists.

part one (the "real" questions)

part two (the conspiracy)

part three (the government driving AGW)

part four (Nature in balance?)

part five (spurious feedback mechanisms)

part six (Iris Effect, clouds and vapor)

Power Hour: Questioning Climate Science with Dr. Richard Lindzen October 22, 2012 | Alex Epstein

Richard Lindzen joins Alex Epstein to talk about perspectives on climate change:

Questions about climate
“Balance” in nature
The goals of environmentalists

1:45  Alex:  Whenever I read one of his (RL) papers I get almost emotional just by the level of clarity and diligence and utter lack of any kind of appeal to authority.

3:05  Lindzen: What bothers me about this issue is the intrinsic obtuseness of the questions. ...

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59:35 Lindzen: ... you're touching on something interesting, which is environmentalism, whatever it's nastiness and ugliness, it is largely an urban phenomena. And I think it really, really depends on people having no sense of what nature is at all.

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What an astoundingly hostile and ignorant thing to say.

"Environmentalism" is a term defining an attitude towards recognizing the biological webs that sustain our planet's life support system - also known as our biosphere.

It's not a people, nor a party - but Lindzen won't allow himself to recognize that. All he sees is enemies.

Listen to Lindzen going straight for the jugular:
"environmentalism = nastiness and ugliness"
Earlier it was likened to Eugenics, I'll admit, it's impossible for me to fathom the malicious mind that can conceive such an absurd connection.

There's nothing rational about it, it's political theater and hate mongering for votes and profit, nothing more.

Consider for a moment what "Environmentalism" actually is:

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/189205/environmentalism

"environmentalism, political and ethical movement that seeks to improve and protect the quality of the natural environment through changes to environmentally harmful human activities; through the adoption of forms of political, economic, and social organization that are thought to be necessary for, or at least conducive to, the benign treatment of the environment by humans; and through a reassessment of humanity’s relationship with nature.
In various ways, environmentalism claims that living things other than humans, and the natural environment as a whole, are deserving of consideration in reasoning about the morality of political, economic, and social policies."

Why is that seen as such a threat???
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57:00 Lindzen: It depends on attracting people for whom nature itself is almost a meaningless concept, and they'll believe anything.

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'Nature' as a meaningless concept?

I've listened to and read Lindzen's claptrap for way too many years and he has yet to reflect the slightest awareness of the folds within folds of harmonic, constructive, complexity out there in the "natural world".

He may have once been a super-brain at playing with formulas and mathematics. But, he has never offered any conceptual understanding of our planet, or the many connections within our climate system. He micro focuses on one aspect and ignores the rest.

Rather than teaching about the climate system professor Lindzen relies on slandering working climate scientists and other concerned individuals to make his case.

Thing is that won't help us understand what's happening within our climate system!

And while Lindzen is spewing slander why should we be blind to his intimate connection to economic free corporate market boosters - and how that dependency has clouded his objectivity. Listen to the way he words his statements, it's all political theater, there's no more inquisitive science left in the man, it's all biased opinionating.

Incidentally, while he and his pals, the deep-pocketed 'masters of the universe,' are laughing in contempt at 'environmentalists', this is what's going down in the real world:

§ The evidence that our burning of fossil fuels is causing our "global heat distribution engine" to warm up.

http://www.bgs.ac.uk/discoveringGeology/climateChange/CCS/Anthropogenic.html

§ That warming (read, energizing) our global heat distribution engine impact the rhythms of the global biosphere that humanity and society has developed within.

http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/rosenzweig_02/

§ That a warming climate system energizes our atmosphere's hydrology, both by increasing the amount of water the troposphere holds and by increasing the energy that needs to be dissipated?

http://www.waterencyclopedia.com/Ge-Hy/Global-Warming-and-the-Hydrologic-Cycle.html

http://www.els.net/WileyCDA/ElsArticle/refId-a0020480.html

§ That our food supply systems dependent on the established rhythms of our 'current' seasons and rain patterns.

http://www.usda.gov/oce/climate_change/effects_2012/CC%20and%20Agriculture%20Report%20(02-04-2013)b.pdf

http://www.nc-climate.ncsu.edu/edu/k12/ClimateChange-Ag

§ That increasingly warming planet will cause it's cryosphere to continue melting at increasing rates.

http://nsidc.org/cryosphere/sotc

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/

http://globalcryospherewatch.org

§ That melting and warming cause global sea levels to rise.

http://sealevel.colorado.edu

http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/publications/NOAA_Technical_Report_NOS_COOPS_073.pdf

http://phys.org/news/2013-06-sea-rose-mmyear.html

§ That rising sea levels wll impact coastal installations such a shipping ports, oil refineries, coastal cities and subsurface infrastructure, tourist hotel strips, and barrier island real estate holdings, estuaries and water-tables, to mention but a few.

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2011/may/seaports-climate-change-051611.html

https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/sites/default/files/events/20130304-sea-ports/20130304-sea-ports-annotated-agenda.pdf

Sea level rise blog

http://johnenglander.net
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I mean professor Lindzen and his crowd doesn't even seem to care that the math of compounding interest is as real for our planet as it is for finances.
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58:30 Lindzen: I think, how should I put it, in America it's much clearer than elsewhere, that these things have become right/left issues and you almost have the feeling with people like (John) Holdren and (Paul) Ehrlich and people on the left and their ilk.

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OK professor when do we get to talk about your extreme right wing passions and your financial interests and how all that taints your objectivity?

What's so disgusting is that America allowed this strategy of shrill personal slander to overwhelm a sober appraisal of the scientific evidence at hand.

Not the slightest curiosity of what these highly accomplished individuals might have to teach us. Instead our Dr. Lindzen has his litmus test then relies on juvenile insults to dismiss voices and information he doesn't want to hear - thus blinding people to those potential learning opportunities.

Why do we allow it?

Will we never realize that we need all sides to work though this crisis we've created for ourselves? Oh yea, the professor assures us there's no problem.

PS. If you aren't alarmed, you aren't paying attention!

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Lindzen: That their greatest enemy is prosperity, and ah, without, if you could get a prosperity and dependent population that would be docile.

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It's like some cheap Italian Opera: the bad environmentalists who hate our way of life, waa, waa, waa… It never crosses Dr. Lindzen's mind, that most environmentally conscientious people are as in love with modern gadgets and marvels, as he is?

But these people appreciate that we can't hide from the real harm all those wonderful modern marvels are causing to the web of life that sustains us.

And their "environmentalism" was/is their way of trying to achieve a sustainable society where our children could continue enjoying our prosperity - rather than the current guaranteed dive bomb into challenges and terrors we can't yet imagine.

Why don't the super smart Lindzens of the world ever stop to realize that our marvelous modern society is dependent on this "environment" he/they display such disregard for?

Dr. Lindzen's contempt is reflected in the fact that he discourages learning about our planet's 'global heat distribution engine' - instead seeming to have a pathological focus on 'economy' and 'free market business' interests as though that's more powerful than our planet's life support systems that made all this possible in the first place.

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59:00 Alex Epstein (past fellow of the Ayn Rand Institute.): And have a low environmental impact?

Lindzen: I don't think they care about it anymore than the Soviet Union cared about it, to be honest. It's just a vehicle. There's nothing in the environmental movement that if you look at it carefully is actually concerned with the environment, they just use it as a kind of device.

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HELLO DR. LINDZEN it's 2015, wake up, the Cold War is over!

This one is very telling, it highlights Dr. Lindzen's problem, he's still trapped within the mind warp of the Cold War Faithful and is blind to everything else.

As for looking at it carefully, Lindzen has never attempted to do that, he's content with unidirectional skepticism, cheap talk and name-calling, as is his audience.
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Alex: What about the non-human environment?

Lindzen: Well like what? (in a tone bewilderment)

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Listen to the tone in the man's voice. He can't even conceive of the notion.
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Alex: Well like the kangaroo rat that they save at the expense of a home.

Lindzen: What about a kangaroo rat?

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This got a chuckle outta me, now I shared Lindzen's confusion, where did that kangaroo rat come from?

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Alex: I'm just saying that their core belief seems to be that they're willing to sacrifice human well-being to wilderness. Untouched nature.

Lindzen: Yeah, I think that's just a device, to control. I don't think it's a real concern. If you can pass a radical enough law about endangered species that's another mode of control.

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Here's an indication how disconnected these guys are. Everyone paying attention knows that the battle to protect "untouched nature" was lost around the time of the 'Great' Wars (WWI and WWII). Environmentalism has since been reduced to attempting to save remnant patches of relatively unspoiled biodiversity.

But, more important than that - "environmentalism" is about "Earth Appreciation" after all this planet nurtured mankind and makes our existence possible - our health and wellbeing in directly linked to our biosphere's health and wellbeing. Something Republicans and libertarians do their best to ignore!

I mean possessing a genuine curiosity and desire to learn about the incredible folds within folds of harmonic complexity cascading down the river of time that makes up this creation surrounding us. All those communities and networks and dynamic circulation patterns and interactions that make Earth the wondrous, unique place it is.

But wait, there's more! The purely pragmatic, self interested, angle - our society is absolutely dependent on those folds of complexity and fairly benign and predictable weather patterns.

Environmentalism is about better understanding and appreciating those patterns that make our existence possible, in the first place!

What the hell is wrong with that professor?!

What kind of fools are willfully blind to the realities of the geophysical planet that sustains us? Believing in a "Holy" book and a Business Plan with every ounce of one's being doesn't change the rules our planet has abided by since the dawn of time.

Dr. Lindzen, environmentalism is about accepting the geophysical realities of our planet Earth.

Why do you hold all of that in such contempt?

Why do you advocate willful ignorance?
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Here's some information about this Alex Epstein and his Randian for profit think tank:

"Center for Industrial Progress"

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http://www.desmogblog.com/center-industrial-progress

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Review: “The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels”. Really?

by Rob Hopkins | February 4, 2015

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CPAC panelist (Alex Epstein) accuses climate activists of “human racism”

http://www.salon.com/2014/03/10/cpac_panelist_accuses_climate_activists_of_human_racism/

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CPAC Panelist: 'Human Racism' Drives Climate Change Concern