I went along to hear ex-Greenpeace founder Patrick Moore last night and a very rewarding evening it was. A fellow Canadian and from our west coast so I may even have travelled in the same circles during the dropout stage of my life in the early 70s. I certainly knew whereof he spoke. I encourage you to go along, and also catch up with him on Andrew Bolt tomorrow. He has a roadshow presentation which you can hear for yourself, so I will stick to the Q&A which was as interesting as the rest. And if you are of the opinion you have heard it all before, you may have but I hadn’t so it may be worth your while. He has also not yet been scheduled for an interview by the Trotskyists at the ABC.
First my own question, which is something that worries me a very great deal. Moore presented a long line of statistics and other evidence, some I was familiar with and some I wasn’t, in large part pointing to the fraudulence of the global warming scam but also dealing with other areas of the environmental movement and the massive damage it is causing. So my question was to point out that anyone who has the inclination to follow the evidence and look at the data has already caught on and understands there is nothing to concern us. What, therefore, do you think, I asked, about green policies really being a form of religious observance, not science based, and therefore unreachable by the use of rational argument. To which he replied:
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“I have no answer.”
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I think that is the same answer I have and it is the essence of the problem. There is always some stray fact or random event that will keep people who desperately want to believe the worst about our way of life from straying from the fold. There are no crucial tests they set themselves. There is no actual standard, such as actually seeing whether or not temperatures have actually risen, which you would think ought to be fundamental. To a true fundamentalist there is no evidence actually required. The old cartoonist standard of the old man with the “we are doomed” sign is the mainstream. We live in an age of faith and nothing is allowed to disturb that faith.
The other answer to a question I found interesting was about why the environmental movement has been able to maintain such a strong position in spite of the massive harm it does and the absence of any serious factual basis for their claims. This was his answer:
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There is a great convergence of our elites, each of which sees advantage to themselves in promoting and going along with the environmentalists:
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1) the greens
2) politicians
3) the media
4) the grant-seeking academic community
5) businesses who want to look green as a promotional activity
6) most religions
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That is a formidable combination that, quite frankly, I don’t see any prospect of defeating. In more authoritarian regimes green politics is a nullity but here in the West, I can see it is one more reason to believe we are at the end of time. It is only the fantastic cost to individuals that may eventually slow but never stop the damage being done. When your electricity bill is $1000 a quarter, there may be some reconsideration. In the meantime, I might go and get myself one of those “we are doomed” signs for myself.