Tag: Tyndall Centre

What Green MP Caroline Lucas Should Know about Liberal Fascism…

Bourgeois eco-fascism on the rise

In today’s Guardian Britain’s first and (thank Gaia!) only Green MP Caroline Lucas tells us that climate change is “one of the greatest threats” to Britain since the Second World War. Her solution is for Britain to “mobilise as a nation in a way we haven’t seen since 1945”.

What this means (as is clear from the new report – entitled The New Home Front – which she launched today at the Imperial War Museum) is government rationing of food and energy, bans on unnecessary journeys, the abolition of property rights, extensive Ministry of Information-style propaganda campaigns and massive wealth re-distribution.

According to Lucas, this will be OK because of the magic it works on social cohesion, just like during the war when we all pulled together.

People put up with so much disruption and deprivation because they knew there was no alternative, and because they believed society would emerge stronger at the end of the war.

Perhaps it’s time Lucas read Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism, which anatomises this mindset just perfectly.

Crisis is routinely identified as a core mechanism of fascism because it short-circuits debate and democratic deliberation. Hence all fascist movements commit considerable energy to prolonging a heightened state of emergency.

Fascism, Goldberg explains, is not a movement of the political right but of the political left. It is a “religion of the State”.

It is totalitarian in that it views everything as political and holds that any action by the state is justified achieve the common good. It takes responsibility for all aspects of life, including our health and well-being, and seeks to impose uniformity of thought and action, whether by force or through regulation and social pressure.

Now compare this with what Lucas says in the Guardian today:

Of course, much of what we cover in the report is really the responsibility of government. But it is as if the country’s politicians are scared of their own people. They know that we must act now on climate change, but are frightened to introduce the necessary measures in case it alienates the voters. I hope this report will increase pressure on politicians and reassure them that, once people in Britain understand what needs to be done and are convinced that everyone will be treated fairly, then they will respond with the same creativity and commitment as in the dark days of the war.

She makes it sound as if the public will be allowed to have some choice in the matter. But will they? Try decoding this weasel sentence from the report, produced by the hardcore environmentalist think tank the Tyndall Centre:

The most effective policies and approaches should be re-interpreted for today and built into our programmes with an enabling regulatory environment, targets, timetables and appropriate resources.

Doesn’t sound like a recipe for free markets and freedom of choice, does it?

In fact one of the few things scarier than Lucas’s smiling, Malvern-Girls’-College-educated brand of bourgeois eco-fascism is the sort of person to whom it appeals.

Here is one of them responding at Komment Macht Frei:

Personally i think a nice big nuclear war would rid us of our problems. Most of the human on this planet have no respect for it so i cant say i would miss those who would perish anyway. Let the cockroaches have a go….

And here’s one that proved too much like strong tofu even for the tastes of Komment Macht Frei’s notoriously eco-biased censors: (H/T Henry Brubaker)

As I sit here in Brisbane the bodies of children are, quite literaly, floating down the river outside my flat.
I’ll assume it is only pure ignorance on your part that prevents you from realising just how offensive your climate change denial has become to the millions of people who are, have been, and will become, victims of it.’

‘And perleeese. Don’t further compound your faux pas by trying to claim that “it’s all due to La Nina”. If you tried that here in Brisbane you would get your face smashed in.’

Related posts:

  1. Green MP Caroline Lucas tries to keep science out of climate science
  2. The greatest threat of the 21st century: not AGW but Eco-Fascism
  3. Green jobs? Wot green jobs? (pt 242)
  4. What Dave and his chum Barack don’t want you to know about green jobs and green energy

18 thoughts on “What Green MP Caroline Lucas should know about Liberal Fascism…”

  1. Groper says:23rd January 2011 at 5:21 amBit rich of you to describe everything not remotely extreme rightwing as fascism when liberatrian fascism would have gladly layed the red carpet out for the Schutzstaffel. Drink out of the piss pot of your grandmaster misinformer Goebbels. Heinrich’s rectum cleaner than the surface of a silicon wafer. In fact, you look so much like Himmler he would have graciously taken you on as his favourite grandson. Both of you spectacle chinless wonders could feed off each others’ hate agenda.
  2. Hannam says:23rd January 2011 at 12:14 pmGroper: You are totally insane. Please see a Doctor for your own good. Best wishes.
  3. Chris P says:23rd January 2011 at 4:43 pm“a political theory advocating an authoritarian hierarchical government (as opposed to democracy or liberalism)” – definition.

    Delingpole – must be related to Ann Coulter. Is just as clueless and make stupid nasty remarks and gets paid for it.

    What skills do you have apart from writing drivel?

  4. Manuel says:24th January 2011 at 2:00 pmJust trying to translate the previous comments, in the interests of civilised discourse, I presume that Groper and Chris P disagree with your definition of fascism. It’s a little hard to tell. Groper’s argument seems to be that libertarianism would have been as useless as the Weimar constitution was at preventing the rise of the Nazis, before wandering off in some comparison with Nazis, although if anyone can add a verb to the silicon wafer comment it might help.

    Chris P – having read quite a few in-depth studies of the phenomenon (may I rec ommend Roger Griffin’s “Modernism and Fascism”), yours is perhaps the worst definition I’ve seen as it only seems to refer to the structure of government rather than attempt to tackle anything about beliefs; fascism is hardly unique in advocating “authoritarian hierarchical government” now, is it?. I’d suggest that any definition must at least have a reference to the total state control, such as Mussolini’s “nothing outside the State” comment, as well as the notion of rebirth and attaining a break with the past, what Griffin calls a “palingenetic myth” or “Aufbruch”.

    I’d suggest that Delingpole getting paid for “making stupid nasty remarks” is more impressive than you two doing it for nothing.

  5. Daniel says:24th January 2011 at 9:39 pmLol. Just seen you on Horizon. Thank God youre as nutty as TV as you are in print. You came across as a total geek without the ability to process simple arguments. ‘I resent the fact that you know more about this than I do..’ *Loves it* Thank God we wont be seeing you on TV *Dances*
  6. chris says:24th January 2011 at 10:02 pmSorry to change subject but just saw you on Horizon. You did not come over too well. Bad Luck
  7. Paul M says:24th January 2011 at 10:11 pmJust witnessed Delingpole (degree in Eng Lit, not much else) telling Sir Paul Nurse (President of the Royal Society, Nobel Prize winner and a lot more) how science works, with a perfectly straight face. And some say he has lost his sense of humour.
  8. Velocity says:24th January 2011 at 10:22 pmGroper

    I see you’ve taken up the socialists usual debating stance: throw emotional shit around because you’re all out of ammo on the actual facts.
    Just for your info fascism is the corrupt partnership of Govt and the big fat corporates. It’s actually what Nu Labour became under Nu Socialists like Blair when they worked out they were total shit at running anything and they needed private expertise.
    So you cannot be a “libitarian fascist” it’s an oxymoron which describes you pretty well too.
    No why don’t you f**k off and find an argument you arse wipe

  9. Velocity says:24th January 2011 at 10:30 pmChris P

    When it comes to writing drivel James has a lot to learn from you. That’s because from the day you were born your Union shop steward father (closet Marxist) has taught you not to think but to take up the mantra (bile) of Karl Marx.

    You’ve replaced thinking and listening and learning about how the world works with accepting a century old jealous retarded German twats thinking of how it works. He talked drivel, your father taught you drivel and you talk drivel.

    Zombies R Us (it runs in the retarded socialist family tree)

  10. Velocity says:24th January 2011 at 10:51 pmJames

    Caroline Lucas is a retard and fits in well at that toilet of the country, Westminster.

    I know Danny Boy is friends with this factually dysfunctional incognitively f**ked air headed leftie loon so I don’t want to say anything too harsh against the loony bitch you understand.

    But rarely have i watched a debate where at the start she cried about our melting world drowning in rising sea levels. And at the end said we needed to get the green message across in a less shrill and hysterical way, but more down to earth trying to get across the benefits of changing from private cars to public transport!

    I think she’d had way too many uppers before she got on stage and realising overdosed on downers near the end in the interim completely forgetting her words and that she was coming across as a schizo freak not quite of this planet.

    As i said, should fit in well at Westminster

  11. Groper says:25th January 2011 at 6:19 amThe problem is, I don’t think Velocity or Delingpole know exactly what libertarianism is about. Just their blind loyalty to it. But one thing for sure about libertarianism, is its loathsome attitute to anything left, centrist or mainstream; and its preaching of taking America back to its founding fathers. Just like the Nazi movement’s staunch anti-communist stance and the mission to take Germany back to its traditional roots.

    And funny, perhaps, not so, just so happens it was borne out of the knee jerk reaction to America’s first president of half black decent.

    Libertarianism is fascism… of the Nazi order…

  12. Mike says:25th January 2011 at 9:10 amGet intellectually raped last night, did you?
  13. Groper says:25th January 2011 at 9:28 amManuel, I’m not here to impress you with anything. But the fact that you seem to admit to being impressed by Delingpole’s stupid remarks says a lot about you…
  14. Will says:25th January 2011 at 10:03 amIn last nights Horizon programme Delingpole said he didn’t have time to read scientific papers on climate change. Why not? If he spent half the time learning enough basic science to understand the relevant papers and then reading them as he does slagging off the climate science community – on the basis of second-hand cherry picked and distorted information (and some downright lies) – he could actually end up knowing his bum from a bath towel on the subject. I am ashamed to have attended the same school as this shallow lightweight (though about 20 years earlier)- but then I did study science and not English literature!
  15. Chris P says:25th January 2011 at 4:12 pmVelocity

    My father wasn’t the source of my knowledge or opinion. Seeing how clueless Republicans and libertarians are about science and the environment was the basis for my opinion on those clowns.

    “Fascism” is being used here totally out of context. Liberals are not Mussolini. You know it but want to emulate Limbaugh, Palin, Beck and Coulter. Throwing outrageous snarky remarks around rather than contributing to solutions for the future of the planet.

    It’s all you’ve got.

  16. DoubleU says:25th January 2011 at 7:45 pmJames, check out this video link where a former member of the Obama administration admits environmentalism is about socialism.

    http://www.breitbart.tv/van-jones-environmentalism-is-really-all-about-social-justice/

  17. D Segal says:25th January 2011 at 10:55 pmOn a couple of side notes:

    1: Your peformance on Horizon last night was less than extrordinary; understand the Peer-Review process and gain some sort of reasonable scientific understanding before you have the audacity to critisise any of it.

    2: Take into account all of the data when examining the issues concerning Global Warming and don’t just cherry-pick data to suite your own ends. A Rank Correlation Coefficient between the percentage of global CO2 levels and average yearly global temperatures will yeild some quite interesting results.

    3: Based on your “About Me” page, you write in meaningless generic buzz words, don’t you?

  18. Nige Cook says:29th January 2011 at 10:33 pmHi D Segal,

    The peer-review process is just just what it says on the label: an old boy’s mutual back-slapping, mutually citing, “I’ll pass your papers if you pass mine” piece of obsolete politics masquerading as science.

    Did you know that Newton’s Principia overthrew the groupthink peer-reviewed orthodoxy of Aristotle, that Darwin’s Origin of Species overthrew orthodox creationism, and that when Einstein first experienced peer-review by the editor of Physical Review in 1936, he immediately replied to the editor that he objected and would never publish there again?

    Do you seriously believe that relativity could ever have been published in a peer-review culture stuck in Maxwell’s mechanical aether?

    Really?

    I doubt it.

    Kind regards,
    Nige Cook

Comments are closed.

Ceci n’est pas un bonhomme de neige! | James Delingpole

December 1, 2010

snowman

Some of you may be looking out of your windows right now and think that the white stuff floating down from the sky is snow. It is not, of course. What the white stuff actually is the purely imaginary creation of your false consciousness. You see it because you want to see it; because in your evil, selfish, refusing-to-change-your-pampered-Western-lifestyle way you think it offers proof that man-made global warming doesn’t exist.

How can I be so sure? Well, even if you were to discount what the experts at the Met Office are telling us about this being the hottest year since at least the Holocene Optimum, the experts’ expert tells us so.

Who is the experts’ expert?

Why shame on you for not knowing!

His name is Dr David Viner, he used to work at Britain’s world-renowned Climatic Research Unit at the famed University of East Anglia, and in 2000 in the Independent he made the expert prediction that snow would soon become a “rare and exciting event”.

“Children just aren’t going to know what snow is,” he said.

Well some of you cynics may scoff, but I for one am glad that we live in a caring, nurturing Steve Hilton and David Cameron style society which takes care of weapons-grade pillocks and throws more public money at them rather than one of those horrid, efficient Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan type one where people are answerable for their idiocies and don’t get bailed out with taxpayer’s cash.

That’s why I’m delighted to remind those of you who don’t know that Dr David “Nostradamus” Viner now has a plum job, funded by you and me, running a £10 million scheme at the British Council to raise awareness of global warming among young people abroad.

I’m even more delighted to report that as a man of conviction, he has not allowed a few awkward winters get in the way of his pet theory. Earlier this year – ie last godawful winter, not this godawful one – he told the Daily Mail that he stood by his 2000 prediction:

‘We’ve had three weeks of relatively cold weather, and that doesn’t change anything.

‘This winter is just a little cooler than average, and I still think that snow will become an increasingly rare event.’

And while we’re on the subject of expert experts, a reader (pls remind me who you are so I can hat tip you) kindly draws my attention to a side project of Professor Kevin Anderson, director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change. Professor Anderson, you’ll recall, was the expert extensively quoted in the Telegraph yesterday arguing that the only way to save the world from the evils of man made global warming was by sharply reining in our decadent Western lifestyles and introducing 1940s style rationing.

Prof Anderson, I note, is a non-executive director of Greenstone Carbon Management, which makes a pretty penny advising clients including Eversheds, Clifford Chance, Fujitsu, Henderson Global Investors, Ocado,and Virgin UK on how to reduce their carbon emissions. Since Greenstone’s function would be entirely redundant were it not for a regulatory climate whose existence owes itself the supposedly independent scientific expertise of research organisations like the Tyndall Centre, you can see why Professor Anderson got his job.

I hope Professor Anderson is properly remunerated for his expert expertise. It’s another of the things I really like about Coalition Britain: as men of the world, people like David Cameron understand that money is far too valuable to let ghastly tradesmen, vulgar entrepreneurs and other sweaty self-employed people get their filthy hands on too much of it. The job of government, the Whiggish Cameron and his crew fully understand, is to ensure that the economy remains just another form of political patronage. “Climate change” keeps money with the right people; the government’s people; people like Dr David Viner and Professor Kevin Anderson and that is entirely as it should be.

UPDATE: I’ve just had an email from Kevin Anderson about his role at Greenstone

My comment simply refers to my position in Greenstone. I DO NOT take any money other than basic expenses (2nd class train) from Greenstone. I spoke on Five Live yesterday evening and was offered £80  – which is being donated directly from the BBC to our research funds where it will likely be used by Tyndall PhD researchers. Over the past few years I have led on about £250k of consultancy along with giving talks for which a fee was proffered. As far as I am aware (a genuine and very rare exception may have occurred – the world isn’t perfect) I have taken none of this money. I broadly hold to your view about ‘elites’ taking money for all sorts of things that in my view they should not be remunerated. I take a view that I should survive on my very good salary (around £60k) and not accept additional funds and I try to persuade those around me to do so also. I can assure you, however much you may disagree with my analysis and conclusions on climate change, I am not working in this area to make more than my salary, and I can also advise you that since working in this area my quality of life has suffered as I make some reasonable effort to reduce my emissions. This has had (and is having) serious family, friends and work repercussions – but I think it is important those committed to the findings of their analysis should broadly abide by what they are requesting others to do.

I must say I’m quite seriously impressed with this. It goes without saying that I continue to think the cause Professor Anderson is fighting for is one of the most monstrous con tricks in history and that the damage the campaigning of institutions like the Tyndall Centre will do politically, economically, socially and indeed environmentally is almost incalculable. But I salute his integrity. Unlike, say, Al Gore, it sounds as if Prof Anderson walks the walk as well as talks the talk. I am glad to set the record straight on his finances and I’m really sorry to have maligned him on that score.

We’re on totally the opposite sides of the fence Prof Anderson and I think you’re a ruddy menace. But after what you’ve told me just now about “elites” – and your not-as-disgusting-as-I’d-imagined salary – I also think you’re a kindred spirit. Professor Anderson, you have just gone from being this column’s hate figure to Hero Of The Week.

One Response to “Ceci n’est pas un bonhomme de neige!”

  1. Velocity says:December 1, 2010 at 5:44 pmLondon is -12 at the mo, Warsaw and Berlin are both having record freezes of -17 as is much of Europe and America.Of course this in only “weather” (this years temps). It’s not “climate” (10 year periods as defined by the UN’s IPCC).

    The UK’s roads have 9 million potholes and once again Councils are bleating excuses for being “unprepared” and “underfunded” by central Gov’t.

    Considering the vast fortunes spent by the very same incompetents on green this and that, Gov’t grafetti and road safety barriers, high wheel crushing curbs and the dumbest machine on earth, the traffic (jam) light, it appears once again the Gov’t are mis-alocating (p*ssing away) resources on all the wrong targets.

    Lord Young was right, the British have “never had it so good”. He was referring to the orgy of spending by the public sector and the armies of staff none of whom has ever added any value to any daily need of the citizen that pays for this clown show of incompetence and corruption.