Extinction Rebellion: When Prophesy Fails

[quote from Factfulness by Hans Rosling page 229]

"We need to create Fear!" That's what Al Gore said to me [Hans Rosling] at the start of our first conversation about how to teach climate change.

[unquote]

Hans Rosling declined Al Gore's invitation.

(By the way if you want a really excellent view on what is really happening to the world read Factfulness by Hans Rosling it is HERE)

But not everyone has the same scruples as Hans Rosling.

Unable to galvanise people to their cause by rational discourse many politicised proponents of "doing something" about Global warming/Climate Change/Climate Emergency have done exactly what Al Gore suggested to Hans Rosling.

They have deliberately gone out of their way to create a climate of fear. As an example today in the UK every out-of-the-ordinary weather event is somehow blamed on Global Warming.

Even when a reservoir Dam gets badly damaged by a ten year event (see here) it is somehow blamed on Global Warming rather than substandard maintenance.

I have to ask: SHOULDN'T a dam withstand a ten year event intact? Global warming or no global warming?

But all this fear mongering gathers like puss in a sceptic wound and now we have the inevitable result: Extinction Rebellion.

Extinction Rebellion is one of the more alarming cults to emerge in recent years.

The invisible controllers behind the organisation appear to target children. These children are then used in much the same way as African War lords use child soldiers or Drug dealers use child runners. To ensure loyalty to the cause they feed them panicky end-of-days predictions along with a sense of grievance about a "lost" future "stolen" by selfish seniors.

Let us look at the central prophesy promoted by Extinction Rebellion and their camp followers.

So, do we have only 18 months to "Save the Planet"?

The statement appears to have coalesced in this BBC article .

To be fair this 18 months is not actually a hard deadline where we all drop dead at the end of it. It is a deadline where "something has to be done".

That something appears to involve a lot of rich and powerful folk descending in Lear Jets on a few resorts and making some fatuous political statements.

So it is perhaps one of the easier prophesies to achieve. It is also one that can be successfully used to draw away from the failed climate prophesies of the last twenty years.

Take this statement from the above BBC article:

[quote]
But today, observers recognise that the decisive, political steps to enable the cuts in carbon to take place will have to happen before the end of next year. 
[unquote]

So, who are these "observers"?
What are these "political steps"?
Who finally makes the call in 18 months time as to whether the planet is saved?

This all seems somewhat less clear.

What is clear is that (short of a Global recession) Carbon emissions are not going to stop rising in the  next 18 months, let alone decrease.

China and India who together make up the bulk of coal users in the world are not going to stop improving the lives of their peoples. Nor should they.

So should the West then do the "decent" thing and abandon their peoples to poverty?
Should we revert to some pre-industrial idyll? (that never existed) and do all this to prevent (so the theory states) a rise of more than 1.5 degC over the next century?

Personally I don't do poverty.

Even the IPCC doesn't do poverty. Their more sober predictions amount to a reduction in the rate of increase of the world's prosperity NOT a decline.

Really we need to put the risk from Global warming into perspective. According to the IPCC it may impact the rate of improvement in the world economy but it will not stop that improvement. Let alone reverse it.

Carbon emission reductions or not, the world is not going to collapse into some form of dystopian ecological catastrophe. Whatever the likes of Extinction Rebellion get their child soldiers to say.

The only way it may collapse into a nightmare of increasing poverty, reduced opportunity and blighted futures is if we allow the True believers and their disciples to call the tune.

So what should we do about Global Warming??

All the progress that has been made over the last two centuries has hinged around cheap effective energy. What has been shown time and time again is that if energy supply is not long-term cheap and 24/7 effective, it is not worthwhile.

While the effects of Global Warming may be bad, they would pale into insignificance if we allowed the billions recently lifted out of dollar-a-day poverty by cheap and plentiful energy to slide back down into it again.

Yet there are viable alternatives to coal and oil (aka: gas and nuclear) that will (and do) reduce emissions without pushing people into poverty. But sadly they are not fashionable or extreme enough for the likes of Extinction Rebellion.

Whatever we do, we must not throw two centuries of progress down the toilet simply to appease a cult.

Today I read that some elements with Extinction Rebellion are going on what they laughably call a baby strike. In other words they will not be having any children.

That is of course their choice. Personally I would consider their choice a wise one bearing in mind their lack of stability.

But worryingly this nihilism is only one step away from the next cult fantasy: The ultimate sacrifice.

Like all cults, the the young and gullible are the foot soldiers. Frightened little girls and boys swept up into an apocalyptic cult by the "fear" as prescribed by Al Gore.

If we keep appeasing the zealots running this cult then one day we will find we have another Jonestown or Heavens Gate to deal with. An avoidable tragedy where the victims will be kids. Kids who will have been in a perverse way, scared to death.

For them there really will be no future.

Al Gore: When Prophesy Fails.

Back in 2006 Al Gore made the following statement:

“And politicians and corporations have been ignoring the issue for decades, to the point that unless drastic measures to reduce greenhouse gases are taken within the next 10 years, the world will reach a point of no return … A true Planetary emergency.”
[CBS News "Al Gore Does Sundance" 2006]

For those who doubt the CBS report and deny he actually said this, may I just refer you to this Al Gore Interview YouTube Video from 2017.

and this Snopes Fact Check.

I’m actually not snarking at Al Gore. But clearly as it is now 2019, 10 years have been and gone.

What I’m interested in is his response (and that of others) to this failed prophesy. 

It looks to me that the responses fit (rather alarmingly well) with Leon Festinger’s concept of “Cognitive Dissonance” which he demonstrated with his interactions with a 1950's dooms-day cult in the USA. Its recorded in his book "When Prophesy Fails" (book link: Amazon HERE)

Festinger showed that under certain circumstances, rather than reducing belief, a failed prophesy (or disconfirmation as Festinger calls it) can not only significantly increase belief but also lead to enhanced proselytising on behalf of the belief.

Festingers rules for this to happen were as follows

1. The belief must be held with deep conviction and be relevant to the believer's actions or behaviour.

2. The belief must have produced actions that are arguably difficult to undo.

3. The belief must be sufficiently specific and concerned with the real world such that it can be clearly disconfirmed.

4. The disconfirmatory evidence must be recognized by the believer.

5. The believer must have social support from other believers.

Lets apply that to Al Gore.

1. I would suggest that he strongly believes in the righteousness of his cause.

2. He (and many others) had taken drastic and costly action.

3. The belief “10 years… point of no return” is clear.

4. In the video he clearly acknowledges the failure of the prophesy.

5. As the ad-hoc head of a movement, clearly he has lots of social support.

So rather than questioning the parameters of his failed prophesy, Al Gore (along with many of his supporters and co-followers) doubles down on his primary belief and pseudo-rationalises the disconfirmation.

Take Al Gore in the video interview above. When confronted with the disconfirmation he justifies the failed prophesy roughly as so:

“We have seen a decline in emissions (on a global basis) so they’ve stabilised and in some cases have started to decline.... Some of the responses of the last ten years have helped but unfortunately a lot of damage has been done…...”

His statement that somehow greenhouse gas emissions FELL from 2006 to 2016 is a palpable nonsense. But it fits with exactly what you would expect with cognitive dissonance from a true believer.

Incidentally Here’s the emissions graph 2006 -2017

Meanwhile others seek to minimise their cognitive dissonance by denying that Al Gore ever said such a thing!

It becomes “nasty” propaganda by “trolls”. See this Guest Piece on pro-AGW Skeptical Science blog. 

Ironically all the references the author rages at with a cut-paste from Facebook are in fact fairly accurate renditions of what Al Gore really did say on January 25th, 2006 in a speech, while at the Sundance film festival. 

The author identifies the original source as a  "Climate Denial Blog". I am sure CBS News would be mortified. (original CBS News story link: Here ) 

Unfortunately this cognitive dissonance seriously affects both out ability to continue improving the world and also prevents us from moving away from panic responses to Global Warming. It stops us taking a viable approach to reducing pollution and world emissions.

But I fear worse is to come. (though not from Al Gore who I believe is an honourable man)

As item 5 from Festingers list (social support grouping) gets more intense, Climate Emergency proponents are going into over-drive proselytising their extremist view. As each day goes by they look more and more like a dangerous cult.

With groups like Extinction Rebellion focusing on the most easily led in our society (i.e. children) I fear we may be in a deadly downward spiral.

As discomfirmation follows disconfirmation some of the less gullible may escape. But others will be held in an ever tightening grip of the cults fanaticism.

I fear that one day we may not wake up to just another silly protest in London or New York.

But to another Jonestown Massacre or Heavens Gate death pact.

Planetary Extinction: When Prophesy fails

I changed the tag line to my blog recently. Now I’ve changed it back again.

I had changed it to the a leading quote from a famous doom-laden apocalyptic treatise from the 1970’s called “The Doomsday Book” (Its still here on these links Amazon UK & Amazon USA)

The quote was:

“If you believe that you will survive the next 30 years think again!”

I tagged it with the author and the date of publication

“Gordon Rattray-Taylor (1972)”

I had hoped that the “1972” would be an amusing give-a-way and that people would realise that since publication 47 years have elapsed.

But sadly no.

It seems at least one of my readers thought Billothewisp had himself turned into a doomster.

Of course I hadn’t. It was just my joke had fallen flat.

But then I wondered why people cling to unmodified theories that are delineated with failed prophesies and yet still find them compelling.

Take a look at the reviews for the Doomsday Book on Amazon. The book is very old and vastly pre-dates the internet so there’s only 1 electronic review in the USA and 4 in the UK.

Surprisingly you will find all but one of these reviews (all written more than 30 years after publication) are supportive. Even though the base prophesy of the book was plainly wrong and expired well before the reviews were written, the reviews for this dark tome show the reviewer still clinging to the core armageddon-esque beliefs of the book.

So why, in a world that is clearly and measurably getting better on almost every metric available, do people (in essence) hold to Mr Rattray-Taylors prophesies of doom?

Mr Rattray-Taylor departed this earth in 1981. No doubt he firmly expected that the rest of us would be following him down the dark tunnel in short order.

But of course, that has not happened.

In fact, by just about every metric that matters, the world has become a much, much better place.

But many are in denial about this improvement in the world.

In addition to this denial we have various new/reworked Armageddon predictions which declare that “something must be done”.

The timescale for that “something” ranges from one year (Prince Charles), eighteen Months (Extinction Rebellion), to more plausible but still tenuous timescales of ten years and thirty years.

To give that “something” a name is somewhat difficult as it keeps changing. It was Global Warming, then it turned to Climate Change. But now “Climate Change” no longer appears to be urgent enough. So it has been modified to a “Climate Emergency”.

My posts are not against the concept of the “something” known as Global Warming. Nor are they against any other section of science that gets exploited with dubious reasoning.

The purpose is to explore the exploitative dubious reasoning itself and see how it stacks up.

So lets look more closely at these predictions and monitor their progress. I also want to look at earlier predictions associated with this “something”.

But most importantly I want to see what happens when a prophesy concerning this “something” fails. Then I want to examine how that failure changes (or not) the attitudes to the core beliefs on which that prophesy is based. As well as that I want to see how (or not) the theory gets modified to accommodate reality.

From what I’ve seen so far, the social results are clearly identifiable using the work of legendary Social Scientist Leon Festinger. They are also somewhat disconcerting.

So my next post will concern Al Gore and his 2006 statement that the Arctic would be Ice free in Summer by 2016. I will also expand out Festingers key analysis and see how this fits with Mr Gore.

Later on (next week?) I intend looking more closely at Extinction Rebellion. Extinction Rebellion is an organisation which really worries me. It has all the hallmarks of a cult and I would be very worried if any of my family got tied in with it. It needs closer examination.

Then sometime in the dim and distant future I’ll finish off with more mainstream and respectable organisations like the BBC.

Never Lie about Experimental Results.

As you may know, Anthony Watts has a term for people like me. I am a Luke Warmer. In other words, I roughly go along with the theory that we may be increasing the Earth temperature due to the emmission of green house gases.

I am though, open to debate. I also hasten to point out, I am neither a "End of the Worlder" or a disciple of Al Gore. But in the past I have placed the the odd ding-dong comment on sites like Anthony's.

I must say though that I do find find Watts entertaining, if though sometimes rather off-base.

But today, he has a really good (and dare I say fascinating) article on why people really should not fiddle scientific results. (See Here)

That simple rule applies to everyone. Including Al Gore.

Al Gore recently did a 24 hour Gore-athon to "save the world in 24 hours" (Sigh)

I must say I find Al Gore downright embarrasing. Almost as embarrasing as his glassy eyed evengelical following.

Really, who can take seriously a man who couldn't even beat George Bush in an election?

But even worse. One of the simple experiments they did as part of this Gore-athon was fiddled.

If the science behind Global Warming (or anything else for that matter) is to stand and be believed, fiddling the results of simple secondary school experiments is really totally beyond the pale.

Read the article on Watts - and cringe.

Actually, I must say, it is really interesting and entertaining. The author should be congratulated for an excellent peice of detective work. While it doesn't do anything to resolve the science behind global warming it really does make Gore and his followers look like a complete bunch of pillocks.

It really shows how, in science, especially in a contentious field, there is absolutely no room for fiddling the results.

Al Gore - hang your head in shame (fat chance)