Conspiracy theory? That'll be the deniers

Climate-change denial makes sense only as a conspiracy theory

By Mark Lynas Published 10 December 2009

Some good news at last.

Nick Griffin is a climate-change denier, and will be representing the European Parliament in Copenhagen. Griffin's involvement exposes the "sceptic" fringe for what it is: a reactionary movement of the political far right.

Griffin's take on the subject expresses the reactionary paranoia these "sceptics" share. "The anti-western intellectual cranks of the left suffered a collective breakdown when communism collapsed," he fulminated in a parliamentary speech recently. "Climate change is their new theology . . . used to impose an anti-human utopia as deadly as anything conceived by Stalin or Mao."

I doubt that there is much actual overlap between the anti-immigration, old working-class constituency of the British National Party and the anti-environmental crowd. But in their underlying psychological motivations the two philosophies have a great deal in common. Both are backward-looking: for Griffin, the idealised past was an all-white country populated exclusively by "indigenous" Britons, while, for climate deniers, the past represents an era where the pleasures of flying or driving came with no moral guilt attached and market-driven consumerism would satisfy all of life's desires.

The climate denial movement has been enjoying something of an upsurge in the past couple of years. The illegal hacking of University of East Anglia emails, however, was a PR masterstroke: now the very basis of climate science itself could be attacked, through the wide dissemination of vaguely incriminating-sounding emails cherry-picked from ten years' worth of private correspondence. The emails were a gift to conspiracy theorists: here, it seemed, was real evidence of scientific conniving, if not outright fraud.

The truth is different. The "Mike's Nature trick" to "hide the decline" email was written ten years ago, and referred to dropping post-1960 data from the tree-ring record which was known to be incorrect. The furore about keeping two sceptic papers out of the IPCC was pointless - they were both in the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report. None of this says anything about the surface temperature measurements, on which much of our knowledge of global warming is based. It is unjust that Professor Phil Jones has had to resign from his position while an investigation is held - the facts are already clear.

The "Climategate" furore emphasises what has been obvious for some time: battles over the "science" of climate change are nothing of the sort, but a proxy for ideological warfare over the harm that emissions cuts might do to established interests. Climate-change denial makes sense only as a conspiracy theory: how else can the opinions of thousands of scientists and academic institutions be so casually dismissed? Only if all are involved in a complex fraud, presumably to extort grants from gullible governments in cahoots with the UN and other left-wing forces, to the detriment of unfortunates such as ExxonMobil and Peabody.

The important thing for rational people to understand is that people are irrational - and that the unwelcome message of imminent austerity that climate activists and politicians are selling to the public is pushing otherwise decent people towards belief in the most ludicrous conspiracy theory since the claimed "faking" of the moon landings. Surely it doesn't have to be this way.

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7 comments

Sat, 2010-06-19 01:15 — wael553 (not verified)

Sadly Mark Lynas represents only one of the innocent fools doing the work of these people. Yes He has gained some prestige from the sale of his books and the fact that he is now considered to be an expert in the field but http://wallpaper-3d.net has unwittingly played into the hands of those who stand to gain millions but only laugh at him when they tell their friends exactly how gullible he has been.

Fri, 2010-12-03 06:07 — Voice in the wilderness (not verified)

Wow! I have just been introduced to some material in the New Statesman by a student who can look at very clear data showing an upward trend and insist it is going down!

Then I see clear headed data interpretation by Mark Lynas and it is buried under a deluge of irrational knee-jerk reactions appearing to come from people who are sadly inexperienced with science and critical data evaluation. This is very sad.

Tue, 2010-07-20 17:00 — isam (not verified)

Sadly Mark Lynas represents only one of the innocent fools doing the work of these people. Yes He has gained some prestige from the sale of his books and the fact that he is now considered to be an expert in the field but has unwittingly played into the hands of those who stand to gain millions but only laugh at him when they tell their friends exactly how gullible he has been.

“We even managed to fool HRH the Prince of Wales for Gods sake Ha ha ha ha ha”. ” As for Lyans and Monbiot you’re never gonna believe this…...” http://freegames3d.net

Tue, 2010-02-16 01:21 — wael553

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Wed, 2010-01-13 13:51 — wael553

Yes I know Robin I’ve been following his blog. It really is all very depressing. The useful idiots (the shock troops) spouting their usual gullible nonsense. It’s like I mentioned in an earlier post on another topic it’s rather like living in Nazi Germany surrounded by supporters of Hitler. Only one true belief. Only one true cause. Disenters deserve to die. It really is worrying but indeed facinating how better brains than ours have managed to dupe the World into believing this stuff AND make billions in the process. I wouldn’t have believed it twenty, ten even five years ago. It would make an unbelievable but entertaining plot for an eco-thriller circa 1970 but, yes, it’s happening right in front of our eyes.
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Sadly Mark Lynas represents only one of the innocent fools doing the work of these people. Yes He has gained some prestige from the sale of his books and the fact that he is now considered to be an expert in the field but has unwittingly played into the hands of those who stand to gain millions but only laugh at him when they tell their friends exactly how gullible he has been.

“We even managed to fool HRH the Prince of Wales for Gods sake Ha ha ha ha ha”. ” As for Lyans and Monbiot you’re never gonna believe this…...”

God give me strength.

Thu, 2009-12-10 10:38 — davejones

Lynas' comment "...for Griffin, the idealised past was an all-white country populated exclusively by "indigenous" Britons" is revealing - apart from the fact that most white Britons can trace their ancestry back 12000 years to the first hunter-gather populations and are indigenous in the proper sense of the word, did Britain not do exceedingly well as an all white country? Could it not be argued that our most recent decline to almost third world status hac occurred since mass non white immigration commenced in 1948? Who are the real deniers? Solzhenytsyn wrote: "If decade after decade the truth cannot be told, peoples minds start to wander irretrievably, and talking to your fellow man is like talking to Martians".

Sun, 2010-06-20 19:55 — Nirmo (not verified)

http://planetwallpaper.net

Sadly Mark Lynas represents only one of the innocent fools doing the work of these people. Yes He has gained some prestige from the sale of his books and the fact that he is now considered to be an expert in the field but has unwittingly played into the hands of those who stand to gain millions but only laugh at him when they tell their friends exactly how gullible he has been.

“We even managed to fool HRH the Prince of Wales for Gods sake Ha ha ha ha ha”. ” As for Lyans and Monbiot you’re never gonna believe this…...”

God give me strength.