Luboš Motl 4: His considered plan to eliminate enviros: they should be treated like N*zis, so it may be necessary to kill millions (less if we get started soon!)

re: Luboš Motl 4: His considered plan to eliminate enviros: they should be treated like N*zis, so it may be necessary to kill millions (less if we get started soon!)

TokyoTom — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 02:16:32 GMT

Lepus: Thanks for your comments.

May I suggest that one of the best ways to engage skeptics on the right is on their own terms? Namely, that it is largely voluntary cooperation among millions/billions through markets, based on private property that is responsible for the creation of our wealthy societies. However, it is well-recognized that this mechanism doesn't work for resources that are UNOWNED (or are "public" but used for private gain by corrupt elites) - like the ocean (and its fisheries, which no one has any incentives to protect and are being destroyed), tropical forests/wildlife and the atmosphere.

Even die-hard rightists ought to be able to recognize that the absence of effective property rights (individiual or group) is the road to ruin, so that we need to find a way to manage such resources, rather than to continue to subsidize their destruction.

Such people ought also to be sensitive to what church leaders say about abusing nature.

re: Luboš Motl 4: His considered plan to eliminate enviros: they should be treated like N*zis, so it may be necessary to kill millions (less if we get started soon!)

Lepus — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 23:21:43 GMT

TT. Thank you for your both your responses; it has taken me a few days to understand them--and also maybe what I was thinking.

We are faced with a whole ecosystem in the denier movement. I've done some research--I read Lomborg (ik), and visit the Beck and Limbaugh sites (groan). Then I read their references. And so on.

There are the enablers like Soon and their funders. The millions of voters that have been coopted by the anti enviro propaganda, often through the skillful use of memes (existing or planted?, I wonder)(and if existing, how many generations have they survived?).

Many curious species are less easily spotted-- Spencer, Pielke, et al, who are entitled to an opinion in this issue, but have strong motives from other issues (ear tip to the big bunny).

All of it seemingly cohering into a do nothing or do little course which is basically suicidal for the planet.

My (previously unrecognized) instinct is to categorize the different species in this ecosystem. Track the flow of energy. Develop a taxonomy. Ask a zillion questions.

Enter LM. He is like every puzzle in the denier ecology rolled up into one person. An engine of contradiction, juxtaposing concepts like euthanasia and freedom in some fractured logic. Using reason to unseat reason.

I applaud your efforts to talk with Lubos. (now, i am heading over to his blog for a little observation...)

Lepus

So, my instinct here is to try to understand this

re: Luboš Motl 4: His considered plan to eliminate enviros: they should be treated like N*zis, so it may be necessary to kill millions (less if we get started soon!)

TokyoTom — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 16:03:19 GMT

Lepus, the two memes here - enviros want to stop respiration and modern society will end if we price carbon - are very common.

The first of course is completely dishonest, but there are many who buy it because environmentalists are similarly charged with wanting to stop population growth in order to protect wildlife. I suspect that LM understands and is linking this with use of fossil fuels only to make a more pwoerful rhetorical statement (and maybe persuade himself).

The second is tied into the very real difficulties in actually cutting back on GHG emissions and atmospheric stocks, especially given existing linkages between CO2 and energy use and the rapid growth of China, India, Brazil etc. If we don`t quickly develop and install new technology, there is now way we will make a dent in GHG atmospheric growth unless we drive ourselves into a very serious depression. That`s what the skeptics are hyping as the AIM of environmentalists - all while denying that there`s any serious problem that merits action.

The paranoia comes in LM thinking that everybody but a few skeptics are irrational and that enviros are enemies of mankind that should be "euthanized" or quarantined.

re: Luboš Motl 4: His considered plan to eliminate enviros: they should be treated like N*zis, so it may be necessary to kill millions (less if we get started soon!)

Lepus — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 13:47:24 GMT

LM writes: "The right to exhale or otherwise emit carbon dioxide - basic processes inevitably associated both with life and modern civilization"

Would LM listen if one pointed out to him that there is a no conection between exhaling small amounts of CO2 waste (derived from above ground carbon stocks), and the "right" to dump large amounts pollution into the commons? Is he rational here?

This is such a simple thing to understand. LM rejects reason and conjures the argument that the "right to breathe" is under assault by the enviros.

He is not alone: poneke.wordpress.com/.../co2

This again looks like paranoia. Is LM bent enough to have come up with this distortion on his own? Or was this placed where he could find it?

I am remind of how, when recently a presidential candidate was talking about SUVs, excessive energy use, and leadership, the issue was broadcast as the "democrats will ask the UN to tell us where to set our thermostats". This is very creative misinformation. Just as claiming that envirofascists will take away your right to breath.