Climate change 'prophets, and projectors, and half-instructed meteorologists': the press found them amusing back in 1871

IMAGINARY CHANGES OF CLIMATE

                    (Pall Mall Gazette)

THREE consecutive years of drought, while they have stimulated the inventive resources of practical agriculturalists, have had the natural effect of calling forth a plentiful crop of speculation from weather prophets, and projectors, and half-instructed meteorologists, and all the philosophic tribe of Laputa in general, to whom the periodical press now affords such fatal facilities. We have often noticed that in the tabular statements of those compilers of weather records who write to the Times, useful and welcome as their communications are, every season is sure to be “extraordinary”, almost every month one of the driest or wettest, or windiest, coldest or hottest, ever known. Much observation, which ought to correct a tendency to exaggerate, seems in some minds to have rather a tendency to increase it.

The cutting is from the THE BRISBANE COURIER, TUESDAY, JANUARY10, 1871.

Hat-tip: Steven Goddard.

Steven Goddard's blog Real Science is an excellent resource to find old press cuttings relevant to climate that would enhance many a school project by helping give the perspective which is so easily missed.  

The above example would grace any project quoting any of today's 'half-instructed meteorologists' such as James Hansen (an astro-physicist) or Gavin Schmidt (a computer programmer) or Al Gore (no qualifications to speak of) as they take pains to persuade us that we are seeing "extraordinary" weather thanks to their pet obsession, carbon dioxide.  The press today, and now of course the broadcast media, are sure to give them 'fatal facilities' and have done so for decades, without even the sardonic challenge of the above quote.  

Note also the calm assurance about the three consecutive years of drought.  Today, this would be amplified as a crisis, a a catastrophe, as a forerunner of doom to come.  Back in 1871, they merely noted that the drought would have 'stimulated the inventive resources of practical agriculturalists'.  Perhaps they were made of sterner stuff in those days.  Perhaps they were less readily panicked.  Perhaps we could learn from them.

Sacrificing Children for a Better Climate: the Aztecs used knives to kill them quickly; we take longer by depriving them of energy, food, and hope – but we do get more victims in the end.

(1) The Aztec God of Rain: Tlaloc.

'The worship of Tlaloc [the rain god] was among the most ghastly in Mexico... children were constantly sacrificed to him. If we may believe Sahagun, at the feast of the Tlaloque "they sought out a great number of babes at the breast, which they purchased of their mothers. They chose by preference those who had two crowns in their hair and who had been born under a good sign. They pretended that these would form a more agreeable sacrifice to the gods, to the

end that they might obtain rain at the opportune time. . . . They killed a great number of babes each year; and after they had put them to death, they cooked and ate them. ... If the children wept and shed tears abundantly, those who beheld it rejoiced and said that this was a sign of rain very near." ... it is to be suspected that the rite was very far spread, for in the myths of many of the wild Mexican tribes and even in those of the Pueblo tribes north of Mexico the story of the sacrifice of children to the water-gods constantly recurs .... '

Source: http://levigilant.com/Bulfinch_Mythology/bulfinch.englishatheist.org/races/chapter2.htm  For more on Sahagun: http://www.wdl.org/en/item/10096/

Note added 28 Aug 2019  In Peru, only maybe 500 years ago, they sacrificed children when they had too much rain:  'The children may have been sacrificed when sacrificing adults did nothing to ward off the adverse climate events, bioarchaeologist Haagen Klaus told National Geographic.

"People sacrifice that which is of most and greatest value to them," he said. "They may have seen that [adult sacrifice] was ineffective. The rains kept coming. Maybe there was a need for a new type of sacrificial victim."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-43928277

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-49495167

(2)The Eco Demon of Doom: CO2

Great Insights into the Eco-Scourge

Now the modern superstition is that our carbon dioxide emissions do what carbon dioxide has never been known to do before, and that is drive and dominate the climate system, leading to catastrophe.  There are so many people who dislike our industrial civilisation, that this invented horror over a trace gas has been like a gift from the gods.  They can use it to deprive the poor of all the great benefits that fossil fuels can bring.  They can use it to create agriculture that grows not food but fuel for cars, despite fossil fuel being generally cheaper and less damaging to their engines.  When basic food prices rise as a result, more people starve.  The food they need could readily be produced, but they can't afford to buy it.  The demonisation of CO2 also means higher energy prices in the developed world, increasing fuel-poverty and reducing the prospects for economic growth there because heavily-subsidised windfarms, solar farms, and other foolish indulgences, are being imposed by supine governments.  Supine in the face of the high-priests of the climate scare, and the countless opportunists who rally round them in search of political and financial advantage.

There are also tribes of followers of this new cult, almost all wealthy and intolerant of dissent.  For them the superstition science is settled.  Action must be taken.  We saw some of them marching through New York and other places last month.

YouTube

They all looked well-fed and prosperous beneficiaries of industrial societies, and obviously with time to spare.  Some of their leaders were there too, some fabulously wealthy.  A few of them can be seen on the left in a screenshot taken from a new video called 'Why Renewables Equal Death'.

The picture on the right is from the same video.  It shows the burning of dung, the renewable energy source that causes so much air pollution and waste of fertiliser in the developing world.

(3) A Modern Aztec Sacrifice: Xiuhtezcatl Martinez, who has lost his childhood

Photo 

'A 14-year old Colorado boy with an Aztec name travels the world with his younger brother, 11, as a missionary for “global sustainability,” rapping, dancing and speaking for Earth Guardians, a group he directs. Xiuhtezcatl Martinez is not descended from Aztecs, the bloody tyranny that ruled central Mexico for several centuries until Cortes and his Native American allies overthrew them in 1521.   But Aztecs have somehow emerged in the sustainability movement as an ideal of eco-friendly civilization.  Never mind that the Aztecs were a predatory empire founded on constant warfare, genocide, human sacrifice, and cannibalism.'  

The above paragraph is taken from the start of a penetrating article by Rachelle Peterson called 'How Radicals Hijacked Environmentalism'.  She goes on to note:

'The new cult of Aztec sustainability was on display at the People’s Climate March of September 21st, where a contingent of  would-be Aztecs drummed and danced their way down Sixth Avenue with a float decorated with sculpted human skulls.'

'Sustainability', she further notes, is now  'a big tent that shelters social and political agendas along with environmental ones. Social justice, managed economies, fair trade, gender neutrality, and racial diversity are just a few of the other movements that find ideological homes under the banner of “sustainability.” Anti-colonialism is only the latest to join these ranks.'

She concludes with a caution:

'Perhaps the real “colonialism” that activists should eye is sustainability itself. The broader the sustainability movement becomes, the more aggressive it becomes in shoehorning parallel social movements into its mold. In that sense, the Aztec imagery is apt.  The Aztecs were one of the New World’s most successful imperial powers and succeeded in dominating all the native peoples of central Mexico for a time.  Strangely enough, however, they proved unsustainable.  Their other indigenous peoples of Mexico jumped at the chance presented by the arrival of a small contingent of well-armed Europeans to put an end to the Aztec empire.  Xiuhtezcatl might at some point take some time out from his advocacy work to study some history.'

Steve Goddard has more illustrations of Aztec practices, ancient and modern, here: 

'Threatening Children With Violent Death'

(4) 'Sustainable Development' = 'Suppressed Development'

The list of harms caused by self-styled 'environmentalists' or 'radicals' or would-be 'guardians'  is very large.  Here is a listing of what may only be part of it: 'The Legacy of the Environmental Movement'.  Here are the sub-headings at that location:
'Prolonged Psychological Fear Based on Unfounded/Distorted Claims'
'Needless Death of over 30 Million Innocent Young Children'
'Loss of a Dependable Electrical Infrastructure'
'Dependency on Foreign Oil and Higher Fuel Prices'
'Starvation'
'The Agents of Fear'
'Development of the "Precautionary Principle" into a Fear Distortion Tool'
'Taking of Property without Just Compensation (Private Lands)'
'Endangered Species Act'
'Tying National Security Up in Knots'
'Eliminating or Weakening Flood Prevention Systems (Dams, Levies)'
'Depriving Workers of Their Livelihood'
'The Law of Unintended Consequences'
'The Destruction of Credible Science by Promoting Junk Science'
'The Destruction of Scientist who disagree with the Environmental Agenda'
'Promoting a Small Utopian World for the Elite through a Population Control Agenda (Isn't this called Genocide?)'
'Sponsor of Terrorism in the Name of the Environment'
'School Indoctrination: Driving Fear into the Hearts of Our Children'

So much harm.  So much enthusiasm for harm.  Superstition can do that.  They call it 'Settled Science' in our time.  It leads to great sacrifice, and great waste. Not least of our children.

Note added 17 October 2014.  Will Happer, the distinguished physicist, drew attention to the Aztec analogy back in 2009: http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/physicist-compares-global-warming-craze-to-aztec-human-sacrifices

Note added 17 October 2014. Paul Driessen has more on the activities of the young boy with the Aztec name: http://capitolhilloutsider.com/mindless-green-indoctrination-of-children/

“We’re from the Earth Guardians group, and we’re working on fracking and how it’s going to affect our future and our health. So we wrote this song for all the gas companies that are putting their profits ahead of our future.”

'With that prelude, 12-year-old Xiuhtezcatl Martinez and his 9-year-old brother Itzcuauhtli launched into an anti-fracking rap song for Evergreen Middle School students whose teacher had invited them to travel 40 miles from their home in “the People’s Republic of Boulder,” Colorado. The song was well rehearsed, spirited, clever – and no doubt assisted by their mother, the founder and executive director of Earth Guardians, and maybe even by Boulder’s former  mayor, an EG advisor.  The boys have been inculcated in Aztec and Hard Green ideology from birth. '

Note added 20 October 2015.  The youngster is still being exploited as a performer by the UN:  http://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2015/10/eco-hip-hop-artist-takes-world-by-storm/

Children of the Global Warming Scare: coming of age with no global warming over their lifetimes

Cartoons by Josh

Children born 18 years ago have lived their lives without any of the 'global warming' with which some people have been intent on scaring them witless.

At school, they would have seen those graphs of relentless rising CO2 levels and rising temperatures in the last decades of the 20th century.  They might well have seen propagandists such as Al Gore up a stepladder declaiming how one caused the other.  They might have heard of a Dr Hansen who on a hot day in 1988 warned the world of those relentless rises.

They could well have seen the MBH hockey stick plot of temperatures published in 1998,  and widely promoted by campaigners including the IPCC for some years.  It was a contrivance of no scientific merit other than serving the PR needs of those intent on scaring politicians, as well as children, about how rising CO2 was dominating our climate.

Well, the CO2 has continued to rise - at rates well above some of the projections used by such as the aforementioned Dr Hansen.  But here's the thing, the global mean temperature, once so widely display in reports, textbooks, press conferences, leaflets, presentations and videos, has not risen along with it.

WUWT

The temperature rise turned out to be not so relentless after all.    A cause of much rejoicing you might suppose?  Far from it.  Catastrophe-talk has been so advantageous for so many people jumping on the global warming bandwagon, that they will not give up on it so easily,  Merely being contradicted by the data is only something that decent scientists would be troubled by.  As Feynman for example has pointed out, when your theory is contradicted by the data, your theory is wrong.  But decent scientists are few, and self-serving followers of the climate catastrophe cult are many, and they don't really care about the science. Here are some illustrations of that:

'We've got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing, in terms of economic policy and environmental policy.' - Timothy Wirth, former US senator

'No matter if the science is all phony, there are collateral environmental benefits . . . Climate change provides the greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the world.'  - Christine Stewart, former environment minister in Canada

Another key insight for eco-activists is this related one:
'It doesn't matter what is true, it only matters what people believe is true.'  - Paul Watson, co-founder of Greenpeace 

John Christy, one of the world's decent climate scientists has noted this disgraceful and unscientific view out there:  'there is still a strong belief system that greenhouse gases control the climate, and so if that is your belief system, then it doesn’t really matter what the evidence shows.'

It encourages this sort of thing:
'The Communist Party USA’s environmental program “presents a viable plan to carry out on the long march to socialism.”'  - Havel Wolf, Seattle Audubon Society

And this sort of thing:
'Are you interested in reducing your carbon footprint?  How about playing a part in the survival of a virgin rain forest and the numerous species found within? Are you interested in making extra income and helping OURF raise funds in the process? If so, you can get involved in the worldwide effort to combat global warming by participating in the global carbon credit market.'  -  Oppor Tunistic, a fundraiser typical of many.

And even this sort of thing:

Grist

I wonder what she will be angry about eight years from now?  Her parents?  Her lost childhood?  The harm and suffering caused by renewables?  The frequent powercuts?  Rotten teaching?  The nightmares she had about global warming? 










Meanwhile, alarmers are busy promoting more satisfactory totems for their purposes now that global mean air temperature near the surface has so badly let them down.  Lubos looks more deeply into fatuous temperature targets. They are stupid targets but my goodness they served the alarmists well for decades by giving the impression we could decide on planetary temperatures merely by destroying our civilisation.  'Stupid' is too good a word for such people.  Children of the Warming Scare will have been harmed by them.  Perhaps as adults, they will be able to think more for themselves, and begin to develop a calmer, more rational, and more optimistic view of their future.

(Hat-tip for the Josh cartoon: Bishop-Hill)