In a letter to Physics Today (June, p. 10), John W. Cooper argues that we in the scientific community, must refrain from being "bellicose and resorting to militant tones in our rhetoric when attacking deniers". He goes on to state: "These are the deniers' tactics- and they are much better at it"
Errr....says WHO?
He adds:
"We scientists are meant to be calm, rational, fair, and level -headed. If we aren't we lose to the detractors."
Where has this bozo been? We are already losing to the detractors! An increasing proportion of Americans (now 60% to 49% from ten yrs. ago) dispute that climate change is human engendered. So where has the Milquetoast pose gotten us? And does he really expect us to be "calm" as the knuckledraggers on the other side keep obfuscating issues and we are poised on the precipice of the runaway greenhouse effect from which there will be no return? Too much is at stake!
I suppose, if Cooper were a Jew in Nazi Germany during the Third Reich he'd have also advised his fellow Jews to remain calm, stay levelheaded when the guards prod you along and don't make a fuss as the Nazi storm troopers lead you off to the gas chambers! Too much exaggeration? Hyperbole? Not by much, no way. Our planet is now at the cusp of a series of nightmare climatic convulsions that has most security forces and militaries on Earth on alert.(Google 'Tuvalu or just go to: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/03/world/asia/03iht-pacific.2.5548184.html?pagewanted=all")
It is only a matter of time before all hell breaks lose, and Cooper beseeches us to stay "calm" and engage the other side via 'Marquis of Queensbury' rules .
Already, we've farted away the better part of a decade trying to "reason" with these flat Earthers, while trying to be eminently sensible (as we bite our tongues). But see, the problem is they're no more invested in sweet reason, or sense or objective discussion than the Nazi Storm troopers. Their full agenda is simply to quash the idea that anthropogenic greenhouse warming is in any way validated, despite over 3,800 peer -reviewed papers published over the past 15 years.
An even bigger joke is when Cooper tries to break down the deniers into "three groups":
1) Fossil fuel interests and those who oppose government regulations
2) People with spiritual and religious understandings that conflict with the reality around them and
3) Those who simply don't understand climate change and are fearful
Is he joking or what? Neither (2) nor (3) comprise serious opponents, nor are they able to marshall or sustain any serious or comprehensive arguments. So let us get real for once and admit that Cooper's last two groups are more red herrings than genuine opponents.
At the top also he conflates "fossil fuel interests" and anti -regulationists when in principle both are subsumed by what I refer to as the economic agnotologists. Their shtick is abundantly evident in this earlier blog:
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/01/as-i-noted-in-earlier-blog-httpbrane.html
As noted above, and as I have many times previously, agnotology (derived from the Greek 'agnosis' - the study of culturally constructed ignorance) is achieved primarily by sowing the teeniest nugget of doubt in whatever claim is made (and as we know NO scientific theory is free of uncertainty).
Moreover, Stanford historian of science Robert Proctor has correctly tied it to the trend of skeptic science sown deliberately and for political or economic ends . In other words, the supporters of agnotology - whoever they may be- are all committed to one end: destroying the science to enable economic profit and hence planetary ruin.
One can surmise then that it is largely Cooper's Milquetoast misperceptions of who exactly our antagonists are, that leads him to advocate for the namby-pamby palsied path. Being nicey nicey, "level headed" as these intellectual pipsqueaks try to gain ground by attempting to drive us into hiding. No can do!
As long as I am blogging I intend to pound these fools and expose them for what they are, the same as I'd do with any anti-science purveyors.
People who don't appreciate it are welcome to frequent the blogs of the denier side. Only be sure you know what you're getting.
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