Germany’s eco-evangelical, leftie weekly Die Zeit has a surprisingly sober online piece that almost got by me.
It actually harshly criticizes global warming science – unusual for Die Zeit, which is an influential “intellectual” weekly that has been preaching the science is settled for years. Not long ago it one-sidedly attacked skeptics and portrayed them as gangster-types led by Godfather and mastermind Marc Morano, aided and abetted by the evil Fred Singer and German Fritz Vahrenholt.
In the latest commentary, Andreas Frey of Die Zeit writes:
We need less alarmism, more fundamental research and courage to take risks!”
Climate alarmism headed for a dead-end
Frey compares the climate change scare to another scare that swept across Germany in the 1980s: forest die-off because of acid rain. That catastrophe never materialized, of course. Frey writes that the climate change movement is caught in the very same trap and finds itself well on its way to a dead-end.
The pattern observed is similar to the issue of forest die-off. Though the catastrophe never came about, forest still isn’t doing well. But who wants to hear about it?”
Damaged science
In point number 2 of his commentary, Frey writes that many climate scientists engaged “in spreading fear, warning of dire scenarios for our future“. But that has backfired, as Frey writes:
The flood of alarm threatens the credibility of the entire field – and thus damages science. But the alarmist is proud about having made the climate issue popular; he mingles gladly with politicians (and he even fancies himself as one) and thus knows precisely what is needed to curb the collapse of the planet: eat no meat, don’t drive cars, don’t consume electricity made with coal, don’t fly. Thus he has stepped over the line between science and activism.”
Media have been too uncritical
In point no. 3, Frey surprisingly even writes that the media have been too uncritical of the science they’ve been fed by alarmist scientists…something that Die Zeit is guilty of well beyond the shadow of any doubt. In fact, skeptics get labeled as gangster-like evil climate mobsters (see above). Astonishingly, Frey describes the mindset of the media as follows:
Whatever you do, don’t say anything bad about climate scientists, don’t express any doubts about their results or forecasts – that could be fodder for climate skeptics! That’s how journalists often reacted.”
UN conferences have failed
In point no. 4, Frey claims that “climate diplomacy has failed. Emissions continue rising – all the UN conferences amounted to nothing.”
It probably was just too naïve to believe that the countries would come to their senses and obligate themselves to make cuts.”
Bring on fracking!
In point no. 5 he reiterates the global warming is still a real problem and adds that Germans must be willing to take more risks in combatting climate change. He says Germans must be more open to geo-engineering, CO2 sequestation and fracking.
Climate science has lost its relevance
In point no. 6 Frey writes of the “diminishing relevance of climate science” , which he says is confirmed by studies. Frey asks what’s the use of studies that show the world’s cultural monuments are threatened by sea level rise, and that El Ninos lead to more war? Frey thinks the science is often focused on the wrong things.
Finally, in point no.7 of the essay, Frey believes that climate scientists aren’t the ones who should be advising policy advisors after all. He writes that the science has to become more open to other scientists from other fields, such as sociologists, historians, geographers and ethnologists. He adds that “there are many possibilities for adaptation. In the climate debate adaptation will become an increasingly important topic, and everyone has to be allowed to join the discussion.”
Yes. it’s been a long time since we’ve witnessed sobriety at Die Zeit. It’s almost as if they forgot to take their dose on panic pills one day. Don’t get your hopes up. This is probably the last sober piece we’ll see from Die Zeit for quite some time.
New Testament. Gospel of St Luke Chapter15, verse 10
“I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents”
Daniel 5; 25-28 is more apposite. They can sense that mitigation has failed and will be abandoned before the 2015 Paris COP. A deal around “adaption” will be cobbled together to save the process.
“hell freezes over” – these guys are climate refugees from the ninth circle.
“you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows”
Bob Dylan : Subterranean Homesick Blues
Die Zeit = red-green regime.
Regime throwing Global Warming under the bus.
Circling the wagons. Concentration on saving the EUSSR-antidemocratic project now.
First Siggi Pop & now Die ZEIT – at least it proves that there definitely ARE Tipping Points – and this is one of them. (The corollary is, of course, that in less than 3 years from now, there will be no one left who has ever preached AGW or the Energiewende, or believed the charlatans. And if they did not speak out, it was all the fault of the sceptic bloggers – because you did not want to be associated with People Like That. This kind of schizophrenic rhetoric worked with anticommunism, it worked with the Tea Party, it is in full swing with the Euro-Sceptics.)
So true. let me give you an example. If you go to South Africa today you will not meet any White guy who will admit that he voted for the previous nasty despicable racists regime in Pretoria, the National Party. This despite the fact that they were in power for over 40 years and were voted in by an ever creasing majority of the White voters as time passed.
My prediction is that by the end of this year – not in 3 years time – the guys who fell for the AGW scam will disappear like mist in the sun, and we will be told it was only a lunatic fringe that believed such cock and bull stories, no sane person fell for it.
Remind me again, how many billions did the Germans waste in this latest national craze? Only rich countries can afford such grand follies.
The Germans will have a reminder of their folly for at least a decade; paying billions into “renewable energy” because of guaranteed payments to
troughinvestors. And perhaps another two decades of PV solar systems on rooftops amidst the rusting hulks of “frozen” wind generators worth less than scrap value.Feed-in tariffs have always been unfair and will be increasingly unfair in future, all due to regulation. They should have instead been set up as “agreed price”; where the grid operator sells electricity at the same price as at which it is bought from the small co-generators. That way, there’s equal “market pressure” on both sides to optimise the price for each party; downward for the buy and upward for the sell.
This may be good news.
Mr. Frey may have red something, for him, unusual stuff?
NIPCC may be?
There could be hope.
Maybe Die Zeit will revert to the “Party Line”, but still it only takes one crack in the dam to weaken it dangerously. Doubt has been let in, and the cat is out of the bag. Probably this journalist has realised that it is time to change sides, and to let the alarmists go it alone, while still claiming loyalty to the climate crises.
This may well be the pattern we’ll see the next years, a careful retreat from the extreme viewpoints, while defending the basic claims of CAGW. For skeptics, such tactics can be a challenge, because while the public is well and truly fed up with climate and the doomsayers, most people like to be just a bit worried about something, if only to show that they care about the environment.
But for now, a big cheer for Die Zeit!
At first sight one could say “better late then never”. However we live in a world where main stream media have a role to play: pushing agendas. A logical consequence: their agenda has changed. As the political mood in the EU prior to the elections in May is being considered as favouring decentralization over (Brussels) centralization in large voter groups, die Zeit had to refocus. Furthermore despite years of climate alarmism over a 0.9 degree celsius rise in average temperature since 1880 the populace in the EU at least appears to be not impressed.
I accidentally stumbled across an article in the Hard Left Berlin “taz” – “climate skeptics are like virii”. Cites Sigmar Gabriel and other warmists, some arguing one should debate climate skeptics, some arguing one should ignore them.
Now the interesting fact is: Even though the taz is the Hard Left command centre, ALL commenters rip the writer a new one for the “virus” comparison or generally deride the IPCC’s pseudoscience.
http://www.taz.de/!87496/
The regime has IMHO doubtlessly understood that they lost the Global Warming war, and must now use a different pretense to further emasculate the population.
The enemy trenches are empty. They all went home. The territory is ours.
…That “taz” article is from 2012, in case you wonder. Found it while searching for Gabriel utterances.
German state shocked, shocked that leftist extremist violence rises.
http://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/zahlen-des-innenministeriums-politisch-motivierte-straftaten-steigen-stark-an-1.1946666
Maybe it would help not subsidizing the perpetrators?
I was similarly surprised when our local daily ‘Hindu’ carried a skeptical article by Charles Krauthammer (initially published in ‘Washington Post’):
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/charles-krauthammer-the-myth-of-settled-science/2014/02/20/c1f8d994-9a75-11e3-b931-0204122c514b_story.html
But it was no turning point, alarmist drivel continue to get published to this day.
The US and western press have lost the credibility game against Russians. I think everyone who follows rt.com, for example, can confirm this.
As there is no democratic justification for spying everyone, financing and executing coups such as in Ukraine or Egypt, lying to the public by oligarch controlled media and politicians and ruining the middle class by transferring wealth from savers and workers to speculators by far to low interest rates for over 20 years now, a new reason had to be created, which is a new evil enemy, called Russia.
And for fighting against Russia, we need dirty coal and nuclear power and fracking, but not climate change.
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