German reggae and hip hop musician Pierre Fox presents a revealing interview (in German) with Prof. Dr. Hans Schellnhuber (28 June 2014).
When it comes to the progress of the green movement and the Great Transformation, the Potsdam Professor appears deflated and demoralized.
No matter what one may think of the German Godfather of climate alarmism, Hans-Joachim Schellnhuber is always fascinating to watch, never failing to deliver comments worth quoting. He’s the professor that once claimed that glo´bal temperature changed linearly with atmospheric CO2 change, and said that the planet would explode with 9 billion people. He also said that a population of 1 billion be an acceptable level.
Like a doomsday “asteroid collision in slow motion”
Already at the 0:14 mark after having said what a unbelievable privilege it is to work at the Potsdam Institute he states:
One day our eyes opened: “Oh! I’m now researching on aspects of the greatest problem facing mankind in the 21st century. And this conviction hardened. Yes, this is the greatest problem of the 21st century.”
At the 1:12 mark Schellnhuber spectacularly piles on the dramatization when it comes to characterizing the seriousness of global warming, comparing it to an approaching asteroid collisions with the earth.
I compare it to an asteroid colliding with the earth in slow motion, yes. If scientists said an asteroid is on a path toward the earth and that we have 20 years to build a defense system, we probably would all start to do everything we could and build away, and wouldn’t care if it cost 50 billion or a thousand billion. But when I say an asteroid is approaching, and that it is called global warming, but the strike will be over 100 years, everyone asks, ‘So what?’. […] Mankind has a hard time planning 20 or 30 years ahead.”
Here we need to conduct a survey of scientists: “Do you believe global warming is as serious as an earth-shattering asteroid strike?” I seriously doubt many scientists would share Professor Schellnhuber’s earth’s doomsday paranoia.
Democracy as an obstacle
On whether politicians are doing enough, Schellnhuber thinks they are moving slowly, but says that new systems of doing things often take time to unfold. But once they are 20 or 30% in place a tipping point is reached, and there is nothing to stop the shift to the new system. As an example at the 3:42 mark he gleefully cites the fact that share prices of Germany’s major power producers have collapsed.
Ten years ago that was unimaginable. …Suddenly this quaint little feed-in act had an effect. It was just a toy from green politicians.”
Schellnhuber places his optimism in system change and not in political progress. He views gradual political movement and compromise as obstacles to progress. No surprise here, Schellnhuber was never a fan of democracy by independently thinking citizens.
At the 4:44 mark when asked what individuals can do, the Potsdam professor says, “We need societal forces that aim to achieve justice…climate change is an extremely unjust matter, yes…forces that are based on values, the protection of creation – if I want to be religious, and so on. Otherwise we just aren’t going to be able to build the political pressure.”
Conferences: most “frustrating and tiring events ” in the world
Prof. Schellnhuber is clearly frustrated that climate policy has bogged down, and says the UN climate conferences are probably the most “frustrating and tiring events in the world”.
Later in the interview viewers can witness the sort of nonsense that is produced when a climate professor and a reggae singer discuss economics in an exchange. Schellnhuber believes that divestment could be an effective strategy, if only it were possible to convince investors that oil, gas, and coal are dangerous to the planet. Schellnhuber doesn’t seem to be aware that investment in wind parks and solar systems have already failed.
Slowly one begins to perceive that Prof Schellnhuber is on another planet (one that is about to be hit by an asteroid and where renewable energy works). His solution to get things moving: Get the population to think like he does, and only then will they invest in green energies. He then blames the “inner laziness” of the population to do the right thing, and says that “perhaps we need regulations, laws…compulsion.”
Resigned and frustrated, Schellnhuber spurned by Merkel
At latter stages of the interview, at the 10:20 mark, having worked himself up, Schellnhuber displays a combination of frustration and resignation…as if the human population were hopeless. At the 10:34 mark Schellnhuber contemplates that if only Obama could be re-elected again, and if “Merkel did not run for fourth term“. Here Schellnhuber de facto confirms what some of us have already began to suspect: Merkel has stopped listening to him and the Potsdam scientists.
The only hope left for the climate movement, Schellnhuber summarizes, is great leadership coming from somewhere. “A few climate Ghandis wouldn’t be bad.”
The warmists are becoming demoralized.
I don’t know him (i live in Canada) but i suspect he is a prime example of a Malthusian crack pot.
He dreams of The Great Transformation of society – into a global technocracy with a very important role for unelected eggheads like him.
His opus magnus; his Shape Of Things To Come:
http://www.wbgu.de/fileadmin/templates/dateien/veroeffentlichungen/hauptgutachten/jg2011/wbgu_jg2011_kurz_en.pdf
A comment about it:
“The great transformation will require that “The world citizenry agree to … surrender spontaneous and persistent
desires” – i.e., citizens will need to accept that their lifestyles are unsustainable and collectively accept
the need for government to make decisions on their behalf, without the public having a veto over government
decisions that could “impede the transition to a sustainable society.”
”
http://opinion.financialpost.com/2011/05/30/lawrence-solomon-better-red-than-dead-better-green-than-free/
Thx DirkH, interesting.
What must be even more disheartening for the rabid warmers than the political/public inaction is Mother earth’s disdain to show any warming.
If the top Climate Stations in the USA are to be believed they have been cooling there for quite a while.
My heart bleeds for the warmists…….NOT.
1) There’s a Noam Chomsky (I think) on the picture on the cupboard.
2) at 6:00 the singer says “I have noticed that it’s sometimes necessary to FORCE PEOPLE A LITTLE TO THEIR LUCK.” (emphasis mine)
I don’t know why they produced it or who the producers are, but it seems to be designed to give German Warmism new credibility by using that quite popular with the youth singer as interviewer. He’s a terrible interviewer – one could have chosen anyone else doing a better job. This is about using his popularity hoping some of it keeps sticking on Prof. Unrath.
There is more than a whiff of paranoia there. Does he hear voices also?
the asteroid? how big?
Over two years ago on WUWT I commented that we, the skeptics were winning, that the hysteria would die down. I got some flak from the others on WUWT. Well, I was right and the interview with professor Shicklegruber or what ever his name is, is a clear indication. Similar interviews are being conducted worldwide with warmists. They see they are losing too. The repeal of the Carbon tax in Australia, Canada and Japan repudiating the Kyoto protocol, and the dropping of renewable energy subsidies and tariffs in Germany and Spain are more indications. Reality, common sense, and real science is winning. We must not rest on our laurels, there is more work to do, but the work will be done.
The annual reduction of subsidy per kWh in Germany goes according to plan; the growth in newly installed capacity is faster than the reduction so the exponential explosion of total cost is continuing at 20% a year; now at 24 bn/year or 300 EUR/capita/year; up from 240 last year. (This average includes babies and people on welfare who don’t actually pay so the real cost for a working person should be twice that – 600 EUR/year. 1/3 paid via elec. bill; 1/3 paid via taxes; 1/3 via higher prices – because that’s how produced elec. is distributed)
(Tax rate now above 50% for average German)
Basically this is the biggest demonstration of Bastiat’s Broken Window Fallacy – or Keynes’ General Theory – since 1939.
We have jobs in Germany but we’re not supposed to get anything for our labour.
German MP’s all have shares in Wind Parks et al.
They keep the juice flowing for themselves.
Please don’t mix the two debates , though they are clearly linked, the scientific theory, and the political choices made according to the belief in this theory (let aside the fact public opinion agree or not with scientist ‘s consensus).
some people don’t beleive in agw but agree with political decision because of anticonsumerism, some people agree with agw but disagree with but ….and so on…
so winning what exactly?
What a pathetic person. It is a sorry sight when those who always have known they are on the morally correct side get the first bitter taste of defeat.
For such persons, admitting they are wrong is unimaginable. The world is wrong, but not I. I must be right, because if not, the ideology on which I have based my life’s work must also be wrong, and that I cannot endure.
(Myself, I have no problem admitting to be wrong; it happens so seldom as to be more of a refreshing novelty :-))
I want to drive all over that dipshit’s front garden in my V8 Landcruiser.
Ruling Greens in Lower Saxony want to turn up to 1/7 of agricultural area back into swamps. Because of climate protection.
https://www.kreiszeitung.de/lokales/niedersachsen/agrarflaechen-niedersachsen-sollen-wieder-vitalen-mooren-werden-3709163.html
Lower Saxony is an agricultural powerhouse, though currently largely occupied with producing corn for biogas instead of food.
Dairy farmers already have problems paying rent for land given the high prices offered by corn farmers who earn subsidies. Now, with the swampland initiative, it will get impossible for Lower Saxon dairy farmers to survive.
[quote]German reggae and hip hop musician Pierre Fox p[/quote9
u mean Peter Fox… 😉
Pierre; a general comment if I may. Many thanks for your continuing output – and for the hard work involved – of these postings in English which give us insights into areas we would not otherwise see.
He says – “I compare it to an asteroid colliding with the earth in slow motion, yes. If scientists said an asteroid is on a path toward the earth and that we have 20 years to build a defense system, we probably would all start to do everything we could and build away, and wouldn’t care if it cost 50 billion or a thousand billion. – See more at: https://notrickszone.com/2014/07/18/deflated-schellnhuber-views-global-warming-as-a-21st-century-asteroid-strike-complains-no-one-is-listening/#sthash.LvAwIZMc.dpuf”
But we have had numerous asteroids heading toward the earth and for every one of them the procedure is to 1st – verify by measurements and orbital calculations that they will actually hit the earth. So far none have. Think of the 100’s of billions we have saved by reality.