A good comment on fundamentalism... "a very modern thing"
From The NewYorker
by Jane Kramer
The New Yorker, April 26, 2010
found on the St Matthews Westminster site:
http://www.stmw.org/4/post/2010/04/a-canterbury-tale-the-battle-within-the-church-of-england-to-allow-women-to-be-bishops.html
[Archbishop of Canterbury] Williams admits that the lessons of fourth-century Christian conflicts are cold comfort to women fighting for equality in their church in 2010. Most of the conflicts dividing the Anglican world today have settled directly on them and, if not on them, on the openly gay priests who are waiting in line behind them - the result, in part, of an epidemic of literalism that is hardly confined to Anglicans. ‘One of the odd things about fundamentalism in its American form, but not exclusively, is that it’s paradoxically a very modern thing,’ he told me. ‘A crude nineteenth-century reaction to a crude nineteenth-century scientism - a kind of mirror image of that positivist yes-or-no knowledge that you can pin down.’ He described it, in England, as a wholesale rejection of intellectual engagement and intellectual depth in Scripture and compared it to what was happening in Islam. "I’ve sometimes argued with people on the other side of the river here, in Parliament, saying, Don’t talk about fundamentalist and modern Muslims, talk about primitivist and traditionalist Muslims - ones who only know the Koran and ones who actually know what it is like to have a thickly textured cultural and intellectual Islamic life."
Friday, April 30, 2010
Sunday, April 25, 2010
notes for Anzac Day (remembering the Armenians)
Anzac Day, listening to the evening news after having a fairly normal Sunday, it is still my experience of Anzac Day. very difficult... In the Canberra Times a young mother takes her children to the War Memorial to find out what war really is like. "I'm to precious to be killed aren't I Mum?"
But I remember Poppy T in Queanbeyan. Angry about what he had been forced to do in the Gallipoli trenches as they bayonetted the enemy. That is the agony of war; the offence; the unspeakable horror; what people do to one another. Is it any wonder that we who grew up in the shadow of war were not told? How do you tell your children that you had done such things?
reading Brian's blog I discover ekklesia. and this article
http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/essay_ArmenianGenocide
what is needed is a link to The Monthly magazine article about the connections between the Armenian Genocide and Gallipoli. April 24th and 25th 1915
http://www.themonthly.com.au/february-2007-brief
"During the exact time Australian troops spent in hell on Gallipoli, another event of world-historical importance was taking place on contiguous ground: the Armenian Genocide. Some contemporary scholars think that one million people were murdered during this catastrophe. The crime was committed by the leadership of the Ottoman Turkish Empire: the empire which Australian troops, as part of the Anglo-French force, invaded."
In "A Turkish Tale", Robert Manne tackles the awful episode that, for Australia, hides in the shadow of Gallipoli: the genocide which bears directly on the major Australian involvement in World War I but which forms no part of the Anzac story.
"In the scores of books written about Australia and Gallipoli, why has no Australian historian ever asked the question that should have occurred most naturally to a member of the profession: namely, did the Anglo-French Dardanelles campaign play any role in the Ottoman regime's decision for genocide?"
.
My memory of the article is first, that the genocide started with the hanging of four Armenian intellectuals in Istanbul on the 24th April 1915. But that the main massacres occurred in the East of the country closer to Armenia itself. The problem was that the Armenians were christian. Some at least were possibly assisting the western powers (that is us). Then Turkey was invaded by Christians. and the terror was unleashed.
I first heard about the massacres on a beautiful winter's day in 1971 on the Mediterranean coast at Izmir. A young man told me that the beach here was a place where the Armenians had been pushed into the sea. Izmir is not a recognised site of a massacre, but the memory of what had been done there remains.
But I remember Poppy T in Queanbeyan. Angry about what he had been forced to do in the Gallipoli trenches as they bayonetted the enemy. That is the agony of war; the offence; the unspeakable horror; what people do to one another. Is it any wonder that we who grew up in the shadow of war were not told? How do you tell your children that you had done such things?
reading Brian's blog I discover ekklesia. and this article
http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/essay_ArmenianGenocide
what is needed is a link to The Monthly magazine article about the connections between the Armenian Genocide and Gallipoli. April 24th and 25th 1915
http://www.themonthly.com.au/february-2007-brief
"During the exact time Australian troops spent in hell on Gallipoli, another event of world-historical importance was taking place on contiguous ground: the Armenian Genocide. Some contemporary scholars think that one million people were murdered during this catastrophe. The crime was committed by the leadership of the Ottoman Turkish Empire: the empire which Australian troops, as part of the Anglo-French force, invaded."
In "A Turkish Tale", Robert Manne tackles the awful episode that, for Australia, hides in the shadow of Gallipoli: the genocide which bears directly on the major Australian involvement in World War I but which forms no part of the Anzac story.
"In the scores of books written about Australia and Gallipoli, why has no Australian historian ever asked the question that should have occurred most naturally to a member of the profession: namely, did the Anglo-French Dardanelles campaign play any role in the Ottoman regime's decision for genocide?"
.
My memory of the article is first, that the genocide started with the hanging of four Armenian intellectuals in Istanbul on the 24th April 1915. But that the main massacres occurred in the East of the country closer to Armenia itself. The problem was that the Armenians were christian. Some at least were possibly assisting the western powers (that is us). Then Turkey was invaded by Christians. and the terror was unleashed.
I first heard about the massacres on a beautiful winter's day in 1971 on the Mediterranean coast at Izmir. A young man told me that the beach here was a place where the Armenians had been pushed into the sea. Izmir is not a recognised site of a massacre, but the memory of what had been done there remains.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
A Eulogy for Rose
This blog has been rather silent lately. There have been other things to attend to. Sitting with Rose as she was dying while difficult was still very much a privilege.
I put here the eulogy I read at her funeral on Tuesday.
The world (and especially George Forbes House) will miss Rose.
We forgot one important event in her life. Mum kissed the Blarney Stone! (in her late seventies or eighties).
She would definitely have slid down banisters. I was not definite enough about that in the following eulogy!
Linda
Rose Anchell 8-2-1916 - 6-4-2010
Rose was born at an early age within the sound of Bow Bells, in Homerton, in London's East End.
It was the eighth of the second, 1916; a fact that she remembered to her dying day. The youngest of a family of five children, it was probably her father who called her "the last rose of summer". (and, Mum used to add: "and still blooming!"
Her mother, very sternly, told the other children who called her "fatty" that "Her Name is Rose!".
A childhood with Salvation Army Sunday School, jumping over balustrades, and, if it wasn't just an older imagination, sliding down banisters, set her up to be the wonderful cockney that she was.
But life was not to be a straight forward, simple, affair.
A Londoner born in 1916 had much to contend with. Poverty and war were facts of life. Rose managed a hair perm twice a year and swimming too! (Swimming lessons did get you out of school!) She won a medal in a works swimming carnival in 1932 at the Oglethorpe Bowl. (but neglected to teach her son to swim!)
In 1939 Rose East married Fred Anchell, of the Rifle Brigade at the Hackney Registry office. The photos were taken in front of the protective sandbags.
Rose went into the Land Army. The London factory worker was, it would seem, rather unwilling. But driving a tractor into a ditch meant returning to London (and the bombs).
Fred returned after gallant service in Calais (and a dunking in the channel); then left for North Africa where he became a prisoner of war for the remainder of the hostilities.
Rose was evacuated to Hertfordshire to give birth to her first son, Fred (or Freddie) and again, quickly returned to London.
In 1946 Rodney was born, but after many medical problems he died in 1948. A grief shared with few.
Rose worked in factories; stitching cheque books; Berger's Paints, The Metal Box factory. many and various places.
A move from Walthamstow (London) to Kent; -Davis Estate in Chatham meant work at Rochester airport industrial area and Foster Clark's canning factory and the Sharps Toffee Factory in Maidstone, Kent.
But Fred (senior) was struggling with bronchitis stirred up by the war. In 1961 the family set sail on the Arcadia to Australia. (Rose was over forty.)
Adelaide was the destination. Young Fred found his feet in Melbourne. But Rose and Fred were unsettled and returned to England. To find work they went to Rose's eldest brother in South Africa. That was a difficult time.
One thing that should be said about Rose is that she noticed people. She loved company and did not recognise social boundaries, especially not racial ones. Apartheid era South Africa was not an easy place to be.
Anyway, young Fred had now become Australian. So they returned and found work in Victoria as gardener (Fred) and Cook/Housekeeper at various western district farming properties; cooking for jackaroos and neighbours.
One dinner party guest asked who had cooked the meal, then went in to the kitchen to thank the cook. It was the Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser.
As Fred's emphysema worsened, they took work in Melbourne, at the Walter and Eliza Hall institute. Here Rose was "bottle washer" for Sir Gustav Nossel.
Retirement came in Geelong with Rose nursing Fred until his death in 1986.
She was then in the RSL Village and a good neighbour to all. In the late 1990's Rose realised that she needed to move closer to Fred and Linda near Queanbeyan. She found the Legacy Village units and arranged to move.
So Rose came to Queanbeyan. She continued to enjoy cruising, including cruises on the QEII (Q E 2) amongst others; She visited relatives in Ireland and travelled the world on her own or with (young) Fred. She joined in the social life of Legacy village; walked into town to the Chinese bakery and the icecreamery and connected with St Philip's in O'Connor.
But on her last cruise to New Zealand, things were not right. Mum came back with flu, saw a gerontologist and was diagnosed with dementia. It had come on late in life and she was independent for a few more years. Eventually there was the need for assisted living at George Forbes House.
Here Rose's cockney humour came to the fore. To enquiries about her health. How are you? "All right", is the answer. "all down one side" (with right hand swinging downwards).
"What do you want on your sandwich today?" asks Chris.
"A man!" is the reply.
Rose, you never did find that millionaire at the club! sorry
I put here the eulogy I read at her funeral on Tuesday.
The world (and especially George Forbes House) will miss Rose.
We forgot one important event in her life. Mum kissed the Blarney Stone! (in her late seventies or eighties).
She would definitely have slid down banisters. I was not definite enough about that in the following eulogy!
Linda
Rose Anchell 8-2-1916 - 6-4-2010
Rose was born at an early age within the sound of Bow Bells, in Homerton, in London's East End.
It was the eighth of the second, 1916; a fact that she remembered to her dying day. The youngest of a family of five children, it was probably her father who called her "the last rose of summer". (and, Mum used to add: "and still blooming!"
Her mother, very sternly, told the other children who called her "fatty" that "Her Name is Rose!".
A childhood with Salvation Army Sunday School, jumping over balustrades, and, if it wasn't just an older imagination, sliding down banisters, set her up to be the wonderful cockney that she was.
But life was not to be a straight forward, simple, affair.
A Londoner born in 1916 had much to contend with. Poverty and war were facts of life. Rose managed a hair perm twice a year and swimming too! (Swimming lessons did get you out of school!) She won a medal in a works swimming carnival in 1932 at the Oglethorpe Bowl. (but neglected to teach her son to swim!)
In 1939 Rose East married Fred Anchell, of the Rifle Brigade at the Hackney Registry office. The photos were taken in front of the protective sandbags.
Rose went into the Land Army. The London factory worker was, it would seem, rather unwilling. But driving a tractor into a ditch meant returning to London (and the bombs).
Fred returned after gallant service in Calais (and a dunking in the channel); then left for North Africa where he became a prisoner of war for the remainder of the hostilities.
Rose was evacuated to Hertfordshire to give birth to her first son, Fred (or Freddie) and again, quickly returned to London.
In 1946 Rodney was born, but after many medical problems he died in 1948. A grief shared with few.
Rose worked in factories; stitching cheque books; Berger's Paints, The Metal Box factory. many and various places.
A move from Walthamstow (London) to Kent; -Davis Estate in Chatham meant work at Rochester airport industrial area and Foster Clark's canning factory and the Sharps Toffee Factory in Maidstone, Kent.
But Fred (senior) was struggling with bronchitis stirred up by the war. In 1961 the family set sail on the Arcadia to Australia. (Rose was over forty.)
Adelaide was the destination. Young Fred found his feet in Melbourne. But Rose and Fred were unsettled and returned to England. To find work they went to Rose's eldest brother in South Africa. That was a difficult time.
One thing that should be said about Rose is that she noticed people. She loved company and did not recognise social boundaries, especially not racial ones. Apartheid era South Africa was not an easy place to be.
Anyway, young Fred had now become Australian. So they returned and found work in Victoria as gardener (Fred) and Cook/Housekeeper at various western district farming properties; cooking for jackaroos and neighbours.
One dinner party guest asked who had cooked the meal, then went in to the kitchen to thank the cook. It was the Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser.
As Fred's emphysema worsened, they took work in Melbourne, at the Walter and Eliza Hall institute. Here Rose was "bottle washer" for Sir Gustav Nossel.
Retirement came in Geelong with Rose nursing Fred until his death in 1986.
She was then in the RSL Village and a good neighbour to all. In the late 1990's Rose realised that she needed to move closer to Fred and Linda near Queanbeyan. She found the Legacy Village units and arranged to move.
So Rose came to Queanbeyan. She continued to enjoy cruising, including cruises on the QEII (Q E 2) amongst others; She visited relatives in Ireland and travelled the world on her own or with (young) Fred. She joined in the social life of Legacy village; walked into town to the Chinese bakery and the icecreamery and connected with St Philip's in O'Connor.
But on her last cruise to New Zealand, things were not right. Mum came back with flu, saw a gerontologist and was diagnosed with dementia. It had come on late in life and she was independent for a few more years. Eventually there was the need for assisted living at George Forbes House.
Here Rose's cockney humour came to the fore. To enquiries about her health. How are you? "All right", is the answer. "all down one side" (with right hand swinging downwards).
"What do you want on your sandwich today?" asks Chris.
"A man!" is the reply.
Rose, you never did find that millionaire at the club! sorry
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Our Arrogance
A sound byte from Ken Henry in the Canberra Times today:
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/local/news/general/henry-hits-out-at-water-management/1788433.aspx?src=enews
Our interaction with the environment should have brought us humility. Instead we are arrogant.
He said:
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/local/news/general/henry-hits-out-at-water-management/1788433.aspx?src=enews
Our interaction with the environment should have brought us humility. Instead we are arrogant.
He said:
"All my life I have heard people talking about our big brains, our capacity to learn from our mistakes and the creativity we bring to fixing them,'' he said.
"Every day, at some point, this is what I hear. But I have to say that it's not what I see.
"Frankly, it's time we stopped kidding ourselves.
"'If the history of our engagement with this environment has taught us anything at all, it should be that we have been blind-sided by our arrogance. It should have taught us humility."
Friday, March 26, 2010
Send in the Clowns
Dame Judi Dench sings.
I heard this on local radio (just a bit) this afternoon. I have always enjoyed Judi's acting, but this is something else! She has rescued the song for me.
I heard this on local radio (just a bit) this afternoon. I have always enjoyed Judi's acting, but this is something else! She has rescued the song for me.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
"domestic matters"
I live in a paddock that was bare when we first arrived thirty five years ago. It was covered in phalaris and there was a horse but the paddock had not been heavily grazed for some years. There were a few rose briars in amongst the rocks. No trees at all.
We planted Eucalyptus cinerea and Fred and Derick planted masses of others in between preparing to build the house. Then the drought of the early eighties took most of them. But Fred persevered and trees grew. The original survivors grew tall and large. Others crowded into bushy patches that grew larger. We took seed from Joe and Bonnie's Black Sallys, propagated them in tubes and planted on the slope to the north of the house. (not shading the house!)
Fred is still planting trees.
I befriended "Tip" the original skink who had made his way from the rocks and briars on the south to the rock wall that Fred built. We came to know his family, deciding that he was a father and the other one was the mother. (proven when I actually saw the birthing of six live youngsters).
They lived near our back door, by the steps up to the shed in the rock wall and she produced six youngsters every year. Many of the years they all survived the winter hibernation until eventually they also began to produce young. (Did other skinks migrate in?)
We were having a population explosion. We still stopped the cats from catching them if possible and grieved when watching a Kookaburra eating one. But the cats did keep the mice away.
Then we became catless. And the magpies came and carolled us. Magnificent birds each with their own personality and preferences for particular foods! "Shadda" was the first who came to the back door looking in and casting her shadow on the glass. A brownish coloured magpie whom we thought was the mother. Was she an elder who died or a young male who was cast out? We don't know. But the next year "Auntie" came with three or four young ones but the attrition rate was high and eventually there was just two. "Aloyisius" and "Caruso". Caruso was a female and is still here despite attempts to get her independent. Aloyisius was the tamest, he sat on our laps to get food, but he was cast out to fend for himself.
We no longer name the young magpies. But they use the house verandah as a playground and sing and call out for more food; a call we increasingly ignore as fat worms get taken out of the garden.
So the years went on. Now this last season brought an early heatwave which brought an echidna to the house to get some shelter from the fierce Springtime heat. We have bushland here now! The wombats are on the creek and we have seen them in the garden when the grass was very bare during the drought. Now it is just the deposits in the gateway that excite us!
Occasionally we see kangaroos over here from the paddock across the road. Yesterday one was lying under the Black Sally's.
This year (2010) the skinks have seemed worried and frightened. Perhaps we were absent too long over September as they came out of hibernation. I don't know. Last week perhaps I saw the answer. A brown snake at the bottom of the stone wall. Is this the reason for the small number of baby skinks this year and the absence of last year's group? Fred did see the snake in springtime. Summer was fortunately for us a time when we didn't see it. But then while trying to keep safe, we also don't look deliberately. We know snakes are around. And the mice are here now too. The magpies get fed muesli these days. (no, no meat) and although crested pigeons, and crimson rosellas and blue wrens help to clean up, the mice do as well. Mice (and oats) bring snakes. I learnt that when we had chooks.
When I put clothes on the line under the verandah I have to be careful of the golden orb spider that is growing rather large by the post. A wonderful web is crafted every morning and glows gold in the sunlight.
So the bushland that Fred planted is flourishing. I'm not sure if I am pleased! I liked it better when we knew the animals around us as individuals. I rejoiced at births and grieved losses.
Perhaps it is time to learn a deeper way.
We planted Eucalyptus cinerea and Fred and Derick planted masses of others in between preparing to build the house. Then the drought of the early eighties took most of them. But Fred persevered and trees grew. The original survivors grew tall and large. Others crowded into bushy patches that grew larger. We took seed from Joe and Bonnie's Black Sallys, propagated them in tubes and planted on the slope to the north of the house. (not shading the house!)
Fred is still planting trees.
I befriended "Tip" the original skink who had made his way from the rocks and briars on the south to the rock wall that Fred built. We came to know his family, deciding that he was a father and the other one was the mother. (proven when I actually saw the birthing of six live youngsters).
They lived near our back door, by the steps up to the shed in the rock wall and she produced six youngsters every year. Many of the years they all survived the winter hibernation until eventually they also began to produce young. (Did other skinks migrate in?)
We were having a population explosion. We still stopped the cats from catching them if possible and grieved when watching a Kookaburra eating one. But the cats did keep the mice away.
Then we became catless. And the magpies came and carolled us. Magnificent birds each with their own personality and preferences for particular foods! "Shadda" was the first who came to the back door looking in and casting her shadow on the glass. A brownish coloured magpie whom we thought was the mother. Was she an elder who died or a young male who was cast out? We don't know. But the next year "Auntie" came with three or four young ones but the attrition rate was high and eventually there was just two. "Aloyisius" and "Caruso". Caruso was a female and is still here despite attempts to get her independent. Aloyisius was the tamest, he sat on our laps to get food, but he was cast out to fend for himself.
We no longer name the young magpies. But they use the house verandah as a playground and sing and call out for more food; a call we increasingly ignore as fat worms get taken out of the garden.
So the years went on. Now this last season brought an early heatwave which brought an echidna to the house to get some shelter from the fierce Springtime heat. We have bushland here now! The wombats are on the creek and we have seen them in the garden when the grass was very bare during the drought. Now it is just the deposits in the gateway that excite us!
Occasionally we see kangaroos over here from the paddock across the road. Yesterday one was lying under the Black Sally's.
This year (2010) the skinks have seemed worried and frightened. Perhaps we were absent too long over September as they came out of hibernation. I don't know. Last week perhaps I saw the answer. A brown snake at the bottom of the stone wall. Is this the reason for the small number of baby skinks this year and the absence of last year's group? Fred did see the snake in springtime. Summer was fortunately for us a time when we didn't see it. But then while trying to keep safe, we also don't look deliberately. We know snakes are around. And the mice are here now too. The magpies get fed muesli these days. (no, no meat) and although crested pigeons, and crimson rosellas and blue wrens help to clean up, the mice do as well. Mice (and oats) bring snakes. I learnt that when we had chooks.
When I put clothes on the line under the verandah I have to be careful of the golden orb spider that is growing rather large by the post. A wonderful web is crafted every morning and glows gold in the sunlight.
So the bushland that Fred planted is flourishing. I'm not sure if I am pleased! I liked it better when we knew the animals around us as individuals. I rejoiced at births and grieved losses.
Perhaps it is time to learn a deeper way.
Monday, March 15, 2010
"Climate Denial"
My apologies, this one is a ramble. But life is getting complicated. Perhaps there are some resources here for you to follow up.
Tonight (Monday 15th March) was a relief. The ABC News headlined the CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology report that found the climate in Australia really has been warming over the last fifty years. http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/
We know the change which has happened in Burra over thirty years. 39 years is long enough to get climate data.
I was getting worried by the level of media coverage some of the nay sayers were getting.
Sunday reminded me that the inner and outer circles of status are not fixed, are not defined clearly. Who is on the outside looking in, and who is in the centre are not always easy to say. The prodigal son seems to be marginalised. But the father runs to greet him and bring him in. And the older son who has stayed at home, in the "centre", is now outside in the fields. But even here, the father goes outside to try to bring him in also.
Who is in the centre? The IPCC, James Hanson? Al Gore? or is it now the deniers, the Lord Monckton's who seem to be feted by the media. ...
Hopefully the steady statements of Bureau of Met and CSIRO people will show us who to believe. <sigh>
I am chasing up Clive Hamilton's columns written for The Drum Unleashed (on ABC) about Climate Denialists.
22 Feb http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2826189.htm Bullying, lies and the rise of right-wing climate denial
23 Feb http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2827047.htm Who is orchestrating the cyber-bullying?
24 Feb http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2828195.htm Think tanks, oil money and black ops
Where does the plethora, the deluge of climate denial come from? Why the push to make the ABC "politically correct" and to tone down their advocacy of the climate science? I was shocked by a comment from Alex Sloane on 666 local ABC radio last week in a (short) interview with James Hanson, that she had not heard anything from him or other scientists, that the scientists were quiet. I thought rather that the media were neither reading "New Scientist", or listening to their own "Science Show".
On the 23rd Hamilton wrote:
I am now wondering about connections between right wing denialism and religious fundamentalism.
and this is the report to expose Exxon's contribution to the debate:
http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/global_warming/exxon_report.pdf
Tonight (Monday 15th March) was a relief. The ABC News headlined the CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology report that found the climate in Australia really has been warming over the last fifty years. http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/
We know the change which has happened in Burra over thirty years. 39 years is long enough to get climate data.
I was getting worried by the level of media coverage some of the nay sayers were getting.
Sunday reminded me that the inner and outer circles of status are not fixed, are not defined clearly. Who is on the outside looking in, and who is in the centre are not always easy to say. The prodigal son seems to be marginalised. But the father runs to greet him and bring him in. And the older son who has stayed at home, in the "centre", is now outside in the fields. But even here, the father goes outside to try to bring him in also.
Who is in the centre? The IPCC, James Hanson? Al Gore? or is it now the deniers, the Lord Monckton's who seem to be feted by the media. ...
Hopefully the steady statements of Bureau of Met and CSIRO people will show us who to believe. <sigh>
I am chasing up Clive Hamilton's columns written for The Drum Unleashed (on ABC) about Climate Denialists.
22 Feb http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2826189.htm Bullying, lies and the rise of right-wing climate denial
23 Feb http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2827047.htm Who is orchestrating the cyber-bullying?
24 Feb http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2828195.htm Think tanks, oil money and black ops
Where does the plethora, the deluge of climate denial come from? Why the push to make the ABC "politically correct" and to tone down their advocacy of the climate science? I was shocked by a comment from Alex Sloane on 666 local ABC radio last week in a (short) interview with James Hanson, that she had not heard anything from him or other scientists, that the scientists were quiet. I thought rather that the media were neither reading "New Scientist", or listening to their own "Science Show".
On the 23rd Hamilton wrote:
What drives denial?
What motivates the legion of climate deniers to send hate-mail? In recent years a great deal of evidence has come to light linking fossil fuel corporations with organisations that promote climate denial, but it would be a mistake to believe that the army of sceptical bloggers is in any sense in the pay of, or directly influenced by, the fossil fuel lobby.
Climate denialism has been absorbed by an older and wider political movement, sometimes called right-wing populism. Emanating from the United States, and defined more by what it fears than by what it proposes, the movement's enemies were helpfully listed in a 2004 TV ad attacking Democrat Howard Dean, whose supporters were characterised as a:
"tax hiking, government-expanding, latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading, body-piercing, Hollywood-loving, left-wing freak show.".....
In more recent years, the denial movement has been joined by some hard-line conservative Christian groups, including the notorious Catch the Fire Ministries and its witch-hunting pastor Danny Nalliah. According to Paul Colgan, these groups were heavily involved in the lobbying to have Tony Abbott elected as Liberal Party leader. ...
I am now wondering about connections between right wing denialism and religious fundamentalism.
As this suggests, becoming a denialist does not follow from carefully weighing up the evidence (that is, true scepticism) but from associating oneself with a cultural outlook, taking on an identity defined in opposition to a caricature of those who support action on climate change. It is the energy in this wider movement that has seen climate denialism morphing into a new form of political extremism.I guess I will just have to accept the reality that Fred and I drink lattes (and chardonnay!), and we should be spending our money on a nice car rather than photo voltaics! But of course now we can actually expect to be making money from the panels. Does that make us "filthy capitalists?"
Some active climate deniers possess a distinct "mindset" comprised of a certain worldview, including a narrative centered on secretive forces - variously encompassing elected leaders, scientists, scientific organisations, environmental groups and the United Nations - that are using climate science and climate policies as a cover to accumulate power with the objective of creating a world government that overrides national sovereignty and deprives citizens of their rights.
Those who hold to this worldview often feel marginalised and persecuted. It attracts the unstable and fanatical as well as those with more legitimate political grievances. For political leaders so inclined, the energy being mobilised by climate denial is a golden opportunity. Although it remains necessary for these leaders to evince a concern for the environment, and even to pretend to accept climate science, they can speak to the denialist minority using dog-whistling techniques to signal that they are really on their side.
and this is the report to expose Exxon's contribution to the debate:
http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/global_warming/exxon_report.pdf
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