Posted on 02/27/2012 12:06:04 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
James Garvey, a philosopher and the author of The Ethics of Climate Change has written a defence of Peter Gleick at the Guardian:
What Heartland is doing is harmful, because it gets in the way of public consensus and action. Was Gleick right to lie to expose Heartland and maybe stop it from causing further delay to action on climate change? If his lie has good effects overall if those who take Heartland's money to push scepticism are dismissed as shills, if donors pull funding after being exposed in the press then perhaps on balance he did the right thing. It could go the other way too maybe he's undermined confidence in climate scientists. It depends on how this plays out.
It's good to know that environmentalists feel this way about telling the truth. We have had similar insider views on truth-telling from, for example, the Open University's Joe Smith, who reported the decision to issue tactical lies over the nature of the global warming debat.
Hard also to avoid Stephen Schneider's famous quote:
...we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This double ethical bind we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both.
I guess Dr Garvey has cast his vote for effective rather than honest.
(Excerpt) Read more at bishop-hill.net ...
What say we,....the little people?
Torches and pitchforks seem appropriate.
This is all most amusing.
Not only do progressives have weak minds, they are also weak d*cks.
What a bunch of maroons...perfect writers for the Guardian.
Apparently you have to be a member of a very special interest group to get away with lying. Muslims can lie to advance Islam & AGW alarmists can lie to advance their cause. What a world!
Yes, scientific debate has always gotten in the way of consensus. Typical fascists.
For libs the ends always justify any means.
That is just the normal rules of liberals and Muslims.
Just another "the end justifies the means" thing so popular among the 1960s Marxist campus spoiled brats and their ideological issue -- arguably now "the Establishment."
The Marxist murders have been breaking the Tenth Commandment ever since Karl Marx started jotting notes on a cocktail napkin in Paris.
Greenism is the most dangerous ideology since Nazism and communism. In many ways, it is just a mixture of the two, anyway.
Hell, why stop at lying and deception? Why not just include mass murder if it helps the liberal cause? After all, 'the ends justifies the means' and all that other self-serving Marxist crap...
Criminal behavior is always ok for leftists.
The laws are for everyone else.
Sounds just like muzzies. Lying to advance their program.
My daughter went to a middle school named for Rachel Carson when she was of that age. I used to go to parent-teacher things an the little middle school teachers would say, ‘daughter-name tells us you have a PhD and do R&D’, I would let them assume for awhile that I shared their worshipful view of Rachel Carson’. After I felt I had them I steered the conversation back to the environment and Rachel Carson and would proceed to give them ‘chapter and verse’ as to what a scientific fraud she was! Additionally global warming nonsense was taking off then I also demolished that. prior to that they probably never had anyone with a ‘science background’ actually criticize the environmental memes of the day! It was good for them! I really didn't care if I came off as a jerk! I found the personality cult of Rachel Carson and unthinking worship of all things environmental at that school very offensive. Something had to be said! And it didn't hurt my daughter any, she is now working on her PhD in chemistry. In fact it may have laid the groundwork where she is very skeptical (as she is now!)of all things that are part of the 'popular wisdom'! So now if you present "facts" to her, you had better have some "unbiased" references!
And rope. Lots of rope.
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