The UK Government's former chief scientific adviser has accused green activists of putting the fight against climate change at risk by wanting to take society back to the 17th century.
He said: "There is a suspicion, and I have that suspicion myself, that a large number of people who label themselves 'green' are actually keen to take us back to the 18th or even the 17th century.
Sir David's comments were made in an interview in The Guardian.
Er ... being a colloid chemist, what does he know about climate and nuclear energy? Is he a friend of Tony Brown and Gordon Blair?
Thanks Paul.
Green Davey - Sir David King is a Colloid Chemist:
http://www.ch.cam.ac.uk/staff/dak.html
Paul: On “greed and self employment” I consider myself a bit of an expert in undoing a sales pitch and self promotion. Also anyone on pure commission won’t get far with me.
Promoting someone’s spin is not self employment either. Lets get down to biz and see who can actually make a wheel or a decent carving knife today before we look backwards.
Long distant communication started with smoke signals, not smoke screens. King’s arguments are about maintaining the pace of modern developments and finding more power.
The reality of the top end of society staying home for a change is a bit too hard to swallow. Folks in London now have to share the sky with people from Shanghai but King makes no concessions.
Face to face arguments between the masses please.
Does anybody know Sir Dave's second initial? I want to Google Scholar his publications, to see why he is famous.
P.S. As a green, I don't want to go back to the 17th century - I would rather go back to the Middle Ages, a time of intellectual ferment. Universities then taught grammar, logic, and rhetoric - the tripos of the brain.
chrisgo - "Nice bit of 'verballing' there Ender and, as usual, 'petitio principii'.
You'd qualify for admission to some infamous police forces."
Definition of verballing:
"verb (verbals, verballing, verballed)
1. (context, transitive, Australia) To fabricate a confession
1.
* 1982, John A. Andrews, Human Rights in Criminal Procedure: A Comparative Study, ISBN 9024725526, BRILL, page 128
*
* : "The problem of 'verballing' is unlikely to disappear, whatever the legal status of the person detained."
*
* 2001, Chris Cunneen, Conflict, Politics and Crime: Aboriginal Communities and the Police, ISBN 1864487194, Allen & Unwin, page 116
*
* : "Condren had always claimed that he was assaulted and verballed by police over the murder he had supposedly confessed to committing."
*
* 2004, Jeremy Gans & Andrew Palmer, Australian Principles of Evidence, ISBN 1876905123, Routledge Cavendish, page 504
*
* : "Moreover, given the risk of verballing, it is by no means apparent that it is in the interests of justice that the prosecution have the benefit of admissions that are made on occasions when recordings are impracticable."
I don't see where I extracted a confession from Woody here. I simply used a ridiculous example to show how equally ridiculous his redneck notion is that environmentalists and the environmental movement is communist. Communism has done just as much damage to the environment, if not more, than capitalism. I don't see the connection. Pure capitalism without a measure of socialism is just as unworkable as pure communism without a measure of capitalism. I would not like to live in either extreme which makes me happy that I live in Australia where there is a healthy blend of the two.
So don't call me a communist just because I want to protect the environment. BTW the radical tightening of police powers has mostly been done by democratic capitalist countries in the contrived war on terror. Democratic people seem to be the fastest to give away their freedoms without a fight or protest almost as fast as the communist people that never had them.
Let's not confuse 'greed' with self-improvement. If anyone wants to adopt 17th century living standards, carry on - let us know how you get on -no emial then - so write us a letter with your quill pen.
Loius, the list is a joke.
Has he come back to us with :-
* People who he said had PhDs but don't.
* People who demanded to be removed from the list.
* People who are not at all prominent scientists of any description.
* People who are scientists but not actually qualified to give an informed opinion.
* Duplicates.
So far I have not heard one word on these matters from him, although he has brought out revised lists. These revisions, however, only ever mention adding more names, nothing about his errors/falsehoods/misrepresentations.
Henry has received my latest revison of the Hissink File, and it might get posted next day or so.
Good to see the usual suspects blathering - Marc Morano has an excellent retort to the NYT as reported by John Ray.
Game, set and Match but you do have to admire them - as that classic comment made in Gladiator, "people should know when they are conqured".
'Woody - "When the Soviet Union and communism collapsed, members of the Communist Party in the west had to find a new way to attack capitalism, and they found the route by claiming to be environmentalists and global warming alarmists"
Clever of the Communists to arrange for global CO2 to rise just to attack capitalism. Really makes it convincing.'
Nice bit of 'verballing' there Ender and, as usual, 'petitio principii'.
You'd qualify for admission to some infamous police forces.