So - in just one year - and after just one half hour airing on a popular comedy show - Brazil has gone from being the nation least likely to have its mainstream media deny climate change to one of the bad guys.
Perhaps the best known denier-tracking journalist , Chris Mooney, credits - or blames - popular TV comic Jo Soares and his invitation to denier & geography prof RA Felicio to babble on for half an hour, for turning Brazil into a place hospitable to the denier classes.
I am not surprised - I have said all along the deniers are not a mere fringe of nutters but about 60% of us - the majority of us.
Saturday, June 30, 2012
Friday, June 29, 2012
Mike of WATCHING THE DENIERS writes in the spirit of Cobbett and Twain
If you don't read the Ozzie blog WATCHING THE DENIERS you really must.
Mike writes in the style of the William Cobbett taking on the British government over its ill-treatment of troops at Ely (an article that got him two years at Newgate for sedition .... and made him forever famous as a defender of the ordinary people).
He writes in the style of the Mark Twain who took on the American government for the genocide at the Moro Crater.
Mike writes in the style of the William Cobbett taking on the British government over its ill-treatment of troops at Ely (an article that got him two years at Newgate for sedition .... and made him forever famous as a defender of the ordinary people).
He writes in the style of the Mark Twain who took on the American government for the genocide at the Moro Crater.
why me and not some academic writing up Henry Dawson's discoveries ?
Good question : one I get asked many times.
One answer is that if an academic is ever going to do a thesis on Henry Dawson, I want it done before I am dead, so I can read it too.
I mean the man made the significant breakthrough in DNA almost 85 years ago, the significant breakthrough in penicillin almost 75 years ago - so why aren't thesis supervisors beating at his family's door, looking for personal and professional papers ?
I think I know why.
I am a longtime DIYer and I instantly recognized a kindred "go it alone" spirit in Dawson's tiny little makeshift penicillin project, something I was sure that "Big Academia's collegiality won't be able to fathom.
One answer is that if an academic is ever going to do a thesis on Henry Dawson, I want it done before I am dead, so I can read it too.
I mean the man made the significant breakthrough in DNA almost 85 years ago, the significant breakthrough in penicillin almost 75 years ago - so why aren't thesis supervisors beating at his family's door, looking for personal and professional papers ?
I think I know why.
I am a longtime DIYer and I instantly recognized a kindred "go it alone" spirit in Dawson's tiny little makeshift penicillin project, something I was sure that "Big Academia's collegiality won't be able to fathom.
Rex Tillerson Poster Boy for the Church of Latter Day Modernity
"One step forward, a zillion steps back, smile at the camera and you're doin' The Exxon-Mobil Jack".
Yessiree Bob, as I could have predicted*, the new boss of Exxon-Mobil has accepted that climate change is happening .
But (a) he says that worries about it are well and truly overblown and (b) he also says it will all be quickly,quietly, cheaply, efficiently engineered right back out of existence.
Yessiree Bob, as I could have predicted*, the new boss of Exxon-Mobil has accepted that climate change is happening .
But (a) he says that worries about it are well and truly overblown and (b) he also says it will all be quickly,quietly, cheaply, efficiently engineered right back out of existence.
the fragments of a dialectic enlightenment :Adorno & Horkheimer as PUNK DIYers ...
If one of your dear, dear friends gave you as a christmas present, late in December, over 300 pages of turgid prose, written in fragmentary style, and mimeographed to ensure ultra low quality readability and then stuck it all between two dull brown covers, you might be forgiven if you waited until January before you began a token,polite, skim through it.
That would be January....... 1945.
1945 ! : post-hegemony's annus mirabilis.
That would be January....... 1945.
1945 ! : post-hegemony's annus mirabilis.
I know nothing - I hope - about academic post-hegemony
I find reading academic works on post-hegemony feels like being fracked in the butt by a sociology thesis - the jargon will tear your insides out like nothing else can.
All I believe is that something very important happened in 1945, after 500 years of stability.
Modernity didn't die but it was wounded, its hegemony assailed - one could fancy you could even heard its last breaths.
Post-modernity didn't replace modernity, but it was birthed that year and one could almost hear its faint first yelps.
So, nope, no shiny brand new hegemony dominating the high ground, replacing the earlier hegemony.
That is a very modernist notion and feels almost quaint to say in 2012.
Instead we see competing hegemonies occupying different parts of that high ground - an concept that itself is typically post-modernist and 2012-up-to-dated.
So I am saying that pre-1945 Modernity survived almost unchanged, but limited to areas such as politics, business, some applied sciences, among wealthy retirees - call them all 'the denier classes', from their position on climate change.
But they really deny any and all thought that there can ever be biological or material limits on man's will to do whatever he wants ---- and to correct quickly any mistakes he might very occasionally make.
They see themselves as Pierre-Simon LaPlace would - as skygods - high above Nature.
Post-1945 thinkers are usually but not always younger - they accept that there are limits to what Humanity can hope to do.
They accept we humans are deeply embedded in the web of life and that we must be global commensalists and share the Earth, because it is the only lifeboat in the Universe that Life has got.
Think of them as earthlings - particularly in relationship to their polar opposites - the skygods.
The earthlings dominate in areas like the life sciences, among greens and environmentalists - and among some of the young.
That is enough for you to know about post-hegemony as I see it.
I might attempt to describe hegemony of course - good luck !
It can be thought of as when sincere opponents to a system of government or society nevertheless coach their opposition in terms that the government or society's elite have provided - the day in day out total emersion bath of schooling, media, political talk etc.
Successful hegemony isn't seen as an ideology - but as pure common sense and even as 'the way of nature' - unchangeable even if we wanted to change it.
All I believe is that something very important happened in 1945, after 500 years of stability.
Modernity didn't die but it was wounded, its hegemony assailed - one could fancy you could even heard its last breaths.
Post-modernity didn't replace modernity, but it was birthed that year and one could almost hear its faint first yelps.
So, nope, no shiny brand new hegemony dominating the high ground, replacing the earlier hegemony.
That is a very modernist notion and feels almost quaint to say in 2012.
Instead we see competing hegemonies occupying different parts of that high ground - an concept that itself is typically post-modernist and 2012-up-to-dated.
So I am saying that pre-1945 Modernity survived almost unchanged, but limited to areas such as politics, business, some applied sciences, among wealthy retirees - call them all 'the denier classes', from their position on climate change.
But they really deny any and all thought that there can ever be biological or material limits on man's will to do whatever he wants ---- and to correct quickly any mistakes he might very occasionally make.
They see themselves as Pierre-Simon LaPlace would - as skygods - high above Nature.
Post-1945 thinkers are usually but not always younger - they accept that there are limits to what Humanity can hope to do.
They accept we humans are deeply embedded in the web of life and that we must be global commensalists and share the Earth, because it is the only lifeboat in the Universe that Life has got.
Think of them as earthlings - particularly in relationship to their polar opposites - the skygods.
The earthlings dominate in areas like the life sciences, among greens and environmentalists - and among some of the young.
That is enough for you to know about post-hegemony as I see it.
I might attempt to describe hegemony of course - good luck !
It can be thought of as when sincere opponents to a system of government or society nevertheless coach their opposition in terms that the government or society's elite have provided - the day in day out total emersion bath of schooling, media, political talk etc.
Successful hegemony isn't seen as an ideology - but as pure common sense and even as 'the way of nature' - unchangeable even if we wanted to change it.
DEXTER best Modernist govt NS ever had --- just too bad we live in postmodernist times...
If postmodernist times believe in de-centralization, the local, small is beautiful, DIY/PUNK and Off-the-Grid , modernity * just as surely worships megaprojects and the idea that ever bigger is ever better.
Darrell Dexter's NDP government here in Nova Scotia isn't bad (ie isn't corrupt) and is giving us the kind of competent "modern" government we can only wish we had had in the 1970s and 1980s.
The problem is that we are living in the 21st century and in postmodernist times.
Darrell Dexter's NDP government here in Nova Scotia isn't bad (ie isn't corrupt) and is giving us the kind of competent "modern" government we can only wish we had had in the 1970s and 1980s.
The problem is that we are living in the 21st century and in postmodernist times.
Thursday, June 28, 2012
97% consensus of climate scientists OPPOSED good evidence of climate change in 1892,1902,1922,1942 etc
If today's climate scientists are united in accepting evidence of climate change it is NOT because the evidence has changed that way.
It is because the scientists themselves have changed - no longer living in (and promoting) High Modernity with its rarified/reified views of the unlimited potential of Man to quickly solve any little problem He himself might create.
It is because the scientists themselves have changed - no longer living in (and promoting) High Modernity with its rarified/reified views of the unlimited potential of Man to quickly solve any little problem He himself might create.
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Dr Dawson a FIFTH COLUMN of low postmodernity , inside the Citadel of High Modernity?
The term "FIFTH COLUMN" is now more than 75 years old.
It was first used in a radio address in 1936, by a right wing (Nationalist) general named Emilio Mola , during the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s, to describe his efforts to take left wing (Republican) Madrid .
It was first used in a radio address in 1936, by a right wing (Nationalist) general named Emilio Mola , during the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s, to describe his efforts to take left wing (Republican) Madrid .
Monday, June 25, 2012
Doubting Reality : (Koch's red slippers) birthing DENIAL in a Mayberry sort of town
Growing up in a Mayberry sort of town, a little place on the prairie , is just the sort of thing that might make a feller want to doubt reality: current reality anyway."Denying Life after the 1950s" (birthing DENIAL in a Mayberry sort of time & town)
To misquote the late Ian MacDonald : "revolution OUTSIDE the head"
Forget denying climate change - it is the mere tiniest iceberg tip of the denying classes' overall brief against the world.
What they are really denying is the existence of the real revolution that has happened, in the physical world, outside their heads.
What they are really denying is the existence of the real revolution that has happened, in the physical world, outside their heads.
SVE's "awkward" sub-title is no accident
Why does SVE 's sub-title run so 'trippingly-not' off the tongue?
Moderns versus Post-Modernity indeed - why not moderns versus post-moderns or Modernity versus Post-Modernity ?
I constructed it that way because I have come to believe that while our world has decisively and permanently changed (ie is clearly post-modern in its structure) --- we haven't.
Moderns versus Post-Modernity indeed - why not moderns versus post-moderns or Modernity versus Post-Modernity ?
I constructed it that way because I have come to believe that while our world has decisively and permanently changed (ie is clearly post-modern in its structure) --- we haven't.
Sun-hegemony in a post-hegemonic world
It is a very very brave - and rare - reader of the TORONTO SUN who publicly dares to define the group hegemony among its readers.
But recently, 6% of those readers defied the SUN Hegemony that there is no change in the Climate.
But recently, 6% of those readers defied the SUN Hegemony that there is no change in the Climate.
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Climate Debate's "Included Middle" and excluded edges
When I claim you can't simultaneously be an environmentalist and a supporter of Mars colonies, I really mean you shouldn't be both.
Because obviously many of us - perhaps most of us - feel we can have our environmental cake and eat a little Mars bar as well.
We like to be both Modern and Post-Modern : we just feel richer by settling for both, without letting our sense of consistency keep us up nights.
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