[ Left to Right : Phil Thornhill (Campaign against Climate Change), Dr David Adam (The Guardian) ]
I bet you all thought I was going to talk about Professor Phil Jones, who has been completely and utterly exonerated this week :-
https://www.desmogblog.com/second-expert-panel-shows-climategate-was-sham
https://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/04/phil_jones_vindicated_some_mor.php
But, no. I’m going to report on what Phil Thornhill said on Wednesday at the “Sceptic Backlash” meeting.
Phil Thornhill stood up to speak after we had all heard the wisdom of a stuffed toy on Wednesday evening :-
https://www.joabbess.com/2010/04/17/the-guardian-trumped-by-versus-a-stuffed-toucan/
but that didn’t put him off his stride.
Here are his words, as I noted them :-
– The standard of Media is important.
– It has changed (reference : John Pilger’s “Breaking The Mirror”).
– The Media has been debased [dragged down into the gutter].
– [It is as if] if there’s nothing important going on, the standard of the public debate doesn’t matter.
– But now we have something really serious to deal with… [comment removed]
– Where did all this carp come from [in the current Media] ?
– 1. Vested interests, Fossil Fuels – their source of making money is at risk [from measures on Climate Change] – they are behind the machine of disinformation.
– 2. A political bandwagon – promotion of non-stop growth, neoliberalism, removing regulation. [Margaret] Thatcher, you may remember her – for her Climate Change meant massive regulatory [challenge].
– 3. Climate Change is fundamentally bad news – you have to tell bad news or you are not telling the story.
– Climate Change is a complete game-changer.
– [I say we should not] hit them [Climate Change sceptics] at their own level. Don’t. The more the Science is debated, the more it looks debateable – that is a trap.
– So what do we do ? We shouldn’t be phased by it. Do what we’re doing already and a lot more of it.
– Climate Change has appeared on the front page of a lot of newspapers – even though awareness of it has been of something “bogus”.
– My sense is that it’s a huge controversy – ultimately it will work in our favour – Climate Change has been on the front pages again and over again.
– It looks like there’s going to be a big fight about it.
– Australia, it used to be the most effective Climate Change country – 150,000 people marching – it’s the opposite now – dominated by a sceptic movement.
– We’re not going to win by being rational and nice.
– We are asking for a revolution – not quite the revolution that some are asking for.
– It’s going to be a big fight. We shouldn’t be afraid of it.
– David [Adam] said “don’t worry” – but we’re on a trajectory to catastrophe.
– The national debate is not working. We need to stoke it up. We need our side up there at them.
– When they shout and bully we need to shout back.
– We shouldn’t think we shouldn’t look emotional about it.
– People won’t think there’s a big problem unless people are getting upset about it. We need more people on the streets, shovelling coal off trains – we still need to do that – a big hell of a conflict.
– The Climate sceptics get the news are they are “guerillas” – attacking the consensus. We need to knock that – do what they do – attack the political consensus.
– We want to wind everybody up by proposing a national speed limit of 55 miles per hour – that’s our way to do what they’re [Climate sceptics] are doing.
There followed a question and answers session.