Monday, June 16, 2008

The Enemy of My Enemy . . .

What do internet trolls hate more than ridiculous lawsuits? Greenpeace, apparently.

You have to read the article and the comments to appreciate it, but here is the summary. Spanish real estate developers are suing Greenpeace because they put out a book which features photos of Spain manipulated to reflect what they might look like in the future based on the IPCC sea level rise estimates. The developers claim that the value of their properties has gone down based on the book.

Demand: 30 million euros.

Ok, now that you have stopped laughing, let's see what the commenters have to say:

First comment, from "Truth Seeker"
I think it is high time the Greenpeace and other environmental terrorist groups are held responsible for their actions. Greenpeace slanders and manipulates people into accepting their ridiculous agenda and yet cannot accept it in return. I hope these developers win.

This from "T.H. Almond"
I hope they sue Greenpeace back into the dark ages, where they belong. Climate alarmists like Greenpeace and Al Gore are non-scientists and socialists to the core.
. . .
This from "Farmer Bill"
Greenpeace, Al Gore and the rest of the earthfirst type crowd are terrorists in the true sense of the word. They spread fear and doubt for profit, power and political gain. Sue them until they are broke and then execute them publically (sic).

I don't exactly know the reason for it, but somehow climate change denial has become a cause célèbre for a lot of libertarian, conspiracy, anti-government folks, not to mention standard right-wing trolls. I guess I don't really understand the vitriol.

I can see the socialism slant to cap-and-trade, etc. True limited government types who see regulation of any kind as evil will object. The thing is, though, the cap-and-trade bill failed. They act like they are fighting this rising tide of eco-socialism (pun intended) but in reality nothing is being done.

If you want conspiracy theories, look to the other side of the equation. The same people who think that our government brought down the World Trade Center in order to go into Iraq also think climate change is a government hoax. I hate to break it to them, but if the Bush and co. brought down the towers they sure didn't do it so Al Gore and the environmentalists can regulate carbon. Perhaps I'm too infected with leftist ideas, but I see a pretty concerted effort to keep from doing anything about climate change, even in the face of worldwide scientific consensus.

Sometimes I just don't understand.

2 comments:

Zach Wallmark said...

Amazing story and unbelievable comments. I think that many of the deniers out there arrive at their positions completely independent of information or even a vested interest in the status quo (stock in ExxonMobil, for instance): rather, what we are seeing here is a failure to imagine. It is true that if the findings reported in thousands of peer-reviewed scientific journals even have a passing probability of taking place, we will be looking at a completely different Earth within the next generation. All of this is hard to grapple with, and the common default position is simply to deny that anything is wrong to begin with. Or you could just kill yourself.

There are a few ways to psychologically deal with the new realities facing us as a species: some people tackle the problem head on, optimistically praying for technological advances, better government policy on the issue, etc. To these people, this is a fight we can win. On the other hand you have the pessimists, people like J. Lovelock who think that no matter what we do now, it's too late. Between these two positions is where most of us lie: we see the problem, we fear it, but we're paralyzed and feel that nothing we as individuals can do will really amount to that much as long as China is dumping CO2 into the air with reckless abandon. Outside of this framework, of course, are the ostriches who don't even recognize there's a problem.

Unfortunately, the silly political dichotomy of Liberal (coastal, multicultural, environmental, latte-sipping, Prius-driving) and Conservative (heart-land, traditional, family-oriented, true American) is at work here too. I have known a few people who don't believe in human-caused climate change purely because Al Gore was the guy making the movie, thus invalidating all the claims. Similarly, Greenpeace is a controversial organization and has come to be very closely associated with fringe leftist politics, irrespective of the real threats that they engage. So - having a "terrorist, socialist" organization representing a problem that is too big for many people to swallow is a double whammy. Their vitriol is an emotional response to this profound confusion, anger, and helplessness.

Ruxton Schuh said...

Second what Zach said. The comments you posted all reek of a predetermined bias against Greenpeace. My parents are staunch republicans and I remember them saying some pretty negative things about Greenpeace. I think people see the news stories where a bunch of hippies in a raft are trying to take on oil tankers and whaling vessels and they somehow translate that into fear. At this hint of vindication against Greenpeace comes the glimmer of hope that this fear may actually be silenced.

Me personally? I'm not a huge fan of Greenpeace. I'm glad extremist groups like that exist, otherwise we'd not be kept honest. Still, I prefer to take the approach of cooperation. Nobody's going to do anything to change the world if you demand it of them.