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SCIENCE GUY MAKES STUFF UP

Canadian environmite David Suzuki alerts us to a scientific consensus of which I was previously unaware:

I always think of Australians as a country that really believes in international law, and becoming a responsible member for the global community of nations, so to see Australia take this position is completely mystifying to me, and to amplify my concerns, every scientific body has said that global warming is a far greater threat to our security than any terrorist act, yet we’re not making any committment to dealing with this. Part of the problem is we’ve got governments whipping up public frenzy about terrorism, which is a great way to avoid these more long term problems; you know, the issue of global warming is one that is going to take generations and generations to deal with the consequences and do something about.

Please name all those scientific bodies, Dave, so that we may examine their statements on terrorism.

Posted by Tim B. on 09/12/2006 at 12:12 AM
  1. Bit rich coming from a bloke who engages in this sort of irresponsible behaviour.

    Posted by Habib on 2006 09 12 at 12:37 AM • permalink

  2. I remember one of the bodies who got behind Suzuki with his ‘Ten years to get it right’ campaign back in the 80s - it belonged to Belinda Carlisle.
    Mmmmmm
    (floats off on a cloud of nostalgic lust)

    Posted by SwinishCapitalist on 2006 09 12 at 12:42 AM • permalink

  3. I always think of Australians as a country ...

    Not really surprising to see things go downhill after that start.

    Posted by PW on 2006 09 12 at 12:44 AM • permalink

  4. Ah!  So this is what happens when you crush stupidity to the density of a neutron star!

    Posted by Pixy Misa on 2006 09 12 at 12:48 AM • permalink

  5. What do you expect from some poindexter who sticks his name on the least fuel efficient motorcycle ever built?

    Posted by Habib on 2006 09 12 at 12:59 AM • permalink

  6. In the Australian today William kininmonth dumps on the alarmists bigtime.

    Posted by blogstrop on 2006 09 12 at 01:00 AM • permalink

  7. Please name all those scientific bodies,

    Well, there’s the;
    Lumpy Body
    Slightly Fluffy Body
    Old and Utterly Forgotten Body
    Silly Body
    Frumpy Body
    The Body That Time Forgot to Forget Body
    and last, but not least -
    The Can You Believe We Ever Believed This Shit? Body (also known as Piltdown Man’s Body )

    Posted by Grimmy on 2006 09 12 at 01:08 AM • permalink

  8. I think he might have been misquoted- what he really said was every scientific botty.

    Posted by Habib on 2006 09 12 at 01:23 AM • permalink

  9. Head Hackers vs. Tree Hackers

    Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2006 09 12 at 01:31 AM • permalink

  10. “Canadians would die for the kind of sun you have raining down on this country every day.”

    Is it possible for the sun to rain down?

    No wonder he’s so confused about the climate.

    Posted by chriss on 2006 09 12 at 01:35 AM • permalink

  11. What is the fashionable wear for those days when it’s raining sun?

    Posted by Grimmy on 2006 09 12 at 01:37 AM • permalink

  12. The Islamic Astronomical Society said global warming is more of a threat than terrorism. They also said “Huh, what’s a telescope?”

    I kid, I kid. Arabs and muslims have made many scientific contributions. Just, not in about 1,100 years.

    Posted by Shaky Barnes on 2006 09 12 at 01:38 AM • permalink

  13. #10- if you stood out in it, you would die, especially if you’re a pasty Canuck- dehydration and unstroke would do for you before the melanomas finally enveloped your silly mountie hat.

    Maybe he’s spent a bit too much time getting close and personal with tudra voles, and his brain’s frozen.

    Posted by Habib on 2006 09 12 at 01:53 AM • permalink

  14. “...every scientific body has said that global warming is a far greater threat to our security than any terrorist act, yet we’re not making any committment to dealing with this.”

    Look at this way…every terrorist we kill is one less terrorist that will be driving around in an S.U.V.

    Posted by Dave Surls on 2006 09 12 at 01:57 AM • permalink

  15. Look at this way…every terrorist we kill is one less terrorist that will be driving around in an S.U.V.

    Yep. Dead is about as “carbon neutral” as it gets.

    Posted by Grimmy on 2006 09 12 at 02:04 AM • permalink

  16. Any Penn and Teller fans out there? Tonight’s “Bullshit” episode looks at climate change/global warming. I’m talking Oz tv.

    Posted by Skeptic on 2006 09 12 at 02:14 AM • permalink

  17. ” ... in Vancouver it’s cheaper for restaurants to serve lamb that comes from Australia than it does to serve lamb that comes… 40 miles away ... “

    Australian lamb production is 1000% - one thousand percent - greater than Canada’s entire sheep and lamb production. Economies of scale actually help the environment, David.

    ” ... plus pig farms are coming in because of the insatiable appetite for China for pork… if we continue along this path we are going to have a stressful future ...”

    Pork-eating Chinese peasants stress us out?

    The entire interview is a slew of half-baked nonsense. Suzuki should be ignored. 

    And why is every half-baked pseudo-environmentalist visiting Australia this week? Is there a conference on? Instant wind energy.

    Posted by ilibcc on 2006 09 12 at 02:25 AM • permalink

  18. So, he believes Australia should be the deputy to kofi’s sheriff.

    Posted by zefal on 2006 09 12 at 03:09 AM • permalink

  19. Was Dr. Suzuki complaining that Australian lamb is cheaper in Vancouver than the Canadian product to an audience in the Western District of Victoria?  He is crazy.

    Posted by chrisgo on 2006 09 12 at 03:14 AM • permalink

  20. # 17 ilibcc,

    You’re darn right about economies of scale, particularly when it comes to animal husbandry. Want to save an endangered species? Get some good recipes for it and market it to people correctly and soon enough you’ll have   Kentucky Fried Bald Eagle franchises and the sky black with said eagles wafting overhead.

    Posted by JDB on 2006 09 12 at 03:17 AM • permalink

  21. #20, JDB:

    and the sky black with said eagles wafting overhead.

    I’m not so sure that’s such a good idea. I mean, sure, the eagle used to crap twice a month for me, and only does so once a month now, but still… a guy can only drink so much beer without harming himself (or others who happen to be within reach at the time).

    With a sky black with eagles and all the craps that would fall from that, how’d my liver have a chance of survival?

    Posted by Grimmy on 2006 09 12 at 03:29 AM • permalink

  22. Suzuki and all the other harbingers of doom have been overtaken by events, such as Islamo-fascist terrorism.  Their product does not seem to be as frightening anymore, maybe they will have to come up with a new angle.  Islamic friends of the earth kiss it five times a day.

    Posted by Howzat on 2006 09 12 at 03:57 AM • permalink

  23. Knowledge increases if you make it up.

    It’s the scientific method.

    Posted by rhhardin on 2006 09 12 at 05:06 AM • permalink

  24. ”...every scientific body has said that global warming is a far greater threat to our security than any terrorist act”

    Were this true it would show that the scientific community had taken leave of its collective senses.  What special competence do they have in evaluating the threat posed by terrorism?

    Posted by rexie on 2006 09 12 at 05:46 AM • permalink

  25. Ah, nothing like so called global warming fears from so called moonbat scientists, so called politicians and so called intellectuals, to distract attention from the harsh realities of the so called war on terror. Give me strength - I need another so called beer.

    Posted by EliotNess on 2006 09 12 at 06:12 AM • permalink

  26. Every scientific body? What has Al Gore been up to? Is he eating their brains?

    Posted by Retread on 2006 09 12 at 07:05 AM • permalink

  27. In any case, truth in science isn’t determined by consensus.  Consensus isn’t even a reliable guide of the direction in which the truth might lie.  A young scientist, though, is much more likely to gain promotion and funding if he sticks with the consensus.

    Posted by rexie on 2006 09 12 at 07:27 AM • permalink

  28. I had Question Time on the teev this arvo for some unknown reason and it was a corker. Some pollie getting stuck into Howard about glorming and Algore and the usual crap.

    Also mentioned was Howard’s comment about not making policy based upon movies.

    JH said that he had spoken with AlGore during a telephone call which Gore initiated(lol!) and was asked if he’d seen Gore’s doomsday epic. JH replied he hadn’t. JH apparently asked Gore if he’d seen United 93, or Path to 9/11 (I can’t remember exactly which it was, sorry. will be in the transcripts later) and Gore said he hadn’t.

    Just makes Gore look more and more lame.

    And as for Kyoto? Apparently 2 nations in the whole world haven’t signed it. AUS and the US. I nearly cheered out loud at that. JH said straight out that he is not going to sign Kyoto and send jobs overseas to developing countries.

    Yay.

    Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2006 09 12 at 07:49 AM • permalink

  29. When all this is over and settled, I hope there’s enough of a sense of humor left in the US and our allies AUS to actually force the rest of the world to honor that kyoto crap, at gun point, if necessary.

    “You signed it, you deal with it, retards.”

    Posted by Grimmy on 2006 09 12 at 08:41 AM • permalink

  30. “becoming” a responsible member for the global community


    meaning that Australia currently isn’t?

    Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2006 09 12 at 09:06 AM • permalink

  31. #28 I wonder if the Federal Liberal Party’s workshop for their State colleagues has had any effect?  The state Liberals have had the well-nigh perfect role model (JH) in front of them for 10 years. Did they finally work out that maybe they could learn something?

    Posted by Brett_McS on 2006 09 12 at 09:12 AM • permalink

  32. #13 I found a hat quite adequate protection from rain and sun in Oz. Not much rain.

    Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2006 09 12 at 09:14 AM • permalink

  33. #17 And why is every half-baked pseudo-environmentalist visiting Australia this week? Is there a conference on?

    It’s the hot air :-)

    Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2006 09 12 at 09:17 AM • permalink

  34. I went down to the University to nose around and find out about this mysterious consensus of scientific bodies that had decided we were all soon destined to be permanent occupants of a planetary steam bath. It was late, but I figured there had to be one or two geniuses around who preferred playing with test tubes to stacking empty shot glasses down at Machado’s.

    The main door to the Physics building was open and it looked like a good place to start so I tossed my cigarette into a hydrangea bush and sauntered in. The corridors were dimly lit, and the place smelled like Mr. Clean’s bathroom. Down the hall I saw a bright slit of light at the bottom of a door marked “Climatology Department – L. Petri, Dean”. A hole in one. I opened the door and stepped in and that’s when I saw her.

    I don’t know what I was expecting; some geezer with coke bottle glasses and hair like an Easter basket full of excelsior, I suppose. I recalled my days in biology lab in high school, and I’d never seen a Petri dish to match this one. She had long chestnut-colored hair tied in a loose queue that fell half-way down her back and a figure that looked like a stylized ‘S’. When she looked up at me I saw that her eyes were like two deep pools of melted glacier water and I could see myself grabbing a big rock and jumping in and sinking straight to the bottom.

    “Can I help you?”

    “I hope so, ma’am. Name’s Paco, private detective. I’m looking into claims made by. . .” - I consulted my notes – “a David Suzuki that all scientific bodies agree we’ll soon be able to go trolling for marlin off the coast of Nebraska.”

    She turned to face me and her unfastened white lab coat parted: just enough to let me know that this was one scientific body worth some close attention.

    She pondered for a moment. “David Suzuki? Wasn’t he the old guy in The Karate Kid?”

    “No, Professor Petri. He’s a scientist. A geneticist, I believe, who’s banging the global warming drum.”

    She laughed. It sounded like a soft breeze stirring silver wind chimes.

    “In that case, I’ve never heard of him. And if he’s marching to the sound of that particular drummer, he’s way off base. There is no consensus, and my own view is that the global warming scare is largely fraudulent, a bogey-man used by ideologues to gain more political power. And call me Linda”

    So who was I going to believe:  a spectacled old Japanese duffer who was carrying water for Al Gore, or this Venus in a lab coat who’d just asked me to call her “Linda”?

    I smiled and put my notebook away. Case solved. “Linda, you look a little thirsty. Have you ever been to Machado’s?”

    She smiled and took off her lab coat. “Mr. Paco, I’ll show you how to build a rhombic dodecahedron from bar coasters. Let’s go”.

    Posted by paco on 2006 09 12 at 09:22 AM • permalink

  35. Leftwing mind.

    CO2 has gone up by 0.001% ARGHH (CO2 is now 0.003% of the atmosphere)!!!

    2996 people murdered in a single terrorist act, So what?

    Posted by Rob Read on 2006 09 12 at 09:26 AM • permalink

  36. On a previous trip Suzuki ran off at the mouth with the brain out of gear and the ABC TV screened his nonsense without realising whah said. He said that Monarch butterflies took up the genes from GM pollen that they ate and beame resistant.

    This time he has accidently said the truth with this gem

    “The corporate community has become very, very clever - they’re using the techniques of the environmental community [sic]- they’re greenwashing themselves, spending billions of dollars in PR and false advertising, and being very successful at sewing confusion on the part of the public.”

    Posted by The Young Contrarian on 2006 09 12 at 09:32 AM • permalink

  37. PS
    These things come in Threes
    No one was Andrew Denton Interviewing Al Gore.
    Starting out quoting Jared Diamond on how the Easter Islanders supposedly cut down their last tree. Fron Jared’s book Collapse.

    Denton was unaware with other contradictory finding recently out.
    Like Rats.
    http://www.americanscientist.org/template/AssetDetail/assetid/53200?fulltext=true&print=yes#53337

    Rats. Al Gore upstaged by a fake Easter Islander rat.

    Posted by The Young Contrarian on 2006 09 12 at 09:49 AM • permalink

  38. Didn’t he also make a huge mistake using the term global warming?  When global cooling becomes the next big threat (again) his quote will be hanging out there for all to see.  Somebody needs to pull him aside and remind him, “It’s climate change, David.  Climate change.  Remember that.”  That way, he’ll have all his bases covered.

    Posted by kcom on 2006 09 12 at 10:05 AM • permalink

  39. Here’s a quote from the American Scientist article linked at #37.  (Pretty interesting article, too, if you’re into that sort of thing.)  The author is recounting his conversation with another archaeologist, Atholl Anderson, regarding Anderson’s theory that New Zealand was settled hundreds of years after the then commonly accepted date. How dare he!

    “The reaction to his ideas was initially quite cool, but time and additional evidence have proved him correct. Having had this experience, Anderson advised me to keep an open mind and to trust my data more than any preconceptions.”

    It sounds like Professor Anderson was saying there was a consensus about when New Zealand was settled.  And yet he had the audacity to go out and disprove that consenus with actual facts.  I hope they took away his license to practice science.  It doesn’t matter that he was right.  He should be held accountable for bucking the accepted consensus in his reckless search for the truth. How dare he!

    Posted by kcom on 2006 09 12 at 11:00 AM • permalink

  40. Sorry, in the post about remove the first “How dare he!”.  It was an editing mistake.

    Posted by kcom on 2006 09 12 at 11:02 AM • permalink

  41. #39: Well, Anderthon thure doethn’t thound like an “atholl” to me. Good fellow, and sound advice.

    Posted by paco on 2006 09 12 at 11:14 AM • permalink

  42. As a Canadian, I would like to take this opportunity to apologise to all Australins for David Suzuki.

    Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2006 09 12 at 11:29 AM • permalink

  43. #42: Head tilt implied?

    Hey, incidentally, whose turn is it out there to apologize for Cindy Sheehan?

    Posted by paco on 2006 09 12 at 11:46 AM • permalink

  44. The corporate community has become very, very clever - they’re using the techniques of the environmental community - they’re greenwashing themselves, spending billions of dollars in PR and false advertising, and being very successful at sewing confusion on the part of the public.

    As ye sew, so shall ye rip.

    Posted by rhhardin on 2006 09 12 at 12:06 PM • permalink

  45. As a Canadian, I would like to take this opportunity to apologise to all Australins for David Suzuki.

    OK, but what about Nickelback?

    Posted by Dave S. on 2006 09 12 at 12:15 PM • permalink

  46. It sounds like Professor Anderson was saying there was a consensus about when New Zealand was settled.  And yet he had the audacity to go out and disprove that consenus with actual facts.

    Sounds like the whole “how and when were the Americas settled” debate. “Consensus” has been it was via an ice-free corridor during the last ice age.

    Problem is, there are a handful of sites older than that.

    Oh, and Canadian geologists have shown there was no ice-free corridor.

    Oh, and some of the really early skeletons have decidedly atypical (not Asiatic, not Amerind) features.

    Oh, and there are some odd bits in the genes, too.

    Now, you can’t expect museums to be up-to-the-minute, but in the last decade I’ve been to literally dozens of museums dealing with pre-Columbian cultures. ONE of them mentioned a theory other than the Consensus Theory. It’ll be interesting to see what the Field Museum in Chicago does when their new pre-Columbian exhibit opens.

    Posted by Rob Crawford on 2006 09 12 at 12:48 PM • permalink

  47. One day when Iran gets hold of the nuclear bomb, Suzuki may have reason to rethink his ideas.

    Posted by Wylie Wilde on 2006 09 12 at 01:09 PM • permalink

  48. Via J.F. Beck:

    “This insidious, creeping pandemic of obesity is now engulfing the entire world. It’s as big a threat as global warming and bird flu.”New Scientist

    So now it’s fat terrorists driving around in SUVs full of chickens that we’re supposed to be worrying about, right?
    Wish they’d make up their d*mn minds…

    Posted by Old Grouch on 2006 09 12 at 03:30 PM • permalink

  49. “[Y]ou know, the issue of global warming is one that is going to take generations and generations to deal with the consequences and do something about.”

    Anything that’s going to take generations and generations to do something about isn’t something we can do anything about.

    But it’s an ideal cause for the Gore and Suzuki types because it represents a painless commitment on their part.

    Islamist extremism is something we can do something about. 

    But of course, it can’t be done with painless commitment.

    Posted by JJM Ballantyne on 2006 09 12 at 04:45 PM • permalink

  50. It rained all day and I’m freezing.  Did al-Bore stop off in Ohio or something?

    Posted by RebeccaH on 2006 09 12 at 05:21 PM • permalink

  51. “Scientific truth” has always been as much about cult of personality as about rigorous research.

    Posted by Grimmy on 2006 09 12 at 08:31 PM • permalink

  52. I never liked riding Suzukis.  They’re so whiny…

    Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 09 12 at 09:00 PM • permalink

  53. #46 Rob Crawford,

    You are onto something that fascinates me. The whole issue has become sooo politicised that the current “indians” insist upon immediate burial of newly discovered human remains to avoid new evidence. So far, this has been resisted by US courts.

    The political angle is obvious: If the “red indians” charge the white man with invasion of the land of the “first nations” then any archaeological evidence that suggests that there were others here before the “first nations” is very detrimental to their political excuse for a free ride.

    Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2006 09 12 at 09:11 PM • permalink

  54. Fat terrorists driving SUV’s eating cheap Australian lamb are the single greatest threat to humanity.

    Paco: you forgot the obligatory “I always thought these letters to the editor were complete bullshit until….”

    Posted by NoAcuteDistress on 2006 09 12 at 09:52 PM • permalink

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