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Lying and deception can be justified, says climate change ethics expert ( Need the $$$)
Bishop Hill blog ^ | Feb 27, 2012 | Bishop Hill

Posted on 02/27/2012 12:06:04 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach

James Garvey, a philosopher and the author of The Ethics of Climate Change has written a defence of Peter Gleick at the Guardian:

What Heartland is doing is harmful, because it gets in the way of public consensus and action. Was Gleick right to lie to expose Heartland and maybe stop it from causing further delay to action on climate change? If his lie has good effects overall – if those who take Heartland's money to push scepticism are dismissed as shills, if donors pull funding after being exposed in the press – then perhaps on balance he did the right thing. It could go the other way too – maybe he's undermined confidence in climate scientists. It depends on how this plays out.

It's good to know that environmentalists feel this way about telling the truth. We have had similar insider views on truth-telling from, for example, the Open University's Joe Smith, who reported the decision to issue tactical lies over the nature of the global warming debat.

Hard also to avoid Stephen Schneider's famous quote:

...we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This “double ethical bind” we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both.

I guess Dr Garvey has cast his vote for effective rather than honest.


(Excerpt) Read more at bishop-hill.net ...


TOPICS: Conspiracy; Science; Society; Weather
KEYWORDS: climatechange; climategate; climategate2; fakegate; gleick; globalwarminghoax; heartlandinstitute
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H/T to Wats Up With That?
1 posted on 02/27/2012 12:06:13 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
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To: TigerLikesRooster; landsbaum; Signalman; NormsRevenge; steelyourfaith; Lancey Howard; ...

What say we,....the little people?


2 posted on 02/27/2012 12:09:35 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach ( Support Geert Wilders)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

Torches and pitchforks seem appropriate.


3 posted on 02/27/2012 12:12:36 PM PST by Redleg Duke ("Madison, Wisconsin is 30 square miles surrounded by reality.", L. S. Dryfus)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

This is all most amusing.

Not only do progressives have weak minds, they are also weak d*cks.

What a bunch of maroons...perfect writers for the Guardian.


4 posted on 02/27/2012 12:16:16 PM PST by Da Coyote
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

Apparently you have to be a member of a very special interest group to get away with lying. Muslims can lie to advance Islam & AGW alarmists can lie to advance their cause. What a world!


5 posted on 02/27/2012 12:16:48 PM PST by Twotone (Marte Et Clypeo)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
...because it gets in the way of public consensus and action

Yes, scientific debate has always gotten in the way of consensus. Typical fascists.

6 posted on 02/27/2012 12:18:15 PM PST by SampleMan (Feral Humans are the refuse of socialism.)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

For libs the ends always justify any means.


7 posted on 02/27/2012 12:24:06 PM PST by circlecity
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

That is just the normal rules of liberals and Muslims.


8 posted on 02/27/2012 12:26:36 PM PST by GeronL (The Right to Life came before the Right to Pursue Happiness)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
Lying to "save the environment" is nothing new. I cannot remember the prominent Democrat who expressed that years ago.

Just another "the end justifies the means" thing so popular among the 1960s Marxist campus spoiled brats and their ideological issue -- arguably now "the Establishment."

9 posted on 02/27/2012 12:27:09 PM PST by WilliamofCarmichael (If modern America's Man on Horseback is out there, Get on the damn horse already!)
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To: Twotone
Apparently you have to be a member of a very special interest group to get away with lying.
And who's to blame? The feckin' MSM.
10 posted on 02/27/2012 12:28:04 PM PST by oh8eleven (RVN '67-'68)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
Last I heard, Rachel Carson's lie about DDT for the greater good, has killed about a hundred million third world children.

The Marxist murders have been breaking the Tenth Commandment ever since Karl Marx started jotting notes on a cocktail napkin in Paris.

11 posted on 02/27/2012 12:34:49 PM PST by Navy Patriot (Join the Democrats, it's not Fascism when WE do it. (plagiarized))
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
That's why we have science, real science, to weed out crap like that.
Since it will cost trillions of dollars to "fix" global warming (excuse me "climate change"), not to mention affecting the living standard of every human being and take a hundred years, would it not be prudent to ask if it's necessary, meaningful and cost effective before we embark on such a program?
Instead we had panic mode, we must do something NOW before it's too late no matter what the cost.
Grifting wealthy nations of their money was the real goal, the panic was close the scam before the marks figured it out.
Commies, with their STELLAR environmental record in the East Bloc, China and elsewhere, were all to happy to push this along, if it would speed up the collapse of the west.
Otherwise, they don't give a damn about Mother Earth.

12 posted on 02/27/2012 12:50:20 PM PST by BitWielder1 (Corporate Profits are better than Government Waste)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
When you are “saving the planet,” anything can be justified. Including simply murdering all doubters. A few thousands dead, or seven billion: Take your pick!

Greenism is the most dangerous ideology since Nazism and communism. In many ways, it is just a mixture of the two, anyway.

13 posted on 02/27/2012 12:55:35 PM PST by cartan
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
Ah, moral relativism. Ain't it grand.

Hell, why stop at lying and deception? Why not just include mass murder if it helps the liberal cause? After all, 'the ends justifies the means' and all that other self-serving Marxist crap...

Click the Gadsden flag for pro-gun resources!

14 posted on 02/27/2012 12:57:59 PM PST by Joe Brower (Sheep have three speeds: "graze", "stampede" and "cower".)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

Criminal behavior is always ok for leftists.

The laws are for everyone else.


15 posted on 02/27/2012 1:16:10 PM PST by <1/1,000,000th%
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach; Defendingliberty; TenthAmendmentChampion; SolitaryMan; ...
Thanx for the ping Ernest_at_the_Beach !

 


Beam me to Planet Gore !

16 posted on 02/27/2012 1:50:44 PM PST by steelyourfaith (Expel the Occupy White House squatters !!!)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
"It depends on how this plays out."
Yeah. Like the clown walking around in his cell with heavy leg irons on for starters.
17 posted on 02/27/2012 2:18:08 PM PST by Marine_Uncle
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

Sounds just like muzzies. Lying to advance their program.


18 posted on 02/27/2012 2:38:29 PM PST by dynachrome ("Our forefathers didn't bury their guns. They buried those that tried to take them.")
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To: Navy Patriot
Yes I constantly tell people that Rachel Carson is the greatest mass murderer of all time!

My daughter went to a middle school named for Rachel Carson when she was of that age. I used to go to parent-teacher things an the little middle school teachers would say, ‘daughter-name tells us you have a PhD and do R&D’, I would let them assume for awhile that I shared their worshipful view of Rachel Carson’. After I felt I had them I steered the conversation back to the environment and Rachel Carson and would proceed to give them ‘chapter and verse’ as to what a scientific fraud she was! Additionally global warming nonsense was taking off then I also demolished that. prior to that they probably never had anyone with a ‘science background’ actually criticize the environmental memes of the day! It was good for them! I really didn't care if I came off as a jerk! I found the personality cult of Rachel Carson and unthinking worship of all things environmental at that school very offensive. Something had to be said! And it didn't hurt my daughter any, she is now working on her PhD in chemistry. In fact it may have laid the groundwork where she is very skeptical (as she is now!)of all things that are part of the 'popular wisdom'! So now if you present "facts" to her, you had better have some "unbiased" references!

19 posted on 02/27/2012 2:52:30 PM PST by Reily
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To: Redleg Duke

And rope. Lots of rope.


20 posted on 02/27/2012 2:55:44 PM PST by Little Ray (FOR the best Conservative in the Primary; AGAINST Obama in the General.)
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