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Friday, January 16, 2015

Money-mad WUWT conspiracy theorists rate low on the "care" index

Sou | 1:10 AM Go to the first of 7 comments. Add a comment

You know that the fans of WUWT, a climate science denying blog, are a bit potty. Did you know that they are "not nice" people as well?

There's an article today by Eric Worrall (archived here), who is a rather dull bloke from England who moved to Australia a while back. He's found a map of vulnerability to climate change and wrote that most of the countries most vulnerable are "with few exceptions, countries which are neutral to or even hostile to the USA and Western interests". He asks a question:
if we accept the map at face value, why should we care about climate change?

The countries most vulnerable to climate change are, of course, the poorest countries in the world. Unlike the wealthy, CO2-emitting nations, they are least able to afford to adapt. Eric found his map on a blog, which got it from a group known as ND-Gain at the University of Notre Dame in the USA. This is how the index is described:
A country's ND-GAIN index score is composed of a Vulnerability score and a Readiness score. Vulnerability measures a country's exposure, sensitivity and ability to adapt to the negative impact of climate change. ND-GAIN measures the overall vulnerability by considering vulnerability in six life-supporting sectors – food, water, health, ecosystem service, human habitat and infrastructure.

Here is an animation showing the ND Index, vulnerability and readiness as assessed by the ND-Gain team. Click to enlarge it:

Source: ND-GAIN


Are the poorest countries hostile to "Western interests" and the USA? Some may be, many aren't. Most of the people who live in Africa wouldn't be hostile to "Western interests". They are probably too busy trying to clothe and feed themselves to think much about "Western interests".

Take Chad, the country that rank lowest on the ND-Index scale.  From Wikipedia:
According to the 2012 U.S. Global Leadership Report, 81% of Chadians approve of U.S. leadership, with 18% disapproving and 1% uncertain, the fourth-highest rating for any surveyed country in Africa.[1]

I'm not really surprised that WUWT-ers are against foreign aid. Money dominates the thinking of many people at WUWT, as you can see from the Wattmeter in the sidebar. Most of them strongly disapprove of giving assistance to people in need. It goes against their ideology.


From the WUWT comments


Louis quite rightly points out that most vulnerable countries are at risk anyway. He's wrong if he thinks that climate change won't make things worse:
January 14, 2015 at 11:07 pm
Right. What difference does climate change make? Those countries would be “at risk” whether there is climate change or not.

Gabriel was the first to use the word "money":
January 14, 2015 at 11:32 pm
Those UK “climate experts” seems to me more socio-economist(with some marxist view). The map show in fact(with some exception) the distribution of wealth on the earth. From the global warming real risk it’s a piece of sh__t.
What want to tell us the “scientist”? the green countries must quickly send a lot of money to th red countries.
Because all it’s about money.

gbaikie followed suit:
January 14, 2015 at 11:45 pm
—All of this poses an obvious question – if we accept the map at face value, why should we care about climate change?—
Because politicians want give the enemies [problem countries] money- I mean tax payer money.
As they accustomed to buying and selling favors- and bonus is they poor and useless countries which therefore *apparently* should be dirt cheap to buy. 

andrewmharding doesn't understand the map, and can't make up his mind whether global warming is really happening or not:
January 15, 2015 at 12:18 am
I thought AGW was a global problem, it seems on the Korean peninsula that only harm happens to North Korea!! Why is Malaysia affected and not Northern Australia? UK is at least risk, with USA and China (both with bigger economies and a much bigger land area, with more diverse climate) at greater risk?
It is a crock of sh*t like anything associated with AGW! 

Krudd Gillard of the Commondebt of Australia thinks all poor people are terrorists:
January 15, 2015 at 12:24 am
This is something that really needs to be impressed on the voters in western democracies. Your tax dollars for terrorists. 

TerryS is a multi-conspiracy theorist who is scared of his own shadow:
January 15, 2015 at 2:27 am
Climate change is being used as a weapon.
Some of those using climate change as weapon are using it for a One World agenda.
Some of those using climate change as weapon are using it for more government controls.
Some of those using climate change as weapon are using it for the de-industrialisation of the West.
Some of those using climate change as weapon are using it for a socialist agenda.
Some of those using climate change as weapon are using it for personal gain.
Some of those using climate change as weapon are using it because of a genuine concern for the environment.
Some of those using climate change as weapon are using it because of a genuine concern for humanity.
Like any weapon, the use it is put to depends upon the motives of the person using it which means some motives will be altruistic, some will be selfish and some will be driven by an agenda. 

Jack is another money-mad denier:
January 15, 2015 at 2:08 am
It is a guilt map obscenely used to redistribute money. Would like to know how the nations in central Africa are going to perish from sea rise.
Also notice the Australia map is least risk but our greens convinced the Labor government to have the most onerous carbon tax in the world.
Lastly, there mission to abuse CO2 and fossil fuels as vandalising the world is going to hurt those poor countries even more.
Just airheads that can only handle one idea thrust in there by slogans at a time.

It took a lot of comments before one person decided that enough was enough, and the money-mad deniers were giving the fake sceptics a bad name. Notanist thinks "a lot" of people care, it's just that not a lot of people at WUWT who care:
January 15, 2015 at 4:11 am
I don’t understand the point of saying “why should we care?” while looking at a map of some of the world’s most impoverished countries, or of countries that are clearly and obviously friends (most of Latin America/Caribbean) etc. The last remark in the article plays into the alarmists’ worst stereotypes about skeptics.
Who cares about those countries anyway? I’m betting that quite a lot of us do, some of us even have family and second homes in some of those countries.

Gary Pearse thinks that Eric Worrall is a "very caring person" and wrote the article as a joke, except he gave no indication it was a joke. There was no "sarc" tag and the article wasn't tagged as "humour". So if Eric is a "very caring person" then he hides it well.
January 15, 2015 at 4:55 am
“Why should we care”
Look folks, it was a joke, okay? Eric, put a sarc tag for the sensitive ones. Frequent visitors to WUWT know Eric is a very caring person. 

WUWT rates at 0.46 on a scale of 10 on the care index


The sum total of comments that could be classed (generously) as caring about people who live in impoverished, vulnerable countries, was three. Three out of 68 "thoughts" cared.  If there was a care index, WUWT would rate as 0.46 on a scale of 10.

I'd say that Notanist is right to be concerned about stereotyping WUWT deniers as money-mad conspiracy theorists who don't give a damn about the rest of the world. Wouldn't you?

7 comments:

  1. Ah well, the genius of this is that the more ecocidal we become the less the "people who don't matter" will like us and therefore the less it will matter that we are destroying their futures.

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  2. It is pretty simplistic to think "they don't like us so who cares about them anyway." As things get worse and people/nations become more desperate, it won't go unnoticed that it was the richer countries that caused a lot of the suffering of the poor. Desperate people will do desperate things. I fear the future will not be bright for countries of any colour on that map.

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  3. This is truly a disgusting post coupled with disgusting comments. I am appalled.

    Over the last few months the WUWT acolytes have been decrying the green agenda for increasing the cost of electricity which would have a devastating effect on the impoverished. All of a sudden these poor are not woth considering as human beings.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. it's spectacular, isn't it? one moment climate change action is a Communist, UN, Agenda-21 plot to redistribute our wealth to the developing world, then the very next it's a Communist, UN, Agenda-21 plot to murder everyone there through green policies.

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  4. Going by everything I've read by Eric Worral, both at WUWT and on the now defunct Watching the Deniers site... if he is a "very caring person", then it is equally likely that my granny was a closet serial axe murderer. Further confirmation, as if any was needed, that the DK-inflicted bottom feeders that inhabit WUWT will believe anything that conforms to their twisted worldview.

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  5. It's been a consistent feature of this 'debate' that the same people who squawk hysterically that AGW is an evil commie plot to redistribute (their) wealth will then, without missing a beat, piously proclaim their undying love for The Poors and their Little Childrens when it comes to encouraging - indeed, insisting on - the One True Welfare made manifest in the frenetic building of fossil fuel power stations (with someone else's money, of course!); unlimited access to as much un-carbontaxed FF as one can cough up the I-pay-my-way-me hard-earned cash for being the only truly universal human right that apparently exists in their worldview.

    These people are selfish, small-minded reactionaries. Such folks have always been with us, probably only ever as a sizeable minority in the general population, but given their disproportionate prevalence in elite circles the periodically appearing unholy alliance between the, well, shits at the top and the shits at the bottom* has a very real chance of costing all of us the planet this time...

    *consult a history book - considerable unpleasantness to be found here...

    (Oh, and Dear Denier Lurker, if you object to being lumped in with the shits, perhaps you need to have a bit of a think about how your tribe actually comports itself. As seen above.)

    ReplyDelete
  6. I think this post along with Watts' appalling exploitation of the Charlie Hebdo murders to attack climate scientists represent a new nadir in wuwt. I know the site's always been dishonest but a few years ago when the likes of Carrick or Ferdinand Engelbeen posted really quite knowledgeable stuff it managed, despite its best efforts, to carry a certain intellectual clout. Now there is no scientific discussion whatsoever, merely the endless repetition of what has already been said multiple times on the deniersphere. Indeed, the wattites even seem to be tiring of this faux-discussion of climate science, tending now to turn their attention to "cultural marxism", "political correctness", "the muslim menace" and the other standard tropes of the Culture Warrior's Handbook.
    Indeed, now

    ReplyDelete

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