Sunday, February 12, 2006

Newspeak, doublethink and Taken by Storm

Anyone reading "Taken by Storm" by Chris Essex and Ross McKitrick, needs a dictionary. In the best tradition of that Newspeak proverb, Ignorance is Bliss, you need your secret boys' decoder rings to read the book. Essex and McKitrick do provide an incomplete quack speak glossary, but how is one to tell what they are talking about without Dr. Rabett's amazing English - EssexMcKitrictionary?

For those of you who forgot about the purpose of Newspeak in 1984, from the Wikipedia

A comparison to Newspeak may arguably be seen in political rhetoric, where two opposing sides string together phrases so empty of meaning that they may be compared to the taunts young children toss back and forth. The arguments of either side ultimately reduce to "I'm good; he's bad."
Turnabout is fair play

Doctrine of Certainty - the idea that anyone besides Essex (and maybe McKitrick) can know anything. Obviously false. Often called "The Doctrine" includes items that are "manifestly false or the claim to know it is false". The first tenet is that "The earth is warming". Well yeah, guys, it is.

The Convection of Certainty - a gathering storm whereby people who study something and are experts come to a consensus. Obviously they are not as smart as Chris Essex (and maybe Ross McKitrick)

Official Science - The Convection of Certainty as conveyed to the public and policy makers by those ignorant experts who claim to know more than Chris Essex (and maybe Ross McKitrick) about climate.

PUN - the Panel of the United Nations, aka the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, known among humans as the IPCC. Here, Chris Essex (and maybe Ross McKitrick) move into deep Black Helicopter territory.

The Big Panel - the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Working Group I, composed of the worlds experts on climate science who falsely claim to know more than Chris Essex (and maybe Ross McKitrick) about climate science. Their job is to prevent politicians from learning about climate science from the real experts like Chris Essex (and maybe Ross McKitrick)

SPAMs - Known among most as the Summary for Policymakers in the IPCC reports. Written by evil people who know nothing about climate such as Sir John Houghton, not by true experts such as Chris Essex (and maybe Ross McKitrick)

ELGs - Environmental Lobby Groups aka NGOs organizations mislead by Official Science, the Big Panel and the SPAMS that actually think they have the right to petition their governments rather than take direction from Chris Essex (and maybe Ross McKitrick).
Let us pause here to practice our vocabulary. Can you use all these word in a sentence? Why yes, as in:
The Doctrine of Certainty forged in the Convection of Certainty by Official Science and promulgated by the PUN through the Big Panel in the SPAM was taken up by the ELGs.
Which actually is a bit better than Chris and Ross did!
.. came not only from ELGs but also from Official Science in the Big Panel:)
But both meet the requirements of Newspeak.

That concludes Chapters 1 and 2 folks.

1 comment:

William M. Connolley said...

Keep reading! And do let us know if you find any sense :-)