An environmental campaigner who was thrown out of Telford Town Park claims she has been banned from handing out leaflets at a green-themed community day.
Rachel Whittaker, of Wellington, said she had been invited to distribute leaflets about climate change at tomorrow’s Madeley Green Day. Now she claims her invitation has been revoked by the organisers.
She said: “We were invited to Madeley Green Day but then Madeley Parish Council withdrew the offer without explanation.
“A request was made by the council to see the leaflets, but before we even had contacted it to do so, the offer was withdrawn.
“We had actually said we weren’t prepared to do that, but the council did not know we were going to refuse.”
Ms Whittaker, who said she will be going to hand out leaflets anyway, said: “We believe the council is deliberately trying to censor us.
“The council is claiming it is committed to green issues, but it isn’t committed to people who really want to do something about it.”
In August, Ms Whittaker and her friend Neil Donaldson, from Wrekin Stop War, were ordered out of Telford Town Park while dressed as penguins and handing out climate change leaflets.
The pair were told they should have obtained a Criminal Records Bureau check and risk assessment to distribute leaflets. The incident sparked huge debate over people’s freedom to campaign in a public place.
Parish council chairman Dave Davies said Ms Whittaker’s invitation had been withdrawn because the council had not seen the leaflets.
He said: “It’s not a big issue, it’s just a mistake.
“She should really not have been invited, because we don’t know what organisation it is or what she is handing out. The leaflets had not been seen by us.”
Councillor Davies added: “Things could have been done better.”
The Green Day takes place in Madeley Park tomorrow, from 1pm to 5pm. Other attractions include a talk by Friends of the Earth, a heavy horses show, a demonstration by falconer Michael Thomas and a sawmill.
By Lizzie Yates
60 Comments
Why were they going to refuse to show what they intended to hand out?
Sounds all a bit barmey to me, honestly *tut*
A risk assessment for handing out leaflets? Is someone having a laugh? On second thoughts, maybe not. Paper cuts can hurt and words can be highly dangerous, resulting in injury and insult.
Quote: Parish council chairman Dave Davies said Ms Whittaker’s invitation had been withdrawn because the council had not seen the leaflets.
He said: “It’s not a big issue, it’s just a mistake.”
End Quote
In my opinion it is not a mistake it is a joke. A joke that publicly elected councillors think that they have the ‘right’ to stop ‘free’ speech (or in this case leaflet giving).
What are they so frightened of?
I have never been a protester, not even in the 60s but this might change in the light of the recent stupidity of both Telford Council and Madeley Parish Council.
Isn’t Madeley Green day supposed to mean just that? Why ban something that is about how being green will help the world?
Enough … words fail me
This attitude is totally mystifying. This is a “Green Day” that they were attending to give out leaflets in relation to Green issues, whether they were invited or not, whether they had been CRB checked or not is to my way of thinking totally irrelevant.
Any normal person (and the Council would, I am sure profess to be) would welcome the attendance of these activists, not only at this event but at any event.
Perhaps they object to the yellow beaks and “flipper” feet, perhaps they object to them taking up the space that they occupy, perhaps they object to them breathing the same air as others at the event, whatever it is, it is surely idiotic, UNLESS, and again it is an arguable point as to whether it should/should not be permitted, the leaflets in question have a “political” leaning with a reference to the Green Party.
This would be a bit naughty at a non-political event if indeed it is such.
At first reading, one could be forgiven for thinking we are back in some Orwellian, make believe situation where wholly worthwhile, timely and relevant activities are stopped merely because the “high command” think the hoi polloi are getting above themselves.
Doesn’t Dave Davies read the Shropshire Star then?
Also, if this was about our leaflet, why didn’t they wait for and answer from us in this regard before withdrawing the invitation?
Our removal from the park was bad enough but excluding climate change activists from a green fair is beyond ridiculous.
good i say, keep the lefties in their place do gooding know it alls, at least when big Dave gets in we can drop all this green nonesense, we all know global warmings a myth
next please.
How many tree’s were cut down for their leaflets on climate change ???
The next big story!!!
Penguin Protesters thrown out of Iceland supermarket.
Penguin Protesters are baffled as Iceland is home of origin.
penguins plan to appeal to Shropshire Star and Liberty
Y Mab Darogan said
“Penguin Protesters are baffled as Iceland is home of origin”
Really?
Is the Madeley Green Day event being held on private land?
If it’s not a private event then I can’t see how the Penguin Protesters can be banned from handing out their leaflets.
This sounds like more council bully-boy tactics to me.
I agree, Tory Boy - Dave Cameron probably doesn’t give a fig about any green issues.
I find this topic so boring now, Please move aside & give someone else their 5 mins of fame.
To put your fears to rest the leaflets were made from 100% recycled paper with post consumer soy based inks.Tory boy you speak with a corpse in your mouth. I see you have a deep understanding of the left.
Tory Boy, if global warming is a ‘myth’, why does the Royal Society say on its website, ‘International scientific consensus agrees that increasing levels of man-made greenhouse gases are leading to global climate change. Possible consequences of climate change include rising temperatures, changing sea levels, and impacts on global weather. These changes could have serious impacts on the world’s organisms and on the lives of millions of people, especially those living in areas vulnerable to extreme natural conditions such as flooding and drought.’
But ca any one tell me why they wouldn’t have made their flyers available for inspection before?
Sound like these “Penguins” are more like the one in Batman!
They sound like trouble makers to me.
stop pandering to the loony left, these penguins should be locked up, as enemys of the state, they are hindering our economic competitiveness, you are right I dont give a fig about anyone but myself, and if more people felt like me we would be in a better world
there is a serious point here.
In a democracy why should propaganda/information (depending on your point of view) be subject to the approval of a person/organisation/party who happens to hold elected office?
To extend this further, canvassers for the Conservatives may have to gain approval from a ruling labour council before distributing leaflets, knocking on doors etc.
Similarly those from Labour or Lib Dem would have to gain approval for the content of their message from a ruling tory council.
Do electioneers who visit Telford Town Centre (or any town) then have to gain CRB checks before they talk to voters? Some of whom will be pushing prams or have young children with them.
It took a long time to wrest control from the state in the form of Magna Carta.
In the last 20 years we have gradual erosion of the principles within Magna Carta on the basis that is for “our own protection”.
By the time some have woken up and realised what has happened it will be too late.
I have just been informed that if they dress up as Turkey’s they will be allowed to hand out the leaflets as Turkeys are less offensive than Penguins plus Turkeys are in vogue with Christmas soon to be here.
Yet more nonsense from the champions of nonsense.
T&W get a grip for pity’s sake.
Green issues are nonsense too - but they are such a brilliant excuse for taxing people and controlling our lives no public sector body will ever admit it.
I understand that flatulent cows produce environmentally damaging methane - nothing is done about this as you can’t tax them.
I rest my case.
And Turkey’s effected by climate change - it will disappear with rising sea levels!
Lucy W said: Oct 7th, 2008 at 9:53 am
But can any one tell me why they wouldn’t have made their flyers available for inspection before?
-
Unless this was a private event, why should they of had their leaflets inspected?
Just as long as the contents of the leafets are legal, the “Penguins” should be allowed to hand them out.
what a load of nonsense, dont they have something better to do than ramble on all the flippin while about green this and green that.
He said: “It’s not a big issue, it’s just a mistake.”
There a bunch of homeless people might argue with that…
None of us are doing this for fame. I don’t care about getting myself in the paper or on the news, i do this because the issues are important. If you find it boring why bother to follow the link to this story and then spend time posting comments. I am sorry you are bored with freedom of speech and environmental issues.
The council had inspected our leaflets the first time this issue came-up regarding the town park incident. Prior to the green fair we were not given the opportunity to submit our literature to be inspected by the council, not that we should have to…freedom of speech. None of the other groups were expected to have their literature vetted so why were we treated differently?
I do have better things to do than ramble on about ” green issues ” but i feel i have a moral obligation to try and do something. If you are up-set by this you need to ask yourself why you find the issue so offencive. You have the choice to live in a world of comforting illusion or you might take time to look at the facts and do what you feel is right.
it occurs to me that figs are green, er thats it,
I see the usual suspects from the Realm of the Closed Mind have trotted out the same old bunkum and I think Graham has pretty much responded to all of it but just a few points:
We received an email from the Parish Council in the morning asking if they could see our leaflet. I was about to email it to them and then decided to ask whether all the other groups handing out leaflets had had their literature vetted first. I didn’t even get a chance to do this because we then received the phone call saying that our invitation had been withdrawn. So we didn’t actually refuse to show them the leaflet, we wanted clarification of the vetting procedure but ultimately, didn’t get chance. Besides, so many people have viewed the leaflet recently that if it was inciting immediate revolution and the guillotining of local councillors, surely someone would have said something by now?
Also, we’re nothing to do with the Green Party and, I believe, the venue for the Green Day is a public space.
If you’re bored with this issue, ignore it. If people can close their minds to the destruction of our planet for profit and greed, then surely they can switch off to a few people in penguin costumes.
Like Graham, I couldn’t care less about ‘5 minutes of fame’, in fact, given that I know a number of activists who have been verbally and physically attacked by right-wing groups, I’d rather not have my name and face in the media at all. We have actually declined numerous offers of media coverage since the original ‘lone adults in the park’ debacle because if we’re going to spend an hour in the Town Park dressed as penguins, we’d rather be handing our leaflets or talking to people than walking (or waddling!) up and down the path while the cameraman gets the right filter on his lens. That IS boring!
My final point is, I think, the most important one and should be of interest to Hilary (#3) and anyone who has concerns about the role of so-called ‘public servants’.
According to a Madeley Parish councillor who stepped in to support us at the Green Day on Sunday, most of the Madeley Parish Council hasn’t actually been elected. They’ve managed to stay in their positions because they were unopposed. Of course, this isn’t strictly their fault but it is a microcosm of the kind of delusions of grandeur that go hand in hand with uncontested power.
In the Shropshire Star, Dave Davies claimed to not know who me or the group were and when we challenged him with at the Green Fair, he said that he didn’t read the Shropshire Star “if he could help it”. That’s his choice, of course, but we can only wonder why someone in his position would consider local news so beneath them?
I expect the anti-penguin brigade’s next comment would have been that he was just trying to enjoy his day and we harangued him but actually, he introduced himself to us and as we were having a really good time at a great event, he rather spoiled OUR enjoyment.
Graham Bunn - None of the other groups dress up as penguins.
None of the other groups complained to Liberity when they were thrown out of the park by council officials
None of the the other groups caused T & W council negative press.
I hope this explains it to your good self
Y Mab Darogan
It is not illegal to dress as a penguin in a public space to my knowledge ,we have had no contact with the Liberty organization. They made their comments after the national media picked up the story from the Shropshire star.
The council handled this whole situation poorly and deserved the bad press.
Well done again, Rachel and Graham.
It’s great to see people like you getting these vital issues talked about.
Showing others that you DO give a fig about the millions of people who will be affected by climate change reassures me that some real human beings use these threads and that it is not just the domain of PR companies, trying to warp the climate change debate.
Tory boy is wrong to say that environmental campaigners ‘are hindering our economic competitiveness’.
Our economic competitiveness is being hindered by a lack of credit.
That lack of credit was caused by unwise decisions taken in an insanely unregulated financial world coming home to roost, and reality suddenly catching up on an unreal economy.
The process of removing regulation of the international financial world was begun by Ronald Reagan in the USA and the Tories under Margaret Thatcher.
The GREEN NEW DEAL ( http://www.shropshirestar.com/2008/07/21/experts-call-for-credit-and-climate-crunch-action/ ) proposes to properly regulate the international financial world again, so that the events of this week and last week cannot happen again.
The GREEN NEW DEAL also proposes economic re-generation through massive investment in renewable energy and job creation in the renewable energy sector.
Is this not what our manufacturing industry desperately needs?
When even the Tories are talking tough on climate change, how will a green industrial revolution to confront climate change hinder our economic competitiveness, Tory Boy?
To be honest I don’t see why you are that bothered about climate change.
In my view it is not going to happen and when it does happen we ill have developed new technologies to deal with it.
Anyway by the time its a issue we will all be long gone so why worry??
I suppose it depends on your perspective, Y Mab Darogan.
Most people are aware that people in poorer parts of the world are going to suffer the effects of climate change (increased public health costs, refugee movements) far more than we will in the richer countries.
The British public is also aware that those parts of the world, which will be worst affected by climate change, have contributed least to the problem.
Clearly for Y Mab Darogan the fact that other people’s suffering is being exacerbated by our greenhouse gas emissions poses no significant moral issue for him and his chums.
Fortunately, however, most people in our democracy inhabit a different moral universe.
That’s why Rachel and Graham’s activism will make a long-term difference, and Y Mab’s cowardly (what is his real name?) and reactionary activism will not.
Huw Peach - I think you will find that the majority are on my side in terms of green issues and climate change.
While the minority get all worked up over issues which if you are truly honest will never affect them.
Thanks for engaging with my points, Y Mab.
An opinion poll released on 14th August 2007, called ‘2007 Survey of Public Attitudes and Behaviours toward the environment’ paints a very different picture from the one you do.
I would be interested to see how you can explain your last comment in the light of this.
Here are a few of the findings;
67% strongly agreed or tended to agree that “humans are capable of finding ways to overcome the world’s environmental problems”.
That’s a majority, Y Mab.
Over 75% believed that recycling more, using a car less, driving a more fuel-efficient car and improving/installing insulation will have a medium or or major impact on the UK’s contribution to climate change.
That’s a majority, Y Mab, who agree with our outlook.
Now let’s look at the support for your position.
19% strongly agreed or tended to agree that “Scientists will find a solution to global warming without people having to make big changes to their lifestyles”.
In other words, only a minority agree with your point #33 that technology alone will turn things around, Y Mab.
About 25% strongly agreed or tended to agree with you that “I don’t believe my behaviour and everyday lifestyle contribute to climate change”.
That, too, is a minority.
I look forward to Y Mab Darogan’s ‘truly honest’ response to this poll.
Huw Peach - I feel I have to enlighten your good self on polls. Polls only ask questions of a number of people maybe 100 - 200, you can bet your top dollar that the people who could not care less about climate change or even more unlikely to spend 10 -1 5 mins answering questions for a poll.
So your poll results are biased and have been answered by people with a interest in the so called con which is climate change
If it is a ‘con’, then why have these scientific institutions made strongly worded statements confirming that man-made global warming is real?
The IPCC, the science academies of Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, India, Japan, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, the UK and the USA, as well as the International Council of Academies of Engineering and Technological Sciences; European Academy of Sciences and Arts; Network of African Science Academies; the International Council for Science; the European Science Foundation; the American Association for the Advancement of Science; the Federation of American Scientists; the World Meteorological Organization; the American Meteorological Society; the Royal Meteorological Society (UK); the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society; the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society; the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences; the American Geophysical Union; the American Institute of Physics; American Astronomical Society; the American Physical Society; the American Chemical Society; the National Research Council (US); the Federal Climate Change Science Program (US), the American Quaternary Association; the Geological Society of America; Engineers Australia (The Institution of Engineers Australia); the Stratigraphy Commission of the Geological Society of London; the European Geosciences Union; the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics; and the International Union of Geological Sciences.
Could you name ONE scientific institution which supports your view that it is a ‘con’?
Not that highlighting comments from previous posts will make any difference to those with selectively short memories but I have made it clear on several other threads on this forum that my concern for the environment is not just about climate change.
If you really think that the abuse of our environment is no danger or that even if it is, it won’t affect us for years, maybe you should have tuned in to Simon Schama’s new series last night, which was about the water crisis in the USA.
I’m inclined to agree with Y Mab Darogan that polls are often not worth the paper they’re printed on but the fact remains that whether you choose to believe it or not, the destruction of our environment is posing an immediate threat to us all.
The USA is the richest and most developed country in the world but its policy of arrogantly working against nature rather than with it has proved those who warned against this to be correct. Or was the Dust Bowl just a figment of some wacky environmentalist’s imagination?
The devastation of the rainforest to grow cash crops, the extinction of species vital to biodiversity and the rise in serious respiratory diseases caused by pollution are just three of the many problems created by the abuse of our natural world for greed and profit. And that’s before climate change is even brought into the equation.
Huw: I can name one that says Global Warming is a con - the Institute of Geophysics at the University of Mexico.
By the way Huw, I have visited the Franz Joseph Glacier twice and its advancing. The last few summers in UK have been colder. What experienced do you have to support your warming claim or do you belive that copying and pasting the Green Party Christmas Card list make you right?
So can you explain why the Frans Joseph is advancing? or will you just ramble on about something else like you usually do when you dont know what you are talking about?
Hi Rachel.
A good book on the water crisis in the western United States is the beautifully-written and immensely powerful book by the late US environmentalist, Marc Reisner: Cadillac Desert (1986).
Fred Pearce of the New Scientist magazine has also written about water shortages around the world in a book called ‘When the Rivers Run Dry’.
I recommend both of these to people who want to find out more about the issues.
Wikipedia doesn’t seem to have any information about the University of Mexico, Lucy W.
Except for the ‘Real y Pontificia Universidad de México’ which closed for good in the 19th Century.
The Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico doesn’t seem to have an Institute of Geophysics on its website.
Could I be forgiven for thinking that you might perhaps be fibbing again, Lucy?
When I put ‘Institute of Geophysics at the University of Mexico global warming’ into Google, all I got were loads of (no doubt corporate-funded) right-wing blogs.
You may like these, Lucy, but in my view they have zero credibility when one compares their word against the institutions I quoted above.
For those taken in by Lucy’s glacier story, the people who are spreading mis-information about climate change like to quote facts OUT OF CONTEXT, and ignore the overview.
This is a case in point.
If you look at the situation in the Himalayas, the loss of glaciers is alarming.
Nepal’s Khumbu glacier, where Hillary and Tenzing began their 1953 Everest expedition, has retreated 3 miles since then.
Almost 95% of Himalayan glaciers are also shrinking -with profound implications for Nepal, Bhutan, China, India and Pakistan.
Scientists say that eventually the Himalayan glaciers will shrink so much their meltwaters will dry up.
At the same time, rivers fed by these melted glaciers - such as the Indus, Yellow River and Mekong - will turn to trickles.
Drinking and irrigation water will disappear.
Hundreds of millions of people will be affected.
If you prefer to get your Christmas cards from people who want to deny the suffering that global warming is already causing, then there is little I can do about that.
Do they ever sign with their real names?
Huw: Firstly Wiki is hardly the fountain of all knowledge! I used to be an expert contributor for Wiki in my specialist area of automotive technology but gave it up as there was so much rubbish contributed to the site I simply didn’t have the time to update it!
Why dont you just go to the University’s web site? (www.unam.mx/) rather than slate any other reference to it as “right wing”.
To be honest Huw, I see you as the church and me as Galileo. I’m saying please look through my telescope and you will see that the world is round, but you are saying it flat, I know its flat because everyone tells me its flat.
By the way, when did you visit the Himalayas? There looked like plenty of snow there when I flew over it a few years ago.
I think Lucy W must have got Huw mixed up with the other climate change deniers on this forum because it seems to me that they’re the ones who respond to what they don’t like with spurious ramblings.
You’ve exposed your ignorance on this issue by assuming that global warming automatically implies baking hot summers. Changes in global climate cause a variety of weather conditions, which are not only becoming more extreme but also harder to predict. Do you really think that the last two rainy summers have been normal?
I’d also be wary of relying on the ‘evidence’ against anthropogenic climate change put forward by the deniers. Of those whose names have been in the media recently, a significant number are funded by fossil fuel companies, others are in the pay of Governments who don’t want to admit the problem and a few have turned out to be dead, although they did manage to miraculously sign a petition denying there was a problem!
The only ‘con’ about global warming is the idea that such problems can be solved within a capitalist framework, however ‘green’ it may pertain to be. Of course, we cannot change a world of 6 billion people overnight but unless we start recognising the current unequal and oppressive system for what it is, our future is pretty bleak, global warming or not.
Rachel (and Huw): I am sure you have seen Al Gore’s “Inconvienient Truth” film and would probably recommend it.
However, Al Gore “High Guru of Global Warming” in fact own the Carbon Trading company Generation Investment Management, which he founded with former Goldman Sachs executive David Blood.
Now that film is merely a sly way of promoting his business interests - no different from your oil companies except that they are more open and honest about there interests.
I suggest you go away and watch “An Inconvienient Truth”
Lucy, if you don’t want Huw to condemn you as having a hidden agenda, then maybe you should stop propounding the views of those who do?
I am just as much for ongoing research and debate on this issue as anyone and as I have said before, if I’ve been misled n this issue (intentionally or otherwise), I will never have been happier to be wrong. However, just as most deniers do, you have chosen to seize on one tenuous argument after another to back up what you have chosen to believe.
As pointed out, this is not just an issue of climate change, there are many other environmental disasters looming on the horizon if we do not stop abusing the planet and taking finite resources foregranted.
I’m not sure whether your last post was serious or deliberately designed to ridicule Huw but your observations seem somewhat naive.
Perhaps you think that flying over the Himalayas in plane qualifies you to comment on the region’s ecology but I think you might be on your own. Why not do some research on the water crisis facing the people of Bhutan because of glacial retreat and then come back and tell those of us that actually care that we’re flat-earthers.
Well said, Rachel.
Question for Lucy W.:
In the early 17th century who was defending the status quo?
And who was challenging the status quo?
The Roman Catholic Church or Galileo?
In the early 21st century, who is defending the fossil-fuel-dependent status quo?
The vast majority of the world’s scientists (#38)?
Or vested interests in global corporations, who are concerned that action on climate change will impact negatively on their profits?
Rachel: One thing puzzles me, is why GW believers ignore a fact that they cant or don’t want to answer. Himalayas was a tongue in cheek comment poking fun a people who make points based casual observation or reading (and we both know who I’m refering to), although I have flown over the Himalays.
However, Frans Joseph Glacier was a true experience of mine. I have visited it twice and it is definately advancing. So why is that? You may say I am selective, but surely thats the pot calling the kettle black?
I dont see this as tenuous when GW Theorists are withholding their data from scientific scruitinty. I find this very concerning - even Stephen Hawkins gladly accepted that his “universe” theory was flawed upon scrutiny. Mind you, Hawkins doesn’t seek financial exhuberance from his theory - unlike Al Gore and chums.
I come from a scientific background, where in my work, a theory isn’t proved until it can’t be disproved. Frans Joseph Glacier need explaining - as well as GW data being made open to scrutiny before I will lay awake worrying about it.
Re general envoronmental issues, I am with you on that, however I dont like to talk about my personal eco-credentials as Huw claimed I was not telling the truth but declined to allow me to send an email to prove my claims - not really someone you can reason with. So I will just go about, day to day, living a low carbon foot print while my critics have a hypocritically larger one, at peace with the world and myself.
For those wanting to find out more about the denial industry, I recommend the chapter on this in George Monbiot’s book, Heat.
Those who read it will see that the cynicism of these organisations is breathtaking.
Huw: You seem to have twisted around the “Status Quo” bit. Surley the “majority of scientists” is the status quo? And the minority are “Galileo’s”?
But the whole point is, you won’t look at the other argument.
No data for scrutiny.
Ignoring solar wind effect.
Ignoring contradictory environmental events. etc etc
So have you visited Frans Joseph Glacier for yourself? Or do you gain your “knowledge” from films like Inconvienient Truth, made by people who seek financial exhuberance from such endevours.
But its encouraging to know that you cycle as much as you can to make up for Al Gore flying as much as he can.
PS Did you cycle to Germany this year for your holiday?
#44 Lucy, you said that I should go straight to the website you gave.
I have.
The Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico doesn’t seem to have an Institute of Geophysics on its website.
Lucy, as a response to #46, you express shock and disgust that Al Gore is putting his money where his mouth is.
Why does it upset you that there are companies out there which are promoting environmental sustainability as fundamental core values?
In this country, TRIODOS BANK lends money to businesses and projects that are sustainable financially, as well as socially and environmentally.
Triodos tries to balance a positive impact on society with a healthy financial return.
According to Peter Blom, the bank’s managing director, the reason why Triodos is weathering the credit crunch better than most is because of its fundamental values.
‘If you move away from that basic principle, and allow the pressure for ever increasing profits and bonuses to force you into an abstract world of derivatives and structured products, you lose sight of what is virtual and what is real. That is what happened in banking. And it’s the exact opposite of what Triodos Bank stands for.”
Would you be appalled if Green activists were investing their money in banks like this?
If so, what do you think they SHOULD be investing their money in instead?
Lucy, how can you attack Al Gore for flying, when you are lecturing me that the only way to understand the truth about climate change is to FLY to New Zealand or FLY over the Himalayas?
As with Galileo, the majority of the world’s scientists are in possession of a truth, which is subversive to some of the biggest power-holders in the world today.
People who speak out for political action to deal with this issue instantly have their names and reputations blackened by PR companies, working for these companies.
For details about the now infamous fake grassroots anti-environmentalist movement in the US, WISE USE, I recommend the book, GLOBAL SPIN, by Sharon Beder.
For those with less time, I recommend the website, SOURCEWATCH, which tracks down many of the misleading arguments put about by professional denialists like Lucy Woodford.
Sorry, Lucy, I’ve just read your comment (#49) about the Himalayas again.
So now you say that was a lie, do you, but that the glacier story was ‘a true experience’?
It would be really helpful to let us know which other parts of your contributions were truthful and which were lies (or ‘tongue-in-cheek’ remarks as you evasively put it).
I still haven’t been able to find the Mexican institution you quoted.
Lucy, you mentioned Stephen Hawking.
What do you think of his broadcast to the world on 17th January 2007 that climate change is one of the biggest threats to mankind?
I hope you are not going to insist that he recants, Lucy.
Huw: OMG, what a lot of comments - I’ll be to the point though!
#50: I dont take in Heat magzine, New Scientist is more my thing.
#52: Yes it does. You need to learn to use the internet or Spanish though. Try searching for Instituto de Geofisica. Typing “Institue of Geophysics” in a Spanish website search wont work.
#53: The point I make is that your argument that GM deniers do so for financial gain is hypocritical as GM believers also make financial gain from what they promote.
#54: I criticise Al Gore because he says flying is bad, yet does it - hypocricsy. I dont have an issue with flying so don’t feel that I am a hypocrit on this matter.
#56: A lie is knowingly making a false statement of truth with the intention to decieve. It is 100% true. I have flown over the Himalayas and there was loads of snow there. It is pathetic lowering your debate to personal abuse in this way, as you have done so before and will no doubt do again.
Lucy, to respond to your points in #51.
”No data for scrutiny.
Ignoring solar wind effect.
Ignoring contradictory environmental events.”
The data for scrutiny is in the public domain every single day. No matter how much misinformation is spread around by the likes of you, the amount of data available, saying the opposite, is simply overwhelming.
The Royal Society, Britain’s foremost scientific institution, deals with your point about the sun’s energy in the Misleading Argument section of its website (MISLEADING ARGUMENT NUMBER 6).
Despite Lucy’s deliberate attempt to distract, divert and obscure the issue, George Monbiot’s book, HEAT, is an excellent starting point for exploring who exactly is behind the denial industry, the people behind ‘Lucy W’.
Lucy denies its existence despite huge amounts of evidence from reputable sources in the public domain.
A seminal article by George Monbiot (in the Guardian on 19th September 2006), highlights a website called Exxonsecrets.org for example.
Exxonsecrets.org uses data from official documents belonging to the world’s wealthiest corporation EXXON/Mobil to show the organisations it is funding with its profits to spread misinformation.
As with Mugabe’s propaganda system there is only a certain amount of time that this sort of propaganda will work. After a time people stop believing anything these people say.
Similarly there is only a certain amount of time that the bullying, anonymous henchmen, who carry out the dirty work of an unjust status quo can get away with impunity.
When people begin to wake up to the damage that corporate spin is causing to ordinary working people and the environment, they will want some redress.