Environmental Tribalism

Burned at the Stake

Environmental Tribalism

Dogma held inviolate

By Stephen L. Wilmeth

            The smell of cattle is surpassed only by the smell of horses in my cardinal array of favored livestock odors.

Every time I witness massed numbers of cattle, I am reminded of the natural gift they truly are. Their wondrous conversion of sunlight derived protein does not exist in a vacuum. It is real, and it can’t be concealed or hidden from view. Chaos and disturbance are part of the process, but that isn’t unique to cattle. Any massive source of food and fiber is similar. Anyone who believes alternatives can be derived in more controlled or less disruptive space is misinformed. It is impossible. The less appealing part of the process comes along with the good whether it is undesirable or not.

In a world where the closest thing to nature is a family dog or a subscription to a periodical, the societal perspective runs the constant risk of incorrectly assigning guilt. Their differing views are also fundamentally disruptive. People who claim to be experts but are simply mired in the dogma of perception or political leanings are, in fact, the greater problem.

I’ll opt for the honesty of the beasts … you can have the political obfuscates.

Burned at the stake         

The impatience toward nonbelievers of climate change is getting serious.

            Jagadish Shukla, George Mason University, five of his George Mason colleagues and 14 other high brow global warming asphaltites (GWA) have sent a letter to your president suggesting climate deniers should be prosecuted by the use of the RICO law and regulatory muscle. RICO, Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act, was passed by Congress expressly for use against individuals and groups (the mob and nefarious organizations) that knowingly deceive the American people for the purpose of illicit gain.

            The letter is interesting in that the GWAs first discuss the limited tools the president has “in the face of recalcitrant Congress”. They actually have a point and it makes perfect sense in the matter of Congress knowingly deceiving the American people, but Congress is exempt from being sued. RICO, though, would certainly be a viable consideration in prosecuting them. Their deception to the American public has long been an art form. It’s an historical art form.  The initial wording, therefore, is simple patronization of the Office of the President on the basis of kindred soul mates and like minded elitism. The GWAs must protect their reserved turf and grow their public trough space.

The real target for RICO action is aimed at the denier class. Those are the folks who have resisted the whole notion of global warming on the basis of recognizing bullshit when and where they smell it. The GWAs want those opposed to their contrived models to be pummeled into submission where they rightly belong. It is all there in their letter. They want blood.

So did the Court of Oyer and Terminer. That was the crew of earlier year GWAs who agreed to hear and prosecute the witches of Salem in 1692. The charges brought against the witches and goblins of Salem were no less heated and fed with hatred and malice than that being proffered by the Shukla crew. The science used to define the witchcraft culprits was founded upon logic and knowledge of the learned of the day. One indicator of a witch was discovered in the “touch” test. It was there a witch could be identified. If the suspect could calm a victim experiencing a fit by simply touching him or her, she ran the risk of being deemed a witch.

Similarly, a witch could be identified if she exhibited “witches’ tits”. No, the reference wasn’t mammary suggestive nor does it have anything to do with bucking rolls. Witches tits were moles or bodily blemishes that were insensitive to human touch. In the case of the Salem trials, the suspected witches were stripped in public and given the once over by the interested local medico. To add ridicule to the bizarre, the court spectatorship was part of the feeding frenzy.

Serious business it was indeed.

At least 20 people, mostly women, were executed over the nearly two year trial period. Viewing the debacle in hindsight, a question must be asked. Was a single one of those women a witch (notwithstanding the fact that a Mr. Glover used that exact description of his wife, Goody Glover, when asked by the prosecutor to describe her character)? Furthermore, was there a single subsequent shred of any evidence that supported the accusations?

No, it was a sham. It was the first day of the trials, the last day of the trials, and every second of the 323 years since that grand travesty of human endeavor. What is consistent, however, is the presence of ruling elitism that supports, upholds, and perpetuates prevailing dogma without accepting any evidence contrary to its actual existence.

Dogma held inviolate

If you don’t think the Shukla crew would stop short of blood left to their own devices, you are living in the comfortable vacuum of singular pets and conservation periodicals. Your ancestors believed in bleeding a debilitated patient as a last resort and they agreed to tobacco smoke therapy whereby the smoke was pumped anally into discomforted patients.

More specifically, you are prone to mass hysteria, tempted by cause celebre’, participate in false accusations if socially appropriate, and condone lapses in due process if the cause happens to conform to your demands or those of your clan.

Actually, those are not just my words. Freeman Dyson, the famous progressive physicist who can say things without ruinous professional consequences, is now proclaiming them. He is convinced that scientists attached inexorably to a prevailing belief will find no evidence to the contrary regardless of facts. Such evidence will be revealed, but the majority of the vested believers will remain blind.

Those so called experts become immoveable around their vested beliefs. Dyson suggests the phenomenon itself is the mystery, but it is likely much more simplistic. Few GWAs want correction coming at them through their own enclaves.

Dr. Dyson finds his way back into my good graces when he proclaims the condition is nothing more than scientific tribalism. Regardless of the professional misdeeds, the literature heat shields, and the contrived group therapy bliss, the tribe is staunch and must protect its own. All dangers to the tribal body must be avoided, tribal territory must be maintained, and all deniers must be eliminated.

Environmental Tribalism

So, we have a great scientist admitting scientific tribalism.

We have a crew of GWAs calling for the heads of any deniers to their holy grail, climate change, and we have a government that largely marches to the demands of the collective outcome. That is a bad place to be and much akin to the guiltless witch who was stripped naked to be condemned and burned alive in 1692. She found she was her only advocate, she was alone, and she perished.

We run the same risk.

 Scientific tribalism is only one component to the greater issue. We find ourselves in a hierarchy of performers that include the leadership, the midlevel council of deacons, and the lay attendants. The cause is the earth represented as the center of worship. Any denier is the evil one.

This isn’t simply scientific tribalism. This is environmental tribalism complete with all imaginable false trappings and funded by the denier tax payers who watch their lives being reduced to their own self advocacy. The tools being used against them are calculated measures of mass hysteria, warnings of isolationism, false accusations, and gross lapses in due process.

From the Dyson conclusion, we can also expect the tribe to believe completely in the prevailing dogma about the environment and … will find absolutely no convincing evidence to the contrary.

Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico. “As Lincoln came to believe, the Union was the Constitution. Within environmental tribalism, any reference to the Constitution is simply a metaphor for their modern day world union.”

Dr. Freeman Dyson has has taught physics for nearly 40 years at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton.  See Liberal Physicist Says Obama Is Wrong On Global Warming.

And just this week, France's most famous weatherman was put on "forced holiday" by the gov't controlled TV network for releasing a book "accusing the world’s leading climatologists and political leaders of using dodgy data to convince the public about climate change."  See 'Climate sceptic' French weatherman taken off air

Then recall this from an editorial we posted last week, "The strategy of the progressive left is no longer to win public debates, but to forcibly silence their opponents."