Monday, January 28, 2008

A Quote

"We only understand 10 percent of the climate issue. That is not enough to wreck the world economy with Kyoto-like measures."
--Henk Tennekes, former research director, Dutch Royal Meteorological Institute

Henk Tennekes
Henk Tennekes

This is not 'gezellig', but this sound needs to be heard against that well-oiled propaganda campaign by Mr Gore, the only person to ever receive a Nobel-prize for presentation skills.

4 comments:

Dale said...

Like I've mentioned before regarding this issue, who are we, as humans, to be so arrogant that we think we can be responsible for weather patterns that have been fluctuating since the dawn of Time?

Koos F said...

The arrogants (if that is a word) are in the majority it seems.
Spooky.

Isn't he handsome? Just as you expect from a Dutchman.

Ahvarahn said...

What does that mean, arrogant? I hear that a lot, and in a pejorative sense. If arrogant means we think ourselves the epicenter of importance then we are arrogant, but any living creature’s fundamental instincts are selfish, be they physical or emotional. Our species has evolved physically and physiologically in tandem with that nature, that Gaia we are supposedly so cocky about.

At the same time, I agree nature isn’t something that we should think of as having to beat, and besides we are part of it anyway. But it is man’s nature to hope. It is his nature to survive. The inevitability that the human nature is doomed and there is nothing we can do about it is certainly possible, and perhaps it would be more accurate to say probable, but I am not about to thumb my nose in cynicism and tell the child there is no Father Christmas. In the briefest of seconds that a human life is, that belief like the child’s, is priceless.

You’ll find me there walking in the park, smiling, hopeful, flying a kite - living, for that’s what I got. If there is something ‘green’ I can do, I’ll do it. I’ll do it for my soul.

Koos F said...

Thanks for an elaborate and eloquent comment Ahvarahn.
It seems we come from the same place, wanting to do something 'green'.

Just my idea. The conclusion, in hindsight, is that I've mostly done these green things for my soul, and overrated the effect on the world around me.

That, I feel now, was pretty naïve and and a great misjudgment of the effect mankind can have on the environment.

I sense a strong arrogance in the 'IPCC corner', when it comes to apodicitic statements about consensus and a. our ability to create disaster with CO2 and b. our ability to turn the tide by wrecking the economy - and dare I not disagree!

That aside, I am very happy with your comment, because it leaves room for (free) thought, which is just the thing I find so terribly lacking when the CO2 preachers preach.