Shark Bait Blog

Environment.. and Scuba Diving.

Saturday, October 27, 2007






Censorship of Inconvenient Truths

(image courtesy of Wikipedia)


The inconvenient truth for Paul Biggs, one of the new co-editors of the Jennifer Marohasy Blog is that a considerable amount of the Climate Change denialist and other anti-environmentalist propaganda being circulated in the media is sponsored by corporate self interest.. what to do when someone starts posting facts and figures about that sponsorship on the same neo-conservative Aussie blog where you have just got your feet under the editorial table..

Censorship of course..

So Mr Biggs made the decision to permanently ban yours truly's IP from posting on the Marohasy blog.. interesting editorial approach for a media source that regularly attempts to suggest it is a balanced forum (in the face of a mountain of evidence to the contrary) and deserving of public archive status, as it continues its slide into yet another cut and paste anti-greenie soap box, as if the web wasn't littered with enough of those already... but then perhaps that is the reason for archiving one.

Since I no longer have a right of reply on the JM blog, might as well begin rebutting the neo-conservative propaganda machine here.

Starting with a recap on the posts that were removed a week or so before the decision to ban my IP, followed by a quick look at the Scientific Alliance:

Paul Biggs has stated that - 'Blog Posts are for discussion - We don't necessarily agree with the content ' .. considering the avalanche of anti-green cut and paste work he does (Its already harder to tell if its the Marohasy or the Marc Morano blog) and the fact he is a member of the anti-environmental corporate lobby group, the Scientific Alliance, Paul's statement is completely laughable.. but it does explain why he didn't want anyone looking into the background of individuals involved with the Scientific Alliance and why he censored my posts in response to his cut and paste of this article..


September 25, 2007

Greenpeace Rumbled

Posted by Paul, at 04:54 PM

I rather liked this letter in yesterday's UK Daily Mail, so I thought I would share it:

Red alert on Greenpeace

IS GREENPEACE more powerful than UK voters? Its lawyers are demanding a judicial review of the Government's decision to recon­sider its attitude towards nuclear power.

Would that we could do the same about Greenpeace's undemocratic decision to cover the world with useless and damaging windfarms, a course of action which almost all governments are following.

I know why we can't: it would take too much money. How democratic is a democracy which allows rich lobby groups to influence its policy? Greenpeace seems to be awash with money: how much of it comes from the wind industry (i.e. taxpayers' money)?

Greenpeace's co-founder Patrick Moore was right: 'They (Green­peace' s new management) have become far more extreme, their politics little more than neo-­Marxism in green garb.'

As he points out, much of the environmental movement today tends to be strongly anti-human, anti-science, anti-business and anti-civilisation - as well as highly misleading. Greenpeace isn't green and doesn't want peace. It's red and it wants power.

I don't particularly care for nuclear power myself, but I don't like an organisation that pretends to be green while destroying our natural surroundings for its own gain - financial and political.

MARK DUCHAMP,

Pedreguer, Spain.


........
(for anyone wishing to read the censored version of the Marohasy blog thread, there are three missing posts)

.........



'their politics little more than neo-­Marxism in green garb.'

Thats a very interesting quote Biggsy...
Would you like to start a discussion about Living Marxism, Spiked, the Revolutionary Communist Party and its friends and associates.. we could start with the Scientific Alliance's Advisory Forum member Bill Durodie..eh?'
- Lamna nasus


-----------------------------------------


'Just change the goal posts why don't you Paul?' - Steve

Not just moving the goal posts Steve, Biggsy is now censoring posts..

'their politics little more than neo-­Marxism in green garb.'

Thats a very interesting quote Biggsy... Would you like to start a discussion about Living Marxism, Spiked, the Revolutionary Communist Party and its friends and associates.. we could start with the Scientific Alliance's Advisory Forum member Bill Durodie..eh?' - Lamna


Seems the answer is NO!.. followed by CENSORED!..


Sunday 24 March 1996
Institute of Education, 20 Bedford Way, London WC1

'LIVING MARXISM CONFERENCE THIS WEEK

The Myth of Empowerment and the Reality of State Power

While government institutions are generally held in low esteem, a comprehensive critique of state power is singularly lacking. Global trends in economics, communications and population movement are widely believed to make the nation state a redundant institution. But the theory that the state is ineffective in the face of globalisation serves only to close down the debate about politics and state power.

This conference aims to redress the balance by taking a critical look at the unchallenged concepts of contemporary political theory like
empowerment, governance and the enabling state.

The goal of the conference is to develop an up-to-date critique of the modern forms of state power-the better to challenge these in practice.



Agenda

9.00 Registration

10.00 Opening Plenary

* Who Needs a Written Constitution - James Heartfield

11.30 Workshops

* Globalisation and Power - Norman Lewis

* Judging Democracy - Daniel Lloyd

* European Superstate - Bill Durodie

* Northern Ireland: Government by Peace Process - Kevin Kelly

* Living Marxism and the Net-nanny State - Andrew Calcutt/Nico Macdonald

* Citizen School: Training Stakeholders - Claire Foster

12.30 Lunch

1.30 Plenary

* The Myth of Empowerment - Frank Furedi


2.30 Workshops -

* Policing the Police - Rob Knight

* Battered Women and the Courts - Sara Hinchcliffe

* Welfare Rights and Advocacy - Duleep Alirajah

* Anti-social Courts - Martin Mitchell/Liam Harris

* The Myth of the Powerless State - Phil Murphy

3.30 Tea break

4.00 Workshops

* Include me out!-Tackling Participatory Democracy - Bruno Waterfield

* Doctoring the State - Mike Fitzpatrick

* The Feminist State - Ellie Lee

* Tolerance or Free Speech - Jenny Bristow

* The Welfare Debate - Jo Herlihy

5.15 Final plenary

* Independence, power and the question of control - Mick Hume'

-Lamna nasus



---------------------------------------


The third post was a repeat of the second one with a postscript -


'Keep it up Biggsy, continuing to censor my posts on this subject makes it ever clearer to the readership that you do not have a rebuttal...'

Posted by: Lamna nasus at September 28, 2007 11:02 PM


------------------------------


Paul Biggs claims he has trouble remembering what his annual membership fee for the Scientific Alliance is.. unusual statement for someone who spends so much time cut and pasting their propaganda and is also a media spokesperson for the Association of British Drivers.. but then most of the Scientific Alliance's scientific advisors have very little 'scientific' expertise on some of the major subjects the Scientific Alliance likes to pontificate about, particularly Climate Change..


The Scientific Alliance's Scientific Advisory Forum -

Bill Durodié - Not a climate scientist - Corporate Risk Analyst

Professor Sir Colin Berry - Not a climate scientist - toxicologist.

Dr Jack Barrett - Not a climate scientist - chemist

Professor Tom Addiscott - Not a climate scientist - Soil expert

Dr Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen - Not a climate scientist - Geographer and Political Analyst.

Mark Cantley - Not a climate scientist - Mathematician(economics, accounting and finance)

Professor Anthony Trewavas - Not a climate scientist - Plant Biochemist
Trewavas is one of the UK's most strident supporters of GM agriculture, and critics of organic agriculture. He makes frequent appearances in the media.

Professor Mick Fuller - Not a climate scientist - Biotech Plant Physiologist.

Professor Anthony Dayan - Not a climate scientist - toxicologist

Professor Vivian Moses - Not a climate scientist - Biochemist

Professor William Wilkinson - Not a climate scientist - Chemical Engineer

Professor Michael Laughton - Not a climate scientist - Engineer


Makes you wonder why the BBC has got into the habit of letting representatives of the Scientific Alliance appear on Climate Change debates as 'experts'...

Until recently another member of the Scientific Advisory Forum was:

Professor Philip Stott - Not a climate scientist - BioGeographer

Stott appeared in the recent anti-green documentary by Martin Durkin, The Great Global Warming Swindle... (Durkin was also responsible for another anti-green documentary diatribe, Crimes against Nature).
Although Stott presents himself as an expert debunker of environmental myths, he does not appear to have had a single paper published in a scientific journal in the fields in which he most frequently applies this 'expertise'....

The Scientific Alliance like many industry lobby groups is extremely reticent about releasing detailed information concerning its major sources of funding but in the case of the SA, some of the information is already out there..

'The founders of the Scientific Alliance were Mark Adams and quarryman Robert Durward, the director of the British Aggregates Association. Durward says he is 'a businessman who is totally fed up with all this environmental stuff... much of which is unjustified, such as the climate change levy. We also have the aggregates tax, which will put the UK quarry industry out of business.'

Durward and Adams established the Scientific Alliance in 2001. Two years later The Scotsman newspaper reported that on contacting the Alliance to ask about Durward's role, 'after some uncertainty, the switchboard it shares with a number of other firms denied any knowledge of Mr Durward’s existence. Matthew Drinkwater, the one person responding to calls to its offices, could also be contacted by ringing the offices of Foresight Communications.'

Foresight Communications is a PR firm established by Mark Adams in January 2001. As well as The Scientific Alliance, its client list includes the British Aggregates Association and the New Party for Britain (also known as the People's Alliance). The New Party - also the name of Oswald Mosley’s first party* - is so right-wing that the Tory leader in Scotland, where it operates, has called it 'fascist and undemocratic'. Like the Scientific Alliance, this 'People's Alliance', was established by Durward and Adams.
According to The Scotsman, Durward has spoken out on many issues, including the 'witch-hunt' against drink drivers, the 'media-fuelled circus of Kyoto', and the 'bluster emanating from the collective witch-hunt referred to kindly as the green movement'. He has also written,'Perhaps it is now time for Tony Blair to try the "fourth way": declare martial law and let the army sort out our schools, hospitals, and roads as well. Who knows, they might even manage to put the ‘great’ back into Britain.'

The website of the Scientific Alliance seems designed to downplay any sense of extremism. Its colours are muted. The prose style is generally measured and its logo combines a microscope with a pair of scales. However, a careful reading of the views it projects reveals something less than balance.

On organic farming, for instance, the Scientific Alliance says:

'Many scientists maintain that the organic movement follows ideological principles which are not supported by science. Indeed, Dr Patrick Moore, one of the founders of Greenpeace, has argued that if all farming were to be organic, productivity would be so low that almost all forests around the world would have to be destroyed to make way for agricultural land. If the whole world went organic, it could support only 3-4 billion people, with a high risk of pest and disease epidemics.'

Organic farming, then, if widely adopted, would bring ecological catastrophe, mass starvation and in all probability pest and disease pandemics. Not mentioned is the fact that, since leaving Greenpeace nearly 20 years ago, Patrick Moore has spent much of his time countering environmental concerns as a paid front man for Canada's lumber industrialists.'
- GMWatch

* - Note for younger readers - Oswald Mosely was the leader of the fascist movement in the UK in the 1930s and pro Nazi.