It was a beautiful day here in the Bay Area today, so I had a late lunch at a sidewalk cafe.
While I was minding my own business at my table, a cute girl walked up to me and handed me a flyer that announced a climate concern march. I asked her if I could record her on video about her understanding of the climate. She agreed.
I started with a question I generally ask climate activists in California, "Do you know what causes fog in San Francisco?"
The best she could do in her reply was, "It has something to do with the ocean."
I then said to her, "How can you possibly understand the entire climate, when you don't even understand a much simpler phenomenon, San Francisco fog?"
She insisted she could, so I asked her what was causing climate change. Her answer: "Fracking."
Somewhat surprised by the answer, I asked her if she knew what fracking was. She said, "It's when hydraulic fracturing pumps are used to pump coal out of mountains."
After I finished recording, I assured her that no coal was ever taken out of a mountain via fracking.
She then asked me, "So are you going to use the recording to make me look stupid?"
I said that I was going to put the clip up and let people decide for themselves how much she knows about climate change and fracking. I told her that her answers, I thought, reflected quite well what most in the climate concern movement really understand about climate change.
At this point, she asked me not to post the clip. I told her I was going to, that she had given me permission and that it was an informative piece. She begged and pleaded with me not to, She told me that she would lose her job (as a climate concern activist). And she begged and pleaded more. I continued to insist that I was going to post the clip. There was more begging and pleading to the degree that it caught the attention of a waitress cleaning a table 20 feet away. The waitress smiled. And so, finally, reluctantly, it was too much, I caved. I agreed not to post the video but only this summary, with out mention of her name or organization.
-RW
UPDATE:
The climate activist has responded here.
Ask most people a question about the details of any number of things their lives depend on--how their food is produced, how oil is refined, how x-rays or MRI's work, how electricity works, and so on--and you will get similarly ignorant answers. Why should climate be any different?
ReplyDeleteIt shouldn't, because it makes no sense to worry and spend a lot of time trying to understand something that has such a little effect on your life. Unless, of course, it just happens to be interesting to you.
DeleteNo worries, Bob. You're street-cred is still in tact.
ReplyDeleteSofty!
ReplyDeleteI would post it anyways, but blur her face and leave out the organization's exact name.
ReplyDeleteGood for you, Bob.
ReplyDeleteBecause our "cause" is hopeless. And it has been for 100 years. Once people figured out they could vote for free things form themselves.
Thank you for fighting the thankless fight. That I don't think we can ever win. It's too late.
My comment @ 9:11 was for you Leia
DeleteI'm thinking our case will become stronger as the law of economics finally submarine's the current paradigm.
ReplyDeleteI kinda feel bad because a few months ago I told someone here in the comment section to "have hope" because the esteemed Dr. Block used to be a self admitted commie when he was really young and now he's one of the greatest champions of libertarianism out there....suggesting that if even he was a commie that anyone can turn.
Now, I regret my own comments....Block is a rationale individual...I'm think there's too many that are not that are empowered by democracy.
I think in retrospect the only way to reach the irrational is to let economics ravage them and fight hard to make the case as they are suffering.(to some degree, that might have already started)
Thing is, we'll be fighting a repeat of the same battle as other times. Those that planned ahead will be vilified as "hoarder", opportunists, etc. "Capitalism" will be blamed even though it is the lack of an actual free market that causes all the misery.
It will be the won/lost propaganda war that will determine the next paradigm shift once economics pushes things more dramatically over the edge.
She would not have give you tho same break. She suckered you. She outsmarted you by getting you to conceal her stupidity. You were stupider than she was and she knows it. You don't.
ReplyDeleteIt's a typically male "disease" known as pussy whipped. Perhaps frankness can be balanced with a little sympathy.
DeleteSo much criticism that Robert didn't give her both barrels. Nonsense, this was noblesse oblige and compassion prevailing over bitter cynicism. Sparing her was the stronger move and more persuasive. She probably learned all about the marine layer when she got home...
ReplyDeleteI would actually like to see more "man on the street" type interviews with you and the San Francisco loons Bob. I get a kick out of similar videos of Mark Dice and Adam Kokesh talking w/ the average idiot on the street. I thought your conversation w/ the "F**K CAPITALISM" t-shirt guy was a good start. It could probably help expose more people to EPJ and drive traffic to the site too.
ReplyDeleteAs ever the skeptic remains civilised in contrast to the most common behaviour we see from the warmists of : angry snarling, dismissive, and quick to use dirty PR tricks (due to the "by any means necessary" MO)
ReplyDelete..glad we keep the moral highground