or Powell's or me• • •
"Mike and Jon, Jon and Mike—I've known them both for years, and, clearly, one of them is very funny. As for the other: truly one of the great hangers-on of our time."—Steve Bodow, head writer, The Daily Show
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"Who can really judge what's funny? If humor is a subjective medium, then can there be something that is really and truly hilarious? Me. This book."—Daniel Handler, author, Adverbs, and personal representative of Lemony Snicket
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"The good news: I thought Our Kampf was consistently hilarious. The bad news: I’m the guy who wrote Monkeybone."—Sam Hamm, screenwriter, Batman, Batman Returns, and Homecoming
November 30, 2008
George Monbiot Is A Dirty Plagiarizing Bastard
By: John Caruso of The Distant Ocean
When I saw Obama's encouraging statements about global warming I said to a friend, hey, it's great to hear him saying that he takes this threat seriously. All he needs to do now is time travel back to 1992, when the approach he's outlined would have been exactly what was needed to save the planet from the catastrophic effects of climate change.
Now, I assumed these remarks were private, but apparently George Monbiot was either lurking in a darkened corner or has developed some sort of remote mind-scanning device, because here's what he wrote just a few days later:
Barack Obama’s speech to the US climate summit last week was an astonishing development. It shows that, in this respect at least, there really is a prospect of profound political change in America. But while he described a workable plan for dealing with the problem perceived by the Earth Summit of 1992, the measures he proposes are now hopelessly out of date. The science has moved on. The events the Earth Summit and the Kyoto process were supposed to have prevented are already beginning. Thanks to the wrecking tactics of Bush the elder, Clinton (and Gore) and Bush the younger, steady, sensible programmes of the kind that Obama proposes are now irrelevant.
I find it especially sneaky how Monbiot tried to disguise his theft by expanding on my dinner conversation at great length, adding a wealth of informed and carefully-sourced commentary. All very impressive, George, but just who do you think you're fooling? Not me, that's who.
Brazen copycat Monbiot goes on to observe:
The trajectory both Barack Obama and Gordon Brown have proposed - an 80% cut by 2050 - means reducing emissions by an average of 2% a year. This programme, the figures in the Tyndall paper suggest, is likely to commit the world to at least four or five degrees of warming, which means the likely collapse of human civilisation across much of the planet. Is this acceptable?
No, George, it's not. And you know what else isn't acceptable? That you're living high on the hog from the wads of cash you're collecting for the article you shamelessly cribbed from my offhand comment, and I'm not going to see a penny of it.
FURTHERMORE: This isn't the first time I've felt the sting of Monbiot's pilfering.
—John Caruso
Posted at November 30, 2008 04:28 PM-2% a year, yeah right. Expect to see emissions rise as petrol depletion makes coal king again in the 21st century. Later when it's gone we'll get the rest of the wood. That's how humanity rolls, baby.
Posted by: Cloud at November 30, 2008 05:17 PMThere ought to be a name for it! The Alfred Russell Wallace syndrome?
Posted by: Jonathan S at November 30, 2008 05:24 PMJohn, this is why you need to invite Robin Leach and me to your swanky parties, so we can vouch for you.
Posted by: Jonathan Versen at December 1, 2008 12:07 AMI think Monbiot has done the math wrong. An 80% cut over then next 42 years requires an annual reduction of about 4% (.96^42 = 0.2). I think he just divided 80 by 42, which doesn't take into the effects of compounding.
Not a big deal, but I was very impressed by his book, which, as far as I recall, didn't include simple mistakes of this sort.
Posted by: SteveB at December 1, 2008 01:04 PMI'd guess he meant "2% of 2008 emissions" per year.
Posted by: John Caruso at December 1, 2008 01:24 PMI'd guess he meant "2% of 2008 emissions" per year.
Yeah, that's a possibility. Much better than my alternative hypothesis, which is that the clever "time travel back to 1992" bit is Monbiot's, but he stole the arithmetic errors from you.
Posted by: SteveB at December 1, 2008 01:36 PMGeorge Monbiot Is A Dirty Plagiarizing Bastard
By: John Caruso of The Distant Ocean
... you're living high on the hog from the wads of cash you're collecting for the article you shamelessly cribbed from my offhand comment, and I'm not going to see a penny of it.
FURTHERMORE: This isn't the first time I've felt the sting of Monbiot's pilfering.
______________
A strident rebuke onna blog -- no matter how stinging -- will never assuage yer offended honor.
Such impudent affronts cannot be countenanced w/o reprisals, sir.
I suggest you demand satisfaction in the form of a duel under the oaks at 10 paces.
Posted by: David Richey at December 3, 2008 06:39 AM
