While I wouldn't expect politicised academics to take any notice of critics of their ideological preferences, their ignorance makes the point that the process is anti-democratic.
It lets academic activists and bureaucrats act without scrutiny.
Not biased, right? Totally independent, right? Not committed to an ideological agenda, right?
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
Ditto, this 'academic' clearly wants to fix UK democracy -- to change society.
But what if we disagree?
"Oh, that's okay", says the 'academic', "we can have a citizens' assembly on citizens assemblies, and stuff them full of people who agree with us. You're not invited".
And this 'academic' is up to his eyeballs in Citizens' Assembly agenda.
As if he could step back and say, "I think Citizens Asseblies are a deeply flawed and undemocratic process, that only superficially deal with an intractable, deepening, widening democratic deficit".
And this 'academic', who also specialises in dismantling democratic politics, is so interested in public participation and deliberation, she hides her tweets.
Not unlike the Citizens' Assembly, which blocked its critics, didn't publish its minutes, and allowed no sceptics.
These individuals are clearly activists, not academics.
They are not seeking a value-free understanding of the world, but to change it.
That would perhaps be fine, if academia was a home to criticism, in which advocates of X & Y could debate.
But it's not.
For example, the authors were funded by @UKRI_News, because it too is aligned to the political agenda.
It makes no funds available to academics who may wish to criticise the policy agenda.
It makes many £millions available to 'academics' who will service the ideology.
That is to say that it is the mission of UK academic funding agencies to exclude the public from politics -- to dismantle democracy -- and to increase the political power and influence of unaccountable 'research' organisations and their panjandrums. Nick Stern being the epitome.
Ok. So show me the @UKRI_News-funded projects that are critical of the climate change policy agenda, its ideological underpinnings, or the Climate Assembly.
I'm here all week.
The report is just activists marking their own homework.
As my report showed, the biggest problem with the Climate Assembly is that the assembly members were self-selecting. This is confirmed by the 'evaluation'...
But look at this...
Some (how many) sceptical AMs tried to provide their colleagues "with alternative viewpoints to the presented evidence".
We know for a fact that the viewpoints offered by the convenors was extremely partial. Activists were passed off as academics.
That's a deep flaw in the process -- on its own terms -- which failed to respond to the assembly members' (and by implication, the broader public's) needs.
And that is an inevitable consequence of trying to reformulate 'democracy', as a top-down and "expert"-led process.
It creates bias. It cannot do anything but create bias. Because Citizens Assemblies are not natural democratic political institutions, demanded from below.
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The Byline Times project seems to be an independent news/media project that is entirely and exclusively concerned with projecting anxieties about independent news/media projects -- i.e. the expression of unauthorised opinion.
For Cadwalladr's crew to bleat about unhinged and extreme conspiracy theories, propagated by people who are 'unqualified' to act as reporters, journalists & interviewers is of course a bit rich.
But the interesting thing is that they are too dense to understand it.
My attempt at a sociological explanation is that they are formed from a class of people that thrived -- for no good reason -- under the terms of Blair administration, which lingered long into the coalition era. The referendum was of course the terminal point for that class.
It must be a coincidence that relics of feudalism (such as a certain Charles) has a preference for feudal modes of production (for you) and feudal social relations.
But trees! Yay trees! Everybody loves trees!
TREEEEEEEEEEES!!!!!
"Things will stop going wrong when there are more trees."
"If only we can plant zillions more trees, all of our problems will go away."
"Trees will create jobs, grow the economy, reduce crime, and make the weather better."
There's an entire chapter on "Libertarians" in the green demonology.
But there is no evidence anywhere that Moniot et al have understood, let alone read an argument from a 'libertarian'.
"Libertarianism" is a position that exists only in the green imagination.
So it's all the more ironic (or moronic) that Monbiot tries to claim that it is libertarianism that is the developmental disorder, not his own failure to develop any ability to negotiate his will against others, or a sense of proportion.
I.e., if you disagree with Monbiot, it's the end of the world.
*Exactly* the same reaction produced when a toddler fails to assert their will on the world.
There is no nuance to the green understanding. It is wholly narcissistic.
But ignorance of this... erm... fact... is rife among those who claim to best represent 'dealing in facts'.
It gets worse than the notion of science being synonymous with 'facts'. Some even confuse science for its object.
Science is neither fact nor noumenon. It's the process by which we attempt to discover facts and to shorten the distance between noumena and explanation.
When all the industries that Greenpeace hates (i.e. all industry) are accused by Greenpeace of using the same "tactics" and "tricks", isn't it time to realise that what Greenpeace is against is democracy, debate, rule of law?