Today (20th November) is Transgender Day of Remembrance, created as a memorial to those who have been murdered because of transphobia. We at CSSD stand in solidarity with all of those who have experienced and continue to experience violence and hatred inspired by transphobia.
For more information on remembrance events in the South West:
Bristol – http://tpsw.co.uk/event/transgender-day-of-remembrance-vigil/
Gloucester – https://www.facebook.com/events/s/tdor-vigil/822804588772049
All the articles we have published are listed below, from the most recent first:
We have been informed that a prominent member of the “Stroud Freedom Group” and “Info Hub” has received personal threats.
We have not seen these threats so we can’t comment on the content. We are aware that The Light “newspaper” contains a great deal of material that many people find offensive, including a defence of a Holocaust denier, platforming of racists, fascist and homophobes, climate change denial, medical misinformation and support for commentators who have threatened NHS workers.
We would like to take this opportunity to state categorically that anonymous personal threats, of any nature, do not form any part of our group’s strategy to call out the far-right propaganda that is carried in The Light.
Our approach is to make public statements to inform and educate people about the nature of the content in The Light and the far-right organisations, individuals and ideas it features or signposts people toward. We also take the same approach when “Stroud Freedom Group” organise events with such individuals. We do not do this to threaten individuals, nor do we seek to censor or cancel people, only to utilise our freedom of speech in the hope others will think carefully about these issues, and – based on an improved understanding – choose to reject The Light.
The “Stroud Freedom Group” have organised a public meeting in Stroud to be addressed by James Delingpole. In this letter we provide details of Delingpole’s background which explain why we oppose this invitation and encourage people to boycott this event.
Delingpole has a long history not only of denying the science around climate change, but of attacking climate scientists and activists, to the point of repeatedly inciting violence.
In a 2013 column for the Daily Telegraph, Delingpole attacked climatologist and geophysicist Michael E Mann, journalist and climate activist George Monbiot and Australian scientist and environmentalist Tim Flannery.
The article begins by suggesting climate scientist “Michael Mann be given the electric chair”, “George Monbiot be hanged by the neck”, and “Tim Flannery be fed to the crocodiles”. Delingpole then tries to excuse himself from making these horrendous suggestions by arguing that “The last thing I would want is for Monbiot, Mann, Flannery, Jones, Hansen and the rest of the Climate rogues’ gallery to be granted the mercy of quick release… Hanging is far too good for such ineffable toerags.”
Delingpole writes that “it would be nice to think one day that there would be a Climate Nuremberg” and an image from the Nuremberg trials in which Nazis were tried for “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity” accompanied the piece. The Telegraph’s caption is simply, “Not pictured: Monbiot, Flannery, Mann….”.
This incitement to violence and suggestion of an equivalence between studying or working to reduce the impacts of climate change and the Nazi genoide is beyond disgusting. However, it is not the only example of Delingpole endorsing hateful rhetoric.
In 2012, Delingpole wrote a feature article in The Australian newspaper in which he quoted an anonymous New South Wales sheep farmer, as saying, “The wind farm business is bloody well near a pedophile [sic] ring. They’re f . . king [sic] our families and knowingly doing so.”
The Australian Press Council, described this as “highly offensive” and argued that “the level of offensiveness is so high that it outweighs the very strong public interest in freedom of speech”. Rather than accept the adjudication of the Council, Delingpole published a further piece in which he doubled-down, arguing “that the analogy may be somewhat offensive to the paedophile community.”
The author of this ridiculously provocative and utterly ridiculous comparison does not deserve to be rewarded with an invitation to speak in public by the “Stroud Freedom Group”.
The reasons not to invite Delingpole extend beyond his contrarian views on climate change and appeals to violence. As Hope Not Hate write: “Delingpole describes himself as having been “redpilled” by the pandemic, a process which appears to have involved him embracing increasingly extreme conspiracy theories and their politically extreme proponents. Delingpole’s podcast has hosted unsavoury guests since it launched in 2019, with the fringe “race scientist” Edward Dutton among his earliest guests, but a rising number of guests associated with the traditional far right have appeared on the show in the past year. The most extreme of his recent guests was “Morgoth”, an anonymous blogger and video producer from North Tyneside whose offerings combine pseudo-intellectual conspiracy theories with vicious racism, antisemitism and Islamophobia… Other guests during 2021 included QAnon promoter Charlie Ward, neo-reactionary Ralph Masilimani and the then-Patriotic Alternative member Josh (aka Richard Lionheart).”
In December 2021, Delingpole recorded an 85-minute video broadcast with Colin Robertson, a white nationalist. Robertson was suspended by YouTube in February 2021, following videos in which he said “violence, by which I mean civil war, is inevitable between us native Europeans and various immigrant groups” (2016) and enthused about “torpedo[ing] boats carrying refugees, describing in detail the “men, women, and children being blown to bits, and drowning in a mutilated form.”
In a 2012 article for The Spectator, Delingpole cites a modernised version of Kulturbolschewismus conspiracy used by Nazis to accuse Jewish intellectuals of degeneracy (translating as “cultural Bolshevism”) to explain the persistence of racism, writing “Much, if not most, of the racial tension we experience today has less to do with natural antipathy than it does with the idiot multiculturalist measures supposedly aimed at preventing it. We don’t talk about these things because cultural Marxism has very deliberately engineered a climate in which we are scared to do so.” The same term was the theme of fascist Anders Breivik’s “manifesto”, written before he killed 77 young social democrats on an island in Norway in 2011.
We imagine that the “Stroud Freedom Group” will try to divert this into a conversation about Delingpole’s “right to free speech”, and away from what he actually has to say. But Delingpole has over the years had plenty of opportunity to air his views all over the ‘mainstream media’, the Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail, Daily Express, and Spectator as well as on his own podcast and in far-right channels. He has been able to publish books and become the London executive editor of Breitbart London (an arm of the media company known and described by original executive editor Steve Bannon as the “platform of the alt right”). The only question is why anyone in Stroud would feel it necessary to invite him, and other far-right influencers, to speak in our town.
We the undersigned urge all involved in the event to reconsider, and to withdraw the invitation to James Delingpole. If the event goes ahead, we suggest that people do not attend and thereby help pay what we must assume will be Delingpole’s hefty speaking fee. If you want to hear what he has to say, so that you can make your own mind up, he’s all over the internet.
Signed by,
Community Solidarity Stroud District
The following 217 individuals, in alphabetical order by first name:
Varda Zisman
The Stroud News and Journal has published two letters regarding The Light this week. Sadly, they haven’t published the reply our member Jeremy Green wrote in response to Richard House’s letter the previous week, but we have included it first on this page.
Richard House’s letter to the SNJ says “If Mr Green would like to respectfully debate these and any other Light-related issues with me in public, he just needs to give me a call.”
As Dr House knows, Community Solidarity Stroud District has offered to have a facilitated discussion with local distributors of The Light, and that we have proposed an expert facilitator for this session. We are awaiting dates from the distributors of The Light.
He also misrepresents as a general refusal to debate our reluctance to discuss the rotundity of the earth.
Yours, Dr Jeremy Green
The letters which follow are not by members of our group, but we report the text and include a photo for interest regardless.
Like Dr. House, I have no means of personally measuring increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, or sea level rise, or (with one exception, the Grossglockner Glacier in Austria, which I saw in about 1990, and my stepdaughter saw again just a couple of years ago, much depleted) the rate of melting of glacial ice.It behoves both of us, therefore, to be careful which experts we turn to in order to understand what is going on.
I am currently reading, for the second time, ‘Farewell to Ice’, by Peter Wadhams, and would like to draw this book to the attention of Dr. House and to anyone else interested. It is a very thorough explanation of the nature of ice, a history of the ice ages and the greenhouse effect. It considers the future of Arctic sea ice, the so called ‘death spiral’, the accelerating effects of Arctic feedbacks, the potential for massive methane release as the permafrost melts, the rise in sea levels. It considers events in the Antarctic and the aceleration of glacers there. He does not draw attention to the Thwaites Glacier, which has become a matter of concern since the 2016 publication of this book. He discusses and gives a clear explanation of the Milankovitch cycles (the natural variation of climate caused by regular oscillations in the Earth’s revolution).
He discusses how we know with certainty how temperatures, carbon dioxide and methane have varied over the last 400,000 years. There is a clear demonstration of the alarming increase in all these in the last couple of centuries, and the consequent accelerating rise of sea level and loss of reflective ice. He discusses the way the speed of glaciers has accelerated, many Greenland glaciers flowing twice as fast as a few years ago. Concerning CO2 levels, he says ‘given that levels are already too high for non-disruptive climate change, the fact that they are continuing to accelerate upwards with no let up at all is profoundly distressing.’
What are Peter Wadhams’ qualifications for telling us this? To quote the blurb on his book, he is the UK’s most experienced sea ice scientist. He has been Director of the Scott Polar Institute, and Professor of Ocean Physics at Cambridge. He has made more than fifty epiditions to both polar regions, working from ice camps, icebreakers, aircraft and, uniquely, Royal Navy submarines (making six submerged voyages to the North Pole). He has held visiting professorships in universities in Tokyo and the US, including the Scripps Institute of Oceanography.
Dr. House appears to have had an academic education. He must know that he cannot, should not, dismiss such study by Wadhams and many other scientists as ‘the simple posivistic “science” underpinning the flaky notion of “climate change”‘, without providing real reason to do so, which would involve study of climate change at at least the same standard as Wadhams’ work. My definition of an expert is someone who knows what they are talking about, and I think that Wadhams meets that definition. I doubt if Dr. House has been under the sea ice any more often than I have. And this lack of understanding throws all other things he advocates into doubt: particularly, of course, vaccination.
So why should I believe Dr. House over Peter Wadhams?”
Roger Plenty
I would like to express my gratitude to the publishers of the Light Newspaper – I believe they perform a valuable public service.
I used to spend hours researching on the internet in order to keep abreast of the latest conspiracy theories of the lunatic fringe.
Now I can find them all, and some I’d never dreamt of, in convenient easy to read and easy to discard publication.
Well done, proof that care in the community does work.
Jim Watson
On Thursday 29th September, we hung a banner from the Merrywalks bridge , reading “No to “The Light” paper – lies, hatred and climate change denial”. We have previously protested against vile antisemitism and Holocaust denial being defended by the paper, as well as highlighting the “promotion of homophobia and transphobia”, and consistent climate denial in The Light – which is regularly handed out for free in Stroud High St (and elsewhere around the district).
The protest was timed to coincide with a meeting organised by the group which hands out The Light paper locally, hosting the editor of the paper – visiting from Manchester.
Community Solidarity Stroud District emphasises that they recognise their opponents’ rights to freedom of assembly and speech, but will continue to use their own rights to free speech and assembly to challenge misinformation and hatred.
Sign our statement at tinyurl.com/TheLightStatement
Learn more at: communitysolidaritystrouddistrict.org
Community Solidarity Stroud District have offered to have a facilitated discussion with local distributors of ‘The Light’ in response to requests from some of our friends and neighbours. We are awaiting dates.
Climate change denial has featured in almost every single issue of The Light. Other than the pandemic, it is probably the most common theme. This article explore this in depth – see our leaflet on the topic for a short summary.
The Light does not discuss the existing harms of extreme temperatures, droughts, floods, or sea-level rise. Instead, it repeatedly asserts that climate change is a “hoax”, a “con”, a “scam”. It argues that claims that there is a climate emergency are part of a conspiracy by a shadowy global elite to extend their control over society and individuals. There is a consistent trashing of climate and environmental activists, and of even the limited and inadequate efforts by governments to limit climate degradation. There is even more scorn for any attempts at international coordination of such efforts, which are fitted into the overall narrative of a secret plan to impose a “world government”.
This might come as a surprise to those who think that The Light is somehow on the side of the “natural world” and against technological civilization, or those in Stroud who remember that The Beacon, the now-closed shop that became the centre of anti-vaccination and anti-lockdown activity in our town, was once the meeting place for Extinction Rebellion activists. Some of the people handing out The Light have in the past campaigned in favour of climate action. It might even surprise some of the people who hand out The Light – quite a few of them don’t seem to know what’s in the paper. It’s notable that The Light’s opposition to “big corporations” doesn’t extend to the fossil fuel industry. And it doesn’t have a bad word to say about the Koch brothers, the billionaires who fund climate change denial and misinformation… and who also fund misinformation about the pandemic.
We think this is important. The basic science around the “greenhouse effect” and the role of atmosphere Carbon Dioxide and fossil fuels began to be understood as early as Svante Arrhenius’ work in 1896. The “greenhouse effect” is the way in which heat and energy are trapped close to Earth’s surface by particular “greenhouse” gases. The presence of these gases can be thought of as a blanket wrapped around Earth, keeping some heat and energy in – which would otherwise be radiated out into space. Greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxides, and water vapour. Emissions and atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane have both risen dramatically during the industrial/capitalist era – leading to heating of the planet. It has been over 30 years since physicist James Hansen told a U.S. Senate committee that “global warming is now large enough that we can ascribe with a high degree of confidence a cause and effect relationship to the greenhouse effect.” A 2021 review of 88,125 studies published since 2012 “conclude[s] with high statistical confidence that the scientific consensus on human-caused contemporary climate change—expressed as a proportion of the total publications—exceeds 99% in the peer reviewed scientific literature”.
And we know that the impacts of climate breakdown, now and in the future, are uneven. While everyone, everywhere will be affected, the effects are most significant in particular geographic areas, and hit harder where people are less able to adapt. Recent examples include flooding in Bangladesh and Assam in India, severe flooding in Sudan, drought in Chile and in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia, landslides in Brazil, wildfire in Argentine wetlands and flooding in the Amazon. Action is urgently needed – causing delay by spreading misinformation or undermining interest in developing solutions is harmful, indeed – arguably – complicity in genocide. This is an issue of justice as well as an environmental issue. The communities on the frontline of fighting climate change are often the same who have resisted centuries of colonialism, chattel enslavement and white supremacy, and who continue to fight against the ecocide of fossil fuel companies.
This is by no means “just one article”. Below we’ve made a list of the climate change disinformation that has appeared in the paper. If you want further information, the issue numbers and page numbers will help you find it. Before the list, a brief comment on rebuttal. We have not included an attempt to rebut the following claims here – we believe the overwhelming majority of people accept that global heating is occurring, is caused by the burning of fossil fuels, other industrial processes, deforestation and other changes to land use; and that a response by human societies is both necessary and urgent. The purpose of our list is only to make clear the depth of The Light’s commitment to disinformation on climate change. For those who may have been swayed by arguments in The Light, or are curious, we recommend the skepticalscience.com website, which debunks climate misinformation by presenting peer-reviewed science and explaining the techniques of science denial in accessible language. Examples include responses to the common arguments that the “Climate’s changed before” “There is no consensus” (both arguments that distributors of The Light locally have made when we have raised this issue with them), “It’s not bad”, or that “Models are unreliable”. Also worth reading for context are a recent article by Italian climate journalist Stella Levantesi for the desmog.com website, which discusses the propaganda strategies of the fossil fuel industry and its allies and their efforts to delay and obstruct climate action. That theme is explored at greater length, with reference to previous examples such as the efforts of tobacco companies to deny well-established scientific knowledge, in the book and film ‘Merchants of Doubt’.
Below is an image showing the headline from one example of the content listed above.
Remember The Beacon – the shop that once served as HQ for the anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists in Stroud? You might remember the window displays minimising and trivialising the coronavirus, described as ‘dangerous and completely wrong on all levels‘ by a local GP. Or the poster introducing the people of Stroud to the writings of proto-fascist Gustave Le Bon. The window displays have gone, but some of the people behind the shop continue to organise events in Stroud.
The latest was a talk last Saturday night (4th June 2022) by DJ Mark Devlin, whose podcasts include interviews with flat-earther and editor of The Light Darren Nesbitt, transphobe Tony Sayers, Holocaust denier Nicholas Kollerstrom, and with raving Jew-hater Henry Makow, just for example. Devlin describes Makow as “controversial”; others would say bizarre racist, since Makow spends his time on “…the claim that the Holocaust was grossly exaggerated, and that the document known as the Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion was genuine” (when in reality it was a notorious antisemitic forgery created by the Tsar’s secret police, spread by Jew-haters including the Nazis ever since). If you want to see more of this just search for “Henry Makow”. Devlin is also a speaker on the circuit of something called “Keep Talking”, where climate change deniers rub shoulders with Holocaust deniers and far-right politicians.
At the Stroud event Devlin didn’t focus on this, instead boring audiences with warmed-over drivel about “clues” revealing the occult involvement of The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. The idea is that those who are drawn in by this rubbish will follow him on Twitter (see example tweets below) and listen to his podcasts, where they will gradually be exposed to “controversial” Holocaust denial, antisemitism and conspiracy theories about the pandemic and the environmental movement.
Once again The Beacon is a vehicle for introducing people in Stroud to the ideas, organisations and personalities of the extreme right. More to follow on other Beacon events.
Community Solidarity Stroud District has been leafletting about the distribution of the horrible “newspaper” The Light in the High Street of Stroud and published the following statement on 4th March 2022 (also sending it to the Stroud News and Journal paper in response to a letter from someone who hands out ‘The Light’):
We want to take this opportunity to make it crystal clear that we have not sought to have the stall banned, and it is not our group that has written to the County Council seeking to have it removed from the streets.
We have very serious concerns about the ideas, writers and organisations that this group promotes, and we understand why others have been moved to act in this way. But we support freedom of assembly and speech, and the right to peaceful protest.
The Light’s faux-liberalism sits ill with its regular platforming of fascists, but no good is served by allowing themselves to present themselves as martyrs of free speech. We are not trying to censor or cancel the people behind this disgusting rag. We are using our freedom of speech to educate the people of Stroud as to what it represents, in the hope that they will join us in rejecting it.
Community Solidarity Stroud District 