Opinion by Anthony Watts
There has never been a time at WUWT that I’ve used the word “slimy” in a headline. This is a special case. I thought of about a half dozen words I could have used and finally decided on this one. I chose it because of precedence in a similar situation where Steve McIntyre wrote his rebuttal to a similar piece of amateur journalism entitled Slimed by Bagpuss the Cat Reporter.
Last week, the Guardian invited me to participate in their new online story forum. They were seeking the input from climate sceptics on issues they were writing about. They especially wanted my input. I said I’d consider it, but was a bit hesitant given the Guardian’s reporting history. But, after some discussion with one of the reporters, it seemed like a genuine attempt at outreach. I suggested that if they really wanted to make a gesture that would make people take notice, they should consider banning the use of the word “denier” from climate discourse in their newspaper. Nobody I know of in the sceptic community denies that the earth has gotten warmer in the past century. I surely don’t. But we do question the measured magnitude, the cause, and the scientific methods.
Now, any progress that has been made in outreach by the Guardian has been dashed by the most despicably stupid newspaper article I’ve ever seen about climate skeptics. The Guardian for some reason thought it would be a good idea to print it while at the same time trying to reach across the aisle to climate skeptics for ideas. Needless to say, they’ve horribly botched that gesture with the printing of this article.
Here’s the headline and link to the Guardian article:
Climate sceptics are recycled critics of controls on tobacco and acid rain
It’s full of the kind of angry, baseless, stereotypical innuendo I’d expect Joe Romm to write. Instead, the writer is Jeffrey D Sachs. who is professor of economics and director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, home to NASA GISS.
And it’s not just the Guardian. Apparently this article has been shopped around. It made it into The National in Abu Dhabi which you can read here. Apparently the article from Columbia’s Sachs was distributed by an outfit called The Project Syndicate.
A check of their website show the author list, some of the stories they are pushing to media, and they seem to be rather vague about where their money comes from. In their contact and support page all they offer is a PO box for their HQ in Prague:
Project Syndicate PO Box 130 120 00 Prague 2 Czech Republic
So much for transparency.
Back to the article. After reading it, one can see that Sachs is simply repeating the same sort of drivel we get from trolls every day on climate science discussions. Baseless accusations of being involved with deep pockets, connections to tobacco, denial of links to cancer, and other assorted decades old slimy talking points that have nothing to do with the real issue at hand: scientific integrity in climate science.
It is clear that professor Sachs didn’t do any original research for this article, he simply repeated these same slimy talking points we see being pushed by internet trolls and NGO’s like Greenpeace. He provided no basis for the claims, only the innuendo. It’s a pathetic job of journalism. It’s doubly pathetic that the Guardian allowed this to be printed at a time when they were reaching out to skeptics.
It seems incomprehensible to Sachs and others like him that people like myself, Steve McIntyre, Jeff Id, Joe D’Aleo, John Coleman, and others who write about climate science issues might have original thoughts and do original research of our own. It seems impossible to him that an “army of Davids”, such as the readers and contributors to CA and WUWT, could shake the money bloated foundations of climate science today with daily blog posts, FOI requests, and commentary. No it had to be big money funding these skeptics somewhere.
Newsflash: It’s worse than you thought. It’s a growing revolution of like minded people worldwide that want to see the climate science done right and without the huge monied interests it has fallen prey to.. Tobacco, big oil, and other assorted contrived boogeymen haven’t anything to do with skeptics that question CRU, GISS, NOAA, etc.on these pages and the pages of other blogs.
Oh sure they’ll say “but you went to the Heartland convention, and they took money from Exxon once, they defended smokers rights, that makes you complicit.” Bull. I’ve made my objections loudly known to Heartland on these issues, but the fact is that no other organizations stepped up to help skeptics with a conference to exchange information. While people like Sachs were denouncing “deniers”, and Al Gore was leading multimillion dollar media campaigns saying we were “flat earthers” and “moon landing deniers”, no scientific organizations were stepping forward to ask the tough questions, or to even help regular people like you and me who were asking them. Had any such scientific organization had the courage, you can bet that skeptics would have flocked there. Instead these organizations all got on the consensus bandwagon.
The claims made that skeptics are connected to tobacco companies is ludicrous. It is especially ludicrous in my case.
So here’s my challenge to Professor Sachs. Give me ten minutes in a room with you. That’s all I need. I’ll tell you about my story related to tobacco. I’ll tell you how secondhand smoke most likely contributed to my profound hearing loss through a series of badly treated ear infections as a child, I’ll tell you about my efforts to get my parents to stop smoking , and then, I’ll tell you how I watched both of my parents die of tobacco related disease. I’ll tell you what I think of tobacco products and companies. I’ll tell you to your face. I promise you it won’t be pretty, I promise you that you’ll feel my pain caused by tobacco.
Finally, I’ll tell you what I think of you for writing this crap you market as journalism without asking leading skeptics any questions, but instead relying on this slimy innuendo that’s been repeated for years.
Professor Sachs, contact me by leaving a comment if you have personal integrity enough to hear it.
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Scientific American can cancel him or we can cancel them.
Without a global warming crisis what would Scientific American be left with?
Scientific America stopped reporting on science and moved into technology and advocacy a long time ago.
The more alarmists prefer ad hominem attacks instead of scientific evidence, I will be more skeptical about AGW/ACC.
I must admit that I read the Guardian article and thought; wow, this guy really doesn’t get it.
We have had similarly based rantings coming across in the Aussie newspapers over the last week.
I tend to view it as the last refuge for the alarmists.
Personally, I am sorry to hear about your circumstances. All I can say is keep fighting the good fight. With the leadership that you, and your peers, have shown; we will win, albeit that I fear the personal attacks will only get more vehement towards the bitter end as that is what terrorists do.
These eco-terrorists are no different.
Stay sane and to misquote “Nil carborundum illigitimi” (don’t let the bastards grind you down!)
Hey, as the ground under their feet warps and slides they will be more and more desperate. Just keep hitting them with the truth and facts about their lies and data manipulation. The scientists are now beginning to be heard, the majority of those who did not go for the warmist scam will grow with the change of public knowledge on climate. The ability for these climate data manipulators to hide their misdemeanour’s is over. Now there is real science taking place replication will be essential for any future climate scenarios to be accepted by the public, no longer will lies and made up data be foisted on us.
WELL DONE THE TIPPING POINT HAS ARRIVED.
Worries you far more than it does me, Anthony. I believe the general public has truly had a gutful of this kind of shrill screeching, and that Jeffrey Sachs’ is preaching only to the true believers — the rational amongst us (which I feel is the majority) will dismiss his empty rhetoric as too extreme to be taken seriously.
Effectively, I believe this professor damages his own cause. I am only surprised he did not write IT ALL IN UPPER CASE…
Well done Anthony. I read the Sachs piece and left a comment. If he really meant what he said he should name names, but I guess he would fall foul of the UK’s stringent libel laws if he did, because he has no evidence.
People like him can’t deal with the fact that honest people are looking for scientific answers, and don’t need a political agenda.
And as I write this, the snow is falling thick and fast once more outside my window in southern England. There’s been more snow over a more protracted time this winter than in any winter I remember and I am 46 years old.
I am very anti-tobacco too BTW, having seen my non-smoking grandmother die of lung cancer because she lived with my pipe-smoking grandfather. There are so many REAL things to be afraid of in the world without Sachs and friends having to make up new horror stories.
Antony, as a named scientist who suffered smear by innuendo 2 weeks ago in the both the Guardian and the Independent on Sunday I can understand your anger and despair. The debate being promulgated by many colleagues is immature and not worthy of the senior scientific posts they occupy.
Rarely does the debate rise above ad-hominem attacks, smearing by allusion to big oil and tobacco money, the repeating of discredited memes and recycling of facts that may well be true but by logical inference don’t mean the world is warming at an alarming rate.
Two weeks ago Roger Harabin made a public call for scientists who are actively publishing in the climate change and palaeoclimate literature to contact him with a view to taking the debate forward. I thought very carefully about doing so but in the end felt that the attempt to provide a forum for a mature and open debate on the science was a worthy effort and responded. I received a one liner which said “interested but very busy” (my paraphrase). I have received nothing else in the past 2 weeks.
This is from a journalist who had just made a very public announcement that he wanted to open the debate and bring it to a new level. The lack of response is deafening and one can only conclude that there are groups of people who do not want to shift the debate onto science. They are more comfortable slinging mud.
The truth is that the advent of the internet is having a cathartic effect on the closed unions of science that have their main foundations in universities and government research institutions. Publications in the peer reviewed literature are now available to everyone and we are discovering that there are very many scientists and lay people who have something very valid to bring to the debate. It’s time to wake up and smell the coffee. Climate science stimulates the public. Here we have a fantastic opportunity to engage in debate, enthuse, to act as role models, to demonstrate the scientific method and above all not to hide our disagreements beneath shallow, vituperative, lazy and inconsequential ad-hominem attacks. Those that resort to such tactics have already lost the argument.
Finally, I will be posting more at my blog very soon. It has been a crazy, hectic week!
The article appeals to the true Guardianistsas as it confirms their dogma. The most popular comments on the Guarniad article however, consider this to be a ‘slimey’ article.
I wonder how this guy got a university position when he seems incapable of anything but cut & paste from old Greenpeace leaflets. I can very well understand your anger, Anthony, but this is “so last century” that the professor is really only damaging himself by writing such nonsense.
I followed the link to the “Project syndicate”, though, and was surprised to find this quite good commentary by Bjørn Lomborg:
http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/lomborg57/English
This article made it into todays NZ Dominion Post in the NZ Herald. Wellington NZ is a very government-centric place, and many might buy into this BS.
I am happy to say that I put $20 into Steve McIntyre’s tip jar, and I do work indirectly via my bedroom for the oil industry, by creating what I believe to be well crafted software. I also, like Anthony and many here, live a very sustainable lifestyle, unlike Gore, Pachuri et al.
Comments in reply to the article : B0ll0cks, as we say in the UK
You have to remember that this is typical of the Guardian. Journalism is not what it used to be, and the Guardian was NEVER a good newspaper. It’s recent standard has been terribly poor, and like all newspapers it’s becoming just another rag for promoting groundless eco nonsense and celebrity clap-trap. Resist the temptation to get into any bed with the Guardian. After all, Moonbat is one of its columnists – and that says more about this newspaper than I or anyone else ever could. Truly pathetic.
Sachs was part of the cadre of ivory-tower Western academic economists who in the 1990s advised the government of Russia, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, that what they really needed was a big dose of economic “shock therapy”. In other words, immediately imposing market economics upon a socialist nation in which none of the necessary preconditions of stable free-market capitalism were in effect.
What resulted from that was colossal economic disruption, wrenching unemployment and inflation, the theft of 90% of the national wealth by brutal criminal oligarchs to whom assassination was an ordinary tool of business, and the horrific impoverishment of tens of millions of ordinary Russians, especially older pensioners.
I’m amazed that this man is still able to show his face in public, after having had his professional advice shown to be so catastrophically inept.
As a frequent comment poster here at WUWT and the author of http://www.PathsToKnowledge.net I can say with integrity and honest that I’ve made ZERO money, as in $0.00 in any currency, for ANY of my writings on the topic of climate science, the alleged AGW hypothesis, or any other related topic. Heck, paths to knowledge dot net doesn’t even have internet ads on it! In fact I’ll go one further, times have been tight and I do need work, so if anyone has a programming contract I sure could use one just about now. I write solely because it offends me how alleged scientists such as Phil Jones, Michael Mann, Keith Briffa, et. al., etc… and political stooges such as Blood & Gore, Pauchari, Maurice Strong, David Suzuki roll in the money making all sorts of dooms day soothsaying projections out of thin air using bad and worse than bad, as in fraudulent, science. The false claims of idiots Jeffrey D Sachs are bordering on criminal fraud since they have zero basis in fact as far as I’m concerned.
Integrity of science is paramount. Period.
Anthony
In every newspaper I read where there are articles on climate change, whether pro or anti CAGW, the overwhelming opinion of the public response is sceptical of CAGW and these show contempt for the proponents. The public is not fooled and eventually the truth will become apparent – even to the likes of Obama and Brown both of whom seem to be bereft of any depth of thinking or common sense.
Your blog is a beacon of light.
Regards
Doug
Anthony,
Sachs is from Oak Park Michigan. So was Robert Ettinger. Cyrogenics; Climate science. Same thing. There I proved my case. can I get a nickle?
Mr Watts with all due respect,
In Australia, we dont argue we point at the scoreboard. It’s the only thing that matters, talk is cheap, success is reward.
Some mark themselves on the enemies they put behind them, others mark themselves on the wins that matter.
Personally I suggest you take it as a back handed compliment, you had nothing and now Sachs has nothing except bitching about unfair treatment.
What one newspaper, in a world full of content. Check your clicks sir. THe negotation over sicence will not solved with a debate in psuedo science with a pseudo scientist, an economist who would not know a standard normal curve it it jumped up and ripped his throat out.
Rebut him here and move on.
Don’t get in the gutter. If he was an econometricist of standing all would know.
Paul Dennis,
You should drop Dr. Curry a note at Georgia tech. There are others who are interested in finding something good in all of this, improving science, and moving forward.
Comment is free if you agree.
The Guardian was once a great newspaper brought low by this type of gutter journalism and junket science.
The attempts to associate reasonable people to extremist ideas because they won’t sign up to their unfounded alarmism is a disgrace.
Empty vessels make the most noise.
While I agree that the ‘money from big oil’ meme is nonsense, so is the ‘scientists exaggerate AGW to get grants’ meme, and that’s a claim often made in the comments here.
Birds of a feather flack together : AL GORE, JEFFREY SACHS ADDRESS WAY FORWARD ON CLIMATE CHANGE http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1P3-1221299571.html
Sachs is not much good at economics either.
(And yes, “flack” is not a typo 🙂 http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/flack?jss=0
You are talking about the Guardian, employer of Monbiot, a die-hard, unreconstituted arch-warmist. What did you really expect?
Worth a try though…
Anthony… These kinds of articles are written for the Greenie advocates in their ranks, order to gee them up. To instill within them a sense of victimization and to turn skeptics into monsters….. It is classic propaganda 101 for dehumanizing the enemy.
This is and was their familiar ground…. however, I think they are becoming concerned that most people are not listening to them… All they are doing at the moment is mollifying their hard core supporters. Which is not a counter attack or productive, but instead, merely a holding action in a rout.
If this was a battle….. We, the skeptics, are in a prime position to overwhelm them as their action abates with no ground retaken….. We will destroy their position completely in our next thrust….. We will grind their hypothesis to dust under the facts of our observations:-)
I agree with the perception that the Guardian’s pimply-faced writers are still living at home, masturbating in their mom’s basements while writing their screeds [“They will pay. They. Will. PAY!… Unghh…“]. They should get out into the real world more often.
I likes the Guardian article. Along with the recent “Whatevergate” article over at realclimate I thought they summarised the current state of play rather well. I reckon that Alan needs to be completely transparent that WUWT and associated activities surrounding climate change activism receives.
Sachs also advises the UN Sec Gen Ban Ki-Moon. Drivel spreads.