Guest post by Barry Woods
The Carbon Brief is a new website designed to provide a rapid response to any climate change related stories in the media.
It is also appears to be intended as a resource for articles and it claims to be an independent mediator between journalists and climate scientists.
The Carbon Brief’s twitter followers seem to have different expectations.
Andrew SimmsNef Bio: 10:10 Campaign Board Member, New Economic Foundation (NEF), Greenpeace UK board member, co-author of The Green Deal Report, founder of the 100 Month initiative, Trustee of TERI Europe(alongside Rajendra Pachauri, Sir John Houghton and Sir Crispin Tickell)
The Carbon Brief seems particularly concerned about how sceptical stories in UK media and blogs are being received by people in India and China and reported in non-EU countries media and blogs. (my bold).
“The media has a huge impact on the way that the climate debate has taken shape in the UK, as it has in the US, Australia and around the world. Comment articles in newspapers and blogs here are often copied and published thousands of times around the globe. The arguments fomented in the pages of The Guardian or the Daily Telegraph can have a significant impact on how climate change is reported in India and China.” – The Carbon Brief
On further investigation, the website demonstrates that they appear to be nothing but advocates of consensus climate change policy. A look at their further resources page gives the first two links as the Climate Science Rapid Response Team and RealClimate and it also include Climate Progress. There are no sceptical or even lukewarm website or blog links of any kind.
“Our team of researchers will provide a rapid response service for climate science stories. We go straight to peer-reviewed science and the relevant scientists to get their opinions” – The Carbon Brief
The Carbon Brief appears to have been set up for the specific purpose of countering sceptical stories relating to ‘climate change’ by going to AGW consensus scientific sources for an instant rebuttal. 
It is a project of the Energy and Strategy Centre, funded and supported by the European Climate Foundation (ECF)
ECF describes itself as “the largest philanthropic organisation in Europe focused on influencing government policy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions”. –The Carbon Brief
“…. To meet that challenge, six funding partners joined forces in 2007 to create a new multi-million euro philanthropic entity called the European Climate Foundation.” – About Us – ECF
On the The Carbon Brief website they say they are just getting started.
I am concerned about this new apparent big Green EU AGW PR and media machine swamping any sceptical voices with instant rebuttals and twitter mobs. They would appear to have very experienced PR, Media and Communications professionals at work now, with all the tools of modern media management, all the funding they need and briefed to follow the European Climate Foundations’ agenda.
If you take a look for example at the Carbon Brief’s Twitter profile, followers already include The Guardian’s environment team and editors, The Times’ science editor, Greenpeace, the Green Party, 10:10, 350, Transitions Towns, left leaning think tanks like the NEF and IPPR. Basically the whole ‘consensus’ media, NGO, politicians and lobby groups seem to know about it.
And they will twitter and retweet the Carbon Brief’s tweets and links propagating the ‘message’ to their thousands of twitter followers (remember key media people) and the ‘climate change’ activists will no doubt descend on the sceptical blogs and comments section to ‘troll’ the articles.
In the future will every sceptical article have an instant twitter response, links and a full PR professional paid media crafted response. I have seen tweets for Watts Up, Bishop Hill, Bjorn Lomborg, Jo Nova, Christopher Booker, GWPF and others already. How can independent unpaid, unfunded bloggers possibly fend off professional PR of this nature from an organisation with multi-million Euro funded backers with the agenda described above.
Nobody seems to have told the Telegraph, James Delingpole (I asked), Christopher Booker about the Carbon Brief, all those journalists organisations and lobby groups. I wonder why?
James Delingpole (Telegraph) had a nasty twitter mob experience himself, just recently, courtesy of an abusive tweet by Ben Goldacre (Bad Science – Ben is the second follower of the Carbon Brief, in the graphic above, he has 85,000 followers alone)
I expect James will get some more soon, as they twitter about every story he writes that they take exception to.
Who is running the Carbon Brief
From the website, the key team members are: Carbon Brief’s Director, Tom Brookes, is director of the Energy Strategy Centre (ESC) the communications unit funded by the European Climate Foundation (ECF). Editor Christian Hunt has worked as a researcher and web editor for Greenpeace and the Public Interest Research Centre.
We believe accuracy should be the key value in discussing climate change, and we aim to act as an independent mediator between the media and scientists.
Our aim is to increase social and political understanding of the risks of climate change so that we can make more informed decisions as a society. – The Carbon Brief
Tom Brookes is a very senior experienced communications professional, drafted in to counter sceptics?
Tom Brookes, Director, ESC – bio ECF
Tom is the head of Energy Strategy Center (ESC), the communications unit of the European Climate Foundation. He has held senior corporate and consultancy posts in government relations and communications.
Christian Hunt is still on the Board of Trustees of the Public Interest Research Centre which describes it’s work below:
Our work examines the connections between climate, energy and economics.
Our team is accomplished at presenting science to non-scientists, including policy makers. With the knowledge and experience to interpret cutting-edge research, and the skills to build it into effective communications tools, we provide a bridge between those at the forefront of climate science research and wider audiences.
I might ask how independent of thought on the Climate Change issue are they really, given the people, organisation and funding partners involved?
Profiles of Commentators
The Carbon Brief separates profiles into those who are commentators and scientists, these profiles appear to be designed as a resource to be used by any media organisation, journalist or blogger as an instant profile on that person, or of an event, or about an organisation. Compare the profiles of Rajendra Pachauri, George Monbiot and Phil Jones, with those of James Delingpole, Christopher Booker, Christopher Moncton, Benny Peiser and Bjorn Lomborg, to witness a mastercraft example of PR and Media management at work, to promote an European Union AGW consensus media brief.
The intent appears to be that any media looking at a sceptical climate change story, ( Chinese and Indian particularly? ) will use The Carbon Brief as a resource, without actually seriously getting into the detail of any of the issues or ask any further questions.
An extract from The Carbon Brief’s – ‘Climategate’ profile
The message was interpreted by sceptics as suggesting scientists wanted to “hide the decline” in global temperatures. This interpretation was offered despite the email being sent in 1999, when temperatures had been rising for some decades.
The process referred to by the word “trick” was characterized by the Russell Report as a legitimate and peer reviewed method of dealing with the fact that a set of proxy temperature data from tree rings had diverged from temperature measurements – the proxy temperatures had declined while real temperatures continued to increase. This problem had been widely discussed in the scientific literature, prior to the UEA email hack.
Personally, I think that proxies for historic temperatures that don’t actually follow thermometers are a little unreliable and not to much faith should be be given to them. Particularly when they have been used to reconstruct a historic temperature record, which has been used inform us that temperatures are now unprecedented, proof of AGW and that we must do something now!
An extract from The Carbon Brief’s – ‘Hockey Stick’ Profile
“…Mann published a list of rebuttals to myths around the hockey stick graph on the Realclimate.org website in 2004.
Sceptic commentator Andrew Montford published the book The Hockey Stick Illusion in 2010. The central claim of The Hockey Stick Illusion is that the iconic graphic has survived only because a conspiracy amongst scientists sought to undermine the peer review process and bully journals into suppressing dissenting views.
Richard Joyner, emeritus professor of physical chemistry at Nottingham Trent University reviewed the book in Prospect magazine, suggesting that “Montford’s book is not an honest contribution” because he “consistently and without evidence…queries the actions and motives of those with whom he disagrees.”
Now I wonder why The Carbon Brief choose that particular review, was it really being independent and balanced, as Matt Ridley (author The Rational Optimist) gave a VERY positive review, which was ALSO in the Prospect Magazine! I wonder what Steve Mcintyre and Andrew Montford will make of those two profiles above (please read in full). Andrew Montford has lots of very positive reviews of his book, some other reviews here.
Andrew Montford had a response to – ‘without evidence’
“This is most peculiar. I mean, there are 270 references in the book. That’s really quite a lot of evidence. And Prof Joyner may have heard of the Climategate emails, heavily sourced in Chapter 17. What are these if not evidence?
What else is there? Well, he says I should have referred to Steve M’s failure to publish his tree ring research. In a book in which one of the themes is the difficulty sceptics have in getting published, this seems a rather bizarre position for Prof Joyner to take.” – Bishop Hill
Well funded with political influence
The Carbon Brief is backed by the European Climate Foundation and it appears to me to be a PR machine specifically designed to counter any scepticism and it has the funding, resources, political backing and contacts to do just that.
“European Climate Foundation aims to promote climate and energy policies that greatly reduce Europe’s greenhouse gas emissions and help Europe play an even stronger international leadership role in mitigating climate change.” –
“…. To meet that challenge, six funding partners joined forces in 2007 to create a new multi-million euro philanthropic entity called the European Climate Foundation.” – About Us – ECF
The activities of the Carbon Brief seems to me to be at odds with the other stated commitment of the European Climate Foundation, which made me laugh in disbelief at their apparent ‘doublethink’.
“We seek to maintain a reputation for objective, high-quality work that is neither ideological nor politically biased.” – About Us ECF
The European Climate Foundation (ECF) is well funded by its partners and even more importantly is very well connected politically in Europe for the clear aim of 80-95 % reduction in CHG’s by 2050. The Energy Strategy Centre is the European Climate Centre’s communications and media arm, which would indicate that The Carbon Brief far from being non-ideological and not politically biased, has as its sole purpose the promotion of the ECF’s agenda, which is to lobby hard for European Union climate and economic policy change.
“The majority of the European Climate Foundation’s fund is re-granted to NGOs engaged in trying to bring about meaningful policy change. When we see an unfulfilled need we also engage in direct initiatives, such as commission papers, convene meetings or launch a new organisation. We seek no public attention for our efforts and instead prefer to highlight the success of those who are actually doing the work.
We have identified four major areas for immediate intervention within Europe:
• Energy Efficiency in Buildings and Industry
• Low-Carbon Power Generation
• Transportation
• EU Climate Policies and Diplomacy
The European Climate Foundation describes the members of the Advisory Board
This international body consists of distinguished professionals who draw on their individual and collective experiences in politics, business, academia and civil society. Members of the Advisory Council actively engage in advancing ECF’s mission both by providing strategic advice and through advocacy.
They represent the elite of European business people, NGO’s, politicians and lobbyists. Including, a Co-editor of the IPCC, Chair of WWF, Chair of Globe EU, VP Club of Rome, former MEP’s, Tony Blairs former Chief of Staff, CEO’s, Directors and Senior partners of corporations and consultancies, including BP and Unilever. Truly the European elite.
I have had a brief look at some of their funding grants (see here), these include, Club of Rome, Greenpeace, WWF, Globe International, Centre for European Policy, in fact over 500 grants in less than 4 years. One organisation called Sandbag, which lobbies for improved emissions trading in the European Union, struck a chord with me. Sandbag has received funding and written significant reports in the area of lobbying for Carbon Emission policy in Europe, backed by the European Climate Foundation.
The founder of Sandbag is Bryony Worthington, she is now Baroness Worthington as she was made a life peer in the House of Lords last year by the Labour party leader Ed Milliband, as she was ‘instrumental in the writing’ of the UK Climate Change Act. Unlike Viscount Christopher Monckton she now a full voting member of the House of Lords for the rest of her life and will no doubt continue her climate change work there (she studied English by the way).
Bryony Worthington is also a board member of the 10:10 Campaign, who were behind the ‘No Pressure’ video nasty. Fellow 10:10 board members are the environmental campaigner Andrew Simms and Tony Juniper. Other Sandbag board member colleagues include Ed Gillespie founder of Futerra and Mike Mason the founder of Climate Care which will sell you carbon offsets (I have one!, but I’ll write another time about that) which is now owned by JP Morgan Chase . When Mike Mason from Climate Care debated Christopher Monckton at the Oxford Union last year he was listed as part of the JMorgan Climate Care organisation (he seems to have since left)
This one organisation alone provides ample evidence to me that there are significant interests and representation by media, politicians, banking and consensus AGW lobby groups at the heart of the EU policy formation.
What next for sceptical websites?
If I get the time, I will follow this post up with an article about the Green Social Network, and how perhaps to engage with it.
It is still very, very early days for The Carbon Brief, it has only just got started. They say they are independent and claim climate science is distorted by vested interests.
“Carbon Brief fact-checks stories about climate science online and in the press. We provide briefings on the people and organisations talking about climate change, and we produce background materials on science issues and news stories.
Distortions of climate science occur regularly, partly because climate science is a complex area, and partly because various interests, motivated by finance or ideology, have sought to confuse the issue.
We are a service for journalists and the online climate community. Our team of researchers will provide a rapid response service for climate science stories. We go straight to peer-reviewed science and the relevant scientists to get their opinions.
Right now we are in the early stages of developing the site.” – About Us – The Carbon Brief
What to expect from for The Carbon Brief because expectations seem to be very high?
Andrew Simms Bio: 10:10 Campaign Board Member, New Economic Foundation (NEF), Greenpeace UK board member, co-author of The Green Deal Report, founder of the 100 Month initiative, Trustee of TERI Europe(alongside Rajendra Pachauri, Sir John Houghton and Sir Crispin Tickell)
What next indeed?
The “Carbon Brief” appears to be comprised of people who engage in this sort of behaviour in the pursuit of scientific honesty:-
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1358139/Climate-zealots-life-hell-sceptic-says-Johnny-Ball-victim-porn-blog-smears.html
I wear them all the time….carbon brief(s)
My son just said that the site should have been called “Rent a Troll” Seems apt enough to me!
A score of organizations, all “independently” checking unassailable “facts” with each other and concluding, at the very least, “..so it must be true” if not “…it’s much worse than we thought”.
I’m surprised there’s no reference to our own, dear Roger Harrabin. Perhaps he’s been left in reserve to be the ultimate referee.
Twittaganda
This is really getting scary. It therefore goes to show: It is no longer about the science, it never was. Good thing I left that continent.
“How can independent unpaid, unfunded bloggers possibly fend off professional PR of this nature from an organisation with multi-million Euro funded backers with the agenda described above.”
Having the truth on our side helps.
Stop your worrying, mate. It’s all about the money, and all will be revealed. Bring it on, and swiftly, I say. These w##kers ain’t got nothin but spume from a blowhole. The more they blow, the more they reveal their weakness. No science.
Joy. Just what we need. More advocacy.
It’s a sign of desperation but dangerous never-the-less. Truth has never been a big part of the global warming agenda. Apart from continuing to publish real data as widely as possible and responding to the false claims of the alarmists we have little option. Earth itself will be the main driver of scepticism. As the planet goes through it’s next natural cycle the taxpayer will be the best bulwark against fraudulent science. Taxpayers in turn vote and politicians make policy at their peril. It’s very difficult to convince a freezing householder that the price of electricity has to rise to stop the earth from overheating. The eventual retribution will be horrific.
Hilarious!
It looks to me as if, recognizing a lost cause when they see it, the PR masterminds of the EU have decided to underbus the wildly compromised dolts at RealClimate and set out on their own quest for 1000 uniques a day.
As the esteemed lagoon guru Sponge Bob Square Pants so aptly put it, “Good luck with that.”
When I see a comment on this site such as:
“Lomborg remains a cool operator, who will continue to ply his plausible trade with panache. We advise that anyone going to hear him speak listens with genuine scepticism, and takes his arguments with a pinch of salt”, it suggests to me that this site is not about real scientific debate or inquiry, but more about the overwhelming support of one side of the debate and the pillorying of anyone who strays from the accepted path. It felt like reading an article by the Spanish inquisition on whether evidence critical of the holy roman church was valid or not. Sad really, I was hoping for more, but it’s the same old ‘ we can’t be wrong, and you are all beneath contempt’ nonsense which is the bane of this whole critical debate.
The warmist proponents are more nervous than ever in Europe, and now view the sceptics as a formidable threat. They already concede that USA is now a lost and cause, and are now scrambling to save Europe. I doubt this Climate Brief is going to make a difference. It’s a desperate reaction. A reaction to events that they’ve lost control of – since Climategate.
I can’t help feeling that PR outfits like Climate Brief are signs of the death throes of climate alarmism. People are turning away from the claims of AGW promoters in increasing numbers and CB is a sign of the exhaustion of the apocalyptic meme.
There’s still plenty of money to be had promoting AGW, though. With a few million euros I could something much more useful than a PR campaign for a discredited belief system.
Now afterproofreading:
The warmist proponents are more nervous than ever in Europe, and now view the sceptics as a formidable threat. They already concede the USA is now a lost cause, and are now scrambling to save Europe. I doubt this Climate Brief is going to make a difference. It’s a desperate reaction. A reaction to events that they’ve lost control of – since Climategate.
Basically, this is a story about die-hard parishioners providing moral support for their priests. Those members of the AGW church who stand to benefit the most financially from pro-AGW policies are providing the funding.
This story has played itself out under different guises through countless generations. It would be pretty funny if it weren’t so pathetic and potentially damaging to economies all over the world.
My last comment is that group think can produce both gullibility and fraud on a massive scale. I guess the big question here is how many generations will it take for AGW group think to expire?
Why don’t they simply present the empirical evidence that would justify dismantling the world economy beyond a guess that maybe over 50% of the alleged warming since ~1950 (i.e. 0.35°C) was very probably due to human CO2 emissions?
With that level of high power, they’re obviously scared. What they don’t notice, because they don’t listen and the vitriolic reaction to anything even mildly suggesting the data are perhaps not quite so good shuts out any discussion, is that lots of people are simply laughing at them. Nod and smile is a good tactic – those in the know get it without setting off a nasty reaction. I even have a lot of hope with the younger generation coming through – they have no time for this nonsense.
We are being led like lambs to slaughter by the EU to further their agenda of a single European state. The fastidious way that the EU is making inroads to every aspect of our lives is becoming more and more apparent. Absolute control is being foisted upon us and they aim to ensure that their way, and only their way, is the only way. By the time they have ruined the economy of the EU, put millions back into the dark ages, it will be too late. Even then they will have an excuse to somehow blame it on someone else.
Why are we letting them get away with instigating such an obviously biased, publicly funded department like this! Every media outlet should be bombarded with realistic, responsible and well proven arguments about the whole debacle. The profile of the sceptical debate has to be raised much higher if any sort of sensible outcome is to happen. Any politician knocking on my door is certainly going to have a long, long talk!
Just a thought. The AGW problem will be solved when we (the West) have a bigger problem to solve. I thought the GFC would do the trick and it certainly slowed the madness. It seems a second GFC may be just around the corner as most of the lessons to be learnt from GFC 1 have been promptly forgotten or simply not applied. The EU as an entity is in debt. European manufacturing is moving to Chindia to cash in on carbon credits and unemployment and social upheavals are becoming more common. Recent happenings in the Middle East are yet to be assessed as to impacts on the rest of us. The US has high unemployment and huge debt. The general populace have far more pressing problems than a heating world exemplified by snow and ice.
So we need to alert people to the costs of mitigation and in particular how it will affect their hip pocket. In this regard we have access to some good one liners. Sound bites referring to the inefficiency of wind power. Rising electricity costs. Dearer petrol. Dearer food . Dearer transport. In answer the proponents have to explain how their policies will lower the temperature. Hard if it’s already freezing.
I have never believed AGW was a conspiracy but this seems to proove me wrong. It is going to be very tough for you to beat these guys but it could also be the undoing of them if this organisation became known about by a wide section of the public who are already sceptical of the big business and career politicians. An unwise move by the warmists.
Desperate and nasty tactics from the alarmist brigade, who have the gall to accuse those of a sceptical mindset that we are ‘well financed and highly organised’ – I wish!
But the truth has a habit of emerging and will in this case; as Abraham Lincoln put it so nicely “You can fool some of the people all of the time but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.”
And how may I ask are these wizards going to get the weather, ah, climate, to join in this exercise, perhaps tweet the sun ?
The more these priests slam their bibles upside people’s heads, the more people are going to get turned off of their dogmatic agenda.
So sit back, crack open a cold one, and enjoy the show as they continue to dig themselves deeper into their own graves.
Sad, and utterly inevitable. This exposes the AGW myth for what it is – a nasty leftist political movement, which will use every trick in the book to silent dissenters and stifle debate. They want to remove all debate as the cracks soon appear in their arguments. That in itself is enough for many open-minded people to take the view AGW is simply a lie, before even considering the overwhelming scientific evidence which demonstrates it.
Take a look at the Booker or Delingpole blogs on the Telegraph website and watch how the AGW fascists behave. AGW is the old anarchist/communist agenda of the ’60s and ’70s in a different guise and it attracts support from the same sorts of misguided, self-loathing, human-hating, arrogant and frankly dangerous ideologues.
The cheerleaders for AGW are well versed in political dirty tricks and media manipulation, not least because a lot of them are employed in the mainstream media.
The only good news is that the climate works to an inexorable cycle, and the cycle is running against these eco-fascists. I hope when it becomes glaringly obvious to the public that AGW and all the idiotic and expensive so-called “clean energy” and carbon trading schemes it has spawned are a massive fraud against them as taxpayers, the leading proponents of this lying propaganda are finally brought to justice.
Orwell’s “Ministry of Truth” has finally arrived. Two things need to be raised, again and again…….
1. There is no evidence at all to support the hypothesis of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming.
2. Follow the money.
This is the latest in a long line of illuminating moves by the alarmists. They have been convinced of a well funded, well connected sceptical lobby and for years been lobbying Governments to dish out money to fight that spectre.
Hard to tell whether they sincerely believe in the ghost of Big Oil or if it was just a very canny hook with which to acquire a good deal of funding and influence. Whichever it is, they have without a doubt become the very thing they claimed to be fighting against – a well funded, well connected lobby.
If they were right they wouldn’t need this.
Gareth Phillips,
You are wrong for many reasons but it would suffice to mention just one:
On this site, your comment was published.
In the sites of our opponents, any of our comments are censored out.
When you explain this difference to yourself, you will see other differences.
Good luck with that.
“………………..We go straight to peer-reviewed science and the relevant scientists to get their opinions”. I guess this says it all.
IMHO it’s just the dying beast giving it’s last kicks before it dies.
One is minded to ask if the Science is settled (and as a Poster from Australia on Pistonheads suggests) the IPCC model is all encompassing and accurately forecasted the global temperature for 20 years, why this further excercise is needed?
If there is no foundation in skepticism as those from BAD Science prosthelatise. Then whats the issue.
If Skeptics are wrong then they should be able to bask in the warm glow of this provable fact and not need to engineer a structure designed to combat opposing views.
Or am I missing something fundamental in the logic here?
I would be dumbfounded if (despite the ‘philanthropic foundations’ alleged to be funding this) much of the funding wasn’t being channelled into this from the EU and UK tax payers.
But if you were making millions selling snake oil, you’d put up a fight when nasty ‘deniers’ pointed out that snake oil was completely without merit.
Lawrie Ayres says:
February 18, 2011 at 12:36 am
“….It’s very difficult to convince a freezing householder that the price of electricity has to rise to stop the earth from overheating. The eventual retribution will be horrific.”
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Not unsurprisingly, I agree with this observation since it is a point that I have made before. The best hope of scuppering their plans is a lengthy cold period coupled with economic hardship of the ordinary tax payer when they are being forced to dig deep into their pockets with green taxes and green subsidies. Not that I would wish the cold on anyone nor economic woes, but when these factors come together a large number of people will begin to question the green agenda, and these people will become ever more vocal.
I think that there will be retribution for three reasons. First, with the clearer vision that hindsight reveals, the general public will appreciate that the data was obviously flawed and that there never was any hard evidence backing the theory and they will question how the ‘good and the powerful’ could have been taken in by it, unless those people were benefitting from the scheme. This view will be strengthened by the view that there never was an open debate or honest unbiassed reporting Second, there will be a lasting legacy not easy to sweep under the carpet, namely miles and miles of useless windfarms blighting the country side which will be an ever present reminder of the folly. Third, many politicians (and media moguls) have a financial interest in the green agenda such that there is an obvious conflict of interest. In the UK both the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister have family connections to the windfarm industry. The Royal Family stands to profit from ocean floor for windfarms (possibly also for those on Royal estates0. The BBC has its pension fund invested in the green agenda.
When the pack of cards falls down, people will begin to follow the money and the public will wish to hold those involved in the scam to account. Indeed, it may be possible for class actions to be pursued on the basis of misrepresentation, negligence, derelict of public duty, wilful deceit etc. Of course, it is unlikely that much compensation will be recovered but those involved could be in for an unpleasant ride.
What about a one-stop shop for putting open-minded people straight on the facts regarding the climate? WUWT is terrific but I’m thinking of a site which anyone can navigate to track down referenced data to counter the stories put out daily by those with an agenda in mind.
“The intent appears to be that any media looking at a sceptical climate change story, ( Chinese and Indian particularly? ) will use The Carbon Brief as a resource, without actually seriously getting into the detail of any of the issues or ask any further questions.”
Obviously, Realclimate was set-up for that exact purpose as well. Their piddly amount of web traffic will never make an impact – the purpose is to manipulate journalists and politicians.
I think the Climategate emails pretty much showed how tight the Realclimate crew is with those crowds.
This thermophobic mob are feeling the heat of reality and truth, real science will win for or recalcitrant planet refuses to follow their prognostications.
The dismantling of the Berlin wall is a good analogy and the bricks are falling, the propaganda will be more cunning with less science as the bricks fall.
Almost weekly new studies and releases of science that is reviewed, is putting nails in the coffin of AGW and removing more bricks from the wall.
The desperation and exasperation is showing in the facade of the believers.
As some one else said when confronted by these people, treat them with a dismissive smirk and a wave of the hand, argument is futile and science is an anathema to them.
The fraudulent have the fluid advantage of story-change, unencumbered by moral conscience.
I’m a cup half full kind of guy…..
Just about everyone that hangs around the sceptical side of the story is able to
a) think for themselves
b) recognise a troll when they see one
The fact that sites like this will gain a LOT more traffic will in the end be of net benefit.
What we should be discussing here is a strategy to take full advantage of this situation. These plebs are basically spending a lot of money to draw attention to our side of the argument.
A good strategy would be to have a welcoming committee to inform them when they show up:)
Guys, don’t get too excited about things – such a site is simply a function of a propaganda machine in motion. It will not be successful, nor will it achieve what it purports to achieve – its very existence represents the dying last breaths of the AGW movement.
To paraphrase the sober-thinking Richard Lindzen, the idea that our climate system can be be defined as “the change in global mean temperature anomaly in response to CO2 forcing” is a grotesque simplification of a complex system. Most people know this and consciously acknowledge it. Most people also understand the errors of logic when they’re told that opposing events (warm/cold, wet/dry) can be explained by the same mechanism i.e. CO2 forcing – such a claim cannot be tested and therefore becomes untenable. Anyone invoking AGW to explain the extremes of weather that we’ve recently experienced should be treated with suspicion.
My humble and perhaps naive suggestion is that in just a couple of short years there will be nowhere else for the AGW hypothesis to go – they’ve had more than 20 years to demonstrate the validity of the hypothesis yet we’re still arguing about it. There is something wrong with the evidence that we’re being sold and this new website is an implicit acknowledgment of this. Still, they must press-on, for the heightened sense of urgency and panic must be maintained. I’m very much looking forward to the day when I perceive a decoupling of science and politics in our study of the climate – then I can stop being a bitter and twisted old man.
In the words of H. L. Mencken, “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
Let’s now concern ourselves with all the cool technology going around which can take care of our future energy needs. Exciting times ahead.
Actually, the post is incorrect (“There are no sceptical or even lukewarm website or blog links of any kind.”). Look at the website – WUWT is included in the list of blogs.
Good – if it is a genuine attempt to debate let’s “go for it”!
It doesn’t matter how many Twitters rant on about AGW on My Face and Book Space the horse is dead, they’ll just be flogging it with snarks as usual.
Distortions of climate science occur regularly, partly because climate science is a complex area, and partly because various interests, motivated by finance or ideology, have sought to confuse the issue.
There is certainly truth in that statement, they just seem confused which side is motivated by finance or ideology.
The title, “The Carbon Brief”, shows the same twisted thought process as “The Sodium Brief” would be to address the problem of soil salinity.
Not to say that it isn’t dangerous from a propaganda point of view, it will be revealing how much contra discussion is allowed.
I know it’s often been posted on WUWT, but Gandhi’s saying is worth the repeat, if only so we can figure out which stage we’re at (the third, by any chance?):
If we are entering a cooling trend then no amount of PR can get them out of the predicament.
“How can independent unpaid, unfunded bloggers possibly fend off professional PR of this nature from an organisation with multi-million Euro funded backers with the agenda described above.”
The Deniers of Soviet socialism did it with the help of the fax machine.
The Deniers of Arabic dictatorship are doing it today with the help of email and Facebook.
The Deniers (be proud, therefore, of that term) are doing it with the help of WUWT (ably assisted by other skeptical blog sites).
Just keep at it!
Here is the nasty face of Climate activism that these new sites would seem tacitly to encourage.
“Johnny Ball ‘abused by environmentalists’ over climate change denial
Veteran children’s television presenter Johnny Ball claimed today his career was being wrecked by environmentalists.
The 72-year-old said he had been subjected to a malicious harassment campaign after dismissing climate change as “alarmist nonsense”.
Mr Ball, who has built up a prolific public speaking career over the last decade, said his bookings had plummeted by around 90 per cent following abuse from environmental extremists.
In an interview, he told how websites had been set up in his name featuring pornographic images and a blogger wrote that he should “not be allowed near children”.
One imposter also attempted to cancel Mr Ball’s booking at a training day for maths teachers in Northampton next month, he said.
Police are now investigating the claims.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/8330836/Johnny-Ball-abused-by-environmentalists-over-climate-change-denial.html
Ball was a very popular science presenter on British TV some years back, and I recall with fondness his attempts to make science accessible to children. It seems he is being treated similarly to popular former TV environmentalist David Bellamy who is also publicly sceptical.
I frankly don’t look forward to a world where the opinions of thoroughly nasty people like these (the activists) are tolerated and where simply asking questions results in the denier label and the opprobrium that goes with it.
“Independent”, eh?
When a self-evidently partisan organisation declares itself to be “independent”, sensible people write it off as a propaganda machine.
Splendid bit of projection in their blurb too:
“Distortions of climate science occur regularly, partly because climate science is a complex area, and partly because various interests, motivated by finance or ideology, have sought to confuse the issue.”
Yes indeed, “various interests, motivated by finance or ideology, have sought to confuse the issue”. I guess they were looking in the mirror when they wrote that one.
Nasty little fascists.
Alexander Feht says:
February 18, 2011 at 1:26 am
Gareth Phillips,
You are wrong for many reasons but it would suffice to mention just one:
On this site, your comment was published.
In the sites of our opponents, any of our comments are censored out.
When you explain this difference to yourself, you will see other differences.
Good luck with that.
Gareth responds.
Thank you Alexander for reading must post, however I suspect you have either misread or misunderstood the post. The criticism is aimed at the other site. Apologies if I did not make this clear enough.
During these uncertain economic times maybe governments should be explicit about were tax dollars (pounds) are spent. Especially if they are funding such sites.
“Our team of researchers will provide a rapid response service for climate science stories. We go straight to peer-reviewed science and the relevant scientists to get their opinions” ……………….
Says it all really! 1925 Pocket Oxford Dictionary, “Opinion”-Belief based on grounds short of proof: What one thinks about something: a disputasble point. They really should choose their words much more carefully in future, IMH……O! :-)) Must go, it will soon be time to ingest some carbon based nutrition!
Christpher Hanley says:
February 18, 2011 at 12:59 am
Why don’t they simply present the empirical evidence that would justify dismantling the world economy beyond a guess that maybe over 50% of the alleged warming since ~1950 (i.e. 0.35°C) was very probably due to human CO2 emissions?
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Why indeed?
Could it just be that there is no such empirical data?
Hence, nothing but spin.
I think this proves that swarms of sites like 10:10, armies of troll blog-mercenaries, lapdog global governments, departments and agencies and their propagandising MSM can’t put Humpty together again. And the growing ‘mandatory’ effort is starting to upset the taxpayers. This seems like a desperate move to bring in the big-gun propaganda money in from the very top.
Don’t they realise the jig’s up?
Obviously it will fail, we know it will fail because we sceptics are right and they are wrong. However long it takes to be proven right we will be proven right in the end, this is the iron hard immutable law of history.
In the mean time falsehoods and the purveyors of these falsehoods will fight harder and harder to prevail, all the tricks and the cunning deceptions and generous funding and closed networks and the insults and smears will only serve to highlight their moral bankruptcy. They betray themselves with every move.
They are trying the age old trick of attempting to respond to the truth with lies, it really does not matter how loud they shout and the insults they hurl, every move they make assists their own demise and the further they sink the more desperate they become and the more people realise their game, its an ever decreasing circle for them, its just another immutable law, that of diminishing returns.
Know this though my friends, we will triumph because we are right and our cause is righteous, as long as we stay on the path of truth we will win, as long as we do not follow their example however desperate things may appear we will win through in the end. Lies are easy to beat with the simple truth.
Considering the title, I’d speculate Carbon Briefs was for environmental and/or energy-related and/or agricultural lawyers. Jurisprudence reigns!
Carbon Brief = frantically rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
I am now carbonbrEif.org I will be assisting the spelling impaired warmists. Stay tuned.
malcolm:”I’m very much looking forward to the day when I perceive a decoupling of science and politics in our study of the climate”
Something far more important is in the process of happening. The decoupling of Finance.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2011/0217/1224290024749.html
Just about every Bank in Europe is broke. The ECB is broke. The EU is broke. Even Axel Weber has now walked away from the whole corrupt, criminal mess.
The dinosaur is dead but the message hasn’t reached the brain yet (the first bit of the brain to get the message, might well have been Axel Weber).
This is a big monster that’s going down, and it can do a lot of damage before it finally stops twitching.
Looks like they are in line with Mike Hulme’s new look democratic woolly science:
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2011/02/15/mike-hulme-expertise-and-the-ipcc/
This entity’s function appears to be similar to those created for US presidential campaigns. The product is fast political “spin” to support an agenda within a news cycle. Of course I could be wrong.
The really, really, really funny bit is that this will alert more and more people to the sceptical viewpoints.
1. Gun to foot.
2. Pull trigger…..
Also, this ECF and Carbon Brief are strongly reminiscent of Common Purpose type strategy and tactics.
This self damaging move will shed further light on similar organisations that like to work in the shadows.
More people every day are seeing these people for the scum of the Earth they really are.
Hello! Thanks for profiling us so comprehensively. This information is also on our website – http://www.carbonbrief.org/about
As you can see from the above post, we’re open about our what the project is, who’s behind it, and where our funding comes from.
I’m sure that we’re going to differ in viewpoint, and obviously we have quite different ideas of what it is that our project is trying to achieve. But I would say that our genuine interest is in trying to improve the quality of communication around this issue, and I’d welcome constructive comments on what we’re doing.
(It’s also worth noting that we do link to WUWT, along with a range of other commentary sites on climate, from our commentators page.)
If you have comments, please send them to me – info [at] carbonbrief.org – I will read them all. This is a complicated and contentious area – all (polite) feedback is welcome.
If there are errors in fact on the site, we will correct them, so again, please drop us an email.
All the best,
Christian
This tactic is a political one, bred in the Clinton administration, and will be used as a means of attacking and demonizing anyone that does not buy the consensus.
The Carbon Brief is a “spin” organisation.
A sure sign of desperation amongst the AGW High Priests to keep the Public “on message” and above all to “Keep the Faith”
Congratulations. Well done. To have so many AGW proponents in the open and huddled in one place is good news. Tactically, they have made a mistake.
Why is this issue so important to people? All these resources could be applied directly to eliminating hunger, poverty, diseases, etc. Yet the obsession is focused on reducing CO2 which is a direct result of the worlds economic success, which in itself is required to fund things such as eliminating world hunger, poverty, and disease. It’s a race to “cut off our noses to spite our faces”. A race to drive us back to the dark ages. Why?
The resources these guys have at their disposal is just incredible and just blows apart that old idea of the the few “scientists” against the might of the “fossil fuel funded sceptics”.
I hardly have time just to read WUWT and post a few inane comments – in contrast these warmists seem to be at their “job” 24/7/365 – moreover they seem to be professional advertisers constantly sending out Press releases, coming up with the latest marketing “in” idea to spread their religion.
And to think I once thought this was “little-guys” trying to save the world against “big-guy” oil funded denialists!
Barry,
Thanks for the post. It had a lot of great info but might have been more effective if it was shorter, a bit more condensed. The big picture is that this is an example of lefty top down command and control of messaging. How pathetic to be told what to think and then to actually think what you are told to think. I will never understand the left. We all agree that politicians are the scum of the earth, yet the left is always wanting to give politicians almost limitless power to push us citizens around.
As far as messaging goes, the great mass of people in the middle are not detail oriented and are influenced more by things like stories of old people freezing to death because they could not afford to heat their homes or stories pointing out that such and such a famous alarmist (Al Gore is number 1 on this list) is a huge hypocrite or the fact that raising the price of energy is going to make the economy even worse, etc, etc.
What you need to do in the UK is to select a political party and take it over Tea Party style. Until you do that, the UK is going to continue to go the wrong way very fast. A good approach might be to exploit UK class distrust by convincing the lower class that the upper class is perpetrating a fraud to exploit the common man. Shouldn’t be too hard to do since it is true.
Anyway, here in the states we have the alarmists on the run. Majorities in both the House and the Senate (at least 54 senators: 47 R and >= 7 D) are against the EPA regulating CO2. The cap and trade legislation was defeated last year. The Republicans are having a lot of fun in defining exactly how they plan to defund lefty projects (including big chunks of the EPA). The great thing about a budget crisis is that the federal budget absolutely has to be reduced and everybody knows it.
Well, if some cAGW proponents want to waste their time and money on yet another propaganda site, let them.
In passing, I notice that those who put up this site have pretty old-fashioned ideas: propaganda following the communist play-books telling others how and what to think doesn’t work any longer. More people have the resources to check up for themselves – and they are getting fed up with being told what to think and what to do by those who are not exactly shining examples of a green, austere, planet-saving life style.
You know, those pesky media types might inadvertantly ask one of the “wrong” scientists their opinion on climate stories. This way they can be directed to only the scientists who will give the correct answers.
Meanwhile Chris Hulne – UK Secretary of State..
is agressively trying to persuade the rest of europ for 30% carbon reduction in Europe..by 2020. No new coal power stations allowed in the UK..
(nor Nuclear – greens don’t like those)
The ECF want 80-95% by 2050.
Just billions to be wasted on windfarms in the UK..
With many more old age pensioners dying because they can’t afford energy bills, because of the Green energy the energy companies are forced to buy.
So yes it does matter…the CAGW delusion may be dying,
the politicians haven’t noticed and will destroy the EU/UK economies… whilst China laughs every time they build another coal power station or nuclear stations.
The article got a bit long (so I left a lot out)
I always hear about big oil fossil funded deniar machine.. Well big oil, knows it can’t fight big business, big politicians and big lobby groups, and becane ‘big energy’ a decade ago….
The European Climate Foundations’ advisory board are a who’s who, of the political, environmental and business classes dominating in Europe…
I’m actually SURE ALL the people involved they have nothing but GOOD intentions, they are just suffering from a popular cultural delusion. (CAGW – AGW would not support the almost end of world cult like behvaiour, of some of the extreme activists)
In the same way Enron happened, Mdhoff, dot com bubble, and finacial risk implosion, (or even how big corporates fail – a culture of ‘groupthink’ gets a hold, and reinforces itself against critics – think IBM, about PC’s, or even MIcrosoft – a quickish recovery, when they dismissed the internet, early on, just before Browser wars)
http://www.europeanclimate.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=49&Itemid=63Advisory Board
This international body consists of distinguished professionals who draw on their individual and collective experiences in politics, business, academia and civil society. Members of the Advisory Council actively engage in advancing ECF’s mission both by providing strategic advice and through advocacy.
John Schellnhuber (Chair)
Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research; External Professor at Santa Fe University; Advisor on Energy and Climate Change to EU Commission President Manuel Barroso
Antony Burgmans
Former Chairman and CEO of Unilever; Director of BP; Member of the Supervisory Boards of Aegon and Akzo Nobel; Chairman of WWF – the Netherlands; Board Member of the World Resources Institute
Bert Metz
Former Co-Chair of the Working Group on Mitigation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which won the Nobel Prize in 2007
Jeremy Oppenheim
Senior Partner of McKinsey & Company and Global Director of their Sustainability & Resource Productivity Initiative
Jonathan Powell
Former Chief of Staff to British Prime Minister Tony Blair; Former Chief Negotiator on Northern Ireland
Laurence Tubiana
Director of the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI); Director of the Sustainable Development Centre at Sciences Po’
Diana Ürge-Vorsatz
Professor and Director of the Centre for Climate Change and Sustainable Energy Policy at Budapest’s Central European University
Anders Wijkman
Former Member of the European Parliament and Chairman of Globe EU; Vice-President of the Club of Rome; Vice Chair of the Tällberg Foundation
Mark Woodall
Founder, former CEO and Senior Advisor, Climate Change Capital; also a non-executive director of a number of clean tech companies
They should just go ahead and name the site “Pravda” and let the brainwashing begin. It will certainly have an impact on the clueless masses who, like sheep, will obediently spout the party line to make themselves appear intelligent.
These sites get so few hits, one more site is just going to dilute their audience even more.
..but one more site saying it’s the hottest year – when people are freezing and buried in snow
one more site saying the cost of heating your house has to go up
I’m all for one more of those sites….
…nothing hurts their cause more than getting the word out
James has written on it now http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100076821/how-the-green-lobby-smears-its-enemies/
richard verney says:
“When the pack of cards falls down, people will begin to follow the money and the public will wish to hold those involved in the scam to account”
Isn’t it about time somebody made a list of those involved?
Let’s add all those responsible for The Carbon Brief, 10:10, 350, anyone who says “the science is settled” etc.
Well its really nothing new, just SOSdd. Folks like me who advocate science over agenda get such trolls every day. You hit them hard with facts and sources for those facts. All it does for their side is exactly nothing. It also helps to show that there is no mysterious unimpeachable consensus.
For our ‘side’ it is our chance to show them up with fact because the further you dig into their crappy science the less standing it has. I have had full out arguments with the current climate bot and all that has done is get me more followers and allies who, after reading both sides, use their own common sense. Its not about winning or losing.. it is about getting the facts out there so reasonable, intelligent people can decide for themselves. I will tell you that it does not take much to debunk these people because nattering in the backs of everyone’s mind are all the failed predictions, name changes and forecast errors. I would submit to you, people aren’t as stupid as these people seem to think and the fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, not this time pal mentality is growing.
Its just one more nail in the coffin of their credibility. And boy is it a big one.
I should be surprised that they cannot comprehend how absurd it must seem to anyone else coming to the site for them to try and describe themselves as independent and yet be so over the top pro-AGW. But then I am beginning to think these people are simply mentally unbalanced.
It is more reminiscent of something you’d expect in an old Monty Python sketch. I can’t imagine anyone but a real avid AGW convertee would be convinced by this new site. Anyone else looking at it will simply cringe at such blatant proganda.
The EU is fundamentally a Soviet style totalitarian institution. They maintain a sham of democracy, but carefully dilute the influence of voters on actual policy, by limiting the power of the parliament to simple yes or no votes, and by diluting the influence of voters over other aspects of EU policy formation and execution.
In America, the House of Representatives (direct vote) creates legislation, which is debated by the Senate (yes or no), and finally presented to the President (veto power). In the EU, the unelected European Commission creates legislation, which is presented (and re-presented again, and again, if they get the wrong answer), to a parliament which only has the power to say yes or now – a perverse inversion of the US system.
How much democracy would the US enjoy, if the only person who could create legislation was an unelected President (chosen every 10 years by delegates who in turn were chosen by state legislatures), and he had the power to arbitrarily award enormous cash bonuses to representatives and senators who supported his policies? That is reality of political power in the EU.
Of course, a lot of people suffer in this disguised dictatorship – like any dictatorship, the rule of the EU is riddled with injustice. So the EU does what every other dictatorship has done in history, to divert attention from their misrule – they maintain a big lie, a struggle, a war, which they use to justify their misrule.
The big lie used to be imminent Soviet invasion. But since the Soviet Union fell, guess what their new big lie is?
Just tried posting a comment on reply to the Spectator post – with a link to Climate Audit.
“All comments are moderated”
If there’s no comment discussion except a few groupies, it’ll just fade into insignificance alongside “Sceptical Science” and all the other warmist propaganda sites.
Real Climate only struggles on (with a fraction of WUWT’s traffic) because the founders are climatologists with their own fan club.
Paid PR hacks don’t have any fans – so there won’t be anything to read apart from their biased musings.
I’ll give it 6 months max.
David L says:
February 18, 2011 at 4:35 am
David, what you say is true, and your question (at least in my opinion) has just one logical answer: Evil.
Wikipedia’s definition: “Evil is the intention of causing harm or destruction…”, so there you have it. Personally, I can’t fathom why anybody would expend any energy being evil.
Supporting the definition of “evil” we could list the seven deadly sins:
1. lechry/lust
2. gluttony
3. avarice/greed
4. discouragement
5. wrath
6. envy
7. pride
Take your choice.
For an example of what climate sceptics are up against in the UK this article from today’s Daily Mail might be of interest:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1358139/Climate-zealots-life-hell-sceptic-says-Johnny-Ball-victim-porn-blog-smears.html
[In the words of H. L. Mencken, “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”]
The Cold War, The Drug War, The War on Fat, The Space Race, The War on Cancer, The War on Poverty, each were quite effective branding efforts that stuck very well and created focus for entire generations based on ancient human instincts about bad situations as being very primal enemies. But I’m afraid that a “War on Warming” that can only point out a few bloggers who occasionally publish papers lacks the most crucial element of actually having real world damage to point to. Everybody knows warmer is better, basically, since cold destroys life much more so than heat does. It’s laughable, now that Climategate opened the flood gates of popular instead of just blogosphere skepticism. Climate alarmism was a boutique boom economy shakedown that became too mainstream to survive. It was amazing how the media played it up at the exact period in history when the Internet allowed anybody to add a comment to the end of each propaganda piece, thus deflating the entire effect of rote repetition of a cultish mantra.
The Michael Mann & Michael Moore generation created the Glenn Beck phenomenon with the help of Journalism majors.
I posted a link to this article on another article that seem to go hand in hand ..snip..No, the truth is that the Government through it’s controversial information czar, former University of Chicago and Harvard Law Professor Cass Sunstein who has for at least a year now been pushing for what he refers to as ‘Cognitive Infiltration’ of conspiracy oriented Web Sites, to counter the claims by people he theorizes suffer from ‘crippled epistemology’ might soon be infiltrating the site.
What is Crippled Epistemology?
In a nut shell it’s the belief that you are relying on to few and the wrong sources for your news, opinions and views.
Sunstein’s theory is that people prone to believe in and investigate conspiracies become more or less ‘isolated’ on sites like ATS and end up developing opinions and views by over reliance on too few sources of information, where to be fair to the premise of the theory, the information being put forth is poorly researched, or deliberately incomplete to paint a false and misleading picture.
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread649514/pg1
Have faith but do not turn your backs. Oft-repeated lies authoritatively marketed are dangerous propaganda. More specifically targeted and increasingly professional lying propaganda – I mean marketing – can be worse. One hot summer and you lose a country or a continent that used to be a bit skeptical. It is a sign of desperation at this point though.
Especially interested to see how they attack skeptical websites.
China will have a few laughs, Barry Woods. Every time they sell a light bulb. Everytime they sell some rare earth. Every time they sell a wind turbine. Every time they strike oil off of the Florida Keys. Every time they get their interest check from the U.S.
Tom in Florida says: February 18, 2011 at 5:11 am
They should just go ahead and name the site “Pravda” …
Tom, you might want to look again at Pravda.
They actually are not towing the AGW line.
“Who gains profit from global warming myth?”
13.09.2010
http://english.pravda.ru/science/earth/13-09-2010/114905-global_warming-0/#
“Glaciers’ Growth Undermines Global Warming Theory”
21.01.2010
http://english.pravda.ru/news/science/earth/21-01-2010/111772-glaciers_growth_global_warming-0/#
It reads like a spin-off of New Scientist. They seem to wish to be accurate but don’t dwell on balance. One without the other is the sound of one hand clapping. All well and good – that applies to WUWT, too, but this site at least makes no claim to holding nor speaking from a neutral position on the climate. That said I fully expect WUWT will continue to offer a forum for the opposing view far in excess of what every advocacy site offers and you won’t have to explore a black hole of obscurity to find it.
They really need a point/counter-point page for editorial if they wish to be balanced. Problem with that is it is all editorial and balance is not the message for which they exist.
Just noticed on their website – the “management board” seems to only have one member…………..
http://www.europeanclimate.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=44&Itemid=59
…………and he’s the ex Managing Director of Shell Bulgaria.
He’s probably threatened a few poly bears in his time then.
What is appalling, though not surprising, is the lavish sponsorship by private foundations and a ‘Who’s Who’ of radical-left ‘environmental’ mavens. One might wonder, vainly I suppose, whether there are not similar foundations and actual scientists who could put together a ‘quick-response’ website and media operation to counter the constant barrage of scare stories and press releases from the Alarmists. But then, we have Anthony and WUWT, doing a darn good job of showing how naked the Alarmist emperor really is.
It is likely that the lazy denizens of the mainstream media will feed like hungry minnows on the chum that this ‘Carbon Brief’ site will fling at them. But most of those so-called ‘journalists’ will repeat anything the moneyed establishment tells them anyway, without an ounce of skepticism or intellectual curiosity. ‘Carbon Brief’ will just enable them to copy and paste between trips to the coffee machine, and take the afternoons off.
Let us hope the commenters here who confidently assert that this represents the dying throes of the ‘Global Warming’ (now ‘Climate Catastrophe’?) hoax are right. If nothing else, the fiscal crises faced by all the Western nations may put the kibosh on the whole ‘green’ kettle of lies. Of course, the last one to realize that will be the current occupant of the Oval Office in Washington, DC, but with any luck he’ll be gone in 2013.
/Mr Lynn
So the ECF is “the largest philanthropic organisation in Europe. This presumably is an exclusive version of philanthropy(in the literal sense) and AGW sceptics are excluded from the “club” of humanity they profess to love.
And yes, I do know that philanthropy is used in the sense of promoting the welfare of human kind, but presumably we are expected to accept their definition of welfare too.
Like Alex I’m not fazed in the slightest when they say they will-
“..go straight to peer-reviewed science and the relevant scientists to get their opinions”
because that’s their continual downfall as they parrot all this opinionated, post-normal pseudo-science only to make complete fools of themselves. That’s their quintessential problem. Post-normal science gets mugged by reality and who better to advertise that fundamental axiom for us? Piled on top of that are their lunar policy prescriptions which have burned up so much political capital for them now. Just stick with the scientific method folks!
As long as there are blogs such as – Watts Up With That? – there will be an open discussion of the observations and the new analysis. In the end common sense and logic will prevail.
The problem is not only the extreme warming AGW position. The planetary warming due to a doubling of CO2 will be less than 1C. Most of the increase in temperature is at high latitudes which increases the extent of the biosphere. Increases in atmospheric CO2 is beneficial to plant life. For example, there is a roughly 40% increase in cereal crop (rice, grain, and so on) yield for a doubling of CO2. Forest growth will also increase by roughly 40%.
Plants make more effective use of water when atmospheric CO2 levels are higher. (When CO2 levels are higher plants produce less stomata which reduces there water loses and leaves more water at there roots which increases nitrogen production by synergistic bacteria that live on the plant’s roots. There has been an observed reduction in desertification due to the increase in CO2 that is noted in published papers.
Commercial greenhouse raise the CO2 levels in the greenhouse from atmospheric 380 ppm to 1000 ppm to 1500 ppm to increase plant yield and growth rates.
The facts and analysis clearly supports the assertion that an increase in atmospheric CO2 is beneficial to the biosphere. We are at the end of interglacial period. There have been 22 glacial/interglacial cycles. The biosphere contracts when the planet is colder and increases when it is warmer.
The facts and analysis clearly supports the assertion that the planet’s feedback response to any forcing change (including CO2) is negative rather than positive. Planetary cloud cover increases when the planet is warmer reflecting more energy into space and decreases when the planet is colder, thereby resisting any change.
We cannot allow the accompanying AGW leaches that advocate a world tax to fund massive wind farms, bio-fuels, and so on and to send money to corrupt third world government where it will be skimmed off and wasted. Bureaucracies will continue to grow and feed on the AGW paradigm. A world tax and new massive AGW bureaucracy will not help the environment or those paying the world tax.
The rise in food prices in the world is in part due to the massive increase in bio-fuel conversion of corn to ethanol in the US. As almost all are aware the conversion of corn to ethanol was almost no impact on the carbon foot print.
Oh and remember Copenhagen and ‘Blairs Law’ while you do 😉
Thanks for dropping in Christian – it’s good to hear from the editor in person.
I tried to post an item on your site just now and it went straight to moderation – so I’d be interested in knowing what your moderation policies are.
Will it be just snipping bad language or blatant insults – will you be “shaping” the debate like Real Climate by interspersing commentary and disappearing paragraphs which seriously challenge the orthodoxy?
Anyway, I guess lots of people here will be trying to post and we’ll soon know whether any genuine debate is going to be allowed.
A certain church has the Vatican and thousands of believers to proselytize their view of the world, but the organization is steadily losing believers as they learn that there is more to the world than what has been portrayed by the representatives of that church. Revelations of what has resulted to children as a result of that power over the minds of its adherents have also reduced its credibility. Let us hope that it does not take the better part of 2000 years for the true climate story to be known.
IanM
Hope it blows up in their faces…
(Yeah, bad joke..but very deserved.)
Christian Hunt says:
February 18, 2011 at 4:16 am
Hello! Thanks for profiling us so comprehensively. This information is also on our website – http://www.carbonbrief.org/about
As you can see from the above post, we’re open about our what the project is, who’s behind it, and where our funding comes from.
I’m sure that we’re going to differ in viewpoint, and obviously we have quite different ideas of what it is that our project is trying to achieve. But I would say that our genuine interest is in trying to improve the quality of communication around this issue, and I’d welcome constructive comments on what we’re doing.
(It’s also worth noting that we do link to WUWT, along with a range of other commentary sites on climate, from our commentators page.)
———————–
Hi Christian
It is perhaps worth noting that I was specifically describing that the The Carbon Brief, did not link to any sceptical or lukewarm websites in it’s resources page.
http://www.carbonbrief.org/resources
I see that this is still the case.
As the Resources page is describes itself as Other Useful sources of Information. I made the assumption that the absence of sectpical websites was because The Carbon Brief did not think they were suitable for their readers or because of it’s PR and Media brief.
As the The Carbon Brief is funded by the Eurpean Climate Foundation, whose stated intention is too lobby hard for 80-95% reductions of CHG’s by 2050, I assumed these sceptical links were left out on purpose, I think that would be considered a reasonable assumption to make.
As The Carbon Brief has twitterd about Watts Up With That a number of times, it shows that you are aware of its existence
As Watts Up With That is an award winnng science blog ( a finalist again this year) whose web traffic greatly exceeds many of theose websites that The Carbon Brief list (including Realclimate)
I hope you will feel able to add WUWT to your resources page.
As I feel that this would allow The Carbon Brief to fulfill another of its backers (ECF) stated goals which is:
“We seek to maintain a reputation for objective, high-quality work that is neither ideological nor politically biased.” – About Us ECF
Adding Watts Up and some other links I’m sure you might agree would go a long way to fulfilling both the spirit and letter of that intent and inform your readers of all sides of the debate, given equal treatment.
I would like to recommend some other websites that would benefit your readers and allow the ECF goals to be achieved.
Particularly the following 2, as their existence came about because of one of the links you show RealClimate:
Professor Ross Mckitrick
http://rossmckitrick.weebly.com/
Steve Mcintyre
http://www.climateaudit.org
I’m sure you might agree these are also very relevant other useful sources of information. If I may be so bold the following may also be of great interest on this complex issue.
Professor Judith Curry
http://judithcurry.com/
Professor Roger Pielke jnr
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/
Director for the Copenhagen Consensus Center
Bjorn Lomborg
http://www.lomborg.com/
As by Andrew Simm’s tweet, who is as I have described is both politically and idealogicall motivated on a specific side of the debate) with respect to ‘climate deniars, I feel many sceptics may feel suspicious of The Carbon Brief’s intentions.
I hope that you feel able to take these suggestions on board for The Carbon Brief, its readers and the European Climate Foundations benefit.
“We seek to maintain a reputation for objective, high-quality work that is neither ideological nor politically biased.” – About Us ECF
All the Best
Barry
For some more disclosure about who is networked with who and a lot more about Climate finance, check out
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/originals/high_level_climate_finance.html
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/originals/un_progress_governance_via_climate_change.html
Well, Christian has posted my comment now, including the link to CA for the true story 0n Steig/O’Donell – so I guess it’s open season for a full and fair exchange of views.
Maybe this will be the first CAGW site which permits that – which might be a good thing in the long run.
If it turns out like the Guardian’s CIF, where the sceptics win every round of debate, it can only hasten the inevitable end.
This post prompted me to re-read Wiki’s longish article on propaganda. Of the many, many terms used in the article there is not one that I could not apply to the methods of the Agwers. The Carbon Brief fits in there like a glove.
Barry Woods says:
February 18, 2011 at 6:52 am
……….I see that this is still the case.
For goodness sake be fair!! The link to WUWT is on the website! We (sceptics) should engage with these people. As a European (English) taxpayer I want to know how much of my taxes is going to fund this project, and what, if any (other than computer modelling) evidence they have to support the hypothesis of CAGW.
Give them a chance!!
I think that many people here are grossly underestimating the money and power behind the alarmists efforts. The truth may come out eventually, but I may not be still around to see it.
I feel totally frustrated with fighting the Team supporters. I try in my small way to (gently) steer friends toward the light, but it’s a tough sell with the continuing barrage of nonsense.
An example was a short piece in the Weather Network stating that yesterday was a new high record, previously held by 1984 @ 7.4C (unstated was the fact that this info was taken from records that begin in 1938).
I sent and eMail pointing out that the Environment Canada website (http://climate.weatheroffice.gc.ca/climateData/almanac_e.html?timeframe=4&Prov=CA&StationID=5051&Year=2011&Month=2&Day=17) that begins in 1841 shows a high of 11.1C in both 1857 and 1921.
This morning a sentence was added saying that the high yesterday was 11.3C.
Now, whether it really was 11.3C yesterday or not is really not the point.
The important point is that yesterdays “record” temperature was essentially the same as it was more than 150 years ago. The message being propagated is the unnaturally warm temperatures, despite the facts stating otherwise.
How the H*LL can we fight such the MSM “machine”, apparently staffed by unaware and uncritical reporters?
Starting a propaganda campaign without hiding one’s motive and paymaster is about the dumbest move you can make – might i, as a European citizen, say : rather typical for anything that comes from Brussels.
Any doubts climate change is political and not science are proven by the purpose of the rapid response team.
The rapid response team has all the characteristics of rent a mob and the thug in the street. Having lost the scientific argument they now intend to overwhelm the truth by obscuring it with sheer volume and the dialogue of trained non scientific professionals. Is there corruption involved in this, it sure looks like it.
The rapid response team is an exercise in net neutrality in an attempt to force views on individuals depriving them of personal choice in getting information.
Oh very well done Josh,
This is your best cartoon yet, I especially like the wry comments,
” The elastic band of truth” “Hiding the decline”
I love it..
Ken
Roger Longstaff says:
February 18, 2011 at 7:29 am
“As a European (English) taxpayer I want to know how much of my taxes is going to fund this project, and what, if any (other than computer modelling) evidence they have to support the hypothesis of CAGW.
Give them a chance!!”
Why does EU climate alarmism need another propaganda outlet? The UK already has the Tyndall centre; Germany already has the PIK (where Rahmstorff runs a blog, kind of a mini RC called Klima-Lounge). I would not give them any chance, and if they only get one used harddisk for free from the taxpayer – they are unnecessary, and they surely don’t deserve it.
You really have to go to the Carbon Brief site and read it to appreciate what amazing amounts of spin are being applied to issues being considered. It is going to primarily appeal to the faithful believers. Someone in the middle who is being subjected to that level of selling is going to realize it soon enough, and journalists who are not shills are going to be hung out to dry all too soon. Slick, but slick BS is still BS.
I cvan’t remember the last time I felt so angry, so completely used and betrayed by these bloodsucking elitists. How to deal with Orwellian social-media propaganda campaigns backed by the super-rich? SYNflood, DDoS, Zombie Conscription, whatever it damnwell takes!
Lawrie Ayres says:
February 18, 2011 at 12:36 am
Pteradactyl says: February 18, 2011 at 1:02 am
We are being led like lambs to slaughter by the EU to further their agenda of a single European state. The fastidious way that the EU is making inroads to every aspect of our lives is becoming more and more apparent.
Lawrie Ayres says: February 18, 2011 at 1:04 am
Just a thought. The AGW problem will be solved when we (the West) have a bigger problem to solve.
——————————————————————————–
I agree with you guys. The bigger problem in Europe (and for that matter the US) is becoming apparent now. The collapse of the economy and the banking system is driving up the cost of all commodities. People’s savings are being eroded, old people cannot afford care, education is becoming unaffordable, the defence of the nation is unsustainable. In the UK the energy system seems to be near the point of collapse. It is becoming apparent even now that the breaking point in people’s patience is getting close.
If people cannot afford food or if they are freezing in their houses, they will not have any patience for governments that are forcing up the costs for these essentials to ‘save the world’. They will be more interested in the next meal.
The economic crisis in Ireland and Greece resulted in riots. This indicates to me at least that it wouldn’t take much for this level of anger to spread to other countries in Europe given right circumstances. It is also quite apparent that the popular revolutions recently seen in the Middle East demonstrates the real power of the populace even in the face of a powerful regime backed by the military.
Douglas
When taxpayers money kept flowing unquestioned in their direction and nobody questioned the cause they didn’t worry.
But now they’ve been faced with loosing members of the crowd and no new one to take their place. Less ears for them spells politicians and policy makers that are less eager to be overly generous with the treasure chest (since most aren’t carrier suicidal but pragmatic enough to go with the flow.)
So what do moral deficient people do when faced with loosing ever more battle ground but retort to up the ante in the PR department. Just like the leaders did in old soviet and nazi germany. Mr scud did the same in Iraq. Works very well in the beginning, it’s been tried tested by the most heinous of course, but in the end it always turns out to become a clown aptly named Bob starring the the great and last farce of a stand.
They’re just making the same mistakes over and over. These climate hippies actually believe that what WWF and other environmental and animal protection organizations did when they were facing loosing members and a less willing to donate crowd, i.e. shrinking revenue, worked out very well, even though they’re being questioned more and more about the wisdom of having brought onboard hard core capitalist to start running the not for profit organizations (fundamentally based on grass root ideology) just like for profit business, less the tax, through and through where pragmatism is the rule so much so that the ideology not long ago was voted for to change by the boards alone and everyone else had to just suck it up, adapt or leave for the choice becomes getting the millions of euros and dollars extra or downsizing and firing lots of poor co-workers with families and kids.
In the beginning these tactics are rarely a problem if you got a solid core of die hard fanatics who, given the chance, will rationalize just about everything, genocide even, and a large base of kind hearted but very naïve people who’ll go along with a lot (just because everyone else is and people always fear alienation), at least for a time but if the “old guard” isn’t loosing faith in the new ways in the state of the union for too fast a whole new breed will have time to come onboard and replace the now new heretics. However, fanatics rarely has a dynamic mindset, you can only influence so much. And there’s never enough fanatic follower when you would truly have need them what with they have a tendency to get mushed in the front lines right at the start of every battle, and the ones your left with are the ones standing behind you, holding a knife trying not to drool and laugh (like they just had an epiphany) at the same time, thinking they’re obviously more competent ‘an you at your job, if only . . .
DirkH says:
February 18, 2011 at 8:19 am
Yes, but……………
I emailed the following to them:
“Dear Sir / Madam,
I would be very grateful if you could answer the following questions:
1. How much funding does your project receive from European taxpayers?
2. What evidence (other than computer modelling) can you supply to support the hypothesis of catastrophic (or even harmful) anthropogenic global warming (CAGW)? (By CAGW I specifically refer to claims that carbon dioxide, consequent upon human activity, has altered, or will significantly alter, the climate of the planet). ”
No reply yet, but if/when it does – if it turns out that a single pound of my tax has been spent on this I will complain to HMG, copied to UK MSM. (The UK FOI act can force this). If they respond that there is no credible evidence for CAGW then I have no doubt that WUWT readers will give them all that they deserve!
What fascinates me is that these people always paint themselves into a corner with each of their various actions and stratagems, although they never seem to realise it. To carry on as if one were promoting science while refusing to debate a topic in a reasonable manner is simply to give the game away, which they do again and again. (This includes calling themselves a “rapid response team”, which hardly indicates a disinterested concern with working out the truth of the matter.)
It’s as if they were forced to demonstrate – through their actions – the same reductio ad absurdum argument, while never being able to give up the proposition that they have just effectively refuted. It’s like being under some kind of curse. This is why I don’t think the follow-the-money angle is the main element here.
I’ve been trying to get a bit of debate going over there this afternoon – with limited success.
They do appear to be allowing all comments (even a link to Josh’s cartoon!).
There’s no log-in required so I suggest everybody gets stuck in.
They seem to have more Twitterers than posters at present.
I think Twittering suits warmists – you only have to think for five seconds, no one argues with you and your mates can pass it on verbatim without having to think at all.
Consensus citizen science in action!
Roger Longstaff says:
February 18, 2011 at 7:29 am
Barry Woods says:
February 18, 2011 at 6:52 am
“……….I see that this is still the case.
For goodness sake be fair!! The link to WUWT is on the website!”
Really? Where exactly?
I would not worry Anthony. The modern elites have kept us under control with lots of dangling carrots. The recession is not over. All the signals have been flashing red for a couple of years now. Energy prices are going to go through the roof. The only people hearing their message will be themselves.
Christian Hunt says:
February 18, 2011 at 4:16 am
Hello! Thanks for profiling us so comprehensively. This information is also on our website – http://www.carbonbrief.org/about
As you can see from the above post, we’re open about our what the project is, who’s behind it, and where our funding comes from.
No, thank you! It’s always good to see Climate “Science” done so openly. Especially its “method”!
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty together again.
You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.
This is the beginning of the end . Time is the enemy of all confidence gamers. Next we will see a panicked rush for the doors.
Dave Wendt says:
February 18, 2011 at 9:49 am : “Where exactly?”
You’ve got to search for it – follow “commentators” down to “show more links and resources”. WUWT is right at the bottom. (Or at least it was, an hour ago).
The author is right – we should be on the home page!
I emailed “The European rapid response team” three hours ago (see above). No response yet. It is a good job that they are not paramedics. I have now decided to self-medicate. Hic!
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.
It’s a pretty feeble site, I wouldn’t worry too much.
1984 – Ministry of Truth – George Orwell
It IS worse than we thought
Listen to what this website writes on their “Profiles” page:
“Professor S. Fred Singer is a professor emeritus of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia and one of the world’s most widely quoted climate change sceptics. Rolling Stone magazine has called Singer “the granddaddy of fake ‘science’ designed to debunk global warming.”
http://www.carbonbrief.org/profiles/fred-singer
I tried to find one positive statement in any skeptic person’s profile, but so far I have not been able to…
Unbiased my sweet hinemann…
Wow! Read the inhofe one!
http://www.carbonbrief.org/profiles/james-inhofe
“The arguments fomented in the pages of The Guardian or the Daily Telegraph can have a significant impact on how climate change is reported in India and China.”
What rubbish, China and India could care less about The Guardian, Daily Telegraph, or what raving Warmists are spouting. I would be very surprise if more than .01% of the population even knows the names. Even less are likely to bother to read their articles.
This isn’t crafted to convince China and India, its designed to win younger and poorly informed viewers in the EC. The problem is, their just throwing away their money on hype instead of doing something meaningful with the funds they’re stolen from the average citizen.
Given the almost obsessive way the CAGW crowd harps on the “Climate deniers are all well funded by Big Oil” meme, the fact that their side of the blogosphere is almost completely dominated by sites which are at their roots the products of massive PR campaigns, while the skeptosphere is for the most part dominated by one man shops struggling to stay afloat with their own bucks and a PayPal button on the sidebar. The irony would be hilarious if the lie had not been successfully repeated so many times.
How can a person in the middle read all these profiles and not see the enormously obvious difference in what kind of facts (negative or positive) and tone are used in describing a skeptic person vs a pro person?
The Carbon Brief has take on the Spectator -Antartica, Steig, O’Donnell Nature story
The Spectator’s “bias and bluster” on Antarctica and Stieg et al.
http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2011/02/steig-et-al
Which in summary is reasoanble, yet doesn’t really touch on the alarmism on Antartica Warming that the Nature Cover caused and was spread by the MSM
Dot Earth (Revkin) is taking to task scientific papers that express one thing in summary claiming AGW attributed in certainty, yet these papers discusses the caveat, uncertainties and maybes in detail buried in the papers…
Revkin says the scientist cannot have it both ways, a journalist wouldn’t get away with it.
Roger Longstaff says:
February 18, 2011 at 10:17 am
Thanks for that. I doubt I could have kept my gag reflex under control long enough to have stumbled on it on my own.
The Carbon Brief
http://www.carbonbrief.org/issues/commentators
Anthony,
If you click the “Show more links & resources” (bottom left sidebar from the link above) you’ll find this:
Watts Up With That?
US-based, one of the most influential climate sceptic blogs run by Anthony Watts.
interesting webdesign! 2 sepaerate areas, one highly visible, marked resources, – other sources of useful interest.. all pro AGW,
Another page rather harder to find..
Maybe a look at the webstats would show the webdesigner, that people are not finding all the resources. and would relocate them to the single click link visible on the front page?
That is what most designers would do, to help their readers.
Assuming, they want to make it easy to find these links….
Guess why the two Nature papers about extreme weather were on all MSM the very day nature published it on their website?
I see lipstick, and the faint trace of swine. Hopefully the smell of bacon will permeate soon.
What a hilariously biased site, even if it were not trying to tout itself as independent etc;
The item on Monbiot’s house is a classic.
Fortunately, it appears to be so over the top that any policy maker or journo taking guidance from them is going to get such a drubbing when they repeat Carbon Brief’s “line” that the site will either have to shape up very soon or die the death of being comprehensively ignored by all parties.
Why, O Why (copyright Daily Mail) do we always have to hear about the element Carbon rather than Carbon Dioxide, which is the molecule all the fuss is about? What would have been wrong with “Carbon Dioxide Brief”….not brief enough?
Have you read the profile on Phil Jones?
A tankerload of whitewash to overlie the three successive coats applied by the exonerating inquiries that were chaired by AGW sympathisers and monetary beneficiaries.
And as for Twitter, there’s not much you can say, is there?
Wow, it’s really scary when you start to look into the money behind these organisations.
Carbon Brief funded by,
European Climate Foundation funded by
1. Arcadia (As at May 2010 Arcadia had awarded grants totalling $192 million.)
2. Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF) funded by
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Comic Relief
The Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund
US Agency for International Development
Elton John AIDS Foundation
3. The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation (that’s the H in Hewlett-Packard or HP)
4. The Sea Change Foundation.
“They currently have assets between over $50,000,000 and income between over $50,000,000.” – http://www.charityblossom.org
5. Oak Foundation set up by Alan M. Parker, President, Government Group, EnergySolutions, Inc. and Openwave Systems, Inc and who was ‘compensated’ over $3million in 2008.
6. The ClimateWorks Foundation funded by
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation (again)
The David and Lucile Packard Foundation (that’s the P in Hewlett-Packard or HP)
The McKnight Foundation (William McKnight was an early leader of the 3M corporation)
the truth and the cooling planet will destroy these propagandists …
“How can independent unpaid, unfunded bloggers possibly fend off professional PR of this nature from an organisation with multi-million Euro funded backers with the agenda described above.”
Keep blogging. There isn’t really much a heavily funded PR organization, or even a military, can do to you. (see Egypt).
If you’re telling a story that people understand and makes sense and the AGW crowd is telling a story reminiscent of “Hey guys, don’t the emperor’s trousers look swell today?” the message will continue to be move as it has. The more the AGW group parrots the same party-line as distributed via Twitter, the less they sound like scientists and the more they sounds like non-thinking birds.
I can see it now…
@carbonbrief: the sky is falling. man’s fault. tax more.
@carbonboxers: the sky is falling. man’s fault. tax more.
@carbonthong:sky falling. man’s fault. tax more.
@i’maparrot: sky falling. man’s fault
Twitter, while it gets the message out quick, is short on details. A few minutes spent reading a Willis post will combat quite a few tweets.
http://www.youtube.com/user/patcondell#p/a/u/1/IEkelAsmcf4
I know it Pat Condell and he has an issue about Islam..
At the end he says something about free speech..
What he says is true here as well.
I do not understand your worry about this site. It will fail. They actually believe, like the soviets did, that you can lie to the people all the time.
Hunger makes people smart. The recession has not ended. The days of increasing taxes are over, even green taxes.
Wijnand says:
February 18, 2011 at 10:56 am
Listen to what this website writes on their “Profiles” page:
“Professor S. Fred Singer is a professor emeritus of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia and one of the world’s most widely quoted climate change sceptics. Rolling Stone magazine has called Singer “the granddaddy of fake ‘science’ designed to debunk global warming.”
[my bold]
Oops, quoting “Rolling Stone” to rival Singer, maybe “The Carbon Brief” is sceptic site?
This reminds me of almost every ‘greenie vs non-greenie’ conversation I have seen.
The ‘greenie’ invariably rants, shouts, gets in the face of the non-greenie who is attempting to raise counter arguments to the greenie’s diatribe. The more the non-greenie tries to explain why they have a different opinion, the more strident the greenie gets.
There is no debate possible with someone who is not open to reasoned argument or is not williing to change their outlook.
Try to convince a member of most religious persuasions that another religion is better than theirs and you get the same reaction.
“John from CA says:
February 18, 2011 at 11:30 am
The Carbon Brief
http://www.carbonbrief.org/issues/commentators
Anthony,
If you click the “Show more links & resources” (bottom left sidebar from the link above) you’ll find this:
Watts Up With That?
US-based, one of the most influential climate sceptic blogs run by Anthony Watts.”
So they put a link right at the bottom of the issues page titled “Show more links and resources” and then make WUWt the last link at the bottom of the long list you get by clicking on that link.
Then on the “Resources” page they leave out WUWT. This website is deceitful rather than being open. The site is clearly pure propaganda but endeavours to portray itself as something else.
The absurdity of their site is staggering. It shows a group of people completely out of touch with reality that they cannot see how silly their claim of independence seems when all the visible website material is so openly one sided.
Well, if need be, you can make comments “account only”. Not great, but it is an option.
I find this to be good news. They will make fools of themselves. AND, the only impact will be Europe. The House in the USA is shutting down the EPA, and there ain’t gonna be any cap and trade in the USA. So Europe will close down and help out US businesses. Poor b@st@ards.
Keeping Needy Incipient Carbon Kooks Employed Reducing Scepticism!
Take a look at ALL the profiles…… (and the blog entries)
and the latest Spectator story, and Lomborg ‘representation’
maybe remind them …. VERY politely please how and what they are doing squares with this statement by their funders….
“We seek to maintain a reputation for objective, high-quality work that is neither ideological nor politically biased.” – About Us ECF
I know some will annoyed by the Carbon Brief. Remember POLITELY, any rudeness, sarcasm, or insults, gives them the perfect excuse to dismiss you as living up to a stereotype that has been created..
DaveS says: February 18, 2011 at 2:09 pm
[ ——Hunger makes people smart. The recession has not ended. The days of increasing taxes are over, even green taxes.]
————————————————————————–
DaveS you are right about the first point – but I don’t think you are about the second. It will take a bit of blood on the streets to induce these pathetic birks in Europe to learn. At least the Americans are awake –thank God – but the EU – words fail me to describe their blinkered lunacy.
Douglas
(OT) Take a gander at these prettied-up pigs! (Stinky but inky)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1357635/Inky-perky-Tattooed-pigs-anger-animal-rights-campaigners.html
“OT Take a gander at these prettied-up pigs! (Stinky but inky)”
Roger, when I worked at the Brooks Air Force Medical Center’s Laser Lab, pigs were used in experiments because their skin is similar to human skin.
Barry Woods says: February 18, 2011 at 3:36 pm
Take a look at ALL the profiles…… (and the blog entries)—–[
I know some will annoyed by the Carbon Brief. Remember POLITELY, any rudeness, sarcasm, or insults, gives them the perfect excuse to dismiss you as living up to a stereotype that has been created..]
———————————————————————————-
Barry – Thank you for this post which in itself, is alarming enough – and for your advice to respond politely which is sound and appropriate, if it could be effective. But I don’t think that it will make a blind bit of difference regarding their motives and objectives. The people behind all this and in charge are changing the understanding and meaning of our language to the extent that black means white and up means down, sideways and up. They have cloth ears and won’t listen to you or anyone else. Their hubris is without limit. It will take a ‘train wreck’ to stop this madness. I am certain that an economic and social ‘train wreck’ is on its way – especially in Europe. I think that the effect of this will ultimately put huge pressure on the populace in general which eventually should enough for them to face and defeat the present political ‘elite’ and bring some reality to the situation.
Douglas
Christpher Hanley says:
February 18, 2011 at 12:59 am
And isn’t that the $64 K question?! Speaking of which – and also of scientists who may or may not agree with the (increasingly shrinking) “consensus”, as well as communication of climate science to the general public – I am seeking the views of 1500 scientists of any and all persuasions for a brief survey I’m conducting.
I’d really appreciate it if people would “spread the word”! Background and link to survey can be found at:
Calling all scientists – an invitation to speak for yourself!
Maybe they can get lessons from there guys:
Monty Python – The Spanish Inquisition
😉
Why can’t we semi-organize and rebut their rebuttals?
The bigger they come the harder they fall. Also, they will be very obvious in what they are doing. It is just another example of a con man getting some leftists to fund his great big, beautiful project that will do nothing.
Gareth Phillips says: “…It felt like reading an article by the Spanish inquisition on whether evidence critical of the holy roman church was valid or not…”
Only, in this case, it’s crystal clear that Msgr. Lomborg et al are the Church and the Inquisition. You really must choose your metaphors more carefully, Fr. Gareth.
Douglas says:
February 18, 2011 at 3:41 pm
DaveS says: February 18, 2011 at 2:09 pm
[ ——Hunger makes people smart. The recession has not ended. The days of increasing taxes are over, even green taxes.]
————————————————————————–
DaveS you are right about the first point – but I don’t think you are about the second. It will take a bit of blood on the streets to induce these pathetic birks in Europe to learn. At least the Americans are awake –thank God – but the EU – words fail me to describe their blinkered lunacy.
———–
I recently attended a talk by the former Canadian ambassador to the EU on whether or not it would survive (he thinks it will). One passage of his talk was very revelatory. He commented that one criticism of the EU is its undemocratic nature – and asked how much of a problem this was. His answer: Europe has the world’s largest economy and Europeans are better off economically than they have ever been in history, and thus the Eu has been a good thing. (I noted the pea under the thimble issue going on here.)
My interpretation: In other words, European are willing to exchange democratic accountability and freedom for comfort and a high standard of living. This does not make for a vigilant population.
vigilantfish says:
February 18, 2011 at 8:25 pm
I recently attended a talk by the former Canadian ambassador to the EU on whether or not it would survive (he thinks it will). His answer: Europe has the world’s largest economy and Europeans are better off economically than they have ever been in history, and thus the UE has been a good thing. (I noted the pea under the thimble issue going on here.)
My interpretation: In other words, European are willing to exchange democratic accountability and freedom for comfort and a high standard of living. This does not make for a vigilant population.
—————————————————————————-
Well vigilentfish – he might be right about the Euros being better off now than ever before – aren’t we all – but as you know that is not the point. Their policies are presently destroying that very prosperity – forcing the single currency upon a very disparate group of nations is the first mistake – witness the Piggs and Germany just now for instance – large cracks appearing there. Witness the madness re the Co2 nonsense – best way to destroy their recent gains in prosperity that I can see. Then, as you quite rightly point out, their trade off of democracy accountability and freedom for the ephemeral mirage of prosperity and short term gains does not say much for the intelligence of these people. Have they not learned anything from their own history? I despair. But I do hold high hopes for the Americans and I put that down to their founding fathers’ constitution and the American’s faith in it. Thank God for that.
Douglas
All it proves is their willingness and ability to errect a fortress around their cherrished beliefs, which only shows who the _real_ funded special interests are.
Here’s something else to consider… Being masters of propaganda, how do we really know they have so many followers on Twitter? What if there’s an average of , say, five profiles to every actual person?
****************************************************************************
Douglas says:
February 18, 2011 at 9:03 am
Lawrie Ayres says:
February 18, 2011 at 12:36 am
Pteradactyl says: February 18, 2011 at 1:02 am
We are being led like lambs to slaughter by the EU to further their agenda of a single European state. The fastidious way that the EU is making inroads to every aspect of our lives is becoming more and more apparent.
Lawrie Ayres says: February 18, 2011 at 1:04 am
Just a thought. The AGW problem will be solved when we (the West) have a bigger problem to solve.
——————————————————————————–
I agree with you guys. The bigger problem in Europe (and for that matter the US) is becoming apparent now. The collapse of the economy and the banking system is driving up the cost of all commodities. People’s savings are being eroded, old people cannot afford care, education is becoming unaffordable, the defence of the nation is unsustainable. In the UK the energy system seems to be near the point of collapse. It is becoming apparent even now that the breaking point in people’s patience is getting close.
****************************************************************************
I hope that the people of Europe – who a present let the EU bureaucrats do as they please – will not fall back into the bad old patterns of nationalist behaviour: To blame other nations for the misery. This would be the worst possible outcome of the obviously failing experiment with a single currency.
I see “The Carbon Brief” as a “precautionary” effort of the AGW profiteers (see their supporters & you know who they are) in the EU context: The implementation of carbon reduction goals is going to be very expensive, and it is not yet in the bag. The profiteers surely want to avoid the american experience, i.e. the cancellation of cap and trade in the EU, critical assessment of the subject. I think that insurance companies too stand to gain (or lose) from the AGW craze. They were able to raise premiums in the context of the AGW claims concernig stroms, floods “catastrophic weather events”. The prediction that there would be more of these events, causing more damage too, was used to justify the increases.
We have an EU commissioner for climate change. This commissioner is prepared to start a trade war with Canada over tar sand oil: Import of oil derived form tar sand should be forbidden, according to the commissioner. The EU CO2 reduction goals will cost roughly € 250 bln (ca. US$ 340 bln) per year and most likely drive a lot of production out of the area. In fact, if the Americans act sensibly, they could benefit from our EU climate madness. The BRICS surely will!
CORRECTION of my comment above (Feb. 19, 2011 at 3:45am):
The numbers are wrong. According to a newspaper article in the german FAZ CO2 reduction will cost €uro 270 bln (US$369,859 bln) per year.
http://www.faz.net/s/Rub0E9EEF84AC1E4A389A8DC6C23161FE44/Doc~EC652E68197984D348C2C74EE6C1EAF26~ATpl~Ecommon~Scontent.html
The EU is every bureaucrats dream – and that of many diplomats, too. Thousands of well paid jobs, hardly any accountability, endless career opportunities. There are commissioners for everything and they are good at one thing: The growth of the bureaucratic apparatus.
I too have hight hopes for the Americans – we Europeans are seemingly still too obedient to the bureaucrats…. Maybe we can change that if we try really hard!
The more I see of their site the more sceptical I become. When their resource page shows opinion sites RealClimate and Skeptical Science as useful sources of information above primary sources such as Hadley Centre, NOAA and NASA, then I believe their intent becomes completely clear.
By excusing themselves the accuse themselves.
If the Science they claim supports their view was as robust as they claim, it wouldn’t need constantly shoring up with twitterings or by twits.
They simply add to the noise but don’t obscure the signal
I just spent some time over at The Carbon Brief, reading some of their articles and the comments (most of which are from sceptics as opposed to climate cranks, interestingly enough).
It is quite clear to me that they are not independent or objective. It also seems as though they are fairly light-weight at the moment, albeit they’ve not been going very long.
One article that beggars belief is the one entitled ‘The Agatha Christie Approach To Global Warming’, where CO2 is depicted as a murderer with a smoking gun, standing over a dead guy. Not amusing but totally ridiculous, IMHO.
BROWNSHIRTS plain and simple. GK
This is a scary development. Massive advocacy being tarted up as a one-stop media resource. Of course the Carbon Brief background that Barry Woods reveals above will be willfully ignored by the lazy MSM and the other useful idiots of the CAGW rent seekers.
What also frightens me is the current low calibre of MSM journalism. As Mr. Woods demonstrates, with a little digging we can readily see the tawdry little man behind the Carbon Brief Curtain. Unfortunately, too many investigative journalists have suckled at the teat of advocacy and believe they should be delivering the CAGW message rather than facts, so the website will only make their world view simpler. As well, this new “resource” will be used to try to silence sceptical viewpoints, and trolls will be crawling out of the woodwork to do their masters’ bidding.
I just hope people are smart and cynical enough to see through the advocacy.
Here is a good carbon brief
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/02/11/bomb-boxers-manufactured-new-york-company/
This is a bit of George Bush’s “Old Europe” in action. The continent lost its persecuted dissenters over the centuries to the new world. Next it invented socialism, which gathered in clumps behind the iron curtain and in China. This was followed by the breaching of the Berlin Wall and the economic and social collapse of the system (which, in its simplicity, should have been better interpreted by modern political philosophers). Next the ideologues without a system invaded a Europe already fairly socialist friendly and literate. Institutions like the UN and environmental organizations were particularly easy to invade and came with ready funding and millions of useful fools to exploit….. They even gained a big foothold in the land of the dissenters.
this is priceless Phil Jones’ profile on carbon brief
http://www.carbonbrief.org/profiles/phil-jones
I have a couple of comment waiting for moderation at the Carbon Brief…
http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2011/02/was-government-chief-scientist-thinking-about-climate-when-he-said-'we-should-be-grossly-intolerant-of-pseudo-science‘
Don’t worry, some very good POLITE sceptical comments are present…
It is just that they all knocked off early on Ffiday afternoon… ie the thing employees do… they are all salaried people, with big EU NGO funding.. no realclimate/guardian style moderation policy apparent, sceptical comments have been allowed..
IF only Koch/Exxon would get around to sending me a cheque, I to could have a pension plan, healthcare and other employment perks like the Carbon Brief guys have (company car/mileage allowance ?) [sarc OFF]
I’ve never recieved a penny from anybody, doesn’t seem fair 😉
oakgeo says:
February 19, 2011 at 8:13 am
[This is a scary development. Massive advocacy being tarted up as a one-stop media resource. Of course the Carbon Brief background that Barry Woods reveals above will be willfully ignored by the lazy MSM and the other useful idiots of the CAGW rent seekers.—-
What also frightens me is the current low calibre of MSM journalism.
I just hope people are smart and cynical enough to see through the advocacy.]
——————————————————————————-
Oakgeo. Journalists, as we once knew them, are thin on the ground these days – — the MSM is controlled by businessmen who are only interested in the balance sheet. IMO they couldn’t give a rat’s arse about professional journalists. But take heart, the ordinary people are smart – just read the comments to articles in the main newspapers – people have an instinctive nose to smell out the BS and you see it in these responses. It sometimes takes a little time – but it happens.
Cheers
Douglas
Don’t hold your breath Barry.
I got a few comments posted yesterday – but the last one disappeared into moderation without trace.
I fear it’s gone the way of all warmist blogs – “submit or die”.
Pretty boring posts as well IMHO – I think all the plutocrat-charidee-activists have wasted their money.
What a shame.
In my opinion, these poor people have nothing going for them except for misplaced faith in AGW. Do they really know what or Who they are up against?
First of all, the facts regarding what has been happening lately are against them. See
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/hadcrut3gl.txt
Before now, one has to go back to the 1940s to find a time when you could go ten years or less before a new high record was broken. Their 2010 anomaly was 0.475 versus 0.548 for 1998.
Secondly, the economy is in poor shape so many people have much greater problems than being concerned about what may or may not happen in 100 years. Someone said that when you have food on the table, you have many problems. But when you have no food on the table, you only have one problem.
And finally even God seems to be NOT on their side according to George Monbiot.
See: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2010/dec/02/cancun-climate-change-summit-monbiot
Referring to God, George Monbiot said:
“Now He’s at it again. Last week, just before the resumption of last year’s failed climate talks, the UK recorded its lowest temperature for 25 years, just down the road from where I live.”
Christian Hunt says:
“…I’d welcome constructive comments on what we’re doing.
“(It’s also worth noting that we do link to WUWT, along with a range of other commentary sites on climate, from our commentators page.)
“If you have comments, please send them to me – info [at] carbonbrief.org – I will read them all.”
I sent you my comments but have not received any reply, nor seen my comments posted. So I’ll comment here:
“Reading” our comments is insufficient. Posting them is necessary. If you’re going to censor comments, you won’t get any more traffic than the other alarmist blogs. What are you afraid of, anyway? Open debate? Contrary facts? Inconvenient questions?
WUWT went from zero to 70 million+ hits, and over 530,000 reader comments in only four years. That didn’t happen because of alarmist-style censorship. Judith Curry’s blog is doing well, too, because she posts comments from both sides of the debate.
By playing these games with your blog you are getting off on the wrong foot. You will end up with a small number of like-minded people head-nodding with each other in your echo chamber. Is that what you want? To be a propaganda blog engaged in spin, ignored by the folks in the middle? They’re the ones you have to convince, you know. And they’re drifting away from the belief in runaway global warming in increasing numbers.
But maybe you already know the truth: that your side has cried “Wolf!!” for far too long, and the public has become jaded. There is no runaway global warming, no tipping points, and every AGW scare that hits the MSM is quickly debunked on sites like WUWT. So then what is the purpose of yet another un-read climate progress, real climate or tamino blog? Those censoring propaganda organs already have all the traffic they’ll ever get. Now they’ll have to share eyeballs with your censoring blog.
Anthony Watts puts alarmist blogs like realclimate, skeptical science, tamino, etc. right on his home page sidebar — above the skeptical sites. Putting WUWT anywhere else but on your home page shows that you’re interested in propaganda, not in differing points of view, and it shows that you’re damned insecure, too.
Either play fair, or forfeit credibility. You can not play games and still have credibility. Your traffic numbers will show you that it doesn’t work that way.
Gary Pearse says: February 19, 2011 at 10:29 am
[This is a bit of George Bush’s “Old Europe” in action. The continent lost its persecuted dissenters over the centuries to the new world. Next it invented socialism——– Institutions like the UN and environmental organizations were particularly easy to invade and came with ready funding and millions of useful fools to exploit….. They even gained a big foothold in the land of the dissenters].
———————————————————————————
Gary Pearse. Well that’s a neat and concise little piece that pretty well sums up where we are at just now. Easy to remember too! Lol.
Thanks
Douglas
Seriously…
Thet are allowing comments… be polite.. pre-moderated (as IS my own blog)
remebemr it is their JOB..
They knocked of Friday afternoon, and all went home..
No one is monitoring their blog, ie it is obvioulsy a PR site, intenede for peole to be receptive, rather than allow 24 hour moderation.
Monday morning (UK time) I’m sure they will start approving every reasonable and POLITE comment (yes critical ones)
I see some very interesting comments from bloggers I’ve seen comment here…
They’ve all just gone home for the weekend 😉
Actually may someone is getting overtime at the Carbon Brief…
Polite reasonable comments get in… see mine…
http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2011/02/was-government-chief-scientist-thinking-about-climate-when-he-said-'we-should-be-grossly-intolerant-of-pseudo-science‘
They ARE playing fair on the blog as far as I can see. so it might become a useful blog to actually engage with the warmer side of the debate..
My Carbon Brief comment:
“I was at a Walker Institute lecture last year (Reading Uni) they are part of AVOID, Tyndall centre, met office hadley centre, and the Grantham Intstitute..
Professor Arnell, IPCC author, 2,3,4 and the next IPCC report, I was a guest front row reserved seating.
He described Hansens’ proclamations as ALARMIST nonsense(ie 20 feet sea level, deathtrains) and totally unhelpful..(and agreed with some of the greenpeace,wwf annoucments had no basis in any science)
Does The Carbon Brief and Beddington, have this in mind?
I doubt it, they just want to have a dig at sceptics
Sir John Houghton (Co-chair IPCC 2001) he appears in an activist video (endorsing it) which has graphics of plants withering and dyeing at 385-390 ppm CO2
That is levels NOW.. Also ALARMIST no basis in any science…
Houghton’s role in AGW is enormous…
Christian Hunt says:
“our genuine interest is in trying to improve the quality of communication around this issue, and I’d welcome constructive comments on what we’re doing.”
I understand one of the main problems revealed by climategate emails was that the respective scientists did “hide their raw data and their methodology of selection and adjustment of temperature data, but they fought hard against all attempts by independent outside scientists to replicate their results.”(Dr. Fred Singer)
I could not find on your site clarification for this. Was the raw data provided? Methodology explained? Is it something that you would support and how?
Well, I’ve learned one thing already from my visit over there:
Ostensibly the MWP stands for “Managerial Wall Period.” Who would have guessed! But from what I’ve seen so far, it would seem that you only need to question one of their claims or draw attention to an error, and you run into a Moderator Wall Partiality that questions your motives before referencing a pal-reviewed authority, as if to obtain unquestionable scientific information sufficient to end the discussion.
Yet they seem to be bending over backwards to admit the existence of the MWP and LIA. It must really hurt. I wonder what the motivation could be. Judging by the “evidence” presented, it seems we will be expected to agree that the present is warmer than the MWP after all.
And apparently the Greenland permafrost has turned to mushy soft clay. I didn’t know that before. But frankly, I think I need only revisit the issue if Greenland has the guts to live up to its name.
There are articles obviously intended to demonstrate that disappearing ice sheets and melting glaciers are part of the present condition. While I haven’t read them, I did find mention of the “fact” that the Arctic ice sheet has not recovered as we skeptics like to imagine. That’s rather odd, because on my site, we have the PIPS2 Arctic maps for 2007 through 2010 showing an unmistakable increase in ice extent. And the Antarctic maps show an inrease of 3.5 million Km^2 over the same period.
How did we get it all so wrong?
It is now 3 days since I sent questions to the “European rapid response team”:
“1. How much funding does your project receive from European taxpayers?
2. What evidence (other than computer modelling) can you supply to support the hypothesis of catastrophic (or even harmful) anthropogenic global warming (CAGW)? (By CAGW I specifically refer to claims that carbon dioxide, consequent upon human activity, has altered, or will significantly alter, the climate of the planet). ”
Stll no reponse. So much for rapid.
“Our team of researchers will provide a rapid response service for climate science stories. We go straight to peer-reviewed science and the relevant scientists to get their opinions” ….
Exactly what academic criteria qualify one as a CarbonBrief “relevant” scientist? Or to whom does one have to sell their soul to gain this apparent AGW appellation?
I just visited CarbonBrief for the first time following a link re the Dyson emails. One visit is enough. It is professional looking, but so blatently one sided it will be an embarrassment unless editorial policy changes.
I just left this note. I suspect it will not survive moderation.
The link is: http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2011/02/freeman-dyson-interviewed-in-the-independent
Hmmm. Ten minutes after making my comment, (there were 5 or so previous comments) I am no longer able to see the comments of anyone. I can see no indication there is a comments section.
So once you register to make a comment, is there a server function to alter the display based upon your IP address? Or did they quickly plug a hole? There is nothing obvious in my Temp. Internet files.
Oh, well. For a Feb. 28 article, there are only 5 tweets. on March 2 at noon CST.