Below is an excerpt of the piece:
Climate Thuggery
July 29, 2011, 10:04 am
By Peter Wood
Is anthropogenic global warming (AGW) a valid scientific theory? Is it well supported by the empirical data or is it mostly an artifact of computer modeling? I don’t have answers to these questions. I stand, rather, on the side of those who favor rigorous scientific inquiry, transparency, and openness. I am not a climate scientist, but neither do I cede the whole matter of answering such questions to the designated experts. Good science doesn’t limit itself to the views of narrow-cast specialists. Valid observations, corrective criticism, competing hypotheses, and rigorous testing can and often do arise from other sources.
It surprises me, however, that proponents of AGW, or what might be called the climate orthodoxy section of AGW theory, often respond to criticism and dissent with a kind of fury. Far from welcoming discussion, they seek to suppress it. In doing so they jeopardize both their own authority and the prestige of the scientific community.
A month ago I posted on Innovations a brief item, “Bottling Up Global Warming Skepticism,” about the machinations of one of Professor Michael Mann’s ardent defenders, Dr. John Mashey, who has taken a no-holds-barred approach to silencing Mann’s critics. Mann himself has deployed nuisance lawsuits in a similar fashion. He has sued Tim Ball—a Canadian global-warming skeptic, an environmentalist, and former professor of geography—for libel for writing that Mann “should be in the State Pen, not Penn State,” for his role in Climategate. Mann also threatened a lawsuit against Minnesotans for Global Warming for a satiric YouTube video titled “Hide the Decline.” (YouTube suppressed the original video. There is now a “Hide the Decline II.”)
The tactic of suing critics of AGW theory to silence them isn’t Mann’s alone, and it isn’t the only extracurricular means the global warmists use in attempts to shut up dissenters. The BBC recently announced that in an effort to be more attuned to the scientific “consensus,” it would no longer strive to provide balanced coverage of climate issues. Its decision followed a report by the BBC Trust, “Review of impartiality and accuracy of the BBC’s coverage of science.”
…
The techniques vary. The results, however, are similar: What cannot be established by transparent science can be imposed by coercion and intimidation.
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Read the entire article in-depth here:
http://chronicle.com/blogs/innovations/climate-thuggery/29919?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
h/t to Dr. Roger Pielke Jr.
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The link goes to the Chronicle of Higher Education, not The Houston Chronicle. Good piece though.
More and more AGW skeptics and agnostics.
Alarmists have lost the argument and now they’ve lost the plot, no ifs, no buts.
Worse, while all of this is well-known throughout the climate blogosphere, it isn’t known by the common populace. But, corruption can only be bottled up for so long. All of this will become known to the populace, like a veil slowly being lifted. When total realization occurs, the reaction won’t be pretty. But, they were told.
“It surprises me, however, that proponents of AGW, or what might be called the climate orthodoxy section of AGW theory, often respond to criticism and dissent with a kind of fury. Far from welcoming discussion, they seek to suppress it. In doing so they jeopardize both their own authority and the prestige of the scientific community.”
Exactly right. These pseudo-scientists are more interested in maintaining their own prestige and pursuing their own political agenda than the truth. A real scientist is open and welcoming of intelligent dissent so they can correct their mistakes and refine their theories for the sake of truth and the future betterment of mankind.
The end result is what matters. The AGW ‘heavies’ and especially those who act in such an underhand and ‘scared’ way – (as per the old mantras, e.g. he who shouts loudest usually has nothing to say, and offence is the best form of defence, etc,etc) – WILL get ther comeuppence when the theory and the BS is shown to be false or falsified.
Most normal people HAVE to believe that justice will prevail – it’s the basis of real society, and those who mock the system will hopefully come unstuck. OK, maybe the major Team players will get away with retiring early and taking gloden handshakes or whatever – but even war criminals got found out eventually… We must not dwell on the subject, but believe that the decent majority of our society will prevail. The scientific aspect is really no different in principle – we have to believe that the scientific method will eventually come through. With so many questions, and obvious ‘dissenters’ , the science is clearly not settled and we must believe that the truth will eventually prevail. I am not religious – but we must have faith in the better part of human nature rather than take the path of the ‘dark side’.
Non-technical people rely on figures with moral authority to determine the “rightness” of the technical. Gore, a self-appointed moral leader of the environmental movement, does not claim to be a climate scientist, but to know enough and to have experts trusted enough to tell him the “truth” untarnished by energy company machinations, corruption, or ambition. So the non-technicals – the majority of the population – listen to what is said. In the depths of our souls we all believe that being good, you see, is better than being right, and the preferred road to be followed is the “good” one.
The climate thugs who suppress dissent operate, or originally operated, from this sense of moral, rather than technical, imperative. What is the Precautionary Principle but a moral statement about how to act when you are uncertain? Go for the lesser evil when reports come in of a greater one.
A sense of who we are as moral animals is key to our emotional survival. Fictions are created by all sorts of agencies to allow us to live with polluting, incarcerating and (in war) killing to keep our lives trundling along with minimal friction. When faced with the lies we have accepted, a threat to how we think of ourselves rises. Soldiers have breakdowns, or soldiers become hardened. There is no middle ground unless you accept that you were manipulated or acted wrongly under unknowable circumstances. Climate alarmists face a similar personal challenge from the skeptics. How are they to respond to the idea that they are dupes of a socio-political-monetary clique? Most, like soldiers, will become hardened or, as time passes, drift away and not think about what they did before, blaming less themselves than the times (whoever, not whatever, that means).
We need those, like here, to point out the anger, not rebuttal, that disagreement with the warmists creates. We need those writers, this this writer, who point out when the Other Side plays fast with facts and dirty with disagreement. The right to speak for the masses lies with the representatives having moral, not technical, authority. Should Gore’s ex-wife speak out that she left him not for general life-style conflicts, but because he routinely cheated on her and was more interested in the money he was making as a environmental icon than he was in finding reasonable substitutes for fossil fuel oil, Al would lose his position of influence.
So far the environmentalists have held the moral high ground despite their antics, because their antics are of the youthful foolish nature forgiven by us conservatives. Passion reigns within children; kids will be kids, we say. We need more Michael Manns, more Jim Hansens and Jim Salingers, not less. We need more soapboxes and shouting of outrageous things, not less. Then the facades will truly be revealed. Up close all actors show the paint that covers their true features.
If the science was really there, AGW proponents would steer the discussion always back to the facts. Nothing else would be necessary.
It seems so but “it´s the Sun…..”. Again: The driest desert of the world under snow:
http://www.elobservatodo.cl/node/20645
Of course they respond with thuggery – because they are knowingly committing mass fraud and deception. Like all criminals – they lie, cheat, abuse etc., to avoid get caught. If they knew their science was valid, they would not need to use these tactics.
The AGW hoax will never be exposed until these people face criminal charges
They do say that when you are in the right, you can afford to keep your temper and when you are in the wrong, you cannot afford to lose it.
Desparate to keep all those funding tax/green dollars I guess. I bet the screams will get even louder as the cuts hit home.
I never noticed the BBC attempted to “provide balanced coverage of climate issues” in the first place!
The comments section there reveals quite a bit of mirror-less ivory-tower championing.
Apparently you can’t make disparaging comments at all about anybody on the CAGW side without being completely biased. Even if your only point is to suggest that the rhetoric die down some, you cannot suggest that Mann did anything wrong. I think there’s still some intellectual waking up to do yet.
@Patrick Guinness More and more AGW skeptics and agnostics
Nature teaches Al Gore the final lesson….or is it the “Gore Effect”?:
http://youtu.be/ojv9OJ7SoKI
(the -ex-driest desert of the earth under snow, again)
Well, if you look at it as a movement with religious undertones rather than a true scientific philosophy, it makes sense. All religions go after heretics with fury it seems. Prof. Lindzen spoke very eloquently on this during his colloquium presentation at Fermilab on Feb 10, 2010. See:
http://www-ppd.fnal.gov/EPPOffice-w/colloq/Past_09_10.html
Prof. Lindzen was quite taken to task by the physicists in the audience and held his ground very well!
Now the thugs are trying a new spin: “Recorrrrrrrd percennnnnnnnnt of US lannnnnnnnd areeeeeeea experrrrrrriencing exceptionnnnnnnnnalllllllll drouuuuuuuuuuuught!”
It doesn’t take a climate scientist to appreciate that CAGW (i.e,. CO2 AGW, alias the greenhouse effect) is not a valid scientific theory:
Venus: No Greenhouse Effect
and
Runaway Global Warming is Scientific Hysteria
The climate “consensus” is incompetent. So are all the scientists who authoritatively push the greenhouse effect, in the name of their supposed “expertise”. It is time now to stop the worldwide political tyranny being imposed in the name of such blanket incompetence in science.
2nd link above should be:
Runaway Global Warming is Scientific Hysteria
Peter Wood has experienced that good old Warmista rage. It is quite astonishing that in the comments sections of Wood’s two articles the Warmista express the very rage that Wood has identified among the Warmista and criticized. This rage is not unique to Warmista. It is shared by the entire Left Wing of the Democratic Party. Apparently, when one has a mission from God (Marx) to identify the Capitalist Oppressors and terminate them, and the Left surely believes it has such a mission, then the fact that the context is one of rational debate has no bearing on their behavior at all. I have to say that the vitriol directed at Wood is of historic proportions. It is uncharacteristic of Sceptic blogs. Maybe the reason is that it takes place in the Journal of Higher Education. That journal is considered home turf by a whole host of academic pit bulls.
SteveSadlov says:
August 1, 2011 at 11:17 am
Now the thugs are trying a new spin: “Recorrrrrrrd percennnnnnnnnt of US lannnnnnnnd areeeeeeea experrrrrrriencing exceptionnnnnnnnnalllllllll drouuuuuuuuuuuught!”
They evidently haven’t been exposed to data from the Dust Bowl years of the 30s, when 75-80% of the country was in drought.
I note that the most discredited political thugs of South-East Asia – the elites of Malaysia and Singapore – have, for decades, continued to use a version of the Mann tactic to sue and bankrupt opposition members of parliament in order to maintain their totalitarian rule. This guy is not a reputable scientist by my reckoning: he’s a politician.
In Re my previous comment, you might find this site interesting.
http://tinyurl.com/yrdkl6
It’s the site for the Global Drought Monitor. Their maps are available on timescales from 1 month to 36 months. Scanning through them can be quite illuminating. While checking NA and the US you might also want to keep an eye on Greenland. You might gain a different perspective on all the hyperbole about the ice sheet there disappearing.
The drought in the UK must be of the wet variety then!
As if on cue.
http://rabett.blogspot.com/2011/07/theres-word-for-that.html#comments