Over at Climate Depot, Marc Morano wonders why Andrew Revkin is calling attention to an article linking Holocaust denial to “climate denial”. He writes:
What’s up with NYT’s Revkin? He touts essay: ‘A look at denial, from Holocaust to climate fight’ by a survivor of Bergen-Belsen & a warmist physics prof. at Brooklyn College Read the Full Article
Is featuring an essay linking Holocaust denial to climate ‘denial’, worthy of a shout out on Revkin’s blog? Excerpt: ‘Denying the Holocaust today, with all the available factual information, requires denying of all of history… But most of our history is based on flimsier evidence, and climate change deniers like to say that using scientific ‘theories’ to explain climate change is not really ‘proof.’
In an email exchange prior to Morano’s post, I wrote:
It seems to me that Mr. Revkin is cementing his approval of comparisons between holocaust deniers, and “climate deniers”. That will be the topic of my post on the issue, unless Andy has an alternate credible explanation. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt until I hear from him.
Revkin “on the run in Asia” as he put it, responded:
I thought it worth noting this post because the writer is a rare breed — a physicist and environmental studies professor and also a survivor of the Holocaust. That gives him the right to explore this terrain, whatever you or I think of his conclusion.
Tumblr is an efficient means of posting the equivalent of a Tweet. I did not endorse his views.
In fact, I agree that most such comparisons are flawed. Back in 2007, before I switched to the Op-Ed side of The Times, I wrote Climate, Coal and Crematoria on Dot Earth to question one such effort by James Hansen.
Tomkiewicz also illustrates the normal nature of the deep divisions among physicists — even Nobelists in physics — on evidence for disruptive greenhouse-driven climate change. Feel free to debate him on the merits of his thesis.
I also mentioned in the email exchange that Mr. Revkin had made some prior reference to Nazi Germany, which I asked him about some months back, but never posted about it. Today seemed like a good time to do so.
By policy, I don’t normally allow Nazi photos/discussion on my blog, being very proactive about Godwin’s Law, but this requires an exception. Screen cap below.
Revkin gives a Tumblr repost (akin to a Twitter re-tweet):*
Ordinary people. The courage to say no.
The photo was taken in Hamburg in 1936, during the celebrations for the launch of a ship. In the crowd, one person refuses to raise his arm to give the Nazi salute. The man was August Landmesser. He had already been in trouble with the authorities, having been sentenced to two years hard labor for marrying a Jewish woman.
We know little else about August Landmesser, except that he had two children. By pure chance, one of his children recognized her father in this photo when it was published in a German newspaper in 1991. How proud she must have been in that moment.
(via inspirement)
And writes: I enjoy things like this immensely.*
(*Both of these sentences were clarified from the original post I made to separate Revkin’s words from the Tumblr repost – Anthony)
Yet, Mr. Revkin, in his capacity as journalist, was quite possibly the first reporter to “confirm” authenticity of the Heartland Leak Documents, including the faked one, seems to not grasp how this world view of his is ironic in the context of his daily reporting.
I asked Revkin on Feb 17th what he thought about that photo:
Do you see any irony in your position?
And he replied:
Irony in relation to my position on climate science as it relates to my position on someone standing up to political terror and tyranny?
I said “yes” and he replied:
To you, who’s the climate equivalent of the guy standing with his hands down?
If you’re going to propose/imply that I’m an apologist for alarmism, I’d have to reject that and ask you to point to a pattern in my coverage of the science that shows this.
I’ve been pretty quick to question anyone trying to cast climate science as a “party loyalty” kind of issue.
This may be relevant. Here’s my response on the fairness question (climategate v. denialgate) and the Dan Rather issue.
As for the “…who’s the climate equivalent of the guy standing with his hands down? ” question posed by Revkin, I see it this way: I think climate change skeptics see themselves as that man, I see myself as that man. Likewise, many AGW advocates see themselves as that man, standing up for the Earth and thus is borne the clash of ideals.
Like August Landmesser’s brave stance, I believe climate skeptics are “Ordinary people. [with] the courage to say no.” and by saying no, we are being trashed, reviled, and libeled in the media and paid propaganda blogs (like DeSmog, Romm’s Climate Progress, and Grist) for doing so.
The mindless regurgitation of the fabrications in the Heartland faked document without even checking authenticity first, showed just what sort of mindset we are fighting in the media, and it seems to me that what Mr. Revkin “enjoys” seeing as being a brave person in one historical venue, he views as a nuisance in others. Here’s why. He tweeted this a week later, just after DeSmog blog launched their assault on the Heartland Institute and climate skeptics worldwide.
My irony meter pegged, the needle broke off, flew out, and embedded itself into the wall of my office when I read that, because of Revkin’s post about August Landmesser just a week earlier.
The be absolutely clear, so that opportunists don’t try to spin this around, I don’t view pro AGW people as “Nazi’s” and nobody should ascribe any such opinion to me.
Quite the contrary, I simply view them as people with a rigid worldview that I and millions of others (according to recent polls) disagree with based on our review of the available science.
But, since Mr. Revkin opened this door in the context of recent events, I felt it important to bring it to light. It is also important to review who brought the comparisons of holocaust denial and climate skepticism together, a mainstream journalist, columnist Ellen Goodman, is credited with popularizing the usage in 2007. Here, she makes a clear unambiguous connection:
I would like to say we’re at a point where global warming is impossible to deny. Let’s just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers, though one denies the past and the other denies the present and future. – Ellen Goodman, Boston Globe, February 9, 2007 “No change in political climate” on the Wayback Machine here
There’s more than enough climate ugliness to go around on both sides, and what is it doing? Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. said this of it last May, describing the tactics of his opponent Joe Romm:
…[it is] making enemies out of friends and opponents out of fellow travelers.
In my view, the same can be said about the recent billboard fiasco.
I also want to reiterate that Heartland made a huge misstep and blunder with their recent billboard campaign, and that while it is technically true that “unabomber” Ted Kaczynski did in fact write about his concerns about greenhouse gases in his manifesto (I checked), the method of messaging chosen by Heartland was just plain dumb, ugly, and counterproductive in my view. From what I gather, their intent was to use the same tactics that have been employed by alarmists against skeptics, to illustrate how these ugly tactics are used. But, when you sink to using the same tactics as your opponent, you give away any moral advantage you might have, and I think Heartland did that. I’ve made some mistakes like that myself. The best you can do is to apologize, learn from them, and never repeat them. When you are bombarded with hateful messaging almost 24/7, sometimes you make a mistake in your reply. Heartland made a mistake, a big one. I think Vaclav Klaus summed it up pretty well. From the Guardian:
Václav Klaus, the Czech president and prominent climate sceptic, has condemned a controversial billboard campaign used by a rightwing US thinktank to advertise the forthcoming conference at which he is scheduled to give the keynote speech. However, his spokesman said Klaus will not join other speakers who have pulled out in protest and says he still intends to proceed with the engagement.
I agree with his position in condemning the billboard campaign, as well as his decision to go to the conference. After careful consideration, I will attend as well.
As we witnessed yesterday with the Romm/Pielke Jr. blowup, the tactic they are employing now is to “divide and conquer”, using the disgust many have over the billboard fiasco as a wedge issue.
Solidarity is therefore needed more than ever, which is part of why I’ve decided to attend the conference. But, in my opinion, we also need an alternate venue, because trying to give the science discussions and the political rhetoric some degree of separation is impossible in such a convention environment. As Ross McKitrick demonstrated in his rebuttal so well, scientists don’t like mixing with ugly political rhetoric, and political activists often don’t like the logic and restraint that scientists have. There was bound to be a clash of ideals at some point.
Some folks have suggested that this episode marks “the end of climate skepticsm if Heartland fails”. What they don’t realize is that Heartland was never the “headquarters” for climate skepticism, only an occasional facilitator for a bringing together a widely diverse set of people. Even if Heartland were to disappear tomorrow, climate skepticism is now a mainstream issue, it will continue. As confirmed by many polls, there are millions of people who are skeptical of the issue like we are here on WUWT. That isn’t going away any time soon.
Note to commenters: This thread will have an exceptionally low tolerance level for off color or attack commentary. Be on your very best behavior.
revkin produced the deck of cards featuring most wanted climate deniers, didn’t he?
saying ‘no’ is what’s needed, of course – but we have a whole generation of girls who can’t.
meaning it is a whole different ball game. saying it takes a calorie or two to clench the diaphragm – nothing more.
meaning it – that’s what gets you up against the wall because the real non.negotiable NO is not spoken from a mouth or a pen.
REPLY: George Monbiot produced that, not Revkin – Anthony
“Like August Landmesser’s brave stance, I believe climate skeptics are “Ordinary people. [with] the courage to say no.” and by saying no, we are being trashed, reviled, and libeled in the media and paid propaganda blogs (like DeSmog, Romm’s Climate Progress, and Grist) for doing so.”
Exactly. The whole modus operandi of the rise of the Nazi party revolved around belittling, demeaning, or otherwise publicly insulting any individual who dared to speak out against their policies and, most importantly in addition – LABELING THEM as enemies of Germany. Foot meet shoe….
The man in the photo had courage that we can only pretend to understand. Comparing a person unwilling to yield to Nazi rule in 1936 to anything in climate science is insulting. Why people bring up Nazis and the Holocaust for anything – other than perhaps another holocaust – is beyond me. We just shouldn’t be blogging about it. Period.
(Note to moderators… if you expect comments about an entry that contains references to ‘naahtzees’ then you are going to have to make some robot exceptions. My comment was disappeared.)
I think it would be interesting to study exactly how the path was laid to take people to the point of actually believing the absurd idea that questioning a scientific theory could be equated with denying the death and suffering of 6million people!. It’s been done so cleverly and with such orchestration it has the look of a smooth ad campaign. Where did it come from?
gnomish says:
May 10, 2012 at 1:42 pm
“revkin produced the deck of cards featuring most wanted climate deniers, didn’t he?”
No, that was Moonbat.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/mar/06/climate-change-deniers-top-10
Free thinking doesn’t come for free. Common sense isn’t common. It is more pleasant and safer to be within rather than outside the herd.
Groupthink is powerful and insidious. When I look at the junk arnaments and art I acquired over the past 30 years, each purchase a “personal” choice, but each so like what my neighbours have, I understand how easily you can be infected with the mass message.
Somehow they disqualified themself totally. So no reasons to shout around and get angry (a logical first reaction).
Many of the most vocal so called ‘denialists’ are weather and climate enthusiasts, both amateur and professional. many with a lifetime of observational experience.
It is no accident that most experienced meteorologists see nothing unusual in recent weather and climate phenomena.
It is that experience which leads them to be sceptical about the CO2 based theory until such time as it is adequately supported by empirical evidence.
That evidence has to demonstrate causation and not mere correlation over a period of time which is just a blink of an eye in terms of the historical record.
Most alarmists are quite intelligent in some respects. The difficulties arise with people who both (a) perceive greenhouse emissions as ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’ or threatening in some way and (b) have a personality type which effectively blocks out any science that they don’t want to hear.
I think the best way of communicating with those that have (a) but not (b) is to be factual, frank, but not aggressive. I doubt that we can do much to persuade people with both (a) and (b).
“Even if Heartland were to disappear tomorrow, climate skepticism is now a mainstream issue, it will continue. As confirmed by many polls, there are millions of people who are skeptical of the issue like we are here on WUWT. That isn’t going away any time soon.”
*
This whole article is so very true. The divide and conquer tactic is just that, a tactic. We are too diverse and too well into the subject to ever lose our way again and go back into that mire of ignorance. Once the blinkers are off, they are off. Once a person sees the political use of alarmism, they can’t go back to pretending it’s about climate.
Yes, mistakes are made, we are after all, human. Best to ignore what the other side is trying to dredge up in their defence, or for our demise, and carry on dealing with what is important. Let’s see those in power working for Catastrophic Global Domination soundly VOTED OUT. Only then will we see real progress to get thinking, learning, science and economics back on track.
Anthony,
I agree with your position. I want to point out how thoroughly the the mainstream media has brainwashed the public. I would ask your readers to go back and read the Goodman quote. How many of you subliminally linked “man made” to the term global warming? I am afraid that the vast majority of Americans automatically link those two terms. Orwell would be not be shocked.
I agree, except that it’s too late by a few years. All we can do is to try to be rational and dispassionate about it, learn lessons from that history, but try not to sink in the quagmire.
Welcome to politics in the raw. I say this as someone who has been close to (but not in, thankfully) politics for a long time.
It’s ugly, unedifying, and a long way from where you started when you began WUWT all those years ago. I imagine that the election fever has heightened and polarised the tensions – and that will continue for the next few months. If you think that things are crazy now, wait till a few weeks out from the vote.
As a fellow human being who has had to survive political storms, please listen when I say that you need to stay as far away as possible from the crap that is flying around. This disgusting episode is just the beginning.
You may need to toughen up your moderation, because shills and hucksters from both sides will be crawling over every blog. Given the strong US bias in your readers, you may wish to institute a temporary amendment to your site policy – say till the end of November – about political squabbles.
This shabby episode is just the first of many to come. As a veteran of several changes of government, my advice is to disengage as far as possible from the political battlefields – bearing in mind that many people will try to engage you and infuriate you for their own advantage.
This would be a good opportunity to spend a lot of time and effort on the Surfacestations project Mark II, and other projects that you have been meaning to get to.
When elephants fight, the grass gets trampled. There is no upside for you in being drawn into the political maelstrom, which is going to intensify over the next few months.
Stay well, and look after your family, not to mention distinguished Union of Concerned Scientists member, Kenji Watts, whose views I have so far agreed with 100%.
I wonder if Tomkiewicz thinks that Richard Lindzen is a “denier.” And if he would call him that to his face.
For background, here’s what Rabbet, in typical insensitive fashion, had to say about that:
The fact is that if Lindzen’s parents had not fled Germany, Lindzen could himself have died in a concentration camp along with his parents. Rabbet seems to think he has no right to be offended. The fact is that everyone should be offended by the epithet and everyone who uses it should be ashamed.
As for Tomkiewicz, you’d think that someone who actually spent time in a death camp would be a little more careful in formulating analogies.
Self-righteous hypocrisy — the warmistas equate CAGW skepticism with Holocaust deniers while they deny the existence of the ongoing holocausts their own policies have created.
http://pjmedia.com/blog/the-new-holocaust-deniers/?singlepage=true
“I simply view them as people with a rigid worldview…”
Yes. They want socialism imposed on everybody. And they will adopt any convenient excuse in support of it. In support of their Beloved Dream they are hardend serial liars.
Then, as in China and Russia, they can finally make Christianity illegal, and Atheism the Gov Religion. And if you get in their way, they will kill you. Yay. But deep, deep, deep down, they are just regular folks, and we must talk to them and love them, and make them see we should all just try and get along.
The unsaved will never have to face the White Throne, so this will likely never come to pass, but I would dearly like to see you try and sell this dog-excrement to the Living God, face to Face. Then again, the vast majority of self-styled ‘Christians’ are in fact practioners of Ghandi-love-Christianity, so I’ll still have that too look forward to.
Hmm, so if I were a rape victim, it would be OK for me to call Revkin a rapist? Does this make a lick of sense?
REPLY: No, your comment does not. – Anthony
“Some folks have suggested that this episode marks “the end of climate skepticsm if Heartland fails”
They’re evolving, looking for a face-saving exit. Revkin replacing his cool with high indignation is a real good sign of that. They want this story to end with a “win,” now, they know IPCC 5AR will not be it. Apparently the New York Times article blaming Lindzen for everything was big fail, so now they’re hanging their hat on Heartland’s libertarians??
Their problem is the gravy train science won’t give up. The scientists need big feedbacks to keep the funding coming in. No crisis, no money. They will only get angrier and keeping wishing for some kind of knock out blow satisfactory to their limited world. Pinning all denial on one scientist or institute is a soothing trope. It is a defense mechanism, which denies weighing science, and most importantly, manages to save their self-appointed position of intellectual superiority and sensitivity.
I’m surprised Revkin joined them full out. Maybe he’s just having a bad week. Or maybe the Justice Department is ignoring Holder (or someone) and investigating political uses of “educational” funding to promote “climate change” awareness?
“Yes. They want socialism imposed on everybody”
Socialism? Really? When has “socialism” become corportism and economic fascism. Sure, there are some small minority of the warmista brigades who are control freaks, kind of like the kinds that served as cadres for the Marxist cults, but they are not the MONEY.
By the way, if making parallels to Holocaust Deniers is wrong and unproductive, then lets call the foul both ways. While I am sympathetic to many of his underlying points, Robert ZUrbin is wrong to use the Holocaust Denier charge against environmentalists and Malthusians: http://pjmedia.com/blog/the-new-holocaust-deniers/
I only wish this was about saving the planet. Unfortunately, this has become about political power and control wrapped up a climate disaster. We cede control to the “right” people in order to let them save us from ourselves. Unfortunately, the world isn’t playing along in a variety of ways, and it’s only going to nastier as this becomes more apparent. You win by dehumanizing your opponents.
I could be wrong, but I’m almost certain I heard “denial” of AGW by any scientist compared to Holocaust denial much earlier than 2007. I think it would have been sometime in 2002 or 2003. I was watching a History channel, Discovery channel, TLC, etc. “scientific” program on global warming. At the time I had not formed any firm opinions. I only remember bits and pieces. There was a cartoon explanation of the greenhouse effect. The talking head described man’s contribution of CO2 to the atmosphere in tons and emphasized how it’s nearly impossible for humans to wrap their heads around a number that big. Blah, blah, blah…but right towards the end of the program there were vehement attacks against those dastardly non-believers. This guy then compared anyone who doubts the immutable “truth” of AGW to Holocaust deniers. This struck home with me as it seemed so over the top.
I pretty much ignored the AGW issue until 2005 when I started reading about it and investing the issue on my own. I think Patrick Michaels published Meltdown in 2004 and I read it in 2005/6. I could be wrong but I think even Dr. Michaels mentioned the “denier” pejorative in that book. I have a gut feeling that this meme predates 2007.
REPLY: It very well may, but its limited use in discussion circles changed to mainstream with Goodman’s widely syndicated article. That’s when the term “got legs” in journo parlance. – Anthony
It’s not very complicated and the labels don’t bother me. It is only because the conversation so often drifts away from science that we get bogged down in these discussions. I am a skeptic because I question what I am told till I see evidence it is true (or not). I am a denier because I deny that something is true simply because someone with a degree, a reputation or authority says it’s so. No published evidence convinces me that anthropogenic carbon emissions are causing or likely to cause climate instability and dangerous global warming. I wouldn’t mind the world a bit warmer and with a bit more CO2 because the prevalence of evidence suggests it will be a better place not just for people but for all life.I may be proven wrong or my views may become the mainstream. I remain certain that truth floats. Mistakes and lies can only tread water.
I have almost zero interest in 67 year-old wartime atrocities, and I do not have a knee-jerk
response that somehow connects words like ‘denier’ with that old wartime nastiness.
I wish our site owner would not writhe in pain every time some idiot calls his opponent a ‘denier’, or at least realize that most of us could not care less about the ‘holocaust’, and stop peddling it here.
[REPLY: The question always was “Could it happen here?” Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Learn to care more. -REP]
oxyartes says:
May 10, 2012 at 1:58 pm
Somehow they disqualified themself totally. So no reasons to shout around and get angry (a logical first reaction).
For sure, but despite its disqualifying “science” and tactics, “mainstream” Climate Science persists to this day!
Revkin—–Quite the contrary, I simply view them as people with a rigid worldview that I and millions of others (according to recent polls) disagree with based on our review of the available science.
JK———-What science? I have been looking for actual proof that man’s CO2 is causing dangerous warming.
Andy,
please give us a brief refresher on the ACTUAL evidence that man’s CO2 is causing dangerous global warming. And we both know that correlation is not proof of causation, that weather is extremely variable with little ice ages and Medieval, Roman, and Egyptian warm periods being warmer than today, that Al Gore’s ice cores actually show temperature leading CO2 by about 800 years and that Al’s hockey stick was fatally flawed by misapplied math, inappropriate splicing of data and a hidden decline.
Thanks
JK
theduke says:
May 10, 2012 at 2:16 pm
I wonder if Tomkiewicz thinks that Richard Lindzen is a “denier.” And if he would call him that to his face.
For background, here’s what Rabbet, in typical insensitive fashion, had to say about that:
“. . . And since we’re on a related subject, there’s the issue of Richard Lindzen claiming to be offended by the term climate denier because he claims to be a Holocaust survivor. His claim is based on the fact that his Jewish parents emigrated from Germany in 1938, and he was born in 1940. Even the broadest-accepted definition of Holocaust survivor would only include his parents, not him (and many would not include his parents, although they undoubtedly faced severe persecution). Actual Holocaust survivors would have good reason to be offended by Lindzen.
The fact is that if Lindzen’s parents had not fled Germany, Lindzen could himself have died in a concentration camp along with his parents. Rabbet seems to think he has no right to be offended. The fact is that everyone should be offended by the epithet and everyone who uses it should be ashamed.
————————————————————————–
I am gobsmacked about that story about Lindzen – and no, I’m not Jewish, but my family suffered greatly in Europe during WWII and if that suggestion was made about the few lucky ones who got away, they would be horrified. It is like saying to a survivor of the Titanic – oh, you’re not a real survivor, because you got into a lifeboat as opposed to being plucked from the sea.
Still, I think it would be a mistake for WUWT to become a clearing-house for personal disputes, especially during an election campaign in the US.
I guess my earlier comment may have been unclear, and perhaps my logic is tortured here, but Revkin’s argument seemed to be that the fact of being a victim of the Holocaust allows the author a pass, in fact, even respect, in calling skeptics Holocast deniers. To me, this is no different than saying a climate scientist who was a rape victim would get respect from the NY Times for calling skeptics rapists.
[snip, I’m sorry I read this several times, and just didn’t see any way to sort relevant points from rant, do over. – Anthony]
johanna says:
May 10, 2012 at 2:15 pm
You may need to toughen up your moderation, because shills and hucksters from both sides will be crawling over every blog. Given the strong US bias in your readers, you may wish to institute a temporary amendment to your site policy – say till the end of November – about political squabbles.
This shabby episode is just the first of many to come. As a veteran of several changes of government, my advice is to disengage as far as possible from the political battlefields – bearing in mind that many people will try to engage you and infuriate you for their own advantage.
================================================================
Not bad advice. But who you vote for will impact whether or not the government will be beating us up with a hockey stick. Yes, limit stuff about heathcare etc. but allow climate related political post.
Anthony:
I thank you for raising this issue.
Before making the substantive point of my post, I observe that you report Revkin as having said;
“In fact, I agree that most such comparisons are flawed.”
OK, if he thinks the comparison of climate-realists with holocaust deniers is “flawed” then hypocritical sliming is the only possible reason for his having posted the article which makes that comparison.
But my substantive point is that the smear is self-defeating. I know this for a certain fact because the smear was made in the debate at St Andrews University which I, Morner and Monckton won.
The debate was on Wednesday 4 March 2009 and the debated motion was
“This House Believes Global Warming is a Global Crisis”
My account of that debate can be read at
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=2938
In that account I report;
“Robinson’s response was very angry. He seemed to think attacking the opposition speakers would provide a victory for the motion. Almost his entire speech was attempted defamation of the opposition speakers. Within seconds of starting to speak he had accused them of being “like supporters of the Nazis in 1930s Germany” (my family lost everything in the blitz so I did not take kindly to that).” etc.
and
“Norminton then spoke to conclude the case for the proponents of the motion.”
“He said he was not a scientist so he had to accept the word of scientists about global warming and scientists agree that gl obal warming is real and man-made. He said, the speakers on the opposition side were “not scientists”. Lord Monckton interjected that “Courtney and Morner are”. And Norminton replied, “So was Mengele.” Monckton raised a Point of Order demanding withdrawal of the remark. Norminton lacked the wit to withdraw and move on, so he refused to withdraw. Monckton persisted pressing the Point of Order and Norminton continued to refuse to withdraw. Only moments before Morner had made himself the lecturer the students would most like to have, and support for Norminton drained away as he insisted that Morner was akin to a murderer operating in a Nazi concentration camp. Norminton continued by saying the threat of global warming was real, and it was killing polar bears, but it is not clear that anybody was listening to him.”
The result of those tactics is worth mentioning. As my account reports;
“Prior to the debate the opponents of the motion had expected to lose the vote because the students have been exposed to a lifetime (i.e. their short lifetime) of pro-AGW propaganda. We consoled ourselves with the certainty that we would win the arguments because opponents of AGW have all the facts on our side. But in the event we won both. The motion was defeated when put to the vote.”
Richard
Its very offensive and extremely typical .
They want an explosive response.
Then they will do the “but we are only telling the truth, that’s what you are” defense.
This can cause even more explosive response.
It is supposed to at one blow infuriate and dismiss. And it is tiresome and offensive and finding some old guy who is an actual survivor to repeat it for them is just tagging new rungs to the bottom of the ladder marked “Craven”.
Every time I see a holocaust reference with regards to the CAGW issue I struggle to recall the metric that statistically estimated the slight rise in the per ton price of rice to starvation & poverty.
Real or not, the policies implemented in the name of CAGW is literally killing people.
One hopes you will be careful not to become too aligned with and/or associated with Heartland. Their past behavior and tone tend to indicate an organization that is “right for the wrong reasons”. Expect more behavior/tactics which are at odds with your sense of propriety. It’s doubtful that they really “get it” or ever will. Just my 2 cents.
“Even if Heartland were to disappear tomorrow, climate skepticism is now a mainstream issue, it will continue.”
I hardly ever visited the Heartland website. And I was a skeptic long before I ever heard of the Heartland Institute. Kyoto was the impetus that eventually led me to be a skeptic.
I was going to leave a response in this thread but I regret that my present level of vituperation precludes my writing any further than to say that I consider the warmists to be one of the most socially destructive groups to have emerged for many a long year.
I dare not write further lest I be snipped.
Joe Zarg says:
May 10, 2012 at 2:53 pm
===========
An easy remedy for your condition:
Don’t visit WUWT.
The so-called “Godwin’s Law” should probably apply to all ad hominem attacks.
However, there was a real political thinker named Godwin. From the preface to William Godwin’s “Enquiry Concerning Political Justice”:
http://archive.org/stream/enquiryconcernin1796godw2#page/n11/mode/2up
Even so, it seems to take great fortitude (and hard work) to stay the course. Thanks WUWT, CA, and all.
OK S.
This is adverse conditioning propaganda. Fanatics are trying to indoctrinate the minds of uninformed people with the lie that healthy rational thinking is associated with something which is mindless evil. Anyone with an iota of common sense can see this is not just wrong but the vile and deceitful manipulation of public opinion. I think it’s a good thing to expose Revkin and accept that Heartland made a mistake.
What amazes me is the lack of perspective people like Revkin have. We’ve had Club of Rome’s natural resource exhaustion, Erlich’s Population Bomb, and Sagan’s Nuclear Winter. All were framed with a “we must do something” and if you disagree they bring out the “you’re a denialist” retoric and evil or stupid or both. All were duds. Of course, this time it’s different. They are constantly searching for the key to allow the intelligentsia (themselves) to run the world the way they think it should be run for our own good. I’m afraid the CAWG extremist are going to get violent since the demonization of the opposition is the first step. Germany in the 1920/30s is only one example.
Mike_M: “Exactly. The whole modus operandi of the rise of the Nazi party revolved around belittling, demeaning, or otherwise publicly insulting any individual who dared to speak out against their policies and, most importantly in addition – LABELING THEM as enemies of Germany. Foot meet shoe….”
Otherwise known as: Everyday life. It’s an unavoidable consequence of what happens when people have opinions and group up with people with similar opinions to their own. “Wrong thinkers” are out to destroy the tribe.
What makes the Holocaust peculiar is introducing the government to ‘solve’ the problem of people that think differently than the tribe. Lest it be forgotten the Nazi problem with the Jews was not that they had a religion. It was that it was considered that Jews thought differently, behaved differently, and had a different morality than the German tribe. That these differences were parasitic at best, and would destroy the tribe at worst. And so the only solution was to have the government Do Something™ about people that thought, or possibly thought, differently than the tribe.
But then, it’s not that peculiar at all. As can be seen in everything from the Spanish Inquisition, to the US Internment camps, to Jim Crow, to the Kulaks and various failed communitarian attempts at Utopia. Any time the government comes in to enforce tribal groupthink by law, the Holocaust is there.
Being called out as, or compared to, a Holocaust Denier is as immaterial as it is irrelevant. Right up until those putting forward the ad hominems start demanding the government do something about those people that hold different opinions. Jewish opinions perhaps. But members of the wrong tribe regardless.
“I also want to reiterate that Heartland made a huge misstep and blunder with their recent billboard campaign…..”
I disagree, and that hasn’t been my experience. As I do interact on some alarmist places, its what I do when I’m bored ….. 😉
I found the billboard campaign led to opportunities to discuss that very issue and make appropriate comparisons. What’s important to remember, is that the people we engage with on the other side of the spectrum are not very likely to change their minds on this issue. But, it is the anonymous reader who is your target audience. The anonymous reader at an alarmist site already has been told we are the worst sort of human beings since Adolf. This has occurred since the skeptic presence in the blogasphere. In this regard, HI didn’t damage the skeptic’s perceived reputation by any measure. But, what it did allow for was the exposure of the hypocrisy and duplicity of most alarmists. And Revkin’s article does the same.
Personally, I think HI’s comparison was apt. I think the damage these lunatics have done and advocate doing is incalculable. And, if any of them were half as smart as they believe they are, one must come to the conclusion the damage they are inflicting is intentional. So, they engage in a bit of projection? NBD, that’s what
scumbagstotalitarian Malthusian Marxists do. Given the chance, they’d make Pot and Stalin look like choir boys.Hate to provoke and run, but I’ve got to check the calculus and trig of some spheres on a plane. 🙂
I think the Skeptical side was doing better when we patiently kept asserting the scientific inadequacy of Warmism and the shonky practices of Warmist scientists and institutions.
It now appears that the Warmist PR attack machine has dragged us into an unwinnable low level conflict where we are forced to go as ‘low’ as them.
Scientifically we’ve got the high ground, they’re the ones who sound hysterical and fanatical, now that their project is at the point of collapse the are squealing extra loudly, it’s a very unappealing sound and it’s turning off the public…let’s leave then to their own devices…they crave doom and destruction and will seek it out for themselves.
Revkin seems to espouse the Goebbels principle so beloved of climate alarmists.
“I hardly ever visited the Heartland website. And I was a skeptic long before I ever heard of the Heartland Institute.”
They’re looking for an out. They are getting angrier. They aren’t blaming “Fox News” or the Ayn Rand-types of whatever anymore. They will take any small target. I earlier thought the NYTimes article claiming Lindzen was the source and last bastion of skepticism was a bizarre outlier. No, it is just on current thought-symptom from the warmistas who are heavily engaged with media discourse on “climate change.” They will only get angrier and angrier. They will not say, “oh, think I should alter my views a little.” Ideologues are arrogant. The reason they target “Heartland” is because that is a name in the news.
I suspect the upcoming election has compelled them to engage more people about their views, and they are getting push-back. They know positive feedbacks is dead. They want this debate “over” with them feeling on top.
The thing about Heartland is – their conferences are a RESPONSE to the pal review and bullying tactics of the Team.
Let me pose a question: if scientific debate were working in a full, honest and open way – would Heartland’s mission exist?
Joe Zarg, the Nazis in Greece just got their first member of Parliament elected. Neo nazis are on the ballot in France and Italy too. Hitler started with the ballot box and was elected to parliament before engineering his chancellorship. Economic chaos fed the hysteria and a manufactured threat was the oxygen that fed the Nazis’ fire. Sounds familiar? World War 2 was more than a “little nastiness”. You have alot of reading to do, I suggest Martin Gilberts’ Second World War. It has all the “nastiness” meticulously researched and referenced. Undeniable.
Our friend Kim left this for me….. I think it’s very appropriate in this regard…… http://pjmedia.com/blog/the-new-holocaust-deniers/?singlepage=true
James Sexton says:
May 10, 2012 at 3:49 pm
“Hate to provoke and run, but I’ve got to check the calculus and trig of some spheres on a plane. :-)”
================
Who doesn’t, the provoked will be waiting for your return.
‘As for the “…who’s the climate equivalent of the guy standing with his hands down?” question posed by Revkin, I see it this way: I think climate change skeptics see themselves as that man, I see myself as that man.’
Well, if the man were jumping up and down screaming “The emperor has no clothes!”, then yes. Although he risks less (so far), Anthony certainly isn’t sitting quietly.
Joe Zarg says (May 10, 2012 at 2:53 pm): “I wish our site owner would not writhe in pain every time some idiot calls his opponent a ‘denier’, or at least realize that most of us could not care less about the ‘holocaust’, and stop peddling it here.”
As a habitual skeptic, I must doubt Joe’s claim until he presents hard evidence; so far the count is actually two (Anthony plus yours truly) to one against him. 🙂
BTW, there’s “evolution” all about. The big USA enviro NGOs are toning down climate change. Remember the “Pew Center for Global Climate Change?” The No. 1 deceiver of NPR audiences?
Take a look at their entity now, pasted here for you’all:
“”The Pew Center on Global Climate Change is now the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES). As C2ES, we will continue to provide independent analysis and innovative solutions to address the climate and energy challenge. Please take this opportunity to update your links.””
The corporate warmistas are evolving, Obama-style, to follow the money! The small fry warmistas won’t evolve profitably, they are too arrogant to adapt to the facts, rather than make the facts adapt to their beliefs. A personality flaw which, by the way, excludes them from any position on a board of and corporation or large NGO.
Evolve!
What will the warmsters say next February?
Please consider the height, speeds and trajectories of the current tropospheric circulation paterns, as they are indeed changing.
Our solar cycle 24 peak looks more like next December than anytime in 2013…
What conditions must be present in the troposphere and within the magnetosphere and what stimulus or stimuli are required for transitional changes from glacial to inter-glacial & visa-versa?
If you or anyone else on this planet can provide those answers, we would not be talking about earth’s complex systems in the way we do.
Cheers!
In this debate over the term ‘denialists’ also consider the National Wildlife Foundation February 2012 report “The Psychological Effects of Global Warming on the United States: And Why the U.S. Mental Health Care System Is Not Adequately Prepared” (http://www.nwf.org/~/media/PDFs/Global-Warming/Reports/Psych_Effects_Climate_Change_Full_3_23.ashx).
That document included this quote: “This report aims both to fill in the gap in our awareness of the psychological impacts of climate change, and by exposing the emotional side of the issue, to find the place in our hearts that mobilizes us to fly into action, forewarned, determined, relentless. It also is a call for professionals in the mental health fields to focus on this, the social justice issue of all times, with their capacity to work through denial and apathy, to bring insight and commitment before it is too late.”
If an organization claims climate change is the social justice issue of all times, is it not real denial to call climate change a more important social justice issue than the Holocaust itself?
I can’t take Rabbett, however knowledgeable he might be in his area of expertise (is it chemistry?), or anyone else who refers to himself in the 3rd person, seriously.
What is so funny to me on both sides of this, is that noone cares but the people involved. This will not move the needle on climate change for either side. Both sides need to be less myopic, less argumentative, and more open to discourse as the truth lies in the middle (nearer WUWT than Gore, but…). Get over it.
Now, go make more fun of Hansen’s complete lack of integrity and incredible bias – factually.
Some points:
1) We must stop making this a left (warmists) vs right (skeptics) issue. There are many people coming from all different perspectives that question the science. But I hear so many comments trying to tie a political view to what side of fence you are on.
2) This issue is mainly about control. If you look at key issues where the governments/ruling class comes down the harshest, it is always about keeping people from being independent. And here is where common ground can be found. The back to Earth movement (Hippie days) had a big component about being able to live off the grid. That movement was pretty well crushed by various techniques that I believe were intentional (violence, drugs, race wars, zoning, … ). If we keep in mind this is a fight for freedom of expression and independence, then we don’t need to bring in the false division of political entities.
3) The Heartland Institute is ONE outlet for discussing this issue. It should not be THE outlet or we will lose and lose big time. Any political entity carries too much baggage and is too inflexible to be the guiding light. The guiding light should be the pursuit of scientific truth, freedom of expression, and liberty from oppression.
We are NOT deniers, but pursuers of a noble cause.
Can anyone point me to a high res image of the photo,seems to me the man in the circle is sitting down smiling as if posing for a picture.He also seems to have a lot of room around him compared to the others,also if you zoom in he has a wierd hairsyle on the top right.I also noticed that there are a lot of other people not raising their hands.Is this a fake?
One point of correction to all here who are commenting about “6 million dead Jews” etc. After a lot of reading I agree with Simon Wiesenthal and I don’t mention that number as it hides the true evil of the regime. He always insisted (and would stop people in mid sentence when they mentioned the 6 million number) on the fact that it was “11 million non-combatant civilians murdered of whom 10% were babies and small children”.
I always wondered why he was so adamant on that point and I think it revolves around a lot of things you hear like:
“It was just the Jews” – No they murdered everyone including their own (250,000 Germans). Yes the Jews were singled out (they didn’t make up half the population but they did make up roughly half the dead) but evil kills everything in its way.
“Maybe they deserved it” – No they didn’t. Isolating the deaths to one group makes it easy to view things in this fashion but when you realize the real numbers match those of the holodomor across a huge disparate number of groups it falls apart.
I highly recommend “The Murderers Among Us” as a great book to check out along with “Inside the Third Reich” to try and grasp how ordinary people can be turned into accomplices to murder on such a grand scale.
Peace to all.
Anthony, I congratulate you on a very balanced perspective and well written article. Keep up the good work
“quidsapio says:
May 10, 2012 at 1:55 pm
I think it would be interesting to study exactly how the path was laid to take people to the point of actually believing the absurd idea that questioning a scientific theory could be equated with denying the death and suffering of 6million people!. It’s been done so cleverly and with such orchestration it has the look of a smooth ad campaign. Where did it come from?”
its probably to do with the religious belief of AGW/CC by some of the Iconic individuals in the Church of Global Warming movement who strongly believe us ‘deniers’ will be the deaths of millions of people if we don’t go along with their arrogant strident belief their GIGO AGW/CC computer modelled prophetic projections will come to pass by 2100!
Roger Caiazza says:
May 10, 2012 at 4:13 pm
“If an organization claims climate change is the social justice issue of all times, is it not real denial to call climate change a more important social justice issue than the Holocaust itself?”
A thing called the National Wildlife Foundation? What do they have to do with “social justice”, “the mental health field”?
That being said, I’m sure the warmists need need all the mental health care they can get.
There is a close analogy between the Germany of the 1930s and the global warmists. Hitler and Gobbles [sp?] formulated the idea that if you tell a big enough lie often enough it becomes accepted as the truth. Exactly what the global warmists do!
Nick in vancouver says:
May 10, 2012 at 3:59 pm
“Economic chaos fed the hysteria and a manufactured threat was the oxygen that fed the Naz*s’ fire.”
Sure, but history can’t repeat in that way – the EU is not a democracy. And if one of the puppet regimes falls, there’s always the Lisbon treaty and EUROGENDFOR to reinstate a new one.
Looks like Charles Gerard Nelson and others already commented in similar vein, but here goes anyway…
To me this is very telling. The AGW crowd are on the ropes, and they are trying to draw the realists into their style of fighting which is all rhetoric and propaganga, no substance. We must resist this! They are masters of deceit and they own all the microphones; we cannot outshout them. Every time a rhetorical low blow is launched our way we should LAUGH and counter with a flurry of facts, facts, and more facts.
My perception of Revkin is that he is essentially a sportscaster who harbors a deep and secret love for a certain team but tells himself that he is too professional to let that love influence his journalistic objectivity. And I think he tries really hard but just can’t quite manage to keep the bias out of his writing. I suspect that he was quite pleased that Tomkiewicz, who by his history is (wrongly IMO) considered immune to Godwin’s Law, came along to say what Revkin and his secret pals would like to say but can’t.
In my view the comparison of [the truly mythical] “climate deniers” to “holocaust deniers” is only another case of Climate Science’s use of the same old argument by alleged analogy tactic which we’ve seen employed over and over on the part of “mainstream” Climate Science, precisely because its “science” does not hold water on its own! And therefore neither do its multiple analogies. For example, if “the science” of CO2 = CAGW is “just like gravity”, that needs to be proven on its own, in contrast to its actual 100% prediction failure rate concerning the relevant critical empirical realities of climate and weather.
As a matter of fact when it comes to its own use of analogies, Climate Science itself is demonstrably simply not real science.
Therefore in that light, I don’t personally care if Climate Science calls me a “climate denier” by using its same old “scientific” methods, that is, on the “basis” of yet another alleged, but completely wished for and merely postulated analogy – which really only ends up comparing the fact of Climate Science’s truly unscientific nature to the fact of the real existence holocaust deniers!
But unfortunately, its “shotgun” smearing of sceptics as “deniers”, etc., is what Climate Science does and how it hopes to “win” the argument and then go ahead unfettered with its obsessive controllism; regardless of the blowback it incurs upon itself and even when the reality of the debate ends up looking more like Climate Science itself falls prey to its own demonizing analogies which it instead tries to apply to the sceptics!
So I say to Climate Science, “Tough luck if you end up looking exactly like those you are trying to falsely condemn with your rediculous analogies!” And just as with the phenomena so far occurring within our completely natural climate and involving our nearly completely natural climate change – save for potential land use, aerosol, soot, etc., effects – it’s not like that particular outcome for “mainstream” Climate Science would be anything new in the history of human activity, political and governmental systems, propaganda operations, and the ever present phenomenon of human projection.
I’m repeatedly dismayed at the naivety of the political analysis displayed by many skeptics. Characterising the Warmists as a gang of out-of-control Marxists is fatally flawed and deeply undermines your ability to grasp what you are actually up against.
Look at the situation. The Warmist agenda is being driven by very large amounts of money and sophisticated influence. The US State Department has been secretly financing the IPCC, NASA is right there hosting conferences about how to handle climate change, the mass media are vilifying and marginalising dissent, while eugenicists are using AGW as a platform for advocating population reduction and forced sterilisation.
This isn’t Marxism, it’s the usual machinery of oligarchy, designed to promote the interests of the usual oligarchs, who are of course the same wealthy international elites who funded Hitler. They probably see AGW as a handy excuse for ramping up the price of oil and introducing even more draconian social controls. After all people will put up with a lot if they are told it’s in the name of saving the planet.
In that context, AGW is for the oligarchy just part of a wider agenda – which, ironically enough – may well progress to include fullblown fascism and Holocaust-denial.
I am a climate change supporter. No don’t change my words with this climate has always changed nonsensical circular argument.
Don’t call me socialist either – that’s name calling.
Don’t call me alarmist either. That’s cliché now.
.
Don’t think I’m uninformed either. I read and know all your skeptical arguments. Some of it is reasonable counter argument. Other articles are simply junk science.
And no I don’t think there is some government cover up and it’s scientific fraud either.
So I am with “that man” without arm raised against mindless group think. You see yourself without arm raised as well. Different ways of perception. Both refuse to salute because they see the “thing” as evil.
I am one who writes on this site telling everyone that after sighting a multitude of evidences that climate change is real. That is my right. Like the man without arm raised. No it’s not a socialist plot. We caused it. We are heading for many problems over this century. The globe will continue to warm at an alarming rate.
And if you are Christian fundamentalist type concerned by notion of new age and post modernist concerns about the science, I am concerned as well. Do not accuse me in being “non-enlightened” by my Christian experience. A lot of over zealous idealism that is misdirected is found amongst the good things we find in our churches. Sadly many of my Christian friends are divided on this issue. This community that is unique simply reflect the way it has always been – a misunderstanding and ignorance of good science.
I disagree with you Anthony Watts. I think you are wrong in what your doing by casting doubt on this science of potential CAGW.
I will NOT raise my arm to any mob mentality. It is good that we are both like that in many ways.
@ Ross Brisbane “I will NOT raise my arm to any mob mentality. It is good that we are both like that in many ways.”
I think that needs some clarification, I can read that both ways.
Marion says:
May 10, 2012 at 4:31 pm
“Its probably to do with the religious belief of AGW/CC by some of the Iconic individuals in the Church of Global Warming movement who strongly believe us ‘deniers’ will be the deaths of millions of people if we don’t go along with their arrogant strident belief their GIGO AGW/CC computer modelled prophetic projections will come to pass by 2100!”
True up to a point – but I think behind the blind belief there’s a dangerous political component driving this that we can’t ignore.
Actually, I’m repeatedly dismayed at the naivety of the political analysis displayed by many skeptics. Characterising the Warmists-in-government as a gang of out-of-control Marxists is fatally flawed and deeply undermines any ability to grasp what we are actually up against.
The Warmist agenda is being driven by very large amounts of money and sophisticated influence. The US State Department has been secretly financing the IPCC, NASA is right there hosting conferences about how to handle climate change, the mass media are vilifying and marginalising dissent, while eugenicists are using AGW as a platform for advocating population reduction and forced sterilisation.
This isn’t Marxism, it’s the usual machinery of oligarchy, designed to promote the interests of the usual oligarchs, who are of course the same wealthy international elites who funded Hitler. They probably see AGW as a handy excuse for ramping up the price of oil and introducing even more draconian social controls. After all people will put up with a lot if they are told it’s in the name of saving the planet.
In that context, AGW is for the oligarchy just part of a wider agenda – which, ironically enough – may well progress to include fullblown fascism and Holocaust-denial.
rossbrisbane,
Well, there goes a minute of my life that I’ll never get back.
How about some reality-based scientific opinion, instead of just your opinion?
Fair enough.
For my part though, Heartland’s billboard was a barbed rebuff and at that: a perfectly valid retort.
The gloves came off years ago, I think, that, if we don’t recognize the venality and sheer misanthropic loathing in many alarmists hearts, then you are a denier of the reality, of human nature and of a certain type of political shill.
Money, indeed is the root of all evil, how can it be denied that; there is big money at stake here, in the renewables markets and in the ‘graft’ that investment banks can garner from the whole chimera of the carbon fantasy, small wonder the ‘battle’ became dirty, ‘trench warfare’ is not a clean business.
I honestly think Mr. Watts that the ‘battle’ over the science has been fought and won, the alarmist redoubt has been battered and the garrison has fallen back – we gave quarter, lets face it we are the good guys.
The ‘war’ however, has moved on, this is mainly a political ‘conflict’ now, the stakes are high and it never was going to remain some sort of [mixing metaphors] ‘chukka’ played out in a bygone age of a corinthian spirit of fairplay and good natured sportsmanship.
Rio20+ is the current gab-fest on the horizon and brings a new slant, a new strategy to town, in the background AGW has not gone away, however, the buzz word right now; is ‘sustainability’ and the agenda is ’21’, hardball is the play.
What it all means for us, whatever ‘handle’ you give it…………
Taxpayers are the target, I for one am fed up to the back teeth of being told that my energy bills are steeply rising and seemingly inexorably to feed some sort of idiot commitment made on my behalf by politicians who have not a clue about what they advocate. Insult to injury, all of this done: without my sanction..
Absolutely, no say and yet I am forced to save mother earth and the final insult: it [sustainability/CAGW/ the green agenda call it what you will] is all premised on a nebulous fiction that has now been trashed out of sight by real science.
So, if Heartland threw in a big spanner, it is OK by me, that it was crude but it made a splash and that is politics.
On Revkin, he is entitled to his views, yet, who on God’s green earth places any store in what he thinks and says?
[Only fools and ass’s deny the holocaust, I read history, am fascinated by the subject and wish that men would listen more intently to the lessons history imparts. I also read and do read Geology – another fascination.]
let’s not overlook Connelly, who was certainly noticed online.
pre-Goodman:
21 Aug 2005: Views on warming hard to thaw
By JOEL CONNELLY, SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
But refusal to recognize global warming or evidence of man’s role has become, in circles of the oil industry and the political right, a 21st century equivalent of Holocaust denial…
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a swing vote on global warming, was along on last week’s Alaska trip.
The Bush administration is also in denial…
http://www.seattlepi.com/local/connelly/article/Views-on-warming-hard-to-thaw-1181144.php
post-Goodman…count the deniers/denial in this piece:
10 July 2007: Deniers of global warming harm us
by JOEL CONNELLY, Seattle Post-Intelligencer
http://www.seattlepi.com/local/connelly/article/Deniers-of-global-warming-harm-us-1243264.php
“…………….climate change deniers……………”
Whatever happened to Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming Deniers?
Andy is trying to pull a fast one, but not on me.
For the record here is climate change which I ‘believe’ in and insist has happened.
The Younger Dryas
Medieval Warm Period
Holocene Climate Optimum
US Dust Bowls caused by too little Co2
Soot on Arctic Ice
Antarctica record sea ice extent
Hundreds dead in Eastern European winter
Polar bears cool, Emperor Penguins double than previously thought
Himalayan Voodoo 2035 and much, much more….
“So I am with “that man” without arm raised against mindless group think.”
Well, if all that is around you are the wingnuts yelling for the end of pollution laws and the EPA, and screaming about “socialism,” you indeed are such a man.
Just a hit-and-run maneuver by Revkin.
“….I thought it worth noting this post because the writer is a rare breed — a physicist and environmental studies professor and also a survivor of the Holocaust. That gives him the right to explore this terrain, whatever you or I think of his conclusion….”.
What the hell does that mean?
Is he implying that surviving the Holocaust gives someone unique insights into climate sensitivity to CO2?
It’s all getting very silly.
I’ve never quite understood over left vs right thing. I tend to view totalitarianism vs personal freedom. Both Nazi and Communism are two totalitarianism yet liberals seem to be fixated on using Nazi on the other side as an example why “right wing people” are bad but “left wing people” also worship communism which killed far more people than Nazis ever did. It was estimated that communists like Mao, Lenin and Stalin killed 100,000,000-150,000,000 of their own people to make communism work. Iv’e always find that strange. Personally, I find it insulting when they try to label me as Nazis because my grandfather served in Navy on a battleship during WW2.
Do they teach any history in school these days?
Anthony
What we have here at this time is a repeat of what is being played out in the presidential campaign, which is to throw as much crap at the wall as possible, as long as possible, to keep the real issues from being discussed.
We MUST NOT GET DISTRACTED by these things as they are willful efforts to goad, inflame, and reduce the argument to a he said he said level.
“…………….climate change deniers……………”
What??? Are they trying to link us with those Nasties???
Hey, two can play this game. Check these out. 😉
“Fascist Ecology: The “Green Wing” of the Nazi Party and its Historical Antecedents”
http://www.spunk.org/texts/places/germany/sp001630/peter.html
http://www.waldorfcritics.org/articles/Staudenmaier.html
“Ecofascism: Lessons from the German Experience”
http://books.google.gm/books/about/Ecofascism.html?id=GWTY0gLjwbAC&redir_esc=y
And finally I hate climate change deniers. The climate has always and will always change.
Whenever I see that personalities and insults are the topics and substance of climate change discussion, I open my “Climate, History and the Modern World” by Dr. H. H. Lamb, open it to one of its many pages I’ve highlighted, and wonder what keeps the “natural climate deniers” going. Today I’m looking at a chart on page 142 of “Changes in the height of the upper tree line in two areas in the White Mountains, California and in the Alps in Switzerland and Austria (From work by V. C. La Marche and V. Markgraf)” for the last 6,000 years. The charts show tree lines were much higher than present (meaning it was warmer) for the entire 6,000-year period, and in recent periods both charts clearly show the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age. These trees don’t lie, and they don’t need their rings measured and interpreted as to temperature, moisture, changes in solar exposure, fertilization, &etc. It’s quite simple, really, If a certain type of tree once grew 100 meters above where they now grow, it was warmer then than now. If a certain type of tree once grew 200 to 400 kilometers north of where they grow now, it was warmer then than now. The evidence of the trees’ former habitat is easily determined by stumps and other woody artifacts, which then leads to the comparative ease of determining when they were there through carbon dating. If trees can no longer live somewhere because of changing conditions, they won’t, and have no choice in the matter.
Concerning tree rings, and in particular bristle-cone pines in the White Mountains of California, Professor V. C. La Marche at the Laboratory of Tree Ring Research at my alma mater, University of Arizona, Tucson, has constructed a chart indicating variations of summer warmth and/or its seasonal duration covering the past 5,500 years (see page 141 of Lamb). Unlike Mann’s and others’ studies involving these upper-tree line bristle-cone pines, La Marche’s study shows great variation over the 5,500-year period, with six warming and cooling periods including a very prominent Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age, with current warming beginning over 200 years ago.
This is science. It clearly shows that current warming is not unprecedented, but in fact is normal if a bit cooler than previous periods of warming. It also lends great weight to the argument that denying that climate change is normal and has occurred without the aid of humans – or of CO2 instigation, since the AGW believers posit that atmospheric CO2 was stable for this entire period of significant warming and cooling – is supported by a robust body of scientific evidence, far superior to the thin, short time period, model driven body of science that finds an insignificant trace gas rules climate change.
Only true believers, real zealots, not scientists, could hang onto their beliefs against such overwhelming evidence.
I am one of those who denies that man is causing any kind of climate change. I do not deny that the Holocaust took place. I have pictures of Malthausen taken when it was liberated. These pictures were taken by my wife’s great-uncle. His unit was the first to reach that camp.
Now, whereas I have real proof of the Holocaust, where is Revkin’s proof of man causing climate change. All he has is the word of charlatans like Mann, Phil Jones and all the other so-called “climate scientists” whose work has been, and continues to be, discredited. To date, none of the dire alarmist predictions have materialized.
Jay Davis
When I was very young I lived in a neutral country. The madness in Europe was very far away. At first educated individuals that did not like to toe line started to appear. Then Jews that were rejected by the USA and other countries started to appear. Then escapees from the Shoa (holocaust) started to appear, bearing many scars and telling of many sad and cruel things (not all Jews).
After the war many of the perpetrators started to appear (not all from Germany). . The victims by that time spoke the local language and had established themselves in commerce. The perpetrators could only find employment with the victims, as they were the only ones who could speak their language. The perpetrators kept their heads down and worked at being invisible model citizens, as they were being hunted.
I spoke to some of the perpetrators back then, since I could speak their language. They spoke to me candidly. The majority had hardened opinions and felt they had been betrayed. They had no remorse whatsoever for what they had participated in. These days I expect no better from fanatics that have been defeated or are going to be defeated.
I was talking to my Mother on the phone the other day about those times. We both concluded the present situation has the smell and feel of the 1930’s.
Must admit I only read half of this. Anthony, you are really starting to ramble and you need to get a bit of focus into your posts.
Even if warmism was true, how does that justify things like ethanol and wind turbines which obviousy waste energy? Those who believe in warmism also believe in unlimited government borrowing. Coincidence?
It strikes me that the agenda is being set by those who are framing a powerful and denigrating metaphor (see George Lakoff) or cliche (see Jonah Goldberg). My preference is to push back hard and force them to push their metaphor/cliche to the point where its baselessness or baseness is clear. This is, I believe, what Monckton succeeded in doing in the St. Andrews debate, RJP jr tried with Romm and what Anthony has done with Revkin. Sometimes the success of this approach is clear and immediate, while most of the time it is the sense of doing the right thing as did the man in the picture. Keep doing the right thing Anthony.
Braddles,
For some focus, see otsar’s post above yours. Pay special attention to the last sentence.
My father spent the Second World War at the pointy end of the conflict (ie. “We keep driving until the enemy shoots at us. Then we know he is there”: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Louise_Dragoon_Guards).
He said that he encountered two types of German solders during the Second World War, Wehrmacht and Waffen. The Wehrmacht were solders, like themselves, proud Germans fighting with their country. The others, Waffen were ideologically driven followers of an idea without merit and a cause without end.
In the beginning the Wehrmacht were the more dangerous opponent, towards the end the Waffen became nearly manic in their encounters as their truth of ideological superiority conflicted with the reality on the ground.
I expect like all ideologically driven followers of an idea without merit and a cause without end, the leaders and devotees of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming will (have) became nearly manic in their encounters as their truth of ideological superiority as conflicted with the reality on the ground. They will not surrender in the face of the evidence around them because they have nothing they want to go back to, no normal life, the cause is their propose, and without it they are nothing.
I expect that the rhetoric from the leaders and devotees of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming will descend further in to the gutter as the reality of the measurements from nature continue to conflict with their truth of ideological superiority. We can only hope that their action remain retorical.
Exceptionally well said Anthony.
I applaud your decision to go to the Heartland Conference. A mistake was made. If this was a close friend, would you condemn his actions or condemn his person? I accept my friends, warts and all because we are all human and therefore make mistakes. It is when the mistakes are made repeatedly and viscously that I reconsider.
Also you are correct. opponents always love to find a wedge to use for divide and conquer. I hope others will read your words and reconsider their decision not to attend.
majormike1 says:
May 10, 2012 at 5:48 pm
” It’s quite simple, really, If a certain type of tree once grew 100 meters above where they now grow, it was warmer then than now. If a certain type of tree once grew 200 to 400 kilometers north of where they grow now, it was warmer then than now. The evidence of the trees’ former habitat is easily determined by stumps and other woody artifacts, which then leads to the comparative ease of determining when they were there through carbon dating. If trees can no longer live somewhere because of changing conditions, they won’t, and have no choice in the matter.”
It’s not quite so simple. It takes a long time for tree habitat to develop. The increase in temperature that has taken place since 1975 is so rapid that the treeline has not had sufficient time to move.
If science were so simple, there wouldn’t be a need to have scientists make a subject like tree rings their life’s work, and the science that was developed by 1982, would not have to be improved upon.
Opinions of this nature make me skeptical of about the level of knowledge of self styled AGW “skeptics”.
Obviously you are ignorant of the monumental works of Dr. H. H. Lamb, such as “Climatic History and the Future,” and “Climate, History and the Modern World.” Dr. Lamb used hundreds – thousands – of science studies from all disciplines touching climate, and my excerpts you object to are from several of the most imminent researchers in the field, and I cited them in my comment. You, like most natural climate change deniers, are therefore ignorant of much climate research.
Just one time period to consider: the Younger Dryas of about 10,000 years ago, when temperature changed much more and much more rapidly than now. This was followed by the roughly 4,000 years of the Holocene Climate Optimum, with higher temperatures and lower atmospheric CO2 than present. Dr. Lamb shows two charts of tree-line changes covering over 6,000 to the present time, and both show it was much warmer than now during and following the Holocene Climate Optimum, that there has been significant cooling the past 4,000 years, that there was a Medieval Warm Period which was warmer than present, and that there was a Little Ice Age that we have been recovering from for about the last 300 years.
Speaking of climate without knowledge of Lamb is like discussing theater without knowing of Shakespeare.
Do some homework, Eric.
I am astounded by this query: “To you, who’s the climate equivalent of the guy standing with his hands down?” Really? Mr. Revkin doesn’t know who that might be or thinks somehow that it might be him or other AGW theory proponents?!? How does one possibly come to hold that view? (I am utterly shocked! And then to go on to somehow presume or infer that this allegorical observation regarding this individual and global warming skeptics must ergo include the accusation that AGW proponents are then to be construed as the equivalent of Nazis? Get out! You do not really think that, do you? I can only speak for myself but can honestly say that the thought never, ever, crossed my mind. It informs the debate to realize that both sides might envision themselves as the individual willing to publically state his minority opinion in the face of overwhelming counter-opinion though it’s difficult for me to appreciate that AGW theory could in any way shape or form be considered as anything other than the prevailing, world-wide majority opinion at this point in time – even though the strength of that opinion has indeed, and rightly so, been weakened recently).
There is only one answer that I can fathom – Mr. Revkin and others sharing his mindset are truly blinded by the “science.” They view the entire issue through a defining lens that says no matter what, at the end of the day the threat of anthropogenic carbon dioxide driven catastrophic global warming is a real and growing threat (let’s call it what they think it is, rather than use the obfuscating terms like climate change, climate disruption, climate weirding, etc.). The protagonists of the theory don’t seem to be at all open to the idea or to even be able to truly consider the possibility that they might be wrong, no matter how completely the underpinnings of their basis of belief seem to be (to me anyway) discredited (e.g. the Hockeystick). Wow. I had hoped we were dealing with rationale open-minded thinkers and could eventully win them over with logic and reason. Apparently not. There are more powerful psychologies at work. This is going to be tougher than I thought.
Eric Adler,
Try to pay attention. Hubert Lamb was referring to the past 6,000 years, not to the small fraction of a degree of [natural] warming since the mid-70’s; warming that took place mainly at night, in the higher latitudes, and in winter [and which may have already run its course].
There is no way that could cause the tree line to move 200 – 400 km in only three decades. If you’re going to argue the climate alarmist position, at least try to sound rational. And lost the quotation marks around the word skeptic. It makes you sound even more lunatic than usual.
RE: otsar says:
May 10, 2012 at 5:58 pm “….I was talking to my Mother on the phone the other day about those times. We both concluded the present situation has the smell and feel of the 1930′s.”
Well said. I wasn’t alive back then but do study history, and I have the same discomfort.
There is no relevance to this mob photo. Revkin is way off base. Let him compare his issue to a school dispute over M&M’s.
Why is Revkin relevant? He rationalizes his views as being central to cognizant thought about the issue of AGW, but his views rely upon only a small subset of oppositional thought. In other words, he digests 7/8 of his intellectual diet from the most aggressive pro AGW posts and disses the remaining posts from the 1/8.
Anthony,
I thank you for rebuking Heartland right off the bat for their billboard. I also thank you for being a voice urging moderation, while at the same time pressing relentlessly for the Truth.
It is very difficult to be both moderate and relentless. However it seems the only way.
Anthony Watts says:
May 10, 2012 at 5:14 pm
@ Ross Brisbane “I will NOT raise my arm to any mob mentality. It is good that we are both like that in many ways.”
I think that needs some clarification, I can read that both ways.
Replay:
I carefully considered your article you posted. Believe me Anthony, sometimes you DO DRAW a good line in the sand. You have done things and accepted things on this site that in hindsight you stated could have better been handled.
What I am trying to say: There comes a time whatever your opinion of Global Warming – you do not give into saluting any mob generated fever pitch taking place and opinion. This applies to both sides of this debate. Hat off to you.
Saw the title, cringed a little and made myself take a quick peek. I’ll sit this one out…too close for comfort for me… but I salute you for your guts and sensitivity, and commend you on your handling, Anthony. B’shalom.
Here’s a new term I like: “indignigentsia.”
And the rain falls on fascists and fools, as well as the wise, equally.
Why do they call us deniers? It is not to persuade anybody, ad-hom insults cannot do that. It is intended to promote hatred. It is intended to make it impossible for skeptic views to get balanced coverage in the media; the media does not give terrorists and criminals that opportunity. It is intended to shut down any discussion and shut out skeptics and call out the Brown Shirts.
The enforcement of the mob or group-think mentality is the key thing to see here, and the question of how did this happen in Germany in the thirties is a very good one. (Note that it was not just Germany, VIPs from the US and the UK and others were also believers.) This BBC article says that “Hitler […] was, a fanatic. One who made his views no secret, and yet won massive support from his fellow countrymen”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17923208
rossbrisbane says:
May 10, 2012 at 5:04 pm
I am a climate change supporter.
====================================================
Thanks, Ross, you gave me a good laugh on an otherwise depressing thread!
I’m glad to know you are a “supporter” of “climate change”….. so the more change the merrier, or what??
As for me I’m a big supporter of “climate” — I think it’s great that our planet earth has a climate, one that humans have lived in for tens of thousands of years. Whether to support or oppose any particular “climate change”….. well that would all depend upon the details, wouldn’t it??
When I first spoke out against the work of Climate Scientists, it was over a small matter. I felt Hansen had no business “adjusting” raw data, because I knew a bit about going out to look at a thermometer in bad weather, and admired the men who had done so for over a century. I knew that in the old days the thermometers were not close to the building, nor could they be read within the building via an underground connection. Men had to go out in rotten weather and take an hourly reading. (If some fudged the records a time or two, you can hardly blame them, and likely they made a good guess.) They likely squinted at a thermometer in lashing wind while holding a flashlight or even a lantern, and did a good job of guessing the reading to the nearest degree. There was no thought of getting a reading down to a tenth of a degree. The fact Hansen, years after the fact, decades after the fact, even more than a century after the fact, seemed to feel he could peer over the shoulders of these men and say, “Actually that thermometer doesn’t say thirty-three. It says thirty-two-point-one,” struck me as patently absurd. So I said so.
Wow! Was I ever surprised by the backlash I got! Before, when I stood up to authority, I was always accused of being a hippy, leftist, pinko and even a communist. Now I was suddenly even worse. I was a…..(oh, the shame)…..CONSERVATIVE!!!!
Well, I tell you, I’ve never been so offended in all my life! Them’s fightin’ words, in my book.
After all, all I have ever stood for is freedom. When they said I should go to school, I played hooky. When they forced me to sit in classrooms, I looked out the window. When the teacher closed the blinds, I found a way out, for I got sent to the principle. Conservative? Me?
I also was called a “denier,” but that is old hat, when you are an outlaw schoolboy. You see, when you are too much like Huckleberry Finn, the school sends you to a psychiatrist, and you learn all sorts of stuff about “denial.”
If you want to understand the roots of people who use the word “denier,” you need to go back and study psychology, especially the Freudian sort, employed in the 1950’s and 1960’s.
Fortunately they didn’t drug healthy, freedom-loving schoolboys, back then, and I got out of the experience with this awareness:
Psychologists are psuedoscientist non-doctors who call themselves doctors, but can’t make anyone better.
This helps you understand that Climate Scientists are pseudoscientific non-weathermen who call themselves weathermen, but can’t forecast.
Above all, keep your sense of humor. Read Winston Churchill’s speeches of the 1930’s. Rather than a “denier” he was called a “war-monger,” when he tried to warn people about H—-, but he responded to the insults with wit that can make you laugh, even 70 years later, despite the darkness of that time and those days.
bsk says: “…Now, go make more fun of Hansen’s complete lack of integrity and incredible bias – factually.”
Hansen’s behavior is not due to a lack of integrity. It is far more consistent with a belief that he is a sort of messiah, chosen to save the world from the dangers of CO2 and consumerism.
There is nothing wrong with being certain that you’re right.
It’s when you acquire the power to do something about it that the trouble starts.
It bothers me to see so much emotional involement in an exchange about “name calling”. I think we should ignore the name callers and their insults. Don’t stoop to their level. It is distracting and fails to advance a discussion of the issues between us; is there man-made climate change and if so is it significant and what are it’s causes and how do we correct them. I love reading the science on this site. Anthony has developed an amazing network of contributors.
“”””” Steve from Rockwood says:
May 10, 2012 at 1:53 pm
The man in the photo had courage that we can only pretend to understand. Comparing a person unwilling to yield to Nazi rule in 1936 to anything in climate science is insulting. Why people bring up Nazis and the Holocaust for anything – other than perhaps another holocaust – is beyond me. We just shouldn’t be blogging about it. Period. “””””
Steve, I am including your full post here ONLY to emphasize it. It is simply NOT ACCEPTABLE to use that era of inhumane horror, as an analog of ANYTHING ELSE, no matter what; and anyone who does so, should be roundly condemned.
That is also true of any special interest group seeking special treatment (in the USA at least) to present the American Black Slavery history, as an analog of their own disgruntlement.
I had a higher opinion of Andy Revkin, prior to this outrage. Now I simply have no respect for the man, or his views about ANYTHING.
coyote says:
May 10, 2012 at 2:48 pm
By the way, if making parallels to Holocaust Deniers is wrong and unproductive, then lets call the foul both ways. While I am sympathetic to many of his underlying points, Robert ZUrbin [sic] is wrong to use the Holocaust Denier charge against environmentalists and Malthusians: http://pjmedia.com/blog/the-new-holocaust-deniers/
Zubrin examines the policies inspired by “environmentalists” and Malthusians and the actual deaths and damage they caused — globally — in the past and continue to cause today on a scale that exceeds that of the Holocaust. For the most part, those of you on the Left either deny what’s being done or dismiss it as being irrelevant in light of the Grand Scheme of Things, so Zubrin’s use of the term, and he explained why he used it, is both valid and appropriate.
Your grade for this thread is:
English Comprehension — Fail;
World History — Fail;
Current Events — Fail;
Logic — Fail.
Well, I just posted this over at the good professor’s blog:
[snip. Repeated d-word violation. ~dbs, mod.]
As someone in the middle ground on this debate I find all name calling rather self-defeating. I like to visit blogs on “both sides” of the debate – something I recommend to everyone.
That tapped I find I just can’t read articles on DesmogBlog (or anywhere Mr Mooney operates) because of the endless use of “denier” and the overt political posturing there. The same for RealClimate (or anywhere Mann operates) or loads of other places. I also find Morano’s operation full of shouty articles laiden with name calling such as “alarmist” or even socialist – a real turn off.
I suppose a lot of this is based on the geography – i.e. the US. I don’t really have an opinion on Obama or a vote for or against him – I’ve generally given up on politicians and like 68% of my fellow UK citizens decided not to bother voting last week. From what I’ve seen of US politicians I probably wouldn’t bother there either, or in France or Greece or Spain – they are all useless, powerless and self-serving.
This debate should be about the climate and the science surrounding it and whether we can trust that science and what it might be telling us about the future – which is not a lot beyond the weather for the next week or so from what I’ve seen so far but I’m hoping things improve with open source science and skeptical outlooks.
As for you going to the HI conference it’s you choice. I find them an odd bunch from what I have read – simply a bunch of guys over-egging their own influence and importance, their kind exist on all sides of all fences the world over. Bishop Hill has published stuff via the GWPF, which IMHO means that his valuable points are lost in the never ending debate about them keeping their funders confidential. They have a right and a reason to do that, but it generates smoke and heat instead of light.
I predict the Desmogblogs of the world will start to post a shouty article about how you are linked financially to them for your (very valuable and worthwhile) climate stats project. I’ll ignore them and look forward to the project going live.
As for the author of the article linked maybe he should reconsider the idea that there might be a part 2.
Mr. REvkin should read, what Jim hansen wrote in 1999 about sceptics in science and learn from it. Than he will never use such an ugly comparison.
The choice of similes and metaphors made by a speaker or writer reveals at least as much, maybe more, about the intellectual environment of that person as it does about the situation under discussion. It is notable that the alarmist camp continually harps on about “deniers”, showing that, at a deep level, they regard disagreement with their own “holy truth” as positioning the “offenders” in the blackest, nastiest hole they can imagine, filled with seventy years’ obsession with evil.
Compare the usual similes used by those of us with a more open acceptance of the world. We refer to alarmists running around like Chicken Little, or refer to the Emperor’s New Clothes, or whatever … kids’ stuff. Yeah, Chicken Little and the Emperor were pretty stupid, but by referencng them we’re not claiming that alarmists are espousing nameless dark evils even though there is ample real-world evidence of the unpleasant global fascism motivating the AGW story. We (mostly) just laugh at the foolishness of those who wish to recreate science in their own image, and get on with discussing the (real) science. That’s a heck of a difference.
I think you’re right to attend. Tell HI they went too far, but let’s not get distracted by a bit of ill-advised bad taste – any more than we do when the warmist camp come out with it.
“I don’t view pro AGW people as “Nazi’s” and nobody should ascribe any such opinion to me.”
I understand what you are saying Anthony, but sometimes when I see guys like Prof. Mann, Peter Gleick, Joe Romm, and similar others behave the way they behave, my temptation is simply to say: if the shoe fits, wear it.
Stephen Wilde says:
May 10, 2012 at 2:02 pm (Edit)
———————————————-
As a consequence of my , many, debates with ordinary alarmists I have come to the conclusion that their stance is not based on any science per se , but rather on ” the ends justify the means”.
They believe that he consequences of reducing man made CO2 will be a cleaner, safer happier planet populated by lots of charismatic mega fauna. They are happy to accept that CO2 may be a BS story but cutting it out or back will lead to an environmental Nirvana.
I point out that anything built upon a fundamental lie can only result in ultimate failure. They don’t care much for that hypothesis.
Excellent post Anthony; it took concentration as it was complex. BTW I am keeping that photo, it is a gem.
[snip. D-word violation. ~dbs, mod.]
Good words, Willis. You speak for me and I’m sure for many of us here as well. Even if you had to use an inner city neologism…”angrifies” 🙂
climate change deniers like to say that using scientific ‘theories’ to explain climate change is not really ‘proof.’
The real problem for the Warmists is their preferred theory, known as the Forcings Model, doesn’t explain observed climate changes, despite increasing desperate and ad hoc attempts to make it do so; missing heat in the deep oceans, non-existent sulphate cooling, which I debunked in another thread today, +ve water vapor feedbacks when they are -ve, etc.
One thing that clearly differentiates Warmists from ‘climate deniers’, is the former have a generally poorer grasp of what science is and how it works than the latter.
The person who wrote the quote above clearly doesn’t understand what science is, and is merely parroting a garbled rehash of what they have been told but didn’t understand. What I call a Goreism, after the master of parroting garbled rehashes of things he didn’t understand.
Gary Hladik says:
Quote:
Joe Zarg says (May 10, 2012 at 2:53 pm): “I wish our site owner would not writhe in pain every time some idiot calls his opponent a ‘denier’, or at least realize that most of us could not care less about the ‘holocaust’, and stop peddling it here.”
As a habitual skeptic, I must doubt Joe’s claim until he presents hard evidence; so far the count is actually two (Anthony plus yours truly) to one against him. 🙂
Unquote
Look, some people eat, sleep and drink Holocaust. They have whatever reasons for doing that. The vast majority of us have other things to think about, the hard evidence being that most conversations with ordinary people do not veer off onto the subject ‘Holocaust’.
This is a climate blog, not a Holocasust remembrance site, and I am tired of seeing the pathetic, horrified knee-jerk repsonses of Watts and others to the word ‘denier’.
Now if you want to talk about a real Holocaust, talk about the bombing of German civilians by the Allies and their rape and murder by the Soviet armies.
But don’t do it here, since this a climate blog.
[Reply: Using the d-word is simply a Policy violation. Posts that use it as a pejorative will be snipped. ~dbs, mod.]
Old Grumpy says:May 10, 2012 at 9:21 pm
There is nothing wrong with being certain that you’re right.
It’s when you acquire the power to do something about it that the trouble starts.
True. It was the grandmothers and mothers <WHO SPOKE OUT in Argentina, because they did NOT have their children. An entirely different position to be in than those stating they do not wish their children or grandchildren to be [‘living to face the consequences of CAGW’]. And the American Association for the Advancement for Science supported a group of young Argentinians (many of the older scientists were either complicit or frightened) in the forensic work of identifying mass graves and bodies. cf Clyde Snow et al http://shr.aaas.org/about/history/
As wiki explains Disappearances work on two levels: not only do they silence opponents and critics who have disappeared, but they also create uncertainty and fear in the wider community, silencing others who would oppose and criticise. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desaparecidos
The pjmedia article (@Tuttle) and the Spectator are clear examples of silencing questions, silencing the public or commentators and the dreadful results had in the poor application of science.
Science or starvation http://www.spectator.co.uk/essays/7821543/science-or-starvation.thtml
At the end of the month, a group of protestors plan to descend upon a field in Hertfordshire and ‘decontaminate’ (i.e. destroy) a field of genetically modified wheat. The activists, from an organisation called Take the Flour Back, claim to be saving Britain from a deadly menace. In reality, they are threatening not only to undo decades of publicly funded research but destroy one of the best hopes we have of avoiding catastrophic famines.
Those opposing transgenic technology have been given an easy ride by the media for the past 20 years. …..
In Norwich, another group of scientists, at the John Innes Centre, is developing a strain of wheat that is resistant to a stem-rust fungus which is sweeping the Horn of Africa and into southwest Asia, and which could cause 200 million deaths if it reaches Punjab. The scientists would love to be able to test this wheat in the field — but, thanks to campaigns by the likes of Greenpeace, nearly all African governments have forbidden transgenic plants to cross their borders……………..
In Switzerland, a deeply humane and now extremely angry scientist called Ingo Potrykus, who in a sane world would be clutching a Nobel Prize, has devoted his life to the creation of a new variety of ‘golden rice’ that, unlike the natural variety, is rich in vitamin A. Deficiency in this vitamin is thought to cause 400 million cases of malnutrition, two million deaths and 500,000 cases of child blindness every year. Thanks to the success of anti-GM campaigns, the introduction of golden rice has been delayed by more than a decade.
Sorry, to be clearer …
The pjmedia article (@Tuttle) and the Spectator [article below] are clear examples of [how] silencing questions, silencing the public or commentators and the dreadful results had in the poor application of science.
Science or starvation http://www.spectator.co.uk/essays/7821543/science-or-starvation.thtml
When eugenics finally earned its place in the dustbin of history those academic and political progressives who strongly backed simply pretended they never did in the first place. We can see, from the perspective offered by history, that much of what eugenics believers claimed was progressive and scientific was merely ethno-centric and racist. As AGW moves towards its inevitable place in the dustbin, its true believers will go through the same editing of their official positions. This holocaust survivor has conflated things and either deliberately or by omission fibbed about the science and those who disagree with the AGW consensus. He is trading off of his experience to claim a moral ground the AGW movement has never had and never will have.
When one examines the other causes so many AGW true believers embrace, it is clear that they have no better motives than their social mania predecessors did.
It would be a mistake to throw Heartland under the bus. Alarmists have no shame, no regrets and no apologies (think 10:10) so a billboard was offensive to them?? So we quit??
Anthony,
I looks like there is a reasonable chance I will attend my first HI ICCC next week if some family business does not block attendence. It will be my first interaction with HI. I think the HI billboard use debate will make discussion at ICCC-7 have more valuable.
HI’s philosophically underpinnings are an area that I would like to look at during the conference as well as HI’s participation in Climate science discourse. I think HI political positions are of derivatory importance.
It is only after my discussions with HI at ICCC-7 will I do a final evaluation of HI’s billboard usage. I want their story from a face-to-face discussion. I am not currently negative about HI’s recent PR.
John
The purpose of linking “holocaust denial’ with ‘climate denial’ is to achieve several things.
First, is to force the accused to defend his motives, ethics, morality, anything but his facts.
Second, is to bring the accused into contact with the force of the taboo, to be shown, scrooge like, the ghosts of past and future, that will haunt him, in that world where he becomes beyond the pale.
To be subjected to such vituperation is simply a sign that your facts are real and your position is dangerous to the name caller.
@Mr. D.Imwit:
A better resolution photo (uncropped, or at least, less cropped) may be found at this link.
http://twentytwowords.com/2012/02/13/a-lone-dockworker-refuses-to-raise-his-hand-in-the-nazi-salute-1936/
Besides Mr Landmesser, (who was undoubtedly a man of considerable moral courage), I count 5 people who do not salute. 3 are in uniform 🙂 Many are hamming for the camera. One is ‘saluting’ while knocking down the cap of the man in front of him. I make no comment as to the veracity of the photo.
Sorry for the typos and the grammar flubs in my above comment. My flimsy excuse is the comment was done on my iPhone while in a car. : )
John
It seems to me that people who shout the loudest are the ones to loose out the most, the mere accusation of holocaust denier denotes perhaps there is something to hide and when some environmentalists degree the same accusation are they then too hiding. So why are these comparisons put together. If science or history were so conclusive there would be no need for such classroom mud slinging.
Oh, the irony, it hurts. Holocaust survivor Micha Tomkiewicz uses the same tactics as Joseph Goebbels in a pathetic attempt to prop up the endangered CAGW Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. And Revkin goes along with that? For shame.
Caleb says:
May 10, 2012 at 7:31 pm
RE: otsar says:
May 10, 2012 at 5:58 pm “….I was talking to my Mother on the phone the other day about those times. We both concluded the present situation has the smell and feel of the 1930′s.”
Well said. I wasn’t alive back then but do study history, and I have the same discomfort.
=========================================================================
If I remember correctly, Hitler was first ELECTED to office in 1933 with 33% of the vote. (I could have looked up the details but I don’t think that’s far off.) From that office, he kept grabbing more and more power until …. we know the rest. When he was running for office he preached that he was going to cleanse Germany of non-Aryan influence. Today, the “gospel” is to cleanse the Earth of Man’s influence. CAGW is just the leading bandwagon.
On another note:
“Denier”, why the objections to the label? It’s the implication that there is some irrefutable “truth” that is being intentionally ignored (for whatever motive they want to plug in). That’s why the “warmist” and their enabelers use it so much.
A reverse example of labeling.
Here in the US we have “Entitlement” programs. Those are programs where the government gives individuals money. Such things used to be called “Welfare”. The generation it was presented as “welare” to was a generation where The Contitution was still used in the classroom. it was an attempt to tie it into the preamble explaining the purpose of The Constitution, …to promote the general welfare…”, implying it was the governments job to hand out the cash. Later, welfare reform became ahot political issue. Around then they started to call them “entitlements”, implying they entitled to the handouts, it was was something owed to them.
“Denier” is a label used to imply those who don’t go along with the CAGW hype are denying the obvious.
Paul in Sweden says:
May 10, 2012 at 3:09 pm
Real or not, the policies implemented in the name of CAGW is literally killing people.
The law of unintended consequences. The Buddha taught that good and bad are always in balance. In trying to do good, we will also accomplish bad. It is inevitable. If you look at human history you will find this to be true. Everything has side effects. Newton said much the same: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Most people ignore this very simple teaching. They believe that action is one-sided, that if they intend to do good, only good will follow. Eating vegetables may be good at saving animals, but look at it from the vegetables point of view.
I believe a convincing argument can be made that the global warming cult and its chief theologians constitute a clear and present danger to modern civilization. It is the climate realists (i.e. skeptics) who should be applauded for exposing the fraudulent science underpinning the AGW theory. They are heroes in every sense of the word.
ferd berple says:
May 11, 2012 at 8:10 am
Eating vegetables may be good at saving animals, but look at it from the vegetables point of view.
======================================
Or just look at the dinosaurs. 😎
Nerd says:
I’ve never quite understood over left vs right thing. I tend to view totalitarianism vs personal freedom. Both Nazi and Communism are two totalitarianism yet liberals seem to be fixated on using Nazi on the other side as an example why “right wing people” are bad but “left wing people” also worship communism which killed far more people than Nazis ever did.
“Left” vs. “Right” is just a convenient way for the oligarchs to keep the rabble fighting each other so much that they can’t see what’s really happening. Seems to be working.
Do they teach any history in school these days?
Based on my daughter’s high school “social studies”, no.
Many people tend to exaggerate.
It seems especially common among those with a Marxist-based view of humans, which most CAGW activists have.
(They view humans as inherently untrustworthy, they fail to understand that rational actions are life-sustaining thus people will tend to use them, they ignore objective law and the justice system which work to stop those who initiate force against others. Environmentalist activists are so wrapped up in their negative view of humans that they refuse to appreciate the meaning of the abundant gardens, replanted forests, clean water, sewage disposal systems, and even the secure roof over their head. (Which on the central west coast is typically entirely made of harvested tree parts.) I think there is a deep psychological problem.
I disagree with “quidsapio” about Marxism – while their methods and self-serving desires are common to other ideologues, CAGW activists are particularly prone to Marxist economic beliefs. Consider David Suzuki’s public support of the Occupy Wall Street mob, for example, in which he blamed environmental ills on capitalists. In my experience most CAGW activists are environmental activists, most environmental activists believe Marxist economic presumptions and the “drive to the bottom” view of humans that in our society most commonly comes from Marxism.
I believe it important to identify the roots of thinking of CAGW activists, to help people understand where their error comes from. Of course the science is essential, but since CAGW activists deny real science that puts their theories in at least serious doubt, and even arrogantly refuse to debate the science, they effectively invite the question of why they take those approaches to the subject. I say it is faith, and that Marxism can only be accepted on faith because it is logically contradictory and has been disproven in reality. (Doesn’t even achieve the end used to justify its oppressive means: feed people.)
continued re the nature of CAGW alarmist…..
But some politically “right-wing” people also have a very negative view, some well known US preachers among them (claiming bad thing X is God’s punishment for sin). Same roots in history – Plato’s denial of the mind, just different branches (Saint Augustine versus Kant). (Trying to understand human use of concepts in thinking, Plato theorized that Aristotle’s answer was much better, it is the foundation of much human progress.)
Both types will use whatever subjects they can to advance their anti-human agenda. (Yes, there are sincere people who follow neo-Marxist notions but question the CAGW crowd, and some scientists who may support CAGW but want to science done properly (perhaps Judith Curry) but either they are in the minority or there is a silent majority.)
Since the CAGW types are so sure of catastrophe, any method of preventing it is moral in their view. Since their underlying ideology teaches emotions as a means of knowledge, some branches of it teach that words themselves are causal, and in general rejects the mind thus reasoning, they tend to use “over-the-top” rhetoric, and “try harder” instead of validating their position.
And logic doesn’t matter to them.
(It does not make sense to compare climate problems with targeted extermination of a particular ethnic group, which “The Holocaust” refers to in contrast with general use of the term. Actually, the National Socialist Party attempt to exterminate Jews in Germany seems to better fit the term “genocide”, as often seen in Africa when one tribe tries to wipe out another. CAGW people are concerned about the whole earth ecosystem, preferably without humans in it.)
At the same time, there are terms that people might switch with others. The term “facism” is IMO correct for the method CAGW proponents envision – control people under the guise of still allowing things like private ownership, different from “communism” which does not use such a pretense. (Time to reread Leonard Peikoff’s book “The Ominous Parallels: Nazism and Contemporary America”?)
And sadly, there are people who have survived tyranny but don’t grasp its underlying cause. Some of them are peaceniks – somehow thinking like Neville Chamberlain did with Hitler. They searched for answers, but like Plato chose a false one.
TRM says on May 10, 2012 at 4:27 pm, quoting a standard claim about mass murders by Nazis: “Maybe they deserved it.”
Anyone who uses that line should immediately be firmly challenged on their morality. It is a nonsense claim, but reveals an underlying morality of acceptability of murder of persons based on their religion or genetics or some other common attribute.
In my modest experience it is a standard neo-Marxist line, because they hate economically successful people, which Jews have a reputation of being. (They hate the US for the same reason.) Stalin’s starvation of Ukraine farmers is a general example of that and the control-freak mentality of suppressing any objection.
More recent versions of the line are the tribal genocides in Africa and the Islamic Totalitarian attacks on infidels.
majormike1 says: @ May 10, 2012 at 5:48 pm
It’s quite simple, really, If a certain type of tree once grew 100 meters above where they now grow, it was warmer then than now. If a certain type of tree once grew 200 to 400 kilometers north of where they grow now, it was warmer then than now. The evidence of the trees’ former habitat is easily determined by stumps and other woody artifacts, which then leads to the comparative ease of determining when they were there through carbon dating. If trees can no longer live somewhere because of changing conditions, they won’t, and have no choice in the matter.”
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Eric Adler says: @ May 10, 2012 at 6:39 pm
It’s not quite so simple. It takes a long time for tree habitat to develop. The increase in temperature that has taken place since 1975 is so rapid that the treeline has not had sufficient time to move.
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Are you kidding???? A tree line will move in a year or two. That is what seeds are for and that is why plants have developed very good seed dispersal methods.
Trees are not “Pioneer species” like lichens who literally break down stone to form soil. They move into territory already with developed soil and drive out “Pioneer species” by shading the area.
Steve from Rockwood says:
May 10, 2012 at 1:53 pm
The man in the photo had courage that we can only pretend to understand. Comparing a person unwilling to yield to Nazi rule in 1936 to anything in climate science is insulting. Why people bring up Nazis and the Holocaust for anything – other than perhaps another holocaust – is beyond me. We just shouldn’t be blogging about it. Period.
Right.
Keith Battye says: @ May 11, 2012 at 2:51 am
……They believe that he consequences of reducing man made CO2 will be a cleaner, safer happier planet populated by lots of charismatic mega fauna. They are happy to accept that CO2 may be a BS story but cutting it out or back will lead to an environmental Nirvana…..
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I call it the Bambi Syndrome. City types view animals as people inside furry suits. On occasion this leads to them receiving the Darwin Award.
Given the following:
1) tyrants and psychopaths tout AGW-like positions because they offer blanket justification for population and economic controls, wielded by themselves and their followers, not otherwise easily sold as moral;
2) AGW and Agenda 21 supporters brazenly tout the efficacy of using climate alarmism to leverage popular acquiescence to economic and rights and population rollbacks that would otherwise be totally unacceptable, and carefully position themselves to be the ones implementing said rollbacks
how would you communicate that parallel in strategy, tactics and motivation to the public — effectively?
The biggest problem with the Heartland Billboard is “guilt by association”. If the implication is that those who believe in CAGW are psycopathic terrorists because one psycopathic terrorist believes it, then the same could be said of Christians, Muslims, etc. due to the actions of a few in the name of God (Crusades, Inquisition, 9/11). Such a logical fallacy should have been really obvious to HI.
“Solidarity is therefore needed more than ever”
You don’t need that Anthony. Dumb mistakes are dumb mistakes and the pursuit of facts doesn’t rise or fall on that basis. If the Heartland conference is diminished by this boneheaded billboard it won’t change the science (or the weather) one whit. The scientific facts discussed at this conference should (and will) stand on their own.
The trouble with basing your decisions on “moral advantage” is that it presumes there is a moral compass on both sides and that it is attuned to the same “north”. I’ve seen no evidence of that.
So, for me, I found nothing really “wrong” with the Heartland billboard. It simply reflected at “them” the same behaviours they manifest.
Now, two things need to be made explicit.
1) There is a “moral asymmetry” exploited by “the left” (God I hate that term…) in that the “right” are held to a moral compass while the “left” are not. (Left and right being based on modern USA usage. They change dramatically over time and space so have no broad meaning, only having meaning in the context that “right” is anything the current “left” doesn’t like…) To give your opponent the advantage of defining what is to be vilified as being only “anything in which you believe”, is a greater error than to use that “moral flexibility” of theirs equally against them.
“Good for the goose, good for the gander” in essence.
2) I have a long standing philosophy of “Be the mirror. -E.M.Smith”. It developed out of dealing with bullies and worse as a teen. It basically holds that you can only communicate with someone at their level and in a language they understand. It has worked extraordinarily well for me over the years. If someone is a violent person, they understand violence. To respond to them with “Please stop hitting me, it isn’t nice.” just gets you hit more. ( I know this from extensive personal experience, so don’t even bother…) However, to respond “in kind” ends the attacks. ( I also know this from personal experience, so again, don’t even bother. BOTH are “existence proofs”.)
Now think about it. You are accepting that “attack ads” are just fine from “them”, but you can not respond “in kind”. This violates the “communicate in the language they understand” rule and it violates the “at the same level” rule. It is doomed to fail.
Appeal to “morals” only works if the other side values them. To allow them to not be held to a moral standard, while you are, is a fool’s errand. (Of interest is that this same ‘symmetry rule’ is codified in the Geneva Conventions, where they are applied to signatories but not to others; as inducement to agree to the terms… If you are fighting someone not bound by The Convention, you too are not bound… despite bleating about it.)
So while I strongly endorse the emotion of “we are better than that” and really don’t at all like the idea of a world that sinks to the lowest common denominator:
“Reality just is. -E.M.Smith”
and the best way to get an opponent to agree to polite rules of engagement is to assure them that if they are not bound, neither are you.
Through a great many unpleasant experiences (that will only be shared in person, with a good red wine in attendance) I have learned that such asymmetry, while noble and well intentioned, fails.
Yes. Fails. 100% of the time.
I don’t like it. But “Reality just is. -E.M.Smith”…
For those reasons, I find nothing really “bad” about the original Heartland billboard.
Frankly, were I faced with the phoney “moral outrage” of the opponents claiming it was somehow over the edge, I’d simply look at them and ask if they would like to retract the {long list of bad propaganda ops they have done} and unless they said yes, simply ask “What do you think about symmetry of the moral compass and level ethics for goose and gander?”
Again: I do not like a world such as that. I also don’t like that a lot of good Americans had to die in W.W.I and W.W.II for the stupidity of those European conflicts. But you do what you must and “liking things” does not matter. And “reality just is”, so get over it. Then set about trying to build a place more to your liking.
Or, to put it very curtly:
I knew symmetry, symmetry was a friend of mine; moral outrage at the Heartland billboard from “them”, sir, is no symmetry.
Per “deniers” and “the holocaust”:
My father landed on Utah Beach as a combat Engineer. My wife’s Dad went in as part of the 101st Airborne on “D Day” and liberated the concentration camps, then ended up in Bastogne . I listened to their first hand stories. My New Jersey Uncle (married to my Mom’s sister prior to D Day) was a Russian Jew who lost most of his liver to German shrapnel in W.W.II on his way to relieve Bastogne, then recovered despite being told he would die. To say “we have history” with the Holocaust is to understate dramatically. I find the comparisons of AGW skeptics to Holocaust denial incredibly offensive. Beyond words. So for me, this is not a ‘light’ issue.
And that is what brings me back to the “symmetry” issue.
Folks in the “Warmers” side want to leverage that “Moral outrage” and use it. That, alone, for ANY cause, is offensive. It denigrates the rather singular nature of that moment in history.
To look at those same AGW folks, and show them as acting rather like others who had a similarly broken moral compass (the Unibomber), and to do it in language THEY have chosen as the level they understand; that, to me, is simply to “be the mirror”…
“Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth” is pretty good advice… though generally I’ve found “two eyes for an eye” works better… and if someone takes a tooth, well, I figure “stopping when they can’t move any more” is a pretty good guideline.
Oddly, Israel has ended up at a similar conclusion, if their actions be observed…
I suppose an ever shorter form would be to point out that a “Gentleman’s Duel” requires gentlemen. Since those facts are not in evidence, “no holds barred” prevails. Having been on the wrong side of an asymmetric application of a moral compass (many times), I can assure you that it is a broken strategy.
“Be the mirror. -E.M.Smith” works much better.
Gail Combs says:
May 11, 2012 at 2:13 pm
@ Eric Adler, May 10, 2012 at 6:39 pm
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Are you kidding???? A tree line will move in a year or two. That is what seeds are for and that is why plants have developed very good seed dispersal methods.
And it’ll move a lot farther than just a hundred meters, too. I’ve seen a three acre fallow field almost completely filled with maple saplings within two years.
Never underestimate the assist that wind, birds, and rodents give to seed dispersal.
The operative word is “Denial,” not “Holocaust.”
The reaction to using the word “Holocaust” in the same paragraph that climate denier or climate denial appears always causes outrage and the assumption that climate change skeptics are being associated directly with Holocaust Deniers. But that is inaccurate and gets the point backwards.
“Denialism” is the point. Denialism describes methodology, logical fallacies, tactics, and political motivation. It is a description that applies equally to moon-landing denial, round-earth denial, Creationism, HIV denial, tobacco-causes-cancer denial, homeopathy, Holocaust Denial, 9/11 denial, and yes, AGW denial. It has nothing to do with the Holocaust and everything to do with “denialism.” Climate change “deniers” are no more associated with the Holocaust than they are with round-earth denial but “denier” is the operative descriptor for all of them.
“Climate change denial” arose as descriptor in exactly the same way that “9/11 Denier” arose: dismissal of inconvenient evidence contrary to a preconceived political worldview. That 9/11 deniers still exist and still repeat the same debunked claims, still deny physics, structural engineering, aeronautical engineering, chemistry – is denialism. It’s political.
The climate “debate” is political. It has less to do with science and everything to do with politics. It should be easy to see how “climate change denier” arose as a term, and how “denier” accurately describes those who deny inconvenient scientific evidence for political reasons. It should be easy to understand how “climate change” has always been in the political sphere (thanks to Al Gore) and how the politics shapes the “debate” rather than the science. Just look at some of the descriptors used by “skeptics” in the comments section:
“Warmists”, “Marxist”, “alarmist”, “climate-realist”, “totalitarian Malthusian Marxists”, “warmist scientists”, “warmist PR attack”, “corporate warmistas”, “Church of Global Warming movement”.
Now where did those terms come from? Do you actually know what led you to use them as factual?
As long as politics is conflated with the actual science and the importance in understanding the range of uncertainty and the consequences thereof, policy prescriptions will not happen. How are you going to get beyond the politics to dealing with the science?
http://brooklyn-cuny.campusreform.org/group/blog/college-professor-climate-change-genocide-will-be-worse-than-holocaust