Another case of “The ends justify the means”
Submitted by Eric Worrall
Rod Lamberts, director of the Australian National Centre for Public Awareness of Science at the Australian National University, claims facts won’t win the climate debate.
Source: https://theconversation.com/facts-wont-beat-the-climate-deniers-using-their-tactics-will-24074
Rod Lamberts starts by criticising Tim Flannery, former chief of the now abolished Australian Climate Commission, for recently suggesting
“An opinion is useless, what we need are more facts.”.
(Link from Rod Lambert’s article)
https://www.facebook.com/climatecouncil/posts/10151956752276603?stream_ref=10
Rod Lamberts then works his way up to the following passage:
“What we need now is to become comfortable with the idea that the ends will justify the means. We actually need more opinions, appearing more often and expressed more noisily than ever before.”
Tim Flannery once famously gave an opinion, on air, that Australian dams and river systems would never fill again. In the wake of severe flooding on the Australian East Coast, Flannery claimed he had been misquoted – a claim which Andrew Bolt refutes.
If you have no facts, you have nothing else but opinions.
Australia has a government that rejects the Warmista scare and is gradually dismantalling the state apparatus that propagates it. Hence the hysterical squeals of the Warmista pigs (those at the public trough)
My first thought was that my colleague was taking the piss.
I have no idea what that means.
“What we need now is to become comfortable with the idea that the ends will justify the means.
Consequentialism is a favorite refuge of despots throughout history. “It’s for their own good!”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_ends_justify_the_means
I didn’t know we skeptics had “tactics.” Hmmm . . . maybe posting a chart of actual data vs. model predictions is a tactic. Ain’t we slimy.
of course they can’t win it with facts…….
“taking the piss”…australian for “having someone on”, or “making a joke of them”, or “pulling your leg”
‘Opinions’ are the biggest weakness the alarmist movement has. It’s a primary reason people looking at the facts have lost trust. So this guy wants more opinions….. Genius!
Sorry folks, nothing to be alarmed about. Rod Lambert is just another phsychologist with some sort or relevence disorder a la Lewandowsky.
From his ANU bioblurb:-
“He has been providing science communication consultation and evaluation advice for than 15 years to organisations including UNESCO, the CSIRO, and to ANU science and research bodies. He also has a background in psychology and corporate communication consultancy and facilitation.
Rod’s professional and research interests include: science in society; science and public policy; perceptions of expertise in science; and risk and crisis perception/ communication.”
His quals are a BA(hons) (psych major I assume) at ANU, Post Grad Diploma ( U Canberra), Applied Psychology then a PhD at ANU. For non Aussies that is about as inside the beltway as it gets.
This is not a serious human being it seems but some sort of beltway bureauclone, an experimant in deconstructionism gone feral. Sadly he seems destined to be an object of utter ridicule like some crazy puppy farm cross breeding experiment gone horribly wrong. I feel for his parents. No sympathy for his clientele though, they are obviously fools.
How typical of the AGW crowd – why tell the truth when lies serve your corrupt, perverse purposes better?
I’m beginning to think we should focus as much on the lying, deception, mean-spiritedness, contempt for rights, sharp practices, unconcern for human well-being and greed of the alarmists, as much as on their message. Point out every example of falsehood, hypocrisy, personal attack, and money grab by these people we can muster. And point out specifically how the policies they advocate do harm, and hurt poor people first and worst – and attribute that harm directly to the individuals. For example, if someone proposes a carbon tax, make sure we say that what they are advocating kills people, describe in detail exactly how it does it, and provide the documentation to prove it.
What, they want to use our tactics? That’s great! That means they will validate their climate models and show the results!
“What we need now is to become comfortable with the idea that the ends will justify the means. We actually need more opinions, appearing more often and expressed more noisily than ever before.”
Oh, I misunderstood him. What he means is, every warmist will now have to choose between being honest or being efficient. Now that’s a whole new approach. (sarc)
Chris4692, that’s what I was going to say.
The call to abandon facts (which never were) comes at the stage when the facts are becoming most enlightening.
As it has been said before: “If you have the facts on your side, pound the facts. If you have the law on your side, pound the law. If you have neither on your side, pound the table.”
Why am I hearing the song “Give them ol Razzle Dazzle” from the musical Chicago?
“Give ’em the old flim flam flummox
Fool and fracture ’em,
How can they hear the truth above the roar?
Throw ’em a fake and a finagle
They’ll never know you’re just a bagel,
Razzle dazzle ’em
And they’ll beg you for more!”
AFAIK, the message is to stop believing facts and your own senses. To say the warming continues when their own records show no warming for 17.5 years, almost as long as it had warmed and cost us all those trillions. Yes, you could have a cold winter here in a warming world. But this winter, froze three Egyptians on a trek in the Sinai:
http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/94505/Egypt/Politics-/UPDATE–At-least-three-Egyptian-hikers-dead-after-.aspx
And the SH last winter in South America, millions of fish and other creatures died of cold.
http://www.iceagenow.com/6_million_dead_fish_floating_down_Bolivian_rivers.htm
And of course the “Ship of Fools” from Aussie National U (no wonder they want to forget the facts and go with opinions) got iced in and pelted by cold and blizzards last Antarctic summer on a expedition to chronicle global warming and ice loss. The leader was so humiliated worldwide that they gave him an award for his work!!
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/21/spiritofmawson-fiasco-leader-gets-award-for-excellence/
Rather than getting messages out to the populace, they should be lying low, particularly at ANU, where their antics have entertained the world.
It looks like every state and territory has now given the green/labor parties the boot in favour of liberal (Conservative) govn’ts. At federal, state and territory level with the exception to, surprise surprise, the ACT, Canberra (Could be considered the Washington DC of Australia). Tasmania was not a surprise result, that’s been on the cards for a while. Green/labor ecoloons have been destroying Tasmanian industry since the 80’s, with large thanks going to former Greens leader Bob Brown who refers to everyone as “…my fellow earthians…”, no more need be said.
To paraphrase the old law joke if the data goes against you pound on the science, of the science goes against you pound on the data and if they both go against you pound on the table.
Ok…couldn’t resist…
Give em the old, climate clap trap,
Shame and shatter em,
How can they see the truth behind the stick?
Don’t let them speak unless you sue em,
Don’t publish methods, they’ll see right thru em,
Razzle Dazzle em, use the hidden decline trick!
It looks like the broad is screaming BS and the poor guy is not listening. Been there, done that. I’m a guy if it needs to be noted.
Hippie girls are fun for the weekend!
What he is actually saying is, ” Our version of the facts,(which are of course, lies) will not defeat the Climate Deniers.” I suspect the truth will give him some problems too.
The problem with “consensus” climate science from the beginning is that it has been mostly opinions– i.e. speculation and conjecture– and not facts–i.e. solid data and verifiable hypotheses arrived at with scrupulous statistical methods.
Gary Pearse,
The Ship of Fools was from UNSW not ANU, though ANU is just as big a hot-bed of warmists.
DirkH,
I Agree, if they are using our tactics then they should debate, stick to the facts, avoid deferring to Authority, Ad-Homs and other tricks. Of course they should also be open to changing their mind, a tried and true sceptic tactic, and willing to consider the cons of so called “Climate Action”. Perhaps we should challenge him to a debate.
“What we need now is to become comfortable with the idea that the ends will justify the means.”
— Showing contempt for people who disagree with your position is not persuasive, but I guess you have to play the hand that you’re dealt.
@ Michael Palmer
Your last sentence should read , If you have neither on your side PUT pounds or $’s on the table.
Twitter = @Rodl Perhaps we will appreciate hearing your opinions.
They could try actually being open-minded and engaging in real debate rather than assuming their conclusions. You know, like real scientists do. Oh wait…
bobl says:
March 15, 2014 at 6:05 pm
“Gary Pearse,
The Ship of Fools was from UNSW not ANU, though ANU is just as big a hot-bed of warmists.”
I suppose I should apologize for the error. However, Aussie U’s have been prominent since the change of governments against the greens and I expect the climate drivel coming out in tonnage is part of the the last gasp psychology. Indeed, the political change is what launched the “Ship of Fools”. What are they going to do with probably more than a million climate scientists that have been pumped out of the world’s universities since the golden era of little resistance during the 1990s and into the Academy Award/Nobel/Royal Soc./etc prizes and awards that multiplied like rabbits during the 8 or 9 years of the new millennium until the fun was over with the advent of Climategate. I think the unpublished Climategate emails released a year ago but not published would be the coup de grace for the entrenched zealots. You can be sure they are writing more careful and fewer emails now.
“Facts won’t defeat the climate deniers – using their tactics will”
When when this fool finds someone who denies that planet has a variable climate he can use whatever tactic he likes.
If however, this propagandist twit Lamberts is referring to sceptics then he is on a hiding to nothing. After all the sceptics main tactic is to use facts to argue their case.
To quote Tim Flannery (2005), “when the models start confirming what you’re observing on the ground, then there’s some fairly strong basis for believing that we’re understanding what’s causing these weather shifts”.
What if not? We can’t expect Tim Flannery to know everything.
I can’t understand the mentality or logic of these academics. Psychology is what is called an pseudo science and relying on a person’s general education into human behavior. We had one that was as mad as a hatter. He reckoned dealing with children one told them they had demons they had to fight and get rid of. What? The kids would think they were possessed. Fair dinkum!
This university also had funds allocated to prove CO2 was causing climate changed and one so called scientist said he received death threats. Do you remember?
PS. We can’t control the weather, only the way we adapt to it.
Never looked at The conversation before – what a left wing Echo Chamber. Probably be a slow day today, while they cry into their Lattes about the landslide loss to the conservatives in hotbed leftist (no more) Tasmania.
Some more on Flannery – Aussie PM Tony Abbott talking about Tim Flannery’s Climate Commission, just before the recent Federal Election, which Abbott won.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/victoria-to-suffer-extreme-weather-warn-climate-scientists/story-e6frf7kx-1226611210510
Mr Abbott said if elected as prime minister on September 14 and given the opportunity to revoke the carbon tax a whole range of climate change bureaucracies would also be axed.
“I suspect we might find the particular position you refer to might go with them,” Mr Abbott told 2GB’s Ray Hadley when asked about Professor Flannery.
“It does sound like an unnecessary position given the gentlemen in question gives us the benefit of his views without needing taxpayer funding.”
Disgusting.
The part of his diatrabe that says it all to me is this: “Forget the Moncktonites, disregard the Boltists, and snub the Abbottsians. Ignore them, step around them, or walk over them. Drown them not just with sensible conversations, but with useful actions. Flood the airwaves and apply tactics advertisers have successfully used for years.”
Does he honestly believe “advertisers” are people we should admire and emulate?
What matters is the Truth, however Truth is something “advertisers” are notorious for stretching, which led to the legal phrase, “The Buyer beware,” which basically implies the buyer is responsible for making sure they are not sold a pig in a poke.
Global Warming is a pig in a poke. Increasingly the public is not buying it. Tod Lamberts is like a salesman seeing a sale slipping away, who resorts to desperation.
In the tale of the Garden of Eden, the snake was the “advertiser,” but Mr. Lamberts is dangerously close to sinking lower than a snake.
More real shame for my country. I think we should say sorry.
“What we need now is to become comfortable with the idea that the ends will justify the means.”
—
Mr. Lamberts is late to the party. Climate Gate emails show that the most prominent proponents of global warming have been comfortable with the idea that the ends justify the means for many years now. The “cause” always comes first to these people. That’s why they have no problem dressing up their opinions as science when the actual science shows no real cause for concern. And that’s why we call them “alarmists.”
Mr. Lamberts has also destroyed any credibility he may have had by admitting that he doesn’t care about the facts. He only cares about achieving certain ends by any means possible. And one of those means is to accuse the other side of cheating and then using that false accusation as an excuse for his side to cheat. How many atrocities have been committed in war time using the excuse that the other side is doing it too? You end up becoming the very person you hate.
The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.
. B. Russell.
“… Lamberts, director of the Australian National Centre for Public Awareness of Science at the Australian National University, claims facts won’t win the climate debate.”
Had to laugh at the unintended irony. No, that’s for sure, the facts as they’re presently constituted will certainly not win the climate debate.
“What we need now is to become comfortable with the idea that the ends will justify the means.”
>>
Says it all. When the plain truth is not enough you can count me out. What decent individual would even want to be part of such a group of wilful deceivers?
Here’s a wild bit of naivety: I only value truthful reporting especially if its with regard to ‘science’. This was true even before I encountered the word and study called ‘science’, as a kid, and it doesn’t adn won’t ever change because some warped ideologies pretend to be ‘scientist’s and believe deception and misrepresentations are a superb ‘stratagem’. Your intentions and foundations are rotten from the beginning, your reputation is the result. That was, and is, a recipe for failure.
Politicians often use such tactics, it’s why we despise them, but occasionally and very rarely one actually tells the plain truth – even if just for one brief moment:
” … When [Tony] Abbott arrived at a gathering of the Liberal faithful in Beaufort, it was clear he was exhausted. By the time he left, flush with the energy of farmers such as David “Rocky” George — whom he calls “practical environmentalists” — he had dismissed the science underpinning climate change as “crap”. … The Weekend Australian this week returned to Beaufort to talk to those who were with Abbott when he set his foot on the road to Damascus. Among them was Joe McCracken, the young vice-president of the Beaufort branch of the Liberal Party. “He did say crap; he did say I’m a sceptic and there was big applause,” McCracken says. …”
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/archive/politics/the-town-that-turned-up-the-temperature/story-e6frgczf-1225809567009
Remember this phrase: ” … I’M A SCEPTIC and there was BIG APPLAUSE …”
People hunger for the truth.
omg! this is awesome!
first, he admits:
” we are … being overwhelmed by climate skeptics/deniers/contrarians in the public space.”
this is great news! they have now acknowledged failure.
so what’s the recommendation?
throw a tantrum!
oh… cartoon selfies – too funneh!
I found the comments interesting. I only got part way through them, but they seemed to be devoid of skeptic comments or comments criticizing the article in any way. Wow look, consensus 🙂
What was that famous statement a year or two ago, something about communication over climate science between the team and sceptical persons kept running into trouble because the sceptics were obsessive about the science?
Hung up on the quality of the evidence?
This academic is too little too late , all he has accomplished is broadcasting his willingness to lie, shout and intimidate for the cause.
Problem coming his way, the counting the cost in loss of life in the developing nations and destruction of public wealth here in the ” developed” world, has only just begun.
Within 3 years the public attitude toward this episode go mass hysteria will be toxic.
Poverty has a nasty way of focussing the voters attention.
I will be spreading the joy.
On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. To do that we need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, means getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. – – – – Stephen H Schneider 1988
The alarmists always misquote Abbott. Abbott said “…the science behind climate change crap…” and as we all know, his quoute is 97% correct.
Isn’t that what has been happening for years? Computer models spewing out opinions.
As a matter of fact I have an opinion.
That it matters not whether alarmists use more facts or more opinions because they won’t publicly debate either one.
Their problem is they have an indefensible position. Not lack of things to say.
They are boiling over with frustration because they have been unable to make any progress using authoritative pronouncements.
They are stomping their feet in protest that people won’t stop challenging their decrees.
Many are aghast that they would be questioned at all and avoid public forums where that may occur.
And a little authenticity test quote is given below. Abbot said it on national TV a full 12 years ago while a member of the Howard Cabinet front bench, and long before he arose to opposition leader, or ran to become PM.
“I am, as you know, hugely unconvinced by the so-called settled science on climate change.” – Tony Abbot commenting on ABC’s 7.30 Report on July 22, 2002
And considering he aspired to be the PM, he was not lightly messing about when he said this on the political topic of ‘climate change’ 12 years ago. He was making an implicit considered publicly-stated policy judgement that it was the case, and that any govt he would be the PM in would reflect this.
i.e he clearly thought people would inevitably see through the climate-change tactics of mass-deception and that this choice at that time, rather than heaping up cheap-shots and derision for the deceivers, would bring him solid policy street-cred instead.
And they did see through the deceivers, and it did bring Abbot that street cred.
Look at what happened to Dr. Suzuki on Q&A in 2013. He was immediately slammed to the ground on the basic facts, which incredibly, he then claimed to not even know! It was not his area of expertise!
Yet somehow Toy Abbot had working it out on the facts even earlier than 2002. So it appears Abbot tracked the topic for many years, and ‘saw them coming’, much earlier than most, and realized how this was going to end, and simply applied that to his political calculation in the quest for the PM’s chair, and his long-range judgement of where this would go, about now, was absolutely spot on.
Disclaimer: As much as I despise all politicians and all political parties, I do appreciate a consummate professional who gets something like that so damned right, over a decade in advance of public opinion, sentiments and the lame public ‘debate’.
I keep getting emails from the conversation and they go to spam. I delete them.
Krudd Gillard of the Commondebt of Australia says:
March 15, 2014 at 7:20 pm
More real shame for my country. I think we should say sorry.
Krudd,
None of that, Mate. We’ve our own fine (ugh!) collection of arrogant and equally deceitful climate commandants here in the States. It’s a social disease… and nearly every country above the bronze age has ‘the fever’. Data, and the +17 years of no warming, are the particularly effective brand of penicillin to ‘cure’ these drippy Richards. Data and determination refutes their AGW claims and exposes the socialist agenda behind it. Drive the message home.
Bolt on the Roo bar, tighten up the belts… and drive the message home!
Mac
Damian says:
March 15, 2014 at 7:55 pm
Isn’t that what has been happening for years? Computer models spewing out opinions.
>>>
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” – H. L. Mencken
Facts? We ain’t got no Facts, I don’t have to show you no stinking facts!!! ;-))
The Nazi Party of Germany headed by Adolf Hitler won the debate January 30 1933 and then until Hitler committed suicide April 30 1945. Good riddance. This is the “blue print” the “life cycle” for AGW. Neither Gore, nor Hansen, nor Schmidt, nor Schindell, nor Jones nor Mann will ascend to the Holy Throne held by Hitler. Sig.
I am not surprised by this, since science taught in Australian schools is mixed with BS cultural values
“Warren Mundine: indigenous culture in maths nonsense”
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/policy/warren-mundine-indigenous-culture-in-maths-nonsense/story-fn9hm1pm-1226853056250
There are one and a half significant errors of fact set out in several of the above posts.
The first is that the Abbott Government is not committed to delivering a 5% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2020. It is. And it is allocating several billion dollars of taxpayer funds over the next two and a half years to achieving its objective. However, it would be reasonable to say that this Government, and its representatives, have said various totally conflicting things about climate science and about climate policy and programs. It has also behaved in a conflicting fashion, variously cutting some climate programs and boosting others.
For those interested in the language of science, I understand that scientists from our premier scientific organisation, CSIRO, have been instructed NOT to use the term ‘climate change’ but to use the term ‘climate variation’.
In any case, despite the confident observations noted above, there is no clear way, using just the facts, to work out what the Abbott Government really stands for and what it really intends to do. This may be in part because the Environment Minister is known to be personally extremely concerned about ocean acidification and the Prime Minister is known to be completely indifferent to it.
The half ‘fact’ rests on the outcome of the South Australian election. The election has been held but the outcome is uncertain. It looks as if two independents will hold the balance of power. If there is a conservative outcome in South Australia then conservative governments will rule coast to coast and federally in Australia for the first time ever.
Wall-to-wall blue will certainly reduce the rate of renewables uptake, increase fishing in marine parks, increase recreational shooting in national parks, increase felling of timber from former world heritage areas, increase clearing of native forests, decrease allocation of water to environmental stream flows and increase numbers of cattle in national parks. I imagine that these outcomes would be well-regarded by most WUWT posters.
I note that someone upstring mentioned a fish kill somewhere. For those interested in the pattern of fish population responses to changes in fresh water or salt water chemistry, precipitation and temperatures, there is a voluminous literature. There are some very large changes occurring. Some of these are beneficial, leading to an increase in fish resources. Others are not so good. All the changes are, of course, just the beginning. Picking just a single fish kill is picking just a single fish kill. I have just returned from studying a large fish kill caused by deoxygenation following a prolonged and unusual dry/hot spell in relation to a particular lake.
The ultimate fill factor was that a mass of pelicans drove a mass of fish into warm shallow water. The muddy sediment and rotting plants on the lake bed were roiled up, there was a warm night, and the water became too deoxygenated for the fish.
I can say that the pelicans, cormorants, herons and gulls are enjoying this fish kill, while the humans in the nearby tourist town were not enjoying the stench of mass death at all. There is a lively debate about whether the kill is a health hazard. IMHO, unless you pick up decaying fish and eat them, the answer is probably, ‘No’.
Of course, this incident, in and of intself, contributes very little to our understanding of climate change.
A little OT maybe but as the Formula 1 (F1) race is being held in Melbourne today, I was watching it on TV. A section of the coverage is talking about computer race car simulators (A bit like airplane simulators) and development, collecting data etc etc. I don’t know who the guy is, no name provided on the comentary, but here is most of what he said “…the most important thing is to gather the data so that you can correlate and validate your models…”. It’s clear why this guy is in the F1 race car development industry and not a “climate modeller”.
The “Frankfurt” School was begun by a bunch of Marxists in the 1920s. The official name was the Institute for Social Research.
They devoted themselves to understanding how political and social beliefs get formed, and get entrenched. They studied persuasion, itself.
Why?
To usher in the eventual Communist Revolution, they had to first understand society, then undermine it.
This is what they have done.
“PC” is their success.
This was not some lone-frontier enterprise.
Threatened by Hilter’s distrust of academics (in a way similar to lawyers when conducting voire dire), they relocated the Institute for Social Research to Columbia University.
So, yes, there have been and continue to be Marxists in U.S. academia, and this is no secret.
Soon after, many universities decided they needed to have similar institutes.
Now, Many have institutes to study opinions and voting patterns of the populace, as well as other related things.
Few are copy-cat names, since the original “Institute for Social Research” is known to be that school known as the “Frankfurt School,” which was obviously a heavily Marxist institute. Check Wikipedia to review this – Wikipedia may distort the AGW story, but they simply cannot hide the Marxist roots in academia. too many people know.
Many schools instead have some academic center with a similar name, such as “Institute for Social Science Research.”
Here is the game: the end game – the eventual communist revolution – is needed, and prevailing society stands in the way.
To overturn society, the foundations have to be identified and weakened.
So, they study how opinions are formed, how to persuade people on issues, how to build new oppressed/aggrieved groups, and how people develop their views of reality such as views regarding natural science.
Like a drug short-circuits the human physiology, they have no problem using the apparatus and phenomena of society to short-circuit it.
My grade-school kids come home with this Marxist propaganda about how I should eat, or about the world getting polluted, and so on.
The current crop of high school grads has had this all of their lives. It is propaganda and programming.
I have a difficult time teaching proper science and skepticism to grad students.
These Marxists, intent on ushering in their revolution, inherently know to go for the emotions, not the genuine evidence.
There is an American comedian named Bill Engvall. In 1997 he produced a record of one of his routines: “Here’s your sign.” It started: “Stupid people should have to wear signs that just say, I’m Stupid.”
Look it up. It is very funny.
Rod Lamberts should have one of these signs, with an addition.
Rod, here’s your sign:
I’m stupid.
I just make stuff up.
Climateace….weep on, the noise you and your chums make is music to our ears.
As I said it at the time, the fatal alliance between Labor and Green has rendered both of them un electable for a generation. So any actual harm done to the environment during this period is directly attributable to the elevation of a synthetic crisis; CAGW, to the top of the political agenda by your leaders. They thought the Australian people would fall for the con and hand them power…they were wrong…so every dead fish and felled majestic tree…?
Well, you’ve nobody to blame but yourselves.
climateace: I imagine that these outcomes would be well-regarded by most WUWT posters.
I wouldn’t jump to imaginary conclusions, friend.
Read through the replies at The Conversation. “Deniers” are bullies, ideologues, misinformers, and cranks.
One guy says, “We’ve been ignoring “the deniers” for 50 years ourselves, along with many others including this current crop of hysterics.” Global warming has been preached about since 1964? I thought it was pretty much proven at this site that there was an ice age scare in the 70’s.
Another says, “Let’s not forget that opponents of AGW trot out their own set of “facts” ad nauseam, so why are they apparently winning the battle? Media assistance, ignorance, apathy, distortion and ideology all help directly and indirectly to confuse the debate.” Media assistance?! Where?? Not in the US. Are the media in Australia skeptics? All of that, except the apathy, sounds like what we have with the warmists in the US.
Another guy says, “Of course abandoning the current growth-obsessed economy DOESN’T mean moving back to the caves – very far from it – but it certainly does mean fewer silly toys and indulgences. (He posted this from a computer or some electronic indulgence over the Internet, another indulgence, ha.) I think the key first step is to come to terms with the fact that we are in a situation that is basically a war in which direct violence has not – yet – been applied on any serious scale. But the fight is every bit as serious and brutal.”
Direct violence has not – yet – been applied. Yet? Nice.
Rod Lamberts asks for more opinion and he gets it. From the comments under his call to combat:
Heh. Lamberts must be depressed about some of the comrades.
And then he gets a fact instead of an opinion:
“climateace says:
March 15, 2014 at 9:12 pm
The half ‘fact’ rests on the outcome of the South Australian election. The election has been held but the outcome is uncertain. It looks as if two independents will hold the balance of power. If there is a conservative outcome in South Australia then conservative governments will rule coast to coast and federally in Australia for the first time ever.”
I think you will find the ACT govn’t is Labor and will remain so regardless of the outcome in SA. Abbott sold federal voters some policies, axing the price on carbon for one, and the voters liked what they were sold. Voters in Tasmania were sold policies and they voted in favour of the LNP. You do seem to have a problem with democracy. Look forward to more positive policies once the Senate is changed in July.
I don’t know how Rod Lambert got his credentials in science, but in science neither opinions nor facts nor opinion and facts mean much without a theory. We can accept a tree is a tree without much in the way of opinion or theory. We can talk about trees. But if we mean by “forest” something more than “many trees” we need a theory, a legal theory of the bounds of the forest, an ecological theory of the connectedness of organisms of the forest, a light spectrum theory for defining the forest in a set of satellite image bands. Otherwise, we have only “many trees”, not a “forest”.
How you interpret your facts about many trees won’t give you the forest within the framework of legal, biological or physical theories. The theories are what give the facts their relevance. Wrong theory, wrong everything that follows.
When Vladimir Koppen and Rudolf Geiger developed the Koppen-Geiger climate classification system, they had to have a definition of climate which they determined experimentally as did the later Trewartha scheme. Koppen’s son-in-law was famous for his theory of mobile continents, but he was a climatologist and published a study of paleo-climate used later to support the Mllankovitch theory of multi-millennium climate change as the cause of the ice ages.
His paleoclimatology was better accepted than his theory of moving continents, because he had no theory, only the fact of symmetry across the gaps left by spreading of the Earth’s crust. The geophysicists rejected the facts because they had no theory, except the erroneous age of the Earth computed by Kelvin.
Until at least 1960 climate cycles shorter than the Milankovitch cycles were matters of opinion without much theory and few facts. Goerge Kulka was one of the few who had used data that was potentially capable of revealing short-term climate variations. He studied layers of dust deposited in central Europe as loess. But George Kulka and Stephen Schneider were both wrong in their theories about the imminent onset of a major cold period. Schneider later claimed that his calculations were wrong because the data was not adequate.
In hindsight, we can see that the facts gave the wrong answer because they were interpreted within the framework of theories that were inadequate: Kelvin used Newton’s theories about the rate of cooling of the Earth, Kukla invoked Milankovitch cycles to explain short-term cooling.
Schneider invoked aerosols, claiming they were overwhelming the warming effect of greenhouse gases and indeed. He believed his aerosol data was more adequate than it was. In The Dance of Air and Sea, Arnold H. Taylor claims that Schneider was correct because several medium-size volcanoes had pumped aerosols into the atmosphere.
Arnold Taylor gives us the key to the issue raised by Rod Lambert. Why are the facts not important?
Well as we have seen, the facts have to be interpreted within the context of a theory. And as we see from Arnold Taylor’s statement, facts can always be found to support a theory. Freudian psychology and Marxian economics worked because the theory was capable of surviving whatever the fact situation. Until Mendelian genetics was rediscovered. Darwin had chosen Lamarck’s theory of genome change. Right facts, wrong theory.
Catastrophic global warming as a religion will lose its political force if we have another ten years of pause or even a little cooling. However, the science of AGW will remain with us until the theory (read “models”) points shows that benefits of CO2 in the atmosphere outweigh the costs of AGW or that the feedback in the climate system balance the warming effect, or that the warming itself is not catastrophic.
The facts do not have to change. What has to change is the context within which the facts are interpreted. Possibly Rod Lambert intended the word “opinion” to stand in for “theory”. If so, he was being coy, and coyness is no crime except when you couple that with the statement that the “end justifies the means” and the end was to avoid underlining the fact that catastrophic anthropocentric global warming is a theory, and for some a religion.
I really don’t think that what Tim Flannery has given us can be categorised as facts. An awful lot of dud, crap, just-plain-wrong predictions maybe but really, truly, useful, dispassionate scientific data on which to form a properly considered opinion???? Go on-pull the other leg. He and his mate, Robin Williams of “our” ABC are truly a waste of space.
[charles nelson says:
March 15, 2014 at 9:55 pm
Climateace….weep on, the noise you and your chums make is music to our ears.
As I said it at the time, the fatal alliance between Labor and Green has rendered both of them un electable for a generation. So any actual harm done to the environment during this period is directly attributable to the elevation of a synthetic crisis; CAGW, to the top of the political agenda by your leaders. They thought the Australian people would fall for the con and hand them power…they were wrong…so every dead fish and felled majestic tree…?
Well, you’ve nobody to blame but yourselves.]
I don’t weep. I observe. I am particularly interested in observing biosphere responses to climate ‘variations’ as the CSIRO scientists have been instructed to call ‘climate changes’. I used to think that biosphere responses to AGW would occur several generations down the track and that I would miss out on seeing it begin. I was wrong. The changes are globally evident now across thousands of species.
It does rather concern me that everyone is looking around for catastrophes already. It is far too soon, really. The best food is cooked slowly.
IMHO, those Australians who prefer that no effective action be taken on CO2 emissions have won hands down. Congratulations to people such as yourself, Anthony, Willis, Lord Moncton et al. 400ppm and rising, rising, rising. It is just as well you guys are right, Right?
In terms of the political issues you raise with the Greens and Labor, I think we would be in general agreement.
My view is that the Trotskyites have infiltrated the Greens with a view to using them as a front organisation, and that the Greens will therefore go the way of all extreme left parties in Australian history, that is to say, they will disappear as an effective political force. The Australian electorate, rightly so in my view, is just not interested. I agree with you that Labor is mad to have anything to do with the Greens at all. But that, IMHO, is the least of Labor’s worries. As a Party it seems to lack any drive towards a core or coherent set of values and policies. IMHO, these will not appear by magic and I see very little evidence of Party reform.
This leaves us with…
Australia, by way of the Abbott Government and a melange of conservative state governments, is about to engage in a pure neoliberal policy and program political, social and environmental experiment.
Neoliberalism is based, inter alia, on two assumptions: that the environment is an infinite source and that the environment is an infinite sump.
Good luck with that, I say.
Neoliberalism is also based on the assumption that, in a functioning democracy, there will be more winners than losers in a pure neoliberal economy. This equation is very simple. If there are more winners then the neoliberals will continue to be re-elected. OTOH, if there are more losers than winners then the neoliberals will lose elections.
Will there be more winners than losers?
The three basic neoliberal assumptions will all be tested thoroughly in Australia over the next decade or so.
The ride should be interesting.
PaulH,
Taking the piss means being sarcastic, mocking by exaggerating another’s view.
Wikipedia:
The term sometimes refers to a form of mockery in which the mocker exaggerates the other person’s characteristics; pretending to take on his or her attitudes, etc., in order to make them look funny. Or it may be used to refer to a ruse where a person is led to believe something is true that is not (usually a fairly unbelievable story) for the purpose of ridicule of the subject.
The phrase is in common usage throughout British society, employed by headline writers in broadsheet gazettes[2] and tabloids[3] as well as colloquially. It is also used in English speaking countries such as Australia.[4][5]
In colloquial usage, “taking the piss” is also used to refer to someone or something that makes a claim which is not in line with a recognized agreement e.g. an invoice that is double the quoted price with no explanation for the added charge could be said to “take the piss”, or likewise if something consistently misses a deadline.
[ Patrick says:
March 15, 2014 at 10:28 pm
“climateace says:
March 15, 2014 at 9:12 pm
The half ‘fact’ rests on the outcome of the South Australian election. The election has been held but the outcome is uncertain. It looks as if two independents will hold the balance of power. If there is a conservative outcome in South Australia then conservative governments will rule coast to coast and federally in Australia for the first time ever.”
I think you will find the ACT govn’t is Labor and will remain so regardless of the outcome in SA. Abbott sold federal voters some policies, axing the price on carbon for one, and the voters liked what they were sold. Voters in Tasmania were sold policies and they voted in favour of the LNP. You do seem to have a problem with democracy. Look forward to more positive policies once the Senate is changed in July.]
I am a passionate supporter of democracy – always have been and always will be.
I do think that the quality of our democracy is being eroded in many ways, but that is a whole other discussion.
IMHO, the voters in Australia have spoken decisively at all levels, delivering virtually wall-to-wall blue. I listed the actual and probably environmental consequences above, so will not repeat them.
The reason I did not ‘count’ the ACT Government (popn roughly 300,000) is that it is essentially a jumped-up town council masquerading as a state government. My prediction is that, with roughly a third of its budget depending on land sales, and with land sales about to plummet consequent to massive staff cuts in the public service, and already carrying a large debt, the ACT Government will disappear in a puff of smoke in the next elections. Without being partisan about it, the only reasonable constraint on this prediction is that the conservative opposition in the ACT is close to being the most pathetic opposition in Australian history. I wish they would get themselves some quality candidates. They are utterly incapable of either holding the current bunch to account or of presenting as a credible alternative government.
In my experience ‘taking the piss’ in Australia always means something very like ‘taking the Mickey’ and that any other possible meanings have died out of common usage.
Personal abuse alert, Anthony:
Ursus Augustus says:
March 15, 2014 at 5:31 pm
Chad Wozniak, you are advocating we all become engaged in the ideological war, which is behind the Warmistas. Well, certainly, many of us readers here do, but WUWT is good because it rises above that warfare and provides a factually based site.
I think we all share the cause for scientific integrity here.
This has become very much an Aussie thread. Good to you Diggers!
Tim Flannery had some time at my university (before I was there) on a dig. One of his articles about the death of megafauna put up a good reason why they might have died, using elephant deaths in Africa. It was recommended reading by us students.
The waterholes but a few dried up, and the elephants stayed around rather than moving on.
The ate themselves out. Starved and he compared this to the deaths of megafauna. Decades later he changed his tactic, blaming the Aborigines, yet no skeletal evidence found around a water hole had any weapons in the bodies, that were still whole. His theory has been dismissed now. Drought no doubt caused them to stay around a water hole, and they were dependent on trees to eat, not grass. They were browsers not grazers. And like elephants they had long gestation periods.
Frederick Colbourne
I agree. The ‘proof’ of choosing, marshalling and applying facts is, and will be, in the climate pudding.
PaulH and Holts7
Actually, “taking the piss” I’m proud to say is a British expression that I knew well before relocating to Australia in 1969, where it is also popular. Here is an extract from Wikipedia which is a useful resource for solving some American figures of speech:
bushbunny
Theories for the extinction of Autralian megafauna abound and the issue is hotly contest, mainly, IMHO, because there are few facts to work with.
Comparing Australian megafauna behaviour with elephant behaviour at a drying waterhole may have low validity. Elephants have, ahem, elephant memories and are capable of travelling huge distances to get from one water source to another.
I’m watching the first formula 1 season race in Melbourne. Eco-political pressure has led to the mandating of profound technology change in the engine with high turbo and partial electrical power.
The result is a fiasco. The sound of the cars is unrecognisable – the trademark exciting high pitched scream of engines is replaced with a low gravelly sound like that of a column of tanks driving through deep mud.
And actual racing is replaced by most teams nervously nursing tge cars round the track. Several technical retirements already including Hamilton and Vettel.
Eco-political correctness is killing F1.
I’m watching the first formula 1 season race in Melbourne. Eco-political pressure has led to the mandating of profound technology change in the engine with high turbo and partial electrical power.
The result is a fiasco. The sound of the cars is unrecognisable – the trademark exciting high pitched scream of engines is replaced with a low gravelly sound like that of a column of tanks driving through deep mud.
And actual racing is replaced by most teams nervously nursing tge cars round the track. Several technical retirements already including Hamilton and Vettel.
Eco-political correctness is killing F1.
Oh dear, what a sham. It’s not as if FI are driving along roads all the time. The sponsors will complain as well as the public.
More tantrums? Ok. Most parents (but perhaps not the parents of these brats) know how to deal with tantrums. You let them rip. If you are lucky, they pass out or throw up. If you are really lucky, they do both at the same time, and when they recover you avoid cleaning up the mess for as long as possible so the embarrassment really sinks in.
Yeah I agree, but just put them in a room on their own, and let them carry on without an audience.
Works all the time. The thing is there are so many sucking their thumbs converts, they still have a sizeable audience. Including us.
Robert of Ottawa says:
March 15, 2014 at 11:19 pm
Not disagreeing with you about the scientific qualities of WUWT but I don’t think you are contradicting much Chad Wozniak’s thoughts on “factually based” focus on political alarmists:
It’s a very fine line, isn’t it?
Classic propaganda theory: “Sling enough poop on the wall and some of it will stick. He who slings the most poop wins the contest.”
Unfortunately for the “true believers” in this case, all the King’s horses and all the King’s men cannot generate enough poop to cover up the monstrous truth that the future they predicted has now arrived… and it is nothing like they promised.
So ironic!
We, the challengers of their “science”, plead for them to produce meaningful and useful facts (real science), and not opinions. This guy argues that they need to present more opinions and even less facts.
Rod Lambert seems completely unaware of the principles of scientific process, and how to deal sensibly with scientific debate. Basically he seems lost in the fog that they have created by commencing with a hypothesis that cannot be proven and where truth and science have become casualties of their zeal for a lost cause.
If the University deems his expertise, attitude and methods are acceptable, they too must be prostitutes to political agenda. No science here!
this is what flannery said about the lack of water in 2007 (before we switched to lanina domination and the compulsory flooding)-
http://www.science.org.au/nova/newscientist/105ns_001.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2006/s1844398.htm
he talks specifically about sydney dam levels there.
look at the difference between 2007 and now-
http://www.iliveinsydney.com/water/damstats.php
hahaha! flannery is just like al gore, whatever he says and whenever he says it, the short term trends reverse. you need cooling, you call in al gore, you need rain, you call flannery.
Hilarity ensues in The Conversation’s comment section:
One Chris O’Neill, a self-described “Victim of Tony Abbotts Great Big New Tax” is turning into a “Victim of Ben Douglas’ Skeptical Invasion”.
He’s so distraught by Ben’s references to trivial facts known to all WUWT regulars that he started correcting himself by responding to his own comments.
Sometimes, I cringe to be an Australian … the sane World must think that we are a mob of rabid dogs of the Left.
Streetcred says:
March 16, 2014 at 12:23 am
Don’t exaggerate, Aussie. Our packs of rabid leftist dogs make yours look like cute tail-wagging puppies.
March 15, 2014 at 10:26 pm |Colorado Wellington says:
Those weak, mealy mouthed, socialist academics would not have the courage to have their beliefs examined here in ‘realtime’. Apart from the odd ignorant one, I doubt you’d see any of them because the responses would stand here against them for all time.
Specially loved the comment at TC about not using direct violence “yet” … by those 8ss-wipes ? LOL, we’re more likely to die laughing at them.
The only fact he has: All the models show significant warming for the future.
Rod Lamberts then works his way up to the following passage:
“What we need now is to become comfortable with the idea that the ends will justify the means. We actually need more opinions, appearing more often and expressed more noisily than ever before.”
DirkH: “Oh, I misunderstood him. What he means is, every warmist will now have to choose between being honest or being efficient. Now that’s a whole new approach. (sarc)”
Yes, it looks like “communication” guru Lamberts has missed the boat on that tactic. It’s what climate scientists have been doing for at least the last quarter century!!
Peter Gleick was probably the most flagrantly criminal case but climategate showed plenty of nobel [sic] cause corruption, where anything goes.
I like the photo caption: ” Facts not enough, The climate message is still not getting through.”
Indeed, the number of facts that they have at their dispose does seem to be problem.
“climateace says:
March 15, 2014 at 11:11 pm”
Gillard, Rudd, the independents and Brown were credible? Don’t make me laugh! They are all cut from the same cloth as Lamberts. We won’t get to see the truth for another 30 years! As far as I see it, there are no credible politicians in Australia worth voting for and haven’t been for a long long time. The ALP/Greens/Indi’s over the last 7 years has proven to Australians (The voting swing should be an indicator) and the world that Australian politics has been reduced to nothing more than a beach side pantomime show! Mind you, what’s worce are the voters themselves. As with many things in life there are tests and licenses required to operate, driving for instance. There should be a voter apptitude test too IMO.
Abbott is right on his statement that the “science” behind (man-made) climate change is fully correct. In other words, crap! His “Environment Minister” failed the moment he quoted Wikipedia on an environmental issue. How he can be extremely worried about ocean acidification is beyond reason given there is no reliable, oceaniwde, way to measure that, only alarmist rubbish! I can assume he used Wikipedia, again, for his “science”. Or maybe he went to SkS?
With regards to fish and climate change. I am not priviy to Australian data but I am to data in New Zealand, via NIWA. And their “fush” database was as crooked as the temperature database out of the UEA CRU.
Unquestioning belief in an all-powerful life-force?
A list of “commandments” to guide mankind lest the flock run astray? Regular sacrifices to appease said life-force? A mission to convert others to these guiding beliefs? Nope, greenism isn’t a religion at all. I can’t see how anyone would see it as such. (/sarc)
I will say, though: for being the most atheistic city in the country, the populace of Seattle seems very devout and holier than thou. 😉
Here’s a direct quote I lifted today from the website of the Liberal Party of Australia – our current Government.
“Cleaning up our own environment
“We will take direct action to reduce carbon emissions – and establish a 15,000-strong Green Army charged with the clean-up and conservation of our environment – so that we can all enjoy a cleaner environment and a more sustainable future without the impost of the carbon tax which is causing real economic damage to our economy and affecting the living standards of Australian families.
“Reducing carbon emissions inside Australia, not overseas
“We will take direct action to reduce carbon emissions in a practical, affordable way inside Australia, not overseas. We remain committed to a five per cent reduction in emissions by 2020.
“We will establish an Emissions Reduction Fund of $3 billion to allocate money in response to emission reduction tenders to projects designed to reduce carbon emissions.
“All money spent will be on Australian green projects, not foreign carbon credits, keeping more jobs in Australia.
“We will support projects such as the exploration of soil carbon technologies and abatement, putting carbon back in soils and providing for a once in a generation replenishment of our farmlands.”
They have removed the Carbon Tax and Tim Flannery, but you still have to watch the pea. It’s my belief that Australia will retain some form of anti-carbon regime until the U.S.A. finally concedes that C.A.G.W. and ‘carbon pollution’ are unsupported by decent science. An accurate pictorial representation of our foreign policy would be a kangaroo with its head in the rectal orifice of a bald eagle. We aren’t about to cross Uncle Sam.
And for Unmentionable: people don’t want the truth. They want confirmation of their prejudices, which they will happily proclaim to be the truth. Those who actually do want the truth, whatever it may be, constitute a very small minority of the populace. Obviously, most of this elite group frequent WUWT.
He’s not the first.
A treat for those who have read this far down the page.
Edzard Ernst: “In Praise of the Data-Free Discussion”:
http://www.dcscience.net/?page_id=13
They are of course factually correct when they say they can’t win the argument with facts. That’s why they don’t use them! We on the other hand….
“Sceptical lefty says:
March 16, 2014 at 1:09 am”
And most likely due to the fact that Turnbull is a strong supporter of a tax on “carbon” or an ETS. Either way it is a way to make money, literally, out of nothing. Turnbull is likely, IMO, to be the next PM, ousting Abbott. Turnbull is in the “pay” of banks, being an ex-banker himself and thus about as trustworthy as a rattlesnake in a luckydip!
I did e-mail the main LNP site about the distiction between carbon and carbon dioxide. I never got a reply! So they have lost my vote.
climate deniers…..sure facts will not change the mind of people who deyny there is a climate.
AGW deniers ???
The photo looks like it might have come from the Oreskes household!
I do not think advertising techniques have that much power. In advertising an all pervasive background frame is always present, that is, someone is trying to sell you stuff for money to make profit for themselves. Hopefully you are also supposed to get value in exchange for your money, but that’s contingent on your ability to control your own urges, rationally analyse propositions embedded in ads and actively look for alternative sources of information. That’s okay in commerce, but it is a true disaster for “climate communications”.
For there are questions which you have a clear cut answer to from the beginning in a commercial transaction, but fail to be made explicit in climate communications miserably.
1. Who is trying to sell you stuff?
2. What is it they are trying to sell you?
3. At what price?
4. How are they going to make profit on it for themselves?
5. What is the “value” you are supposed to get in exchange for your money?
6. What hidden propositions are embedded in the message?
7. What alternative sources of information are available?
Those are tough questions and with the last one asked loudly we are right back to square one.
Canberra is known as the Socialist Democratic state of Canberra in Australia.
Populated by bureaucrats, some of whom do a mighty job.
This is just plain and simple attempting to trigger a mass scare. It is a technique that publicists have copied from the mass scare of eugenics. The scare was triggered by an unknowm psychologist, when they were given kudos for education.
The problem with shouting louder about their opinions is that they are easily shot down by the facts and observations. Sometimes their ‘facts’ are not facts but opinion which are also shot down by facts and observations.
Gavin Atkins – 2011
Asian Correspondent
“What happened to the climate refugees?”
“In 2005, the United Nations Environment Programme predicted that climate change would create 50 million climate refugees by 2010……..However, a very cursory look at the first available evidence seems to show that the places identified by the UNEP as most at risk of having climate refugees are not only not losing people, they are actually among the fastest growing regions in the world.”
There are simply too many opinions to list here. This is their problem, time and observations shoots down opinions.
“What we need now is to become comfortable with the idea that the ends will justify the means. We actually need more opinions, appearing more often and expressed more noisily than ever before.”
To say that the ends justify the means has been considered pure evil for thousands of years. It is evil. To publicly say such a thing is beyond belief. Rod Lamberts has committed aggression against both truth and morality. May Karma bring him everything he so richly deserves.
The Warmistas facts are lies and ‘adjustments’ to temperature, their opinions are worthless and not respected. Fortunately, like Flannery they give them for free. Australia will eventually have to apologise for ANU and UNSW.
What evidence? Show me the evidence that man’s greenhouse gases caused MOST of the warming of surface temperature since 1950. Also show me what caused the 1910 to 1940 similar rate of warming. If there is so much “weight of scientific evidence” then this should be easy.
“This may be in part because the Environment Minister is known to be personally extremely concerned about ocean acidification and the Prime Minister is known to be completely indifferent to it.”
Maybe that’s because oceans have to get about 6x more “acid” to match the fish-frying, coral-bleaching properties of pure tap water!
of course they say the climate message is not getting through,
What is getting through is that we are not at risk and that the alarmists are playing every game in the book to push this scam.
If they, the politicians, those suckling at the teat of public money, really believed this nonsense they would give up flying, using the car, putting on climate conferences in beautiful climbs ……
The public sees this and acts accordingly, so luckily, the alarmists, will never give up living high on the hog and we will not have to endure this nonsense for too many years longer.
Herald Sun quotes Flannery at http://www.smh.com.au/news/Opinion/Running-out-of-water–and-time/2005/04/24/1114281450815.html (April 24 2005)
” Climate change is working against Sydney. “There’s only two years’ water supply in Warragamba Dam,” says Flannery, “yet Frank Sartor [NSW Minister for Energy and Utilities] is talking about the situation being stable … If the computer models are right then drought conditions will become permanent in eastern Australia.”
… water restrictions now in force in Sydney are never going to be lifted, except after a run of freak conditions, just as Warragamba Dam is never again going to be full unless there is a freak period of high rainfall unlikely to be sustained.”
This is serious, guys. Up ’til now, they’ve been playing cricket while we skeptics/climate realists have been boxing the carp out of them. That’s the only reason we’re been winning. They’re onto us now. We’re doomed.
/sarc.
Facts inconveniently get in the way of unfounded and stupid opinions.
What is wants is a ministry of propaganda. If he read Animal Farm he could perhaps gets some good ideas for how to get it going. If I remember correctly you indoctrinate that sheep with phrases which you teach them to repeat again and again, and eventually the truth can be reversed.
I just hope they don’t learn our real secret; that while they’ve been bellowing and stomping, we’ve been beaning them with the truth. Oops.
“What we need now is to become comfortable with the idea that the ends will justify the means. We actually need more opinions, appearing more often and expressed more noisily than ever before.”
–
Climateace are on to it!
Alarmists like to use the phrases “the science is clear” or “the science is settled” but you never see the science. I think the “Right Climate Stuff” team got it right when they described AGW as an unproven computer model combined with a lot of speculation.
Colorado Wellington says:
March 15, 2014 at 10:26 pm
Rod Lamberts asks for more opinion and he gets it. From the comments under his call to combat:
“… don’t drive the car sell it,
================================
Ahhh, yes, sell your car. See, all that damage it does to the environment won’t occur once it’s owned by someone else.
“What we need now is to become comfortable with the idea that the ends will justify the means. We actually need more opinions, appearing more often and expressed more noisily than ever before.”
For real Rod Lamberts, director of the Australian National Centre for Public Awareness of Science at the ANU? Sounds more like you’re wheeling a Trojan horse inside the public AGW-awareness. Well, who’s going to stop you?
Pay no attention to that Mann behind the curtain. We have Models that all agree there will be no more winters, the atmosphere will resemble Venus. CO2 feedback climateforcing will run away uncontrolled if the air exceeds 400ppm CO2. The tipping point is past! The oceans are boiling and became too acidic , see the coral reefs are bleached like dry bones! We will have incessant superstorms and cyclones running amok all over the earth! The 1930’s Dust Bowl will seem like a wet period compared to North America’s future droughts! Stop looking at the Mann behind the curtain, Even Ted Turner and the UN says that all our economic sustainability and ecological problems go away when 87.5% of the human population “goes away” by 2050. I guess we are not in Kansas anymore… And to think that taxpayers are funding the scarey science psychobable warmist agenda, now that is alarming!
The corollary to this argument probably is indeed true — that facts are often not effective in enlightening the CAGW faithful. If you are of the ilk who forms strong opinions from emotional testimony rather than through personal analysis of data, you might assume that this is true of your perceived adversaries as well. My guess is that Dr. Lamberts doesn’t comprehend that most CAGW skeptics simply think completely differently than he does — their thought process is fundamentally different from his own. I fear that skeptics may have a similar problem — we assume that a brainwashed alarmist can be enlightened with data and analysis. I’m not sure this is generally true.
If the facts are on your side, pound the facts into the table. If the law is on your side, pound the law into the table. If neither the facts nor the law are on your side, pound the table.
Looks like only the abuse of furniture is left for the activists.
I think the guy wearing the headphones has the right idea. When faced with a rabid screaming greenie, put on some mellow sounds and tune the screaming CAGW headcases out.
The guy’s a psych major. That says it all. A discipline that has totally failed to understand its subject matter and has resorted to pill pushing (accompanied by “professional treatment” at
two week intervals, usually paid for by the govt.). On the basis of its performnce, I vote to designate psychology to be consideredd a non-science, consisting of opinion (accompanied by reams of misleading statistics) , not knowledge. And, yes, I was a psych major once upon a time. A total waste.
Well said that man! It is so true. They point to the rising temperature graph and tell us it must be our greenhouse gases which caused most of it. Where is the evidence for that? Because they can’t think of anything else. It’s called Argumentum ad Ignorantiam.
Big Don says: March 16, 2014 at 7:44 am
“Data and analysis” is the substance of science and will survive manipulation for purposes of ideology. The “brainwashed alarmist” is the product of ideology whose ravings are best dismissed by logic and ridicule…a task made less formidable with each passing day as their pseudo-science is exposed and their desperation mounts.
It may not be true but this is how I feel.. Boo friggen hoo..
This is the part where I have to say Im sorry so I can go back to watching TV in peace..
Science right?
If facts won’t work to promote their meme, try “opinions”. Next will be “Feelings”. Pathetic.
The following is an excerpt from “Philosophy of Science” (Okasha, 2002, OUP): “The theory-ladenness of data had two important consequences for Kuhn. Firstly, it meant that the issue between competing paradigms could not be resolved by simply appealing to ‘the data’ or ‘the facts’, for what a scientists counts as data, or facts, will depend on which paradigm she accepts. Perfectly objective choice between two paradigms is therefore impossible: there is no neutral vantage-point from which to assess the claims of each. Secondly, the very idea of objective truth is called into question. For to be objectively true, our theories or beliefs must correspond to the facts, but the idea of such a correspondence makes little sense if the facts themselves are infected by other theories. This is why Kuhn was led to the radical view that truth itself is relative to a paradigm”
The tripe offered by this academic brings disrepute on academia in general and his profession in particular.
The science is clear. We are headed for a disaster of biblical proportions. Old Testament real wrath-of-God type stuff. Fire and brimstone coming down from the sky, rivers and seas boiling, forty years of darkness, earthquakes, volcanoes. The dead rising from the grave. Human sacrifice. Dogs and cats, living together. Mass hysteria. Sound familiar? Paraphrased from the “Ghostbusters”.
juan slayton says:
March 15, 2014 at 10:00 pm
“climateace: I imagine that these outcomes would be well-regarded by most WUWT posters.
I wouldn’t jump to imaginary conclusions, friend.”
Why wouldn’t he? He has probably been doing so since puberty and believes his conclusions make total sense. After all, he doesn’t look at empirical evidence because it is “wrong.” i.e. doesn’t fit his view of the world!
The CAGW scare is built totally upon opinions; they’re sunk.
Don’t you wonder about the warming guys that always seem to give themselves pretentious titles or arrange awards between themselves to bolster their false claims or stupid pronouncements. I guess I too could claim to be “KenB, director of the Australian National Centre for Public Awareness of antiscience numpties at the Australian National (Numpty?) University”. Pleased to receive any awards, even remotely claimable Noble prize associations to boost my priceless media “Look-at me” work (even if the dog ate my data/homework)!!
@Robert of Ottawa –
I still think an important part of the fight against AGW is demonstrating the evils it is bringing about, because that will reach people who might otherwise dismiss the facts as over their head, or something they don’t want to try to understand, or as simply abstractions, when they are NOT abstractions – they are real harm done to real people. And after all, unless I miss my guess, we skeptics are fighting precisely because we know that AGW leads to destructive and even murderous consequences and because we want ultimately to put a stop to the harm being done, or to be done, by AGW. However, I agree that everything we say should be solidly grounded in fact: when we assert that carbon taxes are causing deaths, we explain how and provide the necessary news reports and other sources to back it up.
I guess you could say this take off from Dr. Spencer’s declamation of “climate Nazis.”
What is scary is the people who have used the excuse of the “ends justifying the means” in the past. I take it these alarmists are not students of history?
philjourdan, hi. They are projecting their future, and any skeptical views and facts are negated.
This falls into the political rather than the scientific truth. Deaths are inevitable, if people die of the cold, but warmth? Well there is heat stroke but that can happen when we sunbathe, not normally if we hydrate and keep out of the midday sun. In the middle east, say Israel and Cyprus, in their summers, they have a siesta, between 2 – 4 pm.
charles nelson says:
March 15, 2014 at 9:55 pm
Climateace….weep on, the noise you and your chums make is music to our ears.
As I said it at the time, the fatal alliance between Labor and Green has rendered both of them un electable for a generation.
>>>
I would be so sure about that Charles, their funding sources are the real backbone of the agenda. I’m not so sanguine that the general public have woken up to much here. It’s encouraging to see people exhibiting some basic skepticism, finally – but is it real and firmly based? I doubt it (sorry, I’m being a bit skeptical here).
As long as financier $$$ are pumped into these absurd ‘community-organiser’ type looney parties the hollow farce of putting forward a series of ludicrous ‘policy solutions’ and pretending to care, and simply pushing forwards one laughable clown-weirdo ‘candidate’, after another, will continue. Given recent experience of several very disappointing elections over the past 10 years, the Australian public have demonstrated they are certainly dull enough to fall for that muck again, or at least some parts of it. Especially the young and indoctrinated in this type of socially and scholarly ‘informed’ derp-ism.
Their backers will be far from done, they will move the deck-chairs around some, change the Logo and the stationary, then comeback for another run of shameless mischief-making, damage-creation and fear-mongering blather.
climateace says:
March 15, 2014 at 11:01 pm
Neoliberalism is based, inter alia, on two assumptions: that the environment is an infinite source and that the environment is an infinite sump. Good luck with that, I say.
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And let’s add to that, that the fundamental NEEDS of life, in our natural system is both rapidly regenerating and rapidly self-cleansing.
And that’s the part the alarmist weirdo doesn’t ever want to face up to as it completely slays the whole basis of their ludicrous position.
You are making measured statements and that’s fine, but you’re also measuredly carefully omitting such basic other-side-of-the-coin relevant balancing truths from your commentary.
We can see that too. 😉
daddylonglegs says:
March 15, 2014 at 11:46 pm
Eco-political correctness is killing F1.
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MotoGP baby! That, and the Isle of Mann, are the only place real all-or nothing racing even happens anymore. What a lucky sod who won that F1 though! fairytale stuff.
Sceptical lefty says:
March 16, 2014 at 1:09 am
And for Unmentionable: people don’t want the truth. They want confirmation of their prejudices, which they will happily proclaim to be the truth.
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Yes, that is true, as is this: “I’M A SCEPTIC and there was BIG APPLAUSE”
Aphan, here’s Michael Mann’s dance number borrowed from “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas”
Fellow Climate Alarmists, I am proudly standing here to humbly say,
I assure you, and I mean it- Now, who says I don’t speak out as plain as day?
And, fellow Alarmists, I’m for progress and Gaia’s flag- long may it fly.
I’m a poor boy, come to greatness. So, it follows that I cannot tell a lie.
[chorus]
Ooh I love to dance a little sidestep,
now they see me now they don’t – I’ve come and gone
and, ooh I love to sweep around the wide step,
Cut a little swathe and lead the people on.
Now my good friends, it behooves me to be solemn and declare,
I’m for greenness and wind power, for living clean and saying a daily prayer.
And now, my good friends, you can sleep nights, I’ll continue to stand tall.
You can trust me, for I promise, I shall keep a watchful eye upon ya’ll…
[repeat chorus]
Now, Watts and Nova and Montford, I don’t know them, though I’ve heard the names, oh yes.
But, of course I’ve no close contact, so what they think I can only guess.
And now, they’re a menace, a blemish on the face of our blue living Earth.
I am taking certain steps here, someone somewhere’s gonna have foil their mirth.
[repeat chorus]
“the ends will justify the means” – straight out of Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals. A text for all radical leftists.
Disappearance of megafauna ?
Both in Australia and North America.
Big beasties were probably slow breeding.
People with pointed sticks suddenly turn up.
They target the smaller juveniles……easier prey than the adults.
Reproduction rate drops below replacement and quite soon you are extinct.
Reblogged this on The GOLDEN RULE and commented:
A strange scientific argument. Opinions are more meaningful than scientific facts.
Well, he doesn’t actually say that, but that opinions are needed, more of them and stronger ones, in order to brainwash the public into their way of thinking.
And “way of thinking” is exactly what it is!
The science, or at least genuine science, has been left way behind.
Now, unsubstantiated claims of climate extremes being the worst ever, blah, blah, blah, do con the public, but they will never wash with the scientific and technical trained opponents of the CO2 and carbon trading, political and financial, band-wagon agenda-driven alarmists.