Skeptics aren’t funded or organized but they can still have an impact.
Guest essay by Matt Manos
In my previous post, Why It’s So Hard to Convince Warmists, I introduced the concept of bellwethers and rational ignorance to explain why it’s so hard to convince warmists using empirical evidence. The obvious next question is, how can skeptics move the needle on belief in CAGW? To figure that out, I have been researching various movements that have succeeded in achieving their goals despite entrenched social bias.
Climate Change exists in a larger political context best know as the culture war. Very few targets of the culture war have successfully combated the forces of “all right thinking people.” Like them or hate them, the NRA and #gamergate have been successful largely by motivating their membership to lobby state governments or put social pressure on companies. These avenues aren’t available for skeptics because the climate change pushers aren’t local and the skeptic community isn’t organized or well funded. Skeptics must find other ways to influence public policy.
Climate Change is different than most public policy issues. Little social pressure can be put on local governments because the funding for climate change usually comes from national governments and international organizations. While frustrating to anyone who wants to directly lobby their government, climate change’s top down approach should be seen as it’s greatest weakness. Instead of being forced to lobby in every state or district, climate change presents itself with large, ripe targets.
Since traditional organizing doesn’t apply or can’t be afforded, I only see one avenue left for skeptics. Lawfare is a combination of the words law and warfare. It’s a form of asymmetrical warfare that uses the legal system to tie up the resources of an opponent. The Greens have been using lawfare for decades. Michael Mann’s defamation suit is but one of the latest examples. In addition to lawsuits, lawfare can be used by legislative bodies to alter public policy funding and to investigate climate change financial impropriety.
Perhaps the quickest way to disrupt the message of climate change is to change the funding. Don’t eliminate the funding, change it. The NASAs, the NOAAs, the NSFs of the world must be co-opted. The big government institutions see skeptics as a threat to their power and influence. That needs to change. Institutions need to see that skeptics aren’t out to defund them, just refocus their efforts onto different types of projects. That is exactly what the US House did earlier this month when it passed a bill that would raise overall science spending but reduce NSF spending on climate change. The bill has an uphill battle to become law but the approach is correct.
Other ways that skeptics can influence the debate is through lawsuits. Skeptics need public policy lawyers filing FOIA requests every week. One obvious target is how Greens often seem to get their funding directly from the taxpayers. If corruption is exposed, it could cause a government to collapse much like the sponsorship scandal helped topple the Canadian government in 2006. Another obvious issue for skeptics would be FOIA requests around how NCDC functions and emails around why the GISS dataset keeps being adjusted only in ways that suggest AGW. Maybe there is a smoking gun email exchange. I predict that there is a lot of low hanging fruit out there.
Climate gate did more to disrupt CAGW belief than any amount of skeptical science. Instead of waiting for another leak, skeptics need to force the next climate gate with FOIA requests and legislative investigations. Since climate change isn’t a grassroots effort, it’s top down nature should make it especially vulnerable to lawfare.
Skeptics need to engage public policy lawyers and take control of their own destiny.
I’d recommend voting for and donating to the most skeptical candidates in the GOP presidential primaries.
Disagree.
As long as the message and focus remains “It is about the science and the science does not support the conclusions” then time will do the rest. Getting funded or going political dilutes the focus on the science.
Except that the whole ho*x was political from the git-go, and all the real science is suppressed by regimes and their minions in the media.
I’m inclined to agree with you, Dawg. We have science on our side. Using alarmist tactics will only place us on their level.
On the other hand, alarmists are so firmly entrenched (at least until Nov. 2016) I’m not sure science alone will win the day. I’m not confident 2016 will improve the situation.
“Stay focused on the science” has gotten the sceptic case exactly nowhere for near on 20 years now. As far as the science goes, in my opinion, that battle was won decisively some years back and has done nothing to stop the AGW juggernaut. Indeed, Climate Science funding is at an all time high in both absolute terms and as a fraction of total research funding, at least in the US. In addition, the administration is bound and determined to prosecute it’s “War On Coal” while it also does everything it can to stifle oil and gas production. If successful, these policies will be a disaster for the US. This battle is purely political and ideological, and must be fought as such.
Any call to “stick to the science” will garantee you repeatedly win that battle, while you lose the war.
And this war will be lost, and letting “time do the rest ” is most unhelpful.
Relax – 20 years is not really that long. And there is no need to hurry although, of course, the world is now suffering economically from all the wasted subsidies of alternative energy. To convince the “consensus” of established science that continents did indeed move took a lot longer than 20 years (Alfred Wegener did not live to see his theories proved). Generally speaking, scientists are so married to their pet theories that no amount of reasoned arguments will make them change their minds. They will go to their graves still believing! Luckily all oldies will die out eventually. Just imagine a world where oldies did not die!!
And, actually, our sceptic side is slowly coming to the fore. There is less and less concern over global warming among ordinary folks simply because after a quarter century of dire warnings nothing is happening even as the percentage of atmospheric CO2 content is increasing massively. Most people intuitively understand that. So just relax; and look at it all with as much amusement as you can muster!
How long did the phlogiston theory last? Maybe some science historian can answer this?
How long did the phlogiston theory last?
a bit over 100 years all in all.
Better and more accurate science routed it.
Right. That worked just fine in the Germany of the 1930’s. Climate, as used by the totalitarian folks, simply does not lend itself the the proof that Galileo used which is why you don’t see folks jumping off buildings even if “there is a consensus you’ll float down”.
Climate is simply a perfect vehicle. By the time the general public “gets the science”, you’ll be in year 400 of the 1000 year Reich.
It’s political. It’s political speech. It’s Goebbels. It’s indoctrination.
They use courts as a political tools (think Steyn and NR). What would be good would be a mammoth class action suit seeking billions for the alarmist for wrongful death (lack of energy kills folks), economic harm, etc. One uses what one has available, not what one wishes the public would be.
“It is about the science and the science does not support the conclusions” then time will do the rest.”
Except in point of practical fact, it’s not about the science. It never has been. Your POV is well meaning but naive.
@Rob Dawg
If the warmunists weren’t trying to pick our collective pockets via a multitude of cap-and-trade and sequestration schemes, I’d be inclined to agree with you. Well, they are, so I don’t.
@kamikazedave
One doesn’t eschew the use of an effective tool simply because “the bad guys” use it also.
I’ve always maintained that the scam needs to end up in court to put an end to it. Facts vs theory under oath.
Another ACLU needs to be formed, American Climate Liberty Union, which uses similar tactics as the American Civil Liberties Union to raise money and defend the small person in meaningless litigations related to climate change.
nigelf I agree. All the more reason to support Mark Steyn vs Mann in his counter suit.
Trial procedures do not favor this approach. It would be a battle of experts and God knows the warmists have a huge bunch of those.
JimB,
I agree with nigelf on this one. In 2004, Michael Crichton published his skeptic novel “State of Fear”, and he made this very point rather prominently.
At the time he wrote the book, the world of lawyers was still reverberating with the huge success of the class action suits against the tobacco companies. The lawyers got filthy rich and got to claim angel status at the same time. Since AGW also ramped up in the 90s it took all 100,000 lawyers about a microsecond to see similar opportunities for going after fossil fuel companies.
Crichton’s point was that all of that super-heated eagerness just oozed away when the lawyers actually started doing the oppo research. They discovered that the AGW case is just not all that compelling when potential jurors get a chance to hear the facts presented by BOTH sides in open court.
Guess what? It’s been 11 years since that book was published and there has STILL not been a public trial on the issue. Why is that I wonder?
Here is my prediction. Michael Mann will NEVER actually submit to Discovery in the NRO/Steyn trial. The delays will be measured in decades, and if at the end he has absolutely no other choice, he will settle.
@Sturgushooper and Dawg:
Both wrong.
The science facts will never will over the masses. If that were so, there wouldn’t still be upwards of 20% of Americans fully believing that the Sun revolves around the Earth. And voting doesn’t matter in this areas… the generalized lawmaker is either not informed enough, not influential enough, or not sincere enough to make a difference…
The problem is: The is no solution…
The True Believers will always believe,
The True Scientists [truth seekers] will always doubt.
The rest of the populace just doesn’t care, and will follow the talking heads on CNN – see OP prior article.
The only hope, sadly, is that the “facts on the ground” fall apart for “the rest of the populace”.
meaning:
The only way out of the CAGW nonsense is to have global temperatures fall substantially for at least 5 to 10 years… while also tracking large increases in CO2.
Unfortunately, if this does happen, it would be a terrible thing for the world’s poor… also, just as unfortunately, most warmists really don’t give a flying rats f*** about the world’s poor — whether the Earth has a ‘fever’ or is ‘freezing solid’ …
There will always be a segment of the population which, through choice or circumstance, remains ignorant. You will probably never see a free society in which that is not so. Not for a very long time, anyway.
My suggestion is to read Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals”, and turn it on its head. The political Left has certainly been using it to push the warming political agenda, and “turnabout is fair play”, the way I heard it.
Saul Alinsky is a newbie. He didn’t invent totalitarianism. The political ‘Left’ is the same as the political ‘Right’. And there is no ‘Middle’… this isn’t a battle of ‘Right’ versus ‘Left’.
Rules for Radicals doesn’t seem to work for climate change because the issue isn’t really local. Climate Change isn’t an issue that skeptics can impact by putting together a protest at their local city council. That’s not to say Rules for Radicals doesn’t have value but it takes a group with more grassroots support than skeptics currently have.
@unknown502756
Well said.
Hmm… seems to me the world is already starting to cool. There are signs everywhere they indicate the climate is back to 1970s conditions… early falls and long winters etc. However, due to continually changes to the surface temperature record post data collection people are told to disbelieve their lying eyes. Unfortunately, the masses are doing just that. Even though it is cooler where they live, they are told weather is local… that it is hot everywhere else, just not where they are.
“The problem is: The is no solution…
The True Believers will always believe,
The True Scientists [truth seekers] will always doubt.
The rest of the populace just doesn’t care, and will follow the talking heads on CNN – see OP prior article.
The only hope, sadly, is that the “facts on the ground” fall apart for “the rest of the populace”.”
Thanks, this raises an interesting issue, but there are numerous exceptions; there are many people that do not fit into one of the three categories listed above who are generally being miss-informed by the Administration and the MSM. There is a massive propaganda campaign going on in every possible venue to push the warming/climate change agenda.
We skeptics need to find a medium to inform “the rest of the populace”. WUWT does an excellent job providing information for those who has an intense interest in the subject like those of us who visit WUWT every day. Below I made a comment on one of the excellent posts by Bob Tisdale where I offered the following comments based on my personal experience in spreading the word to at least a part of the “populace” many of whom have changed their position based on data and plots. Could we do better?
“Thanks for your comprehensive effort and outstanding presentations.
I admit that I have yet to digest this particular presentation.
As a suggestion to you and others, who provide comprehensive studies, it would be helpful if you also provided a “Management Digest” summarizing your outstanding effort.
I have a wide list of individuals that I forward WUWT material to, and a brief, concise summary is needed for many who are not as versed in all the complex interactions as you and many others often describe. Sometimes I try to provide such a summary if I can. This is important to more widely distribute the data to technical communities beyond the climatologists and others well versed. I can say that distributing such data rarely leaves an CAGW believer among those who are open minded, which most Engineers happen to be.
Much of your material is more widely distributed than you probably realize in the Engineering community via Engineering Societies (of which I am a part) and they (like myself) are not sufficiently versed in all the complexities to quickly grasp the full essence of all your presentations. I realize they may not have been the focused audience, but where possible could we expand the audience?
I think the skeptic community could improve it’s messaging by not just undertaking comprehensive evaluations; but, also providing a “management digest” summarizing the key points. Could that be the next step to win the “war”?
Again I cannot stress the importance and effectiveness of widely distributing WUWT presentations to Engineers et. al., that is one of my current missions in life, but I hesitate to widely distribute more complex material such as this posting (and others) without a simplified summary; since, while many are well versed in Thermodynamics, radiant heat transfer, etc, many are not sufficiently studied in the more complex aspects of “climatology” you often present.
Again, thanks for your efforts, contact me if you want to be more aware with some examples of how widely some of your and other WUWT material is distributed in the Engineering Societies/ communities. Mr Watts has my e mail address if you would like to contact me, or do you have another suggestion?
All the best,”
@ Catcracking:
> There is a massive propaganda campaign going on in every possible venue to push the warming/climate change agenda.
Yup. And they are winning… Because from ‘Curious George’ to ‘Glee’ every child in America has the CAGW hammer pounding on the neurons… and then there are the pre-school letters, the school activities and projects, the word smithing of reports, the lowered grades for non-conformists… And then there are the jobs, the high paid tech jobs that require applicants to hide non-conformists views… And then there are the friends — the conformist friends who hold some of those high paying tech jobs — who have benefited – greatly -financially- by being ‘green’ and conforming…
The problem is far deeper than a few nicely worded but utterly dismissive ‘Thanks for your help’ letters…
However, the science push is still necessary – even though impossible.
CAGW is sort of like African poor… it’s far away and someone else’s problem, but if I contribute a few dollars to the cause, and tell my kids that Africa [CAGW] is a ‘real’ problem — I’ve done my ‘good’ deed and brought up my kids to be morally ‘good’ people…
To most people, the African poor don’t matter in the ‘real world’… and neither does CAGW. They don’t care about either, they just want to not seem like ‘bad’ people. This is why educating the public will have exactly zero effect… the public just doesn’t care about the reasoning, the science, nor the truth of the matter… They care about the ‘good feeling’ in ‘helping to save the world’ and that their social peers don’t kick them out of the group.
I know — because I’ve tried. I’ve posted things to friends – close friends – about how CAGW energy policies hurt poor … really poor… nations and people… these notices have been going around for 5 to 10 years. I now have a single person — one — who finally forwarded a single message to me about how *he* thinks CAGW energy policies hurt the poor… and this is the problem…
1. Logic is discarded for social acceptance.
2. Other people’s real problems don’t exist unless or until the observer wishes to discard the rose colored goggles.
Climategate was sexy in a way science never is. People have a lot more experience understanding coverups. Give the people a narrative that pokes holes in the experts themselves. Make the priests of truth look evil and no one cares what their message was to begin with. Not everyone, engineers and scientists maybe most of all, like to talk about winning policy debates in ways not related to polices. But this is the world we live in. This is how to win.
It appears to me that exaggerations such as the recent ones actually hurt the CAGW cause since only the very uninformed are actually buying the rhetoric from the administration. The problem is that the commander in chief can impose his demands on the various departments within the Administration. Why aren’t the Navy Admirals complaining about the mandate to run one of the fleets on bio fuels costing $ 25 a gallon and up? The reason is forced retirement for those who don’t fall in line. At the same time experts say that the Military is underfunded and risking a weak defense in the cause for clean energy.
I hope this cartoon captures the military response:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vSEvNx0fDEs/VV4qIF1tMzI/AAAAAAAAOYo/Bl42c_Q69zc/s1600/Tides%2Bof%2BWar%2Bsm.jpg
unknown502756
I write to applaud your excellent posts. More please.
Richard
Where the h*ll did you come up with this:
“The science facts will never will over the masses. If that were so, there wouldn’t still be upwards of 20% of Americans fully believing that the Sun revolves around the Earth. ”
Link please.
Since there is no absolute frame of reference, it is in fact possible that the sun DOES revolve around the earth. We just belive otherwise because it makes the math a whole lot easier.
Late to the response party:
link:
http://time.com/7809/1-in-4-americans-thinks-sun-orbits-earth/
For those who feed at the public trough, even a decade of falling temperatures won’t stop their claiming that whatever happens is the fault of humanity and capitalism, and it’s worse than we thought, although we predicted it all along.
Only when governments quit subsidizing this ho*x will it end. The majority of GOP candidates for president know CACCA for what it is. When the US threatens to leave the UN if IPCC isn’t reined in, then the science will suddenly start reflecting reality.
You get what you pay for.
IPCC’s trough feeders, being loathe to go out of their lucrative business, could, if so threatened, just further lower ECS to a face-saving range of 0.0 to 3.0, with a best estimate of 1.5 degrees C per doubling of CO2 level (having already lowered it to 1.5 to a scary 4.5 degrees from 2.0 to 4.5, but the lowest ECS in IPCC’s model runs remains 2.1, which of course comes closest to tracking actually observed temperatures).
ECS of 1.5 would of course mean there’s nothing to worry about from CO2 at 600 ppmv, but the situation would still bear constant watching in case the trough-feeders are wrong, thus ensuring continued largesse from the US taxpayers.
Do you really believe that if Ted Cruz were POTUS, there would be no effect upon the CACCA cult?
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2014/02/20/cruz-to-cnn-global-warming-not-supported-by-data/
There is a scientific aspect, policy aspect and political/cultural aspect. While the article correctly points out that policy is being driven very much in a top-down UN-agenda manner, what is being missed is that actual action is local and thus the real battle is the ‘hearts and minds’ that comprises the political/cultural realm.
The science is #1. The heart of the matter, and upstream from the politics, culture and policy, is the simple issue of what impact CO2 actually has. To that end, the work of sites like this one, and climateaudit, and other sites where ‘skeptic’ views on the science are shared, are of great value. it is clear that the sins of group-think, politicization of science and agenda-driven reporting of it (by the media) have conspired to create a public narrative of CO2 impact that is greater than science data warrants. Just a few voices speaking out shatters the narrative of ‘the science is settled’ (it is not), and creates the debate and the space for dissent.
” Little social pressure can be put on local governments because the funding for climate change usually comes from national governments and international organizations”
Disagree. Our local community college – and yours as well probably – has a ‘sustainability officer’ who goes around looking at carbon footprints. Our city has already pursued harebrained biofuel power plants, and is buying solar and wind energy, in pursuit of eliminating GHG emissions. To the extent that local government engage in policies based on the assumptions that CO2 is bad, then there is pressure being put forward and can be pushed back on, using the scientific data that shows how warming is NOT a crisis, Co2 is NOT the devil, and local mitigations are of insignificant benefit.
On the national level, the same is true, but then the added factor is use the science funding to create open-ness in the IPCC and national govt research efforts. Share all data, allow open input to IPCC reports etc. FOIA exist because of the law. It shuld be noted that Congress is taking up efforts to ensure that the EPA can only enact rules if they are open about the science used to support those rules. They cannot use ‘secret science’ to do so (which is what is going on and is an abuse).
” change the funding. Don’t eliminate the funding, change it. The NASAs, the NOAAs, the NSFs of the world must be co-opted.”
it is notable that Senator Ted Cruz called on NASA to focus on space exploration, since, well, that is their actual agenda and mission. It should be treated as good public policy to have agencies pursue their stated mission and not take on hidden agenda missions. On the flipside, Obama has an agenda to twist the missions of existing departments, like DoD, recast climate change absurdly as a national security threat, and have the DoD chase butterflies if you will to advance that agenda. What a horrible mess that creates; agencies illsuited for a mission they were never designed for, and taken off the tasks they WERE funded and staffed and tained for. a Lose/ lose. That should be offensive even to those who think global warming is a serious problem.
“The big government institutions see skeptics as a threat to their power and influence. ”
And they are correct, if they are using their power to advance the warmist agenda.
The current Global Financial System is about to crash. We won’t have to worry about AGW. When Politicians have to worry about the Chaos that’s coming and the lack of a piggy bank, their rule is about to collapse. Get ready for Marshall Law, confiscation of food supplies and imprisonment in their interment facilities being constructed all over the country.
A bottom up approach is the Achilles’ heel of top down. Most people are not paying attention and don’t associate their skyrocketing utility bills with global warming. Hit them neighbor to neighbor where it hurts. Connect the dots for them.
” The elite pointy headed watermellons want to kill the poor, the old, women and children, the sick and minorities worldwide. They want to pay for global warming on the backs of the poor working class. Look at wall street, them cronies that caused the depression in 07 are getting rich putting up wind mills subsided by the poor.
There will be food shortages caused by farmers not being able to afford electricity to pump water and by diesel to run tractors causing food prices to skyrocket. Looked at your grocery bill lately? The gov says their is no inflation, wonder about that? Your a frog in a pot of water”. 50% already don’t buy it, we only have to sway a few and they will sway more.
Most know they are not better off under the current administrations. Just connect the dots at the pocket book one on one. I worked for them for years, now they own the problem on their side.
@Pierre DM:
And yet o won… twice… and race relations in the USA are lower then – well – ever… and the financial disparity between rich and poor and black and white is also wider then ever…
People don’t think. That’s the problem. And it’s insurmountable.
Schools are now teaching little children all about how anti-CAGW is a republican thing, a denier thing… and your children will grow up in a world that is populated by peers who shun deniers.
There is no hope, except war. And that’s what the OP is indicating… Legal War… but, that most likely will fail… because justice is already purchased by the government and the government is already in bed with the warmists because the warmists are pro-government. The science battle is over. And the non-CAGW rational optimists won – completely – but they lost the war.
So, I suppose, the solution is a pro-government non-warmist solution… good luck.
Or…
The Earth enters a substantial global cooling phase – with harsh winters, cool summers, rising CO2, and mass human and plant death.
United we stand, divided we fall. The administration knows this and is using it.
A fine campaign slogan for Sixteen: Keep the Lights On!
=================
People don’t think. That’s the problem. And it’s insurmountable.
Yep. That’s the crux of the matter. Life is to short to work out everything from first principles, which is why you have scientists and academics and ‘authorities’ to which you can appeal.
Subvert them, and its game over.
Except… at some point the subverters themselves start to suffer.
Nothing was done about public hygiene until the rich started to die as well…
unknown502756 …. You are chirpy today.
simon,
That was yesterday.
I believe that Man’s burning up our fossil fuel resources as quickly as possible is not a good idea and I would like to use the idea that CO2 causes climate change as an additional reason for conserving on the use of fossil fuels. But AGW is very selective “science” with a lot left out. A real greenhouse does not operate on the basis of “heat trapping” greenhouse gases. A real greenhouse works because the glass, while allowing solar energy to enter, limits cooling by convection. So too on Earth. The atmosphere keeps the surface warm because gravity limits cooling by convection. It is the convective greenhouse effect that is why the Earth’s surface is 33 degrees C warmer than it would otherwise be if there were no atmosphere. A radiative greenhouse effect is not needed to explain it. So if a radiative greenhouse effect did exist, it must be very small. If CO2 did effect the climate the way that the AGW conjecture says it should then one would expect that the changes in CO2 we have been experiencing would affect the natural lapse rate in the troposphere but apparently such is not the case. So if a radiant greenhouse effect does actually exist, it must be very small, much smaller than the AGW conjecture claims it to be. To make the potential climate effects of CO2 seem significant, the AGW conjecture includes the idea that H2O provides a positive feedback to changes in other greenhouse gasses because more greenhouse gases causes warming at the Earth’s surface and lower atmosphere which causes more H2O to enter the atmosphere which in turn causes even more warming which in turn causes even more warming which in turn causes even more warming … . The whole situation sounds very unstable yet the Earth’s climate has been stable enough for life to evolve for at least the past 500 million years. But the AGW conjecture leaves out what else must happen in the atmosphere if changes in CO2 have any effect on climate. Besides being a greenhouse gas, H2O is a primary coolant in the Earth’s atmosphere moving heat energy from the Earth’s surface, which is mostly H2O itself, to where clouds form. According to energy balance models, more heat energy is moved by H2O via the heat of vaporization then by both LWIR absorption band radiation and convection combined. An increase in H20 also serves to decrease the temperature lapse rate which is further evidence that H2O is a coolant and acts to reduce the thermal insulation properties of the atmosphere. Then there is the issue of clouds and what happens in the upper atmosphere. When everything is included, H2O provides ample negative feedbacks to changes in other greenhouse gases so as to mitigate any effect they might have on climate. Then when you add the idea that there is no real evidence in the paleoclimate record that CO2 has any effect on climate it becomes very difficult to argue that CO2 has a significant effect on climate. The claim is that CO2 absorbs IR radiation but then re radiates it out in all directions. If that is so then CO2 does not trap heat as provided for by IR radiation but acts as a diffuse reflector. If CO2 is suppose to be such a good insulator can anyone provide an example where CO2 is used as an insulator in any engineering application?
The real difficulty is how to get this message out to a technically unsophisticated public in view of the phony scientific consensus. There are people out there who would buy the idea that the laws of science are some form of legislation and that scientific theories are authenticated by voting on them. There are many who believe in AGW because that is what they were taught in class.
@willhaas:
>I believe that Man’s burning up our fossil fuel resources as quickly as possible is not a good idea and I would like to use the idea that CO2 causes climate change as an additional reason for conserving on the use of fossil fuels.
Why?
Why should it is be a ‘bad’ idea to use fossil fuels as quickly as possible?
Doesn’t that use increase GDP? Doesn’t that use allow the poor to compete on a more equal playing field? Why is it a bad idea? You start with an unqualified and uninformed statement of ‘good’ and ‘bad’… So, why should I believe what else you have to say?
Because the supply is finite. Our use of fossil fuel is in part fueling our out of control human population. When the fuel runs out the Earth will not be able to support so many people and Nature will correct the problem catastrophically. Sure, new technology has been buying us more time, maybe an additional 200 years but that is not much time at all. Without killing the economy we need to move toward an economy based on sustainable energy sources and we have to bring our population under control. Climate charge has nothing to do with it.
willhaas:
Nuclear fission technology has been in common science understanding for 100 years. The supply of nuclear fission material on planet Earth is large enough to be said to be able to supply *all* energy needs of any possible human population and density.
Petroleum based fuels may be finite, but the continued use — full and a as quick as possible — may, if politics allows, the development of essentially inexhaustible energy sources.
It’s politics driving the energy problem — not science, nor ‘fossil’ fuels.
Using them up as quickly as possible isn’t a goal, but using them for their utility is. @willhaas : fossil fuels might be ‘finite’ but they are simply a version of utility that humans can apply. Thorium is plentiful enough to power our civilisation for as long as we can imagine. The ‘peak oil’ alarm was sounded a long time ago and proven to be ‘premature’. I believe our ingenuity will avoid any catastrophe…but maybe you yearn for one?
There are much better uses for our oil and natural gas than burning them up for electricity.
Plus there are much better ways of generating electricity than burning up our minerals.
Nuclear power comes to mind for cost effective, safe, reliable power generation.
Until adequate alternate sources of energy are in place, then we need to conserve on the use of fossil fuels or else they will run out without an adequate source of energy to maintain our out of control population. Who knows when and if ever fussion reactors will become viable. Why do we need so many people?
willhaas says “Why do we need so many people?”
Need? And who is this “we” you are referencing? Will “we” be who selects the “needed” for the chaff?
Seriously, is that how you think? Hopefully youth is your excuse.
Wasting is bad. Using is good.
Inclined to agree that we should conserve fossil fuels, but the Greens’ measures will not achieve that. In fact,by diverting money from research into uncompetitive mass wind and solar deployment, they may be delaying the search for a viable alternative.
Global renewables expenditure is in the hundreds of biliions per year, set to rise to trillions a year by 2020.A fullscale thorium test might cost two to five billion, a fullscale fusion test fifteen.When you look at the sheer scale of this difference in funding, you begin to see why there is no progress in real energy science,
I agree. Rather than waste money on deploying something that is not competitive, money should be spent on research and development to come up with alternative energy sources that are competitive. Our supply of fossil fuels is finite but we will not run out in the near future.
willhaas
There is no reason to conserve fossil fuels; none, zilch, nada.
I again explain your error for the benefit of you and any others who don’t know but have read your repeated assertion in this thread.
You assert that we need to conserve fossil fuels because they are a “finite” resource. Your assertion is part of the fallacy of overpopulation.
The fallacy of overpopulation derives from the disproved Malthusian idea which wrongly assumes that humans are constrained like bacteria in a Petri dish: i.e. population expands until available resources are consumed when population collapses. The assumption is wrong because humans do not suffer such constraint: humans find and/or create new and alternative resources when existing resources become scarce.
The obvious example is food.
In the 1970s the Club of Rome predicted that human population would have collapsed from starvation by now. But human population has continued to rise and there are fewer starving people now than in the 1970s; n.b. there are less starving people in total and not merely fewer in percentage.
Now, the most common Malthusian assertion is ‘peak oil’. But humans need energy supply and oil is only one source of energy supply. Adoption of natural gas displaces some requirement for oil, fracking increases available oil supply at acceptable cost; etc..
In the real world, for all practical purposes there are no “physical” limits to natural resources so every natural resource can be considered to be infinite; i.e. the human ‘Petri dish’ can be considered as being unbounded. This a matter of basic economics which I explain as follows.
Humans do not run out of anything although they can suffer local and/or temporary shortages of anything. The usage of a resource may “peak” then decline, but the usage does not peak because of exhaustion of the resource (e.g. flint, antler bone and bronze each “peaked” long ago but still exist in large amounts).
A resource is cheap (in time, money and effort) to obtain when it is in abundant supply. But “low-hanging fruit are picked first”, so the cost of obtaining the resource increases with time. Nobody bothers to seek an alternative to a resource when it is cheap.
But the cost of obtaining an adequate supply of a resource increases with time and, eventually, it becomes worthwhile to look for
(a) alternative sources of the resource
and
(b) alternatives to the resource.
And alternatives to the resource often prove to have advantages.
For example, both (a) and (b) apply in the case of crude oil.
Many alternative sources have been found. These include opening of new oil fields by use of new technologies (e.g. to obtain oil from beneath sea bed) and synthesising crude oil from other substances (e.g. tar sands, natural gas and coal). Indeed, since 1994 it has been possible to provide synthetic crude oil from coal at competitive cost with natural crude oil and this constrains the maximum true cost of crude.
Alternatives to oil as a transport fuel are possible. Oil was the transport fuel of military submarines for decades but uranium is now their fuel of choice.
There is sufficient coal to provide synthetic crude oil for at least the next 300 years. Hay to feed horses was the major transport fuel 300 years ago and ‘peak hay’ was feared in the nineteenth century, but availability of hay is not a significant consideration for transportation today. Nobody can know what – if any – demand for crude oil will exist 300 years in the future.
Indeed, coal also demonstrates an ‘expanding Petri dish’.
Spoil heaps from old coal mines contain much coal that could not be usefully extracted from the spoil when the mines were operational. Now, modern technology enables the extraction from the spoil at a cost which is economic now and would have been economic if it had been available when the spoil was dumped.
These principles not only enable growing human population: they also increase human well-being.
The ingenuity which increases availability of resources also provides additional usefulness to the resources. For example, abundant energy supply and technologies to use it have freed people from the constraints of ‘renewable’ energy and the need for the power of muscles provided by slaves and animals. Malthusians are blind to the obvious truth that human ingenuity has freed humans from the need for slaves to operate treadmills, the oars of galleys, etc..
And these benefits also act to prevent overpopulation because population growth declines with affluence.
There are several reasons for this. Of most importance is that poor people need large families as ‘insurance’ to care for them at times of illness and old age. Affluent people can pay for that ‘insurance’ so do not need the costs of large families.
The result is that the indigenous populations of rich countries decline. But rich countries need to sustain population growth for economic growth so they need to import – and are importing – people from poor countries. Increased affluence in poor countries can be expected to reduce their population growth with resulting lack of people for import by rich countries.
Hence, the real foreseeable problem is population decrease; n.b. not population increase.
All projections and predictions indicate that human population will peak around the middle of this century and decline after that. So, we are confronted by the probability of ‘peak population’ resulting from growth of affluence around the world.
The Malthusian idea is wrong because it ignores basic economics and applies a wrong model; human population is NOT constrained by resources like the population of bacteria in a Petri dish. There is no existing or probable problem of lack of any resources and, therefore, there is no problem of overpopulation of the world by humans.
Richard
Technology may be able to push the limits as it has in the past but the reality is that the Earth’s resources and its area are finite. Maybe some day we will be able to inhabit other worlds but right now that is only science ficton. There is only one earth in our solar system and the nearest stars are more than 4 light years away.
willhaas,
How about we don’t let the gov’t ‘waste’ the money at all? Instead, let’s leave it with the taxpayers, who know how best to spend it. After all, it’s their money.
Nothing is ‘given’ to someone by the government unless it is taken from someone else.
Also, Richard Courtney is right. Malthus was wrong, and it’s easy to see: wherever there is an increasing population (in places with a fair rule of law), everyone gets wealthier. Places losing population stagnate, and get poorer. That’s the way it is.
Its only a bad idea if we cant build enough nuclear power to keep the population we have arrived at alive, once the supply chain gets expensive.
Willhas, you are technically unsophisticated about fossil fuels and how the system works. YOU need to do nothing. The market and human ingenuity has never failed to solve the problem. Indeed, new technology has shown us that there is a lot more fossil fuels available than we thought. That aside, long before we run out of fossil fuels, price gives us the signal and competing energy sources come to the fore. Nuclear is going to be the choice whether anyone or everyone dislikes it or not.
The stone age didn’t end in confusion and death because we ran out of stones – we found better ways. There is no reason for this to stop. The unsophisticated have it right: there is absolutely no reason to fear a sudden dearth of energy on technical and resource grounds. Political grounds, now that is a different question. This is how the USSR failed – they believed centrally planned economies will work. The reason it lasted as long as it did is because when it began to fail less than ten years in, they had to create a network of fear and kill 50M of their citizens to keep the system from being torn apart from within. Relax, if you are worried about fossil fuels.These are just Malthus’s horses.
“Because the supply is finite. Our use of fossil fuel is in part fueling our out of control human population.”
I like a lot of what you posted, but don’t agree with either of the above.
Our supply of fossil fuels is technically finite, but not in any real sense. There are fossil fuels buried deep within the earth that we don’t yet have the technology to extract. The more we use them up, the more our tech will improve as time goes by, enabling us to extract even more. There are more resources identified now than there have ever been, and there’s no reason to believe that this trend will change anytime soon.
On World Population – it is not exploding at all. To the contrary, it is leveling off. As societies become wealthier, and rise out of poverty, they have fewer children. You can see this easily by looking at birth rates in advanced nations like Japan and Sweden. Birth rates are falling worldwide, not rising. World population is not, never has been, and never will be a problem.
http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/global-population-10-billion-not-so-fast
The world is already overpopulated and it is gradually getting worse. For example, just 200 years ago the county where I live, which is in an advanced nation, was ranch and wild land and now it is mostly urban and suburban, Housing densities keep increasing. Almost all of our energy here comes from fossil fuels. Virtually all our food and water here has to be imported from other areas. Without the fossil fuels needed to transport and distribute food we would soon starve. Sure, it may be hundreds of years from now that disasters will strike my neighborhood but when they strike there will be no easy solution. Sure, Nature will eventually correct the situation but it will be catastrophic. I think that we can do better than let Nature take its course and hope for the best. I do not see why we need so many people anyway. We have more than enough to preserve the species. Hopefully it is not a matter of supplying more soldiers to die in future wars.
willhaas commented:
“The world is already overpopulated and it is gradually getting worse.”
By who’s criteria? You haven’t done much airplane time and looked out the window then.
The debate on anthropological global warming (AGW) is over not because the science is settled but because data, facts and scientific principles does not matter to alarmists. AGW to the alarmists is no longer debatable and they have closed their minds. AGW is a religion and dharma. As most liberal intellectuals have turned their back on religion they have forgotten that part of human longing is for one that if it does not exist man will invent it. The slip in the tongue in the farewell note by the guy from Almora sums it all of what he and the other alarmists have been thinking and doing. Perhaps the analysis would have to look at the influence of politics, economics, human needs and law warfare on religious conversions. I hope it does not degenerate to real violent warfare aspect of religious conversions as some alarmist are now calling for violent actions and application of political power that is just short of an inquisition against the skeptics. Almora neatly sums the temptation to AGW camp than simple crowd mentality. There is political power, money, sex, and international recognition in AGW while it could be loss of tenure, job, and influence in being a skeptic
“… data, facts and scientific principles does not matter to alarmists.”
Exactly !!!
I would agree about the religion bit. The psychology is not unlike that of the ‘Second Coming of the Messiah’ notion present in some versions of Christianity and Islam. The principle being that adherence to the tenets of the faith is a prerequisite for this wonderful event to take place, which will transform Earth into a paradise.
In the case of the Green Religion, being Carbon Neutral would make us righteous enough for life on Earth to become a nirvana. (and seemingly would do so even if we are still killing whales, engaging in mass deforestation, etc)
The real danger arises when the supposed conditions or time for the Second Coming arrive, but nothing happens. Then, those who Deny the Faith are seen as a danger to us all, since their presence may be what is preventing the Second Coming. This kind of thinking can lead to some very ugly situations, even to genocide.It is basically what drove the Inquisitions and witch hunts of the Middle Ages.
Actually the return of Christ and Everyone will be raised from the dead and have to face him. AND we don’t know when it will be— maybe as you read this. ( look it up– look for Nicene Creed ) We are all in the same boat.
Anthropogenic. Although I’ll grant that the cult of CACCA is an interesting anthropological phenomenon.
I agree with this approach as being part of the solution. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander and the warmists have been doing this since day one. Hoping that temperature will remain on its’ current course is not a solution but a gamble. Becoming a burr under the saddle of the warmists will also provide some awareness to people that are only seeing one side now. And for those that believe there is no political recourse to the problem….how/why do you think the AGW meme has grown to where it is today?
“Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.”
Napoleon Bonaparte
But what about, when he’s making a mistake with your energy supply and using your money?
Here’s a comment I’ve posted at the end of a couple of WUWT threads recently. It deserves repetition in a higher-profile location.
———–
The lawsuit I’d like to see is one directed at those who have claimed that WUWT and Anthony are “on the payroll” of Heartland. This includes, Mann, SourceWatch, and Desmogblog. This would have a much bigger impact, because millions have read and believed that charge, because it would damage the credibility of those false accusers to lose in court, and because it would provide an opportunity to cross-examine and expose Gleick about the origin and authorship of his phony Heartland “Strategy” document, which Desmogblog bases its claims on.
I laid out the case for such a suit in three WUWT comments here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/05/10/open-thread-weekend-20/#comment-1633276
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/06/07/why-climate-change-doesnt-scare-me/#comment-1656581
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/06/07/why-climate-change-doesnt-scare-me/#comment-1656913
$250,000 allocated by Heartland–or somebody–to this suit would provide ten times more bang for the buck than a similar allocation to any other project. It would get lots of press and put alarmists on the defensive. And it would do so without exposing the names of Heartland’s donors.
——————
I believe lawfare will provide the most bang for the buck. It has the potential to turn over rocks and expose warmists as untrustworthy. That is what will win headlines. That is what will move the masses. (The upcoming congressional hearings on fiddling with temperature and other data have tremendous anti-CAGW potential, for that reason.) Warmists rely heavily on the tactic of discrediting the opposition, because it is so effective (per Rules for Radicals. We should take a cue from them.
Multiply your figure by a double digit one.
Reblogged this on "Mothers Against Wind Turbines™" Phoenix Rising… and commented:
We must Fight Government-Induced Global Warming!
I don’t think ultimately his is a legal issue, its a political issue.
In Australia the landscape was completely upturned by one change of government. This is why greens in my opinion hate democracy, and why they regularly try to find ways to subvert it. They know how vulnerable their silliness is to a change in political climate, so their solution is to make change impossible, by removing people’s right to vote against them.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/04/23/claim-democracy-creates-climate-change-paralysis/
@Eric:
The ‘right’ also hates democracy.
Both the ‘right’ and the ‘left’ would prefer theocracy to democracy, and totalitarianism versus individualism.
Anarchy is the only accurate freedom standard, but anarchy also is a fast breeder of dictators and despots… unlike plutonium fast breeders, there is little benefit to the public.
I would vote for a hard line strictly worded Constitutional Republic… unfortunately, the US of A is too weakly worded – governmental power is too flexible and expandable.
unknown
In the US, the right supports constitutional conservatism. I’m not sure I understand your mixing of right/left and totalitarianism. The continuum moves from left to right and from big govt to little govt. Totalitarianism on the extreme left and anarchy on the extreme right.
@unknown,
By your definition of the ‘right’, I might agree. But I have no need for either extreme.
I want small government (except for a robust military), and other than that, I just want to be left alone.
The Left is much, much worse than anyone else when it comes to trying to rule over ordinary peoples’ lives. Who needs that? And here’s the really scary thing about this whole “dangerous man-made global warming” hoax:
Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.
Its already too late for legal arguments, ultimately skeptics need to understand the science so that we are in a position to explain what is happening when world temperatures begin to slide after this El Nino. You all know in your hearts that the ‘hiatus’ couldn’t last forever.
All we really need is for the MSM to tell the truth on the science, which means their reporters and journalists will need go to skeptic blogs to be amused and informed.
Victory will be ours, patience and perseverance is the way.
What occurs in Germany’s power industry, and maybe in Britain’s, could be very influential. If Germany’s pwser costs continue to increase while it produces more CO2, as is now occurring, the US voter may not make the connection, but our Congress people may. Nothing persuades Congress like voters angry over increasing prices or increasing restrictions.
Donb… not working to well over here. Energy and gasoline prices have been rising at a very rapid pace in CA. The populace is told it is the evil corporations and scarcity that is driving the cost up at double digit inflation rates and they almost ALL believe it. The populace is too stupid to see that the rapid price is almost entirely due to do with Progressive/Green policies.
that’s Germany’s POWER costs
How does a group that you’ve just defined as being poorly funded, engage in the very expensive practice of lawfare?
Besides, you assume we’re losing. We’re not. Governments all over the world are anxious to be seen as politically correct, but when you peal back the layers of rhetoric, there’s nothing much there. China just signed a major climate deal which is meaningless, but it sounds pretty. India won’t even sign anything. Emerging economies will take the position that they didn’t create the problem so someone else should pay. Oil producing nations will puff themselves up and say they’re on board, but do you think that the likes of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Qatar, Russia and others will cut back a single barrel per day?
The upcoming treaty in Paris will wind up being the same game as Kyoto. Sign and renege. A few foolish countries will sewer their economies but the vast majority of the world will do nothing more than symbolic measures. Carbon Credits will just be another taxation scheme like any other, and as with all taxation schemes, when the taxes get high enough to do real economic damage, they’ll be walked back.
I would love to see some existing groups engaged. CATO comes to mind.
The Pointman
I highly recommend Pointman’s articles as other methods.
He has some excellent articles on guerrilla climate warfare.
Pick Your Targets Carefully
Why the developing world hates environmentalists.
The Curious Case of Laurence Tribe.
Climate Alarmism and The Prat Principle.
Some thoughts on fanatics and how to fight them.
etc.
One facet of the problem is they strongly believe they are working to better the greater good and no one else is looking at the same bigger picture like they are. Until they change the bigger picture they are looking at, they will live in a self fulfilling prophecy.
I recently met with someone who can be described as a “warmer” but is relatively reasonable about it. I explained that with China’s $46 Billion loan to Pakistan to develop a major coal field in central Pakistan and to build eight COAL-FIRED Power plants, US and EU efforts to combat CO2 release into the atmosphere has been trumped and it is pointless to place our economies at a disadvantage. I assure you that I got his attention fast.
Pocketbook Politics
Another important tactic is keep asking your politicians and writing opinion pieces on why they are driving up our costs of electricity and increasing CO2 emissions by moving our industry to China. Note:
Germany’s expensive gamble on renewable energy
The biggest motivators of people is the carrot and the stick. It doesn’t sound nice. But it is true.
The carrot is the funding of real science focussed on something other than the CO2-induced warming. The stick is non-funding of ever more outrageous climate change scare scenarios over and over again.
Yes, it will work. It has always worked on people, whatever else are the motivations.
I think it’s best to be a bit understated about it. “Well, it hasn’t warmed much recently. I wouldn’t put all of my money on that horse.” If they want to argue, just smile and change the subject.
Bill, I sympathize, but you’ve heard the crying & teeth-gnashing in the US gov/media when even decreasing the rate of increase of funding is proposed. It would take a Reagan or even more hard-line politician to pull it off, or a national fiscal emergency.
This funding has done more than just gone down the drain of academic puffery. They have also ‘educated’ 100s of thousands of new climate science clones that are getting into the act. At a Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada annual meeting (PDAC – the world’s mining meeting place) a couple of years ago a geology student from Michigan told me she was taking the environmental option in the department of earth sciences and and what I would recommend to her for getting a job. I told her that she should go back and pick up the technical courses she dropped and get into mining and exploration if she wanted a job, that there were 100s of thousands already overpopulating the field and will have no future in their field. I had a possible job for her come up a few months later and she never replied to my email – oh the idealism of youth!
“Carrot and the stick”. Is this reward and punishment?
I am familiar with “Carrot on a stick”.
This is a reward that’s just out of reach. When dangled in front of a stubborn mule,say, it’s a motivator.
No punishment involved.
Take away their currency. “You don’t still believe in that catastrophic global warming crap do you?” Make their rational ignorance a detriment for them. Flip their return of investment upside down. — John M Reynolds
I actually think that simply by writing these posts, and explaining the idea of “Bellweathers”, you could have an effect on the public psyche, especially if the word “Bellweather” enters the vocabulary of the common man.
People don’t like seeing themselves as sheep following sheep. People like to feel they are special and different. It is practically a mantra, “I want to be a nonconformist like everyone else.”
To me the mob-mentality of fashion has always seemed unruly. What is fashionable can swiftly become unfashionable. If you can make being a bellweather unfashionable, then the bellweather will look back and see all the lemmings heading the other way.
Bell wethers Sheep that lead a flock
Redirecting Funding
Excellent observation on redirecting funding. The key people are the legislative assistants helping the members of Congress. Recommend helping them understand the issues and work towards more scientific integrity in funding. Especially helpful for constituents to contact members of Congress from their district/state. e.g. in the Senate see:
Senate Appropriations Subcommittee: Energy and Water Development
Senate Appropriations Subcommittee: Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies
US Committee on Environment & Public Works
Members
Contact form
Energy and Natural Resources
Members
Contact
How do we go about requesting FOIA information regarding the raw climate data, the adjusted numbers and the exact methodology to see how and why they were adjusted.
Can our author give us a ” cook book” on how to do this?
Please do….!!!
The 3rd International Open Data Conference is going on right now in Ottawa. Skeptics really need to network with people like the Sunlight Foundation. Even if they aren’t skeptical they might be able to help us if they think data that should be available is being hidden.
In addition to FOIA itself, the Federal Data Quality Act should be considered:
http://corporate.findlaw.com/law-library/federal-agencies-subject-to-data-quality-act.html
“Federal Agencies Subject to Data Quality Act
“The Data Quality Act (DQA) is an attempt by Congress to ensure that federal agencies use and disseminate accurate information. The DQA requires federal agencies to issue information quality guidelines ensuring the quality, utility, objectivity and integrity of information that they disseminate and provide mechanisms for affected persons to correct such information. It is important for natural resources and environmental attorneys to be aware of this law in the event that a client has an interest in filing a petition with an agency to challenge the quality of information it has used or disseminated. Questions that remain unanswered about the DQA are whether agency information quality guidelines apply to rule-making and whether an agency’s denial of a petition to correct information is reviewable by the courts.”
http://www.thecre.com/misc/20040606_worms.htm
“The Data Quality Act: A revoluation in the role of science in policy making or a can of worms?
“If you’ve never heard of the Data Quality Act, you’re not alone. What is being called the Data Quality Act (and the Information Quality Act) was enacted with no discussion and no debate as Section 515 of the Treasury and General Government Appropriations Act of 2001 (PL 106-544, H.R. 5658). The section directs the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to issue government-wide guidelines that “provide policy and procedural guidance to Federal agencies for ensuring and maximizing the quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of information (including statistical information) disseminated by Federal agencies.””
2nd paragraph, line 1:
Climate Change exists in a larger political context best know as the culture war.
Prolly s/b known, ne?
Hopefully I’ll never be judged on my typos. There’s not a way for me to edit these once the post is accepted.
Ah so. I was mistaken in my assumption that any such errata could be easily fixed.
Sincere apologies to anyone I’ve offended with my too-late proofreading. I just hate to see anything that is really good marred by tiny, seemingly easy-to-correct errors or flubs, but I erred in my own thinking.
I cringe at my own too frequent flubs, which I always try to correct, keeping in mind Battista’s Dictum:
An error doesn’t become a mistake until you refuse to correct it.
Meanwhile, keep those great posts coming.
Regular authors like Tisdale, etc. are able to correct typos. So keep pointing them out. (Even authors who can’t make corrections here can do so on their home documents, from which they might like to post extracts some day.)
It’s only websites like WUWT that provide international exposure of what’s taking place. Elsewhere information is just not allowed to be published or broadcast.
Maybe one big grid failure any place will wake up the public.
Nice discussion about these issues and there should be more like this.
Barbara commented: Maybe one big grid failure any place will wake up the public.
Nice discussion about these issues and there should be more like this.
Accompanied by deaths unfortunately. Yes as much as I abhor politics there’s a time and place for everything, I am amazed at how well the warmists have neutralized the skeptics without being called on the carpet for their own transgressions. I still miss the climate techy stuff even though I am not worthy.
Would becoming a believer make life any easier?
“I wish I believed in global warming,
In the pseudo-scientific consensus,
I could leave behind all common sense,
Become completely non compos mentis.
I wish I believed in global warming,
I could cast scientific principals aside,
And understand that a settled science
For the first time ever had arrived.
I wish I believed in global warming
And all of those wild climate claims,
And then if anyone dare question them
I could learn how to call them names……”
Read more: http://wp.me/p3KQlH-GD
One tactic that works especially well with millenials is to point out to them that the Government Lies; the Government ALWAYS Lies. That is something that every millenial I’ve ever met already believes, so it’s an easy sell. Point out to them how they are being lied to about everything important; student debt, the fraud (for them) of Social Security, the “free” health care they were promised (they thought) that they are paying through the nose for; believe me, every one of those issues is at the forefront of every millenials thinking, every day.
Point out to them that this is just one more lie, and that they are fools if they believe anything that is Officially the Truth. Like I said, they already believe that anyways, so it’s an easy sell.
“scientific principles” please!
Significant, scary planetary cooling as opposed to a period of 18 years without warming will end the cult of CAGW.
All of the scientific premises in the IPCC reports are incorrect.
There are more than 20 separate and independent observations and analysis results that support that assertion, however, discussion of observations vs incorrect models is academic as there is now unequivocal evidence that the cooling has started and that the solar cycle has been interrupted. What we are observing has happened before – the change to the sun and the change to the earth’s climate in response to the change to the sun.
http://www.academia.edu/4210419/Can_climate_models_explain_the_recent_stagnation_in_global_warming
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/05/is-the-current-global-warming-a-natural-cycle/
Greenland ice temperature, last 11,000 years determined from ice core analysis, Richard Alley’s paper. William: The Greenland Ice data shows that has been 9 warming and cooling periods in the last 11,000 years. The warming and cooling periods all correlate with solar cycle changes. There was an abrupt cooling period 11,900 years ago (Younger Dryas abrupt cooling period when the planet went from interglacial warm to glacial cold with 75% of the cooling occurring in less than a decade and there was abrupt cooling 8200 years ago during the 8200 BP climate ‘event’).
http://www.climate4you.com/images/GISP2%20TemperatureSince10700%20BP%20with%20CO2%20from%20EPICA%20DomeC.gif
What ever happened to the proposed US version of the GWPF?
http://www.thegwpf.org/
That may help with some of the issues mentioned.
Can’t argue with any of that!
Lawfare is pointless. The guy with the bigger wallet and better contacts wins.
That’s not odd for sceptics. We haven’t got that.
But we do have prudence on our side. The costs of acting now are huge – and only justified by a debunked economics paper by Lord Stern.
Keep pushing on prudence and the funding for boondoggles will dry up. Then the majority will just move on.
(And the True Believers can be ignored).
Libel lawsuits need cost nothing, if a lawyer will work on a contingency fee–as they usually do.
Just read some of the comments. Though I would try and give some of you a bit of hope after your gloomy “there is nothing we can do to stop them unless the Earth cools and probably not then either” depressions.
I was, until less than 2 years ago, a blind but very vocal supporter of the “save the planet from CO2” dimwit club! I publicly came out of the closet as a raging “denier” after someone with intelligence challenged me to back up my Al Gore channeled claims with actual evidence. All my Facebook friends, who are naturally Left leaning, have had to put up with my “denier” posts ever since. Apparently I’m worse than an ex smoker who preaches to people about the evils of cigarettes.
So keep plugging away, the facts are getting through!
I hope you realize that you are a rare bird. And a dangerous one. An ability to change one’s mind while facing the facts will soon be legally persecuted as “undesirable mutation.” Not to mention that, according to Obama, “climate change denial undermines our National Security.” You are being organized, gradually but unstoppably.
“The public will swallow anything, anything at all no matter how crazy, provided it appears to bear the seal of official approval, is sufficiently long sustained, never contradicted, and plays upon their fears.”
— Eric Frank Russell
Climate sceptics are just a symptom of a much wider change in society in which the ivory towers of academia are under attack from the ordinary world outside – not so much by intention – but because the internet has brought academia and outside into direct conflict.
The first two rules of politics are get elected and stay elected, given despite the ‘dreams’ of the green that no action will happen without a political buy-in , then ‘none action’ is a result of politicians deciding that action on this front breaks he first two rules and therefore not something they wish to pursue.
So one approach to make it clear that the electorate will remember, come voting time , those who thought that ideas like energy shortages and rising energy costs are a ‘good thing ‘.
Then there is ‘death by who cares ‘
In fact we seen this in action , CAGW was essentially a ‘none-issue’ in various national elections through-out the world. No one prompted it becasue they felt it simply was not a vote winner and the voters when it came down to it , had other things they felt where more important , the greens screams of ‘most important thing ever’ have mostly fallen on deaf ears. Here the voter can make it clear that ‘CAGW’ simply does not float their boat, so do not look for my vote by pushing this idea. Indifference is a very effective slow poison.
The exception to these factors, are places like China where the ‘voter’ is given a choice between vote for me or ‘re-education’ and the irony is in these countries they shown no willingness to rush down any ‘green road ‘
So even without voter disinterest , they are not buying it .
This of course does not included grand standing public statements, made to make the speaker look good they frankly are much smoke and mirrors but little actual affect .
When you look at it honestly, although we have seen bad, the mad and ugly ideas pushed through compared to what the ‘greens’ and the rabid CAGW supporters expected and wanted,and for a time they really thought they would get , we actual seen very little action come out of all the mountain of IPCC based BS . Not because those who could enact it are being ‘stopped’ by Lew style conspiracy, but becasue they feel these action are not in their own interest in the first place.
Paris will seen a great push , becasue there is real fear that is may be the last real chance has the already gone past the peak of opportunity for ‘the cause’ and then may now be looking at the down slope , but it is no more likley to result in real action then the many other meetings before it. Although a mountain of paper and BS, along with the running up of some serious hotel bills , is fully expected .
re: “Don’t eliminate the funding, change it. The NASAs, the NOAAs, the NSFs of the world must be co-opted.”
On the surface that might seem to make sense, but there are a major problems making that easier said than done even if the voters got Congress to go along in theory. Consider a funding decision maker who may know something about the topic but ultimately is more of a manager (or politician if we are talking about budgets that get to Congress) who can only fund 1 project out of 2 proposals. One proposal say “the sky is falling, even if you aren’t sure you should fund me just in case I’m right” and one that says “nah, nothing is wrong but we merely wish to research this cool thing”. Which are they more likely to fund “just in case”? Even if they were somewhat skeptical that the sky is falling, unless they were certain it wasn’t, many people would fund the chicken-little research just in case rather than risk looking bad later if they were wrong. It is easy to see how the funding disparity favoring alarm would arise even if the funders were mildly skeptical, it isn’t easy to see how to counter that.
In addition, there are lots of folks doing climate research now who are used to the current status quo approach. Unless you claim “we’ll only fund those skeptical of climate alarm” (which seems as unskeptical as many warmists, since most skeptics don’t rule out the possibility they could eventually have a solid case, even if they don’t know so we are doubtful), it seems many then will still wish to “play it safe” and not admit any skepticism of AGW alarm since they will be skeptical the regime has truly changed. Also, regardless of whether the funding situation helped push the field towards bias, many within it truly do believe the warmist story. It would take some effort to try to recruit true skeptics into the field after a culture has tried to push them out for decades, and those within the field would resist being pushed out.
The goal may make sense, but I’m just not sure what strategy will work. I don’t think merely trying to persuade them that overall science funding will remain the same will work. Even if overall science funding remained the same, without “the sky is falling” story it seems likely it would shift. Even if you claim that it won’t shift in order to try to make them open to being skeptical, they are going to be rightly skeptical of the situation and will suspect that the funding will necessarily start changing in the future if they don’t keep up cries of alarm.
There is only one valid strategy: Wait and see what the climate does.
I’ve seen the term ‘bellwether’ described as a sheep with a bell that the others will follow. Probably wit would have been sharpened in these threads if it were broadly known that a wether is analogous to a steer – it has been neutered. Perhaps someone pointed this out somewhere.
I’ve been watching this entire “Global Warming” aka “Climate Change” aka “climate weirding” thing very closely for more than 15 years. I’ve followed it through all of the Gore, Hansen and Mann nastiness and craziness, the “Climategate” scandal, the lawsuits and FOIA requests, and now the temperature adjustments scandal. It is pretty obvious to me at this point that belief in the AGW theory is collapsing, not just for the general public but also for many scientists involved. All the lying scandals alone show that the AGW proponents are desperate, not because they fear that the world is in any imminent danger, but because they see their circus parade coming to an end.
Unfortunately, government policy and spending is like a charging elephant. It doesn’t change direction very quickly in most instances. There are still a lot of people whose livelihoods are dependent upon the largess flowing from government coffers through the NSF. There are still a lot of politicians hoping for more revenue through the implementation of carbon taxes. There are still a lot of financial interests who hope to make a quick killing by scamming the public with unnecessary, unsightly, and inefficient wind and solar projects. There are still a lot of financial interests who are hoping to have a whole, new set of paper toys (in the form of carbon credits) to trade and manipulate.
So there are still plenty of stakeholders. These stakeholders have a vested interest in keeping the scam going for as long as they possibly can. Money is the key, and the NSF is probably the first step in squeezing off the money supply to climate research. Ahead of that, public opinion that passively accepts the wasting of tax dollars on climate research and on unnecessary alternative energy projects, needs to change.
However, public opinion IS changing, and it will change even more as our winters deepen and lengthen, our summers grow cooler and shorter, and the cost of food inevitably increases. The change to colder, wetter conditions is already under way, and the change will persist for many years. The majority opinion will change abruptly very soon, and it will have solidly rejected the AGW theory long before the climate flips back to warmer conditions. By then the scam artists will have moved on to other charades.
There are many more “stakeholders” motivated to maintain cheap energy.
I believe that the funding bias argument is a logical fallacy. At least in the US courts the accused is allowed to present a case in his defense.
There is no reason that the fossil fuel industry should not be permitted to fund its own research, so long as the research adheres to best scientific practices.
I bet temperature record corruption hits a new record this year because the people making money of the CAGW scam want to claim the pause has ended.
Using FOIA requests seems like a no-brainer. It reminded me of the ACORN scandal, where secret videos were obtained of low-level ACORN workers showed that they supported all kinds of questionable and outright fraudulent activities.
The one problem is that Climate-gate already exposed much of the unseemly activities going on within the Warmist community, involving top-level people not local stooges. This should have gained much more traction and led to more of a public outcry similar to the backlash against ACORN, but it didn’t.
I think the Climate-gate e-mails were released at a very opportune time to derail the rush into a global climate suicide pact, but in some ways it happened too early. ACORN was already viewed as a partisan organization who’s public funding was already questionable to begin with. I think Climate-gate hit before there was a general sense of distrust in society toward those pushing it, so the e-mails kind of fizzled out before there could be a public outcry for funding to be cut off.
This allowed time for the Warmists to circle the wagons and declare themselves innocent of wrongdoing. They also know they got caught with their pants down before and will be much more careful in how they conspire together in the future. I think the natural level of skepticism in society has increased since Climate-gate, and perhaps another event of its magnitude would be enough now.
A small portion of the true believers are persuadable. I’m afraid the simpletons attributing every rainstorm, tornado, hurricane, snow storm, heat wave, cold wave, drought, etc. to AGW are lost causes. It’d be like trying to teach a lizard how to do calculus, a waste of time.
It would be great if Africa and India took drastic action against foreign Green NGOs. Arrest anyone who opposes development (energy/water/GMOs) for attempted genocide. Make it clear they won’t be released until UN/Greenpeace/WWF/etc apologize and promise to stop interfering.
Of course this will create international incident, but the publicity will be terrible for Greens and stupid politicians who defend them.
The State of Texas should charge certain “climatologists” and their spokespersons with manslaughter. Didn’t climate prognosticators tell Texans they were destined for perpetual drought and thus had no need to prepare for floods? How is this different from Italy charging seismologists with manslaughter for failure to warn of a possible earthquake?
Attack CAGW using science, logic and legal action if you must but in our social media world, the real answer is mockery and peer pressure.
‘Everyone knows runaway man-made global warming is BS – have you only just found out?’
That’s all you need – works like a charm!