Seeking to Save the Planet, With a Thesaurus
WASHINGTON — The problem with global warming, some environmentalists believe, is “global warming.”
The term turns people off, fostering images of shaggy-haired liberals, economic sacrifice and complex scientific disputes, according to extensive polling and focus group sessions conducted by ecoAmerica, a nonprofit environmental marketing and messaging firm in Washington.
Instead of grim warnings about global warming, the firm advises, talk about “our deteriorating atmosphere.” Drop discussions of carbon dioxide and bring up “moving away from the dirty fuels of the past.” Don’t confuse people with cap and trade; use terms like “cap and cash back” or “pollution reduction refund.”
EcoAmerica has been conducting research for the last several years to find new ways to frame environmental issues and so build public support for climate change legislation and other initiatives. A summary of the group’s latest findings and recommendations was accidentally sent by e-mail to a number of news organizations by someone who sat in this week on a briefing intended for government officials and environmental leaders.
Asked about the summary, ecoAmerica’s president and founder, Robert M. Perkowitz, requested that it not be reported until the formal release of the firm’s full paper later this month, but acknowledged that its wide distribution now made compliance with his request unlikely.
The research directly parallels marketing studies conducted by oil companies, utilities and coal mining concerns that are trying to “green” their images with consumers and sway public policy.
Environmental issues consistently rate near the bottom of public worry, according to many public opinion polls. A Pew Research Center poll released in January found global warming last among 20 voter concerns; it trailed issues like addressing moral decline and decreasing the influence of lobbyists. “We know why it’s lowest,” said Mr. Perkowitz, a marketer of outdoor clothing and home furnishings before he started ecoAmerica, whose activities are financed by corporations, foundations and individuals. “When someone thinks of global warming, they think of a politicized, polarized argument. When you say ‘global warming,’ a certain group of Americans think that’s a code word for progressive liberals, gay marriage and other such issues.”
The answer, Mr. Perkowitz said in his presentation at the briefing, is to reframe the issue using different language. “Energy efficiency” makes people think of shivering in the dark. Instead, it is more effective to speak of “saving money for a more prosperous future.” In fact, the group’s surveys and focus groups found, it is time to drop the term “the environment” and talk about “the air we breathe, the water our children drink.”
“Another key finding: remember to speak in TALKING POINTS aspirational language about shared American ideals, like freedom, prosperity, independence and self-sufficiency while avoiding jargon and details about policy, science, economics or technology,” said the e-mail account of the group’s study.
Mr. Perkowitz and allies in the environmental movement have been briefing officials in Congress and the administration in the hope of using the findings to change the terms of the debate now under way in Washington.
Opponents of legislation to combat global warming are engaged in a similar effort. Trying to head off a cap-and-trade system, in which government would cap the amount of heat-trapping emissions allowed and let industry trade permits to emit those gases, they are coaching Republicans to refer to any such system as a giant tax that would kill jobs. Coal companies are taking out full-page advertisements promising “clean, green coal.” The natural gas industry refers to its product as “clean fuel green fuel.” Oil companies advertise their investments in alternative energy.
Robert J. Brulle of Drexel University, an expert on environmental communications, said ecoAmerica’s campaign was a mirror image of what industry and political conservatives were doing. “The form is the same; the message is just flipped,” he said. “You want to sell toothpaste, we’ll sell it. You want to sell global warming, we’ll sell that. It’s the use of advertising techniques to manipulate public opinion.”
He said the approach was cynical and, worse, ineffective. “The right uses it, the left uses it, but it doesn’t engage people in a face-to-face manner,” he said, “and that’s the only way to achieve real, lasting social change.”
Frank Luntz, a Republican communications consultant, prepared a strikingly similar memorandum in 2002, telling his clients that they were losing the environmental debate and advising them to adjust their language. He suggested referring to themselves as “conservationists” rather than “environmentalists,” and emphasizing “common sense” over scientific argument.
And, Mr. Luntz and Mr. Perkowitz agree, “climate change” is an easier sell than “global warming.”
““global warming.” The term turns people off, fostering images of shaggy-haired liberals, economic sacrifice and complex scientific disputes, ”
I think it’s too late to change what people feel about global warming. This new vocabulary will grow thin too.
This is all about our new language, eco-truth speak.
cap and cash back” or “pollution reduction refund.”
The FTC might have something to say about using this kind of obfuscation.
Yah know – Iffen these propagandists (er, global waring – er, global warming) and socialist extremists actually had logic and real evidence on their side – instead of made-up and data and a religious view of the world that views “nature being destroyed by capitalism” – they just might not NEED propaganda and touchy-feely words that disguise their hatred.
This is straight out of George Orwell. It’s ridiculous to suggest they’re just doing what AGW opponents are doing: when someone describes cap and trade as a gigantic energy tax, they’re telling the unvarnished truth because that’s exactly what it is. Obama said, in plain language, that he intended to pass laws that would put coal-fired generating plants out of business.
Keep up the good work, Anthony.
Lies, damn lies, and marketing …
Thanks to the ubiquity of TV, more and more folks are not deflected by ‘new speak’ and manipulation.
The good news is that this tells me exactly where to push:
ANY time and attempt is made to talk about CO2 as evil is phrased as ANYTHING other than AGW, I’m going to be pushing the term GLOBAL WARMING front and center. Any Cap & Tirade is going to be rephrased as Tax and Charade. Two can play the marketing game…
In old age, many people will yearn for “global warming.”
Accidentally sent to news organizations, my rear end. What are the odds that these folks are going to run with the new “instructions”?
As long as CO2 taxation is on the table, Global Warming remains the issue. When the AGW advocates concede that Global Warming is a dead issue I will be willing to ask: How is (insert new PC phrase here) different from Global Warming?
The next question should be what’s the new reason to tax CO2.
So, apparently, a rose by any other name would NOT smell as sweet……….
“Al Gore Enrichment Scheme” = Cap and Trade
This is another way of controlling and limiting the debate. Who wants to be against fighting pollution?
Another great application of radical principles.
If only I had enough money to pay for a 90 minute block of prime-time on one of the big tv channels! I would have “The Great Global Warming Swindle” aired.
Then let’s see what would become of public opinion of global warming!
Welcome to the brave new world of cheat and mean green.
People don’t buy the worn out Global Warming BS any more so wrap it a trendy packaging, let the marketing boys add a nice jingle to it and push it on the public’s throat.
What do those green hillbillies think, that we are stupid or what?
I really believe this is the last desperate attempt to revive the crashing house of cards called AGW/Climate Change and it’s not going to work.
We will keep our eyes and ears open and rip the packaging of the scam.
And that’s a promise.
The problem isn’t that folks aren’t buying the global warming — now climate change — agenda. The problem is, is that they just can’t sell it.
Put a pollution tax in a nice new package and it’s still a tax. Increase my winter heating bill from $200/month to $300/month with a $25 “pollution reduction refund” and my bill is still higher.
A con is still a con, no matter the pretty wrappings and ribbons and bows that adorn the package.
Global warming didn’t work when people found they were still shoveling snow; climate change doesn’t cut it when the same message is still being pushed showing melting ice caps and glaciers.
This post is appropriately tagged as ridiculae.
E.M Smith: “Tax and Charade” – very good. “Tax and Tirade” may have been a typo but is almost as good.
Message to ecoAmerica
Advertising works because it’s selling something I want, or might be persuaded I want. The only way to sell me BS is if I want to put it on the roses.
Stop trying to spin the global warming message and start telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. You never know, it might work.
They can use whatever words they want to describe it, the fact is that their theory is based on distortions and lies.
Maurice Garoutte writes “The next question should be what’s the new reason to tax CO2.”
That’s easy. Ocean acidification!!!!!!!!!!!
Actually, this issue is hitting the bottom of the priority list because after 20 years people are beginning to see right through this farce!
It’s gotten colder, so people are perhaps waking up and realising what a money-making scam this is.
As someone who has made a living from the use of words I think I can say that the approach we’re looking at here is about as dishonest as you can get.
“the air we breathe, the water our children drink.” … the air we breathe is probably cleaner than it has been since before the industrial revolution; the water our children drink is certainly as clean as it has ever been.
The situation in poorer parts of the world, which the Warm-mongers and their useful idiots would like to keep in its present under-developed state, is somewhat different. The money that was supposed to be spent implementing the Kyoto farce is twice what would be needed to provide clean drinking water to every child in sub-Saharan Africa.
By all means clean up the air where it is dirty. By all means scrub the emissions from coal-based industries but because they directly affect the health of the people living down-wind NOT because they add minuscule amounts of CO2 to the atmosphere. By all means look for “cleaner” fuels but do it because sooner or later we will (probably) run out of coal and oil and NOT because of the fallacy of “global warming”.
Changing the language may well fool some of the people for some of the time but in the long run even the politicians will see through this scam.
This campaign is proof that not only do environmentalists hate human kind, they think we’re stupid too! Although, as mentioned in a previous post, this newspeak has an important secondary benefit. After all, who could argue against “the air we breathe, the water our children drink.” This campaign is beyond cynical.
Well, they don’t have to sell Trapped & Betrayed to everybody to make it happen. Just to enough to let the Demorxists pretend it’s the wishes of the people. Remember the Salad Shooter*? That’s about how many people have to be suckered into believing in AGW.
* “Look! Velveeta sticks to the ceiling!” — Opus
Actually, the most interesting thing here is that it was the NYT that printed this expose.
These people make it obvious that what really matters for them are the methods of propaganda – the best ways (and best vocabulary) to fool the people and to control whole countries. The content of the assertions and arguments is irrelevant for them. More seriously, they don’t even try to hide this sad fact.
Every person with IQ above 100 knows that whether “global warming” is called “global warming” or “climate change” or “thermostatic change of our deteriorating atmosphere” or whatever cannot possibly influence whether this system of ideas is found justifiable and adopted. The only people who can be influenced are those who only “know” approximately two words about the “problem”. If someone only “knows” two words, it really matters whether these two words are “global warming” or “deteriorating atmosphere”.
But these ideologues heavily underestimate the intelligence of individuals as well as the self-organizing power of the society. The truth is that virtually all people know more than two words about this “problem” today. Moreover, the people who only want to know roughly two words – “global warming” or “deteriorating atmosphere” – are rightfully losing their influence on the debate, converging to zero.
The people who care about the eco-speak are still imagining that the whole mankind is a collection of 6 billion simpletons who will accept their prayers about “deteriorating atmosphere” in the very same way as the Muslim sheep accept the word “Allah”: in a completely naive, uncritical, obedient, yet aggressive and fanatical way.
Well, there are surely people in this world who are ready to approach this “problem” – and other problems – in this way. But the ideologues are very wrong that these people will matter in the world of the 21st century. They may matter for a temporary fad in which newspapers and other institutions in whole countries lose the ability to think rationally, beyond simple slogans, and whole masses of population become irrational. But any institution (or nation!) that jumps on this way of “thinking” (or non-thinking) is going to become irrelevant, after a time period that can be shorter or longer but it is demonstrably finite. The environmental religion is unsustainable.
Unlike islam, it won’t be able to control the whole power systems of countries, armies, and policemen, and without them, an isomorphic totalitarian system to treat people as stupid sheep simply cannot work. What they want and need is a world where the people act equally irrationally, unfreely, and hopelessly as people had to act in the totalitarian systems. But such a system can only become real if they take over the “power” in the same way as Stalin or Hitler did.
The totalitarian system of thinking and control over the language simply cannot work simultaneously with freedom and democracy. I suspect that most of the power-thirsty global warming ideologues already realize this fact. They differ in their desire to liquidate freedom – e.g. my freedom to point out that their propaganda is a pile of lies and their money from carbon indulgences and climate speeches are a result of fraud.
Demented.
Borrowed from Charles Munger who said this past week, “adopting cap and trade in this economic crisis is demented”, “demented” is my new word of choice in describing the entire AGW crusade.
Demented.
de⋅ment⋅ed
1. crazy; insane; mad.
2. affected with dementia.
Synonyms:
1. lunatic, crazed, deranged, unbalanced.
Good day.
If people stop believing the lies then rephrase the lies?
Sounds like a failed soap powder advertising drive doesnt it? is it all about selling the lies now, repackaging the dogma?
Lies and falsehoods built on speculation to support a wretched politically convenient theory, the decline of science into a dark age of dishonest spin, the old saying goes that ‘you cannot make a silk purse out of a pigs ear’ holds true, lies and falsehoods are still lies and falsehoods even if you sugar coat them.
On the plus side it could well signal a marked decay in the AGW/MMCC narrative coupled with a strong whiff of desperation, they must realise that if the public turns against them in large enough numbers then their jelously guarded dominance thus far in the political/MSM arena is finished.
Polititians will look closely at the polling numbers and if it turns out that the voter will switch their vote to a sceptical/realist candidate then just watch the polititians jump off the AGW/MMCC bandwaggon leaving behind the usual scapegoats(scientists) many of whom will have their carreers smashed, well someone has to carry the can eh?
Science as a whole will be discredited and damned and the polititians keen to cover their posteriors will surely be the first to condemn them from the lofty pulpits of their own hypocritical pomposity.
Other words in their Thesaurus :
‘Cap-and-Trade’ is known as ‘Emissions Trading’ in Europe
From Václav Klaus via Lobos Motl’s :
“Green Hysteria Shackles Our Economic Growth”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2009/may/01/vacla-klaus-emissions-economy
Well, once one starts digging into connections such as theseone can begin to see the wider view of what is really going on. These groups, while individual, are coordinated in their message by groups such as Fenton. Fenton keeps various organizations “on message”.
They specialize in astroturfing where they coordinate several groups that appear to be individual grass-roots or non-profit agencies so that they all work together. They also provide marketing material, news releases, media packages, etc. So in many cases “articles” like the one above are really information ready for publication that is provided to various “journalists” by Fenton in a media packet.
The “environmental” agenda is a political agenda and has very little to do with our atmosphere, and is really about agitation in order to elect a certain slate of candidates.
Reminds me of a hospital where I used to work. Personnel department was retitled Human Resources. Housekeeping was retitled Environmental Services. While Human Resources did a better job of describing how the place used up and threw away employees Environmental Services sounded like they were in charge of the air conditioning and heating instead of emptying trashcans.
This is just like the ad campaigns that prey on our fears and also our fears of inadequacy. Whether it is kitchen cleaner or anti-perspirant the ad just sows that seed of doubt that your household or personal hygiene is not up to scratch. The AGW slogans aren’t working and now they want to tell it to us straight.
“cap and cash back” or “pollution reduction refund.”
Sounds like a win-win to me! Sign me up! Just let me
finish drilling this hole in my head first!
Well well well; the klimate kool-aid has gone rancid, stale and sour, and they are going to try to cover it up with sweeteners and flavor enhancers and re-package and re-market the “product”. Good luck with that, AGWons. No one with half a brain is going to buy that C++p, especially not in this economy.
Ultimately, the toothpaste has to clean your teeth. Since AGW folks state that the war is already lost and even if we did cut back on carbon and oxygen which fuel the biosphere and ecosphere, the warming will continue. Okay, since we can do little (according to IPCC graphs (a post on another recent thread, I have forgotten which) a calculation can be made that it takes about 1.8trillion tons of carbon dioxide reduction to cool us off 1 deg. C) let us take 10 year break and let the planet tell us which way things are going. It would certainly be an unmitigatable disaster if we were to act to accelerate a dangerous cooling trend.
“Just Want Truth… (10:32:08) :
Other words in their Thesaurus :
‘Cap-and-Trade’ is known as ‘Emissions Trading’ in Europe”
I believe that Europe intends (or pretends) to give companies the right to their current emissions for FREE, sort of a grandfather-right, whereas Obama wants to SELL them. These emission-rights would shrink over time.
Those being cheated would be (the US and) new or growing companies.
I posted the following as an OT response elsewhere, just moving it here.
Positioning the language is done by both sides for all time. One can stay above the fray but benefit from the attention brought by the zealots. I try to do that, I think Anthony does that too. A lot of people here are here because they got fed up with groups like RealClimate. I really like this quote:
If “Mr. Perkowitz and allies in the environmental movement” are that out of touch with the world, I think they’re more likely to embarrass themselves than advance their cause.
I’ve read many comments, both here and at the Times website, that refered to this article as Orwellian. I have to say, this is way beyond Orwellian, it’s South Park-ian.
Now that I think about it, the whole “deteriorating atmosphere” line is bogus. The reason I say that is because the atmosphere is MUCH cleaner in the US now than it was when I was a child in the 1960’s. The atmosphere in Eastern Europe is cleaner than it was only 20 years ago.
Smog in Los Angeles was much worse than it is today. Same with the SF Bay area. People living within 50 miles in any direction of Youngstown or Pittsburgh or practically any other major city would agree, too. I remember driving across Pennsylvania in the 1960s and smelling the most horrible smell I had ever experienced in my life. I asked my Dad what it was, he said “Pittsburgh” … and we still had 50 miles to go before we got there. When we did get there, you could barely see through the haze, my eyes burned, the smell was absolutely terrible.
Overall, I do not believe that our atmosphere is “deteriorating”, in fact I believe that quite the opposite has happened. The air is probably the cleanest it has been in decades. Compared to other places in the world I have been to, the US is practically park land.
I lived in Berlin, Germany for a while in the 1980’s and the East Germans burned a lot of soft coal. The air smelled of coal smoke, the trees and everything else covered with black soot. When you got a foggy, drizzly, day the moisture would cause black streaks to run down the sides of cars, faces of buildings, just about anything exposed to the air. And it got worse the farther East you went into Eastern Europe. Eastern Europe is, I believe, the greatest environmental disaster left untold in our history. It is also where the most improvement has taken place.
Our “deteriorating” atmosphere? Yeah, I suppose, if that is what your agenda is all about. The reality is, I believe, quite different. The atmosphere is currently in best shape it has been in my lifetime.
Reminds me of what the definition of ‘is’ is.
“It would certainly be an unmitigatable disaster if we were to act to accelerate a dangerous cooling trend.”
Please tell Obama.
Ok, so check this out. The Russians are building an array of 70 Megawatt floating nuclear plants in the Arctic Ocean. Now, how much will the cooling systems for these heat the surrounding water? Will it be enough to measurably reduce the Arctic ice area? If so, would this reduction from the Russian nuclear plants be used to further “prove” that “global warming” is reducing Arctic ice?
Speaking of propaganda anyone seen the trailer for
Battle for Terra?
http://www.apple.com/trailers/independent/battleforterra/
Evil man, destroyer of nature! But aren’t the alien’s cute…
I love the alarmists. Every time I think that things can’t get any crazier someone pops up to prove that I was wrong.
Let’s not call it “cap and trade” let’s call it “ponies and rainbows”. Let’s not call it a “carbon tax” let’s call it “free money for all”.
Without energy we won’t be freezing to death in the dark, we will be enjoying an extended number of cool evenings.
H L Mencken once said that nobody ever went broke by underestimating the intelligence of the average man. How much is Al Gore worth now?
Regardless of how much mayonnaise you use, you can’t change chicken sh*t into chicken salad.
The bottom line seems to be how the public is persuaded to emotionally react to the existence of trace amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere. Is it dirty “carbon” pollution for unseemly profit, causing the inevitable demise of God’s Perfect Creation, or simply a natural plant nutrient without which there can be no life on Earth?
Since uncensored scientific investigation usually has a lower priority than emotional consensus, fear and other negative emotions generally win out over fundamental facts. The deciding factor could finally be some scrap of meat for Pavlov’s hungry dog.
Praising…
Bob Meyer (13:06:48) :
I love the alarmists. Every time I think that things can’t get any crazier someone pops up to prove that I was wrong.
Let’s not call it “cap and trade” let’s call it “ponies and rainbows”. Let’s not call it a “carbon tax” let’s call it “free money for all”.
Without energy we won’t be freezing to death in the dark, we will be enjoying an extended number of cool evenings.
H L Mencken once said that nobody ever went broke by underestimating the intelligence of the average man. How much is Al Gore worth now?
I may have to print this post out, frame it and hang it on my office wall…
The side that is losing the factual debate is always the side that continuously tries to redefine the terms involved in the political debate.
I just hope that the electorate, and their representatives, realize the fraud before we bankrupt ourselves tilting at CO2 windmills…If not…The Yankees will soon find themselves “freezing in the dark.”
My goodness, they have gone from “settled science” to trying to come up with what sells. Does the AGW crowd realize how absolutely stupid and manipulative this makes them look? As if we didn’t know already! Can Al Gore be brought up for perjury charges on his Congressional testimonies?
Im not sure who the wise guy was that decided what that perfect climate was. I say we use their own words against them.. Define climate… define change.. explain why it is bad, unprecidented or dangerous.
For those who haven’t read it yet “Warm Words” was written for UK policy makers about 3 years ago. Avoid facts and debate just present climate change as a product.
An extract:
“Will producing more of the same communications do the job, and if not, how could the way climate change is communicated be improved?
To help answer those questions, ippr commissioned Linguistic Landscapes to analyse current UK constructions and conceptions of climate change in the public domain, using some of the tools and principles of discourse analysis and semiotics.”
No science just “discourse analysis and semiotics”
Oldthink and oldspeak must end. The proles must embrace doublethink via prolefeed to ensure Big Brother’s eco-plans are implemented. The Ministry of Truth and the outer party will begin immediately. Crimethink will not be tolerated and the Ministry of Love will use Room101 to eliminate resistance.
(with apologies to George Orwell)
Here is a definition of AGW from wiki.answers:
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_does_CO2_affect_climate_change
An example; “The way it works is that basically certain ‘greenhouse gases’ can’t escape from our atmosphere because they get trapped. ”
And:
“Because these gases are trapped in our atmosphere, it is not allowing new usable and circulated air to enter or be created because when the gases hit the atmosphere only a little leaves are planen (our planet?), and the rest bounces back to the earths surface.”
I do not want to ridicule someone for trying to describe something that appears to be not in their native language. That might explain what appears to be confusion in explaining standard AGW theory. However the last line speaks of ‘High profile climate change deniers’ thus “They understand the cause and effect relationship well enough, but in their pathalogical dishonesty they also understand how to manipulate people and seed doubt in their minds. “
Check out the John Prine song “Commom Sense” on the album of the same name from Atlantic Records, with its reftain of “It don’t make no sense that common sense don’t make no sense no more”.
The song of the 21st century?
Lubos Motl:
But such a system can only become real if they take over the “power”
Hope they will not…but they could, in such a case we´ll see history to repeat itself almost to the last detail. (So “they” need to take it seriously before going any further…WUWT will be following their footprints).
The thing that put me right off Al Gore’s self-promotional video, from the first day that it came to our cinemas, was this: the whole presentation was practically identical a hundred similar, graph-strewn, intentionally-misleading Powerpoint presentations that I had suffered at the hands of fund managers during my rather short tenure as a stockbroker. It was pure marketing. Lies by any other name! Same bucket, just a different lot of crap.
And the thing that put me off Al Gore was this: here was a spoiled, over-privileged, oily American politician, re-writing the history books by telling us that a) he had single-handedly discovered, and then for the past 30 years tirelessly fought against the horrors of global warming [which was rubbish, because when I first studied the subject, in 1985, under a brilliant London University professor who is now the head of the British Antarctic Survey, Al Gore was nowhere to be seen], and that b) his wealthy tobacco-farming father or grandfather had just about single-handedly abolished slavery [which was gratuitous nonsense: all his lot seemed to have done was to get shamelessly wealthy from the cancer trade].
So the jury was still out on global warming then, as far as I was concerned. But the whole Al Gore thing stank. And it was marketing that Al Gore stank of.
For as my old boss in the stock broking game used to reply to the earnest and oft-repeated question “But how do I actually make money for my clients?”: “FORGET THE CLIENTS! IT’S MARKETING! MARKETING! MARKETING! THAT’S ALL THERE IS TO IT!”
Which is why a scientific mind cannot do stockbroking, and why science advances, and the financial world is bankrupt.
[Rant On]:
We need to hold these alarmists’ feet to the fire, by constantly reminding them that their scare is based on “global warming”. More specifically: on CO2=AGW. They own that failed hypothesis, and we should never let them forget it.
If the AGW fraudsters had told the truth about the very minuscule effect of a minor trace gas on the planet, then any conjecture about atmospheric CO2 would have been an inconsequential footnote in a few obscure journals. There would have been no reason to spend one taxpayer dime on it.
But they lied. They lied in order to get their hands deep into the pockets of taxpayers. And now, as the truth becomes more and more clear, the alarmist side is frantically backing and filling by changing the words. Don’t let them get away with it. Global warming is their baby.
They own the global warming hypothesis. We should never let them call it by a different name without a challenge. Name changing is just moving the goal posts.
Hold their feet to the fire. When someone says “deteriorating atmosphere,” remind them: No, that’s just your old CO2=AGW claim, morphing into your latest cry of “Wolf!!” We don’t buy it. You have cried “Wolf!” too many times: Coral bleaching. Hurricanes. Malaria. Sea level. Ocean acidification. Receding glaciers. The ozone hole. Greenland melting. Nuclear winter. Global warming. And every single time it’s turned out to be a false alarm.
Since global warming didn’t pan out, why are they just shifting the focus to something else? The answer, of course, is money. Your money. The money we work for to feed our families. They are trying to take it by fraud. By global warming fraud.
Britain is currently showing what’s planned for America. There is no possible way to finance Obama’s spending plans by “taxing the rich.” There aren’t nearly enough rich people to tax.
The same situation is happening right now in Britain. The British government is raising marginal tax rates to 61.5% on anyone earning £100,000 [source: the Economist]. Obama’s mendacious claim that 95% of U.S. taxpayers will get a tax refund is an absolute scam: as one hand gives, the other will take away. And the taking hand is a lot bigger.
That’s why Cap&Trade must be passed, whether there is global warming or not. There aren’t enough “rich” people to tax. By definition, rich people are scarce.
So Obama will follow Britain’s lead in raising taxes. C&T is a tax, pure and simple. They will claim it’s not a tax. But it is a very big tax, which will significantly raise the cost of goods and services across the board. It will hit the poorest families the hardest, by far.
And C&T is not the only tax that will be raised. There are already proposals in Congress for hefty new taxes on gasoline and on Social Security pensions, which will be fully taxed. Employer-paid medical care is proposed to be taxed, as if it were received as income. Obama is also planning to pay out 0.7% of U.S. GDP into the opaque and unaccountable UN, which has always refused to allow any independent audits and has over 100,000 bureaucrats — who pay no income taxes — on its ever expanding payroll. And that UN “World Tax” is just for starters — name a tax that doesn’t get ratcheted up over time.
Rising prices plus increased taxes will come down hardest on those least well off. And it could all be avoided. But Obama never really cared about the less fortunate. If he did, he would help them most by jettisoning C&T and all the other fees and taxes, which will surely stick it to the poor in rising prices.
And President Obama exhibits astonishing public hatred toward American citizens that he purports to represent, if they don’t agree with him, even in his own Party [“Don’t think we’re not keeping score, brother.”]. At the same time he is way too kissy-face and subservient to the world’s most odious kings and dictators, bowing and grinning from ear to ear. When Hugo Chavez and Lula de Silva dissed him in public, Obama’s grin just got bigger. Fawning over tinpot dictators sends a bad message.
Recall that “global warming” is the original, stated rationale for C&T, because if CO2 causes global warming, C&T will presumably lower CO2 — at least in this country.
But now we find that there is *no* measurable anthropogenic global warming. None. There are natural climate fluctuations, which are blamed on CO2. But as CO2 rises, the globe continues to cool. That fact falsifies CO2 as a significant cause. Therefore, C&T is unnecessary, and should be discarded for the good of the country.
But this ravenous government has decided to take $billions/$trillions from taxpayers anyway. By hook or by crook. Because the global warming scam was always about getting at the money. AGW is being proven a sham. So they will change the name to “deteriorating atmosphere,” and demand just as much loot. If we don’t fight back, they will get away with it. So we fight. There is no other alternative.
“I sit on a man’s back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet I assure others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means — except by getting off his back.”
~ Leo Tolstoy
[End Rant]
I don’t know where he came up with ““Energy efficiency” makes people think of shivering in the dark.
Most people I talk to know exactly what needs to happen: The light polluters and big energy hogs that pass their excess onto our bills need to start practicing what consumers have always been willing to do.
This tell me that the entrenched $$ machine that is energy production is nervous. They make $$ by consuming as much fuel as possible, and if that means running a plant at full capacity and taking the generators offline, that is what they do.
The common man understands that if the waste is cut out, it directly lowers the trade defecit. It also lowers the price of those fuels, and the whole things travels throughout the economy. It also frees up strained energy resources. But, even if they keep thier pricing scheme and go with making the most out of what is consumed, there is still plenty of beneift without imposing Cap & Trade sanctions on the economy.
Selling “Green” is nothing but a paint job. AGW is not selling because man + dog gets where this is going. License to tax, spill and foul, paid in full by the peasantry.
Start the Superfund Conservation Corp, hand Gore & Hansen a shovel and overalls to replace the vestments.
Replying to…
Another Ian (14:41:01) :
Check out the John Prine song “Commom Sense” on the album of the same name from Atlantic Records, with its reftain of “It don’t make no sense that common sense don’t make no sense no more”.
The song of the 21st century?
Will the follow-on song be…
REM’s “The End of the World as we Know it”?
Or The Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again”?
Luke (13:04:12) :
“Speaking of propaganda anyone seen the trailer for
Battle for Terra?”
No worries there, according to CNN:
Dreamworks Animation’s juggernaut “Monsters vs. Aliens” grossed another $5.8 million its sixth weekend for the fifth slot in the rankings, while newcomer “Terra” couldn’t muster more than $1 million for a twelfth place in the box office derby.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Movies/05/03/boxoffice.ew/index.html
Kids and their parents prefer to watch Monsters fighting Aliens in order to save humans and Earth, versus humans fighting aliens to destroy and take over their world, big surprise there. The humans are cockroaches philosophy is a tough sell. Back to the drawing boards…
It’s good to be King-politician-propagandist. The Master of the Universe can even reverse temperature-CO2 causality. Here’s a clear and very objective description of how he did it:
http://www.sciencebits.com/IceCoreTruth
First impression: AGW fearmongering, proposed tax/loophole agenda, ridiculous looking projections countered by cold, stark reality is the portrait.
Thusly painted and framed, that’s the foot put forward in the door by the pesky Global Warming salesman who reeks of con job in an era of gross corruption.
Hit the road, Jack.
It stinks.
New buss words
Hydrocarbons, as in carbon pollution so we must have (CO2 cap and trade) corporate welfare for wall street and GE.
CO2 tax/cap and trade, the new tea tax.
Well when you can sell torture as “Enhanced interrogation” or kidnap as “secret rendition”, when an invasion becomes regime change and a military occupation is a “peacekeeping effort”. When combat brigades are renamed “advisory and assistance brigades” yet the numbers and role stay the same, when a 1000lb bomb dropped into the middle of a wedding party is called collateral damage. When you can sell the role of a trace atmospheric gas as the primary driver of the entire planetary climate system you have reached the final stage of ultimate victory and have earned the right to name it whatever the hell you want.
Also look for the buss word Green Bank as in Pickens plan.
Do you remember why former civilizations fell down?, always by lack of ethics.
It seems utterly naive to mention such an “strange ” idea but wait and see.
Smokey (14:54:24)
Amen, Smokey! I share your outrage!
As an example of how far the AGW movement has gone into the realm of absurdity, consider the remarks made by our president just last week in Missouri. You can get the full text here:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-at-Arnold-Missouri-Town-Hall/
—
“I don’t think people fully appreciate the potential damage– economic damage, as well as environmental damage — that could be done if we are not serious in dealing with this problem. If the temperature goes up a couple of degrees, well, it will change weather patterns pretty significantly. It could create droughts in places where we haven’t had drought; it could bring insect-born diseases up into places like Missouri that we haven’t seen before. But we can probably manage. If the temperature of the planet goes up 5 degrees, you’re now looking at coastlines underwater. You’re now looking at huge, cataclysmic hurricanes, complete changes in weather patterns. Some places will get hotter, some places will get colder. Our economy would be disrupted by tens of trillions of dollars.”
“So this is no joke. And the science shows that the planet is getting warmer faster than people expected. Even the most dire warnings, it’s gotten — it’s moved forward faster than anybody expected. They’re talking about, just in a few years, during the summer, there won’t be any ice in the Arctic, something we have never seen before. So we have to do something about it.”
—
Cataclysmic hurricanes? Complete changes in weather patterns? Just who has filled his head with this junk science??
I place the blame squarely on *** academia and the government funded labs (and by extension the IPCC) *** for (1) not reigning in their loose cannons like Al Gore and Jim Hansen, and (2) for remaining silent when obvious distortions and mistruths about climate are made by public officials and the MSM. Remember how fast Cryosphere Today responded to George Will? Where are they now when the president states:
“…just in a few years, during the summer, there won’t be any ice in the Arctic, something we have never seen before.”
Where’s the press release? Where’s the op ed? Where are Mark Serreze and Walt Meier?
No amount of spin can turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse.
The fundamental product “man made emissions of CO2 cause catastrophic global warming” is a boring fraud. No amount of spin can keep sparking public interest.
Most people have real problems to solve and can tell the difference between real problems and global warming – once they have access to the real information.
@Smokey (14:54:24) :
Very well said.
George Orwell is not surprised.
AGW = Fraud.
Ron de Haan (09:43:21) :
Welcome to the brave new world of cheat and mean green.
People don’t buy the worn out Global Warming BS any more so wrap it a trendy packaging, let the marketing boys add a nice jingle to it and push it on the public’s throat.
What do those green hillbillies think, that we are stupid or what?
I really believe this is the last desperate attempt to revive the crashing house of cards called AGW/Climate Change and it’s not going to work.
We will keep our eyes and ears open and rip the packaging of the scam.
And that’s a promise.
They do believe we are stupid and weak – their contempt for humanity is written large in their actions.
Dave Middleton (14:10:37) : Praising… Bob Meyer (13:06:48)
Having had my own problems with italics on WordPress I don’t hold anyone responsible for this:
H L Mencken once said that nobody ever went broke by underestimating the intelligence of the average man. How much is Al Gore worth now?
Mencken must have been thinking of this man. . .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Gore,_Sr.
. . . because “the Sage of Baltimore” died in 1965. Al Jr. was still a teen.
It is really funny (if you are proned to lethal jokes). How did you americans manage to get such a lot of “peculiar beings”?..I prefer to think “they” are aliens who have invaded your country. 🙂
This is doubleplusungood.
Probably by being too generous Adolfo.
Frank K. (16:38:08) :
Don´t complain. It is just fair.
It sounds like Cap and Trade is a new name for the BTU tax of a few years ago, 1993, I think. I believe Al Gore was VP then. That tax was defeated by businesses but was somewhat more reasonable because it would apply to all energy including solar, wind power, nuclear power and hydroelectric.
I want the language back. I want my freedom back. I want my country back. And I want the thieves off my back.
Mike
“Propaganda is the dissemination of information aimed at influencing the opinions or behaviors of people. As opposed to impartially providing information, propaganda in its most basic sense, often presents information primarily in order to influence its audience. Propaganda often presents facts selectively (thus lying by omission) to encourage a particular synthesis, or gives loaded messages in order to produce an emotional rather than rational response to the information presented. The desired result is a change of the attitude toward the subject in the target audience to further a political agenda.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda
–Mike Ramsey
Anthony,
Have a look at this video that destroys further increase of temperatures due to the Greenhouse effect:
http://heliogenic.blogspot.com/2009/05/miklos-zagoni-explains-miskolczis.html
I think it is a killer.
I looked at that video, came away with the greenhouse factor of 1/3, and that the C02 induced change resembled the TSI, which is quite similar, and equally insignificant.
So, we are back to albedo, high & low pressure cells, ocean temps and whatever the sun decides to dish out. All in a constant state of dynamic roiling.
So what has got Al Gore all heated up?
Gas. He wants to sell Green Gas. And outlaw the competition.
Sounds like LeGoreistic Monopoly to me.
Coveting thy neighbors service stations.
You can make a buck, just like your neighbor.
But you can’t take your neighbor’s buck.
If his Green Gas is so great, why the fear of the competition?
Ah, so we come to newspeak. It goes along nicely with the doublethink already well entrenched in this debate (cooling = warming, more ice = warming, etc.).
As I said time and again fanatics tend to defeat themselves by simply showing themselves to be what they are, which is well fanatical, then they get marginalized and spend 10 years re-branding and try it again.
When you are losing ground and you are right and have some good data and real arguments you stay the course and just keep getting out in the trenches. When you are bereft of data and arguments and losing ground you simply try and re-shape the debate or change the vocabulary in an effort to deceive.
Ultimately it is easy to tell which side is full of roses* and which is not.
* You can call a turd a rose, but everyone knows it is SH#T.
I have a few suggestions for the AGW wordsmiths.
1) Whatever subject comes up, global warming, sea ice, co2… just say, “Oh, it’s bad it’s really bad.”
2) If any comment comes up about taxes or increased costs… just say, “Oh, don’t worry, evil oil companies and utility companies will pay for all those investments.”
3) If anyone questions the science… just say, “Oh, the National Academy of Sciences provides good assessments of the science and distinguishes between science and pseudoscience.”
4) At the end of the discussion… just say, “Oh, the only thing we care about is your welfare, don’t ever forget that we are here to help.”
5) Don’t forget to smile… alot!
Here is a conumdrum for the AGW proponent team.
What is the distinction between “Consensus” and “Groupthink”? Or are they synonyms?
And on a deeper level.
[1] What is the point of having clear distinctions between words?
[2] Does the loss of clear distinctions between words empower or disempower Individual choice and action?
[3] Who’s interests are best served by reframing the terms of a discourse, where that reframing has been,
(a) Initiated by those holding authority, and
(b) conducted and implemented in secret.
[4 – given 3 above] How does the reframing of “Global Warming” into other terms that do not carry negative emotional freight, serve the interests of Free, and Self Responsible Citizens of a Free Society.
Inquiring minds would like to know.
Newspeak.
Mark
This may be a more than a year old, but it says it all … Al Gore’s next act: Planet-saving VC
I recall my utter indignation when I first encountered the term ‘denier’, but it was only a matter of months before I was quite happy to call myself one. In fact, sceptic/skeptic seems almost apologetic now. I’ve noticed that many others in this camp are equally comfortable wearing the epithet like a gaudy necktie.
It’s not my impression that many warmers can stand to call themselves warmers, which is funny, ‘cos that’s what they are!
Ellie in Belfast (09:50:43) :
E.M Smith: “Tax and Charade” – very good.
Oh, thank you! It works best with the American pronunciation of “Shi Raid” as opposed to the UK pronunciation of “Shaw rod”…
“Tax and Tirade” may have been a typo but is almost as good.
Not a typo, but I’ve used if for a while as a pseudo-typo where I wanted to slip something in without being too obvious…
BTW, any attempt to recast this issue as “climate change” will be met with a variety of difficult to deal with responses:
“Oh? What is the correct stable point and how will you stop weather from changing? You can’t? Oh. OK, when does weather become climate and how will you hold climate constant if you don’t control the weather?”
“When has climate not changed? It’s getting colder now, so shouldn’t we be making it warmer? Oh, it’s getting warmer even though it’s colder? So it is global warming that’s the issue? ”
“Who’s going to be in charge of setting the climate? Will we get to vote on what to set it to? I’d like it if you didn’t let it rain on the weekends. Oh. When then, can you make it rain where the droughts are please…”
Never underestimate the power of stupid… “Climate Change” lets me stupid up the conversation to the point where they won’t know if they are coming or going…
“If you’re going to be controlling the climate can you make it like Hawaii here? I’d like that more.” “Oh, but if you can’t control the climate how can you control climate change?” and back to “So it’s not change, it’s warming that’ really the issue? Then why was the name changed?”
It’s all been a terrible mistake.
It set out as ‘global worming’ a health project to rid less developed areas of the World of intestinal parasites. But like “blessed are the cheese-makers” in the Sermon on the Mount in Life of Brian, these phrases have a tendency to evolve as they are relayed.
Smokey:-)
Nail on the head. They’ve claimed warming from CO2 produced by mankind, (including them I hasten to add) don’t ever let them get away with changing their tune to suit their next failed argument.
I say to you all, go to NumberWatch, click ENTER, click Vocabulary. Global Warming = Scary story for grown-ups. Climate Change = Heads I Win Tails You Lose version of Global Warming! It’s warming or nothing at all. Don’t let them get away with squirming out of it. Make them stick to their primary argument of warming regardless of what they sat otherwise.
The primary AGW tenet is that “Man Made Emissions of CO2 Cause Catastrophic Global Warming”.
Paul R
Very pertinent. It matters not one wit the ideology of those weilding power, guaranteed they will twist language to serve their purposes.
Ron de Haan (18:49:44) :
Anthony,
Have a look at this video that destroys further increase of temperatures due to the Greenhouse effect:
http://heliogenic.blogspot.com/2009/05/miklos-zagoni-explains-miskolczis.html
I think it is a killer.
Good post.
I first read Miskolczi’s paper a year ago. http://met.hu/idojaras/IDOJARAS_vol111_No1_01.pdf
I’ll warn you that it is not an easy read for the non-specialist. But after reading the paper and working through the math myself I had an eureka moment; CO2 based global warming is physically impossible!
Nobody has refuted this peer reviewed paper. I reasoned that, armed with Dr. Miskolczi’s results, scientist would have little choice but to oppose anthropogenic global warming.
I am still waiting for the majority of people who call themselves scientist to show a little backbone and stand up for what has been scientifically demonstrated and if not then to prove why not by refuting Dr. Miskolczi’s work. Refusing to do either proves that they are apparatchiki and not scientist. BTW, I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt by saying “apparatchiki” rather than “gutless cowards”.
–Mike Ramsey
A number of earlier posting correctly associated the attempt to remarket AGW using new words and phrases as “Orwellian”.
“Robert Kral (09:14:57) : This is straight out of George Orwell.”
And “Kirk W. Hanneman (20:10:15) :
Ah, so we come to newspeak. It goes along nicely with the doublethink already well entrenched in this debate (cooling = warming, more ice = warming, etc.).”
For those who have not yet mastered “Newspeak”, it would be instructive to hear George Orwell lay out its principles.
In this portion of his essay, I simply substituted “Ecospeak” for “Newspeak”, and “ ArtGlow” (Anthropogenic Global Warming) for “Ingsoc” (English Socialism)
The purpose of EcoSpeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of ArtGlow, but to make all other modes of thought impossible. It was intended that when EcoSpeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought — that is, a thought diverging from the principles of ArtGlow — should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words. Its vocabulary was so constructed as to give exact and often very subtle expression to every meaning that a Party member could properly wish to express, while excluding all other meaning and also the possibility of arriving at them by indirect methods. This was done partly by the invention of new words, but chiefly by eliminating undesirable words and stripping such words as remained of unorthodox meanings, and so far as possible of all secondary meaning whatever.
To give a single example – The word free still existed in EcoSpeak, but could only be used in such statements as “The dog is free from lice” or “This field is free from weeds.” It could not be used in its old sense of “politically free” or “intellectually free,” since political and intellectual freedom no longer existed even as concepts, and were therefore of necessity nameless. Quite apart from the suppression of definitely heretical words, reduction of vocabulary was regarded as an end in itself, and no word that could be dispensed with was allowed to survive.
EcoSpeak was designed not to extend but to diminish the range of thought, and this purpose was indirectly assisted by cutting the choice of words down to a minimum.
The total essay is listed at:
http://www.newspeakdictionary.com/
all his lot seemed to have done was to get shamelessly wealthy from the cancer trade].
Well that’s a little unfair. They also made a lot of money in the awl bidness.
With regards to Miskolczi’s paper, and “Miklos Zagoni explains Miskolczi’s theory”:
Doing a quick Google doesn’t really give any answers to this. There appears to be few scientific (peer) reviews of the paper, which either means (a) it’s not worth reviewing, (b) it’s pointedly being ignored, or (c) some other reason.
There are a few bloggers/physicists who tend to refute the paper, indicating several flaws, so tends to (unfortunately) indicate that it’s avoided because it isn’t worth reading. I can do sum (sic) math myself but that’s a bit heavy duty for me.
The googlesphere has really dumbed people down – they now live in sound bytes(tm) and a Twitteresque state of mind. If you can’t say it in 140 characters, it’s not worth my time…
Great piece Smokey (at 14:54:24).
From Frank K. (16:38:08) :
Remember how fast Cryosphere Today responded to George Will? Where are they now when the President states:
“…just in a few years, during the summer, there won’t be any ice in the Arctic, something we have never seen before.”
Where’s the press release? Where’s the op ed? Where are Mark Serreze and Walt Meier?
They have become, perhaps unknowingly, appartchiki, infected with the worm of corruption that without remedial attention will continue to grow.
It is essential that those of us who have resisted this infection and continue to debate the issues on their merits and not their political ramifications, continue to fight the good fight. The first weapon in this fight, cited by several posters above, is never let the AGW proponents forget that their whole argument is based on CO2=AGW. All of the money-making schemes, the real driver of the AGW movement are predicated on this identity. Live by the hockey-stick and die by the hockey stick.
The shift to the designation “climate change” is a backdoor escape hatch. Consider the literal implication that man significantly influences “climate change” and that this influence has so far been mostly bad. This implies that man can control the climate. That notion gives birth to many ludicrous rationalizations, not the least of which is that we can avoid the specter of unintended consequences. It requires that some agency determine what is ideal…warmer, colder, wetter, drier? And if one were to alter the climate to an ideal(!?) condition in one location, what does that do for the rest of the World?
The whole concept is absurd.
A long time ago it became obvious to many long-time climate scientists, especially those with no skin in the game, that the CO2=AGW identity was untenable. It quickly became obvious that the reason for promoting this hypothesis was as simple as that seminal quote from W. Mark Felt, AKA “Deep Throat” in All the President’s Men:
“Follow the Money”.
“Instead of grim warnings about global warming, the firm advises, talk about “our deteriorating atmosphere.” Drop discussions of carbon dioxide and bring up “moving away from the dirty fuels of the past.” Don’t confuse people with cap and trade; use terms like “cap and cash back” or “pollution reduction refund.”
All of which means in Madison Ave. speak – “our current campaign has failed.” And their best professional spinning advice is to back out of the quagmire without looking like thieves, liars or crooks. Good luck with that.
I was going to give my favorite euphemisms for discussions, but the politics of them would derail the thread.
One thing I forgot to mention above is that when the whole AGW fiasco crashes and burns, the ones holding the bag…the scape-goats, will be the Science Community. “They should have known better”. The tragedy will be that many scientists did know better, but reputation, prestige and academic encomiums were too seductive to maintain one’s integrity.
The politicians, rain-makers and their apostles will simply move-on to the next great scam.
E M Smith’s “Tax & Charade” inspired me … how about “C*ap & Parade”…
It’s what Smokey describes:
If the AGW fraudsters had told the truth about the very minuscule effect of a minor trace gas on the planet, then any conjecture about atmospheric CO2 would have been an inconsequential footnote in a few obscure journals…
But they lied. They lied in order to get their hands deep into the pockets of taxpayers…
Hold their feet to the fire. When someone says “deteriorating atmosphere,” remind them: No, that’s just your old CO2=AGW claim, morphing into your latest cry of “Wolf!!” We don’t buy it. You have cried “Wolf!” too many times: Coral bleaching. Hurricanes. Malaria. Sea level. Ocean acidification. Receding glaciers. The ozone hole. Greenland melting. Nuclear winter. Global warming. And every single time it’s turned out to be a false alarm.
John F. Hultquist (17:17:17) :
Sorry for the confusion. Mencken wasn’t referring to either Gore Sr or Jr. He made that crack back in the 1930’s (I think) when Gore Jr wasn’t even a gleam in Gore Sr’s eye. I should have separated the sentences into paragraphs to make it clearer.
Mencken was just talking about people in general and no one in particular although I wish that he was still around to look at the AGW weirdness today. I’m sure he would have a few even more stinging remarks about human intelligence.
In other words, talk about everything except what the issue is really all about. Yes, great idea.
Thanks to this and other topics, I’ve downloaded and read Brave New World (it’s freely available) and re-read 1984.
Both of these were intended to be cautionary tales about very undesirable futures. Unfortunately, it appears they have both instead been used as templates for our civilization.
No hyperbole required. SO MANY of the concepts of Orwell and Huxley’s nightmare futures are currently being pushed on us that it’s impossible to not see the goal. My dad (who is 72) tells me he read Brave New World in school and remembers that the majority of it just sounded ridiculous. Today, not so much.
But I suppose that kind of speculation is just “conspiracy theory”…
OceanTwo (12:14:50) :
With regards to Miskolczi’s paper, and “Miklos Zagoni explains Miskolczi’s theory”:
Doing a quick Google doesn’t really give any answers to this. There appears to be few scientific (peer) reviews of the paper, which either means (a) it’s not worth reviewing, (b) it’s pointedly being ignored, or (c) some other reason.
There are a few bloggers/physicists who tend to refute the paper, indicating several flaws, so tends to (unfortunately) indicate that it’s avoided because it isn’t worth reading.
I don’t see how you get from your premise to your conclusion.
When I googled “Greenhouse effect in semi-transparent planetary atmospheres” I found a critic of the paper at http://www.wikichecks.com/greenhouse-effect-in-semi-planetary-atmospheres/
Neal mentions correspondences with Dr. Miskolczi but fails to publish Dr. Miskolczi’s responses; we only see one side of the argument. Neal also fails to understand the application of Kirchhoff’s Law to atmospheres. A readable explanation can be found here http://landshape.org/enm/kirchhoff-law-miskolczi-part-3/
and here http://www.met.utah.edu/tgarrett/5210_07/Radiation/LTE.pdf
I can do sum (sic) math myself but that’s a bit heavy duty for me.
A common complaint. But doing physics without math is much, much harder to do. Math makes it easy! Your high school teacher wasn’t lying. 🙂
–Mike Ramsey
Thank you Mike. I was really implying the conclusion from a a ‘laymans’ perspective; and an argument that AGW proponents usually argue. It’s like arguing whether a new beer tastes good or when neither have tasted it. Because no-one has tasted the beer the conclusion presented (illogically) by the AGW crowd is that there is no evidence to indicate the beer tastes good.
As an engineer, I *do* know quite a bit of math and physics, but like most of us, don’t have a lot of free time to analyze a the data and verify any conclusions presented.
Without a peer review, it’s tough to take any paper at face value – just because the AGWers try to pull underhanded tricks (e.g. ‘peer’ reviewed and referenced articles which reference each other in a circular reference!) it’s something I’d like to try and avoid. Possibly a shortcoming in any political/social battle since facts are, in fact, irrelevant.
OceanTwo (07:07:56) :
[…]
As an engineer, I *do* know quite a bit of math and physics, but like most of us, don’t have a lot of free time to analyze a the data and verify any conclusions presented.
Tell me about it. When I first read Dr. Miskolczi’s paper, I spent two weeks, three hours a day (9PM, after I put my kids to sleep, till midnight) parsing the math and rederiving the equations. If I can’t derive it then I don’t understand it. I was skeptical at first because his use of the viral theorem was novel but I became convinced as I poured over the equations.
Without a peer review
I know that you are speaking generally. “Greenhouse effect in semi-transparent planetary atmospheres” was of course peer reviewed.
, it’s tough to take any paper at face value – just because the AGWers try to pull underhanded tricks (e.g. ‘peer’ reviewed and referenced articles which reference each other in a circular reference!) it’s something I’d like to try and avoid. Possibly a shortcoming in any political/social battle since facts are, in fact, irrelevant.
This is why I prefer for any paper’s reported results to be independently verified or refuted. I am very puzzled by the lack of refutation. I concluded that this paper must scare the daylights out of the AGW establishment. “Let sleeping dogs lay” must be their hope. I ain’t sleeping.
–Mike Ramsey
all this rhetoric and hand wringing just goes to show that they know the jig is up…. just need to keep pressing the facts and not let them get away with “hope and change”, lest all you end up with in your checking account is “chage”.