Opinion by Anthony Watts
There has never been a time at WUWT that I’ve used the word “slimy” in a headline. This is a special case. I thought of about a half dozen words I could have used and finally decided on this one. I chose it because of precedence in a similar situation where Steve McIntyre wrote his rebuttal to a similar piece of amateur journalism entitled Slimed by Bagpuss the Cat Reporter.
Last week, the Guardian invited me to participate in their new online story forum. They were seeking the input from climate sceptics on issues they were writing about. They especially wanted my input. I said I’d consider it, but was a bit hesitant given the Guardian’s reporting history. But, after some discussion with one of the reporters, it seemed like a genuine attempt at outreach. I suggested that if they really wanted to make a gesture that would make people take notice, they should consider banning the use of the word “denier” from climate discourse in their newspaper. Nobody I know of in the sceptic community denies that the earth has gotten warmer in the past century. I surely don’t. But we do question the measured magnitude, the cause, and the scientific methods.
Now, any progress that has been made in outreach by the Guardian has been dashed by the most despicably stupid newspaper article I’ve ever seen about climate skeptics. The Guardian for some reason thought it would be a good idea to print it while at the same time trying to reach across the aisle to climate skeptics for ideas. Needless to say, they’ve horribly botched that gesture with the printing of this article.
Here’s the headline and link to the Guardian article:
Climate sceptics are recycled critics of controls on tobacco and acid rain
It’s full of the kind of angry, baseless, stereotypical innuendo I’d expect Joe Romm to write. Instead, the writer is Jeffrey D Sachs. who is professor of economics and director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, home to NASA GISS.
And it’s not just the Guardian. Apparently this article has been shopped around. It made it into The National in Abu Dhabi which you can read here. Apparently the article from Columbia’s Sachs was distributed by an outfit called The Project Syndicate.
A check of their website show the author list, some of the stories they are pushing to media, and they seem to be rather vague about where their money comes from. In their contact and support page all they offer is a PO box for their HQ in Prague:
Project Syndicate PO Box 130 120 00 Prague 2 Czech Republic
So much for transparency.
Back to the article. After reading it, one can see that Sachs is simply repeating the same sort of drivel we get from trolls every day on climate science discussions. Baseless accusations of being involved with deep pockets, connections to tobacco, denial of links to cancer, and other assorted decades old slimy talking points that have nothing to do with the real issue at hand: scientific integrity in climate science.
It is clear that professor Sachs didn’t do any original research for this article, he simply repeated these same slimy talking points we see being pushed by internet trolls and NGO’s like Greenpeace. He provided no basis for the claims, only the innuendo. It’s a pathetic job of journalism. It’s doubly pathetic that the Guardian allowed this to be printed at a time when they were reaching out to skeptics.
It seems incomprehensible to Sachs and others like him that people like myself, Steve McIntyre, Jeff Id, Joe D’Aleo, John Coleman, and others who write about climate science issues might have original thoughts and do original research of our own. It seems impossible to him that an “army of Davids”, such as the readers and contributors to CA and WUWT, could shake the money bloated foundations of climate science today with daily blog posts, FOI requests, and commentary. No it had to be big money funding these skeptics somewhere.
Newsflash: It’s worse than you thought. It’s a growing revolution of like minded people worldwide that want to see the climate science done right and without the huge monied interests it has fallen prey to.. Tobacco, big oil, and other assorted contrived boogeymen haven’t anything to do with skeptics that question CRU, GISS, NOAA, etc.on these pages and the pages of other blogs.
Oh sure they’ll say “but you went to the Heartland convention, and they took money from Exxon once, they defended smokers rights, that makes you complicit.” Bull. I’ve made my objections loudly known to Heartland on these issues, but the fact is that no other organizations stepped up to help skeptics with a conference to exchange information. While people like Sachs were denouncing “deniers”, and Al Gore was leading multimillion dollar media campaigns saying we were “flat earthers” and “moon landing deniers”, no scientific organizations were stepping forward to ask the tough questions, or to even help regular people like you and me who were asking them. Had any such scientific organization had the courage, you can bet that skeptics would have flocked there. Instead these organizations all got on the consensus bandwagon.
The claims made that skeptics are connected to tobacco companies is ludicrous. It is especially ludicrous in my case.
So here’s my challenge to Professor Sachs. Give me ten minutes in a room with you. That’s all I need. I’ll tell you about my story related to tobacco. I’ll tell you how secondhand smoke most likely contributed to my profound hearing loss through a series of badly treated ear infections as a child, I’ll tell you about my efforts to get my parents to stop smoking , and then, I’ll tell you how I watched both of my parents die of tobacco related disease. I’ll tell you what I think of tobacco products and companies. I’ll tell you to your face. I promise you it won’t be pretty, I promise you that you’ll feel my pain caused by tobacco.
Finally, I’ll tell you what I think of you for writing this crap you market as journalism without asking leading skeptics any questions, but instead relying on this slimy innuendo that’s been repeated for years.
Professor Sachs, contact me by leaving a comment if you have personal integrity enough to hear it.
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Dawn says (03:58:56) :
“It saddens me that there are so many people out there getting so emotional about CC – when there could be using that energy into making positive change instead of moaning on about being swindled and about ’stealth taxes’ (I know this as my own father harps on about it having being brainwashed by the daily express (he didn’t do any science at school).
Dawn, you come across as very naive. I would never pubicly criticize my parents who had a lot less education than I did even if I disagreed with them . My father had limited opportunity for education yet he worked hard, improved his skills and knowledge via correspondence schools, and ultimately became a wise person with many talents that I respected immensely. I suggest that you listen to your father and try to gain the benefit of his years of experience. The proposals to tax fossil fuel to make alternatives more attractive will significantly increase the cost of energy for everyone and the middle class will be affected most.
“As a country we have some serious energy decisions to make, and embarking on a low carbon future would mean we are more resilient and less dependent on volatile foreign energy sources. ”
This is the typical lie of the CAGW folks. In the US, we have extensive reserves of oil and natural gas to develop that could reduce our dependence on foreign oil if only the global warming believers would allow us to explore and develop our own resources in the USA. The administration is blocking the development in every way it can think of including cancelling leases already issued and supporting lawsuits.
The claim that the non existant low carbon liquid fuels will get us off foreign oil in the near future is simply not true. They are multiple decades away, may never materialize and will be very expensive. There are no commercially operating cellulosic feedstock plants operating and the Start ups have have been delayed. Consequently the Congressional goals established for this year for ethanol will not be met and more intensive goals will likely not be achieved .
We will be dependent on oil and gas for a long time and artifical policies that choke off the fossil supply before cost competitive alternatives are available will be suicidial.
“Stop bitching, and think about how we want our future to be, support a large scale refurbishment of existing building stock, it’ll help eradicate fuel poverty, create local jobs and kick start the economy….”
Since you are in Europe, you might want to check out how well this policy has been working in Spain where they are apparently about to go bankrupt and have high unemployment rates. Also with all the cold weatther in UK this year, think about how the middle class will keep warm if the cold period continues. It has beem reported that folks in UK are buying used books to burn to keep warm. Is that true?
Oops, I meant CSAT.
Robert (16:26:48) : I have two words for you: reading comprehension. There are classes starting in your area soon!
Robert,
What a wonderful reply on your behalf, it has definitely provided some resolution about your underlying character traits. Your need to start off your response with a personal derogatory comment toward myself, speaks volumes about your approach toward civil discourse.
Do you always attack people with your first comments to them, and then expect civil discourse to pick up from there? Has this been a successful approach in the past?
Now that you have publicly attempted to belittle me, I ask you politely to return to the *First* question asked. To be clear, I will gladly engage you in civil discourse, and provide you with answers to the questions you asked, if you have the capacity to reply in a civil and non demeaning way.
I will even provide the reason why I asked the question. I am wondering if you are an American, who understands the cost our nation has paid for the right to exercise our *RIGHTS* of freedom of speech and of personal civil rights.
Your approach appears to be of someone who is trying to remove peoples rights. Basic Civil Rights. I am trying to get context of your underlying respect for the human individual, before we move this conversation to the arena of thoughts about climate change.
I eagerly await your reply,
Jack H Barnes
Lucy Skywalker (11:48:20) :
Probably without anyone being aware. Researchers would apply for grants, and those who believed in, and touted, scare stories would get the grants. Nothing done deliberately.
————–
Reply: Ah contraire, Ms. Skywalker. A perfect example of Pavlov’s dog.
UK Sceptic (10:42:18) :
I’m an archaeologist with a Holocene onset Quaternary leaning.
It can be treated these days. Excellent recovery rate or so I am led to believe.
All this brohaha all boils down to just one question: Is CO2 the culprit?
And here’s the answer: Yes it is. But wait, what was the question again?
CO2 absorbs all the IR at current levels found in the atmosphere.
CO2 absorbed all the IR at the pre-industrial levels found in the atmosphere, too.
Can anybody here do the math? And once you’ve done the math, what is your conclusion?
Here’s my answer: CO2 in the atmosphere doesn’t absorb any more IR now than it did 150 years ago. Unless somebody can show me where CO2 actually GENERATES heat, the inescapable conclusion is that CO2 is not what’s heating up the planet.
It has heated it up about all it can.
Next question.
Has this blog turned into an Oprah show on tobacco? Is it now a forum for the true confessions of a tobacconist’s lover to his/her priest? Or has it evolved into the tobacco equivalent of “Debbie does Dallas”? What-is-up-with-that?
All, I recommend that if tobacco is going to be a topic of a post, then explicitly make a post that is specifically on tobacco. Please do not address this in an aside to the CACGW* topic . . . . it makes one (us) look unprofessional at best and it profoundly dilutes the skeptic argument on climate.
* CACGW=Catastrophic Anthropogenic Carbon-caused Global Warming
It maybe that the good people here at WUWT are starting to “feel all thin, sorta streched, like butter that has been scraped over too much bread” with the climate tasks that face us. [apologies to JRRT] That is understandable.
John
Robert (16:26:48) : I have two words for you: reading comprehension. There are classes starting in your area soon!
——————-
Reply:
Robert, please learn some manners. It’s the least you should do.
Robert (17:29:22),
‘Just The Facts” (17:55:01) set you straight. Allow me to elaborate.
Your cherry-picking, claiming that 2009 was the hottest year on record, disregards Michael Mann’s and Keith Briffa’s amazing treemometers. Of course, trees measure environmental factors other than temperature, so let’s forget them as far as their being a temperature record. But there are plenty of other temperature records.
In reality, the temperature record goes back much farther than you claim. So allow me to debunk your claim:
click1
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click5
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click8
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click10
click11
click12
click13
click14
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click25
Next, you state that CO2 levels are rising, but incorrectly state that humans are the main cause. According to the IPCC’s own data, more than 95% of all CO2 emitted comes from natural sources: click
And there is zero empirical evidence showing that human CO2 emissions are responsible for the planet’s natural warming trend. None. It is simply a temporary correlation, like saying the rise in U.S. postal rates causes global warming: click
Finally, the Devil quotes Scripture, and you claim to be a skeptic. If you want us to believe you are a CAGW skeptic, then get on your alarmist blogs and start demanding that their pet scientists must immediately open their entire data and methodologies, and anything else related to their CAGW hypothesis, to anyone who requests it. And to fully comply with all FOI requests instead of making endless excuses.
Archiving the information online would make it easy for anyone to access the data and falsify it, if possible.
Your attempt to re-frame the discussion by presuming that CAGW skeptics have our own hypothesis is simply an attempt to get out of your bind. CAGW skeptics have no hypothesis. You do, and it fails.
Trying to downplay the presumed effect of AGW doesn’t work either. Those pushing CAGW must argue that climate catastrophe will result. By admitting that AGW might only cause a few tenths of a degree warming, they can never justify spending $trillions. And money is what the AGW scare is all about. Honest science has been defenestrated by the alarmist crowd — in return for money and status. And now it’s all imploding.
I agree that the CAGW scientists have sold their souls and destroyed the integrity of science itself in exchange for money and status. Along with the radical “greens” they have become ‘helpful fools’. I am in no way excusing them but they have been used by the real power behind the Climate Change fraud – the money men, such as Carbon-credit trading companies and worldwide banking organisations like the World Bank, who will reap endless profits from lending money to governments who institute huge projects to “counteract” global warming. These are the people who are still pushing the idea and who deserve to be strung up.
In my humble opinion, the silence of the mainstream media on any of the downfall of CAGW has less to do with disingenuous editors/journalists and more to do with the fact that their incredibly rich owners all have investments in the aforementioned finance houses.
David,
I am sorry to see you were given a one day time out in the WUWT penalty box. Anthony does have some penalties for lack of minimum civility. Just think of it as Anthony’s equivalent to ice hockey’s high sticking penalty. Nasty stuff, high sticking is.
Well, when you get out of the penalty box would you answer the following question?
What is the rational or even emotional basis for your very apparent skepticism? This is not a trick question, I am personally interested. I will not attack you and I doubt other commenters will. I think you are aware that most commenters have provided stories relating to the basis/experience of their own skepticism.
I will completely understand if you do not answer, because you might be skeptical of my intentions in asking this fundamental question about you. That is how skepticism works.
John
Daniel H (01:23:13) :
Project Syndicate is a Soros funded operation:
So the Soros/global warming connection isn’t just a conspiracy theory.
John Wright (03:48:14) :
Let them do their worst, Anthony.
They are scraping the bottom of the barrel. And that’s all they have at this point.
CilmateGate is too much for them.
Anthony:
The print media and to an extent the television media are jealous. They wish they could claim 36,000,000 readers looked at their prose. The blogsphere has made the MSM irrelevant because blogs allow free access, they are mostly open to all writers, and they are convenient for the readers. Newspapers, magazines and, television are very costly, reach a limited audience, and cannot achieve any depth or penetration into a subject. They never follow up on topics they introduce to the public. The MSM is tardy most of the time with respect to immediate news. They are lazy and depend upon news networks to do their work for them. They are biased towards the easy news sources such as the government sources and refuse to admit that anything worthwhile can be found on a blog. So it is not surprising that the Guardian thumbed their nose at you by supporting the article by Sachs. It was easier for them!
The quality control of science of the climate is not destroyed by this sophomoric article. This blog and some others like it have filled a need in the world of climate science by providing alternative sources of ideas and intellectual stimulation for the readers, and a forum for discussion. The MSM is a one way street of information with little or no opportunity for dialog. Thank you for administering the blog
OT I am still interested in helping on the temperature measuring site evaluations project around New Mexico. I may have missed your response when I volunteered. I was deluged with e-mails promoting a book. It took me 20 minutes to delete them from my e-mail list. You have my email. Let me know if I can help
Yours Mandolinjon
Chrisz (06:34:44) : What a pity, Anthony, that you actually seem to be buying into the “second-hand smoke” BS (which, exactly like AGW, is nothing but an excuse for erosion of individual liberty…
Exactly, Chrisz. I share your disappointment.
REPLY: You didn’t grow up within it. I did, I ask that you trust my ability to gauge my own surroundings. I have a sister who suffered the same fate. It’s not a genetic issue, because there are no other instances in my family. SHS by casual exposure is one thing, living in a chimney is quite another. – Anthony
Robert,
Actually, I meant to address you in my comment above “John Whitman (21:04:20)” not David. Where the heck did I get David from? I haven’t a clue. Guess that sort of implies I’m clueless . . . hmmm. Robert, I apologize to you and to any David reading this.
Here is my post to you again without the David:
=======
Robert,
I am sorry to see you were given a one day time out in the WUWT penalty box. Anthony does have some penalties for lack of minimum civility. Just think of it as Anthony’s equivalent to ice hockey’s high sticking penalty. Nasty stuff, high sticking is.
Well, when you get out of the penalty box would you answer the following question?
What is the rational or even emotional basis for your very apparent skepticism? This is not a trick question, I am personally interested. I will not attack you and I doubt other commenters will. I think you are aware that most commenters have provided stories relating to the basis/experience of their own skepticism.
I will completely understand if you do not answer, because you might be skeptical of my intentions in asking this fundamental question about you. That is how skepticism works.
John
Anthony, the smear article written by Sachs is the same old garbage that’s been written about climate skeptics time and again over the past two decades. The general public has seen it so many times it really has very little power to influence attitudes. The public has already formed their opinions and there’s been so much mudslinging that only facts, data, reason and integrity will influence anyone to change their mind.
Jeffrey Sachs, if you happen to read these comments, the truth is that we AGW skeptics are a massive, loosely organized network of ordinary people. Our ranks are filled with people from all walks of life. Many of us have science backgrounds that include engineering, geoscience, physics, chemistry, math, medicine, biology, climatology and meteorology among others We understand the science and we know that the crucial science proving CO2 is driving warming is missing. We are all volunteers and what unites us is the desire to free climate science from the lie of AGW. And every day our numbers grow and yours shrink. In ten years you’ll pretend that you never believed in AGW.
“I suggested that if they really wanted to make a gesture that would make people take notice, they should consider banning the use of the word “denier” from climate discourse in their newspaper.”
Good lateral thinking, Anthony. As a quid pro quo, you might consider banning references in WUWT to the Third Reich and genocide, and such terms as scum, scam, criminal, fraud, hoax etc.
Could be the start of a beautiful friendship.
REPLY: Point – I don’t say those things, though some commenters do. I’m talking about main body of stories. As for “Third Reich”, since you obviously haven’t been paying attention and acting only on your preconceived biases, you’ve failed to note that I routinely strike the Hitler parody videos attempted to be posted here no matter how many times people try. Actually there’s an olive branch coming this Wednesday, but it’s not coming from the Guardian, and I don’t expect they’ll have the lateral thinking to offer anything. Like you, their bias clouds their lateral thinking. -A
Anthony, you sure know how to throw a party!!
BTW, instead of “most slimy,” isn’t it proper to say “slimiest”? Whatever!
“Climate change science is a wondrous intellectual activity.” — Jeffrey Sachs
I guess if you find politics, environmentalism, money, and power wondrous, then sure, it’s great.
Too bad it’s not a wondrous data collecting activity.
If people know he’s associated with George Soros pieces will fall in to place for them.
zt (07:08:23) :
Thank you for the link zt!!
from it:
IPCC Chief Pachauri Heads Board of Climate-Risk Center
International Research Institute Focuses on Practical Adaptations
…..Jeffrey Sachs, also a board member….
http://www.earth.columbia.edu/articles/view/2479
“Jeffrey Sachs, if you happen to read these comments, the truth is that we AGW skeptics are a massive, loosely organized network of ordinary people. Our ranks are filled with people from all walks of life. Many of us have science backgrounds that include engineering, geoscience, physics, chemistry, math, medicine, biology, climatology and meteorology among others”
Climatologists, eh? Not very many of those among the “skeptics.”
REPLY: There’s not many climatologists, period. Even “leading” climatologists aren’t climatologists. Hansen for example is an astronomer. There aren’t many degree programs in climatology, though scads in meteorology and earth sciences. Metamorphosis occurs later. BTW you are on 24 hours timeout. – A
(Anthony to me:) REPLY: You didn’t grow up within it. I did, I ask that you trust my ability to gauge my own surroundings. …
I did grow up within a smoke haze, Anthony; but that is not the point I would make, which is: You have created the most widely read and respected news site in history based on a healthy scepticism, yet appear to have abandoned this greatest strength on a side-issue in which you have a personal position.
Please do not allow this to become your Achilles heel. Nicotine is another book, and I have already asked once in this thread that it be left alone for fear it would dilute the real message.
The battle against the demons promoting catastrophic climate change has not yet been won. Our focus must remain fine; intense; and be eventually fatal to their cause.
REPLY: We’ll have to disagree on this one. The environment favored ear infections, I got them repeatedly. Tetracycline antibiotic is what killed my hearing. Smoking was the catalyst, not the cause. – A
“Like you, their bias clouds their lateral thinking. -A”
So you see yourself as unbiased? As standing at a privileged reference point?
REPLY: Read what comes out Wednesday, in the meantime I’ll point out that your question is classic troll bait when it begins with “So…”. Everybody has biases. Nobody is perfect. You have a bias, I have a bias, we all have a bias. It’s how far you can see outside of the biasphere that matters. -A