Gosh, according to Leftfootforward, we skeptics are just a step away from global media domination. I suppose it didn’t occur to the people that researched this and drew up the network diagram that both sides are about equal in the “networking”. Yet only one side is “bad”.
“A fascinating new study commissioned by Oxfam and produced by digital mapping agency Profero has shed new insights into the way climate sceptics’ networks operate. The study’s conclusions, as yet unpublished but seen by Left Foot Forward, were presented to a closed meeting of campaigners on Wednesday night.
Profero’s study analysed online coverage of the “Climategate” debacle that broke last November, tracking its progress from fringe blogs to mainstream media outlets over the ensuing weeks and months.”
…
Stuart Conway, the study’s co-author, declared simply that “there are no progressive networks” – just hubs of activity here and there, lacking interconnection.
I have to laugh at that, because when you look at the graph they prepared above, both sides look like “just hubs of activity here and there, lacking interconnection”
About the closest thing to an interconnection that exists is a blogroll link, seen on blogs worldwide. I have one, so does everybody else on that diagram above. Are blogrolls the new network hive mind? Does noting an interesting story on another blog peg me as being a climate community organizer?
Apparently they never considered that maybe, just maybe, the Climategate story spread from blogs to MSM because it was real news?
Of course, it’s all speculation on their part. Nobody at Oxfam or Profero contacted me to ask any basic questions (and I’m betting none of the others either) like:
Are you part of an organized effort? (No – I blog because I like it, it gives me a sense of satisfaction, and I think it is important. For me it is like my old broadcast TV job, but using a different medium to send words and pictures. I started blogging because I had an offer to do so from my local newspaper, who still maintains a blog link to WUWT on their Norcalblogs.com website.)
Are you funded by a central organization, like the Soros sponsored Think Progress/Climate progress blog, the DeSmog Blog’s Hoggan and Associates PR firm, or Realclimate whose servers are funded by Environmental Media Services ? (No – though Climate Depot is apparently funded by CFACT, there’s no central funding that I get or any of the others get as far as I know, but ask them. As I see it we are just a loose knit group of like minded people. The closest anyone could say is a central funding source would be Google Ads, for which the blogs that have them get a few cents for each click.)
Do you answer to or are you guided by climate denier overlords? (No – but my, employees, wife and kids raise holy heck with me for spending too much time in front of the computer reading and writing blogs.)
Did you time your blog post announcing the CRU email hack/leak to influence the Copenhagen Conference? (No – that’s just when the files were dropped in my lap, and I waited two days for confirmation before writing about it. Ask the hacker/whistleblower what his/her motives and timing considerations were.)
It’s funny how somebody can write a social networking study and not ask the subjects being studied any questions. Quality research funded by charitably given British pounds – surely they could do better. Or, maybe they didn’t want to.
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Paul Daniel Ash (15:01:31) :
It’s not a warmer/skeptic thing. It’s a true believer thing.
*****************
Looks like a socialist thing to me.
[snip – I won’t have my name and the word “socialist” in the same sentence. You are entitled to your opinion, but I’m entitled to protect my values. – Anthony]
Paul Daniel Ash said
‘I never asserted or implied that “warmists think all deniers are paid shills.’
Paul, I am quite willing to be a paid shill. Can you please tell me who I apply to?
Tonyb
The actual article, as you note, didn’t deserve the headline it was given here. As I’ve said, that sometimes happens here, for instance most recently on the “Mean Greens” study, which dealt only with hypothetical Greens. I can understand why you want to rub Anthony’s nose is this boo-boo. I also have preached here about a dozen times over the years (well, over 20 months) that our side must avoid overstatement, as it is bad policy in the long run, and energizes the opposition.
But I wouldn’t call my post a “distraction.” I’d call it directly relevant to the key words in the headline, “well funded, well-organized.” I’ve been needing a “peg” to write up my thoughts on that claim, so I seized the opportunity. At worst, it’s a minor tangent, which often occur in threads on most sites.
Good to hear that.
My remark makes sense in contest of the full quote, which read:
Maybe I should have said, “Now YOU’RE making a generalization.” That would have been milder. But, of course, I was irritated at your seeming insinuation that I’d implied that “warmists think all deniers are paid shills.” You have to take that into account. And you also have to take into account that abrupt rebuffs are not uncommon here. (Leif: “You’re rambling, spare us, quit digging.”)
Plus, of course, your sweeping statement WAS utter nonsense. 🙂
I won’t have my name and the word “socialist” in the same sentence.
Jim was the one who said you sounded socialist. I was just pointing out the surrealism.
D. Patterson (04:10:37) :
[in response to my (01:55:55) assertion that Profero appeared to be in damage control mode with “Unsimplify” ]
“Another of Profero’s entities is named the Social Media Lab. The business is organized to outsource public relations contracts to subcontractors.”
===
This would make sense, particularly since the Unsimplify page is a “standalone” – accessed from a Mar. 22 “News” item on the Profero home page, but with no links back – or forward. [see http://www.profero.com/unsimplify/index.html ]
To my mind, this would suggest that the page was put up in somewhat of a hurry. OTOH perhaps as a “standalone company operating under Profero”, Unsimplify’s virtual presence requires no more than a “standalone” page, unlinked to anything else in the cyberuniverse (with a connection evidently unknown even to Google prior to yesterday!)
FWIW, Social Media Lab does not seem to be featured on Profero, but (unlike Unsimplify) the the Profero association has been known to Google for some time.
Pure speculation, of course (not to mention the possibility of “confirmation bias” on my part), but perhaps Social Media Lab created “Unsimplify” for the damage control exercise necessitated by LeftFootForward’s “scoop”.
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Paul Daniel Ash (18:03:37) :
I won’t have my name and the word “socialist” in the same sentence.
Jim was the one who said you sounded socialist. I was just pointing out the surrealism.
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Actually, I wasn’t very clear. The orgs that paid for and created the silly balls chart are socialistic in nature. Sorry if there was a mix-up.
Are you so blind, deaf, and dumb that you cannot read, hear, and say what is found on Profero’s own Web pages? Profero touts their success. They tout their award winning accomplishments in the PR industry. They tout how they have work locations around the world from London and Rome to Singapore and Sydney. When you go to their Web presence describing “Who We Are”, they tell you about their past successes and clients such as the British Army, British Marines, Pepsico, Buena Vista Entertainment, Ch. 4, NBC-Universal, etc. Media marketing campaigns of these types are by no means cheap and inexpensive. Read the PR industry news articles about the activities of Profero, its associates, and their PR accomplishments. They are scoring big contracts with some of the world’s major corporations and governments. Follow the money to their associates and read their online biographies and resumes. They are pefectly happy to tell you how successful they are, which translates to how such major PR and marketing makes Profero and/or its associates highly compensated members of the marketing industry. Their stated UK Fee income alone is stated to be more than £6 million year to March 2000. Surely you are not going to read that stuff and come back to us with a rejoinder that they are low paid minimum wage workers barely eeking out an existence as they extol the glitzy wares and services of the British Government and the world’s largest NGO and mass media clients?
Oxfam is clearly an organization managed and operated by known Marxist-Communists with clear preferences for providing aid in locations where Marxist-Communist insurgencies have been underway. Oxfam is a client of Profero. Clearly stated is the goal of Profero and its subcontractors to assist Oxfam and its Marxist-Communist leadership to exert a negative PR (public relations) impact upon the very group of people Oxfam and Profero are identifying as “key” members of the climate skeptic community responsible for revelation of the Climategate documents. They use bafflegab to provide rhetorical deniability of the methods they intend to use, but Oxfam and their fellow promoters of AGW have not been shy about smearing the reputations of skeptics before. So there is good reason to anticipate a renewed usage of their past smear tactics in the near future.
Oxfam is an organizatioin with a leadership and membership including significant representation from the various Marxist-Communist political organizations. Oxfam’s AGW and certain other political activities are the same activities advocated and conducted by the same Marxist-Communist organizations supported by some of Oxfam’s members and leaders. Oxfam not only supports the AGW agenda also advocated by the Marxist-Communist organizations, it actually participates in its formulation and execution. Oxfam hired Profero and its subcontractors to determine the best means by which the climate skeptics and their negative influence upon the marketing of AGW can be neutralized by a PR and marketing campaign.
All of the above is readily found in the news and on the Web pages of the organizations mentioned. Consequently, they are substantive statements of the evidence to be found from the subjects’ own statements and the news reports obtained from the subjects of the articles. They are obviously not a bare “assertion” as you so incorrectly stated. Now which part did you fail to comprehend?
No far. My blogs not on the chart. gotta work harder.
Andrew Bolt will be peeved they missed him.
Actually its a useful chart. I missed two major links, must book mark them.
Can you buy the monkey patch anywhere, I want one?
Green wash money for all! Actually if there really was any green wash money the greens would be all over it. I’m sure any competent green capable of wearing a suit could talk their way into grabing a few million. Then they could spend it on solar etc. What court would enforce a ‘green wash’ contract. The Judge is not going to penalise anyone for “Not” wasting the money! The real evidence that there no money is that the greens haven’t looted it.
It’s deeply disappointing that something that a client has paid money for would be so inadequate and so full of poor spelling – I never found such generous clients.
Years ago I remember a human network modelling tool that run on a Sun station (I think it was called Netmap) – it was initially developed for police and intelligence services and was then made available for analysing corporate networks and culture. That was genuinely impressive – this not so much!
I’m amazed to find that NetMap still exists and that many of its graphics are just as I remembered them: http://questanalytics.co.uk/product-data-visualiser.php
Now that’s a proper tool for analysing formal and informal networks. Why did Profero try to put together its bodged effort?
[do not post full articles ~ ctm]
More add-ons to my “Notes From Skull Island”:
14. There’d be a place for the reposting of the “highlights” of WUWT and other skeptic sites, and also such sites would have editors who would retroactively (after a month or so) do flagging and/or highlighting of outstanding posts within those threads. This would encourage posters to do better and make it easier for newcomers and journalists to effectively skim our sites and notice our better arguments and facts.
Such editorial work could be done by people who have good judgment and lots of knowledge of the issues, like Pamela Gray, Lucy Skywalker, etc.
15. There’d be a reposting of “negative highlights” from warmists’ sites in which the unsavory qualities of their leading lights and hatchetmen were on display. Call it, maybe, “Quoted Without Comment” or “Get a Load of This.” It would make an impact on fence-sitters.
16. There’d be a spiffy ad campaign consisting of short spots (20 to 40 seconds) that would focus on making one quick jab at the warmists. There should be a standard format for these ads, such as a common tag-line, music, lead-in, graphics style, etc. The touch should be light, with the aim of making the spots entertaining. The ads should also be “different,” to get around viewers’ defenses, and to make the message “sticky.” Care should be taken to avoid overstatement, and to make qualifications where necessary, to forestall counterpunches.
Besides the silliness of the diagram, the quality-accuracy is so low that it seems it was done by a middle schooler who just wanted a passing grade for some science project related to climate change. A person was paid for this; that tells you a lot about the integrity of the sponsor and participants.
Damn–I’m not even a fringe blog.
*shuffles off, muttering*
I hope WUWT has persmission to exist by purchasing carbon offsets for all this activity. At .10c a ton…we may have to have a contribution drive ’share-a-thon’
—————————————————————
Woopps.. almost said ‘Share-a-thong’ which would have been way too close to
Copenhagen/Teri for our modest tastes here at WUWT!
Looking at the general chart of things; the AGW is really going to boil down to who has the biggest balls. I swear the political calculation is that modern, comfy, suburban/city dwelling men are not going to get off their duff to rally against their AGW scheme and as that is the case; they can do and say and pass anything they want.
Lets all follow through with writing our MPs or Senators as discussed prior.
AGW crowd = Thongs-Sans-Frontiers
Dear Anthony and all,
I’ve done an imagemap that makes the image clickable. Please feel free to copy the HTML code at
http://ecotretas.blogspot.com/2010/03/quem-e-quem.html
Ecotretas
[Reply: Climate Audit is .org, not .com. ~dbs, mod.]
a dood asked:
*What is it about the leftist mind that they feel like they have to control every aspect of human behavior?*
Rick Bradford 19:58 provided one answer and a link
Here’s my take.
Leftists believe that “community” is more important than individuals – together we are stronger etc. It is a paternalistic world view that thinks they know what’s best, and will enact schemes to take your money from you and decide where it should be spent for the comunity (i.e your) benefit.
The “rightist” (I dislike this label but it will do for now) believe that the individual knows best what is right for them and that by acting cooperatively a better outcome can be achieved for any given problem. The inherent independant thinking of this group explains why they are so much better in the Internet environment, as in so many other areas.
Succinctly put – we of the right believe in equality of opportunity (and that individuals will maximise their performance in this environment) – socialists believe in the equality of outcome and will tinker and manipulate to try to achieve this impossibilty. The consequence of course is that they are conflicted, forever doomed to fail in their endeavours, forever throwing more and more resources to fix the world.
Speaking of Sen. Inhofe, I just found this very cool article he wrote:
http://www.usnews.com/articles/opinion/2010/03/23/inhofe-climategate-shows-theres-no-global-warming-consensus.html
His Minority Report is well worth reading! I was an early contributor, when the Climategate emails were posted on the Russian server (I’ve known Jim for years).
Is it obvious to anyone else that Joseph Raymond McCarthy was right?
I don’t like to typically comment with respect to style, but I think some color could help with the graphic. I think it would be valuable to add color for independent sites, major media outlet sites and government sites. It think it would tell a different story.
Stu
See-
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100031404/climategate-the-parliamentary-cover-up/
–The Hotties do indeed have
organized backers and finanaceers.;
Here’s one more item to my list in “Notes From Skull Island”:
17. There’d be a copy editing & peer review service to vet our side’s books prior to publication, since any flubs will be seized on by warmists to discredit the entire work, as happened to Plimer’s book. Instead, dissenting books continue to be produced in an unsupervised fashion. For instance, in Steve Goreham’s just-out (and excellent) Climatism!, I found two obvious spelling errors in just an hour’s skimming. (“Forego” for “forgo” and “principle” used where “principal” was needed.)