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 The study’s conclusions, as yet unpublished but seen by Left Foot Forward, were presented to a closed meeting of campaigners on Wednesday night.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.
Vincent (09:04:31)
kwik (09:13:00)
Pope Denounces Failure of Copenhagen Climate Change Negotiations
http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/europe/Pope-Denounces-Failure-of-Copenhagen-Climate-Change-Negotiations-81225017.html
I can’t see any evidence of that. What names are bogus? And the sole hint of satire I’ve come across is their assertion that “We are a non-partisan blog”, which is the funniest thing I’ve read all week.
Leftfootforward looks like a typical smug, self-satisfied, right-on collection of Latter-Day Marxists who probably believe socialism hasn’t really been tried yet. The only thing bogus about them is the juvenile ideology they peddle.
The Onion it ain’t.
I’m not sure how to say this, public forum and such . . . but does Al Gore know that his ball is missing?
If you’re right, and it looks as though you are, then the headline and some of Anthony’s paraphrases (“well organized”) were unjustified. However, those are criticisms of our side that are commonly made, in books published recently by Monbiot and James Hoggan (the Climate Coverup), in a much-referenced UCS study, on many websites, and by al Gore and several warmists like Mann recently. We just expected that this was more of the same.
(So my “Notes from Skull Island” is a rebuttal to those critics. It’s something I’d intended to write for months, and this was the trigger.)
Anthony, Richard, Steve and all those interested in this issue. A huge thank you for running these blogs and exposing the massive forces behind the climate change scam. You have done the public a great service.
This particular article and the follow on comments were very informative on the crooked behaviour within the UN, governments in general and their paid acolytes.
As for the diagram, well even a cursory glance reveals that it is nothing more than amatuerish, a bunch of well informed children could have done better.
On another note and in line with others I have abandoned the charities I once readily contributed to, including the WWF, the Woodland Trust, Oxfam, Save the Children etc. The reason for this evolved over time, but was essentially determined by the growing perverseness of these bodies. A joyless, if necessary, decision, though it is hardly agreeable to learn that my taxes are now routinely used to sustain what are now corrupt advocacy groups.
Janice: “. . . but does Al Gore know that his ball is missing?”
That’s below the belt!
Roger Knights (10:47:15) :
If you’re right, and it looks as though you are
It’s not about what I think. Look at the links yourself. Anthony links the Leftfootforward post he critiques in the original piece. I linked Profero in my comment. I’ll do it again: link.
Look for yourself. Make your own judgment. It’s why I (half-jokingly) refer to myself as “agnostic” rather than warmer or skeptic: it’s too easy to get caught up in the herd.
I maintain it’s better to make specific arguments than broad assertions. If you disagree with Monbiot, for example, say why, and refer to actual statements they made rather than strawman generalizations.
It makes for better and more interesting argument, especially for the (seemingly infinitesimal) group of us trying to reach a reasoned conclusion about all this.
Looking at the chart,
Skeptical network composed almost entirely OF single blog and forum owners.I am one even though I am not on their silly list.
Thus run mostly out of their own pockets with donation help.I pay all my own bills for my blog and forum.Although I am in need of a professional theme that matches the subject matter of my forum and that will cost money.Maybe I can ask Exxon for some of their pocket change?
He he…
Generally civil and fair and even list AGW believing sites in the links column.I do that for both groups at MY blog.
Supporters network composed mostly of corporate groups and media.
Thus run mainly on corporate or tax money.
Too often bombastic and censorious and rarely if ever have links to skeptic websites.Joe Romm banned (I thought Richard was civil enough to stay) Richard S. Courtney (who is a member at my forum) and then joined my forum to see what Richard is doing? He never has posted after looking around.
The contrast is obvious.
I will also state from personal experience that the few alarmist scientists I have been in communication with (I am civil) are often insulting and dismissive.
I no longer attend their blogs because of their attitude.They act like nincompoops there.
But very different with a number of skeptical scientists I have been in contact with,who are civil.
I am pleased that blogs such as this one take it seriously in maintaining a civil ATMOSPHERE,thus maintaining credibility as a place that debates can still occur.
Now I know. Roger Pielke, Jr is behind all this. He’s the puppet master.
The closest anyone could say is a central funding source would be Google Ads
That’s it. This means that Al Gore, a Google board member, is secretly a skeptic
Wow, I was totally unaware of some of these skeptical sites! Thanks, Leftfootforward!
PS: Here’s a 13th item for my “Notes from Skull Island”:
13. The Oregon Petition Project would have been handled professionally. I.e., there’d have been no short-sighted tactics such as use of NAS-lookalike typography, no claim that the signers constituted “a meaningful representation” (let alone that the consensus was on the skeptics’ side), no claim that all the signers were scientists (when some were technologists and dentists, etc.), and no implication that the signers had all been vetted. A skilled propagandist, such as one hired by King Coal, would have avoided such a transparent over-reaching, which threw away the petition’s effectiveness by handing the opposition a chance to counterpunch effectively.
I would not include the Daily Telegraph in the sceptic camp – it devotes a page weekly to Geoffrey Lean, a good journalist but definitely a warmist. The Sunday Telgraph does provide a page for Christopher Booker and so could well be numbered in the sceptic camp.
What is so sad is that the Charity Commission has been put under the control of a rabid left wing socialist who is willing to permit “charities” such as Oxfam, the RSPB and WWF to spend money on warmist propaganda exercises. What makes it even worse is that many of these “charities” obtain funding from the taxpayer to help produce this spin.
While Oxfam does provide aid, particularly in the form of disaster relief, it is not so easy to find out how much of its budget actually goes on providing this aid and how much is spent on dubious propaganda.
Gary Hladek writes,
“Wow, I was totally unaware of some of these skeptical sites! Thanks, Leftfootforward!”
I know of at least 100 skeptical sites I have visited over the years,some of them go defunct but most continue in some way.
Jonathan Drake,who is listed in the above chart as part of an alleged skeptic network (a member of my forum) runs this blog:Questioning climate and is a scientist.His recent entry shows the possibility that there is satellite drift errors on measuring Arctic ice cover that not being accounted for.
http://www.trevoole.co.uk/Questioning_Climate
He deserves a visit.
Janice (10:45:43) :
ROFL
So he was down to one?
IPCC is in the middle indicating “neutral”. Ha, ha. I get it. It’s a joke.
OK, OK, I’m sure you’re right. (There have been overstated headlines and article-summaries on this site before, and I need look no further than your say-so to know that you’re correct.)
Agreed. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I try to correct overstatements here from time to time, or at least to “second” such corrections when they are made, as I did with yours. I raise my eyebrow once per fortnight, I estimate.
If you were referring to my own reference to Monbiot, I didn’t need to quote the “actual statements” he’s made that there has been some funding from Big Oil, etc., direct and indirect, to the skeptical side, because I wasn’t denying them.
My argument was against his claim, and that of many warmists recently, that such funding and guidance has been fueling and strategizing the effective elements (bloggers, book authors, and debaters) on the skeptical side in recent years. Such statements are common knowledge: several prominent ones have been made recently, for instance by Mann, Gore, Hansen (in his book), and the NAS-blogging NYT-ad designing warmists. That claim is very implausible, for the reasons I listed. I.e, if there had been such top-down direction, many things on the skeptics’ side would be very different.
Well I’m not a skeptic anyway; so no use them looking for me. I’m quite sure that they simply have the science all wrong.
Which is not the same as saying, they have all the science wrong.
” It’s the Water; Stupid ! ”
Assuming that a small effect like having CO2 slow down the exit of surface emitted LWIR, is going to cause a runaway heating effect is just silly; you have to ignore the possibility that there might be competing processes that simply won’t allow that to happen.
It isn’t any government regulations that has prevented the earth’s surface temperature (average) from ever going higher than +22 deg C.
And nothing we can do is going to force it to remain at 57 deg F; or whatever they say is the correct safe value for continued human life on this planet.
Roger Knights (13:03:22) :
I need look no further than your say-so to know that you’re correct.
Um. I’m not sure if this is droll sarcasm or not, but what I was trying to say was don’t just take my say-so.
If you were referring to my own reference to Monbiot, I didn’t need to quote the “actual statements” he’s made that there has been some funding from Big Oil, etc., direct and indirect, to the skeptical side, because I wasn’t denying them.
I was referring to it, but not trying to shift to a discussion of Monbiot per se. Though I don’t understand “I didn’t need to quote the “actual statements” he’s made… because I wasn’t denying them.”
My point there – which was a minor one – was just that it’s more interesting to me to read something like “Monbiot was wrong when he said in his essay “Blah Blah” that Big Oil did blah blah blah.” (Well, you know, without the blah blahs.)
The generalization “skeptics are paid shills for industry” is as tiresome as the generalization “warmists think all deniers are paid shills.” Some skeptical organizations are fronts, and some warmists do think it’s all a conspiracy. But not all.
Generalizations don’t aid in understanding anything, and it’s more fun when you name names, anyway.
That’s a strawman argument. We read and understood what they had to say. We’ve also read and understood what their clients Oxfam and others had to say when they made statements linking the skeptic blogging community to what they derisively refer to as Big Oil and so forth. It doees not take a genius to understand that Profero, Leftfootforward, Social Media Lab, et al are highly compensated to serve as hired guns in an upcoming socialist-Marxist PR campaign to smear the reputations of people who have the temerity be skeptical and/or critical of the AGW alarmism community and its political agenda.
D. Patterson (13:48:20) :
That’s a strawman argument. We read and understood what they had to say
How is it a ‘strawman argument?” Do you know what the term means? Anthony said the post says X. You can go to the post and see that it doesn’t say X. It’s a very simple argument that can be proved or disproved. If I’m wrong, show how I’m wrong. Specifically
It doees not take a genius to understand that Profero, Leftfootforward, Social Media Lab, et al are highly compensated to serve as hired guns in an upcoming socialist-Marxist PR campaign to smear the reputations of people who have the temerity be skeptical and/or critical of the AGW alarmism community and its political agenda.
That’s an assertion. Show that they are “highly compensated.” Show that there is a “socialist-Marxist PR campaign,” whatever that is. Otherwise, you are doing exactly what you are complaining they are doing: smearing.
(I assume last phrase should have read, “than Big Oil did blah blah blah.”) Well the second is more interesting to ME, so hard cheese.
Yes, and I’m trying to cut down, with my list, on the plausibility of the first generalization, so that it is employed less frequently. As for the second, it’s a strawman: I never asserted or implied that “warmists think all deniers are paid shills,” but rather that many warmists (I named several prominent ones) have recently made the claim that the skeptics movement is “well-funded and well-organized.” Can you see the difference between those two claims? If not, everyone else can.
If you’re insinuating that I implied “all,” show me where. (You can’t.) All I said was that the claim was “common” (= “some”) and that it had been used by (some) warmists as an effective talking point.
Utter nonsense.
My take on that: You’d rather shift the focus of the debate to an area where the warmists can score points (there IS dirty money on the skeptics’ side and Monbiot & others can prove it), and away from one where they are weaker (its effect is minimal).
I draw my image of the skeptic/alarmist confrontation from the War of the Worlds. A conquering alien army is defeated by an intrepid microbe counterattack.
Roger Knights (14:32:57) :
Roger, it seems to me that you think we’re arguing, but I wasn’t ascribing the points you dispute to you personally. I’ll try to be clearer in my wording.
(I assume last phrase should have read, “than Big Oil did blah blah blah.”) Well the second is more interesting to ME, so hard cheese.
I’m afraid you’re going to have to explain to me what “Monbiot was wrong when he said in his essay “Blah Blah” than Big Oil did blah blah blah” would mean. It makes no sense in the grammar that I was taught, but “hard cheese” on me I guess.
I never asserted or implied that “warmists think all deniers are paid shills
I did not mean to accuse you personally of that, and by generalizing about generalizations I pretty much stepped all over my own point. Apologies.
Utter nonsense.
Nice.
That was sly sarcasm, right?
You’d rather shift the focus of the debate to an area where the warmists can score points (there IS dirty money on the skeptics’ side and Monbiot & others can prove it), and away from one where they are weaker (its effect is minimal).
No. The whole “who is more paid off” foofaraw itself is a distraction. My point was about making an argument and backing it up. A post, with links, that claims an article says something it does not – and a bunch of people going off, making it clear that they haven’t read the linked article – is the opposite of that.
It’s not a warmer/skeptic thing. It’s a true believer thing.
Jerome:
R. Craigen (20:29:53) :
My money for starving children currently goes to World Vision. If they start up with this nonsense I’ll switch in a moment to Compassion or Samaritan’s Purse.
I’m with you on that one. They started going on about it a bit, but not in a major way so I stayed with them for the sake of the two children we sponsor. If they overstep, though, I’m out of it, but I’ll warn them first to give them a chance to back down. We all (who support them) should give them a second chance. But not a third.
Precisely. When they start wasting sponsor’s money there’s no point paying out. I sponsor a child in Mauritania and have voiced my concerns about some aspects of how they run the program there. But if they start throwing MY money at climate nonsense, I’ve got better things to do with that money.
World Vision is a fundamentally good organization that is under a great deal of pressure from the left. The trouble with the far left (I won’t put all lefties in this category) is that they think EVERYTHING can be arrogated to “the cause”, which is a great big amorphous blob. So give money to help AIDS research … it goes to “normalizing homosexual lifestyles” in kindergartens — say what!!! Give money to feed or educate starving children — it goes to feeding climate paranoia instead. If World Vision gets swallowed by this black hole I’ll shed a few tears for the millions of children harmed by it, and move on to a responsible charity that knows how to stick to its mission.
I don’t mean to point a finger at World Vision or any particular charity … I intend to apply this rule across the board. I’ve already applied it to Oxfam.