Richard North, of the EU Referendum, the only player in the map below to have three balls, points out that Profero has made an “update” on their website. But there’s no update to the hilariously flawed networking map they produced, at least that I can find.
A small group of dedicated people coming from a diverse range of positions and perspectives but working together as a loose federation held together by shared values and beliefs succeeded in accomplishing the most impressive PR coup of the 21st century.
“…by significantly influencing public perception of anthropogenic global warming by single-mindedly applying concerted and consistent pressure at critical junctures in the media ecology here in the UK and abroad.”
Update on the Oxfam online research project into climate change related conversation
Who we are & what we were commissioned by Oxfam to do
We are Unsimplify, a stand-alone company operating under the Profero umbrella, we’ve been working with Oxfam for a number of months on a project to assist them in helping to make sense of how the growth of online peer-to-peer news generation has and could in the future impact their campaigning activities.
We were commissioned by Oxfam to do this because they were looking for an approach that goes deeper than just monitoring and mapping online conversations – although this does form a part of what we do.
What we set out to do was to help Oxfam’s campaigns team make sense of key online conversations and news generators around climate change and international development issues and their dynamics in order that they might question, revise or support their existing mental models for campaigning and to support decision making and facilitate a culture of inquiry and curiosity amongst the campaign team.
If this sounds complex and challenging then that’s intentional because what Unsimplify does is complex, hence the name.
Putting The LeftFootForward piece into context
We’re really excited that people are taking an interest in what we do and hats off to LeftFootForward for getting the scoop on this piece of work but we’d like to clarify what’s being discussed (most of the conversations focus upon a visual representation of some of the key conversations in the form of a landscape map) as it should be understood in the context of an entire report (120 pages or so) which hasn’t been made public.
The report as a whole applies our own bespoke models and frameworks to both quantitative and qualitative data in order to bring to the surface complex dynamics and issues which would otherwise pass un-noticed if an automated technological monitoring solution had been used in isolation.
Why does this matter?
In a complex situation such as the one we were analysing, data alone won’t aid in making sense of what’s happening, but narratives, informed by data, mental models and assumptions, can.
For example, we didn’t examine the entire myriad of Facebook groups which have formed around climate change and international development issues because they were not significant in this context.
So, what’s the story then?
A small group of dedicated people coming from a diverse range of positions and perspectives but working together as a loose federation held together by shared values and beliefs succeeded in accomplishing the most impressive PR coup of the 21st century.
The climate change sceptics did this by significantly influencing public perception of anthropogenic global warming by single-mindedly applying concerted and consistent pressure at critical junctures in the media ecology here in the UK and abroad.
The map that’s being discussed outlines some of the key players and some of the dynamics at play in order to help create a meaningful narrative which captures the sense of what was happening and brings to the surface the key issues.
What happens next?
The ultimate goal of the project was to abstract from all the online noise a narrative and a working model for ‘next practice’ campaigning which would furnish Oxfam, and the progressive community in general, new insights and knowledge about how they might, in future, listen, respond and act into an increasingly complex and turbulent media ecology.
If you have any specific questions about the project please email Managing Director Stewart Conway on unsimplify@profero.com and we’ll do our best to answer them but please do bear in mind that we are really busy.
Alternatively you can visit the Wikipedia page on sense-making which outlines some of the key ideas which have inspired us and which inform our work and approach. The page has some great links to more extensive online resources about how organisations can make sense of, and act into, complex challenges and situations.
It is all about oil money. Baby Oil or Big Oil.
The panic is about influence on public perception.
Changes is facts often do shape changes in perceptions. The Carbon crisis cartel was famous for changing facts and showed a motive to change perception.
The CRU needs to fall under the auto sales lemon law. I like how they use the word “narrative” instead of Balogna.
Just for fun, has anyone drawn up a real version of this to show them how wrong they are??
Greenpeace have published a report called “Dealing in Doubt” http://www.greenpeace.org/raw/content/international/press/reports/dealing-in-doubt.pdf
It appears that WUWT is not mentioned.
This web site is not only awsome but is outstanding in how it rebuts the tired old robust false claims.
When Joe Romm posted in Jan 2009 that the southwest would have droughts and they would be permanent, The Met Office forcasted BBQ summers and was planning on the same for winters last December when the “inconvenient” blizzard season rolled in.
It only takes a few specific examples of totally false claims to shoot down the voodoo followers and false forecasters.
(a shout out to Down Under Enjoy the sweet and plentifull rains. They are a fragrant alternative to the dry as a bone forecasts for-evah coming from the carbon tax cabal)
Having lots of balls is normally a good thing, but one might say that Richard North has “three spheres” in the diagram.
The ‘sense-making community’ [sic] need a dog-food project to translate their own psycho-babble into plain english. So it, err, makes sense.
“Richard North, of the EU Referendum, the only player in the map below to have three balls,”
eewwwww…..
Obviously what LeftFootForward, Oxfam et al fail to grasp is we (I like to include myself) are individuals not organized groups, who share a common goal. It’s what makes it impossible to counter. Sort of like guerilla communications.
Where is Lord Monckton in this diagram?
Does having a 3rd orb make Mr. North popular with the ladies?
And there was I thinking that Oxfam was a famine and disaster relief charity run on a shoestring and desperate for cash for good works. Now I can see that it is a self serving oligopoly.
Unsimplify??? Can this all possibly get any more Orwellian?
Sounds like they’re about to recommend that Oxfam start astroturfing the web to counter the sceptics’ grassroots buzz.
Why is Oxfam so interested in this “narrative” of climate change? Why? WHY??
Why isn’t Monckton in the map?
Their usage of Wikipedia as a reference reveals how little they understand about the subjects they are addressing and the skeptical community’s relations with Wikipedia. At the rate they are going, they’ll end up metaphorically shooting their clients toes off with their media campaign.
To leave out the deomonstrated links between the IPCC and the AGW promotion community is to render their work meaningless.
They used the phrase “media ecology” twice in the article. Huh? WUWT!?!
I’ll go search on that phrase and if I find anything worth the keystrokes, I’ll report it back here to ya’ll.
I’m baaack. (That was quick.)
It’s a hard science just like climatology ;o)
Why is Oxfam wasting their money on BS like this, rather than actually spending money helping needy people around the world, which is what they’re supposed to do?
So let me get this right. When I give money to Oxfam in the expectation that it will go to some starving person in the third world so they can improve their life, Oxfam instead gives it to some bunch of Golga-Frinchan B Ark wannabees who spend it on researching what websites I look at? Who are looking at the wicked conspiracy to undermine climate change all orchestrated by a weatherman in CA and an ex-public health inspector in Bradford Yorkshire, and the squash-playing puzzle guy in Toronto? Wow. I suppose that third-world person would approve, it’s for her own good, after all.
They don’t have Waxman of Waxman–Markey Cap N Trade in the supporters. You can see Waxman show some true color in this video
2:25 to 2:42 is particularly interesting……
Gee this approach where you don’t have to interview anyone to find out what is going on, or you can interview who you like, has already been invented by the Guardian, BBC, New York Times, IPCC, etc.
Let me get this straight. They have a well organized well financed campaign to sell the Progressive AGW point of view, and they are loosing the argument to a loose net bunch of amateurs. And they need a study to come up with a new campaign to win the remaking of the world. They have been 40 years in creating this program in the quiet and now the whole world is wising up to their con game. They are being caught up and exposed by “the net that covers the world”. The old ways of controlling the people by controlling the information is at an end. We have them surrounded and they are on the run.
My don’t we live in interesting times? 🙂
I have to laugh at this what with the IPCC in the middle. The IPCC is far on the right side of the chart.
Is it just me, or does “unsimplify” as used by these folks, seem to mean the same as “clueless” to you too?
The more I think about the AGW story the more I begin to realise that it is a beautiful example of how the human race, for all is technological innovation and modernity, actually displays the same behaviour of previous generations and centuries. Behaviours and needs cannot be eradicated by modern living. You need millenia to evolve.
We all laugh now at our ancestors believing the world was flat .. or how it was the center of the universe, ort how we used to worship the trees and the winds … or how religious conviction controlled the minds of people for centuries. But when people stop believing in god, they don’t believe in nothing … they will believe in anything. And those that believe wlil not change just because of the ‘facts’. It has to be explained away …. hence the rubbish Profero has come up with.
Einstein said it best : There are two things which may be infinte …. The Universe and Human Stupidity …. and I’m not sure about the Universe.
Perhaps the complaint from climate change proponents is that in the marketplace of ideas, their ideas don’t sell.
I pointed this out days ago, on your original post. Kindly look at my comments, where I quote the exact same passage you quote in this post. Don’t you find it interesting that you only notice when someone you agrees with draws your attention to it?
The Profero study does note that “there’s no concerto, no map, no denier overlords demanding results.” It’s a straw man to imply that they ever said there was.
REPLY: Yep, there it is. It’s simply a matter of I don’t always see all the comments. With a volunteer team of moderators, many get approved without my seeing them. If you have something that I should see, please make a note like “MODS- please flag for Anthony’s attention” and they will. – Anthony
These people really don’t have a clue do they?
They think they have to talk down to us in a different way I suppose, so we’ll understand
Planks!
DaveE.
Sounds like to me they are trying to find a way to discredit the skeptical thinkers of climate change. The whole thing seems to be centered on how to oppose critical thought or to find a way to quiet the discussion on critical/skeptical sites.
Bill Derryberry
“In a complex situation such as the one we were analysing, data alone won’t aid in making sense of what’s happening, but narratives, informed by data, mental models and assumptions, can.”
An assumption is the mother of all [snip] ups – a good start for them then.
It’s quite funny how they perceive WUWT, CA, Bish etc.
When will they understand that the sceptic blogs are simply kids in the crowd who shouted “If HE’S wearing clothes, then how come I can see the emperor’s got no bollocks!?”
The PR coup they think happened is nothing but the re-emergence of “rational man” (point 1.3 in the public coercion instruction manual “RulesOfTheGame.pdf”, FOI2009/documents) that DEFRA and all the climate alarm fakers foolishly dismissed.
Like reading a story on a Mobius strip about a thought contained in a Klien bottle.
“A small group of dedicated people coming from a diverse range of positions and perspectives but working together as a loose federation held together by shared values and beliefs succeeded in accomplishing the most impressive PR coup of the 21st century.”
They should also add people of many disciplines outside the bribe range of grants for the “correct science”. Like the gaggle of people who congregate on WUWT. The wisdom of the crowds prevails over the agenda crowd. Works every-time it’s tried.
Open science is the only science for a political agenda age.
sigh….all the portending jokes about to arrive….
Richard North, of the EU Referendum, the only player in the map below to have three balls,
Do they clank, too?
Is he a pawn broker?
Does he have polyorchidism?
I searched through the comments of the original thread but was unable to locate an edited networking map (by a commenter, not Profero). Was one created, I may have missed it (250 comments)? Preferably it would have more accurate connections between entities and weighted spheres. Just curious.
My take on the loose federation of dedicated people who populate sites such as WUWT is proof that many people sharing data and ideas can add much to understanding complex technical issues. I am continually impressed with the data sources that are posted. For the most part, the comments show good insight into the topic matter presented. Questions are posed and answered with insightful integrity and thoughtful polite responses. There is a bit of showboating commentary, but nothing like the hateful, small minded remarks on RealClimate.
The old sayings are, “many pocketbooks makes plenty of money” and “many hands makes quick work” . I would add one, “many dedicated brains provides many sensible insights”.
The only thing that I find missing on the skeptic side is leadership to bring the groups findings to the attention of the media and the politicians. Accusations such as those made by Profero are without much foundation. While Hansen is losing ground (pun intended) these days, he has had the media control button under his thumb since 1987.
What, a re-do….And I’m still not included in the balls????
Well, I’ve been a regular here for longer than most on that list. Now I’m REALLY offended!
B S generator
“turbulent media ecology”
That equals high quantity of baloney generating with confusion and internal contradictions
This map is great news for the skeptic community.
The groupthink AGW advocates will seize on it and waste huge amounts of time chasing their own tails trying to figure out some new brand of agit-prop with which to counter a non-existent organization.
They simply can’t comprehend that individuals can produce effective action, without having to convene endless struggle meetings and mobilizations.
I’m a bit dubious about the phrase ‘peer-to-peer news generation’.
You don’t generate news unless you actually do something – there are a minuscule few who actually generate actual events (aka. news). All these blogs, ‘news sites’ and other internet presences do is link one another to make others aware of the events.
The linking and centralization of news events (e.g. WattsUpWithThat), and it’s popularity, can of course, be a news event in its own right.
In this instance, the internet is a hosting playground for ‘media wars’. While the exercise may be interesting, it’s simply a front to the old print-style media wars: an effort to put your competitor out of business. Something which is destined to fail because of the very nature of the internet, and because such organizations in this case have the dichotomy of being civic friendly (use of wikipedia, for example) in publishing how smart they are in devising a scheme which can be simply copied and used by the competitors.
Bottom line, how do you get the proletarians to take (read) your view over your competitor?
I think many of the commentators are missing the main message from this exercise. Oxfam and other activists groups have become really good at releasing “studies” that support their cause. Even thogh many, if not all, of these studies are proven to be wrong on more rigorous analysis, experience has taught activist that MSM will print their original conclusion, but totally ignore subsequent challenges. Thus, the emrgence of an on-line community that not only challenges questionable studies and conclusions, but manages to publicize contrary views is undermining the activist’ favored mode of operations.
Now that they have recognized that their strategy is not working, it is to their credit that they are trying to understand why not. It will be interesting to monitor how this changes their advocacy efforts.
So, on this diagram, the BBC is further from the IPCC (nominally an impartial arbitrator of science) than…RealClimate? In fact the BBC only links into the subject via RealClimate (or loosely the Guardian).
That’s the real story here.
The BBC is not impartial, not independent and not worth the license fee.
According to Oxfam anyway.
Jim (07:53:43) :
I have to laugh at this what with the IPCC in the middle. The IPCC is far on the right side of the chart.
I got a chuckle out of that, as well.
Wow, 36 comments when I started typing. Kind of sums up the pox on society that is the ‘internet age’: Less Thinky More Clicky-Clicky.
With three balls no wonder the man has the ability to savage Pachauri! Or perhaps he should be in a circus? What he has unearthed regarding the BBC, & it’s rather lurid connections around the world he should have a medal!
Where is CNN, MSNBC, NBC, CBS, ABC, and Bill Maher? Where are the comedians, musicians, writers, and artists? Where are Obama and the Dems? They left out most of the whole Left.
…….“…by significantly influencing public perception of anthropogenic global warming by single-mindedly applying concerted and consistent pressure at critical junctures in the media ecology here in the UK and abroad.”
Isn’t this exactly what Pachauri, Hansen, Mann and Gore are doing to promote the AGW agenda?
…….”A small group of dedicated people coming from a diverse range of positions and perspectives but working together as a loose federation held together by shared values and beliefs succeeded in accomplishing the most impressive PR coup of the 21st century.”
But a “networking map”??? Why??
And whom would you be more inclined to believe? People pushing an agenda or people who are disorganized but unified?
“Media ecology” is Newspeak for censorship. They’re looking for a way to get back to the old days, when newspapers, newsmagazines, radio and TV told everyone what to think.
With the internet, their problem is doubleplusUnsimplified.
They’ve been working on this for months??!! I’d charitably assumed a day or two.
Still, if the aim is to help Oxfam disseminate more rubbish then maybe we shouldn’t be putting them straight. “Keep up the great work guys, you’ve really got us bang to rights!”
Mustafa Mohatarem is right. The groups which want to tell you what to think have had it easy. All they need to do is generate a press release, and the uncritical media will run their story. A whole lot of newspaper work is filling the spaces between the ads. The ads generate the real revenue, but you have to fill the space to sell the papaer and convince the advertizers you have a readership. Most of the creatures we idly refer to as journalists do no more (no more at all) than to paraphrase those press releases. (Ever wonder why they all run the same story on the same day?)
Then along comes the web. The opportunity for anybody to publish something which can be accessed by the whole world, if you can grab its attention. No need to sell space, no need to rely on a press release, plenty of incentive to fisk the press releases for truth, accuracy and agenda. The world changed, and the MSM were waiting for the press release to tell them what to write about it.
It is obviously a projection, as WUWT is on the LEFT side! ☺
Monbiot has only got one ball,
Unless the other is very small,
The Guardian is somewhat similar,
And Nature, should have no balls at all.
their plan is to post something stupid with the hopes that we will comment on it and improve it. Research for free.
When I think of it, there is actually a “Big” thing that most skeptics rally around and are supported by.
It’s not Big Oil.
It is called “The Truth.”
I think Phil Jones used to think he had the biggest BALLS on the block.
But then the CRUTAPE (TM) letters came along, and the size of his BALLS shrank accordingly.
“We are Unsimplify, a stand-alone company operating under the Profero umbrella, we’ve been working with Oxfam for a number of months on a project to assist them in helping to make sense of how the growth of online peer-to-peer news generation has and could in the future impact their campaigning activities.”
Wow. So are they saying that this silly diagram took them several months to create? That’s just pathetic. I mean, seriously, I have teenage cousins who could have created this diagram in far less time (one hour — tops) and probably with greater accuracy. For example, how the heck did they manage to leave out the Drudge Report on the skeptics side when it arguably drives significant volumes of traffic to many of the smaller skeptical web sites and blogs?
Also the Fox News Network and The Washington Times are completely absent on the skeptical side and both are major players in disseminating news stories that are skeptical of the AGW hypothesis. Perhaps the biggest mystery of all is how the WSJ ended up on the “Supporter” side while the IPCC ended up in neutral territory. Has anyone at Unsimplify ever actually read the editorial section of the WSJ? Has anyone at Unsimplify ever actually read the AR5 summary for policymakers?
Oh well, at least we can say that this company has been consistent in living up to its name. By introducing contradictory players into the supporter network while simultaneously omitting major players from the skeptical network, they’ve essentially unsimplified what would otherwise have been an extremely simple tenth grade homework assignment.
The left-hand side has a combined funding of, what? A couple of million?
On the right-hand side the BBC has £3.4 BILLION alone!
Also, why on earth is the IPCC in the centre?
It’s not fair, I want three balls too and a cheque from oil companies!
Mr. Mohatarem got me thinking. All the AGW folks have got to do is lie and others will swear to it, while the burden of scientific logic has been placed erroneously on the side of the non-alarmists. Because AGW has drastic consequences, the burden of scientific proof and falsification should always be on the alarmists, but it isn’t. Back-asswards.
I had a great thought. Does everyone remember the Piltdown Man hoax, where a skull was hoaxed to make it appear old and all of the “consensus” was on the side that it was real? ? Maybe we could create a network diagram to show how the Piltdown hoax took in all but a couple of the prominent “scientists” (in quotation because the field of anthropology is also more “art” than science, but that is just me, a “hard” scientist talking).
It just shows how perverted and organisation like Oxfam has become. Surely they should be campaigning for more resources to combat poverty and malnutrition and thus ought to be trying to get some of the UN cash wasted on the IPCC and it’s ilk. But here they are campaigning, and presumably spending money, against freedom of expression and a skeptical view that might be more beneficial to there supposed cause. Definitely weird. The activists strike again to send what was originally a meaningful organisation down a rather political track
several posters on here are under the misapprehension that Oxfam is purely a do gooding charity. nothing could be further from the truth. they spend a huge proportion of the money collected from donations on active lobbying and direct actions to promote Mann Made Global Warming.
the majority of so called Charities and NGO’s are involved in the same charade- Christian Aid, Cafod, Sciaf, Goal, etc all spend vast sums on warmist Agitprop.
similiarly the major churches are also involved. Cardinal O’Brien in Scotland, Archbishop Nichol in Westminister, the Archbishop of Canterbury. together with Phil the Greek (Prince Phillip) they and many others were represented at a gathering in Windsor Castle last November organised by an outfit called Alliance for Religious Conservations. the gathering was addressed by Bank Ki-Moon of UN fame.
ARC’s stated aim is to save the planet from MMGW. and there i was believing that the planet had been saved 2000 years ago.
OT – last month i signed a petition to 10 Downing Street about the corruption of CRU.
i got an interesting and contradictory email yesterday from our beloved leader’s office.
see http://www.number10.gov.uk/page22924 (hope this works).
wondering did any one elso get the same?
MISSING:
> All the pro-nuclear groups and industries supporting AGW
When is the cover going to be pulled back on how this is all about reviving the nuclear power industry?
anopheles (09:18:16) :
A whole lot of newspaper work is filling the spaces between the ads.
So anthropogenic global warming/climate change is what it used to be UFO’s stories for the MSM. That is precisely what it is: GW/CCH is an Unidentified Flying Object and Al Gore is, obviously a grown fat ET.
As a commenter on EuRef said, “it’s a pity the size of the spheres are not related to the amount of obtained funding.”
I suppose it would be difficult to display a tiny fraction of a pixel for most of the spheres on the left side of the chart.
Where can we find, on that graph, the SPONSORS of the IPCC and of all global warming/climate change ads and paper-ads?
Does anybody have the names to draw a complete flow-sheet, which could be called FOLLOW THE MONEY FLOW SHEET?
Odd.
A true networking map for the skeptics would simply be everyone connected to everyone.
A map for the AGW supporters would be more hierarchical, with IPCC and its priesthood at the top (Pachauri, Gore, Hansen), and control lines going down to lesser researchers (Mann, Jones) and the propaganda machine (Real Climate, major media representatives, and such).
It would be interesting to make a funding source chart too. Skeptics are almost all unpaid volunteers, while the AGW crowd has huge money lines from governments and “progressive” NGOs.
A little chart making could lay bare the root beliefs and desires of AGW, based on who is funding what — and why.
“Why is Oxfam so interested in this “narrative” of climate change? Why? WHY??”
Climate alarmism subsumes all other causes. If we were all going to die, drown, fry, because of a deranged climate, then what of the poor, the animals, wildlife, any object of charity? The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds says it “speaks out for birds and wildlife, tackling the problems that threaten our environment” It no longer cares how many birds are killed by wind turbines. Saving the planet is more important than saving birds.
Climate Alarm has become the Mother of all Causes. All “charities” have signed up to it. It becomes an end in itself: saving the planet. Actually, in reality, saving the climate change narrative is the end. Without it they are seen to be the fools and charlatans they are.
Aren’t you, Oxfam? Times up.
“A small group of dedicated people coming from a diverse range of positions and perspectives but working together as a loose federation held together by shared values and beliefs succeeded in accomplishing the most impressive PR coup of the 21st century.”
This seems about right, and even rather flattering I would have thought. What am I missing?
anopheles:
Genius!
Imran:
It’s worth taking a look at Charles Mackay’s ‘Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds’ to see how little things have changed since the mid 19th century (it’s probably been mentioned here a lot). Social pressure, argument from authority and desire to conform have, and will always influence mass belief, with or without religion or spirituality.
Paul Daniel Ash:
You’re right, neither the LeftFootForward article or the diagram specifically mention big-oil funding or top-down organisation of a sceptical movement. However responses to them here are more likely force of habit than any attempt to set up a ‘straw man’. Individuals sceptical of the AGW hypothesis who question the methods that have led to AGW conclusions along with the credibility of those who have declared the science ‘robust’ or ‘settled’ have for a long time been characterised as ‘deniers’ (with intended connotations), ‘flat earthers’, right-wing zealots and self interested earth-rapists. It is hardly surprising that they are sensitive to further attempts to pigeon hole them as a political group with an axe to grind rather than just sceptics in the true sense of the word. There is no need to set up a straw man as the real one stands tall as ever. Moreover many of the ‘big oil’ comments here are obviously intended as satire of this characterisation rather than serious criticism.
mrpkw (07:08:56) :
> Just for fun, has anyone drawn up a real version of this to show them how wrong they are??
Steve Mosher’s book. Steve has quoted the important stuff on leftfootforward.
Coulda saved them a lot of time, but then we wouldn’t have the flawed graph
to chuckle over.
Response to patrick healy (10:01:25) :
Holy cow. I followed your link. No. 10 is saying two completely contradictory things in the same letter.
This:
“CRU’s analysis of temperature records is not funded by, prepared for, or published by the Government. The resulting outputs are not Government statistics.”
And a paragraph later, this:
“That is why the Government funds a number of institutions, including the University of East Anglia, to carry out research into climate change science.”
What did Orwell say about the ability to believe in things even if they were contradictory? Maybe we can understand the IPCC if we can practice believing that two plus two equals three. Next week it will equal five.
“…by significantly influencing public perception of anthropogenic global warming by single-mindedly applying concerted and consistent pressure at critical junctures in the media ecology here in the UK and abroad.”
Economy of scale, replace the above with
“… were right.”
See how much money I could save them, all for free, aren’t we sceptics just so darn helpfull.
For me, this goes to the question of whether a cultural elite can simply “re-make” a culture by taking over key institutions and areas of society (education, arts, sciences, entertainment, news media). I have always assumed that this was so, even if it took several decades.
But I am beginning to think that culture has a life of its own, “like a living organism,” and cannot be simply molded top down by those determined and powerful enough to do so.
So Climategate, along with a small group of minds exchanging energy and information in the most natural way within the culture, is a major “coup” in their eyes. I think it might be a hopeful sign that society is not as artificial and as open to control by an elite as we might think.
ScottR (10:30:04),
Doublethink:
In the novel 1984, Orwell’s protagonist, Winston Smith, wonders if the State might declare “two plus two equals five” as a fact; he ponders whether, if everybody believes in it, does that make it true?
Dear Oxfam:
I can eliminate the need for your manufactured company by explaining it to you in simple terms.
In the future, your campaigns will continue to decrease in effectiveness, since the vast majority of your campaigning is based on lies, half truths, and inane political claptrap. What you call peer-to-peer news generation has now successfully outed many of your puppet and shadow organizations for what they are, and interested parties can now actually learn what you’re up to.
Oh yeah, and drop the conspiracy theory. There is no big giant propaganda monster trying to undermine you. That is called “projection”… since you have created a giant propaganda monster to undermine society, you assume that any push-back must be from a counter-organization. You’re wrong. The push-back is from normal, ordinary working people who are disgusted with what you are doing.
This, from Greenpeace, talking about Monckton, which may explain a lot about AGW communication:
“There are many more like him who repeat the denier message for no other reason than because they believe it.”
My emphasis.
http://solveclimate.com/blog/20100324/greenpeace-says-climate-denialism-20-year-industry
I wonder if they’re focusing on quantity, or if they’re considering the type of communication which is taking place. Some sites feature deep math and carefully explained graphs. Some have summaries of many things, with in-depth discussion of details. Some do investigative reporting. Some, like the BBC, spew IPCC assumptions peppered with today’s news detail. Some, like Real Climate, pretend to be authoritative but tend to just say that a news item is obviously true or false but without really providing details and discussion. Guess where the investigative reporting is taking place.
Smokey (10:38:19) :
Slightly OT. Oddly, the whole progressive movement — of which AGW is one part — is based on the simultaneous denial and belief in objective reality. See http://bigdustup.blogspot.com/2010/02/clarity-of-delusion.html
patrick healy (10:01:25) :
i got an interesting and contradictory email yesterday from our beloved leader’s office.
see http://www.number10.gov.uk/page22924 (hope this works).
wondering did any one elso get the same?
=====================================
Yes, I got mine a couple of days ago. I was not surprised that the following was stated
“”Our confidence that the Earth is warming is taken from multiple sources of evidence and not only the HadCRUT temperature record, which CRU scientists contribute to. The same warming trend is seen in two independent analyses carried out in the United States, by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Goddard Institute of Space Studies at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). These analyses draw on the same pool of temperature data as HadCRUT, but use different methodologies to produce analyses of temperature change through time.””
Confident despite the fact that the emails that inspired the investigation involved others across the pond in the US. the hockeystick was debunked, UHI effects are clearly not analysed appropriately as can be seen in the US record of rural vs urban sites. Yamal divergence was covered up so if the tree rings are right then the recent temps are wrong or vice versa or both are wrong. That there has been no statistically significant waming for 15 years, that model projections deviate from recent temperatures, that storms are not getting worse, that Arctic sea ice is returning to average and Antarctic sea ice is growing. That the IPCC dossier on weather of mass destruction has clear evidence of being “sexed up”. Satelite temp record diverges from surface temp record. The predicted tropospheric hot spot signature of AGW has not been found. Linzen finds atmospheric sensitivity much lower than suggested by AGW adherents. That there is lots of money to be made out of AGW industry so it has to be right. That our met office can’t get short to medium range forecasts right etc etc.
I guess it’s the same sort of confidence that our PM had that the days of boom and bust are over.
“Oxfam, and the progressive community in general”. So Oxfam is progressive, as are others who subscribe to the link between CO2 and Global Warming. Those persons organisations that do not must then be retrogressive or stuck in the mud at best.
We have already seen that the diagram is not balanced. (Forget about the missing balls. How can the IPCC be presented as neutral?) But since ScottR has already referred to George Orwell it is worth reminding ourselves that he reserved some of his most scathing satire on those who deliberately misused the English language.
Richard North has three balls?
A kid I grew up with, allegedly at least, suffered from the same condition. If I recall correctly, it was the result of a go-kart accident.
/sarcoff (but true story!) Mods feel free to snip, no worries 😀
Well, Oxfam just kissed goodbye to any charitable donations I might be extending this year – and to think that I might have donated to them in the past! Bah! I want my money back, I thought it was going to helping starving kids not this kind of gobbledegook research.
Apropos of nothing, this Profero outfit puts me in mind of nothing except the Profumo Affair. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profumo_Affair
Seems oddly fitting somehow!
Euroreferendum, Richard North’s excellent blog, does a pretty good job following and exposing the money trail as well as shady semi-political organisations.
Limerick snip if necessary
There was a young man from Madras,
Whose balls were made out of brass.
In windy weather they clanged together,
And sparks flew out of his arse!
Coalsoffire (07:54:21) :
The term “unsimplify” could mean “obfuscate” which is what they are doing.
Re: Les Johnson (Mar 25 10:56),
“There are many more like him who repeat the denier message for no other reason than because they believe it.”
I have a slight feeling that we will be hearing this quote from the good Lord on numerous occasions!
BTW, I am a little surprised that some commentators are just now figuring out what Oxfam is really all about. If an organization gets mostly positive media (MSM) coverage, you can bet its run by progressives.
As I see it, advocacy groups like “Greenpeace” are controlled not by scientists but by “political scientists”, marketing people and politicians. To them, facts are fungible. So they’re trying to find out “what” the sceptic “community” did to outflank them. They’re looking for hidden “spin” and subliminal marketing techniques, technical marketing methods that can be utilised to get their view to overcome that of the sceptical community.
They’ve completely failed to realise that when it comes to a factual, scientific debate, facts and scepticism speak louder than mere presentation.
That’s because their chart refers only to Climategate. It’s not talking about the whole war, just about one battle. This was explicit (IIRC) in the predecessor to this thread, and implicit in their statement:
…………………….
@p.g.sharrow “PG” (07:50:56) :
The word you wanted is ‘losing’ (rhymes with oozing); and the term you were trying to express is ‘loose-knit’.
Somehow ‘loosing’ (rhymes with ‘goosing’, and actually means something) has almost entirely replaced the correct spelling of ‘losing’. I am baffled by this (and it drives me crazy).
Otherwise I agree with you.
Mix and match:
The existing mental models of the stand-alone umbrella facilitate a culture of critical junctures in the meaningful narrative. Peer-to-peer bespoke models abstract from all noise ‘next practice’ campaigning dynamics commissioned by the automated technological monitoring solution.
The related key conversations within the landscape map of visual representation support decision making and the future impact of online news generation. International development campaigning activities are understood in the context of frameworks of quantitative and qualitative data, bringing to the surface complex dynamics used in isolation.
The entire myriad of turbulent media ecology informed by sense-making loose federations of data, mental models and assumptions within the the progressive community might, in the future, go deeper than just a meaningful diverse range of positions and perspectives and shared values and beliefs, if concerted and consistent pressure significantly influencing public perception unsimplifies a PR coup narrative.
If this sounds complex and challenging then that’s intentional. Please do bear in mind that we are really busy.
Considering that I don’t blog as such, I’m intrigued over my apparent prominent position.
I reckon this network schematic was some kind of route trace obtained within the last month or so, but quite a long time after the Climategate email release. I don’t recall having any mention of Climategate on my website, so the network diagram is unlikely to be directly related to that.
There are many far more influential UK blogs and websites not listed. Some notable omissions (UK based) being An Englishman’s Castle, Roger Helmer MEP blog, TFA (The Freedom Association), NumberWatch, etc.
“A small group of dedicated people………succeeded in accomplishing the most impressive PR coup of the 21st century.”
I think this sentence shows how wrong their thinking is. They can only see this situation in terms of PR, whereas climate realists are thinking in terms of truth and the real scientific method.
It seems the whole AGW movement has completely missed the point and thinks it is only a question of getting their message across.
I’m hoping this will prove to be their achilles heel.
“The climate change sceptics did this by significantly influencing public perception of anthropogenic global warming by single-mindedly applying concerted and consistent pressure at critical junctures in the media ecology here in the UK and abroad.”
They just don’t get it. The climate change skeptics did nothing more or less than tell the truth. This is not a PR campaign. This is merely an example of the old axiom: “the truth will out.”
Special interest groups just don’t seem to be able to wrap their heads around that one.
@ Mike D. (13:12:35)
I like your post… but April 1st is several days away yet. You can do better!
Cheers,
Neil
I loved this bit of the updated “report”:
“In a complex situation such as the one we were analysing, data alone won’t aid in making sense of what’s happening, but narratives, informed by data, mental models and assumptions, can.”
Brilliant! Now I know where I have been going wrong all these decades.
I thought that I needed to obtain data,
to determine the accuracy, precision and reliability of the data,
then to assess the data
to determine the valid interpretations that could be made from the data, and
to determine the limitations of those interpretations,
together with identification of methods to falsify those intrpretations.
Clearly, I could not have been more wrong!
I should have invented “naratives” then generated “mental models and assumptions” and looked for data that would support the “naratives”.
And all these decades I thought I was doing science. Silly me!
Richard
I like it when WOOT oops WUWT, gets smutty.
The problem, i think for Unsimplify and OXFAM, is that they just dont get it.
There is no line in the sand or a line drawn on a demographic graph. The online community tends to be of two different types, you have echo chamber societies, like RealClimate for instance. Which really are very tribal and brutal in nature, but not in robust debate but purely in terms of debate.
Other sites are evaluating on evidence or even say mathematical modelling itself.
This debate is one of science not belief systems and hence instead of a line down the centre chart, a Venn type construct would be more appriate to decide influences and effects. The above construct is narrow you or me philosophy at play, whereas the debate really is pony up and show.
They seem to think it’s all rhetorical and it is not, the one thing that amazes me about this blog is the range of differing expertises linked by science and common sense that comments.
I think this one paraphrase of theirs says it’s all
For example, we didn’t examine the entire myriad of Facebook groups which have formed around climate change and international development issues because they were not significant in this context.
THey dont get that this entire debate got interpersonal, as in instant and wide spread communication years ago. That is why the poll numbers plummeted from the highs to a stage where, even political leaderships are destabilised into reassessment of these nonsense alternative dangerous power policies. They seem to think they are the only ones to have a right of opinion on environmentalism and good technology.
They seem to think that everyone is in total religious or political agreement and they are wrong.
There is a lot of interest, some self for sure but a lot is based on good policy based in best of best science reasoning as it should be.
INstant communication appears more of an enabler than a controller to these old internet’s sea dog eyes and it is becoming more and more so.
Suffer in yer Jocks, control freakshow dead wood. Just annother attempt at mass mind control, masquerading as care and compassion.
I reject this network diagram as there is no reference to “Bulldust”… I would have thought I had earned a small sphere, or elephant stamp or sumptin’, for coining the ClimateGate term /huff
Here’s the trick. Download the full text. Chop it into pieces with nouns in one list, verbs in the other. Then randomly select from the lists to create new sentences. There are thousands of possible arrangements. Since it is all gibberish in the first place, any new arrangement is just as sensible as the original, which is to say, it makes no sense at all.
If I had more time, I would make a little program with these BS phrases in a data base. Then the program would do the random selection. Using it, one could create hour-long lectures filled with trite, meaningless sentences. Impress your friends, win contracts, get elected — there’s no end to the possible uses.
I think the claims about sceptic campaigns & networks, however loose, could probably be understood to be primarily a token of their own projective attempts at understanding. They obviously don’t countenance the possibility that people can have arrived at a position independently but rather its coordinated & stage managed – people must be persuaded or artificially driven …and that’s probably due to inductive thinking and drawing on their own position.
Has anyone tried questioning Oxfam directly over this? I have. They jumped onto it at first but now I have a question ‘awaiting moderation’ for three days. Anyone care to approach them and ask what I asked:
“And the purpose of spending Oxfam money on this, as opposed to further work in the field, was?”
You can get to the UK Oxfam ‘Climate blog’ here:
http://www.oxfam.org.uk/applications/blogs/pressoffice/?p=11453&v=campaigns
This whole episode has shocked me. I thought Oxfam were a bit wet but that they were well-intentioned folk dedicated to helping starving people in third world countries. You know, dishing out aid when necessary and providing help with basic infrastructure to give those people a chance to get out of poverty. It’s only when I started going through their website that the Socialist revolutionary zeal became apparent. They are extremist agitators; neo-Marxists bent on a new world order. Those who blithely put their hands in their pockets when a can is waved in front of their noses in the High Street don’t know this. They would do anything to protect the alarmist notion of climate change. They need to be challenged. Make sure to tell everyone you know NOT to donate.
Monboit has a ball? Huh, by his actions I don’t see him having any.
Mike D. (18:35:03),
Here’s your template: click
We have been short changed, they left off some significant blogs such as:
SEPP – http://sepp.org/ run by Fred Singer, Father of the US Weather Satellite program – he’s not worth mentioning?????
NIPCC – http://www.heartland.org/ sponsored by the Heartland Institute
Greenie Watch – http://antigreen.blogspot.com/ run by John Ray
ICECAP – http://icecap.us/ run by Joe D’Aleo, a former giant in weather forecasting from Intellicast.com
SPPI – http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/ Science & Public Policy Institute
Here’s a bunch more: http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/links_&_resources.html
And let’s not forget Junk Science who has been exposing this nonsense for years: http://www.junkscience.com/ run by Steven Milloy
Just look at Dr. Pielke Jr. just sitting there on the fence like that!
Also, fancy being the only conduit between WUWT and RealClimate and being aligned with the IPCC and Rajendra Pachauri. (Tongue planted firmly in cheek as this is being written).
Smokey, it’s been done for postmodern literary deconstruction:
http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo/
What we need now is a robot text generator for post-normal science. Teach the computer to spew gibberish that sounds like it make sense, but really doesn’t. What fun!!!
PS — Maybe Unsimplified has already done that, and is toying with Oxfam, churning out clever crapola with a computer program and charging big bucks for it. If so, hats off to them!
There is a far more interesting and revealing Spider-Mann web that you can see here:
http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/7949/mannweb.jpg
(Adapted from the Wegman Report by A.W. Montford in his excellent book the hockey stick illusion)
@JJB
‘neither the LeftFootForward article or the diagram specifically mention big-oil funding or top-down organisation of a sceptical movement.’
Actually the article did. What it was the supposedly good side that didn’t have any real interconnection. The sceptic side on the other hand apparently has their networks, i.e. indicating several.
And about the funding one is supposed to point out the dirt of the sceptics’ funding.
“However responses to them here are more likely force of habit than any attempt to set up a ’straw man’. ”
Most of the straw men visible seem to come from the supposedly “good clean green guys”. And besides you made a ‘straw man’ yourself with the whole trying to paint the illusion of no straw man fallacy in Left Foot Forward’s article when there was plenty of them, as usual, which, on the other hand, is to be expected from an extremist activist group.
Missing Players.
WWF.
Big Companies.
Royal Families and Governments.
It might be interesting to see each site color-coded by prevailing attitude in something like what I see to be the five general positions on this subject:
1. Proponents of the AGW Hypothesis.
2. Acceptors of the AGW Hypothesis.
3. AGW Hypothesis Neutral.
4. Skeptics of the AGW Hypothesis.
5. Antagonists of the AGW Hypothesis.
@AndrewSouthofLondon:
““Why is Oxfam so interested in this “narrative” of climate change? Why? WHY??”
I think the reason for this is that the old “loony left” which found itself deeply unpopular after the Thatcher years had no home to go to. direct political action was obviously not going to be succesful because it could not win any votes on the basis of Marxist principles. So it turned its attention instead to political lobbying. Charities like Oxfam became infested with radical left-wingers, along with parts of the National Trust, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, NSPCC and Barnardos. At the same time, the Labour Party, realising that these charities were now essentially radical left-wing lobbying entities decided to engage with them. Sometimes it did this directly (by employing Jonathon Porrit of Friends of the Earth, for instance) and sometimes indirectly (by bunging the key charities with large sums of taxpayer cash). In response the charities then bang the drum for various mantras that supported whatever government policy was fashionable at the time and with an in-built criticism of those that opposed them. This left the Conservative Party with a problem. If they tackle certain Labour Party policies head-on then they find the whole of the charitable world (and a big part of the media) turned against them. Therefore they have found it expedient to simply go along with whatever the charities claim as being true.
One can only speculate what might happen when the Conservatives return to power. Logically one would expect them to have a long list of their “enemies” that they will turn on over the following 5 years.
“to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies”
In other words, to be old enough to realise that our local climate has not changed significantly in your lifetime, and at the same time proclaim it has simply because someone in authority told you it has.
1DandyTroll:
Thanks for your reply. Maybe I didn’t make myself very clear – my point was that there is not even any need for the article to make direct reference to ‘big oil’ funding of a sceptics movement- the general tone of the article and diagram and the manner in which they paint the Sceptic vs AGW proponent side as an organised political confrontation rather than a bunch of people questioning the ‘consensus’ is enough to keep the AGW community’s unfair characterisation of sceptics going for the exact reasons you point out. In other words I completely agree with you!
“the manner in which they paint the Sceptic vs AGW proponent side as an organised political confrontation”
It screams false dichotomy. Some of those that denounced the “Climategate” letters were in Team-AGW, and didn’t want Team-AGW discredited by Team-CRU and their dodgy communications.
**********************
Roger Knights (12:06:48) :
Jim (09:10:32) :
Where is CNN, MSNBC, NBC, CBS, ABC, and Bill Maher? Where are the comedians, musicians, writers, and artists? Where are Obama and the Dems? They left out most of the whole Left.
That’s because their chart refers only to Climategate. It’s not talking about the whole war, just about one battle. This was explicit (IIRC) in the predecessor to this thread, and implicit in their statement:
******************************
They SHOULD be included because they helped cover up climategate by not reporting on it. Choosing to ignore it is an action they took to help the liberal cause, but they did help cover up climategate in particular, so they were still participants in the climategate scandal.
Jim (10:12:35) :
Don’t neglect PBS, Charlie Rose, NPR, AP, Reuters….
They show The Telegraph on the left and Geoffrey Lean on the right, but isn’t Geoffrey the pompous old fart that The Telegraph employs to fill a page every week with sanctimonious green platitudes?
Joking apart, it is obvious that a lot of AGW activists have worked hard to get to the top of these organisations, and essentially hijacked them to be centres of narrow focussed AGW centric policies.
The next question is to what extent have they been able to use this base to extend their influence. It is not obvious to me why the chairman of the UK Met Office should have come from WWF-UK. How many others have moved to positions of more direct influence?
Despite Climategate, the revelations about IPCC AR4, increasingly severe winters and even Phil Jones admitting there has been no significant warming since 1995, the politicians are even more intent on promoting damaging anti-AGW policies, seemingly totally oblivious.
In the UK all three main political parties are fighting to see who can inflict the most damage on the economy by pursuing ‘green’ energy policies. The projected quadrupling of energy prices will mean that most people will not be able to afford to heat their homes in winter, possibly leading to the deaths of tens of thousands of the elderly during cold winters, as well as making it impossible for what is left of our manufacturing industry to compete.
The EU has increased the target in saving CO2 depite being in the middle of a recession and with several countries close to bankruptcy. Spain and Portugal are probably the two countries which have made the biggest efforts to install renewable energy, but I do not know how much this has contributed to their current position.
Obama is still mad keen to implement cap-and-trade, despite the doubts over AGW and the potential impact on what is already a badly damaged economy.
This speaks of a lot of influence from somewhere.
The biggest influence is of course from the media, especially TV news [and Wikipedia]. We are social animals who want to fit in so if ‘everybody says so’ then we will tend to accept it. I am sure that many of us on this website once believed in AGW, and it is important that sites like this exist to let us know about alternate viewpoints, but it still depends on individuals actively searching these sites out rather than passively watching TV.
There is a long way to go, and cap-and-trade in the US is the key battleground.
Spector (07:06:37) :
It might be interesting to see each site color-coded by prevailing attitude in something like what I see to be the five general positions on this subject:
1. Proponents of the AGW Hypothesis.
2. Acceptors of the AGW Hypothesis.
3. AGW Hypothesis Neutral.
4. Skeptics of the AGW Hypothesis.
5. Antagonists of the AGW Hypothesis.
———————————————————-
I’ve started making such a list, but including any important individuals whose opinions reach the media. I imagine I will have hundreds of names. I want to rank them regularly according to the extremes of their opinions. I’d like to give extra credit to sites that allow opposing opinions. Recent opinions will get a higher weighting than their opinions some years ago. e.g.if the BBC start publishing sceptic articles they will move down the list!
A fascinating and funny commentary on Profero on Lucia’s Blackboard (23March) from some of WUWT posters, especially Mosher, Chuckles, Layman Lurker on the OODA LOOP. I luuuved it!
Given the virtually impenetrable convolution of the prose that it employs, one could wonder if this company, suspiciously calling itself “Unsimplify”, might actually be secretly mocking the gullibility of its customers. In fact, I’m reminded more than a little of the tailoring firm that succeeded in selling the Emperor his new clothes (you know, the invisible ones).
I might be persuaded to relinquish these suspicions if anyone can convince me that “act into” is a phrase with a genuine meaning that cannot be expressed using normal vocabulary.
Maybe OT, but this comment does also very much relate to the politics of the AGW debate.
First, if you have ever thought that the phrase “eco-fascism” was just rhetorical hyperbole, think again:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/mar/29/james-lovelock-climate-change
“One of the main obstructions to meaningful action is “modern democracy”, he [James Lovelock] added. “Even the best democracies agree that when a major war approaches, democracy must be put on hold for the time being. I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while.””
Before reading the above article, I had dismissed the next article as being a highly overblown product of journalistic alarmism. Now I am maybe not quite so sure.
http://express.co.uk/posts/view/165256/New-EU-gestapo-spies-on-Britons
“It is understood the agency [a newly empowered Europol] will concentrate on anyone thought “xenophobic” or likely to commit a crime involving the environment, computers or motor vehicles.
This could include covert monitoring of people who deny the existence of climate change or speak out on controversial issues.”
Finally, getting back to Lovelock, I would suggest that the most likely reason that the British Science Museum decided to go “neutral” with its climate exhibit is that Lovelock gives frequent talks at the museum alongside its director, Chris Rapley, and it seems to me that Lovelock has recently been maneuvering himself towards the fence between the two sides of the the AGW debate, because he now knows (thanks to the sceptics) that catastrophic AGW is not a certainty and he doesn’t want to be judged by posterity to have been on the wrong side of the argument. His recent utterances on climate change have actually made him sound quite schizophrenic about it all, for example:
http://www.thegwpf.org/news/663-james-lovelock-warms-to-eco-sceptics.html
““I think you have to accept that the sceptics have kept us sane — some of them, anyway,” he said. “They have been a breath of fresh air. They have kept us from regarding the science of climate change as a religion. It had gone too far that way. There is a role for sceptics in science. They shouldn’t be brushed aside. It is clear that the angel side wasn’t without sin.””
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/162506/How-carbon-gases-have-saved-us-from-a-new-ice-age-
“He [James Lovelock] said: “We’re just fiddling around. It is worth thinking that what we are doing in creating all these carbon emissions, far from being something frightful, is stopping the onset of a new ice age.
“If we hadn’t appeared on the earth, it would be due to go through another ice age and we can look at our part as holding that up.”
At any rate, I reckon it would have been impossible for the museum not to have changed tack to a more neutral AGW position so as not to seem to be at odds with their “star” performer.
Digsby, re Lovelock;
His attribution of ice-age prevention capacity to early humans is actually just more back-and-fill, pushing the meme that humans significantly affect the atmosphere and climate. Mind you, those natural primitive stewards of Nature did manage quite a bit of deforestation … as have droughts and ice sheets, of course.
Remember, Lovelock invented the anthropmorphic deity Gaia out of a biosphere. His imagination always triumphs over his judgment — it’s so much funner that way!