Cameron backs out. So much for that attempt to sink skeptical arguments.
From King of the World to Chicken of the Sea: Director James Cameron challenges climate skeptics to debate and then bails out at last minute
Via the SPPI Blog, Source: Climatedepot
Hide the Debate: Cameron ducks Climate Debate with Breitbart, Morano, & McElhinney
by Marc Morano
ASPEN COLORADO: Hollywood director James Cameron challenged three high profile global warming skeptics to a public debate at a global warming and energy conference. But Cameron backed out of the debate at the last minute after environmentalists “came out of the woodwork” to warn him not to engage in a debate with skeptics because it was not in his best interest.
Cameron challenged Andrew Breitbart, Climate Depot’s Marc Morano and filmmaker Ann McElhinney of ‘Not Evil Just Wrong.’ The debate was already in the program for the Aspen American Renewable Energy Day (AREDAY) summit. The website program described the agreed to debate as “AREDAY Climate Change Debate: Reality or Fiction?” (see image below)
After setting up the public global warming debate, Cameron and his negotiator then changed formats multiple times and initially said it would be open to the media and then said he would only participate if it was private with no recording devices. The skeptics agreed to all the changes. According to AREDAY organizers, activist Joseph Romm of Climate Progress urged Cameron not to go ahead with the debate as well.
Cameron’s cancellation of the agreed to debate did not happen until one debate participant (Morano) was already in mid-air, flying from DC to Aspen on Saturday August 21 to attend the debate. (AREDAY did grant Morano a 90 minute slot to speak at the summit. See: Climate Depot’s Presentation at Warmists’ Summit Met By Hostile Interrupting Moderator and Crowd; Call for Morano to Kill Himself!)
(Morano Note: After ducking debate, James Cameron boldly slammed global warming skeptics as “swine” on the day he was supposed to be debating them. “I think they’re swine” Cameron told a friendly audience at the AREDAY summit. Also see: Cameron Morphs Into Gore, Quits AGW Debate: ‘Chickened out–even after he won Gore-like concessions that there would be no media and no audio or video record kept’ — How does Cameron square ducking a climate debate he set up when just a few months ago he seemed so confident? See: Director James Cameron Unleashed: Calls for gun fight with global warming skeptics: ‘I want to call those deniers out into the street at high noon and shoot it out with those boneheads’)
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Below is detailed report from Ann McElhinney of www.NotEvilJustWrong.com on how Cameron ducked out of debate he set up.
James Cameron—King of Hypocrites
Written by Ann McElhinney
Sunday, 22 August 2010 17:49
Last March James Cameron sounded defiant.
The Avatar director was determined to expose journalists, such as myself, who thought it was important to ask questions about climate change orthodoxy and the radical “solutions” being proposed.
Cameron said was itching to debate the issue and show skeptical journalists and scientists that they were wrong.
“I want to call those deniers out into the street at high noon and shoot it out with those boneheads,” he said in an interview.
Well, a few weeks ago Mr. Cameron seemed to honor his word.
His representatives contacted myself and two other well known skeptics, Marc Morano of the Climate Depot website and Andrew Breitbart, the new media entrepreneur.
Mr. Cameron was attending the AREDAY environmental conference in Aspen Colorado 19-22 August. He wanted the conference to end with a debate on climate change. Cameron would be flanked with two scientists. It would be 90 minutes long. It would be streamed live on the internet.
They hoped the debate would attract a lot of media coverage.
“We are delighted to have Fox News, Newsmax, The Washington Times and anyone else you’d like. The more the better,” one of James Cameron’s organizers said in an email.
It looked like James Cameron really was a man of his word who would get to take on the skeptics he felt were so endangering humanity.
Everyone on our side agreed with their conditions. The debate was even listed on the AREDAY agenda.
But then as the debate approached James Cameron’s side started changing the rules.
They wanted to change their team. We agreed.
They wanted to change the format to less of a debate—to “a roundtable”. We agreed.
Then they wanted to ban our cameras from the debate. We could have access to their footage. We agreed.
Bizarrely, for a brief while, the worlds most successful film maker suggested that no cameras should be allowed-that sound only should be recorded. We agreed
Then finally James Cameron, who so publicly announced that he “wanted to call those deniers out into the street at high noon and shoot it out,” decided to ban the media from the shoot out.
He even wanted to ban the public. The debate/roundtable would only be open to those who attended the conference.
No media would be allowed and there would be no streaming on the internet. No one would be allowed to record it in any way.
We all agreed to that.
And then, yesterday, just one day before the debate, his representatives sent an email that Mr. “shoot it out ” Cameron no longer wanted to take part. The debate was cancelled.
James Cameron’s behavior raises some very important questions.
Does he genuinely believe in man made climate change? If he believes it is a danger to humanity surely he should be debating the issue every chance he gets ?
Or is it just a pose?
The man who called for an open and public debate at “high noon” suddenly doesn’t want his policies open to serious scrutiny.
I was looking forward to debating with the film maker. I was looking forward to finding out where we agreed and disagreed and finding a way forward that would help the poorest people in the developing and developed world.
But that is not going to happen because somewhere along the way James Cameron, a great film maker, has moved from King of the World to being King of the Hypocrites.
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Addendum
In other news from the SPPI Blog
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Climate Depot’s Presentation at Warmists’ Summit Met By Hostile Interrupting Moderator and Crowd; Call for Morano to Kill Himself!
Source: Climatedepot
Global Warming Summit’s Warm Welcome: Morano told to drive car into garage with engine running and then close the doors
By Marc Morano
[SPPI Note: This is the same arrogant and hapless Joe Romm who claimed that global warming cause the collapse of the I-35W Bridge in Minneapolis in August of 2007. For other entries on Romm see here: http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/commentaries/climate_mccarthyism.pdf
and here: http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/blogwatch/climate_inquisition.pdf
and here: http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/commentaries/romms_fairy_tales.pdf ]
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Note from Climate Depot’s Executive Editor Marc Morano:
My presentation at Aspen American Renewable Energy Day (AREDAY) summit on Sunday August 22, 2010 at 5:30 was met by a rude moderator and hostile audience. I was offered the 90 minute time slot to present the skeptical view of man-made climate change after Hollywood director James Cameron’s cowardly final cancellation of a pre-planned and agreed to global warming debate. See here: From King of the World to Chicken of the Sea: Director James Cameron Sets up Debate with Skeptics Then Flees! Cameron Ducks Climate Debate with Breitbart, Morano, & McElhinney
Cameron’s cancellation of the debate did not happen until I was already in mid-air, flying from DC to Aspen on Saturday August 21 to attend the debate. After challenging us to the public debate, Cameron was spooked by Joseph Romm of Climate Progress who warned him not to debate us. Finally, we were told Cameron would debate us if Romm joined the debate and at Romm’s insistence there would be no cameras or media present. We agreed and I flew to Aspen. (See full report of Cameron’s chickening out here. How does Cameron square ducking a climate debate he set up when just a few months ago he seemed so confident. See: Director James Cameron Unleashed: Calls for gun fight with global warming skeptics: ‘I want to call those deniers out into the street at high noon and shoot it out with those boneheads’)
After arriving I found out that Cameron had canceled the debate that he challenged us to. The AREDAY global warming summit organizers then offered me the consolation prize of 90 minutes to speak to the conference and present the skeptical argument with Q and A from the audience. But the 90 minute event turned out to be further evidence of manipulation by Cameron and the ARDAY conference organizers.
My PowerPoint presentation was repeatedly interrupted by ARDAY moderator Richard Greene and the audience was not receptive to me continuing my presentation. Instead, the bulk of my presentation turned into a disjointed moderator and audience rant session. I attempted several times to return to my presentation, but the crowd and moderator refused to cooperate and seemed completely disinterested.
One participant confused carbon dioxide with carbon monoxide. She suggested I kill himself by driving my car into my garage and then close the doors with the engine running. I twice attempted to explain to the ARDAY conference participant that there was a difference between carbon dioxide — a harmless trace essential gas we exhale from our mouth– and toxic carbon monoxide, but to no avail. I sadly shook my head and told the audience: “Wow, what a warm welcome I have gotten here.”
In the end, the ARDAY’s offer of 90 minutes for me to present the skeptical view of man-made global warming after Cameron’s debate cancellation revealed itself to be essentially disingenuous.
SimonH says:
August 23, 2010 at 2:43 pm
*I* liked Avatar……a work of pure fantasy for the thing it really is.. a work of pure fantasy!
I don’t want to sound like I’m jumping on you.
I saw James Cameron interviewed on Inside The Actors Studio. He personally believes in the message of Avatar. It sounded like 60’s Generation Marxism to listen to him. He insisted he isn’t anti military though because he has a brother that was in the military. So he said Avatar didn’t have an anti military message, but only in regards to the average soldier. Those in control are of the military are his anti military message.
What other type of behavior should we be expecting from these twits.
A) nice ‘strawman’ arg you’ve set up (“Moreno not once showed any science disproving CO2 warms the climate”; I think we actually have some idea what the CO2 molecule DOES in an energy flux field such as we see vis-a-vis thermal IR radiation)
and B) We’ll wait for the camera-phone video to ‘back this up’. (What? Were you born yesterday?)
.
This is just another publicity stunt. This is kind of thing I would expect from the evangelistic anti Darwin crowd. AGW is little more then religion under the facade of humanism. No religion I am aware of tolerates decent from the dogma. People like Cameron are not interested in anything but making themselves and their cause look good. He should be ignored specifically at the box office.
“I have to agree, his apparent behavior indicates that as he “studied up” on the science he realized he was backing the wrong side.”
I think it’s much more likely that as he studied up on the science he realized he was woefully underqualified for the task he had taken on. I think the truth is that Joe Romm made James Cameron understand that he was getting in completely over his head. The man’s a film director. I’m sure he *feels* very strongly (“swine” isn’t a subtle word) about the whole global warming/climate change issue but that’s no substitute for understanding the details of the physics and the statistics. Once his absolute un-mastery of the subject was bared he would have been left with simply babbling repeatedly, “But all real scientists say it’s true.” And that isn’t going to win any debate, even one in front of a friendly audience. It was hubris on his part to agree to the debate in the first place and an act of self-preservation to run away when it finally dawned on him that he had no clue what he was doing.
Reply: Bingo ~ ctm
George E. Smith says:
August 23, 2010 at 3:58 pm
Would we buy a Hindenberg disaster movie that blamed the disaster on Hydrogen flotation; rather than the skin being built out of high explosives ? I don’t think so.
No, but if Michael Moore really likes poking sticks at big boys and thier games, he’d love to do an expose on AGW.
In the meantime, where’s Leanord Nimoy gotten off to?
He’s due for the filming of The Coming Ice Age: Revenge of the Ice Cream Truck.
This in the article where Jimmy the Crow is quoted, “they’re swine”.
It’s worse than we thought…
‘Greene, Cameron and a host of other climate-change activists said there needs to be a broad educational campaign, one aimed at convincing voters and politicians that not being able to prove that fossil fuel-produced carbon is changing the temperature of Earth is not a license for inaction.’
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Uh-hemm, really? I was thinking that not being able to prove that the temperature was changing is a perfectly sound reason for not wasting billions of our tax dollars, oh well…silly me.
On the one hand, I initially thought, the comment below was a riot and started laughing. Then I thought of the depths these people are willing to sink to and almost up-chucked. Really? 50%!? A full half of the media’s attention!?! For less than 1% of the scientists? Only wish that were true. I’d like to see the source for THOSE statistics!
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‘They also criticized the media for giving half of its attention to a very small — less than 1 percent, they said — portion of scientists who say global warming is not caused by humans.’
Pathetic, wrong, and malicious.
jeff brown says:
August 23, 2010 at 4:05 pm
I was in the room during the presentation by Moreno and I can tell you first hand what it was like. Moreno not once showed any science….
I can believe you. This is why I don’t like people with a political mindset in these presentations/debates. I don’t want to see someone being a Republican. I would want to see the science presented. It should be people like Lindzen, Christy, Happer, Spencer, but also Lord Monckton. They will all answer with the data. And I would think they would keep a cool head.
Z says [ … ] with this link:
http://failblog.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/epic-fail-avatar-plot-fail.jpg
Thanks, you’ve convinced me.
jeff brown says:
August 23, 2010 at 4:05 pm
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Interested to read about the slating Morano got in the debating chamber when he started. I wonder if anyone has a copy of his presentation to verify the claims made by you.
Ooops! To correct my post above:
I wish it true that we had ‘half of the media’s attention’, and I believe we may have a smidge above the ‘less than 1%’ of the scientists claimed, and would go one step further to say we have 99.9% of the scientists that have the skills and ability set to be critical investigators/thinkers.
kcon, I don’t agree with you.
Romm was supposed to be at the table with him.
It was Romm that changed it to no cameras or media.
Both Cameron and Romm backed out.
They both backed out at the last minute.
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kcom says:
August 23, 2010 at 5:04 pm
I think it’s much more likely that as he studied up on the science he realized he was woefully underqualified for the task he had taken on. I think the truth is that Joe Romm made James Cameron understand that he was getting in completely over his head.
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Morano said:
“Finally, we were told Cameron would debate us if Romm joined the debate and at Romm’s insistence there would be no cameras or media present. We agreed and I flew to Aspen”
So did he retreat on his private jet to his 730 acre ranch, Malibu mansion, Santa Barbara gated home or one of his other properties?
Could Mr Morano post his ppt somewhere on line? That would shed some light on a couple of questions raised here.
I’m surprised I haven’t seen any comments about having the conference in ASPEN of all places. Why not Denver instead? How much extra carbon was put into the atmosphere to reach the more remote destination? If the many atmospheric scientists from Boulder drove there, that’s nearly a 4 hour drive and over 200 miles! It’s a similar time/distance from DIA. Flying into Aspen is also an option, but I assume that would put even more emissions into the atmosphere than driving, right?
If saving the earth from CO2 is so important, why place the conference at a place that’s so difficult to get to? Or even better, why not make it a teleconference?
My own experiences with conferences are similar…tend to be at highly extravagant hotels or even resorts/casinos. My advisor routinely goes to conferences at other locations in the Rockies, such as Breckenridge.
Just my thoughts,
-Scott
“”” jeff brown says:
August 23, 2010 at 4:05 pm
I was in the room during the presentation by Moreno and I can tell you first hand what it was like. Moreno not once showed any science…. “””
Well You say you were in the room; and you can tell us first hand that thee was no science presented. So how come it is that twice in one line, you can’t even spell the speaker’s name correctly.
Marc Morano, it is well known is NOT a climate scientist; and he has never presented himself as such; he is a reporter; and he reports what others are saying about the climate issues; and most often that is purely political; which is why he is able to speak on it as ably as anybody.
But then the “Scientists” didn’t show up to debate; did they; so why talk science when the experts don’t show.
Amazing how the AGW crowd have to resort to deliberate and obvious mis-spellings to try and fool the search engines that otherwise would keep on turning up the articles by people who actually get published.
Perhaps if the AGW folks presented some science at places like WUWT, then the search engines would start to notice their writings also.
You have to think we are all as dumb as a box of rocks to not see your too obvious shenanigans.
You can spell it WUTW, WWUT, WWTU, UTWW, or anyway you want; but it won’t stop the bell from ringing for the clear leader.
And if you can’t spell Morano correctly; it isn’t going to cut into his traffic either.
Cameron probably got together with his minions to go over the talking points and started seeing all the holes in his views, then panicked…..
CAGW = Cowards Amalgamated Global Wieners.
CC = Climate Cowards
jeff brown August 23, 2010 at 4:05 pm
So Moreno’s presentation was weak and easily refuted? Hmmmm. I guess James Cameron missed a huge opportunity to easily refute Moreno in person.
Perhaps James had the flu or something. It does happen. How about a rematch?
Classic case of how controversies get tangled up, with facts and with other controversies.
Breitbart is a swine, although not for his opinions about climate but for his faked, racist videos.
Then Cameron attacks a renewable energy project at a renewable energy conference, apparently to applause.
You can’t tell the players without a program, can you?
This is so typical – there is a community out there who totally believe in AGW – there’s nothing that will sway their opinion and as they all hang together in the arts and creative industries they don’t hear another opinion. If you tell them that the science has been proven wrong they reply with the “But we can’t continue polluting the environment” or the “we have to move to renewable energy someday so why not now” arguments or of course the appeal to authority in the consensus angle.
Unfortunately our scientists have lost all credibility – the best example is the recently released Beyond Zero Emission’s report on how to take Australia to a zero emission renewable energy status in 10 years. Anyone who takes the time to follow up on the two renewable energy systems proposed in the report (solar thermal power stations capable of 24 hour operation at 217MW and wind generators capable of delivering 7.5MW) will find that neither of them exist yet here we have leading scientists from the world community supporting the plan!! It’s because it appeals to their social philosophy, not their science, as it should.
I’m sure Cameron was complimented and encouraged by his artsy friends and acquaintances but unfortunately once a serious scientist told him what level of debate to expect and the flaws in the whole proposal he headed for the hills as fast as he could.
Jeff Brown,
As you attended the conference, and had a ticket for the climate session, do you have any idea why Cameron opted out of the debate? Did you hear anyone speculate about the cancelation? Considering the negative publicity Mr. Cameron was sure to get for his backing out at the last minute, I’m just surprised he did. Perplexing.
Incidentally, Cameron had tried the same trick with talk host Mike Siegel for a different event. Sounds like he was trying to make lots of prominent “deniers” look like cowards by playing this bizarre rule-changing game. Obviously didn’t work.
Where are was the media during the conference? Did areday only invites global warming sympathizers to the meeting? It would be interesting if someone leaked a video to the mass media. Romm and Cameron are like two kids that badger someone to pick a fight and back down when their bluff is called. Very immature behavior on the part of the moderator also.
Don’t worry, I’m not sensitive 🙂
I understand. But I don’t believe in his message. But, to enjoy the film for what it was, I don’t need to believe in his analogy. The idea of living a symbiotic rather than parasitic existence – a portion of the message, I presume – is not offensive to me. But Cameron’s politics, where they depart wildly from mine, are anyway superfluous to the spectacle of Avatar, and to my appreciation of it as well. No, it doesn’t have a particularly good narrative and yes, it is a re-hash of a many-times told tale, but I’ve come to expect a certain thing out of Hollywood that bears little if any relation to reality, and which visually knock my socks off. Avatar doesn’t disappoint in the great scheme of all things Hollywood.
I’m not so lacking in confidence in my own ideological viewpoint that I fear subjecting myself to someone else’s perspective or sales-pitch. Even if it IS two and a half hours long and involves blue humanoids, weird buffalo-cum-rhinoceros-type creatures and more.