I’ve been following the online global warming climate change climate disruption debate of late, and I thought it might be helpful to diagram common pro-AGW responses to skeptics.
So: here’s a flowchart I created. It summarizes what I often see while reading pro-AGW/ACC and skeptic blogs, and the often amusing “comment debates” contained therein.
Source at Scribd
Have I left anything out?
Feel free to leave a comment suggesting additions or improvements. Or telling me just what kind of fool I am.
Equal time
Note to flamers: it’s a humor piece. Feel free to create your own ‘Man-made climate change skeptic’ flowchart if you like, leave a comment on this post and I’ll gladly add a link to relevant responses here.
Have I left anything out?
Feel free to leave a comment suggesting additions or improvements. Or telling me just what kind of fool I am.
Equal time
Note to flamers: it’s a humor piece. Feel free to create your own ‘Man-made climate change skeptic’ flowchart if you like, leave a comment on this post and I’ll gladly add a link to relevant responses here.
Gasp.. thanks, Anthony.
Nail, meet Hammer.
H/T Mr Watts.
[d]
It is amusing, but not funny… it did not make me chuckle, let alone laugh. There are too many anomolies amongst so many of the descripted diamonds that would, and do take pages to describe fully.
Maybe I have lost my sense of humour, but I could perhaps regain it if the Mexican air traffic controllers backed up their Spanish brethren and said ” sorry, we are on holiday”, in a week’s time.
Start –>[Assume warming is bad contrary to all human history] –>{supports AGW theory and IPCC proposals}-(yes?)—->
(no?)—–>
I am always disappointed when even skeptics fall into the trap of letting the warmists get away with assuming warming is bad. Cold is bad. The last time is was really cold with failed crops, famine, and disease in this country we found who was to blame and then hanged them for being witches after the trials in Salem. I guess that stopped them from putting curses on people and causing all that misery.
lol, funny. But yeh, you forgot to include them blather something about a “consensus”. That’s almost always brought up. Probably best fit on the bottom.
Are they a scientist? -> NO -> Then dismiss them because they are not an expert in the field. (Note the irony)
Do *you* blog (pro AGW)? -> YES -> Delete their comments or close the thread when things don’t go your way.
The second one is dedicated to Gavin Schmidt.
works for me……..
Yeah, I had a hard time squeezing it in to a flowchart format. Point taken.
It’s a shame your flow chart is so accurate, even one year after ClimateGate.
Engchamp says:
December 4, 2010 at 3:31 pm
It is amusing, but not funny… it did not make me chuckle, let alone laugh. There are too many anomolies amongst so many of the descripted diamonds that would, and do take pages to describe fully.
Maybe I have lost my sense of humour, but I could perhaps regain it if the Mexican air traffic controllers backed up their Spanish brethren and said ” sorry, we are on holiday”, in a week’s time.
Eh? Is this a bot?
How to deal with skeptics:
http://anhonestclimatedebate.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/dealingwithskeptics3.jpg
How to become a climate scientist
http://anhonestclimatedebate.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/ipccscientist.jpg
Two criticisms:
(1) The “Start” should specify that a person of unknown AGW opinion has been encountered.
(2) Shouldn’t mix singular / plural pronouns (e.g. “he” & “them”).
Nailed it.
Hmm….
I’d like to make some kind of funny comment…but I think the AGW flowchart would be much easier to draft along the lines of ..
do you support AGW > yes/no > if yes go and learn to read
if no > – put that book down and give yourself a medal!
Suggestions for incorporation
1. Always exaggerate your claims. As each one proves to be false, do not admit you were wrong, but instead make wilder claims. The press will love it, and will print anything if it s scary enough. If the revised claims are scary enough, people may forget your previous mistakes! Think Paul Erhlich and Steven Schneider, two highly successful careers based on nothing more than hot air and scarey stories about people dying. Genius!
2. AGW requires positive feedbacks and tipping points. Anything can be a tipping point. Dung from elephants crossing the Alps with Hannibal could have been a tipping point, leading to the Roman warm period, nobody can prove you wrong! It is so easy!
3. Always involve children and emotional blackmail
4. When the science is lacking create a consensus.
5. If a scientists has a good point, that may damage your government funding, cut off their funding stream, and block them from publishing.
6. When things are getting desperate speak to Anderegg et al about writing a paper.
7. Never release data that may be used against you
8. Assume that well groomed facial hair adds to your scientific credibility
9. No matter how much funding you receive from oil companies, always accuse your enemies of being in the pay of “big oil”
10. If in doubt, choose one or all from 1-9 above, though avoid 8. if you are female.
That’s what I get for napping in grade school (and hurrying). I’ll fix it in my next rev 😀
Canada out: http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20101204/cancun-climate-talks-kyoto-101204/
Good suggestions, I’ll see what I can squeeze in. Though I may have to create a new chart!
Should be “Mann-made” ……. blech
@Cold hot cold: Thanks for the links to similar charts, I’ve added them to the “Similar works” section of my blog post.
You forgot the poley bears!!!
Golf Charley: Thanks for driving that nail into the proverbial deck.
Some people need things explained to them.
H/T
[d]
Hahaha. As a software developer, I will find this flowchart very useful :p.
Level 1. One could challenge skeptics to prove that 2010 is not the hottest year of the millennium. It is also demonstrably the second hottest year of the last two millennia – of all those measured by satellite. Skeptics, unfortunately, have a habit of reading fine print, so you may need to go on to level 2…
Level 2. One could do what my BOM did and alter the minimum temp reading for Kempsey, October 17 2010, which was freakishly cold, so that 3.0 was 3.5 by the end of the day. Who checks these things? Fiddle local but collate global for a sustainable climate panic! But Level 3 is best.
Level 3. Become a lukewarmer or moderate. Criticise your alarmist colleagues for poor communication, flatter and apologise to the skeptics, advancing into their milieu, and be praised for your courage and openness. Promise them a whole bunch of newer and better and far more complex computer models. Like Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown, tell ’em it’ll be okay this time. Instead of being sacked for advancing ruinous economic measures based on old and flimsy evidence…you’ll get promoted for advancing ruinous economic measures based on new and flimsy evidence.
Level 4. If all else fails, just go back to being an old-style misanthropic Bolshie and wait for the next lethal intellectual fashion.
Finally, a credible climate science flowchart that doesn’t invoke bogus feedbacks!
Agreed. When you catch them out then “consensus” becomes the default position.
Below is unrelated to climate but is recent and overturns scientific consensus which involved just one bacterium. This is what the Warmists just don’t understand about the utter foolishness of relying on scientific consensus. It just takes one.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11886943
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2010/12/01/science.1197258
I always despised deniers; they were generally skinheads with a swastika or neo-nazi symbols tattooed on their upper body or neck.
Then I suggested on an internet forum that the Sun might have something to do with global climate.
I was called a denier and someone told me that they hoped I’d rot in hell.
That made me very upset.
So now they say that the cold Northern Hemisphere winter is caused by the quiet Sun.
No apology. No admission that they were wrong.
And no admission that they could ever be wrong.
Indeed: they were more right than ever.
So now governments whose electorates mostly think that global warming is utter crap are meeting with unelected NGOs in Mexico. And unelected journalists are reporting utter crap about this crappy gathering that voters think is crap.
And taxpayer’s money keeps flowing into the useless renewable energy bubble.
These people have to be held to account for perverting democracy.
Nice! This is precisely the type of outreach that is required in re-educating skeptics and saving the planet (as we know it).
Enhancement suggestion:
Boxes where grant money can be applied for, received, and dissipated, in support of the cause.
Cold hot cold says:
… Cold hot cold. I like the chart you posted.
Paul says:
December 4, 2010 at 4:31 pm
Canada out: http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20101204/cancun-climate-talks-kyoto-101204/
————————
Who-hoo! I notice Canada’s accused of following the United States in rejecting Kyoto, but since Japan and Russia opted out first at Cancun, Canada could be just as easily accused of following the latter. Of course, that would not fit the Liberal Party’s usual anti-U.S. b*llcr*p. Prouder by the minute to make Canada my home. The only thing that was heating up prior to Climategate was the media’s climate alarmism, and they just can’t seem to bring things back to the boil. In retrospect, the rhetoric of the climate alarmists mirrored the tactics used by G.W. Bush and his allies in trying to garner support for the Iraq invasion and overthrow of Saddam Hussein. The attempt to link Al Qaeda and Iraq was like attempts to link global warming to human-generated CO2 (the difference being that the global warming appears to be fictitious).
@Cold hot Cold: LOL!
PKasse
You forgot the poley bears!!!
Just what I was thinking. How about a branch on the top line with the question “Are they children?” If answer is no, then on to “Are they scientists?’ If yes, then a whole set of contingencies, including school curriculums, polar bears, big red buttons….
This flow chart is not robust! It makes a crucial and unfounded assumption that AGW is a fact. One that may well be true, but is yet unproven. There is no mention of the IPCC, the EPA, NASA, and other organizations, including some climate journals. It mentions blogging and the ad hominem attacks, but not the audit function and criticism found in key skeptic blogs. Where is RealClimate and the moderators therein? Where are the models and the money to make them? Oh, thats right, where is the money?
Actually, I think this could be developed into a very complex (and humorous) diagram.
bsfootprint
My suggestion is to number all the boxes with a specific number, say x, then we will say, “oh that is is from AGW DEFENDER FLOWCHART BOX x!”
I think that page would fit full screen on my 17″ HD PC on full page macro.
I would like to see that.
I bet I’m not the only one.
[d]
@bsfootprint
> Have I left anything out?
You left out the “straw man” argument: accuse the skeptic of plagiarism to distract attention from any valid claims he or she has made (e.g. Wegman).
It is just sad to think that after failure after failure of climate alarmist predictions that there are still people out there that think that AGW is anything more then massive fraud designed to fill alarmist pockets and empower watermelons who supports leftist agendas… humanity is doomed.
Yeah, you had the Koch brothers and Holocaust deniers in there but you forgot the “people-who-say-cigarettes-don’t-cause-cancer.”
Hope all is well on the medical front.
I’m just trying to help out a little here for those who like to ponder.
JP Morgan Silver Manipulation Explained
If you’d like to do a little more research, you can check this thread out.
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/silvergoldsilvercom-runs-out-all-precious-metals-hours
Silvergoldsilver.com Runs Out Of All Precious Metals In Hours
A few common responses I’ve seen:
1. Alarmists point out that there is no other explanation for current temperatures other than CO2
2. Any request for actual evidence is met by a list of links to alarmist web sites, particularly: “How to talk to a skeptic”:
http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2008/07/how_to_talk_to_a_sceptic.php
Alarmists seem unable to state for themselves, what they feel the “evidence” that man’s CO2 is causing warming actually is.
3. The old “scientific consensus” …
4. The “insurance” argument … “what if you’re wrong?”
5. Then there’s “surely you can’t deny that man is having an effect on nature ?”
Re: “Have I left anything out?”
Nope. You nailed it.
FergalR says:
December 4, 2010 at 5:39 pm
So now they say that the cold Northern Hemisphere winter is caused by the quiet Sun.
————–
They did not.
“Its the sun stupid” theory is a construct by your team, its not a warmest construct.
The climate science is clear that the cold weather is caused by a shift in Arctic circulation.
There has been some speculation that AGW might be interfering with normal circulation patterns but so far no one is suprer convinced that these circulation pattern changes are permanent or temporary.
By the way: talking of standard tactics. Your team members often make stuff up about the position of climate scientists. And then ridicule them for things they did not say. This is yet another example.
The flowchart should not end so suddenly.
It should keep looping like in Monopoly where it is possible to keep going round and collecting your cash each time you pass go. There is money to be made if you keep the process going long enough to pass Kyoto, Copenhagen, Cancun …etc.
Lew-
Then it should have Obomanation printing money and placing it is george soros’ pocket as well, if truth has broken out……IMHO
[d]
I think that about covers it.
LazyTeenager (5:39 pm),
‘….climate science is clear that the cold weather is caused by a shift in Arctic circulation…..AGW might be interfering with normal circulation patterns…’
Broadly, the Earth has been trending warmer for about 300 years from one of the coldest episodes during this interglacial (LIA)…
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_cHhMa7ARDDg/SsZbFvC5SJI/AAAAAAAABLY/uZxh6g17bmE/s400/GISP2_10Ke.jpg
…..but for only about 60-70 years does the IPCC claim that human GHGs (mainly CO2) have been the overwhelming driver of the warming — that warming has been indistinguishable in rate or duration from previous warming bursts (e.g. 1910-1940).
An obvious question for even the laziest teenager: does any global warming trend (whatever the cause) result in the ‘Arctic circulation shift’, or is this alleged shift a unique a product of AGW (as defined by IPCC AR4) and if so, how?
Mr Hanley-
Lazy Teen is a 30 something basement troll.
He’s been called out before.
[d]
You left out:
‘You are on our list.’ and ‘We know where you Live.’
The colors are rather absent, use more alarming tones like yellow, orange and red.
bsfootprint
Good beginning, but you left out the obligatory foul language and threats of violence by warmists when they can’t validate their arguments in a discussion, also
I’d suggest adding an action – ‘Announcing that any pro-consensus claim that has been shown to be dubious or incorrect (particularly when you have been grimly and loudly defending at’s absolute truth and purity) is “not very important”, “not really my field, so I don’t follow it much or know much about it” or “only a small part of the huge body of evidence for immediate action” and of course “makes no difference to the truth of our coming apocalypse.”
Another ending that is common is stark silence. I regularly got this when I used to be fond of triumphantly posting my plot of actual thermometer records that go back much further than people are usually aware of: http://oi49.tinypic.com/rc93fa.jpg.
BSFootprint;
good beginning and it made me smile, but you have left out the foul language and threats of violence that warmists deem obligatory when they cannot validate their arguments without convincing their protagonists that linking to mad Warmist internet sites will provide essential and final truths. I would think it impossible to depict in any kind of flow chart the sheer frustration of finding one is engaged in a discussion with a person who is not rational but parroting religious dogma which he or she shrieks is scientifically proven fact and peer-revued up the wazoo and back.
Excellent, it’s this sort of humour that we need to take on the Warmists billion (tax) dollar funded propaganda.
I was pondering on this area of the great debate while walking around my local frozen landscape. What we also need is some of those thought provoking photos that the Warmists have used, in their case polar bears on ice floes etc.
But instead, ones that convey the real climate. That it’s actually pretty cold out there in some places, snow on Palm Trees, or that the sea isn’t rising, ancient harbours with modern kids fishing in them and that cold kills more than heat. Ones that show climate does change, naturally. Why it’s called Greenland and not Iceland for example.
Lew Skannen says December 4, 2010 at 11:53 pm
Also needs the unrestrained recursive elements that eventually lead to stack overflow, memory exception and an inevitable crash. Hope Anthony doesn’t intend running this on a wind powered box with no UPS 🙂
I have started reading Dr. Thomas Sowell’s 2009 book “Intellectuals and Society”. It explains a lot about the AGW crowd and it is well worth reading.
http://www.amazon.com/Intellectuals-Society-Thomas-Sowell/dp/046501948X/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1291567661&sr=1-2
Dr. Sowell outlines the terrible damage caused by these so called ‘intellectuals”: literally tens of millions are dead because of them. Of special interest in this context are the details of their techniques. And it begs the question: Are these people just self-important, arrogant, deluded fools? Or are they really truly evil?
If you take issue with this, please read the book before you comment.
Regards,
Steamboat Jack (Jon Jewett’s evil twin)
Anthony,
Nice to see your continued good humor. It is lightening or rather it is lightning.
Both are good. : )
John
I’d replace “Holocaust deniers” with “Flat Earthers.” Even though the Flat Earth Society takes themselves seriously (last I heard), there’s more humor in that than the Holocaust.
I like the “other bad people” phrase. I’m not a humorist, but I’ve used this “appeal to the reader’s imagination” to good effect myself.
Good job!
“…..Lazy Teen is a 30 something basement troll …..” dwright (2:53 am)
‘LazyTeenager’ exposed:
http://www.sivacracy.net/080211_cartoon_k_a13063_p465.gif
Stemaboat Jack – you asked-
“Are these people just self-important, arrogant, deluded fools? Or are they really truly evil?”
From my contact with a few of them, I would answer “none of the above”.
The AGW believers whom I have corresponded with seem to me to be thoughtful, intelligent, knowledgeable (at least in some areas), socially aware and egalitarian minded, good intentioned people.
In fact, they want to save the world, no less, from our thoughtless, selfish, shortsighted actions.
I suspect they are all too aware that their (relatively) comfortable lifestyles fit uncomfortably with their wish to see good to be done to all the earth and its inhabitants.
Latching onto AGW is to them a masterstroke.
How to save the world in one bold, (apparently) costless, masterstroke.
I suspect that few of them are practicing accountants, who know too well that nothing costs nothing.
That those millions of new green jobs will be required to replace a mere handful of jobs producing power efficiently.
And that the more people employed to produce the same bundle of goodies means the less is available for distribution to the poor.
Deluded – yes I concede that they are deluded, but very well intentioned.
But then you remember what the road to hell is paved with, do you not?
Steamboat Jack says:
And it begs the question: Are these people just self-important, arrogant, deluded fools? Or are they really truly evil?
Thanks for the link, I’ll give it a read. I think it’s an inevitable artifact of the size of the government and all the folks getting money from it.
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2010/12/05/tyranny-of-stupid/
The second-best laugh, today.
First: http://watchingthedeniers.wordpress.com/2010/12/05/cablegate-governments-aware-of-failure-before-talks/
Mike, Aussie blog host, ¨More like climate cowards. / They hide behind the disinformation of right-wing think tanks, con-men like “Lord” Monckton and bloggers like Anthony Watts and Jo Nova.¨
AusieDan says: December 5, 2010 at 5:21 pm
“Deluded – yes I concede that they are deluded, but very well intentioned.
But then you remember what the road to hell is paved with, do you not?”
Ausie Dan,
Good and Evil: a subject that I have come to ponder in my advanced years. (65) As Dr. Sowell points out in his book, Intellectuals always have the very best of intentions and those intentions often end in disaster. Not for them but for countless others.
Let’s look at just one item and through the prism of that one item, examine these Intellectuals. (Excuse me if I get wordy-the Love of My Life says I tend to do that.)
This topic isn’t original with me; it has been posted on this site before and Lord Monckton briefly mentioned it in one of his speeches that was also linked here. There are plenty of references about this if you care to look.
Malaria was a world-wide disease (not just tropical). There was a malaria epidemic in the Soviet Union that killed tens of thousands in the ‘20s. The Netherlands weren’t declared Malaria free until the late 60’s or early 70’s. That’s 1960’s/70’s. By that time, the world wide Malaria death rate had been reduced to some 50K a year.
It was thought that malaria was going to be eliminated from the planet. That’s when well-meaning Intellectuals were able to end the use of DDT. Since DDT is the most effective weapon against malaria, the death rate has gone from 50K to around one million deaths each year. Slow, painful deaths of mostly poor, mostly black, and mostly women and children in Africa.
George W. Bush started an anti-malaria program in Africa that included the judicious use of DDT. Everyone knows that HE isn’t an Intellectual! His initiative was able to reduce the malaria infection rate by some 90%. GW was hailed by African leaders as the one person that had done the most to help Africans. I believe that the current administration is letting the program lapse. Those well-meaning Intellectuals know that DDT is evil. Everybody knows that.
I don’t know if you are married or not. But suppose that your wife and child have died because these well-meaning Intellectuals withheld technology that could have saved them. How would you consider them under those conditions? Lovable fools or evil?
Would you consider the slow agonizing death of hundreds of thousands, millions of women and children a suitable sacrifice for those women and children to make so that Intellectuals can feel good about doing something for the environment?
A real quandary: Just stupid or evil. And there are many more similar issues, like the Shining Path in Peru. Dr. Sowell does a much better job that I in exploring this subject. Although, I haven’t noticed him asking: “Good or Evil”? Maybe I haven’t read far enough.
E.M.Smith says: December 5, 2010 at 5:53 pm
“Thanks for the link”
E.M.
I hope you enjoy the book. I am just a simple Red Neck and I find his books to be a real treasure. I would recommend all of them. Although, as an ex-Marxist his prose can get a little turgid. But for the most part, his books are suitable for College Fresh-persons.
Regards,
Steamboat Jack (Jon Jewett’s evil twin)
I clicked on the link provided by JohnRT and found Watching the Deniers a bit strong for my taste and not funny at all. I may be getting a tad cowardly since getting my 3 score and 10 in. I found the reading there distasteful in the extreme and more than a little scary. Where does all the anger come from?