Early reports from the Lisbon conference

The violence in the debate comes from the presumed moral super-high-ground that the believers think they occupy. They are wholly convinced that their point of view will save the world if enough people agree with them. This situation with climate science is nearly identical to a religion in this regard. Some people have placed too much importance on their own view of the universe and they regard those who disagree as heathens, and those who “spread disagreement” as the devil himself.

My favourite pedantry; “Chatam House Rule”, singular.

I herby propose reconciliation resolution item #1: Close down the IPCC.
The IPCC is the embodyment of post-normal science.

” . . . attributed the violence of the disagreement in climate science to the propensity of scientific societies to publish position statements, and the IPCC itself; these create animosity and hostility through the exercise of power without sufficient accountability . . ”
Ya think? The IPCC the ‘team’, and others pushing the C02 agenda for whatever reason (power/control/re-distribution of wealth, making money on cap and trade before it collapsed a la Al Gore, and so on . . . ), pushing models tuned to respond to CO2 as ‘evidence’, ignoring real world evidence of the recent and longer pasts of natural cycles. And claiming that those who aren’t knowledgable as them don’t understand and therefore are wrong . . .
I thought it would change a lot after Climategate last year – it has some, but not as much as I would have expected. Not sure it will change – unless the latest lull in solar activity remains and temperature really do drop in the next few years . . .

How are they defining “violence”? It sounds more like they’re talking about vehemence or something like that.

Poor ol NASA still has this up shows how ig@@@@ they are
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2006/10may_longrange/

“About a third of the participants are physical scientists with some knowledge of climate science, whereas the majority are social scientists (with a few journalists).”
This is about the scariest thing I have ever read.

Climate science doesn’t look anything like a normal science – agenda driven as it is by politicians, environmentalists and a weird UN bureaucracy. It has a long road back to science normality.

Thanks for the patronising claptrap, sounds like a post normal bun fest. Some may find this thread on the Bishop Hill blog interesting and pertinent:
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2011/1/25/hulme-on-nurse.html

This vocal gnashing of teeth by way of current CO2 cultish hostility toward others who disagree with their money motivated agenda will continue their habitualized behavior to their end. No amount of logic will change the behavior.
End the money train, end the media bias, and watch the frinzied hatred toward anyone in their way.

“violence in this debate derives from the potential impacts of climate change and the policy options, and differing political and cultural notions of risk and responsibility.”
I respectfully disagree. The climate debate is, at its heart, all about violence. The climate debate is a proxy war in the age old struggle between the power of Government and the natural rights of the individual. Governments rule by coercion, which is to say by the threat of violence. A threat of violence is violence. Armed robbery is classified as a violent crime, even if the gun used is unloaded. The climate debate will determine whether there is justification for governments to expropriate a portion of the decision making authority now held by free individuals, thus making them less free. History is replete with examples of people who have surrendered freedom in exchange for perceived security, and later had reason to regret that transaction. Benjamin Franklin commented on this.
“Those who exchange security for freedom deserve neither”
We are being asked to give up some of our freedom, thus increasing the proportion of decisions we make under a threat of violence. In exchange we are promised an amount of”climate security”, the value of which is claimed to exceed the value of the freedom we are to give up for it. Skeptics want to know if the exchange is worth it. History tells us that we will not receive a refund of our freedom if it turns out that AGW is a myth, or that the programs to alleviate it fail to deliver as promised.

Rather Chatham House rules than Patriot Act rules . . .

The social sciences have been totally corrupted – I guess they are experts for this kind of thing. This is the stupidest conference I have heard about. Don’t we already know what McIntyre, the journalists, the agw scientists think? Are we going to try to change this? I think attendance at this thing gives unwarranted legitimacy to the manipulators.

Is there a list of the journalists attending?

Obviously some commenters have not read the title of the conference. It is not about climate change, but about reconciliation of the debate on Climate Change. It seems to me that the inability of the scientists to carry on a civil and productive debate about such issues demonstrates a remarkable ignorance of the processes involved in productive intercourse. This willful blindness leads to the failure of science itself to take a balanced and productive place in the public conversation. So it is exactly appropriate that the majority of participants should be social scientists. In fact it could be argued that the dismissal by so many of these social scientists suggest exactly why their is such self satisfied ignorance in this area. And no I am not suggesting that scientists need to take PR lessons. They need to turn to those scientists who are expert in the realm of social organization to understand what are productive forms of social organization and discourse so that they might formulate procedures and safeguards that keep the process open and civil.

Claude Harvey says:
January 26, 2011 at 9:20 am
“Judith was very astute to begin hedging her bets some time ago. In so doing, she demonstrated a certain rationality sorely missing in many of her academic peers who, to date, show every intention of “going down with the ship”.”
They won’t go down. All they have to do is find a flaw in their models, make them predict differently, publish it in a pal-reviewed journal, cash in a few Nobels and tell the world they always had their doubts about catastrophic warming. After all, they used the words “could” and “might” a lot, didn’t they? They have left all possibilities for themselves open.

I simply don’t know social scientists are interested in this matter. (And yes I have a degree in social science). Unless they are called to speculate on what happens if Armaggeddon arrives. But first, they have to swallow the warmist prediction and right now in England, it’s cold and getting colder. Bring on global warming, the sooner the better and then see what social scientists have to say about it. (Ignoring agriculturist specialists of course).

But who is attending the meeting?
I bet that the mainstream IPCC climate scientist cowards are all boycotting it!

“Chatham House Rules” so nobody can be held accountable for what he said.
Imagine scientific papers without the names of their authors…
This meeting deserves to be treated with utter contempt, as if nothing was said at all.

My advice for reconciliation in Lisbon would be to hold a side meeting at the Solar do Vinho do Porto. After sampling the port, the fine food and the comfy furniture I suspect the debate would be civilised.

I like Floor Anthoni’s idea of all scientific papers published woithout any named authors. Then each would stand on its merits rather than being supported or denounced by partisan reviewers/readers.

To: Floor Anthoni
“Chatham House Rules” also means that anyone can take credit later . . . “Like taking candy from the baby . . . “

Re: bubbagyro says:
January 26, 2011 at 10:16 am
“It’s too bad that history does not record how ignominiously (or not) the terracentrists or flat earthers of ages past…”
Actually, we don’t need to go back more than 10 years in history to see what will most likely happen. “Everyone knew” that Y2K would be catastrophic unless we spent hundreds of $ billions on “Y2K” compliance measures. While a fundamental fix of the obvious computerized date problem would have been relatively straightforward, we were led to demand that all sectors “prove a negative” and the cost of that exercise was horrendous.
A number of countries did virtually nothing to prepare for Y2K and the news media eagerly awaited their collapse. Those countries took the position that, “We’ll just get up on the morning of January 1, 2000 and fix whatever no longer works. The Armageddon date came and went with nothing really newsworthy happening anywhere in the world. Then humanity merely shrugged and moved on to “the next big thing”; no investigations, no outrage; not even a simple acknowledgment that a monumental boo-boo had occurred.

Ditto what Chris Riley wrote.

There are now three things you don’t talk about with friends at the dinner table:
Sex, Religion and Climate change.

Violence due to power without accountability.
I would have suggested that the violence is due to frustration, and much of the frustration is due to many insiders’ continued insistence that anybody who isn’t a climate science insider has no legitimate place making any comments about anything. Any such comments deserve nothing but being ignored or attacked.
That will never fly. Stakeholders in other areas will make sure of it.

FrankK says: January 26, 2011 at 11:26 am
There are now three things you don’t talk about with friends at the dinner table:
Sex, Religion and Climate change.
—————————————————————————
Ayoop Frank. Nah – just 2 – Climate change talk IS religion and ephemeral. Sex is forevah!
Douglas

Uh, Jorge, the Santa Maria didn’t make it home. She ran into the edge and it turned out to be land…

I venture that the view that the villification or vituperation of the vagaries and verbiage of one’s adversaries is violence, rather than vehemence, is vested with a vague verisimilitude but is not validated when one views veritable violent villains.
That is to say that if you start with the hyperbole ” taxing me to death” it’s not hard to get entrenched in exaggeration. A positive feedback, maybe.

Cross-posted from the original Lisbon article, sorry but I put it in the wrong place!
The term ‘reconciliation’ immediately brought to my mind the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa. This Commission forced all concerned to face what they did during the apartheid era in that country, including those who had political power and those who were seeking political power. This forum is not the place to discuss the events brought before the Commission but I thought that the methodology and the underlying tenets of that Commission might have a degree of applicability with regard to the Lisbon Forum.
I have read and re-read the terms of the Commission and I have studied some of the events brought before it. My original thoughts that such a Commission could work in the context of the Lisbon Forum were dashed very early on by one single word, Truth.
For something like the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to function in the context of climate change and the science involved, the truth would be required from all participants.
From http://www.beyondintractability.org/articlesummary/10240/ I quote the following, “Justice is achieved not by retribution, but by the restoration of community. Healing communities requires truth-telling, forgiveness, acceptance and trust.” Such ‘truth-telling’ is, I regret to say, apparently anathema to one side of the non-debate insofar as ‘climate change’ is concerned.
I can foresee nothing of any value emerging from Lisbon; the foremost prerequisite for any form of ‘reconciliation’ is a full and frank admission of previous wrong-doings. That is not going to happen in Lisbon or anywhere else. The conflict will continue.

Oliver Ramsay says: January 26, 2011 at 12:41 pm
I venture that the view that the villification or vituperation of the vagaries and verbiage of one’s adversaries is violence, rather than vehemence, is vested with a vague verisimilitude but is not validated when one views veritable violent villains.
——————————————————————
Oliver – Verily, very funny – and ‘taxing to death’ undoubtedly hyperbolic but none the less the runaway taxation of energy is having a measurably deleterious effect upon the masses in most western countries smart retorts not withstanding and whether you like it or not.
Douglas

Variations of the word violence are used four times in J. Curry’s note. This cannot be coincidence. This is supporting and setting up another strawman, that of the skeptic who is threatening violence to the poor downtrodden and misunderstood AGW scientist, another well known meme in AGW folklore. Again, it has been another successful diversion, as can be seen by the number of people on this blog now discussing violence with regard to the global warming debate.
I just cannot understand how people are hoodwinked by this AGW scientist who is intent on neutering critics of AGW and cleverly putting herself above the fray while all the while pushing the AGW agenda.
I also cannot understand why any skeptic has agreed to go to this meeting, probably many at their own expense, while its a fair bet that all the AGW people are paid for by their Universities or grant monies.
Are they (the skeptics) so insecure that they actually want the approval of the AGW crowd? This is bizarre. Hey we love you guys, you don’t need to run to “them” for a little love and approval. And there are more and more of “us” supporting you. You are no longer alone.
I read a lot of blogs on the skeptic side, and I have never seen anyone advocating or threatening violence. By the way, I agree with those above objecting to the term violence used to describe disagreement. Violence is a physical act actually done to a person, not a verbal argument.

I think that Richard North, at his EU Referendum blog, has a priceless comment which I think applies to this conference and the attendance of skeptics.
His comment is about the BBC documentary which set up James Delingpole to be humiliated, and I quote “Delingpole’s mistake was in trying to play a bent game straight.”

John Phillips says:
January 26, 2011 at 7:26 am
‘I think the word violence is being mis-used. A vigorous and even rancorous debate is not violent.’
Including a debate that includes this?

Civility and being civil is much in the news lately, especially after the shootings in Arizona. The President had as a theme, “civility” in his State of the Union Address. I have read this thread and Judith Curry’s Climate Etc. blog and I decided to copy what I had written there, here:
Civility can not be imposed. Civility is also defenseless in the face of violence. Civility and non-violent actions occur in an community which values civility and shames violence and violent behavior. Therefore it is altogether fitting and proper that a meeting, whose objective is reconciliation, is predominately attended by the social and political scientists who embrace civility, and will carry that conciliatory mind-set back to their community. A community is larger than the perpretators of violent speach and violent actions. So, reconciliation will blossom in a community where violence is shamed; and the violent perpretator is left unheard no matter how clairvoyant their message, and relegated to the dustbin of history. Climate science is no more or less vulnerable to such community influences or potential outcomes. The arguement for the righteousness of a radiative transfer model cannot nor will not be sustained by an angry or violent delivery.
It really doesn’t matter what the “Truth” is in Reconciliation at least at this point as there is no way to know for certain what the truth looks like. What matters is having a dialogue, in this case a civil dialogue. If the community shames those who speak violently or act violently, the eventual truth will become known. Let the data catch up with the rhetoric, and, as my mother said “..keep a civil tongue in your head!”

It will be a talkfest achieving nothing.

I agree with Chris Riley. We are surrounded by people who want us to do what they ‘know’ is best for us, and it’s all just power-seeking over others.

The lead in post quotes Judith Curry,

” The meeting is being run under Chatham House rules. A few points that have caught my interest so far:
• dealing with complex problems using complex tools, ideas
• the idea of reconciliation in scientific debates is to try different approaches in an experimental meeting for attempting nonviolent communication in impassioned debates where there is disagreement
• Reconciliation is not about consensus, but rather creating an arena where we can have honest disagreement
• violence in this debate derives from the potential impacts of climate change and the policy options, and differing political and cultural notions of risk and responsibility.
• disagreement in climate science is more violent than other fields where there is much disagreement and high societal stakes (e.g. economics). One person attributed the violence of the disagreement in climate science to the propensity of scientific societies to publish position statements, and the IPCC itself; these create animosity and hostility through the exercise of power without sufficient accountability.”

=================
More simply to the point, perhaps just a simple reference to a rational standard for intellectual discourse would have been more meaningful and concise. That standard is simply intellectual integrity.
Having the climate science discourse termed ‘violent’ seems to be some indirect pejorative insinuation. Why waste precious mental energy on trivial sideshows like that?
Reconciliation? I take the intended meaning to be ‘ the reestablishing of cordial relations’ [ http://www.thefreedictionary.com/reconciliation ]. This is simple and means no name calling or ad hominem; it means addressing each other directly in civil discourse. It does not mean changing ones ideas just because there is energetic debate in an open venue. See intellectual integrity suggestion above.
John

geo says:
January 26, 2011 at 2:26 pm
“But that’s not all of it. Economics is a soft science that has been inching its way for centuries towards a legitimate status as a hard science (and still it isn’t there). It knows this about itself. Climate science is a relatively new science, that has not come to terms with how much of a “soft” science it still is. It *thinks* it is a very hard science, with immutable truths, and this leads to intolerance when those “truths” are challenged.”
Well put. Moreover, its a “science” that has grown up with a dependency on the computer, and almost infantile belief in the power of that computer to provide highly accurate results modeling complex systems. Warming science believes that because it operates the computers, it is modeling reality. Maintaining this belief requires a cultivated ignorance of the real world which can only be induced in people who have gone through the ritual of a PhD dissertation (that’s not a knock at PhDs- I happen to have one). Its a “social science” observation about the ritual dimension of higher education.

As scientists they should agree to simply state their findings, leave it to others to prove or disprove their thesis but above all…Stop telling us how to lead our lives!

tonyb says:

…I emailed Dr Trenberth to complain about the use of the word ‘Deniers’… I had a reasonably civil reply back from him… However, it was obvious that he had been innundated with numerous abusive emails which I think had only served to harden his position.

I am aware of the existence of brownshirts (pretending to be?) ON BOTH SIDES whose main activity seems to be to send threats direct to people without posting on blogs to say what they are doing; so blogs are not aware and don’t feel the need to take any responsibility for policing or at least clearly disown such people. I believe this includes death threats to people on both sides. This simply cements divisions into place and makes dialogue harder if not impossible.
We don’t know the content of what was emailed to Trenberth, and I doubt if he will tell. But I think it might help a lot, to have some kind of public disclaimer sent to any appropriate people on occasions like this, disowning any abusive language or threats. I hope this message reaches Lisbon.
It might also help if the skeptics’ community could agree key issues where there is genuine concern and evidence against the “consensus” orthodoxy, and have statements up that not just Smokey but everyone here can point to. A set of counter-statements to those of John Cook – and with the science backup.
It would be a creative alternative to saying lots here, which can become little more than an echo-chamber if good statements are not distilled out. Graham Stringer’s statement is classic in this sense.

Jessie
“Hypatia and her dismissal of empiricism did not do too well.”
Didn’t work out well for Socrates, Galileo, Copernicus and many others . . . . It’s almost as if it is a crime to think rationally.

psi talks about “the infantile belief in the power of that computer”. The New God.
Our son is completing a mechanical engineering course at a good school where the professors still refer to each other as “instructors”. “When you are in the field, a pencil and a piece of paper may help you to solve a problem faster and easer than any fancy computing device”, has been heard more than once in the classroom.