Dr. Roger Pielke writes in with an update:
[UPDATE 5/7: Joe Romm offers 3,300 wacky words in response to this short post. Crazy. Anyway, the simple response is, did Gore remove the slide I called him out on for using? Answer: Yes. Game, set, match. For those many readers here for the first time (thanks Joe, this is now the second most viewed post in the history of this blog!) here is a link to my recent book on climate change.]
This is strong language from Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. who wrote to me and suggested I share this with my readers. After getting slimed by Joe Romm for the nth time, he finally had enough. He writes:
It is long overdue for the environmental community to start pushing back on Romm as he continues to stain their entire enterprise. His lies and smear tactics, which are broadly embraced and condoned, are making enemies out of friends and opponents out of fellow travelers. Vigorous debate is welcome and healthy. Lies and character assassination not so much.
I recommend reading the entire article here
Mr. Sowell, “As to your specific charge, the truth regarding the state of the ocean’s surface, and whether it is rising, remaining constant, or falling, is not at all certain.”
Exactly my point. This is what you claim to believe but you then make definitive statements that ocean levels are falling. If you wanted your statement on ocean levels falling to be taken in some kind of context then you should have qualified it with that context.
“Vigorous debate is welcome and healthy. Lies and character assassination not so much.”
One need only read through the comments on this thread to see character assassination. The vitriol against Mr. Romm is rather telling.
Smokey says:
It is strange because the quote that you gave us doesn’t show any evidence whatsoever that he mixes apocalytic end-times religion with what he says about the science. Rather, he just mentions that “a strong aspect of my [Christian] faith is social conscience – hating injustice and caring for the poor”. The people I have seen who mix in this end-times stuff with their environmental views are anti-environmentalists like James Watt, who apparently thought there was little reason to worry about protecting the environment with the Second Coming right around the corner.
(And, what exactly that Cook says in that comment about the peer-reviewed scientific studies is untrue? The link you give just shows current sea level rise…It does not predict future rise.)
As for Pielke Jr. and Romm: While I don’t personally follow Romm myself, I have noticed that if there is lying going on, it seems to go the other way too. Pielke Jr. at one point put up a post claiming that Romm “ordered” the media not to talk to him. What I found bizarre about this claim on its face is that saying Joe Romm ordered the media to do something is kind of a bizarre use of language…Usually, people who issue orders to others have the authority to do so. But, I thought, well maybe Romm really has such a Napoleon complex that he did issue such an order even though he has no such authority. So, I looked at what Romm said…and while he did say that he thought media who used Pielke as a source completely undermined their credibility, he did not order them to do anything. When I pointed this out to Pielke, he refused to acknowledge his wording was at all false or misleading, saying that it was a matter of interpretation. It was all rather bizarre and surreal. [Strangely enough, I have not been able to track down this whole post and exchange on Pielke’s website despite my best efforts to search, so I don’t know if he removed it at some later time or if I am just having bad google-karma.]
My google-foo seems to have improved and here is a link into discussions between Roger and I as to whether Romm ordered the media not to talk to him: http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2009/10/giant-fish-big-fish-and-minnows-of.html?showComment=1256229797586#c6468801739024047692
Above comments: Leave poor Joe alone – he’s doing a great job. and we would have to invent if he did not exist etc…. Totally agree and i am a 100% denier! this guy is God’s gift to the anti-AGW movement LOL
Well, of course, he lies, he is, after all, a liar.
A true anecdote: Communists always lies, because, otherwise, they can not get to the position where they can enforce, to keep, their way with violence.
sceptical says:
“The vitriol against Mr. Romm is rather telling.”
Yes, it’s rather telling you that there is a firm basis in fact supporting the comments. If you want to see real vitriol, read what Romm constantly says about Anthony Watts. The comments here are child’s play by comparison.
So tell us, why are you Joe Romm’s apologist? Dr Pielke showed convincingly that Romm is a liar. What makes you want to be Romm’s defender and enabler? Are you his nephew or something?
“It is long overdue for the environmental community to start pushing back on Romm as he continues to stain their entire enterprise.”
Personally, i find Romm entirely representative of everything the Green and environmental community stands for. For instance, the green flagship organisation Greenpeace lied about the remaining oil in the Brent Spar to sway public opinion, exaggerating the numbers by a factor of 100 (i think). Lying and smear campaigns have always been acceptable to the environmental community when it serves their purpose, after all, they need to save the planet and the end justifies the means – i have never experienced a different attitude by them.
Jimbo says:
May 7, 2011 at 3:55 am
“Regarding John Cook’s quote:
The other motivation for me is I have a 10-year-old daughter and the latest science tells me she’ll see one to two meters’ sea level rise in her lifetime. ”
Even worse, she has a mad father.
Well there are such creatures crawling on the face of Earth as Romm: always have been and always will be I suppose.
I note that Romm has a new posting up jetting out venom at Pielke junior and WUWT etc, in his finest style.
Read it for yourselves.
Kindest Regards
Your comments got through on WUWT. My comment yesterday in Climate Progress did not. Perhaps if Romm allowed for open debate there would be less vitriol and character assassination which he has brought on himself by being very economical with the truth.
Sceptical, one day you will realise that you have been lied to about AGW.
Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past. 50 million climate refugees. Disappearance of the Medieval Warm Period. Constant adjustments of past temperatures………………………………..
For someone who is so sure of himself he is really afraid of open debate.
That tells you everything about him.
Calling a Joe Romm, or John Cook, mad seems like absolving them of their crimes.
Mad has a charm. It suggests behavior beyond a person’s control, like being sick.
What Romm and Cook practice is self serving, evil, and entirely within their control.
@ur momisugly Roger Sowell says:
May 6, 2011 at 11:55 pm
@ur momisugly skeptical, and the concept of “truth.”
Informative post and opinion about truth and lying. My take does not add to your point, but having spent a career in marketing and sales management, I believe that delivering information with the intent to deceive is lying. That’s my basic definition of lying.
This definition covers a lot of ground, including outright falsification and the use of half-truths.
I think that legal uses and definition of truth are useful, but sometimes are not always effective in getting to the truth. How is it that the courts have judged CO2 to be a pollutant? It’s not rational, and it’s not factual. Where did the system go wrong in getting to the truth?
Baghdad Romm, Barney Fife of the left, standing guard over the sacred global warming propaganda.
He really thinks Roger Pielke Jr. is the only one with these questions about global warming? He really thinks Roger Pielke Jr. is trying to smear Al Gore and all other people that promote global warming? This is what comes from the mind of Baghdad Romm.
papertiger says:
May 7, 2011 at 10:23 am
“Calling a Joe Romm, or John Cook, mad seems like absolving them of their crimes.
Mad has a charm. It suggests behavior beyond a person’s control, like being sick.”
I do think it is out of their control.
Smokey, ” If you want to see real vitriol, read what Romm constantly says about Anthony Watts. The comments here are child’s play by comparison.”
Ah, of course, the always persuasive “they do it too” argument. The beauty of your argument is that it justifies anything and everything.
Jimbo, “Sceptical, one day you will realise that you have been lied to about AGW.”
People have tried to lie to me about AGW, but I have enough sense and understanding to be able to make reasonable well informed judgements and so can see where the lies come from.
FYI, here is Romm’s response to Pielke Jr’s charges: http://climateprogress.org/2011/05/07/roger-pielke-jr-false-accusation-gore-exaggerating/ I frankly haven’t waded through the whole thing myself and I don’t know if Romm’s characterization is completely honest…but I do know from past dealings with Pielke Jr, as I have noted above, that he essentially just makes stuff up and then when called on it claims that it is a matter of interpretation. That is basically just a rationalization for spreading falsehoods. And, while Romm is in the employ of a “think tank” with a clear political point-of-view, Pielke Jr. is an academic and apparently a quite respected person in the field of science policy, a fact that kind of frightens me, to be honest. I would expect much higher standards from such a person.
Joel Shore says:
May 7, 2011 at 5:59 am
Bill Moyers retracted and apologized for claiming that about James Watt back in 2005.
“Bill Moyers Smears a Better Man Than Himself” (Power Line, Feb. 6, 2005)
“The Post Issues A Correction” (Power Line, Feb. 7, 2005)
“Good News, A Media Alert, and a Lament” (Power Line, Feb. 8, 2005) – Moyers apologizes.
Having now read through Joe Romm’s discussion of the events, it would seem that Pielke jr has rather misrepresented the situation.
I would be very careful about accepting what he says in future as the truth.
Joel Shore says:
“…while Romm is in the employ of a ‘think tank’ with a clear political point-of-view, Pielke Jr. is an academic and apparently a quite respected person in the field of science policy, a fact that kind of frightens me, to be honest.”
Heck, AGW – which is too insignificant to measure – frightens Joel Shore. Even natural variability frightens Joel. But I do appreciate his confirmation that Joe Romm is a bought and paid for shill. It follows that Climate Progress is just an NGO/QUANGO pseudo-science propaganda blog. We already knew that here, but it never hurts to remind folks like Shore did that Romm has his thirty pieces of silver, and he doesn’t give a damn that his anti-science propaganda supports the misguided policy of converting food to fuel, leading directly to starvation due to higher food prices impacting the world’s poorest. Warmists are just modern-day eugenicists.
It should also be noted that John Cook cooks the books by inventing bogus temperature charts and posting them on his blog. The debunked Michael Mann’s Hokey Stick chart comes to mind. Cook mixes his religions, cherry-picking fake charts that show more than 200% more warming that even the IPCC claims in order to buttress his CAGW religion. He also disregards the fact that all traditional Western religions rate hypocrisy as one of the most reprehensible human character flaws. Cook has that particular flaw in spades. Joel Shore may know physics, but he’s a dull blade when it comes to understanding human nature. [And to show I’m not down on all alarmists, I think Keith Kloor is a stand-up guy. Likewise lukewarmers Lucia and Steve Mosher. ]
# # #
@sceptical: Alarmist lies were posted by Steve Goddard for everyone to see. Yet you are blind to that, and accuse others – who simply have a different view of the subject – of being “liars.” You know what? That is pure psychological projection on your part. Thieves believe everyone else is a thief, and you call honest folks liars. Think about it.
Want to see who the actual liars are? Read the Climategate emails and the Harry_read_me file. You will see a whole gang of mendacious reprobates who connive behind the scenes, and invent years of fake temperature data. And when the light is shined on them, they scurry for cover like cockroaches. Honest folks have nothing to hide. Think about it.
Ben U.: Thanks for the correction. As the post that you referenced notes, what Watt apparently actually said was:
I have to say that such a quote is only partially reassuring to me, however. I would prefer to have someone in charge of our natural resources who believed that they must be preserved for future generations into perpetuity rather than believing that such preservation is necessary only until some uncertain time in the future when “the Lord returns”.
At any rate, my larger point still stands, namely that in the quote that Smokey referenced, Cook did not “mix[] apocalyptic end-times religion” with science or policy issues, and in what I referenced, Watt did, albeit with a more ambiguous message than I had been led to believe.
Smokey says:
No…It does not follow. My point is that one should just be careful when analyzing information from sources that have a strong ideological point-of-view: That means sources you love like ICECAP, Monckton’s policy institute, and anything associated with ClimateDepot and Senator Inhofe. In fact, I don’t think think I can remember a time when you linked to something that was not from such an ideological / advocacy-oriented source, so it is kind of strange for you now to disparage such sources in such strong words.
And, unlike Romm, these sources are peddling stuff that the scientific community general finds to be complete nonsense. (I imagine that mainstream scientists might quibble with some of what Romm and Cook choose to emphasize or how they summarize the science, but they would agree that the science present is way more accurate than that from the sources that you rely on.)
Since your charges against Cook are just vague nonsense, I don’t really see how I can respond to them.
Pielke should be ashamed of himself. If he had any shame.