Story submitted by Stephen Rasey
On July 12, I wrote a comment cautioning not to underestimate the Gore Climate Reality event scheduled for Sept. 14, 2011. Mixing metaphors, I said that this was an “All In” bet and that this was Gore’s D-Day.
Pickett’s Charge from a position on the Confederate line looking toward the Union lines, Ziegler’s Grove on the left, clump of trees on right, painting by Edwin Forbes via Wikipedia
A better analogy is that this is Gettysburg, July 3, 1863. Al Gore’s Climate Reality is “Pickett’s Charge”: thousands of troops, marching in formation in the open field, supported by the artillery of the internet and mass media, bent on destroying the deniers that stand in the way of themselves and Washington D.C.
Today we are engaged in a great Civil War of testing whether our nation, or any nation, conceived in liberty and individual freedom, can long endure the calls to “save the planet” through strong government and world government to better control the use of energy, land, and air by constraining the freedom of its subjects.
Back in late-June 1863, Robert E. Lee carried with him knowledge of a letter from Jefferson Davis dictating terms of peace to Lincoln. It was Lee’s strategy to bring the Union Army of the Potomac into the open, destroy it, and then march on Washington. The Letter would be delivered to Lincoln and hopefully end the war.
Today, Al Gore carries with him the plans for the IPCC Rio+20 Sustainability Agenda. The “Climate Reality” Charge is to bring “denier’s” out into the open, destroy them, and carry the momentum into Rio meetings in June 2012 and Washington for the Nov 2012 elections. The green energy carpetbaggers are already among us. After a Rio recharged by a Gore victory, there will simply be more of them acting without restraint.
The critical question is, “Is there a strong enough opposition standing between the Charge and Washington, D.C.?”
Today, my answer is, “No, the skeptic’s are not yet strong enough.” Skeptics are more of a disorganized guerrilla force of sharp-shooters. (Of course, I could be completely wrong and I’m just blowing the cover of an entrenched ambush.)
I do not think skeptics can field an army; it is not in our individualistic nature. But that does not mean we cannot prepare the battlefield. We know from which direction they will come. We know the type of ammunition they use – much of it is blanks – false, misleading statement, but full of fire, smoke, and noise. The skeptics artillery of web sites can be zeroed-in. Counter their arguments before they have the opportunity to fire theirs. We can field forward observers, and squads armed with facts and backup.
We must make it obvious to all observers the skeptics’ side in the climate debate is fighting against slavery of billions of people. I’m willing to help as a defender of freedom. It will take some organization.
Who are our, Buford, Reynolds, Chamberlin, and Hancock?
In what may be a related action, Anthony Watts has asked readers to find quotes for “ice free Arctic by the year xxxx”. This is the kind of preparing the ground and zero-in we need to do now in advance of September.
We know who the CAGW leaders will be. Find every false, misleading, scary, idiotic, non-scientific statement they have made in the past twenty years. Create an index by name with pages listing those statement with links to the source. Keep it factual. Let their own words come back to haunt them.
We know the basics of their arguments and lines of “evidence”. Cross reference each of the statements above with the type of evidence.
How can we efficiently do this without a Wiki? A Wiki would only be vandalized. We also want an efficient division of labor. I don’t suggest we eliminate duplication, but let’s avoid quadruplication. Somewhere we should start a list of the Whos and Whats to research. Volunteers can comment that they are searching sources X over dates Y-Z and will report back in 48 hrs. Someone will have to organize it.
In the responses to Anthony’s plea for help, many people provided links without helpful context and additional information about Who, When, What and Where. We can do better. But the response has been helpful showing that Anthony (and other moderators) could delegate research work to the readership of the blog and they can do more target location and synthesis.
Is there a simple six column Excel format OR six element Text format we could use to make a table driven content page work?
Person, Topic, Date, Link, Quote, Comment and Context
Or
[P] Person(s)
[T] Topic
[D] Date
[L] Link
[Q] Quote
[C] Comment
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I’ve spent 30 years selling IT solutions and my first rule when a client asks “is there a way to do X?” is to respond as follows:
Yes there is. Now let’s put that aside for a moment and let’s talk instead about what you are trying to do. Then we can talk about how to do it.
If I understood the thrust of your article, what you are trying to arrive at is a way to identify the key players in the CAGW movement, what they’re positions and talking points are, what the facts are and how to use them in rebuttal, and make that information easy to reference and publish on demand. Is that a good summary? If so, is there anything you would add or delete that is important in your mind? Or is that description completely off base? If so, could you summarize in your own words?
Dave
Al might find himself pre-empted by events that are actually important.
Besides, you know what effect he has on our weather. We certainly don’t need that.
“Find every false, misleading, scary, idiotic, non-scientific statement they have made in the past twenty years.”
Isn’t the IPCC report enough?
We have to be careful though – we don’t want lists of skeptics falling in to the hands of the ecoterrorists. They’ve already been given carte blanch to do what they want in respect to the environment or what hey perceive as an action against it. We are not dealing with mentally stable people remember. But we are smarer than them, that’s been proven scientifically.
Climate scepticism has been on a steady, successful, upward curve since climategate. What the key sceptical bloggers have done and are doing is having its effect. Don’t be distracted. The way this is working is by convincing people one at a time by measured and reasonable arguments, combined with ever more unreasonable, dishonest and frantic behaviour from the AGW side. Is Al Gore’s day going to be any different? I suspect not, and it won’t convince a single person who is inclined to be sceptical, and it may put others off. Steady as she goes.
Kipling said “THE ODDS ARE ON THE CHEAPER MAN”
My money is now on ANREA ROSSI`S ITALIAN/GREEK alliance and their E-CATS.
We’re in a “Interglacial period”, which says quite a bit in itself.
Ask those that are undecided or full out warmists how much of the planets life has been spent in Interglacials and if they know the answer, then they may be paying attention.
Another favorite of mine is: Can man stop the next glaciation period from ocurring?
“Person, Topic, Date, Link, Quote, Comment and Context”
Exactly! That is the excerpted information I tried to provide to Anthony, albeit in text form with links. If we can do better, I’m all for it and will support. Until a better way is identified and agreed upon however, I’ll continue to research new quotes and forward them in text form with links, as time allows.
I believe in Climate Change – We now live in a climate of FEAR!
If I hadn’t read this article, I would never have believed that anything so stupid existed in the World.
The difference is that Gore most certainly has not gone through his severest struggle to get to the point where he is standing right now. The man has neither shame nor honor.
While I agree with the author, the battle of ideas has been fought and won. The truth, all the facts, and a pissed off public are on the side of sanity and freedom.
Al Gore is a neurotic self absorbed narcissist cult leader wannabe. America cannot afford his self indulgent pantomime horse charade. While America was once wealthy enough to put up with wasteful green planet saving “solutions” the fad is over. Algore is what he always has been, e.g. – Algore is a fat ass, has been, bloated tick. Algore wants to feed his life long habit at the public trough he helped drain. Statism is dead on its feet. It has collapsed upon its own weight and bankruptcy.
Algore is the poster boy of big government waste, fraud, and abuse.
And failure.
So welcome to the fight Mr Rasey. The bloody fighting is done, the battle is over, the war against science and sanity has been quelled for now.
Funny thing is, I don’t remember Mr Rasey when the barbarians were at the gate. A little late to the party….maybe we can put Rasey to work cleaning up Algore’s vomit stains…
ps, perhaps Mr Rasey can bring a pooper scooper and a snow shovel to Algore’s newest and coolest, greeniest and most meaningless sustainability Woodstock EVER!
You go and fight the big green monster Alogre Mr Rasey, the rest of us warriors will warm our battle tired bones beside the fire.
Gore’s failed once or twice already – it’s hard to be scared of him
I think Julian @ur momisugly 11:35 has the right idea. A big orchestrated campaign (to continue the military metaphor) is problematic on many levels.
I suggest each person prepare a short and well stated letter to you local and state officials hoping they will review evidence and not fall for the agenda being pushed by Gore’s event. Download a few things you personally can related to (e.g., sea level isn’t . . ., glaciers are not . . ., temperatures have not . . .), mention it in your letter and send a copy of the appropriate chart. Keep it short, clear, and friendly. A short letter to you local newspaper regarding Gore and the involvement of the U.N. and their desire to tax Americans without representation (remember that other war?) may be helpful.
I don’t get it,
you seem to oppose the scientific search of the earth’s complex behavior, on one hand, with freedom, on the other hand? Mix modelling and taxes? Temperature measurements and regulation?
To me, it looks this point of view is biased from the start. Eventhough politicians might use scientific endience to guide their choices for society, scientists don’t base their conclusions on their political orientation. If you think otherwise, you’re deeply in a procès d’intention. This way of doing things can only lead to a complete failure.
@davidmhoffer let’s talk instead about what you are trying to do. Then we can talk about how to do it.
A very intelligent approach, David, because exactly what we need is still nebulous.
Let’s start at the atomic level, because Anthony’s request “I need your help..” resulted in a promising response, but in a fashion and format where much work remains to orgainize it. Replies that were links only make other people need to open them to find out their basics. Other people supplied some of the ‘meta data’ to each link like who, and when, but there was no template to standardize the type of replies.
So let’s imagine readers of this website wish to contribute to a bank, a database, a crossed-referenced resource of
Who, Said What, When, Where, and what is its significance to the debate.
It isn’t so much that we want to find out Who, but that we have 100 people contributing quotes on 20 people about 50 statements each from 300 sources with a fair bit of duplication.
Let us also imaging that we would like to easily access a list of these quotes
By Person
By Topic
By Claim:
By Source:
By submitter (hey, we have to know who submitted the quote)
Where can we go for an index list, a summary listing with hyperlinks to details, of all the misstatements, falsehoods, refuted and withdrawn source material, and failed predictions of Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth”? From Google:
Monckton 2007, 35 errors in Inconv. Truth: http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton/goreerrors.html
Gpwayne 2007, “was accurate and represented the science as it stood.“ http://www.skepticalscience.com/al-gore-inconvenient-truth-errors.htm
How do we skeptics add to that list as time progresses?
What’s more, what is the easiest way to do it with the assets we have at hand? Keeping it simple is essential.
Let’s do the dumb things first. Take the results of Anthony’s June 16 call for help. How would we have liked the data to be submitted by volunteers, so that it can more quickly be organized by Person, Date, Source, and importance? Could a text encoding on this website help? Does someone have an existing website with a different structure that could help as an intermediate or final product?
This project is, I think, a wise plan.
Whilst ever the thermageddonists hold virtually all the cards (MSM, the Scientific Societies, the great majority of politicians, the major “scientific” publications, Wall Street, the UN and EU and not forgetting limitless funds) I’m not convinced that our “rag tag army” can win.
But I am certain that eventually we will win. If by no other metric than the fact that the thermaggedonist cause is based on so many ludicrous exaggerations and bare faced lies. Dogma, incompetence, greed and malice.
But I think it is likely that it will take many years. So I’m not building any hopes that (for example) the 2012 US elections will be more than another inconclusive skirmish on the road to victory.
But when we do win, we will need this database of dishonesty to hold the perpetrators to account. Who knows how much damage they will have done by then?
They’ve done enough already.
The approach is dangerous. Any kind of index of notable warmers with thier projections would legitimise a list of deniers and thier “offences” which will be come a handy research/publishing blacklist. Except where there are clear grounds to suspect personnel malpractice lying or conflict of interest, we need to avoid going personnel. Lists of peer viewed papers both for and against and showing how they relate OK, but not comments by people on blogs, or on TV.
I really don’t like the idea of these things being made into a war or battle TBH. A publicity mistake in the making.
That tapped I have to ask hasn’t this been done already ? There is the (seemingly unmaintained) Climate Fail files here, the endless list of “Things Caused by AGW”.
I’m also nervous of a “Green List” of scientists.
The site http://www.numberwatch.co.uk has an exhaustive list of ‘things that are caused by global warming’ with references.
I found http://www.green-agenda.com a mine of quotes by the ‘great and good’ of the AGW brotherhood.
For ‘numberwatch’ above, go to index, then into ‘things caused by global warming’.
Reply: This is a perfect example of incompleteness causing more work, in this case a small amount, in other cases, sometimes complete mysteries. Why not just insert the correct link?
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm
A little preparation goes a long way when handing work of to others. ~ ctm
it might be a good start to enumerate the anticipated arguments.
shame without factual refutations will have little effect – e.g., prince phillip wants to be reincarnated as a killer virus to wipe out much of the human race, yet that is not cause for reproach from his cronies.
the individuals whose ambitions are to pull off the biggest heist in human history are without shame.
btw- there is a distinction to be drawn between a subject and a citizen.
americans are not subjects.
I agree with Stephen Rasey that the response to Anthony’s request was less than ideal, and that brief metadata points would make it easier to weed out duplicates etc.
Constructing a database takes forethought, as David Hoffer points out. A few thoughts on organisation below:
1) Type of statement
is scientific, political or ideological: claiming to be factual, certain, possible, likely etc
2) Who made it
are they a scientist, a politician, a blogger, an NGO representative, a journalist or a blog commenter
3) Place
Was the statement made at a scientific conference, in a newspaper, on TV, in a parliament or political congress, on a blog, in a news conference
4) Temporal Context
Was the statement made In response to: another statement, a climatic or weather event,
Observation:
Within hours of the arrest of Neil Wallis, the Outside Organisation website was altered to remove him as far as possible, and limit damage where possible. A publicly available list or database will be used as a guide for removing embarrassing material. Web pages need to be saved and archived along with a dated screenshot.
Anthony’s site has gone green. Any mild criticism is memory holed and not responded to.
The author seems to think some large response to Algore’s latest mental episode is needed. None is needed. Algore is an oafish baffoon. Sit back, relax, and enjoy Algore’s latest parade of stupidity. At this late date, for reasonable men to muster a call to arms to defend against an idiot like Algore makes about as much sense as blasting air raid sirens to alert the citizenry of Manbearpig. Why raise Algore to any level of credibility at all? Why go throught the intellectual hysterics? Why pretend Algore is nothing more than a has been wannabe green cult guru fraud?
Go into your tizzy if you must. Green old moldy perverts like Algore don’t excite me.
[Reply: Note that your mild criticism has not been ‘memory holed’, and is responded to here.☺ ~dbs, mod.]
Today we are engaged in a great Civil War of testing whether our nation, or any nation, conceived in liberty and individual freedom, can long endure the calls to “save the planet” through strong government and world government to better control the use of energy, land, and air by constraining the freedom of its subjects……………….We must make it obvious to all observers the skeptics’ side in the climate debate is fighting against slavery of billions of people………
World government? Slavery of millions? Sorry Anthony, while I accept your point that Al Gore is behaving very strangely and we must keep up the struggle for truth, the quotes above seem way over the top and seem to be a mixture of far right Tea party politics and a longing for the triumphs of revolutionary America. Such comments do not resonate outside US politics and as we are engaged in a much more universal debate than that, can we be a bit more objective about climate change and leave the hard right fantasises out of the debate?