It’s been long time since I featured one of these, but this one from James Delingpole’s blog really hit home for me. This comment from Amanda was about my exposing the video produced by Al Gore.
Amanda
In my dad’s words: ‘GORE AND THE GANG’….
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I forwarded the link to WUWT and Watts’s ‘re-enactment’ to my father. Dad, bless him, saw An Inconvenient Truth and has been firmly in the combat-global-warming camp for ages.
He told me that he was very impressed with the detail and painstaking correctness of Watt’s reconstruction. What he was not impressed by was the original experiment and Al Gore. In addition, he mentioned to me ‘that bunch in Norfolk’, even though I didn’t bring them up myself.
When someone like my dad (a mechanical engineer, now retired, and a man that does not like to be manipulated or hoodwinked) finally calls these scientists ‘bums’, then you know there’s trouble afoot.*
His last comment to me was ‘Presumably, Gore and the gang will respond in depth to this. If they remain silent, that of itself, will tell us enough’.
*His actual words, which are beautiful to me: ‘Golly, that man went to a lot of trouble to investigate those video clips. As you say, very smart set of deductions. Something like that, when exposed, then makes one wonder about some of the other basic assumptions. It is too bad, in a way, and reminds me of that bunch in Norfolk who were supposedly the custodians of climatic data, and the bums fudged /suppressed data – not good for so-called scientists. That act alone, undermines what folks were trying to achieve in terms of mitigating global warming’.
Of course, I myself am not convinced about the ‘global warming’, and specifically that it is man-made, much less that we should hobble our political freedoms and economic powers in a likely fruitless attempt to remedy it. But for someone like my dad, this is a major statement of newfound skepticism. And I am certain, in his case and for many millions of other people, it is only the beginning.
That my friends, is enlightenment, and is the best tribute I could ever have.
This is what i post on Delingpole article (uk centric stuff but thought id share).
Very well said. However, lets not kid ourselves the ‘beleivers’ will see reason in the face of counterwailing empirical evidence anytime soon. In the UK we have signed up to spend £18 Billion per year, for forty years on tackling ‘climate change’. Thats 60% of our spend on the Military for heavens sake, and in total enough to wipe the national debt. That is a lot of incentive to beleive in/ find evidence for the end of the world. Someone somewhere has a very healthy bank balance . Thats also a lot of careers and livelihoods dependent upon this premise, which will be defended to the last. This is at a time when we have a world debt crisis 10% joblessness and cuts everywhere! Perhaps ive misjudged it all and its really a massive keynsian job creation scheme for middle class graduates in combined globalization and geography who are otherwise unemployable on account of ther ‘dubstep’ hair.
Am i the only one that finds that it borders on parody that we have a ‘ministry for climate change’, the met office is now the ‘met office for weather and climate change’ and the Conservative party logo has become a green tree?! Im not a Conservative, so i suppose at least I can let the last bit raise a smile
As my old mentor used to say: “That was 2/3 of a pun. P U”
Please throw a nerf ball at yourself. (My teleporting super long range nerf thrower is in the shop.)
Over on the EPA thread, I suggested:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/09/28/epa-rules-and-how-they-dont-follow-their-own/#comment-754985
/Mr Lynn
Thank you everyone for your kind comments, and thank you, Anthony Watts!
Smokey says: (in response to Daniel Vogler)
September 29, 2011 at 1:53 am
“No other alarmist blog comes close.”
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My bold. While I realize your intent, the word ‘other’ causes a mind-blink. The result is that you imply WUWT is an alarmist blog.
Prior to this in your comment you suggest that awards and unique hits imply credibility. While a common enough idea, this won’t win-over those trying “to denigrate WUWT.” There are uninformed comments made here and a person that finds just one can grasp it like a floundering swimmer would grasp a flotation vest.
You might ask the someone you refer to in your comment to select his or her favorite blog-source of climate change information. Then go to that site, find statements not agreeing with solid science, and point these out to the person. They, then, will have to absorb the information and adjust (or not) their mind. Cognitive dissonance can be your friend in this, and their bane or mental burden.
John F. Hultquist,
You’re right, I should not have written “other.” My mistake.
I’ve tried posting on alarmist blogs plenty, but I no longer bother because most of them heavily censor or deviously edit credible skeptical arguments.
Also, to a large extent the awards and numerous hits and comments do enhance WUWT’s popularity. By allowing all points of view, traffic increases. There is a connection between uncensored scientific discourse and credibility.
Finally, there will always be uninformed comments on any blog. But when there is no censorship, comments that are wrong are quickly corrected by others. When I comment, it isn’t only for the person I’m responding to, it is intended to allow WUWT’s wide readership to individually decide for themselves who is more credible, and what the truth of the matter is.
That’s why blogs like realclimate are not popular. When people are censored, they tend to lose interest, and they migrate to sites where they are allowed to post comments unmolested by the moderators. And through the back and forth of those uncensored discussions, the truth is winnowed from bogus claims like wheat from chaff.
That is why the alarmist crowd hates WUWT. By providing a forum for open discussion the truth is getting out, and they don’t like it. They’re losing control of their narrative, and they can no longer frame the arguments the way they want.
Let’s see, over the past 10 to 20 years something near $70bn has been spent trying to demonstrate the evils of AGW. I imagine some of this $70bn (maybe spillage from big Al’s deep pockets) found its way into Al Gore’s “high school physics” experiment, which when documented in video format had to be rigged. I don’t have $70bn, but I’m happy to contribute what money I can to fund Anthony’s exposure of the “dog and pony show” that is AGW.
Ian W says:
September 29, 2011 at 2:55 am
Jeff Mitchell says:
September 28, 2011 at 7:24 pm
……..Glenn Reynolds of instapundit.com always says he’ll believe the warmists when they start acting like there is an emergency. So far, Gore flunks that test magnificently.
……This is a point that I have tried to make.
…Imagine a group were using devices that was creating emissions that once above a certain ‘tipping point’ level would cause the destruction of the world and that the emissions .are getting ever closer to that tipping point level. ………
Ian I would leave out about preventing the use and taxing, and say that you would expect the people who are point out how damaging the devices are, should stop using them.
Clearly the whole “you can do this at home” thing is based on the knowledge that nobody will. Why should they? They just watched someone ELSE do it. And nobody on TV would ever lie, right? Well, except right-side politicians.
We have raised a generation even more gullible than the last. They believe what is on the internet, what they see on TV, and what they read in magazines, even though all 3 things I just mentioned are breathtakingly easy to manipulate.
The concept is simple… tell people something. Even if it’s a lie, they will remember what they were told over and above any correction or retraction. I used to have a friend that used that technique to pick up girls. I still remember the one that insisted on calling him “Doctor”.
Given the gravity of the recommendations/demands/arbitrary government programs which spin off from accepting the AGW proposition, I’m not so sure about that. People have a duty to themselves and their families and their societies to take serious issues with huge consequences seriously. Deferring to anonymous scientists, particularly when said scientists are saying not to read or consider opposing views, is very blameworthy laziness and negligence, IMO.
It’s true about the vinegar (acid) and chalk (calcium carbonate). But, once dissolved, it is more readily available to the Foraminifera and diatoms etc. who build shells in the first place. In other words, a little acidification speeds up the life cycling the mineral in the water column, far from “damaging” it.
Why should we believe that? Just because you said it? On the internet?
;p