From the agenda of the 2011 Geological Society of America Annual Meeting in Minneapolis (9–12 October 2011)
CLIMATE SCIENTISTS IN THE PUBLIC ARENA: WHO’S GOT OUR BACKS?
MANN, Michael E., Dept. of Meteorology and Earth and Environ. Systems Institute, Penn State University, Walker Building, University Park, PA 16827
Climate scientists have an important role to play in informing the public discourse on human-caused climate change. Our scientific expertise provides us a unique, informed perspective, and despite recent high profile attacks against climate science, the public still affords climate scientists the greatest trust to deliver an honest, unbiased assessment of the potential threats posed by climate changes. Yet, as with all areas of science where powerful special interests perceive themselves as threatened by the findings of science, scientists enter the public fray at our peril.
Our efforts to communicate the science are opposed by a well-funded, highly organized disinformation effort that aims to confuse the public about the nature of our scientific understanding.
…
Scientists are massively out-funded and outmanned in this battle, and will lose if leading scientific institutions and organizations remain on the sidelines. I will discuss this dilemma, drawing upon my own experiences in the public arena of climate change.
h/t Tom Nelson
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I’m sorry Dr. Mann, just one look at the cash cow your buddy James Hansen gets, and what you got via the recent stimulus funding tell me your claims of being “out-funded” are pure fantasy. Even the Wall Street Journal took note:
As for stimulus jobs—whether “saved” or “created”—we thought readers might be interested to know whose employment they are sustaining. More than $2.4 million is stimulating the career of none other than Penn State climate scientist Michael Mann.
And, what happened to it being about the science, and not the money?
A few points via Jo Nova
- The US government has provided over $79 billion since 1989 on policies related to climate change, including science and technology research, foreign aid, and tax breaks.
- Despite the billions: “audits” of the science are left to unpaid volunteers. A dedicated but largely uncoordinated grassroots movement of scientists has sprung up around the globe to test the integrity of the theory and compete with a well funded highly organized climate monopoly. They have exposed major errors.
- Carbon trading worldwide reached $126 billion in 2008. Banks are calling for more carbon-trading. And experts are predicting the carbon market will reach $2 – $10 trillion making carbon the largest single commodity traded.
- Meanwhile in a distracting sideshow, Exxon-Mobil Corp is repeatedly attacked for paying a grand total of $23 million to skeptics—less than a thousandth of what the US government has put in, and less than one five-thousandth of the value of carbon trading in just the single year of 2008.
- The large expenditure in search of a connection between carbon and climate creates enormous momentum and a powerful set of vested interests. By pouring so much money into one theory, have we inadvertently created a self-fulfilling prophesy instead of an unbiased investigation?
Full report here:
Maybe need a separate page here to list all of the pro CAGW funding !!
Surely these warmest know they are lying about mankind’s contribution to the myth of global warming and its effect on the planet’s atmosphere and yet they gamble with billions of dollars and the pseudo politico scientists grab even more dollars to continue their lies and line their pockets with ill gotten gains and it has got to stop and sooner rather than later. The Gore-Mann-Hansen-Jones et al manbearpig is due for a roasting.
Oh Yes!
Stop whining, Michael Mann. You sound EXACTLY like a two-bit layperson reciting the meme in a blog post. Not very becoming I must say.
As far as I can tell, the massive, well-organized disinformation campaign consists of a few blogs and some hot air from politicians. Where is all the TV time? The best-selling books? The prize-winning documentaries? Oh, wait…
The climate alarmists must be really incompetent if they’re losing to a nearly invisible PR campaign.
I seriously wonder what color the sky is in Mann’s world… literally, what color? Here in my world, it’s blue due to H2O… what color is CO2?
Mann apparently isn’t even aware that he’s been outed and discredited, and is known to millions as a charlatan and a fraud. And it seems unlikely that he could possibly still believe the junk “science” he’s peddling.
shell & BP have been funding CRU for decades, see here yet more rubbish from mann made good, nasty
To translate from Hebrew saying:
Tears of the Aligator.
Facts are stubborn things requiring great effort to overcome. Thus, these experts (Mann and “The Team”) have job security. I don’t mean tenure, although I suspect they all do have that. I mean they are funded to produce ever more outlandish models, using undecipherable methods, questionable data, and tendentious reasoning.
Can we call them to the carpet about the claim of well-funded, highly organized disinformation campaign? Make them back that up. Show is the money. Show us the conspiracy.
Put up or shut up.
These are just inconvenient facts… nothing to see here, move along please.
“the public still affords climate scientists the greatest trust”
That public does not include the British Prime Minister David Cameron, who in his final Conference address to the Conservative Party today managed not to mention climate change in his 50 minute speech which covered almost every facet of government.
His only reference that obliquely touched the subject was “green engineering” in a long list of areas of oportunity to trade our way up from the slough of stagnation that is our economy today.
JUST TWO WORDS!
Not yet full blooded denial on his part , but methinks I heard a cockerel stirring in his sleep and perhaps clearing his throat in preparation for three loud crows in a fast approaching dawn.
How do you find the words to describe this guy’s delusions? If he’s not deluded, and he knows only too well the reality of the situation, then his cynicism and capacity for lying is so dark I don’t even want to think about it. He has run this narrative before, yet never provided any evidence to support it. What has reduced him and the Team to laughing stock status on numerous occasions is not a “well-funded, highly organized disinformation effort” of his fantasies, but the complete and utter opposite – the diligent number-crunching of unorganized bloggers whose only source of “funding” is a tip-jar.
An old Fawlty Towers quote comes to mind in which a psychiatrist says of Basil:- “there’s enough material there for an entire conference”.
Anthony, this must have come as quite a shock to you to find out how well funded you are! What do you plan on doing with your newly found funding?
[ “Mann, it’s like like a bad episode of the Matrix” ] Ha Ha Ha Ha
Dr Mann…if you tried using such logic to your wife / girl friend, when caught – she’d knock you to the floor. 🙂
Let’s see Exxon-Mobil has dished out about $100 million to the Global Climate and Energy Project at Stanford University, BP dished out about $20 to Princeton. So where does this leave the meme that the fossil fuel industry is leading a disinformation effort?
As to the skeptics are the “a well-funded, highly organized disinformtion effort”???
Well, I thought that the name of that organization was the IPCC, which is hardly a skeptically led effort.
Let’s admit that science is settled, that’s no absurdity, since it’s all cheer reviewed.
But if climate change is undisputably anthropogenic, then every penny given to climate research is wasted money.
We know it all already.
So it’s time to act!
Give the all the money to Solyndrians, or else the world gets it, ok fella?
Over the last 2 weeks I have noticed a huge increase in the pro-agw articles being listed in the Google science news section. Most but not all of these comment on the “deniers” and how horrid they are for confusing the public. The only thing I can think of is that is has to do with the political campaign or that there is a concerted effort to hype up the theory before negatives come to light with the Mann case and the EPA spanking, or maybe a combination of both. What I can say for sure is that there is only 1 article to every 20 against CAGW. Even though science may prevail one day on this subject will we ever know?
It saddens me to think that science has become a political religion yet again.
Please don’t post that picture before lunch time. Totally ruins my appetite.
Every time I read anything produced by Mann, including his legal pleadings in the UVA FOI case, I just can’t get my head round how deluded and hubristic this man is.
I think he actually believes that he is brilliant.
Go figure.
Click onto the headline and you get the GSA pre-print or whatever it is, where Mann says “These attacks are rarely fought in legitimate scientific circles such as the peer-reviewed scientific literature “. No, because Mann and the Team keep out as much as they can; shout down, rather than legitimately fight out the arguments; make editors resign; wheel up instant peer reviewed rebuttal papers. Mann’s problem is he doesn’t want to fight the attacks, he doesn’t want to prove detractors wrong, and doesn’t want to argue his case. He just wants everyone who disagrees to shut up and go away. If he had wanted to fight the attacks ….. in the peer reviewed literature, why wouldn’t he have disclosed his code and everything else, so that people could see exactly what he had done, and, perhaps, he would have had the pleasure of seeing them all eat humble pie, admitting that old Mikey was right all along. But he just didn’t do that.
The Mann lies willfully and with seeming impunity; he must feel invincible after his “exonerations”. It is one thing to wage intellectual war over obscure and dubious scientific and statistical methods. It is a completely different thing to make claims not related to science that are easily investigated, understood by the layman, and easily refuted. It is rather elementary to lay out comparative funding for the “consensus” faction side by side with funding for the skeptical faction. And yet Mann shows only offensive strategy, sort of like the Germans at the Battle of the Bulge. Throw everything you have at the enemy under heavy overcast weather conditions and in spite of a severe fuel shortage. Make rapid gains for a short time. Then their fuel runs out and the skies clear. Exposed to overwhelming Allied air supremacy. Kaput.
He knows exactly what he’s doing – don’t fool yourselves for one second that he doesn’t. Whatever one’s feelings about the man (it is my opinion that he massages the data in whatever way he sees fit to support his intended outcome… but that’s just my opinion ;), you should admire his ability to stick to the maxim, “A good defense is a strong offense”. He just keeps plugging away – sue this, complain about that, imply the other. He’s very good. Wrong, but very good.
I suspect that Mann cannot even spell ‘junk’.
That’s as in ‘science’ (for the avoidance of doubt).
Did Denial Inc. also hide the missing heat?
Mann’s statement is beyond parody.
Joseph would be proud.
The collapse of the Carbon market after it was touted to become the largest by 2020 for me suggests that ordinary citizens are not buying the propaganda. Mann can go on forever but should note that even Obama the great cheerleader has begun to understand that he was cheering US jobs away. AGW proponents must know that there is a limit to how far propaganda can get them. You need to back it up with the science
Mann is like any other over paid, sleazy bureaucrat or politician who’s entire approach to everything involves perpetual adolescent behavior and chronic dishonesty.
However, just as many here in Oregon are facing the growing turmoil of the Internet exposing them to the masses for what they are, Mann is ramping up his misbehavior and whoppers.
In this case he is scurrilously attempting to (again) misrepresent the grass roots, shoe string budget skeptics as exactly what his own alarmists ilk are.
How typical. I see this same stunt occurring more every day here in Oregon.
Caught officials trying to repel the inevitable with any sleaze they can cough up.
But I am amazed at how easy it is becoming for even a single person to thwart their efforts.
It is taking very little time and essentiall no money to do bring damage to their schemes.
In some respects Freedom is becoming nearly Free and the scoundrels just can’t stand it that regular people can interupt their plans.
Used to be that the GSA was about geology. But I guess that was a long time ago.
Like I said on the Dr Hansen post, enjoy all your money Dr Mann because history will last a lot longer and boy I don’t think you’ll be going down in the history books as a leading light in the science world, more a seller of souls to the great green back (No not That Baron Greenback).
I think this is just all part of a big PR push that Mann has going on right now. I’d love to know who is paying for all of his PR strategy. He is now operating a lot like advocacy groups like WWF and Greenpeace — use controversy as an opportunity for fund raising. We know he is fund raising for his legal fees. The question is: did he set up a non-profit organization such that he can raise money for political advocacy as well.
The greatest damage done to AGW has been done by the climate scientists themselves. Big oil didn’t write the climategate emails, they don’t force you to make mistakes in your science, they don’t force journals to not publish disenting work. They don’t force you claim you predicted the snow and cold, when you didn’t. But the average Joe is not stupid, no matter what they think, and can smell BS when it happenes.
The second most damage has been done by mother nature not following your precious models. You can claim how smart you are endlessly, but everyone can plainly see your models don’t work.
Number three on the list of damages, is people like Watts, M and M, and other unpaid volunteers who are nice enough to actually double check your work, since you can’t be bothered, and find all those “accidental” mistakes that make your work more alarming.
Mann, is just an egomainiac who can’t imagine why anyone would disagree with him unless they were paid to do it.
“….opposed by a well-funded, highly organized disinformation effort that aims to confuse the public about the nature of our scientific understanding.”
Mann does a nice job of regurgitating a variation of the words from the inside dust jacket sleeve of anti-skeptic book author Ross Gelbspan’s 1997 “The Heat is On”. Mann said of Gelbspan over at RealClimate ( http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/10/climate-cover-up-a-brief-review/ ), “Ross Gelbspan who has set the standard for investigative reporting when it comes to the climate change denial campaign…”
And in a 2003 ClimateGate email ( http://web.archive.org/web/20100922180431/http://eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=365&filename=1065206624.txt ), Mann said this in response to an inquiry for rebuttal to criticism by the Idsos: “An objective reading of our manuscript would readily reveal that the comments you refer to are scurrilous. These comments have not been made by scientists in the peer-reviewed literature, but rather, on a website that, according to published accounts, is run by individuals sponsored by ExxonMobile corportation, hardly an objective source of information.”
Entertaining how a Time magazine article out only yesterday titled “Who’s Bankrolling the Climate-Change Deniers?” ( http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2096055,00.html ) says, “climate denialism exists in part because there has been a long-term, well-financed effort on the part of conservative groups and corporations to distort global-warming science”.
Back in 2009 at a HuffPo op-ed (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-kerry/facts-are-stubborn-things_b_170657.html ), Senator John Kerry said, “A highly organized, well-funded movement to deny the reality of global climate change has been up and running for a long time..”
Just goes to show ya, Mann got the memo……….
[snip – over the top on Dr. Mann – Anthony]
Mann (I refuse to give him the honor of the title Dr. since he does not deserve it) stated
“…the public still affords climate scientists the greatest trust to deliver an honest, unbiased assessment of the potential threats posed by climate changes….”
And another easily proven lie from his mouth:
69% Say It’s Likely Scientists Have Falsified Global Warming Research
Wednesday, August 03, 2011
…While a majority of Americans nationwide continue to acknowledge significant disagreement about global warming in the scientific community, most go even further to say some scientists falsify data to support their own beliefs….
Update as of today
61% Say Global Warming Serious Problem
Most voters continue to believe global warming is a serious problem, but they still have mixed views on what the primary cause of climate change is….
And the Gallup Polls (March 11, 2010)
“>Americans’ Global Warming Concerns Continue to Drop
Multiple indicators show less concern, more feelings that global warming is exaggerated
Gallup’s annual update on Americans’ attitudes toward the environment shows a public that over the last two years has become less worried about the threat of global warming, less convinced that its effects are already happening, and more likely to believe that scientists themselves are uncertain about its occurrence. In response to one key question, 48% of Americans now believe that the seriousness of global warming is generally exaggerated, up from 41% in 2009 and 31% in 1997, when Gallup first asked the question….”
Even this biased report shows CAGW is losing ground.
August 26, 2011
http://www.gallup.com/poll/149207/World-Top-Emitters-No-Aware-Climate-Change-2010.aspx?ref=more“>World’s Top-Emitters No More Aware of Climate Change in 2010
Sizable numbers at least partly blame humans
by Julie Ray and Anita Pugliese
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Residents in the top five greenhouse gas-emitting countries are no more aware of global warming or climate change than they were a few years ago. Majorities in all five countries Gallup surveyed in 2010 — except India — continue to say they know at least something about the issue.
….Over the past several years, international leaders have unsuccessfully tried to hash out a climate deal before the Kyoto protocol expires in 2012. Meetings later this year are not expected to result in a new deal. Japan, Russia, and the U.S. recently confirmed they would not join a new Kyoto agreement and China and India contend that developed nations should act first…..
“…Although the U.S. never signed on to the Kyoto protocol, like the Japanese, most Americans (96%) are aware of global warming and climate change. While their knowledge level has not changed in the past few years, the threat Americans feel from global warming has dissipated. Fifty-five percent of Americans who are aware of climate change view it as a serious personal threat, down from 64% in 2007 and 2008. They are also now less likely to attribute global warming to human causes, but half (50%) still at least partly blame humans….”
Mann’s easily verified lies in this report are not going to improve the standing of Climate Scientists especially as people are waking up to the fact that their leaders are selling off their children’s futures to the highest bidder. A crashed economy is a really big wake-up call from the green dreams many were lulled into.
OOPS, the link was http://www.gallup.com/poll/126560/americans-global-warming-concerns-continue-drop.aspx for Americans’ Global Warming Concerns Continue to Drop
I thought us climate change [D-Word]* were supposed to be the ones who believed in a grand global warming conspiracy. Turns out it’s the true believers who have a conspiracy against them!
* Dissidents
Looks like Mann’s moment is coming.
John O’Sullivan: Michael ‘Climategate’ Mann Suffers Three Legal Blows in Court Escapade
Posted by Co2sceptic on Oct 4th 2011
http://m.climaterealists.com/?id=8439
It’s likely that this same argument was used by activists trying to persuade the world’s scientific societies to endorse Global Warming-Alarmism (GWA), and that it was very successful. It is a variation of “Which Side Are You On?”
I never received a penny for my public service!
Ecotretas
“Scientists are massively out-funded and outmanned in this battle, and will lose if leading scientific institutions and organizations remain on the sidelines. I will discuss this dilemma, drawing upon my own experiences in the public arena of climate change.”
Outfunded? Outmanned? You’ve got to be joking!
The real truth here is his statement “…and will lose if leading scientific institutions and organizations remain on the sidelines.” Basically, he knows that the game is up and public funding for climate “science” will be drying up starting next year. So he’s going on the offensive to try to stem the funding losses. His attempt at trying to sound like a reasonable scientist is pretty pathetic, really.
But enough of that … onto the big questions!
Q: CLIMATE SCIENTISTS IN THE PUBLIC ARENA: WHOS GOT OUR BACKS?
A: Ben “beat ’em up in a dark alley” Santer, of course!
Surely, if the science is settled, future research is pointless and we can stop funding those scientists who make the claim!
If you tell a lie often enough…
Winners never whine, whiners never win…neener..neener:)
mpaul says:
October 5, 2011 at 10:00 am
“I think this is just all part of a big PR push that Mann has going on right now. I’d love to know who is paying for all of his PR strategy. ”
Soros’ OSI via TIDES, would be my guess.
I laughed when I read the whining statement “scientists enter the public fray at our peril”. Being asked to show your work is not an attack. Unless you’re a magician … or a forger (and I don’t mean pig iron).
Frank K. says: @ October 5, 2011 at 10:38 am
But enough of that … onto the big questions!
Q: CLIMATE SCIENTISTS IN THE PUBLIC ARENA: WHOS GOT OUR BACKS?
A: Ben “beat ‘em up in a dark alley” Santer, of course!
_________________________________________________________________
Of Course since it is a DARK alley he might find it was the wrong CAGW skeptic he was about to pick on and find it is Hurricane Joe: http://www.vanityfair.com/online/oscars/2011/02/joe-bastardi-explains-why-the-cold-miser-is-winning-the-climate-change-showdown/_jcr_content/par/cn_contentwell/par-main/cn_blogpost/cn_float_container/cn_image_0.size.bastardi-460.jpg
I saw the heading Who’s got our backs? and presumed the typist had put the ‘a’ in by mistake.
Here’s a re-posting of a slightly edited version of my Notes From Skull Island:
Brian Martin, in his wonderful online booklet Strip the Experts, wrote that if your opponents:
This line of attack on skeptics has been very successful for the warmists in the past, which is why they constantly recur to it. But the recent skeptical attack has been mostly an indignant, blogger-led populist revolt against increased and unnecessary taxation and regulation (fewer barbecues, etc.) and against elitist presumption.
If our side were well funded and well organized, it would have the following characteristics:
1. There’d be a slick umbrella site like HufPo under which all dissident bloggers could shelter, cutting their costs, increasing ad revenue, and simplifying and standardizing the process of surfing the deviationist blogosphere, especially for visiting journalists. The effect would be to considerably “amplify” the dissenters’ voices.
2. Failing that, there’d be enough $ for individual sites to ensure that, for instance, Climate Audit would have been able to handle to traffic-surge in the wake of Climategate, instead of being overwhelmed. (How’s that unpreparedness agree with “well organized”?)
3. There’d be a PR agency to “package” stories emerging from the blogosphere and articles in scientific journals or contrarian columnists and feed them to media sources in easy-to-read, pre-edited form. (Or at least an unincorporated online network of funded individuals performing a PR function.) This is a topic that is so complex and filled with jargon that it desperately needs such pre-chewing to get the MSM to swallow it. But what do we have? Only Climate Depot, which provides leads, but no packaging.
4. There’d be a centralized, regularly updated, annotated, topically divided, web-wide index of useful “ammo” skeptical or skeptic-supporting articles. If I, or anyone, were cat-herder in chief, this would be one of the top items on the agenda.
5. There’d be a REPOSITORY for “quotes of the day” from blog commenters. (These get lost in the noise after a week or so otherwise.) Here’s an example, from Willis:
6. There’d be extensive book tours for every skeptical book published, to gain exposure in multiple markets via interviews in the local press, etc. Such tours could be extended for many months, well beyond any rational “payback” in book sales, if the real aim were to get media exposure – for instance by challenging local warmists to debates on the premises of the newspaper or broadcaster, etc. The funding for such a tour could easily be concealed.
7. Certain fringe or off-topic comments would be “moderated” out, because they step on people’s toes and don’t play well in Peoria. E.g., New World Order theorizing, bolshy bashing, boot-the-UN and tar-and-feather-‘em remarks, and most attribution-of-motives comments. Populist “venting” of all sorts would be toned down; instead the stress would be on sweet reasonableness and out-reaching to the average citizen and opinion-leader. Any media pro would advise that course, especially one with a big funder behind him (who wouldn’t want to be tarred by association with tin-foil-hat opinions (if news of a link ever came out)). Such a “mainstream” tone and mindset would be the fingerprint of any top-down campaign on a scientific topic.
8. Not only would there be more stylistic similarity, but the content would be less idiosyncratic as well. There’d be evidence of a “script” or list of talking points that skeptic commenters were following, instead of the typical home-brew assemblage of arguments.
9. There’d be an astro-turfed tag-team of high-stamina commenters assigned to Win the War for Wikipedia by out-shouting and out-censoring Connolley and Co. They’d also go en masse to Amazon and give warmist books a thumbs-down and engage in comment-combats there as well. But the dissenters in such venues have been an outnumbered, disorganized rabble.
10. There’d be much more stress on arguments that would move the masses and that don’t take a degree to understand. I.e., arguments about the costliness, technical impracticality, and political unenforceability of mitigation strategies, and about the ineffectiveness of massive CO2 emission-reduction in the atmosphere even if all those obstacles were of no account.
If skeptics were truly Machiavellian, or guided by political “pros” behind the scenes, they’d be hitting these popular hot buttons. Those are where the warmists’ case is shakiest — and it’s always a good strategy to focus on the opponents’ weakest points and pound on them endlessly. Instead, these topics make up only 10% or so of the skeptical thrust. Most dissenters devote most of their energy to talking about weather events, dissing believers, and arguing about technical and scientific matters.
11. There’d be an extensive online collection of opposition research, such as warmist predictions waiting to be shot down by contrary events. Such opposition research is so valuable a tactic (as is now being shown) that no political or PR consultant would have failed to insist on it.
E.g., a score of warmist predictions of less snowfall would have been at hand to counter Gore’s claim that the models predicted more snowfall. Similarly, the IPCC’s Assessment Reports would have been scoured for flaws and nits long ago. Instead, it wasn’t until Glaciergate that we got on its case in any semi-organized fashion.
12. There’d be an online point-by-point rebuttal of all the “How to Talk to A Skeptic” talking points, not just scattered counterpoints to a few of them. And there’d be a Wikipedia discussing those points and more in fuller detail. Lucy Skywalker is trying to assemble these, but it’s obviously an unfunded effort.
13. The Oregon Petition Project would have been handled professionally. I.e., there’d have been no short-sighted tactics such as use of NAS-lookalike typography, no claim that the signers constituted “a meaningful representation” (let alone that the consensus was on the skeptics’ side), no claim that all the signers were scientists (when some were technologists and dentists, etc.), and no implication that the signers had all been vetted. A skilled propagandist, such as one hired by King Coal, would have avoided such a transparent over-reaching, which threw away the petition’s effectiveness by handing the opposition a chance to counterpunch effectively.
14. There’d be a place for the reposting of the “highlights” of WUWT and other skeptic sites, and also such sites would have editors who would retroactively (after a month or so) work on a “sister site” consisting of “Highlights of WUWT,” in which outstanding paragraphs would be flagged and/or highlighted. This would make it easier for newcomers and journalists to effectively skim it and notice our better arguments and facts.
Such editorial work could be done by people who have good judgment and lots of knowledge of the issues, like Pamela Gray, Lucy Skywalker, etc.
15. There’d be a reposting of “negative highlights” from warmists’ sites in which the unsavory qualities of their leading lights and hatchetmen were on display. Call it, maybe, “Quoted Without Comment” or “Get a Load of This.” It would make an impact on fence-sitters.
16. There’d be a spiffy ad campaign consisting of short spots (20 to 40 seconds) that would focus on making one quick jab at the warmists. There should be a standard format for these ads, such as a common tag-line, music, lead-in, graphics style, etc. The touch should be light, with the aim of making the spots entertaining, such as by including little bits of silly rhymes, etc. The ads should also be “different,” to get around viewers’ defenses, and to make the message “sticky.” Care should be taken to avoid overstatement, and to make qualifications where necessary, to forestall counterpunches.
One easy target, because of its good “visuals” and absence of technical obscurity, would be to show non-performing wind turbines and weed-overgrown solar-panel farms. The failure of these ventures (relative to the promises that were made about them), and the fraud associated with them abroad, would be a benchmark against which other swarmist claims could be judged.
17. There’d be a copy editing & peer review service to vet our side’s books prior to publication, since any flubs will be seized on by warmists to discredit the entire work, as happened to Plimer’s book. Instead, dissenting books continue to be produced in an amateurish fashion. For instance, in Steve Goreham’s just-out (and excellent) Climatism!, I found two obvious spelling errors in just an hour’s skimming. (“Forego” for “forgo” and “principle” used where “principal” was needed.)
Big Oil? Baby Oil is more like it. Ologeneous overlords? My companions and I on Skull Island laugh until we vomit.
Mann:
“…the public still affords climate scientists the greatest trust to deliver an honest, unbiased assessment of the potential threats posed by climate changes.”
Mann should check the stats (and his premise) with Rasmussen:
“69% Say It’s Likely Scientists Have Falsified Global Warming Research”
See http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/environment_energy/69_say_it_s_likely_scientists_have_falsified_global_warming_research
Looks like John’s article was picked up by these guys:
http://www.omsj.org/corruption/michael-%e2%80%98climategate%e2%80%99-mann-suffers-three-legal-blows-in-court-escapade
Take care who’s fingers you step on in the journey of life.
Mann should switch gears careers and write fiction novels. Or maybe work for a PR firm making up spin stories for politicians caught doing stuff they shouldn’t be doing and need a great line to run the innocent scam . . . ” I did NOT have sexual relations with that tree ring”
Quite the imagination.
What always gets left out all the hype about who is funding who in this controversy, I can’t really call it a debate, is the trillions in “in-kind” aid provided to the warmist side by worldwide information and entertainment media. Broadcast and cable TV news, newspapers, films and TV entertainment programming and virtually every other major element of the information spectrum have been pimping the alarmist viewpoint for decades, often in a much more hyperbolic and hysterical manner than even Gore or Hansen would attempt. Corporations, seeing which way the herd was moving, felt compelled to overlay the “green” message on their marketing campaigns and corporate structures rather than face the PR disaster of being perceived as not being properly concerned about “saving the planet”. In terms of marketing the ideas this all adds up , not to millions or even billions, but to trillions of dollars of free advocacy.
Anthony can be rightfully proud of having the world’s most viewed climate site, but even his seemingly impressive daily hit count is dwarfed by the number of viewers for a nightly newscast on a local TV station in any midsize metro market. He may still be beating Olby on Algore’s CurrentTV network, I haven’t checked lately, but the battle between the catastrophists and the skeptics has always been an elephant versus an ant. The fact that they are still losing it so badly is positive proof of the terrible job that they’ ve done with both their science and their logic.
Speaking of the “jobs saved/created” stimulus: I just turned in my report where I’m happy to announce that 4.4% of my job was saved. (It would have been less if I didn’t [luckily] have the paperwork to fill out).
The least we could do is turn his little hurricane around….
…might as well have it spinning the wrong way too
In other words, if leading scientific organizations remain neutral, true science will eventually prevail and false science will lose. That is the last thing Mann and his cronies want to happen. The idea that “scientists are unbiased observers who use the scientific method to conclusively confirm and conclusively falsify various theories” is being destroyed by the politics involved in government funding of the sciences.
Methinks (Mann) doth protest too much.
His actions are so over-the-top that they are counter-productive. He actually increases the audience for his detractors. Between believing the doubtful, hiding the basis of his work at incredible cost in money, effort, and credibility, and instantly publicly threatening anyone that publicly disagrees with him with lawsuits, IMHO, the man has psychological problems. When the pressure gets too great he may crack, embarrassing a whole hoard of people. He’s getting close.
The gall of the Mann. He attempts to take the moral highground:
translation: we are the high priests – mere mortals do not have the intellect to comprehend what we comprehend.
Unbiased – puhlease! Honest – well, show us your data, Mann!
And the coup-de-grace:
Playing the underdog card. Wow. Just wow.
I think Mann just outmanned himself.
I see it snowed this morning on the hills to the Southeast of me, and on the mountains to my West. I take this to be more Mann-made coldwarm coming from the Gulf of Alaska, possibly a sign of maturing global warming ?
Mann will go down in history as a BIGGER FRAUD than those that found the “piltdown man:”!
We know the “manmade global warming” idea has been around well be fore Mann98. Schneider had inhereted this idea, and passed it on to Mann. This idea has long been seen as a money-maker. Ken Lay had a major role in developing the carbon-trading idea, if only it could be “sold” broadly to countries internationally.
The money-making scheme goes like this:
First, bankroll a bunch of researchers to inbvestigate the threats of “global climate change.” All over the place, the “change” is addressed as if it is a done deal. That way, it seems like academics ar just responding to some observed phenomenon.
With the legitimacy of this science to now go an sell, there are a couple “get in while the gettin is good,” “get in on the ground floor” scams. We are all vulnerable.
One is: carbon trading. Every country saw the green, and saw their country as the one to make money. Most countries are able, by fiat, to drop energy use. Certainly drop 5% lower than the previous year. Plenty of ways to do this.
So, everyone who signed on had the dream of raking in big bucks when they sold their credits. That idea was very big money. Who is gonna buy in knowing they will be the credit-buyer? So, that market would have had few buyers and lots of sellers. Who wins? The funded scientists and the deal brokers,
The second idea is underway: pushing green investment by countries. This can be in two forms:
First: go green. Get butane vehicles, solar panels, etc.
Second: throw your investment capital into the “green” economy. The profiteers went to the U.N. and sold them on this idea. The United Nations developed the UNPRI “UN Principles of Responsible Investing.” Go look up UNPRI. Basically, the UN goes to each country, and says, “Hey, invest in green.” They use the “get in on the ground floor” idea again. So, whether manmade global warming is true or not, each country stands to make money AS LONG AS THE GREEN IDEA CARRIES ON. So, each country one-by-one gets bought-over to want AGW to be true. Or at least true enough to ensure lively green business is going on. UNPRI has all of this info on their website.
So, nation by nation, each nation’s favor is bought thru the get-in-on-the-ground-floor idea. Of course, the money managers for the various nations are not trained scientists, and so the legitimacy of IPCC is convincing.
It is recognized that the BBC has their retirement funds invested heavily in green. What do you think they will portray in the news?
You can use Al Gore and his company “Generations Investment Management, LLC” as your broker. That is big big money: they claim $5 Billion in assets managed.
Folks, that is where the big money is.
Big Oil is limited by competition. From the other big oil companies, by our personal changes in consumption per our price sensitivity (as we have seen in the recession), and by competing energy sources. Big Oil are no angels. I am aware that what they are doing in Kenya they could oonly dream of in the U.S. But at least they can be regulated, country by coutry, and have to aanswer to competition: get bad PR, lose business. Another coul plant comes online, lose business.
The AGW scam has no competition. They get control of all energy consumption of the planet, or nothing.
————————-
Al Gored,
Thank you for that link.
That link to O’Sullivan was useful for legal overview of the many circumstances related to Mann‘s intervention in the Virginia court’s agreement between ATI and UVa.
John
And don’t forget the EU contributions to AGW and climate change, which are in the 10’s or 100’s of millions…
This line about massive funding of skeptics is a constant refrain among all warmist groups. It’s really strange to watch supposedly serious people (as in academia – and not the PC fruitcakes) trot this line out when it’s so easily refuted. It’s probably descended from the leftwing refrain about being marginal players – when in fact they’ve taken over many of the major funding institutions, mainstream media, etc. I don’t know about Mann, but in most cases I don’t think it’s done with full knowledge that it is false; it’s much more irrational than that.
This is significant because it’s such a weak point; this is where pressure should be applied – such as, asking for a detailed account of who’s doing the funding and how much money is involved. If an answer is proffered (and I’m sure it will be), then ask for the evidence. Etc.
Too big(headed) to fail.
Note also the similarity to the explanations for the Tea Party movement – “it’s being funded by the Koch brothers”, etc. I think that, basically, these people are clinging to straws; they don’t have a clue as to why the world isn’t dancing to their tunes and they’ll seize upon any self-serving explanation. (It’s pathetic, but happily I’m now completely heartless when it comes to these types and their antics.)
Now that I think of it, I’m surprised that we haven’t seen the phrase “false consciousness” used yet. Maybe we will.
Who is funding Mann? (from the WSJ quote):
“As for stimulus jobs—whether “saved” or “created”—we thought readers might be interested to know whose employment they are sustaining. More than $2.4 million is stimulating the career of none other than Penn State climate scientist Michael Mann.”
As Pogo said, long ago, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
The $79 billion figure regarding U.S. government funding includes money to coal, oil and natural gas companies which makes up the largest portion of it. The amount spent on climate research is a small fraction of the $79 billion figure and includes a diverse range of activities including money for the National Weather Service. The $79 billion figure is misleading as are many figures reported on internet blogs.
REPLY: How about looking into that “97 percent of climate scientists believe…” figure and get back to us on that? – Anthony
The greenest ever government seen in the UK is quietly walking away from MMCC. At the Tory conference climate change hasn’t been mentioned as an issue and Osbourne has given briefings that the UK would introduce no unilateral reductions in CO2 emissions that would destroy the UK economy. OK, we still have a lot of green taxes already but I believe we are seeing the end game.
Is it too late for the Australians to avoid their Carbon tax?
Here are some examples of big business funding disinformation campaigns:
http://www.windbyte.co.uk/tricks.html
Trouble with Mann’s argument is that it is Greenpeace and their friends that are receiving the funding.
Michael Mann has a lot in common with a lady of my acquaintance who styles herself for business purposes as Madame ZsaZsa The Tea-leaf Lady. Both have a genuine, but entirely irrational belief in their ability to predict future events. Dear Madame ZsaZsa doesn’t understand that the chaotic arrangement of the tea-leaves has no relationship of any kind with future chaotic events, and Michael Mann does not understand that no computer model will ever be devised that will successfully predict the future. To believe otherwise is simply due to an inability to understand the meaning of the word ‘chaotic’.
A problem that will not yield to algebra will not yield at all.
What leading scientific organizations and institutions are on the sidelines? Could we have a list?
Are HadCrut and GISS on the sidelines? RSS and UAH? NASA? USGS? American Physical Society? IPCC? Greenpeace? WWF? the MET Office? Union of Concerned Scientists? World Climate Report? The Economist? The Wall Street Journal? EPA? Energy Secretary Steven Chu? United Nations Clean Development Mechanism? The Telegraph? Al Gore? CSIRO? SIERRA Club? European Commission Joint Research Center? American Geophysical Union? Nature? Science? the Gaurdian? the BBC? Forbes? American Association for Advancement of Science?
Who? What leading scientific organization and/or institution is on the sidelines?
Hint: Sorry, but the judicial system doesn’t count.
So, essentially, can I now label ’em as climate communist schizoid hippies in the best form of pop psychology, I wonder, for it is true that there are only two types of schizoid types, the clinically insane and the propagandist. The former is mentally ill, the propagandist is one of the only few who are the only ones who considers themselves to be perfectly sane. The former is mostly rational enough not to be violent, the propagandist is mostly irrational to want everyone to act violently against what alarms him. The former struggles alone in their insanity, the propagandist wants everyone else to struggle for his insanity.
I think the end game that M.M. has chosen has two prongs of outcome should his intervention case fail to stop the ATI from in camera review of Mann’s info from his days at UVa.
The first outcome is that if he is exposed for committing wrongdoing by the possible UVa info release ordered by the VA courts, then he would initiate a cascade of exposure of fellow academics (the Team & the IPCC). I think there would be a sort of a scorched earth policy by him.
The second outcome is that if he is exposed for committing wrongdoing by the possible UVa info release ordered by the VA courts, then the previous exonerating inquiries (PSU, UEA and NSF) will be pressured to re-investigate based on the new info coming out of the released UVa info.
Also, if he is exposed for committing wrongdoing by the UVa info release ordered by the VA courts, he would likely be brought before Congressional hearings. Congress would have highly skeptical and very critical views of the IPCC AR4 and for its current preparations for AR5.
John
Let us not forget that British Petroleum and Royal Dutch Shell [Oil] were initial sponsors creating the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia. Rarely do the AGW enthusiasts point out they are funded by Big Oil.
Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit
Roger Knights says: October 5, 2011 at 11:15 am
…If our side were well funded and well organized… [points 1-15]
Brilliant list Roger. I think this would make a good Minnesotans 4GW number, you know, along the lines of their “If we had some global warming”.
And thx for the compliment. Am busy elsewhere but with words like yours I’m looking again to see what might be possible.
re: “…WHO’S GOT OUR BACK?”
iN MY High School English class, ca. 1963, the above construct would have been circled in red and any decent grade on the paper probably would have been reduced to an F! Are PhDs immune from using proper English???!!! Sheeeesh!!!
deliver an honest, unbiased assessment of the potential threats posed by climate changes.
Why is it that his ‘unbiased’ assessment only looks at the down side of climate change?
There [could/may/perhaps – have to CYA with all of the weasel words) be many positive outcomes but he does not consider these worth mentioning.
I also request that future articles on this man do not include his image – my breakfast is best eaten only once.
One important lesson that AGW fraudology has taught me.
About the biggest ploy of rogues is to pre-emptively accuse those who are able to expose them, as guilty of the rogues’ own crimes. Rogues can use their expertise in their own crimes to befuddle Joe Public. Of course, this is what happened to Jesus. Bit unfamiliar seeing it happening to Monckton, Soon & Baliunas, Ball, etc.
Translation of Mann’s outburst: his funding is now noticeably decreasing.
Mr. Watts, not sure what the 97% of climate scientists agreeing that the human influence on the recent global warming is significant has to do with misleading numbers about the amount of money the US government has provided for climate research. Perhaps you could clarify the connection you believe exists or at least clarify for your readers the amount of that $79 billion which went to research specifically earmarked for AGW.
REPLY: Really? No clue about that 97% number? You need to research it before commenting further, consider it a requirement. – Anthony
Its sad to think that a once eminent society like this could be duped by such misinformation. The desperate scramble to become relevant makes for ultimate irrelevance. The point is that the conference organisers will have got him in because they think that he will sell more registrations for them. Conferences are big business and they are happening with such frequency these days that folks will try anything to increase numbers.
Mann should put up or shut up about the massive funding from powerful groups. Names, $ amounts, timing etc. If he is correct then I as an interested follower of this debate want to know so I can form my own opinion. I don’t just want to accept his opinion because without facts that is all I am hearing, like the shrill idealism of uninformed undergraduates. Unsupported claims reinforce our conclusions that he doesn’t like putting ALL the facts on the table for us all to look at. Just put them out there, Mr Mann.
Please do not forget Mann’s case against Prof. Tim Ball. An update would be good. If more funds are needed, I’ll chip in. Once Mann is in the stocks, I’ll pay for all the rotten tomatoes.
The post is from an agenda for a meeting. Did Michael Mann write this or approve it? Whoever wrote/approved this introduction is so screwed up that it makes me physically ill. Unfortunately, a lot of people buy things like this without hesitation.
All funding for climate research should be redirected to data-gathering only.
No more climate model studies into how herbivores will decline due to global warming or mutli-million dollar awards to study the impact of global warming on gophers in Colorado (really?). All the funds should be directed towards gathering data so that we can reduce the large uncertainties in this science (rather than directed to simply adding to them and to supporting a cadre of pro-AGW scientists). Satellites, data consolidation programs etc. Skip the climate model funds for now until we have enough data so that they might be useful.
This is probably the most significant thing that can be done to fix this science.
“True scientists have an important role to play in informing the public discourse on the myth of human-caused climate change. Our scientific expertise provides us a unique, informed perspective, and despite recent high profile attacks against actual science, the public still affords true scientists the greatest trust to deliver an honest, unbiased assessment of our current understanding of climate and the potential threats to science, itself, by climate alarmists. Yet, as with all areas of science where powerful special interests perceive themselves as threatened by the findings of science, scientists enter the public fray at our peril.
Our efforts to communicate the science are opposed by a well-funded, highly organized disinformation effort that aims to confuse the public about the nature of our scientific understanding.
…
Scientists are massively out-funded and outmanned in this battle, and will lose if leading scientific institutions and organizations remain on the sidelines. I will discuss this dilemma, drawing upon my own experiences in the public arena of climate change.”
FIFY, Mike.
The warmists’ Big-Oil-funding charges aren’t so much wrong as misleading and exaggerated. Certain skeptics do work for free market think tanks; certain climate-skeptical foundations no doubt get some of their money from someone who has some interest in global warming being wrong; certain skeptical get-togethers and book-publications are provided by think tanks with links, however tenuous, to Big Oil; some skeptical scientists have received a portion of their grants, at least indirectly, from interested parties; and numerous skeptical scientists are members of, or have spoken that dinner-events sponsored by, free market think tanks, etc.
The main thing wrong with this line of thinking, as pointed out by Judy Curry, is that the scientists with the closest links to such think tanks aren’t the ones having the major impact on the debate. It’s mostly been scientists in academia like Lindzen and Spencer who have made an impact, followed by independent, grass-roots bloggers–who have had more impact than funded institutions with a web presence.
Second, the amounts have been exaggerated. For instance, a think tank like Cato may devote maybe 5% of its income to the GW topic, But its opponents will add up ALL the income that is received by such think tanks and claim, in the newsletters they send to members, that “GW-skeptical organizations have received $100 million this quarter,” falsely implying that ALL that money was devoted to anti-AGW activity.
Third, there’s a false implication about what being “affiliated with” a think tank implies. It may only mean speaking at a luncheon, subscribing to their journal, having an article published in their journal, or serving on a board of advisors about the topic. These are usually fairly peripheral associations, with little cash involved; i.e., looser links that the accusers’ language would lead readers to suspect. It’s not as though Lindzen and Spencer are hunkered down in a bunker with the Koch brothers, although that is the impression the accusers have successfully (in many cases) communicated to their readers.
Fourth, the money received by a grant doesn’t go into the recipient’s pocket. It goes through the university office, which takes a hefty cut for general overhead, then it goes mostly for expenses, like salaries of grad-student researchers and lab workers.
Fifth, most academic researchers have far more to lose than gain in terms of funding, career advancement, and social status by taking the skeptical side. So few opportunists would leap at an offer from Big Oil.
Mike, I don’t know who has your (climate scientists) back; but I know who doesn’t: Science
Just when you think this guy can’t sink any lower….
CodeTech says:
October 5, 2011 at 8:50 am
“Mann apparently isn’t even aware that he’s been outed and discredited, and is known to millions as a charlatan and a fraud. And it seems unlikely that he could possibly still believe the junk “science” he’s peddling.”
My take on what CodeTech and others have said is that Mann has become the Al Gore of scientific societies. It is a sad day when our scientific societies have an Al Gore all their own.
Mann has forgetten a basic tenant of society–that the average tongue’s reaction to sour milk is equivalent to the soul’s rejection of lies and hypocricy.
Perhaps Mann has never experienced sour milk, but everybody else knows what to do with it.
Even in the little backwater that is Australia our climate scientists get millions lavished on them, to wit Prof Andy Pitman at the UNSW:
http://www.science.unsw.edu.au/apitman-funding
He is also keen on throwing baseless insults around at skeptics as exposed at Jo Nova’s web site:
http://joannenova.com.au/2010/02/pitman-paid-190000-a-year-to-throw-baseless-insults/
Seems to me that Mann has been singing this tune for quite some time (well, at least since Climategate). Strikes me that he’s engaging in “next chorus, next verse … a little bit louder and a little bit worse”.
He’s quite good at making extraordinary claims, isn’t he? Yet he still hasn’t learned that he needs to show his data. Mann claims:
“Informed perspective”?! Isn’t it enough that Mann et al have redefined “trick”, “decline” and “peer review”? Clearly he’s now redefining “informed”. As for “perspective”, from where I’m sitting, it’s way past time that he gained some.
“Our efforts to communicate the science are opposed by a well-funded, highly organized disinformation effort that aims to confuse the public about the nature of our scientific understanding.”
Nothing has “confused the public about the nature of our scientific understanding” more than the Climate-gate emails.
I don’t know a better example of groupthink in which just about all Irvin Janis’ symptoms can be found back
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupthink#Symptoms
About being outmanned, maybe check the numbers here too
http://dailycaller.com/2011/10/05/green-groups-have-plenty-of-green/
Up until now, we (skeptics) have been winning most of the battles, but have been steadily losing the war. This has been largely due to the MSM being heavily biased toward the leftist advantage of global carbon regulation (effectively all of life’s activities). For John Q Public, the nightly news is perceived as the best glimpse of world reality.
However, I suspect, Mann has informed Penn State and everyone else involved, that if he goes down… He will not go down alone, but will take everyone else down with him (expose what has really been going on). This will be the “tipping” point for the merciless MSM and we will begin to win the war. We may even be shocked by front page photos of MM behind bars (fraud, misappropriation of funds, obstruction of justice, tax evasion/money laundering). Everyone knows how ruthless they can be with such investigations.
My compassion for MM’s plight is mitigated, by the fact that he continues to obfuscate and defecate the bed he must eventually lie in. As spectators we can only “make popcorn, soda, and candyfloss” for the greatest show on earth. GK
I doubt if MM is afforded the same political protection as Hansen. We will see, with the impending release of all the data I see one of three things possible.
1. Rally of all the troops to defend the weakest link in the chain similar to what happened after Climate Gate. /The weak PR stunt in Colorado leads me to believe that the defense will be no where as strong as was concocted after the Climate Gate exposure./
2. A very fast distancing of his peers and a revelation of shock as how this could have happened.
3. The data gets accidentally erased from all the servers while trying to recover it and we enter a stalemate.
I’ve seen two, (2,) interviews with Mann, (both heavily biassed to his POV,) and he came over as a whinging, whining kid, caught with his hand in the cookie jar, (to use an Americanism).
If he actually believes what he says, the best thing he can do is to STFU!