Jo Nova has taken on the ridiculous “Map of Organized Climate Change Denial” promoted by Andy Revkin at the NYT with a map of her own and writes:
Two professors of sociology think they can explain why “Climate Deniers” are winning. But Riley E. Dunlap and Aaron M. McCright start from the wrong assumption and miss the bleeding obvious: the theory was wrong, the evidence has changed, and thousands of volunteers have exposed it.
The real question sociologists will be studying for years to come is: how was an exaggerated scare, based on so little evidence, poor reasoning and petty namecalling, kept alive for two whole decades?
Climate Change Scare Machine Cycle: see how your tax dollars are converted into alarming messages:
The key points
1. The money and vested interests on the pro-scare side is vastly larger, more influential, and more powerful than that on the skeptical side. Fossil fuel and conservative-think-tanks are competing against most of the world financial houses, the nuclear and renewable energy industry, large well financed green activists (WWF revenue was $700m last year), not to mention whole government departments, major political parties, universities dependent on government funding, the BBC (there is no debate), the EU, and the entire UN.
2. Despite this highly asymmetrical arrangement, the skeptics are winning simply because they’re more convincing — they have the evidence. The other team avoid debate, try to shut down discussion (only their experts count), they imply the audience is too stupid to judge for themselves, and then call everyone who disagrees rude names. The dumb punters are figuring them out. Vale free speech.
The evidence changed, but who wanted to know?
When the evidence began rolling in showing how the assumptions were wrong, the graphs were flawed, the thermometers were biased, and the “expert” scientists were behaving badly — who exactly would benefit from risking their career, cutting off the cash cow, being exiled from friends and colleagues, and being called a “Denier” for speaking the truth?
Read more here
Addendum: I would agree that the flow chart is a bit confusing in terms of being able to clearly communicate and colorfully express her perception and opinion of the issue she is addressing.
It seems we humans love to feel anxiety and guilt, and search eagerly for something to hang it on. CAGW, the ozone hole, over-population, etc. Sadly, there really are some dire problems that we ought to give immediate attention to, such as over-fishing and depletion of fresh water sources.
Does anybody have a good resource on how much ‘Big Oil’ has given to green causes, especially to climate-change related causes (is there really a difference these days)?
~More Soylent Green!
Most of these comments should have been posted on Revkin NYT site. Here, we are mostly speaking to those who already discern the true state of things. It only takes a second and you will feel better for it. Don’t forget to provide a link back here. GK
Good work Mr. Watts.
Ayn Rand wrote ” The uncontested absudities of today are the accepted slogans of tomorrow. They are accepted by default.”
This website helps us contest.
Denniston’s Law- “Virtue is it’s own punishment”.
The comments on the “Map of Organized Climate Change Denial” article are quite entertaining. The vast majority chew Revkin’s article to pieces.
Nick de Cusa says: October 7, 2011 at 1:13 am
Can someone pass on the message to Jo Nova that it’s Siemens, not Seimens?
Done
The “US vs Them” propaganda has stopped scientific discussion. The so called “green” groups are forcing governments to initiate programs that do not make either financial or environmental sense. Some of the so called “green” programs – such as converting food to biofuel – are a ludicrous waste of money. The biofuel program harms the environmental (there is a fixed amount agricultural land so either virgin forest will be cut down or people in the third world will starve.) and does significantly reduce the amount of CO2 that enters the atmosphere. The conversion of corn to ethanol for example requires 25% fossil energy (if one includes the fuel for farming and the energy for three distillations required to convert 8% water/ethonal to 99.5% water/ethanol. If one includes the fossil energy to plant, produce the fertilizer, harvest, transport, grind up, distill, and to treat the waste water, the corn to ethanol process produces net slightly more CO2 than gasoline. The cost of ethanol from corn is 3 times that of gasoline. If the objective is to raise the price of gasoline to reduce to reduce demand, increase the tax on gas and use the money to construct nuclear reactors.
There has been no practical discussion of fundamental engineering issues related to “green” alternative energy sources such as wind or solar that are show stoppers and constraints on their use. Facts are facts. There is no magic wand that will make the constraints and costs go away. The fact that those promoting the so called “green” alternatives are not aware of the constraints and costs, is a crying shame. Rather than a scientific discussion the green supporters attack the messenger.
Hansen’s alarmist book “Storms of my grandchildren” notes the only engineering viable alternative to fossil fuel produced electricity is nuclear. I do not have time to explain why wind power is limited to around 10% of the base load, even if one is willing to pay 3 to 5 times the cost for fossil fuel power generation for the wind farms complete with back-up natural gas power planets for the periods when the wind does not blow.
The green groups should logically be promoting thorium heavy water nuclear development. There is a vast amount of thorium (thorium is as common as lead) available for fission and that reactor design is fail safe. A breach of the core results in a loss of the heavy water. The thorium nuclear reaction stops if there is breach of the reactor as the heavy water is required to slow down the neutrons to enable the thorium fission reaction to occur. The thorium reaction does not produce plutonium as a by product which is the reason it was not selected or promoted for the standard US reactor design. It is also not commercially promoted as it would competing with the boiling water Uranium 235 enriched reactor design.
The data shows the planet will warm less than 1C for a doubling of CO2 with most of the warming occurring at high latitudes which will increase rather than decrease the biosphere. The neutral scientists have presented satellite data that shows planetary cloud cover increases (negative feedback) when the planet warms which resist planetary temperature change. The key issue to discuss is how much warming will occur from a doubling of CO2. Due to self feeding alarmist statements, people are not aware that observations and logic appears to support the so called denier scientific position. (The key scientific issue is whether the feedback response is negative (planetary clouds increase) or positive (planet amplifies any forcing change). The neutral scientists do not dispute the fact that some warming will occur. The question is how much.
China is constructing two coal fired power plants per week to produce cheap electricity to compete with the US. It is a fact that we are losing the industrial competition war with China (Look at trade deficit). We need jobs in addition to long term practical environmental protection.
Atmospheric CO2 is 0.039%. Commercial greenhouse inject CO2 to raise the CO2 levels to 0.1% to 0.15% reduce growing times and increase yield. Atmospheric CO2 has been at 0.1% to 0.15% (or higher) for most of the period life has been on this planet. Higher atmospheric CO2 is beneficial to the biosphere. The biosphere is and will expand due the increase in the atmosphere of CO2 and warming of less than 1C with most of the warming at higher latitudes.
If you missed this, it’s a chart showing a more realistic view of the climate game.
http://www.australianclimatemadness.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/climate_alarmism_machine.pdf
misterjohnqpublic says:
October 7, 2011 at 6:21 am
AGW = intellectual illiteracy
Fear sells by the bucket to the illiterate
===============================================
Not “illiterate”, but ignorant (and willfully at that too !)
polistra says:
October 7, 2011 at 4:29 am
Compare: how many sociologists or psychologists have asked why the Soviet Union was able to control the world’s thoughts for 75 years? None.
One did, at least indirectly, and his book was even studied in a Sociology course I took back in 1965. David Reisman’s Individualism Reconsidered noted a change going on within America from “inner directed”, individual-based thinking, to “other directed” or group oriented thinking. Back then, this book was considered to be the state of the art as to its methodology and insights concerning American culture.
But since then, the Communists have managed to infiltrate America’s institutions according to Gramsci’s tactic for achieving its “hegemony” via an inside-out approach – one case of which I witnessed directly around 1984 involving the leader of the San Franciso Communist Party, who i’d known since he was 13, suddenly becoming a Democrat and a University Professor, and as though I wouldn’t notice! – in order to produce functional control over people. So my “consciousness” would probably now be interpreted by Sociologists as “false” – or perhaps even “too white”? And Reisman’s book no doubt is functionally ignored as having never existed.
The last info I received as to the content of current Sociology “thinking” came from a recent graduate of an elite University and involved such things as her lesbian Sociology teacher advocating in class that all her female students should become lesbians and saying that the poor were becoming fat from having to eat at McDonalds and not having any opportunity to exercise. My source was in fact poor, not fat, and had eaten at McDonalds quite a lot because she’d been very active in high school sports, requiring a lot of travel to away-games from her down-trodden rural school. So things got pretty hot in class when she asked her teacher, “Are you calling me fat?” I don’t think she mentioned to her teacher that she is also part American Indian. The brave new Sociologists wouldn’t have believed that either.
William is right.
I came to the same conclusion.
I wonder in what “category” I fall
I am a hobbyist, wanting to find out for myself if global warming is for real and whether it was due to man. Got some surprising answers.
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/more-carbon-dioxide-is-ok-ok
But wait, there’s more….
Research the names Dunlap & McCright and the people they directly associate with ( http://aaas.confex.com/aaas/2010/webprogram/Session1591.html ), and an eerie common thread is seen, ALL of these folks cite a single source for the “proof” that skeptic scientists are shills of big coal & oil: anti-skeptic book author Ross Gelbspan. No need to trust me on this, you can look it up for yourselves.
Click on my name above to see why Gelbspan’s accusation has troubles everywhere you look, the biggest of which is that he never shows his “proof” in its full context. Without the perception that skeptic scientists are untrustworthy, the general public then has no reason to ignore their side of AGW.
Frank K. says: @ur momisugly October 7, 2011 at 5:58 –
“Gail and Smokey – I would actually be happy if George Soros and his ilk drained their own private bank accounts to fund the CAGW nonsense. Unfortunately, as Jo Nova’s chart reveals, it is WE the TAXPAYERS who are footing a large part of the bill……
Meanwhile, recipients of this largess, people like Jim Hansen, are PROTESTING energy projects which could bring jobs to the U.S. and Canada AND provide us with energy independence! And unemployment in the U.S. as of today is STILL ABOVE 9.0%!! ……”
_______________________________________________________________________
Of course it is the Tax Payer and the Consumer who end up paying the price for all these idiotic schemes. That (and POWER) is behind most of what goes on in the political arena. And by the way the REAL unemployment in the U.S. is above 20% not just above 9% because the US gov’t does not count “Discouraged” workers.
Here is a bit about Soros and his currency speculation: http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/08/george-soros-bank-of-england.asp
The Mother Earth / Andy Revkin shows some narrow-mindedness. It is all based in the USA, as well as some of the organizations being defunct. It is an example of a bad conspiracy theory – a narrow focus and a failure to look at alternative points of view.
To thelastdemocrat:
You wrote: “When Govt gets so big that we cannot tell what is happening, that is a prob. Open govt and FOI mechanisms help us wealth-producing citizens hold our client, the govt, accountable.”
Indeed. In the USA, total government share of the GDP–that’s Federal and state together–reached 43% last year. Government has become so big that it is teetering on the edge of being completely unaccountable. With sophisticated polling and demographics, Congressional districts are sliced up to virtually ensure that incumbents are re-elected. See, for example, the plans by a heavily Democratic state legislature in Maryland to re-chop up districts to ensure that the only two Republican representatives for the state are unseated–you may Google it.
This is what makes the US election of 2010 stand out. To have so many incumbents lose their
seats is amazing. This is a tribute to just how unhappy and disgusted the American citizenry is.
However, unless the American citizenry remains not just engaged, but HEAVILY engaged, in the political process, the government will simply continue to grow and become more and more unaccountable.
William says:
October 7, 2011 at 7:55 am
“….. If the objective is to raise the price of gasoline to reduce to reduce demand, increase the tax on gas and use the money to construct nuclear reactors.
There has been no practical discussion of fundamental engineering issues related to “green” alternative energy sources such as wind or solar that are show stoppers and constraints on their use. Facts are facts. There is no magic wand that will make the constraints and costs go away. The fact that those promoting the so called “green” alternatives are not aware of the constraints and costs, is a crying shame. Rather than a scientific discussion the green supporters attack the messenger…..
The green groups should logically be promoting thorium heavy water nuclear development.
______________________________________________________________________
Amen to that.
China had plans to build 60 in the next decade.
And the Japanese and Korea were not about to be left out.
Mr. Fukushima stated that IThEMS is negotiating with Korean Shipbuilders over the potential sale of Mini-Fujis for ship propulsion systems…..
If China goes ahead with her energy plans the USA is going to be left in the dust and all the greenies will find themselves relegated to migrant Ag labor for the likes of Mr. Soros or Mr. Rothschild who are busy buy US farmland. Civilization runs on energy, the more energy the higher the civilization. China figured that out too bad the greens have not. (I sure hope they know how to drive a hitch of mules…)
The recent turn of events almost makes me believe HAARP can cause Earthquakes and Floods or Soros & co.are in league with the devil, the latter being the most likely. (snicker)
Like they say: “follow the money”.
“The real question sociologists will be studying for years to come is: how was an exaggerated scare, based on so little evidence, poor reasoning and petty namecalling, kept alive for two whole decades?”
Ideas are
1. The sociological arguments take precedence over the scientific. (The science is truth, therefore those who oppose are wrong, evil or paid to deceive). It has the effect of silencing any mainstream political opposition.
2. Getting governments to accept the fundamental hypothesis as truth, and then have all funding to support that “truth”. This has created a huge politicized class who depends on maintenance of the “truth” for its livelihood.
3. Alarmism is popular, whilst the null hypothesis is no news.
4. Allowing experts in one area (Climate Science) to dictate their methods, the boundaries of science, public policy and economics.
Gail Combs: And in a kind of exclamation point, he added this to his list of no-nos: “no, Plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to produce and consume the foods of their choice…” http://nonais.org/2011/09/27/wi-no-right-to-produce-or-eat-food/
If we did, then we would have the right to grow our own marijuana, and make our own ephedrine and methamphetamine. I don’t agree with the ruling, but the most recent was U.S. v. Raiche, Justice Thomas wrote a very good dissent. The first law of this kind was passed in the 1930s to control wheat.
Also, “freedom to fail”, as you call it, decreased government intervention in agriculture, not increased it. People who couldn’t survive the market lobbied for and received government intervention to protect them. “Freedom to fail” (your name again) was more sympathetic to the 10th amendment that what went immediately before or after it.
Back to the main thread, JoNova’s graphic is very good.
Gail Combs says:
October 7, 2011 at 9:13 am
Another thing to add is that many in the CAGW community (the government climate science elites) will say “we’re not against oil but it should be priced (i.e. taxed) in accordance with it’s “cost” to society”. Of course they’ll say this since they get:
* six figure government salaries
* generous benefits (medical, vacations, holidays, paid time off)
* paid travel and living for conferences and meetings all over the globe
* generous pensions when they retire
They can easily afford increases in the costs of food, fuel, housing.
And they think NOTHING of ruining other people’s livelihoods (read oil and gas, coal, nuclear power, transportation industries) if they think those jobs will lead to increases in CO2 beyond what their theories/models believe is sustainable.
The most perplexing “reason” I have seen for the presence of skeptics is that skeptics are more science-educated than warmists. The more education one has in scientific areas, the Green researchers say, the less he believes or supports the tenets of CAGW. That this “discovery” does not disturb the warmists into their own uncertainty, but provide them with a reassurance that the skeptics have an identified reason to be foolish, astounds me.
Cognitive dissonance, the ability to hold two contradictory beliefs at the same time, is a fact of human social life. We need this to get along in the human world where what you want, need and are able to get are mostly out of your control. Scientific reasoning, however, seems antithetical to dissonance such as this, yet the Gore-Hansen-Suzuki group thrive under its cover, Perhaps that is because CAGW is not scientific but sociological. Creative thinking for managing human behavior needs blind sides and “tricks”; it is the nature of the beast.
“kept alive for two whole decades?”
I am a pessimist…you should change that to three decades.
Hell there are still idiots running around that worry about the “population bomb”.
Not quite. Cognitive dissonance is (according to the theory) an aversive motivational state caused by awareness that certain beliefs that one holds – or actions (regarded as following from certain beliefs) – contradict each other.