This email in December 2003 shows what appears to be the genesis of the idea of setting up the RealClimate.org website.
There a BBC (impartiality – ho ho) connection. Roger Harrabin at this meeting at Tyndall (why was he there in the first place?) of the BBC apparently “…wanted something more pro-active.” according to the email.
#2974 is an email from Prof John Shepherd, a Tyndall advisory board member, to RealClimate’s Stefan Rahmstorf. Dated December 2003, it is a response to an email in which Rahmstorf has suggested setting up a website to counter sceptic arguments (perhaps the germ of the idea for RealClimate itself?). That’s not the point though. The point will be clear when you read Shepherd’s report of a meeting of Tyndall’s advisory board.
Many thanks for your very helpful comments. Essentially I agree on all counts, and indeed the “sceptics ask, scientists answer” web-page that you have set up is exactly the sort of thing I had in mind as a possible minimal response that we (Tyndall et al, and even maybe the Royal Society if it wants to get involved) might undrertake. Wherever possible this could/should refer to other reputable sites (incl IPCC, Hadley Centre, the ones you mention, etc etc) rather than duplicating the material. I would envisage that such a site could be maintained by a consortium of the willing, in this case involving (say) Tyndall, Hadley & PIK. We could then asked the RS (et al) to mention it and link to it on some sort of “sound science” page on their own web-site(s) (Rachel, do you think that this might fly ?).
We had an interesting debate on this at the Tyndall Advisory Board last week, and the consensus was very much in line with your views, except for the journalist present (Roger Horobin), who wanted something more pro-active. I am more sympathetic to his view than most of you, I think, but the question is what more would be useful, effective, and not too burdensome ? So far I don’t think I have identified anything, but I do think that the sort of web-page mentioned above would be a start, and so I am copying this to Asher Minns, for him to consider and discuss with John & Mike at Tyndall Central.
The date of this email is Wed, 03 Dec 2003
Academia moves slowly in most things. They had to build consensus and then search for money to do it, perhaps money that couldn’t be from NASA or other publicly funded research due to the conflicts of interest that would have created with such an outreach. They found money in the form of Fenton Communications, now Environmental Media Services.
According to whois RealClimate.org was registered as a domain almost a year later 19-Nov-2004 16:39:03 UTC
Domain ID:D105219760-LROR Domain Name:REALCLIMATE.ORG Created On:19-Nov-2004 16:39:03 UTC Last Updated On:13-Jan-2011 00:25:24 UTC Expiration Date:19-Nov-2015 16:39:03 UTC Sponsoring Registrar:Active Registrar, Inc. (R1709-LROR) Status:OK Registrant ID:ACTR1011142017 Registrant Name:Betsy Ensley Registrant Organization:Environmental Media Services Registrant Street1:1320 18th St, NW Registrant Street2:5th Floor Registrant Street3: Registrant City:Washington Registrant State/Province:DC Registrant Postal Code:20036 Registrant Country:US Registrant Phone:+1.2024636670 Registrant Phone Ext.: Registrant FAX: Registrant FAX Ext.: Registrant Email:betsy@ems.org Admin ID:ACTR1011149427 Admin Name:Betsy Ensley Admin Organization:Environmental Media Services Admin Street1:1320 18th St, NW Admin Street2:5th Floor Admin Street3: Admin City:Washington Admin State/Province:DC Admin Postal Code:20036 Admin Country:US Admin Phone:+1.2024636670 Admin Phone Ext.: Admin FAX: Admin FAX Ext.: Admin Email:betsy@ems.org Tech ID:ACTR1011143071 Tech Name:Betsy Ensley Tech Organization:Environmental Media Services Tech Street1:1320 18th St, NW Tech Street2:5th Floor Tech Street3: Tech City:Washington Tech State/Province:DC Tech Postal Code:20036 Tech Country:US Tech Phone:+1.2024636670 Tech Phone Ext.: Tech FAX: Tech FAX Ext.: Tech Email:betsy@ems.org Name Server:NS1.WEBFACTION.COM Name Server:NS2.WEBFACTION.COM Name Server:NS3.WEBFACTION.COM Name Server:NS4.WEBFACTION.COM
Just like
OAGB (Occupy Al Gore’s Brain)I mean OWS was astroturfed, but I think that creation has gotten away from them.This is an EXCELLENT thread. I suggest everyone bookmark this beauty for reference, get it out there. Pull quotes for enterprising journalists: RC aka RealClimate, funded by Fenton Communications, registered by a weasel affiliated with Moveon.org and George Soros, currently a playground for many climate Science Fictionists, including a NASA employee Gavin Schmidt who is suspected of working on this propaganda website while on company (TaxPayers) time, whenever he can pry himself away from smooching the bottoms of Hansen and Mann.
What a tangled web of progressive leftist socialist swine. As usual with so many propaganda organizations, scrape away the spit and polished painted finish for public consumption and we find the red-green primer coat. Watermelon Central. Perhaps AGW also means Affiliation of Global Watermelons. Many kudos to crosspatch for yeoman’s work!
Good eye! What a wonderful 5th anniversary they must have had 😉 Happy 7th Gavin.
Arstroturfing?
Are you talking about RealClimate just being a bunch of made up stuff that nobody can possibly show to be correct?
I agree. It’s junk science. How so many people have been duped by the IPCC, the Hockey Stick, etc., is beyond me.
I am assuming you are asking what that phrase means? It is a reference to the phrase “grass roots” meaning organizations made up of ordinary citizens who rise up with a strong position on an issue. Fenton specializes in “astroturfing” which is CREATING groups by actively recruiting people. And rather than create a single large group, they create several. That way each individual group can release press releases and hold various activities in rotation to create a constant drumbeat of news on an issue. Fenton keeps the message of them all coordinated. They are fake “grass roots” organizations and so are called “astroturf” organizations.
I believe he wrote Arstroturfing, as in arse-troturfing.
The Occupy Wall Street internet domain was purchased last May by the Canadian Adbusters group (funded by Tides and often collaborating with Greenpeace on issues). Adbusters drove the support for the movement.
http://activistcash.com/organization_overview.cfm/o/36-adbusters
http://activistcash.com/organization_connections.cfm/o/36-adbusters
But as far as I know, they are not a Fenton client. If they HAD been a Fenton client, the entire operation would have been more organized. One reason why they might not be is because OWS tends to go against the very people who donate to Tides Foundation. In other words, OWS is really about biting the very hand that feeds them.
Adbusters is a very anarchist group that favors riots over press releases.
Face meet palm. So he did. I missed it.
Tried arse-troturfing, didn’t look right. Settled on arstroturfing.
I know that crosspatch has been working really hard since the release of the new batch. It was also easy to miss the “r” in there. It isn’t that funny anyway. I prefer “disastroturf over mine.
David Ball says: December 1, 2011 at 10:25 am: I know that crosspatch has been working really hard since the release of the new batch.
Crosspatch has been quick, wide ranging, relentless and very much to the jugular. In other words, I’m impressed.
“Fenton Communications was founded in 1982 by David Fenton, an activist who served as a photographer for Bill Ayers’ domestic Weather Underground terror group.
Fenton Communications works in conjunction with the Soros-funded Tides Center that funded Adbusters, which was reported to have started the concept of Occupy Wall Street.
Fenton used the Tides Center to set up its Environmental Media Services in 1994. Tides reportedly originally ran EMS’ daily operations.”
RC, like the self-contradicting Skeptical Science website, has achieved what it deserves. Those two sites have the adoration of the convinced and also those two sites have the sincere thankfulness of many of us on the skeptical path. RC gave a venue for showcasing so clearly all the problems and red flags of their myopic so-called concensus/ settled science. RC was a one stop shop for launching independent thinkers on the skeptic path.
Thank you RC, because in your censored/manipulative/restrictive behavior was the nourishment that caused the growth of the open climate science sites.
John
TomRude says:
November 30, 2011 at 1:55 pm
..UN scientist: fighting climate change saves costs
By ARTHUR MAX
Given that pretty much the entire basis of the CAGW conjecture is that the increased radiative forcing from rising CO2 will drive ever increasing amounts of H2O into the atmosphere to greatly amplify the warming of the planet, I find it puzzling that, whenever they venture forth to weave their cataclysmic vision of the future it is always portrayed with desertification nipping at everyone’s heels. I realize that a warmer atmosphere can retain more H2O, but unless they are suggesting that in a warming planet convection will disappear, eventually that extra H2O will be coming down somewhere. If their notion of a strong positive H2O feedback were correct, it would at least be logical to suggest that the future will be subject to increased rainfall and possible flooding. Of course for most of the world’s population the notion of a little more rain wouldn’t be seen as much of a negative.
Similarly, when they are out ballyhooing the rising trends of global temperatures, they don’t spend a lot of ink on the fact that a very significant portion of those trends is the result of warmer overnight lows in northern latitudes. Of course, if that information was more widely circulated, it would not likely lead to an increasing level of climate panic among my neighbors here in Minnesota, or Canada, or Siberia, or…
Another point against their projections of our desert nomad future is that not that many years ago the weather panic of the day was that increasing desertification was eventually going to drive the southern boundary of the Sahara all the way to Mt Kilimanjaro. Well, that may be a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the idea. Instead, as the CO2 level has risen, there is solid evidence that the southern expansion has halted and not insignificant evidence that it has actually reversed.
My POV has always been that the state of climate science is so dismal that an at least semi-plausible argument can be made for any number of suggestions about what, if anything, is driving our climate and where it will be at he end of the century. As to the notion that there is more than a lottery winner’s probability that the future will be ridden with climate related catastrophes and, in particular, catastrophes more damaging than what has already been inflicted on the world to avoid them and the even more damaging “solutions” still being pursued, is unsupportable.
Meanwhile…
http://www.torontosun.com/2011/11/30/life-lessons-learned-by-occupiers
Betsy Ensley: Computer gal for MoveOn.org:
http://www.debatepolitics.com/environment-and-climate-issues/42789-realclimate-org-solid-source-pr-firm-fear.html
“Betsy Ensley, Web Editor/Program Coordinator: Betsy joined the staff of EMS in April 2002 as a program assistant for EMS’s toxics program.Presently, she manages BushGreenwatch.org, a joint EMS-MoveOn.org public awareness website, and coordinates environmental community media efforts to protect and improve environmental and public health safeguards.Before coming to EMS, Betsy interned at the U.S. Department of State in the office of the Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.Betsy graduated with honors from the University of Iowa in 2000, where she majored in Global Studies with thematic focus on war, peace and security.She minored in Asian languages.”
If you hear PC-Progressives squealing about “conspiracy theories,” you know it’s because they’re looking in the mirror.
They’ve had the covert influence tactics of front organizations down for more than 80 years. Big difference now is that it’s easier to break their cover, with AlGore’s amazing internet.
Full details at: http://www.willingaccomplices.com
It’s great that many are seeing, commenting on, and feeling the PC-Progressives’ influence tactics–front organizations (Fenton set-up groups, websites, etc), creation of an all-knowing elitist clique, constant repetition of agreed-upon messages, admit-nothing-deny-everything-make-counteraccusations tactics when exposed, and recruitment of agents of influence in academia/education, the media, and Hollywood.
You may be interested to know that these tactics are nothing new. PC-Progressives have used these tactics since about 1920. Lenin’s right-hand man, covert influence expert, Willi Muenzenberg, ran the original operation against capitalism and the United States.
Muenzenberg’s diabolical genius is clearly demonstrated by the PC-Progressives’ continuing adherence to his playbook.
He was the first to use a flurry of front groups. He was the first to use influence agents to insert his anti-American payloads via education/academia, the media and Hollywood.
Compare his work to the activities of the anti-America, anti-capitalist Global Warming clique. It’s a carbon copy.
Full details at: http://www.willingaccomplices.com.
Kent Clizbe
kent@kentclizbe.com
http://www.willingaccomplices.com
Bastroturfing?
>:)
Catastroturfing…
re: Harrabin and the BBC
Harrabin has apparently offered an ‘official’ response at Bishop Hill which pretends that he was simply interested in quality ‘debate’ and timely information:
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2011/12/2/harrabin-an-official-response.html
Doesn’t begin to address why we have been told continually that there is no room for “debate” etc. because “the science is settled.”
There are some interesting comments on that thread linked above.
THE BBC ARE CHANGING COURSE.
Since ClimateGate 2 their news reporting has gone from rabid Warmist to undecided, which is exactly where they should be. They haven’t annoyed me with propaganda for days, my blood pressure is coming down.
Their latest piece, “The reality of adapting to uncertain climate forecasts”, says plan for the worst but don’t panic, it may never happen. This is a significant improvement over their usual CO2 doom and gloom.
ahhh, I’d forgotten why I was so attuned to Fenton and EMS, those names leaped from my screen because long ago I’d read Richard Lindzen (2008) discussing their role with RealClimate.org (he says “created a website”). So as of 2008 this background was available to Lindzen when he published this paper — it would be most interesting to know where he obtained this info and whether it was correct to use the phrase “created a website” in relation to EMS and Fenton in their work on RealClimate.org
[LINDZEN]:
“Environmental Media Services (a project of Fenton Communications, a large public relations firm serving left wing and environmental causes; they are responsible for the alar scare as well as Cindy Sheehan’s anti-war campaign.) created a website, realclimate.org, as an ‘authoritative’ source for the ‘truth’ about climate. This time, real scientists who were also environmental activists, were recruited to organize this web site and ‘discredit’ any science or scientist that questioned catastrophic anthropogenic global warming. The web site serves primarily as a support group for believers in catastrophe, constantly reassuring them that there is no reason to reduce their worrying.”
http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0809/0809.3762.pdf
btw, this Lindzen article is superb and I highly recommend it to all
You guys are hilarious. JP