Are you now or have you ever been a global warming denier?
Guest post by David Ross
Some have suggested that the Fakegate affair has been discussed enough. They are wrong. Peter Gleick is a minor figure in climate science and his actions are of little account. But the reaction of all the global warming alarmists, who see nothing wrong with what he did, is much more significant.
More important still: this is an aspect of the climate debate that everybody can understand. It is much simpler to grasp than the issues raised by Climategate. You don’t need to be a climatologist or scientist or statistician. There’s no need to draw a graph or drill an ice core. All the information you need is straightforward and laid bare.
The fact that, despite all this, those alarmists still can’t distinguish right from wrong, tells many of us more about the climate debate than anything else. Until Gleick and his supporters admit that what they both did is wrong, we shouldn’t let them off the hook.
Others don’t want to see the science content of Watts Up With That diluted. I agree. But would also argue that we humans are part of the biosphere and examining what forcing mechanisms are operating on us and how we react is a scientific issue. I suspect that what many of the alarmists really want is not geo-engineering to “fix” the planet; it is to conduct a large scale controlled experiment in social engineering. Unfortunately for them, they are discovering that people do not behave as predictably as CO2 molecules.
The alarmists main concern seems to be the possibility that their monopoly might be broken and that “contrary” views might be heard in the classroom. As they regard Gleick as a “hero” and heroes are tend to be taken as role-models. I wondered what kind of stuff they do want taught to our kids. So I dumbed-down Fakegate (for the benefit of the ethically challenged) to an analogy that could be used as a classroom assignment.
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School Assignment 1: Citizenship and Ethics
Someone hacks your Facebook account and posts all your personal stuff online. They also insert a page with stuff you didn’t write that makes you look like a horrible person. The hacker emails 15 of his friends and says he got all the stuff, including the nasty bits, from your account. His friends show all this stuff to everyone at school and they tell them it all came from your account.
Almost everyone at school, even the teachers, now hates you and tells you so. You tell everyone that the nasty bits are fake and that you didn’t write them. But the teachers don’t believe you. They say that because most of the stuff is true the nasty bits must be as well. They post some of the pages on the school website highlighting the nasty bits and tell everyone not to talk to you.
Some of your friends speak up for you and point out some flaws in the faked parts that prove they are forgeries. The flaws are substantial enough to actually identify the hacker. The hacker then confesses but only to hacking your account. He says he got the page with the nasty bits anonymously in the mail and that he only hacked your files to find out if they were true. You’re shocked because at the same time he was hacking your files you had invited him to come and talk to your friends.
The teachers ignore the evidence of forgery and then try to justify the hacker’s actions, saying that although document phishing and impersonation is wrong, the hacker is a “hero” because they always thought you were a horrible person; horrible persons are increasing and the school is heading towards a horrible person catastrophe.
Q: Discuss the ethical implications of what just happened. There are bonus marks if you can work in a reference to polar bears.
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As for junk science, the movies “The Day After Tomorrow” and “An Inconvenient Truth” are both used in our schools to “teach” kids about climate science. But they deserve an article of their own.
One meme currently being propagated by alarmists, that has all the appearance of a coordinated PR campaign, is that skeptics arguments and tactics are no different from creationists who want to “teach the controversy” in schools. I am not religious and don’t want to see creationism taught in schools, other than perhaps a single paragraph mentioning that such views exist. My belief in the theory of evolution has not changed. However, because of the climate debate, I am no longer as contemptuous of creationists as I once was.
It is regrettable that the alarmists are inserting religion into the “debate” (but it is part of a pattern of caricaturing skeptics). They also don’t seem to realize that, as the extent to which they are wrong about the climate becomes increasingly revealed, they will strengthen the hand of those who want creationism taught in schools.
It is however wrong to assert that studying religion cannot teach us anything useful.
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School Assignment 2: History
The Medieval Alarm Period
In the Middle Ages, cathedrals could take centuries to build. Three or even six hundred years was not uncommon. Throughout Medieval Europe there were always many cathedrals in various stages of construction. Except that in the decades leading up to the year 1000, very few significant building projects were started and many existing ones were abandoned.
Most of Christendom had convinced themselves that Jesus would reappear on, what they believed to be, the 1000th anniversary of his birth. Nobody saw any point in starting projects or continuing existing ones that would not be finished before the end of the world. We can only assume that this millenarian malaise affected all areas of life, not just church-building. People gave themselves over to fervent prayer and further demonstrated their fervour by roasting heretics. It must have been a grim time. If there had been a Vatican newsletter back then, perhaps it might have sounded like this:
“God’s wrath continued to worsen during 988 – a year in which unprecedented combinations of extreme weather events killed people and damaged property all over Christendom. The clerical evidence for the accelerating influence of human sinfulness further strengthened, as it has for decades now.” [1]
When Jesus failed to appear, the Vatican (or perhaps we should call it the Infallible Panel on Christ’s Coming), assured their flock that the fire and brimstone would definitely start raining down on the anniversary of his crucifixion, instead of that of his birth.
Another three more decades of prayer and malaise followed. When it eventually became obvious to all that Christ wasn’t coming any time soon, the clergy told the people to rejoice, because all their prayers and piety had worked, and God, in all His mercy, had postponed Doomsday. There was then a boom in cathedral building, financed off the backs of the long-suffering peasants as they strove to show their gratitude. And the power and authority of the clergy was stronger than ever.
The church maintained its grip for centuries and became ever more corrupt, as institutions with absolute authority always do. On top of all the taxes and tithes, it eventually introduced a system of carbon credits called indulgences where people could avoid being carbonized in hell by paying a fee to offset their sins. When even the dumbest of village idiots, in the dumbest village, of the dumbest province, saw through this scam, there was a rebellion. Centuries of bloodshed ensued before the people of Europe began to realize that perhaps it would be better to keep church and state separate.
Q: Discuss how crises, either real or imagined, can be used to seize or hold onto power. Bonus marks for making any valid comparisons to current events.
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I didn’t mean to offend anyone’s religious sensibilities. We all have our bad epochs. There are many different interpretations of history, but there does seem to be a consensus that it tends to repeat.
Let’s use some material so beloved of left-leaning teachers that it is almost as mandatory in their classrooms as a Koran in a madrassa.
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School Assignment 3: English Literature
The 1952 play, The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, portrays the Salem witch trials and popularized the phrase “witch hunt”.
Q: Discuss the language used by the protagonists. Demonstrate how the choice of particular words or appeals to authority can be used to exclude or dismiss counter evidence or opposing points of view. The following excerpts may be useful.
HALE: This is a strange time, Mister. No man may longer doubt the powers of the dark are gathered in monstrous attack upon this village. There is too much evidence now to deny it. You will agree, sir?
HATHORNE: Now, Martha Corey, there is abundant evidence in our hands to show that you have given yourself to the reading of fortunes. Do you deny it?
DANFORTH: What are you! You are combined with anti-Christ, are you not? I have seen your power, Mister, you will not deny it!
Bonus marks for illustrating your answer with current real world examples.
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Science is based on observation, religion on authority. The more the global warming alarmists ignore observation and appeal to authority, the more like a religion they become.
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School Assignment 3: Citizenship and Ethics
Tick whichever is applicable. People who do not believe in man-made catastrophic global warming should be…
1. branded as deniers.
2. harassed in their homes and workplaces.
3. forcibly tattooed on their bodies.
4. gassed with carbon monoxide.
5. obliterated with explosives.
If you ticked all of the above, full Marx.
References:
1. (inspired by) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-h-gleick/climate-change-denial-_b_1185309.html
2. “We know who you are. We know where you live. We know where you work.”
Greenpeace
3. “Surely it’s time for climate-change deniers to have their opinions forcibly tattooed on their bodies.”
Richard Glover, radio talk-show host and 20 year columnist for the Sydney Morning Herald
4. “I’m prepared to keep an open mind and propose another stunt for climate sceptics – put your strong views to the test by exposing yourselves to high concentrations of either carbon dioxide or some other colourless, odourless gas – say, carbon monoxide.
You wouldn’t see or smell anything. Nor would your anti-science nonsense be heard of again. How very refreshing.
Jill Singer, writer for the Melbourne Herald Sun
5. 10:10 video -has to be seen to be believed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-Mw5_EBk0g
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Final Assignment: Question for everybody
There used to be a time when junk science was not taught in our schools and our kids were not indoctrinated. There used to be a time when scientists and everybody could debate in a climate of free enquiry, free of censorship and intimidation. Has the climate changed?
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James Sexton says:
March 18, 2012 at 1:37 am
Well said James but what you are missing is the “death by degrees”. The Marxists introduced things by degrees. A Marxist would come out with some outrageous idea and the degree of outrage would be measured. Instead would be implemented a watered down version of the idea which sounded great at the time. Then the screws would be slowly tigtened. Very few noticed. We are now seeing about 70 years of “death by degrees” which is now a yawning gap. People are starting to notice.
@laurent duval
‘For the record there was no millenarian fear (not even anything close : none), the cathedrals didn’t take “centuries” to be built, there was no “Vatican” with absolute powers over the Church.. and the “law” of religions always getting more corrupt that you seem to believe is just that : a belief, not anything backed by history’
I refer M. Duval to the excellent book
‘Millenium’ by the historian Tom Holland. He will find plenty of examples of the Millenarian fear in there. To take just a couple:
‘Perilous times are upon us and the World is threatened with its end’
and
‘Truly our life lasts one thousand years. And now here we are arrived at the last day of the very span of time itself’
both by Abbott Odo of Cluny…the premier religious house of its day. The Abbot’s words had great resonance in those highly religious times. He was one of the top religious thinkers and opinion formers.
As Holland eloquently puts it
‘These were words that no Christian could readily ignore: for they had issued from the place that seemed to its admirers, more than any other, the nearest there was to heaven on earth’
As to the ‘Law’ of religions becoming more corrupt, it may not be a Law but it certainly happened. Hence Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation..
Why didn’t you use a diffeent religious example,then? The japanese “consensus” on the status of the shogunate, for instance, or the emperor. Or the hindu caste system. Why is it always christianity?
As a global warmin alaramist, I am glad for what Gleick did, even as all of you are glad someone hacked the CRU. But suppose I were a moral human being instead and felt Gleick’s role in Fakegate was wrong. So what. Global warming would be true (or false), and therefore my alarm would be justified (or not), even if Gleick had killed 1,000,000 people and buried them in his back yard.
On the subject of creationism I need to remind people that Al Gore read Theology and Mr. Cool at Skeptical science is a religious guy and a physicist. Nothing wrong with that. By the way a court in the UK has found that belief in AGW is akin to a religion.
Typo:
“Mr. Cook at Skeptical science….”
(Cool he is not) 🙂
OK I’ve read quite a few responses now. I had reservations about using religion as an analogy. If many more people express offense then the article is counterproductive to the climate debate and I will ask Anthony to withdraw the article and I can then perhaps reinstate it with those parts removed.
I will try one more time to clarify.
It is the alarmist PR machine that has introduced the climate-creationist meme.
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=climate+%22teach+the+controversy%22&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
I thought that should be addressed. I also thought it would be dishonest of me not to declare my own religious beliefs before writing about religion.
James Sexton wrote:
“the concepts of creationism and evolution are not necessarily mutually exclusive.”
I fully agree.
I also believe that the climate establishment is taking on the aspects of a corrupt church. I deliberately chose some of the darkest chapters in one church in order to make a comparison.
I am not suggesting that those dark chapters are representative of the church today or of the religion’s original teachings.
I did not think that asserting that churches can and do become corrupt would be controversial. I believe that was the situation during Jesus’ lifetime but I will defer to the opinion of believers on such matters.
Please rewrite this article replacing ‘climate change’ with ‘business outlook’. Replace ‘christ’s return’ with ‘renewed confidence’ and replace ‘marxists’ with ‘investment bankers, stockbrokers and fund managers’.
It won’t be the same exactly, but it might be instructive to see that these mantras exist in all political hues, not just the far left…….
@arthur dent
True perhaps, but it didn't take Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz and the Vogon Constructor Fleet very long to destroy it 🙁
Ref: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Adams (et al)
'
David,
I think that it is actually deeper than what you describe. These people, Warmistas if you like, don’t actually believe in the entrenched rights in the ownership of property, and further, they don’t believe in the moral compass contained in political and civil rights of individuals or organisations, group-think through environmental sciences enacted into laws achieves these goals.
Once these very basic principles of Western democracies have been forever breached then the future is indeed unknown regardless of whether humans are changing the climate or not.
The video is shocking – WTF?!! Is that some kind of spoof? I cannot believe the rhetoric sank so low.
We have only just lived through genocide in Europe, what b***tards think that killing people that are different from you is “fun” (!”£”%*$*!!!), even if it is the purposes of making the video.
Sick, just sick. It makes me scared for the future.
You have my appreciation David. My favorite bit: the Infallible Panel on Christ’s Coming.
And for the accuracy nitpickers: it’s a frickin analogy, and a hilarious one at that. Do you over-analyze jokes, too?
I will not push further the debate toward history, this is not the place and I understand this was an analogy. I was not aware the clichés about european so-called “Middle Ages” were so strong, and I certainly prefer when an author makes his point using valid comparisons, and not popular culture and myths.
As the french proverb says, “Comparaison n’est pas raison” , and the dynamics of large institutions (the roman church in 1000 AD or the ‘scientific community’ today) are far more chaotic than we allow ourselves to admit. We tend to see them as monolithic, stable and powerful, following “logical” paths, etc. It’s a post hoc ergo propter hoc argumentation fallacy (-> the catholic church wanted power, we know the catholic church got power, ergo the catholic church got power because it wanted it badly and took the adequate steps to achieve this goal, all other reasons are irrelevant).
The irony is that the social engineering advocated by climate alarmists proceeds from the same fallacy. Some of them genuinely think they can change the minds because they’ve been taught “this has happened before”….which might very well prove to be wrong.
@David ross
Withdraw not a single word, mon brave. Stick to your guns. That you annoy the religious and teh green alike is no surprise. For you actually puncture their self-regard in exactly the same way.
It has seemed to me for a long while that today’s green Gaiaists are just continuation of yeteryear’s doomsday predictors but under adifferent name.
In the past they claimed it was Original Sin and Love of God that drove them Today it is Love of Gaia and Fossil Fuels. But the impulse is identical, and their solutions ban, silence, expose, denounce, excommunicate, sacrifice, kill…are the same. In Judaism and Islam as well as in Christianity and Gaiaism.
They all want to stop (by violent means if necessary, and sometimes if not) somebody else from doing something they disapprove of. And wrap themselves in ‘A Cause’ to justify their actions.
Stick with it David. Goliath can be brought low!
[snip . . OT . . try Test 🙂 . . kbmod]
David, I am not a religious person, but I thought you did the job admirably with your first analogy. You should have stopped there
I believe the key is that some people have a psychological feature that prevents them from admitting making mistakes. I learned about this in psychology and I’ve met people with this curious disability. If you have to work closely with this type of person eventually it’s a maddening experience; you simply can’t get them to admit any mistake, no matter the size or importance.
What I see in academia at large, and especially in climatology, is the type of people that enter these disciplines seem to have this inability to admit mistakes to a much higher proportion than the population at large. These jobs filter for people with inability to admit mistakes.
This mindset is in itself innocuous. However, what happens is these people “take a side” and then can never ever switch because that would me admitting a mistake (they didn’t pick the correct side the first time).
Psychologists I’ve met say (in the workplace) you can’t do anything with this mindset. You can’t change their minds and the best strategy is to try and not hire these type of people and if they are already around, avoid them.
you shall not LIE, STEAL, BARE FALSE WITNESS. Which part of that is so hard for the warmists/alarmists to understand? If you lie, nothing you say can be trusted, if you steal, nothing you do can be trusted, if you bare false witness, try that one in a court of law and see if you are allowed to get away with it. defend it at your perile warmists, if you cannot be trusted in words, actions or in the courts, your entire argument falls over and is proved false, oh wait, I just did proper science, I just falsified the entire warmist argument.
joking btw> all hail me, all hail me < joking btw.
It’s threads like this that make me think that I am the only gay atheist CAGW sceptic in the village…
“Archonix says:
March 18, 2012 at 3:14 am
Why didn’t you use a diffeent religious example,then? The japanese “consensus” on the status of the shogunate, for instance, or the emperor. Or the hindu caste system. Why is it always christianity?”
Maybe if we were Indians we would use the Hindu caste system or Japanese we would use the “emperor” system. However since 99.9% of westerners are ignorant of these systems then Christianity is the next best thing, Christianity is not the problem – It is churchianity based on the Christian system. Two entirely different systems but most people are also ignorant of this division also.
When they first sought to decive?
Soft lies grew to be hard line lies.
Now a rear action angry long term retreat is in process.
global warming alarmists –
You don’t need to be a climatologist or scientist or statistician –
alarmists still can’t distinguish right from wrong –
Others don’t want to see the science content of Watts Up With That diluted. I agree –
forcing mechanisms are operating on us –
I am not religious and don’t want to see creationism taught in schools –
My belief in the theory of evolution has not changed. –
Science is based on observation, religion on authority –
The more the global warming alarmists ignore observation and appeal to authority –
There used to be a time when junk science was not taught in our schools and our kids were not indoctrinated –
There used to be a time when scientists and everybody could debate in a climate of free enquiry, free of censorship and intimidation –
Has the climate changed?
Question:
An Energy of 1[eV] is equal to a ‘mass’ M of: 1.7801 * 10^-36 [V A sec^3 m^-2].
A ‘mass’ M [V A sec^3 m^-2] = E * µ_0 * epsilon_0 (permeability and permittivity of the universe).
Is that true?
The question a simple test on the claim of scientific consciousness versus the hypocrisy respecting the methods of science but arguing with ‘-ismen (‘alarmist’).
The very point is that each assignment of stuff as wrong or biased because of (your) authority does not replace the very own recognitions of the order of nature.
I think the path of science is a lonesome way the whole life (or multiple lifes), not suitable for the crowd.
Repetitions of physical processes in nature can lead to (individual) recognitions in science. These recognitions cannot be transferred by teachers like bread to hungry people; every recognition must be recognized anew in every present by the listener, or refuted by own knowledge.
There is much empirical knowledge in history on repetitions of events in nature. But this knowledge is not part of the lessons in science in this era.
I think your last question is guided by the fear of the loss of power to control nature in any way, not different to all soap box speakers in Hyde Park or climate blogs.
V.
Archonix says: March 18, 2012 at 3:14 am
[Why is it always Christianity?]
He is writing for the audience of this blog.
Had this blog been in Hindi, for an Indian audience you might have inquired:
तुम क्यों नहीं एक अलग धार्मिक उदाहरण का उपयोग किया था, तो? जापानी शोगुनेट की स्थिति, उदाहरण के लिए, या सम्राट पर “आम सहमति”.या ईसाई धर्म.क्यों है यह हमेशा से हिन्दू जाति व्यवस्था?
Or in Japanese, your posting could have been:
なぜあなたはその後、別の宗教的な例を使用しなかったのですか？幕府の状態、例えば、またはヒンドゥー教のカースト•システム上で日本語”コンセンサス”。またはキリスト教。なぜそれが常に皇帝ですか？
James Sexton:
“This wasn’t happenstance that a bunch of scumbags of acedamia got together and decided to try to control the world’s life giving molecules. It was our complacency. And, it was our stupidity. Those scumbags are products of our educational systems.”
James, you’re right this wasn’t happenstance, but to say it was our stupidity is to underestimate the clever persistence of the Socialists/Watermelons. The Soviet Union may no longer exist. The will to control others absolutely has outlived the USSR. Read ‘Radical-in-Chief’ by Stanley Kurtz. When Reagan was turning the economy around in 1983, Obama was attending a Socialist leadership conference in Manhattan that laid the basis for the movement to shift operations underground; to thrive, by NEVER announcing itself. That policy continues up to this moment.
There are clearly aspects of the CAGW position and some religions which do intersect. Some, but not all religions, take a ‘pessimistic’ view of humanity. The idea is firmly embedded that ‘man’ is fallen and can only be redeemed through the medium of the church. Likewise there are many, mostly inspired by the pessimism of Marx and others, who believe that social progress can only be achieved through the mechanism of the state. Since the collapse of that ideology those on the left have sought a cause which would help them achieve their goals. This time the chosen method is not revolution but subversion – let us co-opt a scientific agenda which suggests an existential threat to all humanity. This threat is so overwhelming that the only way it can be averted is by the creation of supra-national organisations to control a primary factor of production – energy. Any one who protests or questions this view of the ‘truth’ will be burnt at the stake. So the old battle is now rejoined. Not heretic versus the inquisition, west versus east, capitalist versus communist but free- thinking libertarians versus radical environmentalists.