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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wws wrote: “not so much Marx as someone else, no?”
No, I meant Marx, not the National kind of socialist.
If you want know why, you should read this by Friedrich Engels:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1849/01/13.htm
Skip to the end if you’re in a hurry, but I recommend reading the whole thing.
“RE: The alarmists always compare skeptics (deniers as they like to call them) with creationists.
Yet John Cook of Skeptical Science is a creationist
http://www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?n=678
[The link you post does not back up what you claim ~jove, mod]
[to other moderators – I am unsure of posting this]”
Yes it is a touchy subject, my link proves his catholic belief, and if he is a good Christian
and follows the tenents of Catholicism, then he must believe in some form of creationism, even
if it is Evolution by intelligent design. The Catholic Church accepts evolution guided by the hand of God.
From an article in Sojourners ( register to read)
Sojourners: How does your faith motivate your work?
“John Cook: I’m very challenged by Bible passages such as Amos 5 and Matthew 25, which tell me that God cares strongly about social justice and expects us to. Climate change will affect poor, vulnerable countries that have contributed to it the least and are least equipped to adapt. Developing countries such as Bangladesh are vulnerable to rising sea levels; African countries are vulnerable to drought.”
Science is a form of religion. Scientists are always skeptical of the beliefs of others but rarely their own.
Katharine Hayhoe is another creationist alarmist.
“Addressing the Naysayers
by Katharine Hayhoe
The gospel truth about climate change
We’ve all had enough of feeling bad about our sins of omission. We all know we should be eating better, recycling, and making more healthy choices. But that’s not the gospel, is it? The gospel tells us we are forgiven and free. The gospel motivates us from the heart to love others.
The bottom line is that real people in real places around planet Earth are already being affected by our changing climate. Doing something about climate change is making the love of Jesus tangible to hurting people. Our God has made us into people who are designed to look outside of ourselves and love our global neighbor — and today, that means caring about what climate change is doing to our world.
Katharine Hayhoe is a climate scientist and geoscience professor at Texas Tech University. She is the author, with Andrew Farley, of A Climate for Change: Global Warming Facts for Faith-Based Decisions (FaithWords), out in paperback in March.”
http://sojo.net/magazine/2011/04/addressing-naysayers
ali says:
March 18, 2012 at 3:32 am
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.
====================================================
lol, uhmm, that’s funny, ali, then we are in an agreement, I’m glad Gleick did what he did as well. Though I’m not sure why you’re glad…… but, I digress. You missed the point of the post. It isn’t about Gleick’s actions. It’s about some of the people who approve and condone his actions. Sure, your approval doesn’t matter. But, what about some of the prominent scientists?
Tell me Ali, what makes you believe they were being truthful when writing their papers? Or giving lectures? Or blogging? They just told you lying is okay to advance an idea. So, what is it that makes them credible?
Is WUWT going to become another website harbouring anti-Catholic bigotry? Your falsification of Church history makes climategate look benign. It undermines your whole ethics argument. You treat people like trash just as the alarmists do to deniers.
Disgraceful. This does no service to the reputation of WUWT.
Nobody expects the CAGW inquisition:D
“ali says:
March 18, 2012 at 3:32 am
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 you feel a moral human being would feel Gleick’s role in fakegate was wrong, meaning
anyone who is “glad for what Gleick did” is amoral.
Guest post by David Ross
“perhaps we should call it the Infallible Panel on Christ’s Coming”
Excellent acronym. Perhaps we should use it in references to the other IPCC. Just imagine the warmists reaction! Gavin would go ballistic!! So would Moonbat and WMC!!
A Mel Books style feature film would skewer the warmistas nicely. Does our side have any film makers?
Speaking of science. religion, and Christianity…actually, science, the scientific method, IS Christianity (up to a point). Christianity says, as its very first and most basic principle. that man is fallible and sinfull. The basis of the existance of the scientific method is rooted on that, if man were not fallible, there would be no need for all those elaborate checks to see if the claims made about something were true, the ‘scientist” would make the claim, and everyone would beleive them, no need for publishing your exact method and it’s result, no need for others to try and replicate that result.
Thus, it is actually impossible to seperate science and religion, at least Christianity and science (other religions are different, some are actualy anti science at their core), and at least up to a point. There is a reason, after all, that the scientific method flowered in “Christian” Europe and died out if started anywhere else (there is some evidence that the original idea started in the Islaamic area, yet never took root untill replanted in the Christian area).
And as for peoples sensibilities being offended if “the church” is shown to be in a bad light in the stories above, see that first principle, man is falliible and sinfull. They branded Jesus a heritic and denier from the very start, Paul the apostle would start a church and then have to write a letter setting them straight when they got into serious error practically the minute he left, and it has continued like that for over 2000 years. If you are offended, get over it, it’s just history, it happened from the very first, and will continue to happen inside and outside the church.
To sum up, seperating the scientific method and Christianity is not really possible, up to a point (the very first point, anyway). If you believe in science, you at least agree with the first most basic teaching of Christianity. If you do not agree with that point, then you do not agree with science, and you can expect your “science” to be full of argument from authority, lying, blackballing of “skeptics”, and all the other antics we know and love (and see often in church history as well).
Volker: I have no idea whether your equations are “true” or not. You forgot to define the elements used in them. And the units of mass and energy.
The equations do seem to be equating mass and energy per Einstein’s revelation.
@Steve G3345:
Hardly. Please do not equate freedom of expression with endorsement. WUWT has become a public forum. You are as welcome as the poster to express your opinion. You are not the only one that has criticized this post. Try criticizing posts on other blogs. There aren’t that many that moderate with as light a hand as here. The whole point of the post is stifling of free expression. Your comment proves the point of the post as you are allowed to express yourself. That is becoming ever more rare, especially when going against the grain of CAGW.
Perfectly written post! Well done!
ali says:
March 18, 2012 at 3:32 am
“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.”
Do you have any evidence that “someone hacked the CRU.”? If so I suggest you pass the evidence to the Norfolk Constabulary in UK. I strongly doubt you have any evidence, just a religious belief in CAGW.
You should be embarrassed.
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?
There has never been a time when junk science was not taught in our schools. In my father’s day, the superiority of white males was known as truth. In my day, the imminent disaster of nuclear war (with the resulting collapse of civilization) was known as truth. In my childrens’ days, the moral equivalence of every philosophy and lifestyle was known as truth. In my grandchildrens’ days, the imminent disaster of ecological and environmental failure (with the resulting collapse of civilization) is truth.
There has never been a time when scientists and everybody could debate in a climate of free inquiry. There has always been censorship and intimidation, where more senior scientists (or more wealthy ones) could ensure that their ideas were not overturned during their lifetime. Many fields of science have to wait for certain learned-ones to die before new ideas can come to fruition.
As much as I cherish and appreciate the WUWT site, and will come here and read all of the marvelous good and intellectual articles and comments, the ultimate bottom-line root-cause-analysis is not going to be in scientific papers and discussions. I do not need WUWT to see that the whole climate alarmism is a sham. I do not need any education, charts, graphs, or scientific discourse to see it is a sham. All I have to do is follow the money, and use a little common sense. Just like in all the other scams promoted through whichever educational or political system you want to follow, it is all about money and power. Anyone who has been in debate knows how it goes: You can argue, and win, either side of any argument. It is not, nor has it ever been, about who is right, but how effectively you can put your point across to the judges/audience you are trying to sway. There are good reasons why Dante placed lawyers in the third tier of hell.
In all of my 60 years of life, I have not seen a year go by that didn’t have some disaster declared, some dire threat to myself or civilization or the world. I can sympathize with the peasants that lived in the years around AD 1000, because I think I have lived through something similar. If it isn’t some problem with food or water or air, then it is weapons or politics or war. We’ll get rid of lead paint, but then we will have infestations of bed-bugs. We’ll get rid of lead solder, but then we’ll have very large electronics fail. We go from crisis to crisis, never failing to shoot ourselves in the foot multiple times, never learning to be patient. We’ve gone from the Age of Enlightenment to the Age of Reaction. Don’t ask what you are reacting to, just react, get angry, and DO SOMETHING!
I’m all out of reaction, and down to cold simmering anger. Not that I, as an individual, can really do anything other than speak out to people around me, and try to not fall into the disaster-of-the-year mentality. I’m tired of people trying to scare me. It is sometimes difficult to pursue Truth, but I can always fall back on pursuing Justice.
“The climate debate is polarizing society. There is a general perception that the skeptics are right-wing and religious and that the alarmists are left-wing and atheist.”
This is by design, and not by accident. People coming to WUWT are still misled in their[:wink] belief that CAGW is about climate. Its not, and never was. The steak is about a very different agenda. CAGW is only the sizzle. It’s all Madison Av 101.
Wow! Another great post! Paul, you make sense to me!
Maybe someone is trying to ‘Hide the Incline‘?
Remedial counting is the next assignment. Maybe Anthony wanted to check and see if people were paying attention..
I like using the analogy to bring the issue to a common level that everyone can relate to. But I wonder how many AGW believers will take note, not many if history proves to be any indication..
Peter Gleick may be a minor figure in climate science, but that assumes climate is the only environmental or resource area exploited for a political agenda. The fundamental issue is overpopulation as the Club of Rome expanded the Malthusian argument of exhaustion of food resources to all resources. It was all formalized as Agenda 21 in the 1992 Rio Agreement.
Gleick’s expertise in water resources is a central plank to “the cause” and one that will replace climate as the science fails, as I argued here.
http://drtimball.com/2012/peter-gleicks-actions-exposes-end-justifies-means-mentality-poses-problem-for-un-agenda-21/
Gleick is already back on the speaking circuit; I assume he showed up for this engagement.
http://www.cawaterpolicy.org/speakers.htm
{snip}
Steve, if you think that there were never ANY dark times in the Catholic Church’s history, you are a narrow minded fellow. As a Catholic myself, I have to recognize the good and the bad that happened in MY church’s history, learn from it and ensure that those dark times NEVER happen again. The Church (any church) is made up of imperfect men, and as time passes, the Church will stumble ( pedophile priests for example). But as a member, it is my duty to keep it on a righteous path and identify those demons in the flock that infiltrate over time. Call it out for what it is and ensure there is a Church that can be respected. But I will refuse to turn a blind eye to those items in the past, for we shall be destined to repeat them if we do…
Now I can step off my soapbox…
Another great reponse!
As far as i can tell, there are only 2 reasons anyone would be a global warming activist or alarmist.
1. Personal Agenda (whether that be political, self-fufilling, or for $…etc.)
2. Self ignorance (whether that be that they refuse to look at the other side of things, or they live under a rock.
Another great post and one that I agree with completely! Just saying…
Steve G3345,
Try to be humble. All religions, just like science and business and all human activity, have been, at one time or another, abused by less scrupulous types who sold “snake oil” in order to gain power and wealth. Recently in Canada, we had 3 young daughters and their mother murdered by their father/husband and extended family because of religious beliefs (honor killing – they behaved too much like other Canadian Girls and did not dress/behave appropriately to what dominant males had decided )
The best way to discuss this is satire:
@steveg3445
I’d have more sympathy with your view if you presented some reasons why you think David’s excellent piece is wrong, rather than just calling it ‘bigotry’, with no supporting evidence.
I can see no logical difference between your remark and a rabid warmist saying
‘You are wrong because you are all deniers’
Truly AGW is the ‘new’ religion, but it suffers from exactly the same fatal flaws as all those which have gone before..And that any which come after will also have.
People work on a risk/reward basis, usually.
Serious question: With all the risk associated with the climate scam, what reward are Mann, et al. expecting out of it? They will never rise to the position of a true power broker in the large scheme — the various governments will assume that. So what are these people getting out of the climate scandal they created?