James Hansen’s understudy, eco activist and founder of 350.org Bill McKibben just gave me an endorsement, which I’m surprised about. The article, syndicated in a number of outlets is titled Climate-change deniers on the ropes
McKibben writes of the Heartland billboard, claiming it has put a damper on all things skeptic, and has pretty much driven Heartland’s donors away. Perhaps he missed this report where Heartland says the donors have doubled, despite losing some.
Here’s the money quote though. McKibben writes:
Whatever the final outcome, it’s worth noting that, in a larger sense, Bast is correct: this tiny collection of deniers has actually been incredibly effective over the past years.
The best of them – and that would be Marc Morano, proprietor of the website Climate Depot, and Anthony Watts, of the website Watts Up With That – have fought with remarkable tenacity to stall and delay the inevitable recognition that we’re in serious trouble. They’ve never had much to work with. Only one even remotely serious scientist remains in the denialist camp. That’s MIT’s Richard Lindzen, who has been arguing for years that while global warming is real it won’t be as severe as almost all his colleagues believe. But as a long article in the New York Times detailed last month, the credibility of that sole dissenter is basically shot. Even the peer reviewers he approved for his last paper told the National Academy of Sciences that it didn’t merit publication. (It ended up in a “little-known Korean journal”.)
McKibben goes on to name other skeptics, including Monckton and Luboš Motl, for their roles.
I got quite the kick out of this ending though:
But damn, it’s a hard fight, up against a ton of money and a ton of inertia. Eventually, climate denial will “lose”, because physics and chemistry are not intimidated even by Lord Monckton. But timing is everything – if he and his ilk, a crew of certified planet wreckers, delay action past the point where it can do much good, they’ll be able to claim one of the epic victories in political history – one that will last for geological epochs.
Gosh, “certified planet wreckers”? Where does one get a certificate like that? Is getting one like being a member of the Union of Concerned Scientists, where only a valid credit card is needed? If so, maybe I’ll offer them here.
Couple of things Bill, since I know you read WUWT:
1. Where’s the beef?
2. Hansen’s alternate view of cause was swept under the rug, he’s flip-flopped on the causes of global warming back and forth.
3. Climate “Deniers” Winning the War
h/t to Dr. Leif Svalgaard
UPDATE: here’s another article, with “planet wreckers” in the title
NOTE: This is an update by Mike Lorrey, added after the fact – Anthony
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I look forward to receiving my official Planet Wreckers certificate. I’m sure it will arrive in the mail along with my check from Big Oil/Big Coal any day now… 😉
The only certificate that should be handed out, is one McKibben himself should receive. The one that certifies him to be the nutbar he is.
He is correct that the chemistry and physics will win, they just aren’t on his team….
I second Dickens Goes Metro’s tee-shirt idea. Josh, Anthony?
I’m happy to be a PWD: “Planet Wrecking Denier”–has a certain “ring” to it even the “loose-with-the-facts” PDH’s–“Planet Destroying Hysterics” can appreciate, I’m sure. And I’d also love to have a PWD certificate to verify my position.
But more to the point, their hysterical pronouncements of an early demise for Earth’s climate reminds me of the Hot Fusion imbroglio–they’ve been dumping tons of money into that enterprise for 40 years or more with “success” always just 20 years away.
So the CAGW “20-year plan” is this–make a lot of money and cause a lot of heartache and disruption while you’re here, ’cause once you’re gone, the 20-year target is still the target (Redundant, right? And rightly so).
Further typing could not appropriately describe the depths to which I despise these people (without getting snipped, of couse).
“They’ve never had much to work with. Only one even remotely serious scientist remains in the denialist camp. That’s MIT’s Richard Lindzen, who has been arguing for years that while global warming is real it won’t be as severe as almost all his colleagues believe.”
Bill has taken the logical fallacy of ‘argument by consensus’ to new heights! Skeptics apparently don’t have much science to work with because they allegedly have only one ‘remotely serious scientist’ in their camp. I guess facts and data have no place in the climate debate, just the number and ‘quality’ of your camping buddies!
Of course, the premise that there is only one serious scientist arguing that AGW will not likely be catastrophic and that all other serious scientists have said that it will, is a completely stupid lie, Mr. McKibben can only be testing the gullibility of the faithful with that one.
The scientific reality is that the skeptics have always had the upper hand:
1. It is the responsibility of those proposing the hypothesis to provide the evidence that supports it. Naysayers have no responsibility to come up with an alternative hypothesis, only indicate where the original hypothesis is incorrect, in order to nullify it. In the case of climate change, skeptics have no burden to produce a climate model that explains the climate history of the Holocene. Supporters of the AGW theory do have that burden and have been unable to do so.
2. The only real debate is over climate sensitivity to increasing CO2. It is up to warmists to produce the evidence for this high sensitivity. Despite 20 years and billions of dollars in research money, warmists have no more evidence of this high sensitivity today than they did 20 years ago. They cannot find it. On the other hand, skeptics, with far less research money and in a generally hostile scientific environment, have come up with methods and evidence indicating that the actually sensitivity if far lower than the AGW theory ASSUMES.
3. The test of any theory is in its ability to predict the future. In the case of AGW, a warming trend is not conformation of the theory, as even skeptics will agree that increasing CO2, all else being equal, will produce some small amount of warming. To support the theory, the warming must be very close to the predictions, Since it is not, the theory should be augmented to fit the data, not the other way around. The fact that there has been NO warming for the last 14 years indicates a major revision is in order! The defense of the theory at this point is completely unscientific.
When we get right down to it, the only thing the warmists have going for them is a logical fallacy: the argument of consensus, and even that has been grossly inflated. From a scientific stand point, the warmists never had much to stand on, and that continues to whither with the lack of atmospheric warming.
Mr. Paul Milligan, quite so. We’re avastly funded conspiracy of evil oil and, at the sme time, an insignifcant bunch of losers
A Planet Wrecking bumper sticker would be great also.
Since McKibben reads WUWT, here’s one *more* thing:
“But as a long article in the New York Times detailed last month, the credibility of that sole dissenter is basically shot.”
It wasn’t a long article, laddie-buck — it was an op-ed by James Hansen. ‘Nother words, it was an opinion piece, not a news item.
CanadianObserver says:
June 4, 2012 at 8:14 am
…just evaluating McKibben’s train of thought, this level of cognitive dissonance is worthy of a “Monty Python Black Knight” award for persistence.
(The Black Knight is a tragic figure from Monty Python’s Quest for the Holy Grail).
(The Black Knight is an auto-lampooning figure from Monty Python’s Quest for the Holy Grail).
Fixed it for ya.
Les Johnson says:
June 4, 2012 at 8:07 am
sigh, I miss the Daily Bayonet.
One mention of Weepy Bill would make my day.
________________________________________
Shouldn’t that be changed to Weepy Willy (who gives me the Willies) If they can call Anthony, Tony….
McKibben is less an understudy than a sidekick.. He is Igor to Hansen’s Frankenstein.
Some men see things as they are and ask why; others persist in delusional fantasies and become the butt of jokes.
May be the T-shirt should read:
I am a Weeping Willy
Certified Planet Wrecker
with a Josh cartoon below it.
Such as this one: http://www.cartoonsbyjosh.com/planet_pressure_scr.jpg
or this one: http://www.cartoonsbyjosh.com/Suggestions_scr.jpg
or this one: http://www.cartoonsbyjosh.com/green_reaper_scr.jpg
I am sure Josh can come up with something really good.
Anthony Watts: Destroyer of Worlds.
I’m thinking a cross-over issue here with Galactus.
Episode 6: Captain Watts navigates his Destructor Fleet as directed by Lord Admiral Monckton navigates towards Earth to carbonize the planet using weapons designed by dastardly, evil scientist Motl. McKibben of the resistance Mannicly publishes press releases and journal which are transparent to the enlightenment rays of the Fleet.
Will McKibben produce anything of substance to defend against the light?
Stay tuned for a message from our sponsor.
Gotta get myself a t-shirt that says ‘certified planet wrecker’!
I get the feeling McKibben has never visited or read a sceptic blog. Acknowledgement of the gaping holes in the catastrophic global warming hypothesis could cause some potentially fatal dissonance.
Thought you guys might enjoy a little humorous piece I wrote at wild Bill’s expense. http://suyts.wordpress.com/2012/05/31/a-clear-carbon-catastrophe-as-we-pass-a-milestone/
The best effect for the humor is to start to read it from the home page, in which case you’d have to click on “older posts” and then scroll down. At any rate, I thought it was a hoot. Enjoy.
McKibben writes:
“Only one even remotely serious scientist remains in the denialist camp. That’s MIT’s Richard Lindzen”
It is interestingly how blatantly dishonest these people get, counting on the sheer ignorance of much of their target audience of fellow supporters.
From memory in my sleep I could mention Dr. Shaviv, Dr. Svensmark, and Dr. Spencer without getting seriously started. Aside from the thousands of scientists who have signed petitions, there are dozens in particularly relevant subspecialties risking censure to directly speak out listed here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scientific_assessment_of_global_warming&diff=438904056&oldid=435356565
I link to an early July 2011 version before the CAGW dishonesty-promoting team deleted all of the most revealing quotes, not the current version. I always find it very telling that the CAGW side has to delete info that they can not bear to have people ever see; groups which so terribly fear the end of ignorance are not harbringers of truth.
The bulk of the papers (hundreds at least) listed under the many categories on http://www.co2science.org/subject/subject.php oppose key components of CAGW claims, with too many authors to conveniently count. Although the one weakness of that site is it does not directly link to online copies, usually just putting part of a paper’s name in quotes next to pdf is enough to find a version online, often full text without a paywall.
I use the term CAGW, not global warming, as otherwise in practice favors the kind of binary thought fallacy the alarmists love to promote (the one used in their Doran & Zimmerman 2009 dishonest consensus poll trick). Putting a garbage bag on your lawn has a technically non-zero effect on temperature, but the basis of the global warming alarmism movement is claiming it is catastrophic (else nobody cares) and primarily anthropogenic (able to be blamed on humans as otherwise would defeat the whole point), thus catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (CAGW).
What McKibben and his ilk don’t realise is that we have Mother Nature on our side.
Funny, we feel the same way about them being on the ropes…
In spite of lack of scientific proof,
the Warmistas still have their bogus ‘Precautionary Principle’,
as well as the fallacious ‘Sustainability’ mantra,
the fraudulent ‘Population Boom’,
and their generic Leftist hatred of economic freedom.
After all, DDT and Freon are still banned,
the EPA rampage continues unabated,
windmills continue to decimate birds and bats
and destabilize our electricity supply,
ethanol continues its obscene food-robbery,
fuel poverty intensifies,
and Green indoctrination of youth approaches 100%.
With all those successes propping up their little minds,
why should they ever acknowledge their massive scientific failure?
They instead keep ‘adjusting’ past data and tweaking their models,
finding ever more desparate tactics
to explain away or deny the lack of warming.
The upcoming Rio extravaganza should prove shriller than ever.
The McKibbens of the world will never go away. The best we can hope for is that they are relegated to irrelevancy and no one pays any attention to them. Trying to defeat them with scientific arguments is impossible since their arguments are based on a distortion of science. It’s like trying to argue against Creationists and Intelligent Designers.
Normally I’d say the best thing to do is to ignore them but while our collective guards were down, they got themselves into some positions of power so we need to continue to work to pry them out of power.
On a side note, it continues to amaze me that the warmists continually assert that the skeptics are well funded when it’s exactly the opposite. I guess they’re practicing the old adage that if you tell a lie enough it becomes the truth.
more soylent green! says:
June 4, 2012 at 8:43 am
Have we ever had an accounting of how much money “Big Oil” has funneled into “Big Green?”
______________________________
Here is some of it
Massive climate funding exposed: http://joannenova.com.au/2009/07/massive-climate-funding-exposed/
Here is a good one:
Spot the conflict: GE owns NBC, the Weather channel and lots and lots of wind turbine factories: http://joannenova.com.au/?s=money
And Obama appointed the CEO of GE, Jeffrey Immelt, as the head of a Council on Jobs (rolls eyes)
US Government *only* spent $70 billion on climate since 2008 http://joannenova.com.au/2012/05/us-government-only-spent-70-billion-on-climate-since-2008/
Shell was WWF first Corporate sponser: http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2012/04/11/the-wwfs-vast-pool-of-oil-money/
Big Oil Money for Me, But Not for Thee: http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2012/02/17/big-oil-money-for-me-but-not-for-thee/
The Enormous CEO Salaries Behind Earth Hour http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2012/03/28/the-enormous-ceo-salaries-behind-earth-hour/
The Wealthy Corporations Behind Earth Hour http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2012/03/26/the-wealthy-corporations-behind-earth-hour/
BP, Greenpeace & the Big Oil Jackpot http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2010/06/04/bp-greenpeace-the-big-oil-jackpot/
Greenpeace: Corporate Stocks http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2011/01/05/greenpeace-corporate-stocks-noahs-arks/
Ya shoulda kept your head down McKibben. Now it’s gonna be popcorn time over at Lubos.
I always remind my spoiled fellow Americans to listen hard to the ex-coms because they have already been there and done that. While we sit here united in celebration, marvelling at our own magnificence (:Morpheus), like the slow cooking frog we are nearly immune to the warning signs that are obvious to those frogs that jumped out of the pot. The ex-communists, particularly those in new Europe (:Rumsfeld) are not shy to smack some sense into us and say ‘WTF are you doing over there? Can’t you figure out what the left is up to? Wake up!‘.
The truth is that these lefties are easy to rattle if you got the stones for it. It is done be calling a spade a spade. They do NOT like to be called proto-communists, but they are. They do NOT like to be called socialists, but of course they are. It is clear why they hated McCarthy so much, he and others were blowing their cover. Political correctness is a direct response, an inversion actually, to make it uncomfortable to call them what they are. They are leftist socialist neo-comms who wouldn’t hesitate for a second to sell out our nation and dictate every single facet of our lives (as if they aren’t already). The only way to win the war is to make their position the politically incorrect one again. It will take much courage to invert the situation right side up.
Apart from the obvious denial (calling the skeptics a failure!) I get the sense from the article that some of this has really gotten into McKibben’s head. He has a tone of futility when speaking of Lubos and Marc Morano. This tells me that now is not the time to be nice to them and let them catch their breath, now is the time to double-down and hammer them hard,
Anthony Watts, if you happen to read this comment, do you think there might be potential for having a reference page on WUWT for skeptical papers? I could create a list of such as a top hundred as a good sample, each with an illuminating quote and information including a link to usually a full-text version of the paper online without a paywall (aside from, of course, care in event of any copyright concerns, although there are many where authors themselves host a copy on their own websites), else an abstract at least. Even co2science.org does not do that. It would be just something I could work on occasionally over the next few weeks, and, then, once complete, submit to you if interested, so you could just do any additional editing judged necessary at your discretion.
It would be a quite a contrast to the likes of the Wikipedia page implying there are fewer than 10 such papers (something I could not make more honest without deletion within minutes to hours since they have a team patrolling those articles including some with admin powers).
Without any need to make an outright commitment (obviously dependent on exactly what I submitted and subject to further editing), please let me know if you would be likely to host such a reference page of skeptical papers. I wouldn’t want to invest the time to write it up otherwise, but WUWT does get enough viewer numbers to be worthwhile.