Over at Climate Progress, the alarmist organ of the Center for American Progress, Joe Romm is fond of citing an offhand remark from this WUWT story as “proof” of my alleged evilness.
“Scientists” Pull a Snow Job on Reporters in Teleconference
The offending phrase that gets Romm all riled up?
Forbes supports our position. A number of alarmists have been organized to team up on the comment section to defend the undefensible. Please add your voice of support to shout them down in the comments section.
Problem is, I never wrote that update paragraph at the top of the article, Joe D’Aleo did.
Joe Romm has cited the “shout them down” phrase in his references to WUWT and my name no less than 13 times in his blogs:
False Balance Lives: In Worst Climate Story Of The Year, PBS Channels Fox News
MIT Climate Scientist’s Wife Threatened in a “Frenzy of Hate” and Cyberbullying Fomented by Deniers
Comment here on comments and the new design
Scientific American & Lemonick pull a Charlie Sheen — or a Richard Muller, which is much the same
Yes, the false accusation that Gore was exaggerating came from none other than Roger Pielke, Jr.
Deniers finally concede that “the rate of atmospheric CO2 growth has been increasing.”
Inhofe, Horner, McIntyre and Watts fabricate another phony “despicable smear” against Michael Mann
Last week, I finally had enough of his shenanigans and emailed him, and he made a change to the most recent story for which I thank him, but the other stories remain unchanged. He also suggested in his reply email that I make a note on the blog entry that it is D’Aleo’s words, not mine, and I’ve done that.
Also last week it was revealed that Joe Romm had concerns over accuracy of the blog posts at Skeptical Science: Skeptical Science gets Romm-Bombed
Romm wrote to John Cook, and Cook summarized in their secret offline forum :
“Just got this email from Joe Romm: You must do more post vetting. More errors are creeping into posts and it will start making people like me wary of using them.” – John Cook [Skeptical Science], December 2, 2011
So in that spirit of accuracy, I would think that Joe would want to go back and correct his 12 other mistakes on that “shout them down” phrase he is so fond of using. We’ll see.
But here’s a test to see just how much integrity he has. You see it seems there has in fact been a coordinated effort on the part of Skeptical Science to do exactly what Joe Romm accuses WUWT of doing. Here’s some of that dialog as posted by PopularTechnology.net:
============================================================
“I posted over at Politico just recently. Hey, we can tag team it a bit if you like, use time zone differences.” – Glenn Tamblyn [Skeptical Science], February 10, 2011
“I think this is a highly effective method of dealing with various blogs and online articles where these discussions pop up. Flag them, discuss them and then send in the troops to hammer down what are usually just a couple of very vocal people. It seems like lots of us are doing similar work, cruising comments sections online looking for disinformation to crush. I spend hours every day doing exactly this. If we can coordinate better and grow the “team of crushers” then we could address all the anti-science much more effectively.” – Rob Honeycutt [Skeptical Science], February 11, 2011
“Rob, Your post is music to my ears. I’ve been advocating the need to create a “crusher crew” for quite some time. I was not however able to get much traction on it with fellow environmental activists here in South Carolina or nationally. Like you, I spend (much to my wife’s chagrin) many hours each day posting comments on articles. One of haunts was the USA Today website […] The bottom line, would you be willing to patrol articles posted on the USA Today website?” – John Hartz [Skeptical Science], February 11, 2011
This started a new forum discussion entitled, “Crusher Crew“.
“Badgersouth and I were just discussing the potential of setting up a coordinated “Crusher Crew” where we could pull our collective time and knowledge together in order to pounce on overly vocal deniers on various comments sections of blogs and news articles.” – Rob Honeycutt [Skeptical Science], February 11, 2011
“May I suggest first on our list as being the *#1 Science Blog* “Watts up with that”? They get a few people come there to engage from time to time but rarely a coordinated effort.” – Robert W. [Skeptical Science], February 11, 2011
“I think it might be better to start out with smaller fish. Build a community and a team. Find some methods and strategies that work. Then start moving up the denier food chain with our targets set on WUWT. I could see this expanding into a broad team of 100 or more people (outside the scope of this SkS forum of course). […] We just need to raise our collective voices to drown them out. I would venture to guess that most people here know of 4 or 5 regulars on comments sections that would be interested in coordinating their efforts. I know probably 10 or 20 people who would like to help with this.” – Rob Honeycutt [Skeptical Science], February 11, 2011
This eco-strike squad was highly endorsed by John Cook,
“The Rapid Response Network would be a good way to coordinate this kind of activity, identifying new articles, logging responses, supporting each other. Can i suggest if a group engage in this, that they use the RRN as beta testers to he’ll me develop and refine the system?” – John Cook [Skeptical Science], February 11, 2011
References:
From the Skeptical Science “leak”: Interesting stuff about generating and marketing “The Consensus Project” (Tom Nelson, March 23, 2012)
Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online (Skeptical Science, March 25, 2011)
===============================================================
I had to chuckle at this admission:
“May I suggest first on our list as being the *#1 Science Blog* “Watts up with that”? They get a few people come there to engage from time to time but rarely a coordinated effort.”
Even more hilarious, is this comment left by Skeptical Science author and moderator on Romm’s first essay where he bring the “shout them down” issue up:
Rob Honeycutt says:I think Anthony Watts relishes his position as a climate thug.
Given the evidence cited above for his own behavior, that’s a classic case of projection by Honeycutt if I’ve ever seen one.
So now the integrity test for Joe Romm is: will you condemn Skeptical Science for actual organized behavior of the same kind that you condemn me of from an off-the cuff comment made by a guest blogger?
So, as it turns out Joe D’Aleo was right, there is an organized effort “…to team up on the comment section to defend the undefensible.“. Maybe he didn’t phrase the call to action well, but all D’Aleo was doing is urging people to exercise their right to free speech if they choose to disagree. There’s no organized effort. I’ve received no complaints from Forbes or any other online venue.
We’ll see how Mr. Romm handles this integrity test when it comes to pointing out the “drown them out” calls of his own misbehaving friends. If he has any integrity he’ll condemn the Skeptical Science organized practice in the same way he has condemned WUWT and me for that offhand remark by D’Aleo.
Ball’s in your court Joe.
================================================================
UPDATE: Joe D’Aleo responds in comments:
Guilty as charged. I posted that in frustration after many attempts by me and others to post comments refuting obviously flawed claims on numerous blogs that were blocked by moderators. That site, like WUWT was not restrictive, which I encouraged people to respond to. Obviously if readers did not agree with me, they would not /should not do so.
Many times after failing to have my comments appear on some blogs and sites, I have resorted to sending an email with facts, charts and diagrams to the author to try and educate them. SInce you can’t do that in comments and a picture says a thousand words, it may be more effective, but my guess is that they just discard.
Downside then is my argument is never seen by the knee jerk commenters with their litanys…”obviously shills for big oil”, ” 97% of scientists agree”, “deniers are anti-science” , “it is far worse than we ever thought”, “the climate is nearing the tipping point”, “deniers don’t care about the air and water”……that fill the comment section.
Any comments that get through ignore the facts I present and attack my integrity, reasons for not believing, and intelligence. They go ad hominem.
As more soylent green says so well, since this i not a scientific debate and never was is “shout them” down really inappropriate?
By the way a skeptic was invited to give a talk in New England on natural factors and a professor organized a group to come in and disrupt the talk – not wait for the Q&A session after with tough questions but to try and make it impossible for the speaker to present his case. I experienced that kind of resistance twice in talks in Vermont where a group tried to convince the museum to cancel my talk and the second when a talk at a college was constantly interrupted with challenges ironically to pictures of bad climate sites. The person involved kept insisting these were not real sites. It was in the early days of surfacestations.org and I used stations from Anthony, Roger Pielke Sr. and the late John Daly.
Caleb says: “…It is only when a person is primarily concerned with their own ego that vanity drives them to halt all further discussion. As always, selfishness leads to smallness.”
You’ve put your finger on the core issue. It’s self-will run riot on an unprecedented scale. They mask their malignant narcissism with Messianic pretensions, a new generation of vipers.
Regarding “The Big Lie” quote used by Max Hugoson (September 30, 2012 at 2:27 pm), Wilipedia cites:
“Title: Mein Kampf; Author: Adolf Hitler (1889-1945); Translated into English by James Murphy (died 1946).”
as the source.
Re: Max Hugoson @ur momisugly September 30, 2012 at 2:27 pm:
The authour of the quotation is a famous german private – A.H1tler – in his famous book “Me1n Kampf”. My source? Wikipedia.
[Hope that foils the spam filter.]
They’ll probably realise soon that it was all a bad dream (nightmare, ‘the crusher in the night’).
Old English maere ‘goblin, incubus.’ The word was nigt-mare in 1300, and it referred to an evil female spirit afflicting sleepers with a feeling of suffocation. By 1350, it was nytmare and in 1440 it was nyghte mare. Nightmare was used to describe ‘a bad dream caused by an incubus’ in the 16th century, and by 1829 it was used to describe ‘a bad dream’ in general.
It’s not these jackasses we need to worry about. It’s the politicians who have listened to them and got their pointy teeth firmly fixed into a new way of taxing hell out of us all, while claiming “97%” and all the other BS they emit. Once we can lever a few of them out, then just maybe we’ll begin to get some … dare I say it, “Progress”, but it ain’t gonna be easy.
Reminder to those that think Romm could possibly have a problem with this …
James Carville and Paul Begala were members of the Clinton Administration. They organized a rapid respose team to astroturf media outlets and talk radio with daily talking points through faxes, phone calls and TV interviews. They pioneered the modern age of propaganda.
Joe Romm was a member of the Clinton Administration.
You figure out the rest.
@Blade
Oh, please. If anyone could be considered a pioneer of modern media in the way you’re implying, that would be Roger Ailes.
And Limbaugh has been spewing on radio since the middle of the Reagan administration.
You may not like or agree with Begala, Carville and Romm but that’s no excuse to falsely imply that they somehow invented propaganda
Dave says:
September 30, 2012 at 11:34 am
I’m sure William Connolley will be willing to help them out.
………………………………………
Like you Dave I am equally sure this “projectionist” will be only too willing!
As for the alarmists activities in this area – I signed up for the “Sceptical Blog Alerts” – and very useful it has proved to be.
Not only underlining in my own view that the Alarmists can be a truly poisenous and reprehensible bunch of clowns – but providing me with a sourse of interesting articles.
How nice of them to shoot themselves in the foot on my behalf.
Since we’re engaging in a PR battle and not a scientific debate, is ‘shout them down’ really inappropriate?
“Crusher crew”, not “Debate crew”. So sure are they of their manifest destiny. Hubris was at the heart of most ancient Greek tragedies….
Is that his grandaughter he is holding for a “prop”?
Jeremy says:
Nobody really cares what Joe Romm, John Cook or these other eco-zealots say….
I do however think it important what Huff Post, Guardian, BBC, NY Times etc write, as I suspect the media have a bigger influence on the thinking of ordinary citizens but these ineffectual and disreputable blogs only ever preach to the choir.
I think the problem is that those media outlets are listening to Romm, Cook, & others.
Guilty as charged. I posted that in frustration after many attempts by me and others to post comments refuting obviously flawed claims on numerous blogs that were blocked by moderators. That site, like WUWT was not restrictive, which I encouraged people to respond to. Obviously if readers did not agree with me, they would not /should not do so.
Many times after failing to have my comments appear on some blogs and sites, I have resorted to sending an email with facts, charts and diagrams to the author to try and educate them. SInce you can’t do that in comments and a picture says a thousand words, it may be more effective, but my guess is that they just discard.
Downside then is my argument is never seen by the knee jerk commenters with their litanys…”obviously shills for big oil”, ” 97% of scientists agree”, “deniers are anti-science” , “it is far worse than we ever thought”, “the climate is nearing the tipping point”, “deniers don’t care about the air and water”……that fill the comment section.
Any comments that get through ignore the facts I present and attack my integrity, reasons for not believing, and intelligence. They go ad hominem.
As more soylent green says so well, since this i not a scientific debate and never was is “shout them” down really inappropriate?
By the way a skeptic was invited to give a talk in New England on natural factors and a professor organized a group to come in and disrupt the talk – not wait for the Q&A session after with tough questions but to try and make it impossible for the speaker to present his case. I experienced that kind of resistance twice in talks in Vermont where a group tried to convince the museum to cancel my talk and the second when a talk at a college was constantly interrupted with challenges ironically to pictures of bad climate sites. The person involved kept insisting these were not real sites. It was in the early days of surfacestations.org and I used stations from Anthony, Roger Pielke Sr. and the late John Daly.
I’m sorry, but I just can’t stop laughing at “Badgersouth.” I keep imagining a dialogue something like this:
Badgersouth: This is Badgersouth. I have active commentary engagement of a class 3 denialist. Requesting comment mission at this url.
BurpingFox: Ah, roger, Badgersouth. This is BurpingFox. I have your url and am in active reverse lookup of the denialist posting. Posts away!
Badgersouth: Good hit! Good hit, BurpingFox! Post for effect!
I’m sorry, but I just can’t take anyone named Badgersouth seriously. I can’t.
The 350 org appears to be based on the popular fiction that the effect of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is exponentially accelerating. All the scientific data that I have found seems to indicate that the effect is logarithmic. Even the worst case predictions by the IPCC rate this effect at 3.3 degrees C per full doubling of the amount in the atmosphere (*not* doubling of the amount added by man) and the MODTRAN program developed by the Air Force, which calculates the raw effect based on the narrow-band, absorption line spectra data, gives a result more on the order of one degree C per full doubling.
At this time, it is questionable whether there really is enough economically recoverable, combustible carbon left in the ground to double the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere from pre-petroleum exploitation levels.
Of course, if they called themselves the 560 org, they might not have anything to worry about.
Seems to me that those scientific illiterates at sks are jealous of the success of this site and can only scream and scream and scream like spoilt little children that have lost their toys. Keep on showing them who is the daddy!
You again? Still a hopeless leftist I see. Get your facts straight. First off, Rush went on the air syndicated nationally in August 1988 ( I heard the first show ), not “in the middle” of the Reagan administration. Prior to that he was one of thousands of local talk show hosts. Secondly, Limbaugh is a commentator, he broadcasts his opinion which is shared by many millions. It is not, and cannot be propaganda, as that is associated with the ruling class, in this case government. Thirdly, I did not “falsely imply that they somehow invented propaganda”. I said they “They pioneered the modern age of propaganda.” This is exactly what they did. An operation run either out of the White House, or with the blessing of same. So as usual, everything I said was unimpeachable truth, everything you said was mischaracterizations. This is the stock and trade of you leftist progressivists. Truth is like sunlight to you vampires.
I know you have a hard-on for Roger Ailes, being involved with Fox News and such, but that is your personal mental illness you’ll have to deal with between you and your shrink. While you are busy dealing with that issue, be sure to address one of your other leaps into insanity …
Assange published USA taxpayer funded national secrets and should be dangling from the business end of the hangman’s noose, FOIA leaked taxpayer funded data being kept secret from the taxpayers by climate scientologists. Seek help.
560 would be nice. Double that again and it would be better! Not for the negligible warming, just for the agricultural boom times it would create (while conserving water resources).