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A person who is actually a climate skeptic (and WUWT regular) applied for and was granted a training slot in Chicago this week. http://climaterealityproject.org/leadership-corps/ and has graduated as one of the 1500 people that attended the event.
For obvious reasons, I can’t reveal the person’s name, but I can reveal the communication I received last night.
The ‘mole’ writes:
I’m now a card-carrying, official Gore-bot.
(I took copious notes)
a) This was a super-liberal “kum-bay-ya” crowd as I predicted. I kept many of my opinions to myself. The event truly did have a “religious cult programming” feel to it, similar to an Amway meeting I attended years ago – carefully timed applause, audience call & response etc. Very bizarre.
b) Al Gore himself went through the entire slide show that we are supposed to use as his “Climate Leaders.” Quite honestly, there is nothing new here, EXCEPT that there is no trace of the “hockey stick” graph that was so central to “An Inconvenient Truth”!! Amazing, considering how central that was to their arguments!
c) Instead, Al lumps data together year-by-year or decade-by-decade to show an ever increasing rise in temps. He poo-pooed measurement inaccuracies, specifically mentioning UHI effects and saying that the scientists determined these were insignificant.
d) A couple graphs stood out – one showed the documented rise in temperature PRECEDES the rise in CO2 which he brushed aside as “typical variation.” The only hockey stick was one that projected atmospheric CO2 over time, jumping up drastically in coming years. I didn’t have time to write units down, but it was a big jump. It could be a realistic rise with China & India bringing new coal plants online, I’d have to check any citations.
e) Al’s presentation was heavy on his new concept of “dirty weather,” see: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/14/24-hours-of-reality-dirty-weather_n_2130344.html
To summarize, I didn’t see anything new or ground-breaking in this mess. Most slides were BS, typical “this is due to climate, not weather” type stuff we kick around on WUWT all the time. Hurricane Sandy, torrential rains in Pakistan etc.
Personal observations:
a) We skeptics ain’t liked much with them folks. The “d” word (denier) was used liberally, and I queried several participants, some of who were very cool folks, about it. Al Gore and his speakers used “Denier,” “Denial Industry” and other terms I found objectionable. Lousy salesmen, you catch more flies with honey than vinegar.
b) Nothing new was presented, technically speaking. This thing was “An Inconvenient Truth” redux, with much of the controversial stuff (hockey stick & drowning polar bears) deleted. Al got our message, he doesn’t seem to want to engage folks like us.
c) Al gave some insights into his own choices for low-carbon technologies, with a focus upon photovoltaics & wind power. He doesn’t like BWR nukes and objects because of financial reasons, which I agree with (particularly post-Fukishima). He mentioned that Oak Ridge National Labs in TN is testing a variety of nuclear reactor designs which sound promising (thorium maybe?) but didn’t elaborate.
d) Stuff I’m interested in, like ocean acidification, were only briefly touched upon. Al didn’t discuss the diplomacy challenges of engaging China and India, although he did mention their growing carbon output.
Quick summary:
Al is a polished speaker, and looked trim & in shape. Very impressive command of his speaking material. Decent speakers lined up, including some sustainability folks from private industry. I’m told the health/climate breakout session was terrible & am glad I took a pass on it.
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UPDATE: Since many of the Gore followers are arriving here, I welcome you to answer this question that nobody would ask Mr. Gore this week:
If the position and science is so strong, why did Mr. Gore have to fake the results of his experiment in the Climate 101 video (which you may have seen and is still on the climate reality web page).
You can see the experiment recreated here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/climate-fail-files/gore-and-bill-nye-fail-at-doing-a-simple-co2-experiment/
For the few of you brave enough, thanks for taking the time to answer that question – Anthony
as i commented to a kool-aid drunk friend, better a denier than a liar (like the uea cru, and mann
“I wonder if this AGW movement is more closely related to Marxism, rather than f@scism”
Both are socialism; the difference was an argument whether to be international (Marx/Stalin) or national (Mussolini, et. al.).
“Science is hard to deny” — so why do the catastrophists keep doing so?
Oh — and “blood and soil” “f@scism” was big on what we’d today call “green” issues because, well, pollute the soil, pollute the blood, right?
I consider my careful, specific answers to your question “What harm could possibly come?” and my simultaneous answer to the historical revisionism of Popper to be very very positive contributions.
And I have also shown that these worthless sustainability policies in reality only set up a ruthless, unaccountable aristocracy that has sole class privileges to the necessities, conveniences, and pleasures of modern life brought by fossil fuels and a humming economy. That was another positive contribution I made on this thread.
{ Val says:
August 2, 2013 at 11:03 am
And if millions around the world simply committed to live and act daily with sustainable practices thereby resulting in declining CO2 levels, I feel pretty confident based on the majority mindset here that your consensus and agenda would be persuading that human beings also could not impact the positive changes. }
You’re visiting and haven’t seen threads that ellicit other types of responses. There are many of us that are earth-friendly.
I work for a agricultural soil and conservation agency
I recycle
I volunteer to pick up trash in state parks and along the roadside
I conserve water
I have a programmable thermostat
I have upgraded to energy efficient heating and cooling
I grow and eat my own produce
What I haven’t done is seen any empirical evidence supporting the hypothesis that increasing CO2 will cause catastrophic consequences, or seen evidence that Al Gore is intelligent, honest and believable. That is why many ridicule him and by association, the true believers in CAGW.
@Tucci78 9:46 am
“Go straight to the heart of the enemy’s greatest strength. Break that and you break him. …”
That didn’t work out so well for George Pickett and Robert E. Lee at Gettysburg.
The second sentence is provisionally true: If you can break it, you win. However, failure to break it can lead to disaster.
Back on topic, this leads to questions for the mole and other attendees:
What is/are the key points of the “Leadership Corps” presentation that most easily countered and neutered?
What are the gaps in the presentation most easily exploited.
Sandra says:
August 2, 2013 at 9:08 am
“This was not a crowd of coerced people with carefully timed applause. We are not “Gore-bots. ”
I’m confused…. the doomsday culti of global warming as always been a doomsday cult… sure they tried to rebrand themselves as something as… but that doesn’t mean they were successful.
Science is hard to deny says:
August 2, 2013 at 9:14 am
“funny that all of you deniers sit here and validate the shit out of each other…frothy in your “see? we’re so much better than those people” while not at all realizing the irony of calling the “other side” a cult…nope, the denier cult wouldn’t see the irony there.”
No irony in this post at all since its well know that pro-cult sites heavy censor anti-cult comments. Yet your allowed to post here.
I find this propaganda line interesting.
“There were mothers, fathers, children, students, soldiers, scientists, biologists, professors, teachers, lawyers, ministers, government, and corporate representatives and many other walks, both conservatives and liberals, coming together with one shared interest – the well-being of our natural world and a strong desire to induce positive changes in the ways and means that we live, consume, and operate at personal, commercial, and industrial levels. ”
This is of course a direct quote from val… but Amanda says:
August 2, 2013 at 9:31 am and Sandra says:
August 2, 2013 at 9:08 am
also say roughly the same thing. Is this the new talking points designed to humanize the cult? Didn’t jonestown and the hitler youth, stalin, mao and countless others use an almost exact similar phase?
Now I know from propaganda 101 that this is a great appeal to emotional affects and also an appeal to authority as well as normalcy. One can also say its an appeal to consensus/the mob as they wish to appear to be “everyone”.
That aside… the problem with talking points propaganda if when 3 ppl post the near exact same phase it tends out them very quickly. Before the internet and in a live audience this stuff works great because the people only hear it once… but written done…. repeatedly tends to out the propaganda quickly.
@Val, it’s hard to tell whether you are that seriously delusional or just purposely lying. Do you actually think that this all about “personal choices” or “living in a more environmentally friendly” manner?
This is about our C02 supposedly causing dangerous climate change, or extreme weather, or whatever the meme du jour is with you people. That’s it. So, stop trying to conflate things.
The inconvenient fact for you folks is that the “human fingerprint” on climate has not been shown. If there is one, it is inconsequential.
Hey Val,
I have an electric car, solar on my home, put solar on local schools, LED lighting and timer switches to conserve electricity. Besides preach to us about “sustainable living” what have you actually done? Show your work.
here is mine: http://wattsupwiththat.com/about-wuwt/about2/
Discoverers in science occur on a near daily basis. To suggest that “the science is settled” begets that notion thereby correctly attributing the nomer “cult” to all those who refuse to look and understand any new facts so conceived since the origin of “the science is settled”.
Btw, since the “science is settled”, why do we, through tax supported government grants, continue to fund this “settled science”?
Val says:
August 2, 2013 at 11:12 am
“Is it possible to put the argument aside? We’ve stated our positions. We have our convictions. I urge you to visit a nature sanctuary, national park, or other escape to our natural world and find a way to be appreciate the beauty and along with that perhaps an idea of how to be more earth-friendly. If you struggle for ideas, I can give you a few personal sustainability ideas that we as individuals can practice. Again, what harm could come from that?”
Val why do you wish to sterilize the poor? Why do you wish to find a humane way to put down the “less civilized” among us.
You belief system is based in eugenics and mass murder. You throw around your buzzwords without having the slightest clue what they mean or what they have “accomplished” in the past. If you spent half as much time learning about sustainability from historic accounts as you did in the modern day account you would be scared to death of a “sustainable future”.
Val, I’m about to take the dog out to the state park for a walk in the woods. This weekend my wife and I will probably take the canoe out for a paddle in the Great Meadows Wildlife Reserve. We enjoy and treasure the natural world, in a way that is difficult for people in mud huts, scrabbling in the dust for a meagre living. You romanticize poverty, and that to me is a great sin, and with this ‘sustainability’ you would condemn us to the same fate. It is the progress of civilization that generates the wealth necessary to properly husband our natural heritage, and that progress depends on energy: cheap, plentiful energy. And fortunately, the fabricated worry over CO2 was a complete fraud, just an excuse to tax us back into the stone age.
/Mr Lynn
There were mothers, fathers, children, students, soldiers, scientists, biologists, professors, teachers, lawyers, ministers, government, and corporate representatives and many other walks, both conservatives and liberals, coming together with one shared interest ….
Point of order… How do you know who was there and what interests they had?
I don’t doubt thre were mothers and fathers. Lawyers certainly. But to imply there were equal numbers of conservatives and liberals all with the same shared interest is to defy credibility.
IMO liberating CO2 from the ground & putting it back in the air whence it came is a good thing. Vegetation & phytoplankton flourish as a result. Soot & old-fashioned real pollution are bad, but carbon dioxide is good, up to maybe around 1000 ppmv of dry air, ie true greenhouse concentration. More than that starts to give some people headaches, as noted before.
Going from three molecules of CO2 per 10,000 air molecules (not counting water vapor), as in 1850, to ten would IMO make the world a better place. No catastrophic consequences can scientifically be shown to result. The heating effect of CO2 is close to being maxed out at present four molecules.
@ur momisugly temp says: August 2, 2013 at 11:44 am
I noted early on the eerie similarity to Jim Jones and Jonestown and the Gorebots. Apparently I am not alone in seeing the patterns.
@Val:
[To Zeke] I just want to clarify. Is it your intent to imply that personal sustainability choices and living more environmentally friendly will lead to the destruction of an economy?
No. “Personal sustainability choices” are not a danger and, at least for me, are welcomed.
Regimented, Authoritarian, National or Global Policy Decisions imposed upon the public will lead to a destruction of economies and deaths of millions, impoverisment of billions. Agenda 21 is not about individual choice.
China’s “Great Leap Forward” is an overture to the economic destruction we potentially face if sustainability policies are imposed against a public
So, a counter-point to “what harm does it do…”?
I live in a home built in 1943. About 5 years ago, I had all of the original single-pane glass replaced with energy-efficient thermal windows.
Sure enough, my energy bills did go down… but nothing compared to the $23,000 price tag of the new windows. And that price was the best of more than 2 dozen quotes. Along with a new furnace, all of my heating costs would be paid in 12 years at that rate… and I’m talking maybe a 20% difference after getting new windows… so basically pretty much they will not be cost effective until well after I die…
I actually live in an area where most of the power generated comes from hydro-electric. What harm would it have done to leave the original windows intact? Had I been making more sensible economic choices back then, I would have saved the money for something else. (wow, I could really use 23 grand right now… I mean REALLY).
Now, the goverment steps in and start subsidizing poor economic choices like that – based on questionable science that CO2 is going to destroy the planet.
I think I got some small subsidy somewhere because of the improvements (which actually amounts to I made my neighbors pay for my bad choice). I think the subsidies are much more now (see, I should have at least waited). But if the whole premise is faulty, why bother?
New homes can be made energy efficient when they are built, which is a lot more cost effective than making knee-jerk decisions based on faulty science.
philjourdan says:
August 2, 2013 at 12:10 pm
IMO the main difference between Jones’ followers & Prince Albert’s is that the former killed themselves, while the Gorebots want to eliminate other people.
@Milodonharlani – remember Leo Ryan.
[snip – this conversation is getting too far off topic – Anthony]
@Sandra, Amanda and all the other alarmist skulkers here –
Obviously you don’t know squat about CO2 (doubling it increases greenhouse effect maybe ~ 1%; higher CO2 = higher crop yields, more drought resistant crops) or about solar cycles (99% of the cause of climate change) or even about water vapor (30 to 140 x CO2 in the air at any given time, 3.5 times as effective as a GHG).
Have any of you ever visited a commercial greenhouse? 1200-1500 ppm CO2 (3 – 4 x atmospheric) and no runaway warming there.
And of course you don’t consider what kind of world will be left to your grandchildren if you wreck the world economy. But then, I guess you could say that burning shit to cook your food, like poor Africans have to do, is getting back to nature.
Taken to its logical end, your agenda means there would be no life on Earth. No CO2 = no life.
And finally, if the world you envision comes to pass, you won’t be attending any more El Gore (gore, as in “bloody mess”) neo-Hitler Youth rallies, because you would need cheap energy to do that.
What on earth has happened to the Gore Effect? Has it been destroyed by the increase in CO2 levels?
philjourdan says:
August 2, 2013 at 12:41 pm
Good point. They were willing to make human sacrifices, too, as well as take their own lives.
milodonharlani says:
August 2, 2013 at 12:35 pm
philjourdan says:
August 2, 2013 at 12:10 pm
“IMO the main difference between Jones’ followers & Prince Albert’s is that the former killed themselves, while the Gorebots want to eliminate other people.”
Thats not completely true much like hitler really only planned to enslave the jews and others until they died “naturally”. Jones’ boys only did the whole killing themselves as a “last” act. I have no doubt if push came to shove and the goracles people were put into a jonestown set choice of being jailed and made to pay for the crimes they have committed, intend to commit and wish they could commit they would make one last “final” “stand”.
Plus useful idiots are always disposed of after they have been used to the fullest. Thats just SOP for these types of movements.
Bruce Cobb you say
I think you should read this article from Earth System Research Laboratory http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/outreach/isotopes/. It explains how exactly scientists determine which carbon dioxide comes from carbon cycle and which from fossil fuels, the secret is isotopes! As undergrad chemistry student, I can tell you, it’s not magic.
This link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3v-w8Cyfoq8#at=89
is one of the Climate Reality Projects. I really like it and thought to share it with everyone.
If somebody out there is paying other people to write comments on blog articles for more than a dollar a piece, please give me a call. I’ll write prolifically for either side.
What a tired supposition that is.