![Spin[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/spin1.jpg?quality=83)
Guest essay by Dr. Tim Ball
“Half the work done in the world is to make things appear what they are not.” E.R. Beadle.
In a 2003 speech Michael Crichton, graduate of Harvard Medical School and author of State of fear, said,
I have been asked to talk about what I consider the most important challenge facing mankind, and I have a fundamental answer. The greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda. Perceiving the truth has always been a challenge to mankind, but in the information age (or as I think of it, the disinformation age) it takes on a special urgency and importance.
We are in virtual reality primarily as Public Relations (PR) and its methods are applied to every aspect of our lives. The term “spin doctors” is more appropriate because it is what they are really doing. A spin doctor is defined as: “a spokesperson employed to give a favorable interpretation of events to the media, esp. on behalf of a political party.” It doesn’t say truthful interpretation. There are lies of commission and omission and this definition bypasses the category of omission. It’s reasonable to argue that if you deliberately commit a sin of omission it encompasses both. A ”favorable interpretation” means there is deliberate premeditated deception. The person knows the truth, but selects information to create a false interpretation.
Despite all the discussion and reports about weather and climate the public are unaware of even the most fundamental facts. Recently, I gave a three hour presentation with question and answers. The audience was educated people who distrust government and were sympathetic to my information. I decided to illustrate my point and concern by asking a few basic questions. Nobody could tell me the difference between weather and climate. Nobody could name the three major so-called greenhouse gases, let alone explain the mechanics of the greenhouse theory. My goal was not to embarrass, but to illustrate how little they knew and how easily PR can deceive and misdirect.
Few people exemplify or describe the modern PR views better (worse?) than Jim Hoggan, President of a large Canadian PR company, Hoggan and Associates, in the Vancouver Sun December 30, 2005.
Want good coverage? Tell a good story. When your business is under siege, you can’t hope to control the situation without first controlling the story. The most effective form of communication is a compelling narrative that ties your interest to those of your audience. This is particularly critical when you’re caught in the spotlight; it doesn’t matter if you have the facts on your side if your detractors are framing the story. So, don’t just react. Take some time now to define your company story. Then you’ll be ready to build a response into that narrative should something go wrong.
Environment and climate suffer more from spinning than most areas and Hoggan, as Chair of the David Suzuki Foundation and owner of a large PR company, has a long connection with both. He is the proud founder and supporter of the web site DeSmogBlog as he explains in his book about the climate cover-up. The objective was to denigrate people by creating “favorable interpretations” to the following questions. “Were these climate skeptics qualified? Were they doing any research in the climate change field? Were they accepting money, directly or indirectly, from the fossil fuel industry?” This wasn’t about answering the questions skeptics were asking about the science. Richard Littlemore, Hoggan’s co-author and senior writer for DeSmogBlog, revealed what was going on in a December 2007 email to Michael Mann.
Hi Michael [Mann],
I’m a DeSmogBlog writer [Richard LIttlemore] (sic) (I got your email from Kevin Grandia) and I am trying to fend off the latest announcement that global warming has not actually occurred in the 20th century.
It looks to me like Gerd Burger is trying to deny climate change by “smoothing,” “correcting” or otherwise rounding off the temperatures that we know for a flat fact have been recorded since the 1970s, but I am out of my depth (as I am sure you have noticed: we’re all about PR here, not much about science) so I wonder if you guys have done anything or are going to do anything with Burger’s intervention in Science. (Emphasis added)
The hypocrisy is profound because nobody ever questioned Al Gore’s qualifications or financial, career or political rewards. No promoters of global warming, such as Bill McKibben, Ross Gelbspan, Seth Borenstein, Andrew Revkin or most members of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are challenged. Borenstein exposed his bias in a leaked CRU email from July 23, 2009 to the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) gang. He wrote, “Kevin (Trenberth), Gavin (Schmidt), Mike (Mann), It’s Seth again. Attached is a paper in JGR today that Marc Morano is hyping wildly. It’s in a legit journal. Watchya think?” A journalist talking to scientists is legitimate, but like the leaked emails, tone and subjectivity are telling. “Again” means there was previous communication. At least Revkin left the New York Times apparently because of such exposure.
The problem began the moment environmentalism and climate were exploited for political agendas and people asked questions. If you can’t answer the questions you either admit that or initiate personal attacks. Spin-doctors use two basic types.
• The individual is named and a slur applied. These are usually false or at best taken out of context. This includes guilt by association and taking payment from an agency or belonging to a group the slanderer considers inappropriate. It is an ad hominem.
• Individuals are marginalized by putting them in a group with a term created that marginalizes by implying they are at best outside any norm. For example, despite obvious limitations of data availability anyone who asks about President Obama’s biography is called a “Birther”. Anyone who is troubled by incomplete, unclear, or illogical explanations for events is called a “Conspiracy theorist”. There is no word or phrase for falsifying information about a group. A collective ad hominem is a contradiction. Guilt by association has some application, but a term like “Birther” has a different function. It is a collective designed to discredit anyone assigned. There can be no general name because the objective is to identify the group with a specific issue. This is necessary as part of the goal of marginalizing or isolating.
Early indicators of the politicizing of climate included the claim of a consensus. The word applies in politics not science Calling people who questioned the science “skeptics” was greater evidence. “Skeptic” is negative for the public and defined as “A person inclined to question or doubt all accepted opinions.” Most think it is the definition for a cynic, “A person who believes that people are motivated purely by self-interest rather than acting for honorable or unselfish reasons.” The problem is most people don’t know that scientists must be skeptics.
The epithet “global warming skeptic” was applied to me years ago and was used in questions from the media. When I explained I accepted global warming the media was surprised. They didn’t understand when I explained my skepticism was about the cause – the claim it was due to human CO2. Some labeled me a contrarian, but it wasn’t effective because few know what it means.
When the basic assumption of the IPCC hypothesis that increased CO2 causes increased temperature stopped occurring after 1998, the attackers changed the subject and the pejorative. They raised the smearing level because they were losing the battle for the public mind. Now it became climate change and questioners deniers with the deliberate association with “holocaust deniers”.
Ironically, like all so-labeled, I am anything but a denier. My 40-year career involved teaching people how much climate changes naturally over time. The IPCC were deliberately constrained by their terms of reference to human causes and don’t consider natural changes. Rather they provide a “favorable interpretation” for their political objective to blame human CO2. It’s an interpretation a required spin to counter what Huxley called ugly facts.
Every time a problem appeared public relations people appeared and strategized a defense, usually to divert from the problem. When the emails were leaked from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) a public relations person was engaged. After the November 2009 leak the University of East Anglia hired Neil Wallis of Outside Organization to handle the fall out. University spokesperson Trevor Davies said it was a “reputation management” problem, which he said they don’t handle well. Apparently they didn’t consider telling the truth. The leaked emails triggered a shock wave that required a top political spin-doctor. Wallis, a former editor at the News of The World, was later arrested in connection with the phone hacking scandals that led to the resignation of London Metropolitan Police Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner, as well as Andy Coulson, Prime Minister Cameron’s press secretary.
Michael Mann’s 2004 email to CRU Director Phil Jones was evidence of the PR battle. Confronted by challenging questions they apparently developed a defensive mentality.
“I’ve personally stopped responding to these, they’re going to get a few of these op-ed pieces out here and there, but the important thing is to make sure they’re loosing (sic) the PR battle. That’s what the site is about. By the way, Gavin did come up w/ the name!”
The “site” is the web site Realclimate, named by Gavin (Schmidt). But science doesn’t need PR, so why do climate scientists use it? The apparent answer is they are not telling the truth and worse, know it.
I opened with a quote from Michael Crichton so it is fitting to end with his closing remarks.
Because in the end, science offers us the only way out of politics. And if we allow science to become politicized, then we are lost. We will enter the Internet version of the dark ages, an era of shifting fears and wild prejudices, transmitted to people who don’t know any better. That’s not a good future for the human race. That’s our past. So it’s time to abandon the religion of environmentalism, and return to the science of environmentalism, and base our public policy decisions firmly on that.
The problem and challenge is the population generally divides into 80 percent who struggle with science and 20 percent who are comfortable. I taught a science credit for arts students for 25 years so know the challenges. This makes resolving Crichton’s challenge of “distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda”, even more difficult. It is almost impossible when professional spin-doctors are deliberately diverting, misleading and creating confusion.
The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, skepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin.” – Thomas H. Huxley
“A danger sign of the lapse from true skepticism in to dogmatism is an inability to respect those who disagree” – Dr. Leonard George.
“It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.” –Thomas Jefferson
“Nobody could tell me the difference between weather and climate. Nobody could name the three major so-called greenhouse gases…”
Or maybe nobody wanted to step out and be embarassed in an argument. Or maybe the audience could tell you were on a roll. Didn’t want to knock you off your line.
Maybe a combination.
Clowns to the left of me,
Jokers to the right, here I am,
Stuck in Yamal on a yew.
All right then. You roll like that you have to imagine the scene in Reservoir Dogs where Mr. Blonde dances the Funky Chicken with the can of gasoline and… Mike Mann in the nasty seat.
“…Freddy, how do I look.”
Russell Cook (@questionAGW) says:
November 6, 2013 at 5:20 pm
If oil companies are offering money for someone just to tell the truth, it’s a mistake for scientists not to take it.
It’s the kind of mistake that puts a Terry Mcauliffe in office.
Dumb Scientist says:
November 6, 2013 at 9:22 pm
Well, I jumped into Amazon, looked up the book, found the authors include a Tim Ball.
However, Tim Ball is responsible for two chapters in the book that describe how climate research became politicized and how the IPCC came into existence as an organization whose mission was to convince governments that they needed to introduce policies based on the danger of man-made global warming.
Ten more chapters were written by six other authors, and some experts have taken exception to the concepts of climate physics they present–persumably the denial of the existence of the greenhouse effect being one of them.
So, being the devious fellow you are, you’ve tried to besmirch Dr. Ball by association. And that, dear sir, is typical of this very thread’s subject–Deliberately Deceiving the Public!
You have a nice day, now.
Paul Baverstock says: Go . . .
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/9374628/Taranaki-river-runs-orange
RockyRoad, “CO2 is not a Greenhouse Gas that Raises Global temperature. Period!”
http://drtimball.com/2012/co2-is-not-a-greenhouse-gas-that-raises-global-temperature-period/
RockyRoad says:
November 6, 2013 at 9:51 pm
Thanks, Rocky – I found that interesting enough I clicked on the “dumb” link.
The link to “dumb scientist” and then to ‘about’ claims to be written by Bryan Killett and in the 2nd paragraph one finds “Ironically, I find it difficult to grasp most concepts (scientific or not).”
So, one more person commenting that WUWT readers can safely ignore.
@David Appell
As you can see some here may be critical because your actions have contributed to –
– Trashing of the scientific method and respect for science
– Damage to democracy
– Blighting of the landscape with subsidy farms
– Slaughter of wildlife by subsidy farms
– Radioactive pollution of the Chinese landscape producing subsidy farm magnets
– Driving manufacturing from countries with environmental protections to those without
– Corruption and crime fuelled by carbon ponzi schemes
– Transferring wealth from poor to rich through subsidy farming
– and the endless list of snivelling stupidity goes on…
However your actions have also contributed greatly to creating a better future –
– UN kleptocracy discredited and permanently compromised
– All hope of a “bio-crisis” with bio-debt collected and redistributed under a frame work of UN global governance destroyed
– EUSSR parliament discredited and permanently compromised
– Every activist, journalist, politician or party of the left permanently compromised
– Lame stream media no longer the gatekeepers of opinion
– The rise of New Media and global grass-roots movements that can never be controlled or influenced by the regulating class
Thanks David 😉
PS. David, if you have any further post election wailing and gnashing of teeth to get through, please take it to the outer darkness. That’s what it’s there for.
@Konrad Hartmann –
Beautifully said – but the alarmies ain’t listening.
Humanity is found guilty of destroying Mother Earth by Extremists Environmentalists who use the power of the State to outlaw the use of Fossil Fuel, the fuel of human progress. Renewable energy (that can provide only a fraction the energy fossil fuel does) is deemed by the green elite in power as the replacement for fossil fuel. The scant and high cost energy provided by renewable energy will dial back human progress and create more poverty is for the greater good of “saving the earth” from Climate Change so say the environmentalists. Inevitably the environmentalists’ quest to subjugate human progress in the name of “saving the earth” creates more harm than good. Eagles are struck down by the blades of Wind Turbines. Tropical Virgin forests are chopped down to grow crops for biofuel. When the outcome of the environmentalists quest for a Utopian primal world (sans so many evil nasty humans) turns into a nightmare, no matter, their vision of Utopia is what counts, not reality.
Dumb Scientist says:
November 6, 2013 at 9:57 pm
Then you’ve learned something today, Dumb–But that still doesn’t mean you can drop the “Dumb” and claim to be a “Scientist”.
Or do you have incontrovertible proof that CO2 DOES INDEED raise global temperature?
If so, please post it. (And no, somebody’s “assumptions” or “guesses” or “SWAG” simply won’t do.)
(Oh, this ought to be good.)
Aside from the end-Permian, the PETM, and the thawing of Snowball Earth?
Chad Wozniak says:
November 6, 2013 at 10:16 pm
——————————————–
Yes and no. Those with no escape such Mann, Karoly and Flannery have jammed the throttles to Full Stupid Ahead. However some of the Professional Left in Australia seem to be aware that things are about to end badly. They can be seen test driving exit strategies on the political blogs including –
“we were giving the planet the benefit of the doubt” ie: Noble cause
“but, but but, the conservatives believed too!” ie: It wasn’t just us
The good news is that none of this is going to work. The conservatives didn’t vilify sceptics and those that vilified cannot use the Noble Cause excuse. The bitterness of some of the posts is revealing. Some of the Professional Left are starting to realise what they have done. They have used all the tactics Tim Ball has listed, and they have done so in the Age of the Internet. The Internet is a game changer. None of the old lame stream media techniques such as “walkback”, “snowstorming”, or “issue fade and replace” work any more.
The thing both Tim ball and Michael Crichton did not consider about the Internet is memory. The lame stream media’s memory is selective but the Internet remembers everything forever, and is instantly accessible by billions at the tap of a keyboard or click of a mouse. The Professional left have not shot themselves in the foot. They have not even shot themselves in both feet. They have been tap-dancing on an anti-tank mine. For the Professional Left it’s pink mist time.
But, as we all know, the truth will out and it will set you free.
One of the problems with spin is that you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.
The website RealClimate was set up to dominate the internet discussion just like the gatekeepers in the mainstream media were spun (thanks to Roger Harribin who is still at the BBC).
Yet the debate was beyond the feeble hand-waving of the self-proclaimed Climate Experts at RealClimate.
Now WUWT has become the main forum for internet climate debate. SkS tries hard but has far less reach.
That’s why the self-proclaiemd Climate Scientists (authenticated by Pal Review) have to come here to push their agenda.
The spin is out of control. And that is more of a problem for the doom-mongers than the lack of warming this century.
Since you use the word so often, you might as well learn it:
Great post.
It is wonderful to see posts exploring the idea that Global Warming scare is nothing to do with science, but with PR, politics, money and influence.
And what a brilliant idea that is, if 80% of population can be scared stiff to hand over their money and freedom as they cannot tell basic scientific truth from a lie, and 20% intimidated and called names if they dissented.
The question I would like to ask – is there ANY reputable scientific institution that stood the ground and survived the assault? Russian Academy of Science, maybe?
The site RealClimate is owned and (richly) funded by the activist PR firm Fenton. Just try tracing its connections!
Well written sir!
kretchetov says:
November 7, 2013 at 1:12 am
“The question I would like to ask – is there ANY reputable scientific institution that stood the ground and survived the assault? Russian Academy of Science, maybe?”
The eco science scare is a strategy conceived by the UN and rolled out since 1971 at the Stockholm Conference on the environment, by Maurice Strong, where he flew in green NGO’s created for the purpose as Ersatz citizen representatives for the first time.
At that time the USSR and China were still the outcasts at the UN. So, the enviroscare strategy was applied throughout the “West”, i.e. the Trilateral Commission territory; Japan, USA, Europe – a.k.a. the American Empire – not in Russia or China.
Later, Russia and China opened up to capitalism – and they found that the self-dismantling of the “West” fit into their local strategies very well – maybe the KGB even had a hand in enacting the rollout of the strategy in the West in the first place; after all, all the small communist parties in the West and some social democrats were controlled by the Comintern / the KGB.
(and at least the German Greens got infiltrated and taken over by members of those communist parties right after the founding of the Greens – so the influence is in that party as well, to this day)
In short: You can bet that Russian and Chinese scientists know exactly what’s going on and are unimpressed by Cultural Marxism strategies applied throughout the West.
Here:
Excellent post. Thank you.
Thanks Dr. Ball
Your work has helped get Canada a new Evironment Minister.
Although I have no proof it, seemed like our previous EM was a CINO[Conservative In Name Only].
He was a journalist that won an award for writing about the dangers of CAGW.
Then he weasled his way into being the EM.
It will be interesting to see if our new EM, Leona Aglukkaq, will make changes.
See this: http://www.pm.gc.ca/eng/minister/honourable-leona-aglukkaq
It’s very possible that the trolls are paid by the comment. This is not uncommon in obamaland, I’ve run into them often.
I would suggest publishing their IP addresses which I theorize would often trace back to an organization called OFA.
davidmhoffer says:
November 6, 2013 at 8:15 pm
“stan” and “sedron” are inadvertently making Dr Ball’s point for him. From behind a wall of anonymity, they sling mud that is not only misleading, but highly irrelevant. They are the epitome of those with an agenda who, having no ability to participate in the discussion of the science itself, have no other tools at their disposal.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
It is worse than that if the David Appell (freelance writer) is this guy: http://www.davidappell.com/ with a BS in math and physics and a PhD in physics.
He has the scientific knowledge to engage in a scientific debate but instead descends to mud slinging. Says a lot about the “Science” behind CAGW doesn’t it? :>)
…..
Dr. Ball, Hats off an excellent article.