I have some important work to do today, and so I’m going to put my interaction with WUWT on hold for a bit. However, I see here an opportunity to ask a question I have been pondering for quite some time. Please help me out by answering the question and discussing it. Of course other things within site policy are fair game too.
As of late, we have seen climate skepticism portrayed in many derogatory ways. The juvenile sliming by Stephan Lewandowsky, Mike Marriott, and John Cook is a good example: they tried to use science as a bully pulpit to paint climate skeptics as crazy people, much like what happened with politcal dissent in Soviet Russia. In the Soviet Union, a systematic political abuse of psychiatry took place and was based on the interpretation of political dissent as a psychiatric problem.
Except, Lew and company were caught out, and called out by Frontiers.
Why did this happen? Well, I think part of it has to do with the loose-knit nature of climate skepticism. While the climate debate is often along political lines, climate skepticism is something that crosses those lines. I find that skepticism can be just as strong with some people on the left side of the political spectrum once they allow themselves to be open to the facts, rather than just accepting agitprop fed to them.
There’s no official position or representative body for climate skepticism. While players like Dr. Mann and the criminal actor Peter Glieck would like to argue that the Heartland Institute, “Big Oil, Big Coal”, and the #Kochmachine are the unifying forces behind climate skepticsm, nothing could be further from the truth. Mostly, climate skepticism is about a personal journey, not one that came from an organization.
I’m a good example. I used to be fully engaged with the idea that we had to do something about CO2, and Dr. James Hansen in 1988 was the impetus for that. I remember vividly watching his testimony on the sat feed at the TV station and thinking to myself that this really is serious. It wasn’t until later that I realized his science was so weak he and his sponsor had to resort to stagecraft by turning off the air conditioner and opening windows to make people sweat. It was the original sin of noble cause corruption. Now with my own work on the surfacestations project and what I’ve learned about climate sensitivity via the WUWT experience, and witnessing the IPPC and its foibles and how Climategate showed dissension behind the scenes, I no longer see climate change as the threat I once did back in 1988.
But, that’s my journey, others may differ.
People like Lewandowsky were able to make their claims stick because with climate skepticsm, it is all about that personal journey, there’s no organization, no policy statement, no cohesiveness of opinion that anyone can point to and say “this is what climate skeptics endorse”. While there’s strength in that heterogeneity, there’s also a weakness in that it allows people like Lewandowsky to brand climate skeptics as he sees fit.
So after some years of thinking about this, I’d like to ask this simple question:
Is it time for an “official” climate skeptics organization, one that produces a policy statement, issues press releases, and provides educational guidance?
In the UK, The Global Warming Policy Foundation provides much of that, and they have been successful in those areas, but it is UK centric.
So please answer the poll and let me know.
These climate change people are insane and have made this lie into a religion. They as a whole, need to shut up and vanish. The public doesn’t want to hear the lies anymore. And Al Gore can pass out his millions of dollars he has made to the poor. Lies for money.
I voted “yes”, but I don’t think that “climate skeptics” is the proper name for it.
I think “climate skeptic” is nonsensical and doesn’t actually say what we stand for or why we object to the alarmism that is CAGW.
One big problem is that there is no “official” skeptic position. We range from those who believe that CO2 has no impact on temperature to those who believe CO2 is a big problem but that mitigation and adaptation are the only rational approach.
Another problem is who’s going to run this organization? Who has the time and resources to take this on as a full time job?
I feel that what Anthony and others are doing with their blogs will probably be the closest we ever come to an “official” organization.
A climate change story that will likely spread like wildfire:
Climate change increasing massive wildfires in West
http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2014/04/19/western-wildfires-climate-change/7874841/
Large wildfire trends in the western United States, 1984-2011†
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2014GL059576/abstract
Hmmm, I wonder ‘how’ they factored in the changes of amo and pdo?
Someone will have to approach the oil companies for funding though. Don’t ya think? (/sarc)
Maybe a virtual ‘Museum of Climate’ could become a reference point for The Masses, and when confronted with facts, they would banish / exile the alarmists
I think it is best that there is no Organization behind or embracing or promoting Climate Skepticism, just like there should not be an Organization behind any sub-field of Science itself. Scientists and skeptics must be allowed [and required] to follow their own path. That various scientific groups [e.g. AGU, AMS, and the Royal Society) issue Position Statements on any topic is in principle wrong. So I woted NO.
I voted “yes” but I thought there already was one: the NIPCC?
Definitely not, at least until the IRS, DOJ etc. become non-political again. Joining an official “enemies” organization just invites heavy-handed official retaliation. If there is no official “enemies” organization, then it’s less than obvious who to harass — because there is no easy way to “send a message” to climate critics by going after an official spokesman or organizational head.
Climate skeptics already have a large number of formal organizations where they belong; Universities, research institutes, government laboratories, etc.
REPLY: But they have no voice there – A
Skepticism is about science, not policy. Activism is the blood brother of policy and its politics.
I’m not sure, but if there is one, Christopher Monckton should be its head.
Alec aka Daffy Duck says:
April 19, 2014 at 10:11 am
_____________________________________________________________________________
How about a simpler explanation: The Feds have mismanaged the forests they control. This sets up conditions that allow for larger and more intensive burns.
If there is a “skeptical organization,” then within the organization there will be political problems about what exactly the message is, and about the precise wording of “official” statements. Also, there is more strength in less organization — cf. the many military examples where “the people” can resist a monolithic army.
Furthermore, some of us are not “joiners.” If some of us wish to form an organization, go ahead, but others of us will remain independent.
I can think of some downsides right away. Organizations can be targeted and discredited. Disorganized movements are harder to deal with.
What’s the upside? Different people find different things persuasive or questionable, how could an official policy be had that doesn’t alienate some of them?
I haven’t thought this through, but off the top of my head I’m dubious.
I think Anthony recognized something powerful here:
Maybe there could be an official skeptics organization, but I’d be darn careful to keep it purely and simply on point.
Well, I think part of it has to do with the loose-knit nature of climate skepticism….
That and the fact their science is so weak (you have a typo BTW) and loopy…the MSM…
lsvalgaard says:
April 19, 2014 at 10:15 am
I think it is best that there is no Organization behind or embracing or promoting Climate Skepticism
hogwash…what’s the difference?
basically that is saying the science institutions are failing or are failed in not doing their job of peer review?
create an organisation and people can sabotage it and then everyone spends their time on internal politics rather than the focus. Then you have to find money and staff etc
Enough people who matter probably read blogs like this. The mass media are under orders not to give any platform to anything or anyone who might boat rock so it won’t help there whatever you publish. The work is exposing the bad science and documenting it.
We don’t need a climate skeptics organization.
What is needed is a “Climate Reality” organization that pressures, NOAA, NASA, and CU and other organizations to provide honest, untampered data, or/and provides this data so that the climate discussion is reality based instead of debating various forms of fiction.
Another useful function would be crowd review Climate studies and grade them for measures such as methodology and,valid application of statistics.
Latitude says:
April 19, 2014 at 10:23 am
hogwash…what’s the difference?
Between what?
lsvalgaard says:
April 19, 2014 at 10:15 am
I think it is best that there is no Organization behind or embracing or promoting Climate Skepticism, just like there should not be an Organization behind any sub-field of Science itself.
====
This is total hogwash…..it’s already done that way…..if I publish a paper that disagrees with yours
In the UK we have occasional informal pub nights of like-minded souls, usually arranged via the Bishop Hill website.
They’re great fun, but I suspect any suggestion of adding an organisation or structure would meet with some disdain. The characters and interests of the participants are far too diverse for such an idea to take root. It would be like herding cats. A lot of scratching and spitting, but no useful end result.
And for the avoidance of any doubt, such gatherings have all been entirely self-funded…both for attendance and for expenses/refreshments. If there really is a Big Oil sugar daddy he hasn’t put in an appearance in UK as yet.
It would help if it could be accredited by some recognized and respected scientific organization.
[i]Is it time for an “official” climate skeptics organization, one that produces a policy statement, issues press releases, and provides educational guidance?[/i]
I would answer [b] No. [/b]
The CAGW belief is just that – a belief. It should not be met with another belief which climate scepticism has a potential to become or has already become so.
The unscientific attitude of a belief should t m o be countered with a scientific attitude, which is sceptic.
An official climate sceptic organization might be like fighting the Devil with Belsebub.
No. Because such an organisation would very easily be infiltrated and corrupted and turned into something it was not meant to be.
My personal background is at the left side of the political centre, and I was a strong believer of the Club of Rome, until none of their dire predictions did materialize… For global “warming”, it was earlier, as I read a book about the influence of the sun on our climate, some 35 years ago. When the CO2 scare started, I was immediately sceptical but didn’t know of others, until the late John Daly started with his “Still waiting for Greenhouse” website. Later, Climate Audit and WUWT and many others followed… While I hope that some – political neutral – organisation will emerge, I think that it will be difficult to find a common ground with so many different opinions, which is the strength and the weekness of the sceptics…
Seems the only thing we “skeptics” agree on is the alarmists holding our economy hostage must be stopped. But I find myself more and more opposed to Big Anything directing research by picking and choosing what they fund. This is conflict of interest, the researcher can only find answers supporting the funder’s intended policy. And thus, if we are trying to organize into a unified front to direct… well, you get the idea.
no- because the right answer is not more collectivism and completely unproductive labor (and at whose expense?) to treat symptoms- holy dialectic, batman. fighting is so NOT the same as winning.
instead, stop feeding the beast, eh? that’s 100% guaranteed.
unfortunately, it’s completely foreign to the nature of the eloi to disobey.
Well understand that the other side uses many channels to push their agenda. Certainly this could be one approach by a dissenting opinion, but if the management and editorial control were not secure, you could easily see it subverted.
That’s not to say it has to be overtly biased, because a strictly neutral position would be all that is required. So control would be about maintaining the neutrality, i.e. show us your science, not what “might be” etc.
What I see as a requirement is that it be neutral- so no juvenile postings or rants.
Like you, I came to this position through looking for the data, not someone’s idea or interpretation, so that is the way I would approach this.
How would it be different than WUWT? Would need to not be so partisan, but strictly hard science oriented.
My opinion,
Gerry
Addendum
Just to add that most (but not all) of the UK sceptical folk are science-trained, but do not work as professional academics. And few have very much time for the baubles of office or honours. Such individualists do not, in general, take easily to formal structures and institutions. Which perhaps explains why the standard alarmist ‘appeal to authority’ falls on deaf ears.
What I think we need, more than an “official” skeptics organization, is some kind of ongoing, print magazine of eco-skepticism, one not merely about “climate change” but which continually calls out every “green” person and group for every outrageous statement they make, not just predictions of harm but also policy goals such as those exposed on green-agenda.com.
Ronald Bailey’s column in Reason somewhat fills this need now, but if we could get regular columns by people like that Greenpeace founder who quit, or Lomborg, or Steyn, or Lord Monckton, or all of them it might draw some positive attention, especially when our side continues to make predictions that come to pass and their side doesn’t.
Perhaps it could be titled “WUWT – The Magazine”, and the organization could be given a title like “Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of Environmental Emergency.”
The problem with a sceptical body is that it herds everyone into the same corrale, too much like the warmists whip their following into following a party line. Scepticism by its nature is an individual questioning of the propaganda. I think your blog is a particularly good place to gather as you publish diverse pieces for discussion without pushing any “correct” approach except that of honesty and looking for the bulletproof facts rather than opinion.
The problem for the uninquisitive reader is that the MSM pushes the alarmist stories with bold headlines and barely, if ever, the retractions, corrections or historical context, thus establishing CAGW as a general knowledge meme rather than a once interesting, but failing hypothesis. The shrinkage of the dead tree press and the rise of advocacy journalism means that very seldom is that old saw of old hacks exercised: “Why is this lying bastard lying to me?” Here a case can be made for a resource which provides a side by side rebuttal of poor CAGW papers. Journalists are overwhelmingly innumerate arts graduates and would welcome predigested cut and paste bits if imaginatively presented and tied to the cause of small government and more personal freedom.
(Just the meditations of a disappointed someone who once lived in a cold climate and thought a touch of global warming would be a good thing for purely selfish reasons)
Latitude says:
April 19, 2014 at 10:26 am
This is total hogwash…..it’s already done that way…..if I publish a paper that disagrees with yours
You are not an Organization, and you don’t make sense.
such an organization already exists- -it’s called the NIPCC- -it has been meeting regularly for nearly a decade and recently replied to the IPCC nonsense with a well-reasoned response- –
REPLY: It’s not an organization per se, its a project of the Heartland Institute. – Anthony
“Is it time for an “official” climate skeptics organization, one that produces a policy statement, issues press releases, and provides educational guidance?”
I dunno. Leadership qualifications for such an organization must include, “Demonstrated record of success herding cats; Minimum 15 years experience,” and that should be at the top of the list.
I’m afraid regular commenter, jauntycyclist, would be left out because the leadership may decide, “No cyclists need apply.”
That said, I think the leading skeptical blogs (see list at right) should, at minimum, consider coordinating posts on topics that would benefit and perhaps require large number of participants for greater effect. Might as well start doing what ya’ll have been accused of doing for years anyways.
But I’m skeptical of my own doubts. If someone fleshed out the idea a little further, I’d certainly be willing to listen.
I am always skeptical whenever more government intrusion is the answer. Too boot, I am always skeptical about simple answers to problems with great complexity. Finally, I am always skeptical about problems seen when projecting the future using compter models when small changes to inputs result in large results.
It would seem that this website is the closest thing to “organized” that we’d get without internal frictions diluting the message. On the other hand, it would be useful to have an organizational structure that was dedicated to responding “in kind”. By which I mean that the majority of posters on WUWT argue the data, which is all well and good, but history shows us time and time again that it’s the message (aka “marketing”) that trumps the data. If we don’t find a way to market the data in a way that the non-technical can hear, it doesn’t matter how right we are, we’ll always be the minority. The alarmists know this, which is why their message is heard above the facts.
H.R.
Me too.
We have one in alberta. Its called Friends of Science ( friendsofscience.org) It has educational papers, issues press statements etc
Like, Anthony I started as a ‘true believer’, however unlike him I was not trained in the geo-sciences field. I believed not through understanding but through immersion. I was bombarded at every turn from all media that it was true and it was dangerous. It was not until 2006, when I believe Gavin Schmidt, “prematurely” ran to the media to claim October was warmest ever. At that time I was working a job that gave me plenty of time to research on the internet and I had followed the stories out of the Western US, China, and Russia that October was unusually cold and snowy. Well loe and behold, not a couple weeks into November it was discovered that a mistake had been made with the Russian data. When Schmidt (if I remember correctly) did not really apologize but actually accuse the Russians of the mistake was when I opened my eyes and searched, “anti-global warming” or something to that effect. I was bombarded with many articles but I really caught on to some videos I watched featuring Profs Christy and Ball.
For the initial 12 – 18 months, because there was no clear authority representing skepticism I began to not believe much the same way I always believed. Not through understanding but through need to not want to believe. In 2008, I began to actually do my own research and became a fan of WUWT, thanks Anthony! Now my understanding is developed by solid science, it was through a central information source such as WUWT that I was able to filter through the noise, like a good Electrical Engineer, and develop my own understanding.
I think it is extremely important for people to have sources from both sides of the argument. Certainly, no one can deny, humans have caused some warming. We most definitely need to continue research into what continued use of fossil fuels, to changes in land use, and many other factors that humans play on our climate, to determine how much affect we actually have. That said, if nothing else, stasis temperatures for the past 17 years clearly demonstrate natural variance is still alive and well. To truly understand what will happen 100 years from now, we have to know how much affect the sun, ocean oscillations, and the many other natural factors that contribute to the climate system.
I voted yes, but I could be open to persuasion. It should be remembered what GWPF stands for. They don’t dispute global warming in theory, it’s the policy created to ‘solve’ it that they argue with.
I voted yes on the condition that it does not receive any fossil fuel funding. The reason is it will be shot down and ignored on that basis alone.
Lief, the promotion of scientific scepticism is good? No? I thought it was an essential part of science.
The fact that the “AGU, AMS, and the Royal Society) issue Position Statements” means we have been left with no option but to fight fire with fire.
Finally without and organisation we allow the view of the Dragon Slayers to ruin our perfectly reasonable position. Warmists simply use their claims to tar the whole lot of us.
Just my 2 cents worth.
Values of climate sensitivity are quoted with upper and lower limits. I can understand how upper limits are established. One can have a period when both CO2 and temperature are rising, and assume all the rise is due to the CO2. But now does on establish a lower limit to climate sensitivity? And, in logic, ought not this to be 0? After all, if it were less than zero, then CAGW is just as much a hoax as if it were zero.
I have been lobbying for the development of the Union of Concerned Citizens, Scientists, and Businesses (or some facsimile there of) for a couple years now to no avail. Formal organization has tremendous benefits.
I am all in!
A firm “no” vote here. First it feels antithetical to the free thinking ethos embraced by most skeptics. When you talk about an starting an organization, you’re implying the need for some some sort of platform on which to base it. What are its goals? What are its core beliefs? Inevitably, we’d be trying to reach some sort of a consensus of our own. I don’t see it working.
If there is an organization, it shouldn’t have the words ‘climate’ or ‘skeptic’ in its name.
Yes! Anthony I have been wondering myself for a long time how to best expose and expel the evil vile demons of lies and liars of what is now called climate change science. I was just thinking about the meme oft used to shut me down when engaged in discussion of observed temperatures and the dire predictions of GW etc. which is this statement : “97% of climate scientists agree CAGW climate change is real and is happening and is bad for the earth and humans etc. etc. … ” I get snippets of information counter to that which is some 30,000 scientists who are vocal that they either cannot get behind said settled climate science because the science is week, or flat out reject said climate science because it is fraud. I scan MSM news for inklings which way the purveyors of media drivel will come clean or not. So far it has been mostly “or not”. Because of WUWT I have been able to access so much information (information is power) to get a feeling for the language of science as well as broad stroke understanding of science in the realm of climate sensitivities and various forcing’s be it natural or man made. This has been indispensable for my personal psychological well being after feeling hopelessness that the hydra headed UN fronted control paradigm is using CAGW fraudulent pseudo science to scare whole populations into agreeing to non-sense that will cause untold hardship and loss of personal and collective liberty for generations to come. I do not want my children living in that kind of reality.
I have my own very personal reasons to absolutely reject the asinine posit that CO2 is doing everything bad to our planet, including but not limited to : super catastrophic storms, the increase in occurrence of such storms, the endless expansion of deserts , the melting of the polar ice caps, the extinction of polar bears, the end of winters, the turning of our planets atmosphere into a run away GHG crossed the tipping point Venus like acid raining hell world, the oceans rising up to swallow vast coastal regions, Did I forget anything? Yikes! So I am not a scientist, and I live off grid and work in town where I make money, buy food and gasoline for my car and chainsaws. I lived on Indian Reservations for 20 plus years and learned a great deal about industrial pollution and waterways and subsequent impacts on wildlife and humans. I am the farthest thing from a oil corporation funded shill you can get. I had to remind my daughter recently that petroleum oil is not all bad, in fact thanks to Petroleum oil whales have not been hunted to extinction! There are good things as well as bad in our current state of technology and political machinations. So long as we are free to share TRUTH and think creatively , we humans can not only solve the energy issues we face but prosper as well. That possibility requires the allocation of money and resources to that end which funds both tried and true old tech as well as innovation of new tech. What kind of skeptic platform can include all this? What ever it is , it is time to launch one!
It won’t do any good IMHO. The Heartland Institute plays this role, but the media ignore it. Another commenter pointed to the NIPCC. The media ignore them, too. Skeptics need to find a way to get fair media coverage, but that’s easier said than done.
lsvalgaard says:
April 19, 2014 at 10:37 am
You are not an Organization, and you don’t make sense.
====
Don’t tell me people don’t “organize” behind a paper they have used or developed into their science?
….of course they do
and they will organize and defend that bad science…that their science has built on….until the day they die
That is exactly what has happened to climate science….
If I publish something that disagrees with something you have published….people use my paper and build their science on it….they will “organize” to defend my paper and trash yours
Just putting a name on some “organization” does not change it or change the process.
Warmists already claim that we are organised and well funded. Lets prove them right.
As to naming, it should not be named skeptic or anti warming or climate. It should be a positive word(s) looking to the future of humanity.
Victorian attitudes got us to where we are now. It was their drive to progress humanity forward that allows us to live in a modern society. They made sacrifices but they knew it was worth it in the end.
We should be careful about the name. I suggest a ‘Dangerous Global Warming Skeptics Organisation’. That is what the IPCC says MIGHT happen. The sub-heading could read ‘man-made global warming is real, but how much & how dangerous?’
Jimbo says:
April 19, 2014 at 10:45 am
Lief, the promotion of scientific scepticism is good? No? I thought it was an essential part of science.
Organized promotion is bad. Just my three cents…
I’ll go with NO – simply because there are a wide range of possible correct answers and one organization can not possibly represent them all:
1) There is no actual data supporting any global “greenhouse” effect at all from the CO2 atmospheric fraction separable from that of water vapor local, and other effects. Conclusions otherwise all appears to be smoke and mirrors to me.
2) The uncertainty cloud around any global long term actual temperature trend being discernable from current datasets different from random walk effects is very large – the data is crap.
3) We (humans) simply do not know enough about the underlying processes controlling / directing long term chaotic outputs of Earth’s atmospheric heat engine. Anybody who claims we do (“the science is settled”) is simply a con artist.
4) Science is not about politics / advocacy and vice versa. Science is about probability or fact.
The need is for a grass roots political organization that lobbies for creation of a logical and scientific basis for policy making on CO2 emissions replacing the illogical and pseudo-scientific basis that now exists..
A number of things dictate my skepticism; first, my field is instrumentation and control with experience in thermodynamics, second, a knowledge of Cook’s Law from my University Days, third, an interest in politics left wing causes,which are interested in controlling money, fourth, a distrust of the media to present a true picture of the facts and finally, the small amount of dedicated proponents of climate change while mainstream scientists are bullied into being quiet.
I voted no.
I agree with Latimer Alder.
As lsvalgaard says, “Position Statements” are a bad idea.
I see that a majority are currently voting yes. I urge people to think again.
Anthony
I voted’ yes’ as sceptics are a very disorganised bunch with a wide variety of disparate views. However, that in itself is the core of the problem.
Who organises us and what coherent, intelligible and credible message, with main stream scientific appeal, would we try to put over to represent the disparate beliefs sceptics hold?
Would we stop treating climate scientists with disdain and cut down on the ridicule of highly intelligent scientists which only destroys our credibility? I would consider myself a moderate but wince at some of the views put over here, either because of their scientific or political content or both. In that respect who would be our spokespeople?
I suspect trying to organise sceptics would be like herding cats. I suspect organising sceptics into a credible, consistent and long lasting organisation would make the herding of cats child’s play.
So a ‘yes’ with lots of reservations, but certainly we would be more effective if we were a large credible body, rather than merely individuals sniping at the establishment with limited effect.
tonyb
Latitude says:
April 19, 2014 at 10:49 am
If I publish something that disagrees with something you have published….people use my paper and build their science on it….they will “organize” to defend my paper and trash yours
good you put quotes around “organize: to show that it is not really the case. Hopefully there will not be a formal Organization formed for the sole purpose of trashing your paper. If there be such, it would clearly be a bad thing, wouldn’t you think? Or would you welcome such an Organization with open arms and bow to its authority?
The Confeferation of Skeptical Scientists? Maybe someone with a Masters in Public Policy could be the Executive Director.
Some people have made the argument that there is no place for this in proper scientific debate.
This would normally be true – but the point is, that there is no debate, and never will be, because the “debate” is
-not allowed
-villified
-lied about
-ignored & covered up by the media
etc. This is a complete perversion of the scientific process, and so this may be the only way. We have to force the issue into the media and politics, because they will keep ignoring it otherwise.
I would like to see this “organisation” or “association” be led and managed by recognised people, and for the likes of Singer, Lindzen, Pilmer, Spencer etc, to be involved .
Perhaps not so o much an organization as a Journal that freely publishes skeptical papers (subject to full peer review standards) to get around the blackout imposed by so many of the establishment publications…
I have to admit I voted unsure. I’m not sure it would to bring any more weight to the argument and it is not going to get the media attention from the likes of the Guardian and the BBC in the UK. In fact the membership list would be a perfect ignore/block list for them. I’m prepared to be persuaded that having an organisation might bring greater weight to the argument but I’m pretty sure that any pronouncements would be either ignored or derided, much as the GWPF are now.
The stealthy chipping away at the edifice might be more effective if they can’t see you coming from a hundred yards away with a sledgehammer.
It’s asymmetric warfare and for that you need guerilla tactics engaging in a head on charge is folly.
What really would make a difference is if it would attract academics prepared to put their heads above the parapet but we know that is potentially a career ending move.
(I think I might have tortured enough metaphors for now 😉
There was a thread recently about people believe or don’t believe and I think that is a fair start for a non-alarmist manifesto but as MarkW pointed out our range of views is pretty wide and it would be easy to fall into groupthink for fear of not being accepted into the club. Pretty well as the majority of academia has currently.
I guess most of us here could probably sign up to something like:
“We believe that decisions that will affect the lives of future generations are being made based on a level of confidence in the science that is not supported by impartial analysis of the known facts. Our aim is to provide scientific and mathematical arguments to challenge the premise that enough is known for the basis of informed policy making. We do not dispute the wisdom of conserving finite resources but policies disadvantaging the people who can afford it least so on the basis of the currently available evidence is unfair and unnecessary.”
I’d rather have a movement against the misuse of science.
Climate, psychology, …
I think a “position” is impossible unless it is posted as a spectrum, e.g. some “skeptics”, believe the greenhouse effect is real, but the degree is arguable and the data certainly does not justify precipitous action, others doubt the greenhouse effect in its entirety, and others would be spread between these two.
I’d be interested in seeing a controlled poll of the same, taken from reasonably well informed people who are not afraid of being counted so that the poll could not be bombed by people on either side.
lsvalgaard says:
April 19, 2014 at 10:58 am
===
oh for God’s sake…no one is that dense
Latitude says:
April 19, 2014 at 11:03 am
oh for God’s sake…no one is that dense
You make a good impersonation of one…
I voted no.
We are everywhere. We are the Leviathan. We kill the media. We laugh at the last few remaining warmists in real life. They have no argument.
The empire is hollow and will fall. Not only with regard to warmism. There is now not a chance anymore that the empire can re-assert its dominance; it is in terminal decline.
We don’t have to found a committee. We must prepare against the empire lashing out in its death throes. That’s what I do. The crazy people and their crazy ideology has overtaken the empire and defeated itself. Make sure the tentacles don’t hit you and wait it out.
The period covered by the paper and you not is just too short – 1984-2011 can be affected by natural climate changes. 2013 had the fewest forest fires since 1984 according to the data. Still too short to conclude anything.
I voted no simply because those of us who remain unconvinced Co2 plays a warming role in our atmosphere will be marginalized by yet another “group”.
I’m not sure, but if there is one, Christopher Monckton should be its head.
More than sufficiently articulate, but perhaps too polemic. If anyone, it’s gotta be the rev.
OTOH, I like the milieu of the indie partisan, which is how I see ourselves. We are winning, too, as it is. I’m an old wargamer. And if there is one lesson I learned, it’s that if you are winning a battle of attrition, for heaven’s sake keep it going just that way for as long as you can, particularly if the enemy is deluding himself otherwise.
So I am unsure.
Some of the comments above get to the nub of the problem. Heartland doesn’t speak for me. The GWPF doesn’t speak for me. Lord Monckton doesn’t speak for me. Can anybody speak for me but me?
I voted ‘yes’ but can see lots of difficulties. Perhaps we need a strategy as much as we need a representative organisation that would actually only be representative of a small part of the sceptical movement.
Also I am disturbed at the notion of ‘sides.’ A sceptic should be prepared to adjust their position if the facts were to demonstrate we were ‘wrong’ There are too many people who have taken ‘sides’ already and have closed their minds to further discussion.
tonyb
Stop smearing Dr. Svalgaard. It is childish in the extreme.
David Ball says:
April 19, 2014 at 11:12 am
Stop smearing Dr. Svalgaard. It is childish in the extreme.
Did you forget a comma somewhere? 🙂
Re:post. Missed a comma. Should be more careful as the meaning changes dramatically. Meant to write; “Stop smearing, Dr, Svalgaard. It is childish in the extreme.”
David Ball says:
April 19, 2014 at 11:14 am
Re:post. Missed a comma. Should be more careful as the meaning changes dramatically. Meant to write; “Stop smearing, Dr, Svalgaard
Now you may have one comma too much…
And you’ve never made an error? Get over yourself.
The GWPF in the UK is – as it name implies – concerned with policy and especially the economic effects of climate alarmism. Perhaps there is a place for an organisation to restore integrity and honour to science – because they sure as hell have gone missing now.
David Ball says:
April 19, 2014 at 11:17 am
And you’ve never made an error? Get over yourself.
I make errors every day, but am very careful and precise with insults.
I voted no. Organizations require controls; I doubt there would be a satisfactory happy meeting of all stakeholders. I would rather see unconstrained input from all. We don’t need controls, we need continued free thought from all who care to contribute. I think the NIPCC is sufficient, as was stated above. WUWT and the other blogs are here, for all who desire knowledge, to find if they care to look.
“I make errors every day, but am very careful and precise with insults.”
Well, this clarifies what is important to you.
Is it time for an “official” climate skeptics organization?
—
Would it be an organization that claims to represent the “consensus”? Then no. In science, it only takes one scientist with accurate data to overturn the consensus. That’s the way it should be. While I like forums, such as WUWT, where skeptics and non-skeptics alike are allowed to debate, I’m skeptical about having one “official” organization that claims to speak for all skeptics. It gives the opposition one target to attack. What happens when a spokesman makes a mistake and ends up looking like a fool? It makes it easier for warmists to brand all skeptics as fools. With just one organization to target, the media will use the Alinsky method to level all kinds of accusations against it, and it won’t matter if the accusations are true or not as long as they are widely repeated.
But another potential problem is who controls the message. Skeptics don’t agree on all issues, so will all sides be allowed to participate? Or will the message be tightly controlled to prevent the “kooks” from making the organization look foolish? Either way is problematic. An open organization invites more attacks. A closed one ends up banning everyone except a close-knit few who think alike. It’s very difficult to walk a tight-rope between those two extremes. I have no problem with the idea of skeptic organizations making their voices heard. I just don’t like the idea of an “official” organization that claims a monopoly on climate skepticism. It seems like an oxymoron to me. That’s why I voted no.
/ jest
Look at us. Latitude vrs Svalgaard. Multitudes vrs. Mosher. All we need now is for Richard Courtney to comment and yet another battle will erupt. We’re like a Monty Python skit, the only thing that unites us is the appearance of the Peoples Front of Judea.
I mean P.S.I.
:>
Herding cats doesn’t quite capture the difficulties inherent in the idea of organizing us, I think.
It is all about money, power and control. For Al Gore, AGW is about his getting rich and having power and control in a way he could only have dreamed of if he had won in 2000.
By providing a unified message, we realists will have a better chance to overcome his disinformation campaign.
Mark Bofill says:
April 19, 2014 at 11:23 am
“the only thing that unites us is the appearance of the Peoples Front of Judea.
I mean P.S.I.”
And Mr. Bofill confirms my “no” vote.
I voted, “No.” Any such organization is subject to the same corruption as the global warmists.
David Ball says:
April 19, 2014 at 11:22 am
“very careful and precise…”
Well, this clarifies what is important to you.
Care and Precision in all matters, but you should apply that double when your comment is insulting. And apparently you think that ‘hogwash’ was appropriate [at a level that you would subscribe to]…
Beg pardon Dr. Ball. 🙂
No hesitation in voting NO, there is no unified view, there would be too much in-fighting, and it would provide an easy target for the alarmist attack dogs.
I voted no because it represents the kind of group think, conformity and collectivism I see coming from the alarmist policy-wonk side of the debate. The facts are what they are, and an organization runs the risk of being pigeon-holed. Official statements and positions are always subject to change, and the alarmist side has painted themselves into a corner. They have invested everything in their position and their rationalization is becoming more difficult to support. Now they must turn up the volume on the propaganda and keep repeating the lies louder and more often. We constantly hear from their side that it is a communication problem, but their problem is their contempt for the general public and their underestimation of the intelligence of individuals. Ultimately it is up to every individual to decide what is true and what isn’t, and no policy statement will or should make much of a difference. Organizations are fine and I fully support the freedom to associate with whomever one wishes, I just don’t usually buy what their selling because at heart I am and always will be an individualist.
When I first heard that the Earth was going warm I shouted
yippee! Just think, when the Tundra thaws, all that fallow ground,
400 bushel per acre Triticale!!!!
Why not do it with mathematics? Here is what I came across a long time ago when I was looking for proof that CO2 was a GHG. I’ll put it here now so other people, that’s you – can check it out –
“The “greenhouse effect” is simply the temperature difference between the actual surface temperature and theoretical value of what the temperature would be without the insulation effect from the atmosphere. The greenhouse effect can easily be calculated from geophysical data that has been provided by weather satellites since their launch in late 1978.
“Climate change” is entirely based on the assumption that the rapid increase in global CO2 emissions is enhancing the greenhouse effect resulting in catastrophic global warming; but somehow no one ever bothered to verify this conjecture by actually calculating the greenhouse effect!
The 1980 value for the greenhouse effect is 35.56°C and the value for 2010 is 0.14°C lower at 35.42°C. This demonstrates that the 70.9% increase in global CO2 emissions since 1980 did not in any way enhance the greenhouse effect as has been falsely claimed since 1988 when this global warming debacle first began.
Since 1980 there has only been 0.4°C of global temperature increase, all of which occurred prior to 1997 when global warming officially ended.
The global temperature standstill reverted to a global cooling trend in 2002 and the Earth has been cooling ever since, in spite of the continued increase in global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels.
A similar occurrence of decreasing global temperatures with rapidly increasing CO2 emissions took place during the 33 years from 1942 to 1975 (the 70’s global cooling scare) so the stated correlation of increased CO2 emissions with global warming never actually existed.
In short, since 1997 there has been neither any global warming nor any enhancement of the greenhouse effect to cause it in the first place, and with no possible correlation between increased CO2 emissions and global warming; there is simply no scientific basis for the for the ludicrous concept that fossil fuel derived CO2 emissions are or could even cause catastrophic global warming!
The Science
This proper scientific definition of the greenhouse effect was known to Hansen who stated it as “Ts – Te is the greenhouse effect of gases and clouds” and defined Te according to the formula Te = [So(1-A)/4σ]1/4
(Hansen, J., D. Johnson, A. Lacis, S. Lebedeff, P. Lee, D. Rind, and G. Russell, 1981: Science, 213, 957-966, doi:10.1126/science.213.4511.957.)
So is total solar irradiance (TSI) and we have continuous measurement of TSI from weather satellites since late 1978 as shown on this graph from the World Radiation Centre in Davos.
This graph shows TSI to be 1366.6W/m2 in 1980 and 1365.8W/m2 in 2010.
“A” is albedo which is the percentage of energy from the sun reflected back into space by the atmosphere and the Earth’s surface.
Albedo can be determined by subtracting outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) from TSI. This graph of OLR (from http://www.climate4you.com ) compiled from data available from NOAA at shows OLR to have increased from 231W/m2 in 1980 to 233W/m2 in 2010.
Subtracting OLR from TSI/4 (division of TSI by 4 necessary for units to match) gives reflected energy values of:
1980 the reflected energy was 341.65W/m2 – 231W/m2 = 110.65W/m2
2010 the reflected energy was 341.45W/m2 – 233W/m2 = 108.45W/m2
And albedo values of:
A = 110.65/341.65 = 0.323869 for 1980
A = 108.45/341.45 = 0.317616 for 2010
From these values and using the formula Te = [So(1-A)/4σ]1/4 we can calculate Te to be:
1980 Te = [1366.6(1-0.323869)/4σ]1/4 = 252.64 K
2010 Te = [1365.8(1-0.317616)/4σ]1/4 = 253.18 K
This graph of Global Temperature Anomaly from NCDC shows the global temperature anomaly to be 0.20°C in 1980 and 0.60°C in 2010. (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cmb-faq/anomalies.php )
For simplicity if we equate 288 K to the zero reference on this NCDC temperature anomaly data, we get absolute temperature values for Ts of 288.2 K for 1980 and 288.6 K for 2010.
From here it is just a simple subtraction of Ts – Te to determine the greenhouse effect:
1980 Ts = 288.2 K Te = 252.64 K
2010 Ts = 288.6 K Te = 253.18 K
1980 greenhouse effect = 288.2-252.64=35.56°C
2010 greenhouse effect = 288.6-253.18=35.42°C
So, if this is correct then a fat lot of good 40 odd percent increase, since the industrial revolution, in atmospheric CO2 content is doing for the enhancement of the GHEffect. Oh yeah σ is the Stef/ Boltzmann constant
lsvalgaard says:
April 19, 2014 at 11:27 am
Smear without substance in usually against site policy.
“Respect is given to those with manners, those without manners that insult others or begin starting flame wars may find their posts deleted.”
Correction: “…buy what they’re selling…” Thought I was a better proofreader than that.
Oh and I have voted by the way
Mark Bofill says:
April 19, 2014 at 11:27 am
“Beg pardon Dr. Ball. :)”
I am not a Dr.
I am a climatologist and meteorologist (for those who think there is a difference) and I have never trusted the models to give a fair description of what happens 30, 40, 50 years hence. Besides that i have a reasonable experience of climate and its variability, which makes me think we are just seeing natural variability.
Starting to feel like Bilbo Baggins here, allow me beg your pardon again. I confused you with Dr. Tim Ball.
Is it noble cause corruption that has caused the contemperaneous brainwashing of schoolchildren in Australia and Europe? or is it a well planned social engineering project?
The social stereotyping they’ve been forcing into curricula is not limited to environmentalism and the fact that all this agit prop has the same smell leads me to believe that noble cause corruption has a fairly minor role in the problem we have.
This in an open thread comment.
I’ve noticed that the number of major earthquakes on the Pacific Rim has been exceptional over the last 19 days. I did a quick query on how many major (7.0-7.9) earthquakes normally occur in a year and the answer is 18. But since the first of April, there have been 6 Mag 7+ and one Mag 8+ earthquakes on the Pacific Rim. http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/index.php
Is this an unusually high cluster for earthquakes of this magnitude even if some of these large quakes are aftershocks?
7.5
75km SW of Panguna, Papua New Guinea
2014-04-19 13:27:59 UTC30.9 km deep
6.6
59km SW of Panguna, Papua New Guinea
2014-04-19 01:04:03 UTC24.4 km deep
7.2
36km NNW of Tecpan de Galeana, Mexico
2014-04-18 14:27:26 UTC24.0 km deep
6.9
Bouvet Island region
2014-04-15 03:57:02 UTC11.7 km deep
6.6
75km S of Kirakira, Solomon Islands
2014-04-13 13:25:03 UTC35.0 km deep
7.4
111km S of Kirakira, Solomon Islands
2014-04-13 12:36:18 UTC35.0 km deep
7.6
100km SSE of Kirakira, Solomon Islands
2014-04-12 20:14:39 UTC29.3 km deep
6.6
18km S of Nandaime, Nicaragua
2014-04-11 20:29:13 UTC135.0 km deep
6.5
78km SW of Panguna, Papua New Guinea
2014-04-11 08:16:48 UTC39.4 km deep
7.1
57km SW of Panguna, Papua New Guinea
2014-04-11 07:07:21 UTC50.0 km deep
7.7
49km SW of Iquique, Chile
2014-04-03 02:43:14 UTC31.1 km deep
6.5
43km W of Iquique, Chile
2014-04-03 01:58:31 UTC22.8 km deep
6.9
89km WNW of Iquique, Chile
2014-04-01 23:57:57 UTC20.2 km deep
8.2
95km NW of Iquique, Chile
2014-04-01 23:46:46 UTC20.1 km deep
Dear Fellow Villagers,
“Is it time for an “official” climate skeptics organization, one that produces a policy statement, issues press releases, and provides educational guidance?”
This is the most ridiculous and impossible idea I have ever heard. Scepticism’s strength is in nebulous, self-contradictory argumentation. A moving target must continue to be the most effective form of evasion. A policy statement that goes any further than “it’s natural variation” will be a dead canard. Sceptics should do what they are best at – sniping with well aimed ad hom shots, muck raking and publicizing game-changing research.
Oh! And give Sir Christopher of Belchly plenty more rope.
Re:post. Missed a comma. Should be more careful as the meaning changes dramatically.
There’s an old story that one of Catherine the (to be) Great’s “army friends” had been discovered and was condemned to exile. Catherine intervened, and received the following letter from Peter:
“Pardon impossible, to be sent to Siberia.”
Catherine did a little photoshopping and produced the following:
“Pardon, impossible to be sent to Siberia.”
If we cannot be accurate, we can at least be precise. In any case, I voted NO.
Village Idiot says:
April 19, 2014 at 11:40 am
I doubt you would be able to differentiate a 0.76C change in the temperature of your bathwater.
What was that you were saying again?
A policy statement that goes any further than “it’s natural variation” will be a dead canard.
I don’t think he knows us very well.
the only thing that unites us is the appearance of the Peoples Front of Judea.
Splitter!
It’s long past time to have rigorous science done on the Earth’s weather, past present and, if enough understanding is achieved, perhaps future. This means discovering the factors that make up weather, measuring them, determining patterns and their causes and recording METICULOUSLY the variables over the entire globe.
These record sites must be sited carefully and documented. Perhaps this would be something that could be done by volunteers as the amount of time and money would otherwise be prohibitive.
Studies must be instituted to determine exactly what causes various weather. We know quite a bit but there are still variables that elude us.
Computer models must be formulated that are repeatedly compared to actual weather to provide feedback on the weighting of events and measurements.
And primarily this must be done in a transparent and publicly monitored fashion so that any disputes of data or result can be resolved and that resolution seen by all as correct.
Any governing body must be free from political and economic influences and seen to be so.
Until at least some of these steps are taken, we’re all just spitting into the wind.
For me, it is a quest for truth, and my opinion(s) will or may change as I discover more information. I voted unsure, though, my hunch is that science should not be political and or based on a predetermined outcome.
NO… consolidating your forces is never a winning strategy. It simply allows the enemy to focus their fire. Having a diverse and dispersed opposition to this Redistribution Scheme is the best way to fight.
I voted no. I think the present situation, where a whole range of persons with different educational backgrounds, including different levels of “science” background, is a good situation. A formal organization with eventually an official position, in some sense creates another religion.
The formal gatherings, such as Heartland promotes / sponsors / organizes / whatever, are a sufficient melding situation.
Just as the warmistas have a hard core nucleus of agenda (maybe sinister) driven zealots, the “skeptic community” also has some who take unsupportable positions. For example it is just plain silly to argue that the physics of CO2 and other GHGs, including H2O, is a fiction, or that 400 ppm of anything couldn’t possibly have an effect.
We are all hashing these things out in a silicon universe, where an abundance (concentration) of 400 ppm of impurity (dopant) would be a “huge” amount, and our circuits function because of much lower impurity levels. Raw semiconductor materials have purity levels of six nines or seven nines (maybe more); as in 99.99999% pure materials, so that controlled doping to a part in 10,000 or so is not corrupted by junk in the “cake mix”.
So there are plenty of self described skeptics, who need to broaden their knowledge level, so they don’t take fatally flawed positions that tarnish their credibility.
WUWT, is a central meeting place in that educational process.
Ultimately the MSM must take responsibility, for the fact that they are failing in THEIR duty to address THE PEOPLE’S RIGHT TO KNOW.
I voted No. “We” have been remarkably successful for various reasons waging our guerilla war. I say “we” meaning the skeptical bloggers managing to cover a lot of territory by just following areas that need attention. In many ways we’ve done better than the existing organizations and parts of them, e.g. Heartland, Cato, CFACT, etc.
I think one reason the warmists blather on about being funded by Big Oil reflects in part on our success – how can we, as a bunch of volunteers, be responsible for the low ranking that AGW has on national polls. The answer has a lot to do with the warmist oversell of the dangers, the great recession, and the 17 year pause – it’s hard to keep the hype alive when reality doesn’t play along.
If we were better organized, then we’d have to actively work to resolve conflicts between ourselves instead of just rolling our eyes when Vukcevic and Svallgard go at each other again. So while our lack of structure leads to some inefficiencies, if we had more structure, that would lead to a different set of inefficiencies.
I’m happy in the niche we’ve made.
A complete waste of time. It would be completely demonized by the left 10 minutes after it became public. If there are doubts, go back and read this thread. Its purpose, presumably,would be to collect and disseminate factual scientific information on the state of climate and its research to audience which has no use for, or interest in any of it.
george e. smith says:
April 19, 2014 at 11:54 am
“For example it is just plain silly to argue that the physics of CO2 and other GHGs, including H2O, is a fiction, or that 400 ppm of anything couldn’t possibly have an effect.”
With all due respect, George, this is a misrepresentation of the position.
Thanks, Anthony, it is a question worth asking. I’m affiliated with a major US research university, and the party-line rules supreme. Therefore, I have to bite my tongue until it bleeds.
We do have some leading authorities who lead the charge, most notably Dr. Lindzen. However, we shouldn’t have to organize as a skeptics-organization if scientists were behaving in an ethical and honest manner.
By cooking the books, “hiding the decline” etc., the Hockey Team shows that they are not scientists, but policy advocates. However, you can’t fool all the people, all the time.
More important than having a formal “skeptics society” would be honest reporting of our concerns by the major media outlets. Many billions of dollars of public spending ride upon the policy pronouncements of a “chosen few,” and their voices are powerful. Science should always allow dissent, otherwise it becomes, as you point out, a Soviet exercise in policy-dictates-science. The blogosphere seems to be the most powerful tool we have to counter this trend.
Cheers, Charles the DrPH p.s. I still miss REP!
I voted No, as it I don’t think we need another institution with a policy. In Norway, we have a loose organization called “Climate Realists”, as we do not like calling us sceptical to global warming and global change. We cannot be sceptical to climate change as it is happening all the time, and is part of Nature.
It is funny to think about the sceptic inside the Holy Bible – his name was Thomas, and one of the disciples. Even though his comrades bullied him for his scepticism to Jesus’ resurection, Jesus himself told him that he still loved him, even though he was sceptical…
I think that the work done by Anthony and his guest writers, here at WUWT are doing a fantastic job internationally. Keep it as informal as it is, we will be there and guide you. Time itself, and Nature in its working will prove us right,
I voted ‘yes’ but I am concerned that decisions on overall policy would be open to much disagreement and that consensus (sorry – couldn’t think of an alternative) might be impossible.
What I think is more needed is a repository site for all the ACTUAL data and conclusions written for the man in the street, easily understandable (as far as possible, difficult I know) and accessible
to everyone,including (OK – I’m an optimist) the MSM.
I voted not sure.
All of these “bodies” are based on some supposed appointed authority. Without such authority and what is perceived to be a credible authority then such a body has little bite and little impact. Remember, even if you create a board of members with first rate credentials it is STILL “the perception” of authority (legitimate or not) that holds the day. I don’t see it being possible that such an official organization can gain or achieve such credibility.
I am seeing signs that “some” governments “might” be backing down on this CAGW issue. But only to save the GREATER cause.
When you look at “how far” the rabbit hole is on this CAGW issue, it truly boggles the mind.
The most useful result of those whole climate scam?
5 years ago I could have NEVER EVER explained to anyone that a bunch of governments and international elites actually banded together to scheme against their people.
This issue here is that a “revolution” against people actually exists. This issue is FAR GREATER of a fallout then that of climate gate and the spiraling downward support of this CAGW scam.
In other words, this whole issue has opened the eyes of HUGE numbers of people to learn + understand of a socialist revolution that is being systematic run and promoted to inflict not only economic damage but that of simply eroding our rights and freedoms.
At the end of the day, the CAGW issue was NEVER about the science, and never about saving the planet. It was always about the “cause” as so many climate-gate emails refer to.
As a result an organization that becomes a counter revolution to the CAGW mess would in fact find itself fighting a MUCH larger cause and one that is essentially an ideological fight.
So many innocent people were fooled that this CAGW scam was about basic science. We now realize that this fight is not about science but that of exposing the socialist’s trogen horse that is hiding “under” the green banner.
So we cannot make the same mistake and think that some official organization here would only be about the science. As we all know the prompters of this CAGW scam are NOT about the science and MOST of this moment is based on pushing their ideological views and that of the socialists dream to redistribute wealth on a world scale.
I think it world be a mistake to think that any “official” organization would and could be limited to just science since we see the other side is LITTLE about the science and rarely limits themselves to just science.
This is about “their” cause and their revolution.
So this is like the great revolutions of Europe that pushed socialism and communism on their people.
At the end of the day the REAL fight is about this socialist revolution.
Therefore little if any possibility of some such organization being able to limit itself to simply science would not be effective since at the end of the day that is NOT what this fight is about.
We are fighting a socialist revolution hiding under the trogen horse of the green banner.
So as long as one realizes we are in an ideological fight then this will DEFINE and determine what kind of organization needs to be created here.
First of all, I voted “yes”, and secondly, I am a “denier” of CAGW and I detest the use of the word “skeptic” in any way, shape or form primarily because it was coined by the proponents of CAGW to badmouth, berate, criticize and/or discredit anyone that disagrees with their “junk science” claims ….. and thus the general public interprets the word “skeptic” as being someone who doesn’t believe in climate change and/or is utterly ignorant and uneducated in/on matters of science.
Anyway, to reach the masses with a “denier message” about the junk science of CAGW an “association/agreement” should be established with Fox News for publication of science based commentary and then similar articles as those posted on WUWT but worded so that Fox readers could easily understand their contents/context could be submitted for publication.
There is already one (1) “denier” that is publishing commentary on Fox News and a dozen more wouldn’t hurt any, to wit:
“‘Chicken Little ‘science’
The Washington Post’s Charles Krauthammer, writes, “If climate science is settled, why do its predictions keep changing? And how is it that the great physicist Freeman Dyson, who did some climate research in the late 1970s, thinks today’s climate-change Cassandras are hopelessly mistaken? … Climate-change proponents have made their cause a matter of fealty and faith. For folks who pretend to be brave carriers of the scientific ethic, there’s more than a tinge of religion in their jeremiads.” Yet another reason not to trust climate change alarmists.”
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/04/17/chicken-little-science/?intcmp=HPBucket
A no vote from me. Such a group would be far too polarizing in my opinion and it’s message could easily become just another bumper sticker meme. As others have said, there is a range of valid and useful ideas on the skeptic’s side and it would be way too easy to lump them all together into a group that really represents no one’s view. Another poster said we should focus on exposing all bad science and I would certainly agree with that, and think WUWT has done an exemplary job at doing just that very thing. Plus, the education that Anthony and other independent minded bloggers have provided us all certainly supports the value of the current independent and loosely knit paradigm that seems to best define the skeptic camp.
I voted “unsure”.
While it would be good to have a place where, say, a journalist could go to check the facts of a CAGW press release or at least get the other side. It would be good to have a place a teacher could go unbiased info.
But how would the policy statement read? I’m just a layman here but what would it say? “We are certain that they should be uncertain.”?
I suppose I’d have to see it before I’d vote other than “unsure”.
And how would it differ from SEPP?
“””””……O H Dahlsveen says:
April 19, 2014 at 11:33 am
Why not do it with mathematics? Here is what I came across a long time ago when I was looking for proof that CO2 was a GHG. I’ll put it here now so other people, that’s you – can check it out –
“The “greenhouse effect” is simply the temperature difference between the actual surface temperature and theoretical value of what the temperature would be without the insulation effect from the atmosphere. …..”””””
Well that little word there; “theoretical”, sets off alarm bells.
It starts off with the assumption that there IS a “theoretical value”, and hence a “theory” that is correct.
So just where is this theory, and its derived theoretical value ??
There is NO thermal equilibrium; given that the earth rotates, so an earth sans atmosphere, would never have any theoretical Temperature, and we certainly haven’t the knowledge (data) to determine one.
How much do YOU know about the thermal conductivities of the earth or the specific radiant emissivities of its vast array of different surface materials ??
Earth has no credible theoretical Temperature either in its present condition or an atmosphere free condition.
“The Road to skepticism” Could be a nice title for a book. subtitle ‘ The Many Paths followed”
Actually, instead of an organization with a negative in the title, I would prefer
the name to be “Climate honesty” or perhaps “climate diversity”—- throw the negative in the alarmist and very narrow court.
As I see it, skeptics are simply being honest with respect to what they have observed. Because the science is very complicated with many uncertainties, there will be varying viewpoints among those who might consider themselves to be skeptics. I would think the best conclusion, is that yes there may be some AGW, but mostly likely it is small compared to many other known and unknown natural forcings.
Yeah, I started out about five years ago with a vague idea of ice melting and those poor lovable polar bears.
My daughter, who has degrees in biology and environmentalism challenged me as to who said that, to which I replied ‘they said’. She looked at me with a winning and knowing grin and said ‘they’? After I had taught her just the opposite approach, we both knew she had me, so I started out to prove her wrong. Funny thing, the more I worked at it, the greater my conversion.
She reminded me that at one point I was very upset with President Bush for not signing the Kyoto Protocol.
One more related item, IMO is the Trenberth’s howling of the publication of the paper by Roy Spencer. Another book Title “Mann, Jones, Hansen, Trenberth et al”, the Founders of Totalitarian Science”.
I voted No. To do this would be playing our enemies at their own game. Never a good idea.
Providing educational guidance is fine, and even the occasional well-put press release might do some good. But a “policy statement?” Tirez l’autre, mon ami.
What is the “policy” of climate skeptics? Unless it’s to be honest and to tell the truth? How could skeptics possibly have a climate “policy,” other than “wait and see?”
“””””…..David Ball says:
April 19, 2014 at 11:56 am
george e. smith says:
April 19, 2014 at 11:54 am
“For example it is just plain silly to argue that the physics of CO2 and other GHGs, including H2O, is a fiction, or that 400 ppm of anything couldn’t possibly have an effect.”
With all due respect, George, this is a misrepresentation of the position……”””””
Well David; with all due respect; that is a completely accurate representation OF SOME SKEPTICS position.
So just where in my post did you find I assigned that position to ALL skeptics ?? I did not.
YOU , simply attached YOUR INTERPRETATION to MY WORDS.
That’s YOUR error, not mine.
I voted no because to me it seems that the possible drawback are more likely to occur than the possible benefits.
The drawback is that the head of an organization will always feel the need to make a statement even if he’s not sure the “membership” is in agreement. The American Physical Society comes to mind.
A possible benefit is that the press would have a go-to place to get the other side in response to the latest alarmist press release. But if the press were open to that kind of information, they would already be getting it; it wouldn’t be hard for an Associated Press reporter to find someone willing to give him the straight dope. Yet they don’t.
Organizing is a bad idea.
george e. smith says:
April 19, 2014 at 12:13 pm
Thank you for your reply George. This once again shows why the vote should be “no”.
No, but:
There is a need for an organization or an individual who could put together a really tightly reasoned set of absolutely ‘bullet-proof’ questions on climate change that could be asked of candidates running for any political office. Circulating this to political party organizations and the press would not be costly.
The potential impact could be significant. For example: Imagine a candidate running for governor being asked in a public forum about a greenhouse gas reduction proposal he’s advocating: “You are telling us that your proposal will reduce emissions by x megatons. This means nothing to me. Do you know and can you tell us what the impact of your proposed project on global warming will be in DEGREES? If not, why not?”
Not my preferred vehicle, but one could imagine the Tea Party putting good talking points to use.
Off topic, anybody know of a no B.S. reference on the accuracy and limitations of the various temperature proxies? If anyone would point me with some links I’d be grateful.
“Is it time for an ‘official’ climate skeptics organization, one that produces a policy statement, issues press releases, and provides educational guidance?”
Absolutely not. CAGW is a product of progressivism, not science. That is why its supporters have formed and joined centralized organizations and imbued them with ever increasing authority.
While skeptics may be found in all political persuasions, the political aspect is one of conservatism/libertarianism. It would be a mistake for those who value freedom to adopt the tactics of those who lust for centralization.
Plus trust me, if any such “official” skeptic organization were created (by government or otherwise), the positions of control in that organization would eventually attract those people who are drawn to power, ie. progressives.
Just look at the Republican Party.
I voted yes but on thinking about it a little further ,that might not be a good idea .Any origination can be infiltrated and taken over . The loose but effective groups of skeptics are making a difference because when someone like myself approaches the subject ,you have to learn stuff .I once drank the kool-aid just out of being lazy about it but I found this site .Some stuff ,well a lot of stuff goes over my head but I some how come away each time with another small piece of the puzzle called climate change . Even learning how not to debate the issue is a big plus .They work on fallacies and plain fraud .If it aint broke then don’t fix it ….
As one of the original skeptics, this strikes me as a lousy idea. So are we going to have “consensus” skeptical statements? Isn’t that virtually an oxymoron?
1. “Consensus” is a fancy word for groupthink. As a skeptic of things in general, which I believe every thinking person ought to be, that sticks in my craw.
2. The notion of “consensus”, while perfectly acceptable for politics and bureaucracies, is antithetical to the scientific method.
3. There are so many factors involved in AGW, some of which I’m more skeptical about than others, I am skeptical — that damned word again — that my, or for that matter, any single individual’s — view would be properly or adequately represented in a joint statement. And IMO not worth the effort. Consider my specific set of views: I was, believe it or not, a little concerned about CO2 in the late 1970s, but became more skeptical over time. First I became skeptical of one thing, then another, then another, and so on… but I still believe that CO2, all else being equal, might cause (some) warming. Although I’m skeptical about thermometer measurements, despite believing there is a relatively large “warming” bias, phenological records from non-urban areas suggest to me that there has been some warming (although they too are “contaminated” by an increase in atmospheric CO2 concentrations). Regardless, I’m not convinced that the warming we have seen so far is outside of the bounds of natural variability. I have always been skeptical that we knew enough to say the impacts would be catastrophic, or that we couldn’t/wouldn’t be able to adapt, or that mitigation would be cheap in the short run, or that spending money on mitigation is the best use of societies’ (always) scarce resources … and so on. I can see that some skeptics might agree with me on one but not another of these above cited facets. How would all this be captured in a joint statement?
4. About the only thing skeptics might be able to agree on is that “consensus” is not part of the scientific method.
5. To paraphrase Mark Twain — or was it Groucho — I would be skeptical of any group that would join me in a “joint statement”.
Not likely we could form an OCS (“Organization of Climate Skeptics”). I think it would be possible and helpful to come up with a set of statements summarizing the current state of our knowledge, something like the WUWT article here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/04/15/ditto-tom-here-are-some-things-i-believe/#more-107550
or here
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/28/matt-ridley-a-lukewarmers-ten-tests/
i.e. statements with solid scientific evidence behind them that (almost) all skeptics can support. Possible examples:
1. The incidence and power of severe weather (hurricanes, tornadoes, etc) has NOT increased over the past (30/40/50) years, with references.
2. The observed increase in the so-called “global average temperature” is mainly due to an observed rise in nighttime lows. (we might also want to call on the IPCC to actually DEFINE the so-called GAT)
3. The observed rate of increase of the so-called GAT in “the CO2 era” is indistinguishable from the rate of increase in pre-CO2 eras, with references.
Stuff like that. Being a heterogeneous lot, not all CAGW skeptics are likely to agree with all points, but having a central reference would help us narrow and define our differences and give us a set of “talking points” for discussions with CAGW inthusiasts (who are also somewhat heterogeneous in their exact beliefs and familiarity with the facts–some think CO2 is 40% of the atmosphere, for example). When somebody like Village Idiot (April 19, 2014 at 11:40 am) does a drive-by, we can point to our “manifesto” and ask exactly what he disputes, and why.
Just don’t ask me who comes up with the list and how we decide what’s included and what isn’t. I’m strictly a “big picture” kind of guy. 🙂
I voted yes because here in the UK the Government, BBC, press and almost every institution supports the warmist cause. The GWPF makes a modest but important contribution to the alternative view.
The GWPF tends to be a notice board for serious sceptical reports and articles and only occasionally publishes an opinion piece which tends to be an assessment or review with credibility and merit.
The creation of a cheerleading, rallying club that attracts supporters committed to rubbishing the warmists is probably the last thing we want.
My message is therefore is to define what you want and what you do not want very, very carefully.
darrylb: “‘The Road to skepticism’ Could be a nice title for a book. subtitle ‘ ‘The Many Paths followed'”
In addition to describing how the scales fell from their eyes, it could, for the better-known folks like Crichton and Rutan, include the kinds of reaction they encountered when they attempted to disseminate what they had learned.
I am going with a ‘no’ vote. Any organisation would of necessity be seen as being of a political nature. One of the many problems with the whole question of global warming is that the science has become politicised. We need to get back to the science being done by scientists and not the activists who have held sway for too many years.
The policy response is another matter. Crap policy based on crap science. We must continue to point out the futile nature of the policy response and the injustice this causes to the most vulnerable members of our fellow men.
I voted “No” as I don’t think it would do any good. As many have observed, this is not really about science, but control. “Experts” telling us where to live, what to drive, how to live. They ignore anything that doesn’t agree, science or not. Sadly, I fear we are wasting our time as it is. The CAGW express is roaring along, running over anything in its path. Wind, solar, electric cars, you name it, all big time PR, (with small time benefit). An official organization? One more thing to trample and ridicule. Perhaps even “domestic terrorists” as one Senator likes to claim.
And, as many have said, we don’t agree on everything. Hard to build an organization with that flexibility.
I have read this blog daily for years and have never commented, so this is my first time. I voted ‘No’ on this for the following reasons:
(1) any organization begun with the express purpose of being skeptical of some position will immediately be ignored or demonized by the other side as simply being an ‘anti’ organization.
(2) What we need to preserve for ourselves and our posterity is good science in all areas, not just climate. Of course skepticism plays a part in that but our fundamental goal is in the long run to discover how the climate actually does work and what can be reliably predicted (if anything) about its future.
(3) It seems to me that what we skeptics most universally oppose is the politicization of science and its use for what are in the end fundamentally political goals. This is an increasingly common use of ‘science’ across all kinds of public policy areas including climate, the environment, health, safety, etc. We need to base our decisions for the future on actual science and not on advocacy ‘science’ which is little more than a form of witch doctoring to which various activists appeal to bolster their political cases to the general public.
I voted yes. I think there needs to be a common ground for support. But I maintain that any public release should be that of diversity of opinion and a look at all possibilities of which one and only one of many is alarmist. Another perception should be ‘Yeah, bring it on, the world is going to be a much better place’ —and really scientifically, we do no know, but we should prepare as efficiently as possible for all possibilities.
Within the possible perceptions, the alarmist position should be that of a very scientifically challenged, narrow, biased political, but acknowledged position, but one of many.
Lets have a look at everything and let the viewer/reader/listener decide for him/herself.
In deciding to vote yes or no, remember the warming establishment has voted yes hundreds of times; every time they use the 97% meme. Their mentality is kind of like the teenage argument,
‘see, its true, everybody says so’.
This is purely a funding question. Funding means you can hire the staff, because much of the work can only be done professionally.
I don’t care much for any organization (I have seen them on the both sides of the old Iron curtain), they are loved by authoritarians and their followers.
I am more than content with what I am doing, despite all the obfuscation and occasional slander I encounter on these pages.
Good luck with it, I will not vote no, but would not join either.
I voted no, because the best punishment for the alarmist would be that nobody would care about what they are saying. I think we should not argue with them, especially not on their level. Stick to the science.
Clever man don’t argue with climate fools.
Besides the arguments it seems to have caused, I see two problems with this poll:
(1) It let me vote twice. Worse, it wouldn’t let me see the results a second time until I voted a second time!
(2) Why does the poll show an approximately 3:1 Yes vote, while the commenters go the other way, probably by more than 3:1?
Was our friend Prof. Lewandowsky by any chance involved in setting up this poll?
REPLY: The poll was set to exclude multiple voting by cookies and by IP address, and is run by wordpress.com. The issues you point out aren’t what you think they are, yes you can vote a second time, but your vote was not recorded. – Anthony
I voted no.
Would such an organization merely make us feel better, or would it actually serve the purpose of making skeptics out of true believers? Given the nature of Belief in Global Warming and its resemblance to religion, I doubt (heh, heh) that we would be changing anyone’s minds.
For a long time I used to respond to Huff Post articles (posted as ‘Oso Politico’), but to what avail? I was merely ridiculed, verbally abused, and insulted. This was especially true if I should cite
Anthony’s site.
WUWT is organization enough for me. We cannot make others think as we do. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink – to coin a phrase.
Does CO2 warm things up? Maybe, at least in a greenhouse. But is the Earth’s atmosphere like a greenhouse? Well, I will let all of you bright fellows, and gals, too, decide that.
Where I see weather, Warmistas see climate. Where I see natural variation, they see CAGW.
I think where we can all help is in calling them out for their lack of skepticism, lack of science-based proofs, and tortured use of the language.
By being loyal readers of WUWT we already belong an organization, albeit ad hoc.
Paz.
I voted “No.”
While good can come from such organizing, the risk of harm is greater.
And, it is not necessary for truth to win that we formally organize.
This needs a lot of thought. Some concerns:
The first year, ten percent of the new members will be moles. Within three years, the board, if elective, may mostly be Warmists. Within five, the organization could announce that the members now endorse CAGW 97%. No actual vote would be taken, of course. How do you propose to prevent Alinskyfication?
Re WUWT Magazine: Print journalism is dead. Why devote effort to a printosaurus? Ok, it would be nice PR, just don’t expect it to ever break even.
Yes, the organization, if it’s any good, will draw the lightning. And may even draw the attention of He Who Must Not Be Named and his IRS / NSA bullies.
One thing to factor into your thinking: In certain emergencies, the Internet may be down for days. And when it comes back online, it may be…different. How to maintain continuity, security, and positive identification?
Look at how other organizations operate, particularly the NRA.
Identify your objectives. See how they can be accomplished by the organization. Ask whether there are alternatives to do the same thing.
Naming is very important. Mission statement, almost as much so. [is joke. almost.]
Still, I voted yes. Can we have a secret handshake? Pens? Baseball caps? Cups? Bodges…? Medals…?
David in Cal says:
April 19, 2014 at 10:48 am
It won’t do any good IMHO. The Heartland Institute plays this role, but the media ignore it. Another commenter pointed to the NIPCC. The media ignore them, too. Skeptics need to find a way to get fair media coverage, but that’s easier said than done.
I agree. Perhaps someone with connections could get a monthly magazine going that contains, for example, the ten or so best articles in WUWT every month. And once an article is chosen, the author could tweak it, based on various comments, to make it “perfect” for publication in a magazine. The cover could be an eye catching graph such as Lord Monckton’s graph of RSS with no warming for 17 years and 8 months or whatever it may be at the time.
It is now (for some readers — for others, it is just another Sunday morning)
Easter Morning in Australia and New Zealand…
HAPPY EASTER, EVERYONE!
With love,
Janice
brian says:
April 19, 2014 at 10:44 am
. . .Certainly, no one can deny, humans have caused some warming. . .
——————————————————————-
If I did deny that, what evidence would you produce to prove that I was wrong?
Thanks Janice 🙂
Mine’s a no.
Such a body would need funding. Where would this come from?
It would also lead to another hierachy to impose their views upon their “supporters”.
I think that Steven Schneider accurately described the dilemma faced by any group of scientists or citizen scientists interested in climate change, be they skeptics or alarmists. WIth my modifications, he said
On the one hand, as [skeptical] scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but — which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands, and buts. On the other hand, we are not just [skeptical] scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we’d like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change [mitigation]. To do that we need to get some broadbased support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary [mitigation] scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements [about the mistakes of the IPCC and others], and make little mention of any doubts we might have [that warming could be as bad as models project]. This ‘double ethical bind’ we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both.
For any organization of climate skeptics, who will decide what mix of science and policy advocacy/propaganda is appropriate? The GWPF, for example, has both scientists and politicians. Perhaps there should be two umbrella groups, one for scientists (as Schneider describes them) and one for policy advocates.
I personally think that Schneider should have resolved his “ethical double-bind” by informing his audience when he was speaking as a scientist (and including all of the caveats doubts) and when he was speaking as a policy advocate (and wouldn’t include the caveats and doubts). Incidently, since the IPCC’s SPM’s contain few, if any, caveats about a field packed with uncertainties, we can automatically categorize their reports as policy advocacy (even though the claim to not be prescriptive).
I voted no. I’d be very skeptical of any organization that would have me as a member.
You’re welcome, Mark. Thanks for saying so.
#(:))
I add to my comment at 12:21. The GWPF does not have an official, or dominant or even well known position in the climate debate. It does not have much influence. It is known to, and appreciated by sceptics, but probably the man in the street has never heard of it.
I value it highly, because I agree with the messages it posts on its site. I doubt if the rest of the UK population has the site bookmarked.
So, maybe my second message is that if you wish to emulate the GWPF, then make sure you understand its level of influence and not see it as an opposition party to the alarmist movement, more an opposition newsletter.
I think that the newsletter status I have described almost gives it more credibility than if it were a fully fledged, highly funded, high profile sceptical party. In this respect, I agree with those above who would vote against your proposal.
The aim in my view is to provide a scientifically accurate assessment of climate news, regardless of its implications. This would involve drawing attention to uncertainties in a manner that cannot be faulted by either side of the argument. That would be a public service and a service to respect and celebrate.
Let’s face it, if our sceptical position is justified, then presenting the data without bias should support our cause.
I voted no.
If there is a specific project with a specific goal, don’t we already come together anyways when asked?
ie: recent support for Jo Nova.
The alternate question – should there be more projects with specific aims?
To give one example, what’s the cost for one month of one good location billboard in the top 10 US markets? And what would the message be?
I would kick in money for this.
To have an organisation issue press releases etc. means having to adopt one line of thinking, which trends to be narrow or become narrow over time. The whole point of the sceptic movement is to be united by scepticism and nothing else.
If it also means you are the gatekeeper, then no thanks, as you have amply demonstrated that you have a narrow mind as much as many warmists.
The GWPF’s success is that it operates without the baggage of an organisation and just publishes the reports it chooses to, a course open to anyone.
Having an ‘official’ organisation will also allow warmists to focus their efforts. As it is, there is a wide spread of sceptics that can challenge them from many sides but without offering a central point of return attack.
The one organising that we do have is the group that goes under the moniker of NIPCC, but they should be left to publish scientific assessment reports and not become political.
I’ve already said that you need a media organization for all science / tech news to counter the leftist media. Global warming is only one portion of the BS that goes down every day. And if you run a media organization, you will make money & political friends.
If you look at the BS climate & lefty papers placed in Nature, Science, PNAS… they are mixed in with some very nice research papers. I’m sure that’s why these journals sold for such a high price. They need the truth in which to dilute the lie.
Places like Breitbart.com are right wing organizations that do news, not news places. You go there if you want right wing stuff. When I read slashdot or tech crunch, I’m not looking for politics, but I sure get it mixed in with the other stuff. Something popular and centrist would be nice.
I have a better, more efficient way to alter the debate in a fundamental way. Hire a respected, neutral, national known polling firm to design a statistically valid survey of credentialed scientists to once and for all come up with what percentage actually buy the CAGW case. I have yet to read an alarmist screed which doesn’t appeal to the so-called “overwhelming consensus.” That the “science is settled,” the beating heart of the alarmist case.
Every time I bring this up I either get ignored or ridiculed. The only problem I see is the expense. But how many skeptics are there who’d be willing to donate to get something like this done? I don’t know, honestly. A million? Two million?
It would take some clever PR to put it over in a convincing, well publicized way. We’d have to get some coverage in the MSM. What might do it is a wager. If we could find a well known alarmist dumb enough to put his money where his mouth is. Bet’s always attract attention, and they make a good story which the media would have a hard time ignoring.
First if there were an organization, good luck getting a majority to agree on a set of positions.
But the real problem with an organization is, the main thing that the Progressive Project has succeeded in doing over the last 100 years is getting control of what it calls the Centers of Influence, the newspapers, the Universities, the “Arts” (mainly Hollywood, but also writers, poets, etc.) the BPOMs (Big Pots of Money, by which I mean the foundations).
If you set up an organization the only real question is how long it will take the Progressives/Socialists/Communists/Alenskyites to seize control of it. An amusing recent example is Greenpeace from which the founder was recently made a non-person in true 1030s Bolshevik style, by the progressive activists who have seized control. Then they would use the organization to demonize any “Skeptic” who didn’t toe their propaganda line.
I voted ‘yes’ because I think that some organization supporting the contention that CAGW is highly improbable is better than no organization taking that stand. I would hope such an organization would restrict itself to refuting the arguments of those contending CAGW is real and established science. It could provide a forum for those who can make such refutations much like WUWT only a bit more formal and dedicated.
Mike says: “NO… consolidating your forces is never a winning strategy. It simply allows the enemy to focus their fire. Having a diverse and dispersed opposition to this Redistribution Scheme is the best way to fight.”
Quite wrong. Obviously you’ve never taken any military strategy courses, Mike. The Battle of the Little Big Horn was lost precisely because Custer split his forces. Classic mistake that all the books warn about.
I’m wondering how many of the commenters who are against the idea are people we’ve never seen here before…
I voted yes, but now I’ve read the comments I’m less certain it’s necessary.
Being organised gives them something to attack and discredit and smear.
Right now they are losing because at worse they can smear individuals and by doing so, they often get it very wrong.
You can’t discredit a movement that disagrees with you one person at a time. You’ll run out of time before you get found out..
==================================================================
And to you.
PS II Corinthians 2:14-17
I think alarmists are voting yes.
Many friends and acquaintances are interested in climate change and human influence and they read Climate Scientist press releases that are often alarming and sometimes quite terrifying. Most of these people firmly believe humans are surely destroying our planet and our children will suffer. They are uninformed about the data and so their views are simply based on ignorance and propaganda. I’m a sceptic and do my best to counteract their views by digging out – mostly from WUWT – simple graphs that indicate planet Earth is existing well within its normal variation. And that increasing CO2 isn’t a threat. Once they see this data they inevitably say something like – “well I wish I had been shown this stuff earlier”. Based on my own experiences I suggest that a website is produced that displays simple graphs and data that laymen would easily understand. Laymen sceptics, and there are many of us, could then point to this one source of “irrefutable data” that shows them the earth is behaving completely normally and they needn’t be alarmed or scared. The website should only contain empirical data without projections or predictions as this would encourage criticism from Alarmists.
This is a very interesting discussion to be having just before Easter. As an atheist, I have always regarded the divinity of Christ as a myth, but many of the messages in the bible do have application to our lives. The crucifixion is probably the most dramatic example of the forceful submission of individual thought to the prejudice of mob consensus.
You don’t stop a mob by forming another mob. The reason that skeptics are so hated by the authoritarians and academic group-thinkers is that we speak as individuals. The global warming panic is finally starting to fade, and its proponents are beginning to sound shrill and silly. The last thing we need to do is to set up a fresh target.
I think it should be loose organization under one slogan: there is no evidence that the increase in CO2 causes a significant increase in temperature. They should belong into it primarily scientists. Zbigniew Jaworowski ( deceased) for me is an example of a man who against all preached the truth. This is important mainly for the media.
What is the definition of “official” what what keeps existing organizations from being considered “official”? It sounds like you mean “credible” and capable of wide appeal and most of all, trust. Those are characteristics that come from without. The GWPF doesn’t have these characteristics. Why? Probably because they are seen as activist, political, and just a little bit stupid for some of the things they’ve done.
Finally, as with the IPCC, any credible organization has to have the endorsement of an even more credible organization and while I may think the UN is the most corrupt thing since Stalin’s apparatchik, the freeloading nations that seek the largess of such an organization are fully behind it. If a proper “official” skeptic organization were possible it would already exist.
That the so called alarmists never learnt what the teachers taught back in the early years in school doesn’t give them the rights calling those who did for Climate Sceptics…..
Strong>Facts about our Earth
diameter 12 756 km
In other words
Jordens radie är 6 378 km
if you use a rope where one centimeter represent 10 km as an instrument to draw a circle the rope will be 6 meter 37.8 cm.
[caption id="attachment_21755" align="aligncenter" width="256"] Röd prick = skalenlig illustration av Mt Everest.Blå prick = skalenlig illustration av Marinergraven.Observera att människan förvisso varit i rymden, men vi har inte full kontroll av allt ens där vi skickat mätinstrument. Än mindre vet vi detaljfakta om jordens inre. Vi utgår från mätningar inom prickarnas ramar.[/caption]
Red dot than represent Mt Everest. Blue dot the Mariner Grave. Please observe that while it’s true man have been in space anda that we know some re. first microsecunds after Big Bang, it’s also true that no man ever been deeper than Mariner Grave and that we humans don’t know all factors and facts within our Earth. What we have is measured figures and observations within the limits up and down represented by the dots….
I found these, Mark Bofill (re: Q at 12:18pm):
1. http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2013/01/climate-proxies
2. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/03/proxy-science-and-proxy-pseudo-science/
3. “A Statistical Analysis of Multiple Temperature Proxies: Are Reconstructions of Surface Temperatures Over the Last 1000 Years Reliable?” By Blakeley B. McShane and Abraham J. Wyner”:
http://www.e-publications.org/ims/submission/index.php/AOAS/user/submissionFile/6695?confirm=63ebfddf
Hope you find them helpful.
Janice
I voted ‘yes’ but I do have to say that sometimes organizations have a nasty way metamorphosizeing into something different than the founders intended.
Skepticism is all about non-conformism.
There is no point in trying to “tame” it or organize it.
Creating it will demand concensus, the mere phrase gives me the creeps.
The “skeptic cloud” does it best. Do not fall in that trap.
Thanks for that, Gunga Din. Amen.
Your sister,
Janice
*****************************************
@ Edim (1:02pm) — I was thinking along the same lines…. (probably because I want the “No’s” to win, LOL)…
or, at least, the “Yes’s” are less likely to write a comment about their vote.
It appears that more commentors are expounding on their “No” votes, … .
Hm.
SanityP says:
I voted “yes”, but I don’t think that “climate skeptics” is the proper name for it.
I think “climate skeptic” is nonsensical and doesn’t actually say what we stand for or why we object to the alarmism that is CAGW.
Maybe something like ‘the Feynman Society‘? Emphasis on objective science and the Scientific Method: every honest scientist must be a skeptic, first and foremost. “If it disagrees with experiment, if it disagrees with observation, it’s wrong.” [Or maybe, the Eisenhower Report?]
There is no Scientific Method on the alarmist side. It has been 16 years since Michael Mann issued MBH98. Sixteen years of constant stonewalling; refusing all requests for the complete data, methodologies, code, metadata, which went into fabricating that scare. And the IPCC has no skeptical scientist in any position of authority; there is scarcely a university anywhere that has an honest skeptic in authority.
When you take away all the arbitrary assumptions, and all the baseless assertions, and the evidence-free conjectures, and then apply Occam’s Razor and the null hypothesis to the CAGW narrative, what you are left with is… nothing. There is no runaway global warming threat. It simply does not exist. The Null Hypothesis remains standing, despite constant attempts to falsify it.
There are very good arguments on both sides of this question. I agree with just about all of them. There is a real need for a strong organization to counter the misinformation being fed to the public. OTOH, there is strength in not presenting a big target to be attacked. At this point, I’m unsure of the best course of action. Will have to give it more thought.
[PS: some of the comments about a magazine are interesting. My subscription to Nature Climate Change was terminated when they asked me to start paying. As if! Too bad publications like that are so expensive. I’d love to see a WUWT mag…]
jorgekafkazar (April 19, 2014 at 12:40 pm) makes some good points above:
Creating an aimless organization just to have something to join is makes no sense. Given good well-defined reasons for its existence would be a useful starting point.
I voted “unsure”.
EYAL PORAT! I was just wondering how you were doing last week (since it was Passover, you came to mind). It’s been a looong time since I noticed your name on WUWT. Glad you posted! Hope all is well. Yes, yes, I know, you told me that Israel is a perfectly safe place to live, but, I can’t help but feel some concern for you.
Take care and SHALOM!
Janice
I am astonished at the number of no votes. I suppose it could be related to the level of freedom one actually has in their country that can position such a view.
This Global Warming movement is not about science anylonger. It is pure politics and power grabs. Nobody is successful at politics at an individual level. Nobody!
Hence my amazment of the no votes. Those of you who voted no gave a variety of reasons for such. I found none of them valid. The, it is a waste of time, nobody will listen, they already exist, excuse is nothing but BS and being lazy in your comfy chair as you gaze at pixels in your privacy using cheap energy.
The warmists are very well organized and have repositories with prepared responses to virtually any sceptical postion. Most of which use character assasination as opposed to scientific rebuttal.
The skeptics have a handful of good sites, no organization on a large scale, no easy to reference material access for quick rebuttals, few non-profit status oranizational structured environments.
Need I go on?
Without organization, you are powerless to impact policy. The “Policy” that is currently being set by the alarmists erodes your freedom more everyday. Look at what the POTUS has done through the EPA! Did you vote for that? No, but 4 million missing republican votes that did not come to the polls did by vitue of the same excuses. Now we all pay the price for their inaction.
To give up is cowardly in my book. Perhaps most folks just don’t realize their freedom is what is at stake here. If the AGW group had their way you would be living on energy rations and in the dark ages. Their way is not far off folks. December 2015 will be a big hurdle to jump for them. All it takes is a vote into the UN CO2 constraints and your life as you know it will never be the same again.
So yes, you can stand by and watch your future be determined by others or you can do something about it yourself and take ownership of your own future.
The voice of thousands can silence the indivudual quickly, efficiently, and permanently.
Wake up dissenters! Your time is here, and your voice needs heard in mass or it will disappear in the regulations being positioned in your own backyard and living room.
I for one will not stand idly by and watch our society disintegrate in to the socialist abyss that has failed time after time in history.
Think about it>
Back to your regularly scheduled program if you have a TV and electricity allowances available
We most certainly need such an organization but wouldn’t Tom Harris’ ICSC meet the criteria for such an institution?
As for the left/right divide, I’ve tried to say here and at other sites for a long time now that it’s pointless to sound off against warmists as extreme left wing anti-capitalist ideologues because it gives them the chance to characterize skeptics as angry old white rich republicans. Besides not sure the left wing characterization is near accurate. Those big bankers like Goldman Sachs who’d just love to trade on carbon could hardly be called anti-capitalist. Monopoly capitalists maybe. Possibly oligarchist in nature, which would put them in the same league as Putin.
I voted No, because I don’t think some skeptical headquarter will be able to achieve what all single skeptics like yourself and independent organizations like GWPF already have achieved.
And will there be a ‘global consensus’ then, of the skeptical point of view?
I think one doesn’t want to go there.
Skeptics will win the argument in the end.
The scientific world will leave CAGW behind.
The politics will change when they run out of OPM.
“Is it time for an “official” climate skeptics organization, one that produces a policy statement, issues press releases, and provides educational guidance?”
No. That would politicize skepticism which is a frame of mind not a political position. The reason skepticism has been successful is that it is individuals expressing opinions, and not group-think which would immediately make it suspect. The warmists are the ones who hang labels. Lets not help them.
Once, the U.S. was noted for individual rights and self-reliance … now, it’s in a mad rush to join a gang … it’s gang-warfare of the kind you’d find in any totalitarian state … join a gang to protect your interests, whether it’s AARP or WWF … so, of course I voted NO … let’s stop joining gangs.
Besides, nobody swallows the alarmist junk any more … which gives them something else about which to be alarmed … and no single entity at which to point.
If we did set up such an organization the climate change people would call it a “Cult”. You know they would and the media would dutifully repeat it.
Anthony,
I have a friend and colleagues in New Zealand on our side and one continues to post the Skeptical side with plenty of links. It is pretty neat. I could forward it to you if you wish, or we could develop our own research link bank on your Website, along with a policy statement and such along with goals. Good PR. I seem to remember Joseph D’Aleo’ site ? Ice age??? Has A link format.
The left Greenfrye.com has almost a Commie manifesto with a hit list. That is why I think it is time. The left is vicious. We need to answer with calm and logic. Hypothesis, theory and natural law.
I hold to Milankovitch Cycles. My server raised my rate a few bucks because of hackers.
Sincerely,
Paul Pierett
I cannot see this working and worse suggests there really is a legitimate position for Global Warming/Climate Change. We had no need to establish organizations to put the other side on plate tectonics, evolution, microbes as disease agents, blood pumped around the body, the brain as more than a device to cool the body, Earth as the centre of the universe, etc etc. Reality eventually becomes established even if the edges remain ragged.
I voted no for several reasons:
1. Such organizations tend to become a thing unto themselves where the survival of the organization becomes paramount and the original mission is either given lip service or changed completely.
2. As noted by many above the diversity of opinion among us who do not believe is vast. Diversity is not a bad thing except when one tries to make coherent statement which satisfy all the view points within an organization. Then your down to POLITICS! And the last thing I want to see is those who now demand honest science and focusing their efforts in the direction wrapped around the axle dealing with internal politics.
3. it seems to me that in a way there is already such an organization being formed. Or am I wrong about the NIPCC as being the nucleus of such a national organization?
4. The very last thing I want to see is the great websites like this one here and Climate Depot and Ice Cap, etc all be saying the exact same things in the exact same way as a coordinated group.
Manhattan Declaration on Climate Change
We, the scientists and researchers in climate and related fields, economists, policymakers, and business leaders, assembled at Times Square, New York City, participating in the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change,
Resolving that scientific questions should be evaluated solely by the scientific method;
Affirming that global climate has always changed and always will, independent of the actions of humans, and that carbon dioxide (CO2) is not a pollutant but rather a necessity for all life;
Recognising that the causes and extent of recently-observed climatic change are the subject of intense debates in the climate science community and that oft-repeated assertions of a supposed ‘consensus’ among climate experts are false;
Affirming that attempts by governments to legislate costly regulations on industry and individual citizens to encourage CO2 emission reduction will slow development while having no appreciable impact on the future trajectory of global climate change. Such policies will markedly diminish future prosperity and so reduce the ability of societies to adapt to inevitable climate change, thereby increasing, not decreasing human suffering;
Noting that warmer weather is generally less harmful to life on Earth than colder:
Hereby declare:
That current plans to restrict anthropogenic CO2 emissions are a dangerous misallocation of intellectual capital and resources that should be dedicated to solving humanity’s real and serious problems.
That there is no convincing evidence that CO2 emissions from modern industrial activity has in the past, is now, or will in the future cause catastrophic climate change.
That attempts by governments to inflict taxes and costly regulations on industry and individual citizens with the aim of reducing emissions of CO2 will pointlessly curtail the prosperity of the West and progress of developing nations without affecting climate.
That adaptation as needed is massively more cost-effective than any attempted mitigation, and that a focus on such mitigation will divert the attention and resources of governments away from addressing the real problems of their peoples.
That human-caused climate change is not a global crisis.
Now, therefore, we recommend –
That world leaders reject the views expressed by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as well as popular, but misguided works such as “An Inconvenient Truth”.
That all taxes, regulations, and other interventions intended to reduce emissions of CO2 be abandoned forthwith.
Agreed at New York, 4 March 2008
When you are dealing with badly behaved chuzzlewits, it is hard to resist the temptation to fight back. But I think the temptation should be resisted.
Better to leave the bozos to wither away as their dire predictions continue to fail to come to fruition. And remember to poke fun at them in public fora when they embrace something particularly boneheaded like coral reefs dying en masse or an ice free Arctic in 2015.
And if their predictions turn out to be true. Highly unlikely IMHO, but in that case I reckon that case we should have paid more attention to them.
Janice Moore says:
April 19, 2014 at 1:12 pm
————————-
You rock Janice. Thanks!
No. Two things ..firstly, I’m reminded of Animal Farm and secondly, it won’t stop Lewandowsky and his crew from sending diatribes and personal abuse ….that is their “modus operandi” – they are righteous people fighting a righteous cause – their wages and self-importance – don’t believe that by giving them a more defined target you will stop their barbs
I voted “no.” When social architecture or infrastructure begins to develop, it requires/attracts those who need that, along with whatever the real need is.
If it is salary, then the salary/livelihood becomes important. In the world of research, there is much emphasis on grantsmanship, how to transition from doctoral program to fellowship, to early-career, to mid-career, to tenure-ready.
If it is credentials, then the resume-packers will show up. I ran an undergrad college newsletter once upon a time. The most worthless committee members were the “pre-law” people: they were angling themselves for law school apps, and the fraternity and sorority involvement (“networking”) took all their time. This was all volunteer, so I had no power to fire anyone, and I only had one occasion to write a letter of recommendation for someone based on all of that.
There is not much, relative to the career-development stuff, built in to academic research where someone or people work with you to develop a great idea and develop a great research agenda that will change the world – the build-a-better-mousetrap-and-you-will-succeed-in-research idea.
The monster is created, and wants to sustain itself more than it wants to solve problems. The docs, the insurance companies, the hospital organizations, and the pharmaceutical companies were all in the closed-door meetings when Obamacare was developed. When you take a radical idea that would resolve our problem, then engineer it so none of the major players loses, it is destined to not work as intended. In my various involvements, I was able to express this opinion in a lecture. Someone in the audience happened to be in a fellowship-type role at the time, and verified for all in attendance that all kinds of deal-making and skull-duggery was going on in that brief, intense Capitol Hill episode. She stumbled into the middle of it all and saw it all.
I submitted a good study to a good journal regarding how healthcare might work better to detect and address incidental, confounding problems. My analysis showed that the accepted status quo worked to detect the problems, but was inadequate for leading to the next steps of resolving the incidental problem.
My paper was rejected. One reviewer said I had bad outcomes, and so the paper was not worthy. I did not have bad outcomes, the prevailing system had bad outcomes.
That was the point: the status quo does not work; no one had published genuine data at that time. Since then, I have gotten my paper out, and a couple similar papers have come out. I have quickly been cited. This is pushing the issue and people are moving on to ‘what will really work?’
A year after I submitted to that journal, that SAME journal published a paper that was almost the same as mine – including on-the-ground real-world data on how to detect and institute the process to address the confounding problem, but the paper lacked the final part mine had: how well does that path work? They totally ignored that final step.
Had I lopped that final “does-it-actually-yield-any-results” analysis from my paper, I would have been the one to get published in this good journal. By good, I mean they are identified among the top 3-4 in the field.
The reviewers wanted the status quo to be maintained: let’s publish some data on the status quo we have endorsed/accepted, but not go the further step and address its worthlessness.
They did that because moving to the next step would require shucking all the existing folklore, and would require inter-disciplinary collaboration outside of their silo.
I understand and respect the value of some compromise in order to advance things in a certain way, but this social architecture also brings along weaknesses.
Nature will provide. There’s a limit to how much CACA advocates in government can rig current surface station data, however free the felons are to fudge pre-1979 observations. The satellites are watching.
It might take another generation, but eventually CACA will go the way of phlogiston & Ptolemy.
I should have added that your continued work in publishing a diverse collection of opinion and research on climate is greatly appreciated and a far better answer to climate nuttiness than initiating a nasty and pointless firefight.
Jesus talked to plain people. The grass-roots people. He also said, a few times, don’t tell what I did.
By time the establishment got wind of all of this, they could not simply have him disappear. They had to get him legitimately, and in a way that would not inspire riots from his local ground-swell. The one recognized person he worked with – John the Baptist – was outside the establishment.
His message was the same as the message that had already been delivered: there is a God, he loves you, he knows how he designed the world and life and to have the best life you ought to be humble and follow his direction. The architecture of the Law, and other messages, were trans-mogrified into a worldly gravy train for the religious architecture.
Power to the people. Open government. Open media. Open Bible. Sunlight.
@ Mark Bofill — You’re welcome! My pleasure.
No – why give the true believers a central target organization to attack vs dedicated individuals in search of the truth.
Nice insight, Last Democrat. True. No one was ever more anti-establishment.
I decline to vote. We could win the CAGW battle and still loose the war. CAGW gets traction because it furthers the goals of UN Agenda 21. Do a search for the map illustrating the Wildlands Project’s goal for America. It is mostly red and yellow. The red covers areas where humans are not allowed, about half the country. See what will be left of your state. Idaho, my state, is mostly red with a little yellow. Most of the rest most of the rest of the country is yellow, areas of very restricted human use. If you look real hard you can find spots of pale green. That’s where humans will be allowed to live, looks like maybe 5%? If you do the research and find you support Agenda 21, then you should join the CAGW alarmist. Support or oppose, either way Agenda 21 is on the way. Our ‘leaders’ sold us down the river decades ago. There will not be an election. It’s all for sustainability.
LOL, (more to mine at 1:49pm) — He, a 1st century Jewish rabbi, even talked with and hung out with and promoted the rights of — women!
[Note: “pyromancer76” is “beckleybud” and “H Grouse”. He is the same sockpuppet. Banned multiple times. ~mod.]
I forgot to add that these guys you are concerned about have less than a pimple on a gnat on the back of an elephant as far as the day-to-day life of most of us…..I can understand your concern because you have the knowledge and experience of science and get your heads kicked at times.
However, what the world doesn’t need is another organisation telling us what we should believe …you will become just as irrelevant as the other organisations trying to tell me what to believe …..Joe Public will figure it out, and has been, without another organisation.
george e. smith says:
April 19, 2014 at 12:13 pm
“””””…..David Ball says:
April 19, 2014 at 11:56 am
george e. smith says:
April 19, 2014 at 11:54 am
“For example it is just plain silly to argue that the physics of CO2 and other GHGs, including H2O, is a fiction, or that 400 ppm of anything couldn’t possibly have an effect.”
With all due respect, George, this is a misrepresentation of the position……”””””
Well David; with all due respect; that is a completely accurate representation OF SOME SKEPTICS position.
So just where in my post did you find I assigned that position to ALL skeptics ?? I did not.
YOU , simply attached YOUR INTERPRETATION to MY WORDS.
That’s YOUR error, not mine.
This is a perfect example of why I should have voted ‘NO’.
I voted ‘YES’ though, thinking of a bloc of realists buying billboards and TV ads showing the RSS satellite temp record since 1979. Upon seeing this, the average Joe can’t deny the truth of it.
personally I think an umbrella “organization” that issues Press Releases to the media on this topic and related topics is a good idea in principle, the media will however ignore the PRs for a long(ish) time until sanity finally breaks out.
However reaching a consensus view among so many different voices will be difficult., Perhaps approaching a PR consultancy or media savvy people for advice on how to get this message out is a good beginning. Then creating an “official” spokesman and creating a “brains trust” of advisers to help create a media friendly message (which is NOT the bald facts but a “media package” suitable for “copy’n’paste” journalism.Also time is required to explain the message to the same media people, this organization could become to “go to” place for quotes as a balance.
This kind of strategy has worked for me in the past and it may be possible to replicate again and again. I have some documents on strategies and pitfalls to avoid…
I think the national organisations – GWPF, Heartland, WUWT, JoNova – are doing a good job of focussing opposition to climate madness. What is more important, they are genuine grass roots movements, and are obviously such. To try to create a supranational organisation would be to pander to the paranoia of our opponents – they would instantly brand such an organisation a Koch funded menace to democracy. And given how well we are doing, on many fronts – it seems unnecessary.
ossqss,
Thanks for the alternate perspective. You’ve given me things to think about.
I think Anthony gave the major reasons for not having one central point of information dissemination – (1) it will not have the authority of all climate sceptics and (2) it gives a single target for the alarmist side to aim at and try to discredit. The amorphous nature of the climate realists, each with their own individual expertise and journey to their present understanding provides a sort of hydra for those saying the science is settled – for every argument they try to make, two counter-arguments are put forward.
1. george e. smith says on April 19, 2014 at 12:06 pm:
“””””……O H Dahlsveen says:
April 19, 2014 at 11:33 am:
“Well that little word there; “theoretical”, sets off alarm bells.”
============
The “theoretical” little word hangs together with the fact that Mathematicians/Physicists have worked out what the temperature (T) of our planet would be if there was no atmosphere to insulate it and they worked it out to be 255 Kelvin (K). But as you probably know the Earth does have an atmosphere. Therefore an airless planet’s T must be theoretical. This has not been worked out by me and I do believe it was Hansen & al doing this mathematics back in the 1980s. So in my epistle of April 19, 2014 at 11:33 am I am only using the CAGW people’s own numbers and formulas to prove mathematically that there has been no enhancement of the GH effect between the years 1980 – 2 010. –
A 30 year gap or strech should be long enough, even for the CAGW crowd.
Excellent points above about needing to COMMUNICATE MORE EFFECTIVELY.
Ad hoc seems the way to go.
*************************
And… Hi, Tom J! Hope all is well. Keep warm!
J.
The alarmist’s have many well defined beliefs and projections. The tactic has to been to put forth the same catastrophic projections with higher and higher confidence levels, presenting the illusion that the science is settled and the debate should be over……….even as the empirical evidence goes in the complete opposite direction.
Our position is and always has been, that we are following the empirical evidence with open minds. This means there MUST be uncertainty in order to prevent the human emotions related to cognitive bias from causing us to interpret the evidence in a way that lines up with our defined belief system vs what the truth is.
The downside is that the public and media get a message from one side that assigns 95% confidence and 97% agreement vs the other side that states they disagree(and are easy targets because their marketing scheme is not as effective) can actually show why they disagree but don’t have this powerful appealing mission to save the world.
They have the far superior marketing scheme.
Marketing is everything in politics, advertising, entertainment and many other fields.
Science is about physical laws, discovery, empirical data, observations, applications, adjustments, proof and things like that. Truth should be the only thing that matters!
But the question is……….can we maintain integrity as authentic scientists and incorporate a united front as a marketing scheme, to compete with those that base everything on their marketing scheme and fraudulently use science as part of it?
In other news: The drug companies are using our legally-demanded immunization compliance architecture (cf: Jacobson vs. Mass) to make money. In this case, not only is the vaccination unnecessary, it likely yields no long-term benefit, and has terrible negatives for a few.
http://healthimpactnews.com/2014/mercks-former-doctor-predicts-that-gardasil-will-become-the-greatest-medical-scandal-of-all-time/
Someone sought my input as they were developing a term paper on how great Gardasil was, and how terrible it was that the religious, ignorant, stuck-in-the-1950s non-scientific Christians were balking at mandatory delivery for all schoolgirls.
I pointed out how the vaccination would in the long run have little or no impact. My thinking went like this: HPV is fairly prevalent – nearly ubiquitous among the younger adults who are sexually active; Gardasil guards against a couple of the several HPV strains recognized to lead to cervical cancer; the sexually active will eventually contract a strain against which they have no protection, and so will be at ground zero as far as vulnerability to HPV-induced cervical cancer goes.
My back-of-the-envelope calculation noted a few years delay of getting hit with a cervical-cancer-causing HPV strain. That would be fine if the typical trend was for someone to become modestly sexually active in high school, date a few years, and get married by age 25.
This paper-writer looked at me like I had monkey crawling out of my ears. She had bought the propaganda: Gardasil is good, and don’t listen to those pesky Christian, anti-science Leave-It-To-Beaver / Father-Knows-Best un-hip hold-outs.
Gardasil lobbied each and every state, including governors, to require Gardasil to be given to all schoolgirls. It worked in many states.
We are just now beginning to figure out what a mistake this has been.
Jacobson vs. Mass had to do with compulsory vaccinations for disease transmitted simply by begin in the vicinity of an infected person – not having genital contact with them. Mandatory vacc for MMR makes sense. Flu shots make sense (to a certain degree).
Gardasil might be wise for some. But mandatory? No.
This is what The Machine does to you. It makes you go along with prevailing thoughts, and heaps scorn on you when you threaten to not swim along.
I have a pseudonym because I see this thought-control a lot, but could not be frank about all of it in my professional life. In the long run, I have a better chance of being correct than many because I don’t have a problem with myself questioning the prevailing wisdom, or having a contrary opinion.
What to do once I detect yet another scam riding on the architecture of our existing institutions? That is a different matter and I don’t have good answers. Except know your stuff and be prepared to run arguments and analyses to their full conclusions.
With the possible exception of our host, no one has done more for climate scientific truth than Steve McIntyre and his Climate Audit site. He is apolitical, polite, professional, competent and completely devastates those works of poor science, statistics and behavior that catch his attention. Again and again he reminds us that climate science standards are far below what is acceptable in his area of expertise, mining and other business.
He is but one man who may decide to, or be forced to stop his efforts at any time.
Far more than a political organization, we need an organization that works to raise the standard of the science. One that reviews climate work and reporting according to a set of rock-hard standards and reports the results in an apolitical manner. Think of it as a group of experts dedicated to extending Steve’s work, and communicating results to the media and academia. The group would not be sceptics, but scientific and statistical auditors who are not afraid to say, ‘this is wrong and here’s why’, ‘this is how this work can be improved’, and ‘this is an example of a work that meets our standards’.
The IPCC and peer review are obviously not doing what is necessary in this respect. We need a chorus of Steves.
The guerrilla phase is long over, time to work together. We’d be so much more effective.
http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2013/05/17/working-together/
Pointman
I vote “No” only because there was no “Hell, no” option.
By the way, “politcal dissent” and “I realized his science was so week”!
Janice Moore says:
April 19, 2014 at 12:41 pm
Cheers Janice 🙂
Yeah what the world needs is an organization of wackos, bipolar street entertainers, and media flakes/failed scientists,
who actually believed the atmosphere’s thermal profile is based on chemical composition, i.e. ”magic gases”
rather than the real law that governs the atmospheric thermal profile, Ideal Gas Law,
Barking that ludicrous Magic Gas story as if they represent working science, trying to make claim to represent another consensus:
a consensus still so stupid it thought magic gas rules the atmospheric thermal regime, and refuses to let scientists who are actually atmospheric experts remind them the magic gas is what led them all to utter, humiliated defeat,
referring to it’s own cherished GCMs as “junk”.
How’s it been working trying to pass that voodoo you thought was science off on everybody for the past ten years?
Go ahead and incorporate yourselves into a second consensus of magical gas believers and see if anybody in the actual scientific world has any more respect for your constantly being wrong, and character assassination as a way of life.
Ideal Gas Law.
It is what rules you.
Until you face that you are going to be the Concensus Clown Circus Network.
The people who didn’t know Ideal Gas Law rules over the atmosphere.
Not Magic Gas Law.
[Reply to all: See? We publish all comments, so long as they don’t violate Policy. No censorship here! ~mod.]
I voted ‘yes’ but for different reasons than have been presented earlier. I don’t think it worthwhile to form a ‘skeptic organization’ (hate that name) to promote policy, but rather to coordinate skeptical climate studies and communicate the results of those studies.
(1) I believe that WUWT would be more effective if it harnessed expert members collaboratively to carryout more comprehensive and coordinated studies that reveal the shortcomings of institutional AGW research and findings. It strikes me that while WUWT posters generally have done fine work; that work often could be even better if the work were done in collaboration with other experts. This could be accomplished with small action groups (maybe even self organized) who could correspond via web-meeting or by using web collaboration tools (similar to what done daily in industry and probably by the AGW crowd). Result could be posted or webinars could be used to allow other WUWTers to watch the proceedings.
(2) Similarly, groups could be formed to provide educational materials that highlight the skeptical viewpoint (I know there’s probably many) and showcase the problems, uncertainties, and misrepresentations of the CAGW perspective.
There’s probably other opportunities for organizing the WUWT community (maybe with other like-mined blogs) but this comment is probably too long already.
Dan
Cheers, James. #(:)) Thanks for bothering to say so.
I voted no. As indicated some time ago a better strategy is guerrilla tactics rather than an obvious BIG target. The top sceptic blogs and NIPCC are sufficient but the NIPPC needs to develop better strategies and employ an experienced PR person and not to put up any more of those silly and counter-productive billboards of the past. For example they should put up a billboard using the 17 years global no-temperature-rise graph and text “ NO GLOBAL WARMING FOR MORE THAN 17 YEARS” would be a good start.
Dan
Agree with your comments, but I have always thought that sceptics should have help to produce material capable of being peer reviewed in leading journals. Peer reviewed articles are what changes scientific viewpoints, not good blog posts, no matter how interesting or well written.
Sceptics often also need help with producing better articles, as you suggest, with notable weaknesses being lack of editing by a third party and amateur graphics. By that I mean graphics produced by writers who often have limited graphics skill. A good graph can put over a point more effectively than a long article.
tonyb
I thought quite seriously about Anthony’s idea. Of course the sceptical front has many ‘cells’ all fighting CAGW orthodoxy in different (and sometimes contradictory) ways. There are also more than a few well organised groups who have taken up the banner for their own ideological/spiritual/personal reasons. I may not agree with everything they say but (to paraphrase), I completely support their right to say it. Most of these groups and associations also seem to have access to some limited resource and funding (bought a coffee cup lately anyone?). They all do well in their own specific forums. The blogs, of course, fall into a similar space, with specific zones of influence.
So do we need (or even want) a well funded centralised North American organisation to stream-line, lobby for and disseminate information on our behalf? This idea poses some subtle questions/issues;
Would we fight a better fight if we had a bigger ‘home base’. I don’t think so – The neo-liberal and socialist MSM have always had a bit of a ‘hate on’ for any non-government body which appears to have access to money or power. On the contrary, they seem to go gushy over any group that touts a socialist agenda or supports bigger government (regardless of it’s size or funding). I think a big ‘home base’ would just provide a big, juicy target for the MSM. Such an big organisation would naturally have bureaucratic, financial and ideological weaknesses – the same weaknesses that Anthony and others continually expose in the IPCC, EPA etc. They investigative vultures would soon start hovering, looking for a quick and dirty feed. Normal decent people may be persuaded by MSM attacks that such a large ‘anti CAGW’ org has a devious secret agenda (or is just plain crazy). It would be be easy game for propaganda attacks to undermine the ‘contrarians’ and to marginalise our views.
Secondly, The smart people on our side have nicely framed the debate around the scientific data and observations. They produce awesome work in researching, analysing, and rebutting screeds of papers and studies. My hat goes off to them This is obviously a great place for us to be, because most of the data and observations support us and make warmists look like foolish soothsayers. That is what wins battles in public forums: bashing out the (IMO often boring) but very valid and often compelling research. Arguing about the ideology or politics of CAGW just drags us away from the high ground. While there is a valid time and place to apply political pressure, it should not be while you are purporting to be searching for ‘the truth’ – after all, politics has noting to do with truth.
In short, I think we do a better service for ‘the cause’ by remaining ad-hoc, decentralised and somewhat disorganised. In general people aren’t dumb, they are completely turned off by the diatribe that is being used by the warmists. We don’t need a lobby group to throw around more political muck – I am absolutely certain that the IPCC’s stupid theory will come apart in time if we focus on the facts and keep nibbling at the end of the thread. I vote NO.
As was said above, I don’t think skepticism is a right or left issue, I’m way out in left field chuckling at anarcho-primitivists as they’re the only ones crazier than I am.
“Is it time for an “official” climate skeptics organization, one that produces a policy statement, issues press releases, and provides educational guidance?”
I voted no.
I have no use for it.
I don’t think it serves a public good.
And it’s reactionary in construction.
We could need organization for science.
That would be a refreshing idea.
We need an organization for dialogue, and it seems WUWT [and others] aredoing fine with that.
And if someone can provide a good argument for the religion of global warming, I want to
hear it, I might even become a believer.
I sort lacking in area of being involved in an organized religion, so always looking
for some good cult to be member but I tend want to do something and rather be
against something.
So far I have found many good cults, though there are lots idiotic ones
are out there.
climatereason says:
April 19, 2014 at 2:23 pm
I agree with all of your points. . . given the calibre of many WUWT posters and commenters, it strikes me that at least some collaborative WUWT studies could be publishable in a climate journal. Folks on WUWT should think about it. . . how many AGW published papers have only one author. I’m no climate expert, but I suspect many have more than 3.
Dan
It’s getting towards bedtime. But I feel I need to respond to three comments – two positively, one not so much.
And a further thought… could the poll results be, at least partly, due to many people’s immediate, emotional reaction being “yes,” but those who count to 10 (or 1,000), and try to look at the matter more objectively before voting, tend to end up saying “no?”
@LiberalSkeptic
You can’t discredit a movement that disagrees with you one person at a time.
With a little cleaning up, I think that will deserve Quote of the Week.
@dbstealey
Feynman Society? A world-wide organization of “ordinary” people, devoted to replacing the nonscience that today passes for “science” by real, objective science, and ensuring that science is kept honest? Yes, excellent idea. …but that isn’t what the poll proposes.
@Ossqss
I worry that you may take this much as Willis took Janice Moore’s comment on the previous thread. But here goes…
Wow, you really are mired in our enemies’ way of thinking, aren’t you?
I was also going to say something about guerrilla warfare and Afghanistan, but I thought that even Anthony might find that OTT.
I voted “unsure” as regards an “official” climate skeptics organization. Second choice is No.
If there ever is such a thing I would take the Groucho Marx (?) approach: ‘I sent the Club a note stating, Please accept my resignation. I don’t want to belong to any club that will accept people like me as a member.’
The notion of using CAGW (a false hypothesis) as a tactic to impoverish 100s of millions of people is appalling and where, I think, skeptics share a bond. Within this commonality I sense there is considerable disagreement on many things.
RE Dahlsveen calculations on the Greenhouse effect.
Hasen’s greenhouse efffect difference calculation only applies to one set of surface and OLR conditions. But rather than a difference in temperatures, it is more correct to use a ratio of radiations leaving the surface and that leaving the planet and get a “greenhouse multiplier”. From the surface one must first subtract that going directly to space through the “atmospheric window” (where there is no greenhouse action except a little from ozone). This is about 23% with clear skies down to 10% with average cloudiness. From this one can get a change in surface temperature per change in OLR. The IPCC seems to ignore that through the window and uses a value 1/3.2 or 0.3125 C / Wm^2. (My models show about 0.26). For the 2 W change in OLR you mention, IPCC gets a surface temperature change of 2 x 0.3125 or 0.625C. Since only 0.4C was observed, this indicates a net negative feedback with a feedback multiplier of 0.40 / 0.625 or 0.64, This compares with the IPCC positive feedback multiplier of about 2.6, an overall difference factor of 4.6.
Of course minor changes in the OLR measurements could change the 2 W difference a large amount. And we still do not know what caused the 2 W OLR or 0.4 C surface temperature changes.
So what would be the party line of a skeptical organization? Clearly there must be a party line if there is to be such an organization.
I can think of at least two planks I could see in the party platform:
1. There must be a return to the fundamental precepts of the scientific method. Post Modern science, the precautionary principal, the bleat, “We have got to do something!” all that must be done away with in favor of experimental design that has falsification as the touchstone.
2. The Warmists must make clear to the world the consequences of their vision. What does it mean to ordinary people the if their “Carbon footprint” must return to that of 1990 or 1950 or 1900. Is the warmist world view anti humanist? Tell us then, no more Polar Bears as canaries in the coal mine nonsense.
There have been some attempts to organise something previously. They havent got anywhere. Regrettably the anwer is no, as is clear from all the comments here. We can’t agree with each other about anything.
Sean says:
April 19, 2014 at 11:38 am
Some interesting points you wrote…
I have read some 35 years ago a book about the influence of the sun on earth’s climate. One of the more intruiging parts, according to that book, was that in certain periods of the 11-year sun cycle (flanks or maxima, I can’t remember) there are more clusters of earthquakes than in other periods. I have asked it to the people of the KMI (the worldwide centre for sunspots at Ukkel, Brussels, Belgium) during a visit there, but they couldn’t answer that question. Maybe Dr. Svalgaard can delve in the correlation – if there is any…
My thinking is that it might be good to have some type of recognized go to source for the media to contact for counter points to what is put out by the scaremongers. Persons who come off as knowledgable, reasonable, self-possessed. Pointing out what is demonstrably false about what is being advanced as climate science as well as the things that are being studied in climate science as possible alternative answers could do much to increase public awareness about the actual uncertainty of what these activists are promoting.
Debate style tv appearances where two talking heads are attempting to shout over one another should always be avoided.
I understand the tendency for human organizations to go bad, but is that a good reason to not even make an attempt? The US Constitution has been mangled and twisted, but aren’t we glad those men took the time and expended the great effort required to put this document together?
Reason I voted yes is the way the alarmists continually argue that climate change is “real” and (explicitly) their opponents are “d@n!ers” of warming. Governments appear too scared to engage, and so allow that to hang unchallenged.
I’d love to see our Greens asked obvious questions: so if it’s so settled that “skeptics” aren’t even allowed freedom of speech, what IS the sensitivity per doubling? Oh, so if it’s [6C] per doubling, you concede it’s logarithmic – why do you draw the hockey stick upside-down? Why do you use “per century” interchangably with “per doubling” when we’re unlikely to double this century? How do you explain the historical observation of [0.6] doublings but only 0.9C since 1950 given your preferred sensitivity? By what mechanism is Antarctic ice setting record extent anomalies? Why do you [graduate of Arts / Law / Politics – Marxism] know more than Lindzen? Why do your speeches reject the pause when the IPCC acknowledge it on [page] of the latest draft.
If China is abating so much, why the tripling of emissions last decade? How do you explain [this] chart of Australia’s cyclones falling sharply – including severe cyclones? How do you explain a record 8yrs without a Cat 3 in the US? Why do you talk about ocean acidification when it’s more basic than pure water and will be for [1000] years. While on that, if CO2 is making oceans less basic, doesn’t that mean it doesn’t stay in the atmosphere long and so doubling is almost physically impossible? Are you double counting carbon?
And so on. There is no one to argue the skeptical case, and the economic argument against misguided “solutions” like wind.
Of course, this organisation they would need funding. Leading to more smears.
I’m with John Hultquist. What would make anyone think that an organization along the lines suggested would have any credibility with the media. In the US the media seems unable to imagine that there could be other equally credible views on many of these issues?
Because of this, such an organization would very quickly be labeled “crank” and have little if any impact.
I think we’re stuck fighting the craziness one person at a time and hope that the guys and gals who do the IPCC underlying reports continue to come to grips with the reality that’s not (so far) modeled.
is there not a Skeptical society already? And haven’t they, in the form of their Magazine embraced climate change and placed climate skeptics in the same category as big foot believers?
That’s why I object to a formal organization. Way too easy for it to become controlled by a very few individuals who politic their way into being in charge.
There would be no guarantee that twenty years down the road they wouldn’t be drinking the kool-aid on the next great scare.
I voted no. Herding cats immediately came to mind.
Oh, I think you could group for people recovering from the brainwashing of
global warming. But I think someone is already doing something like this- but don’t know the link to the site.
I think being traumatized by the State propaganda can something some people could gain some relief by doing something like group therapy.
Janice Moore says:
April 19, 2014 at 12:41 pm
Thanks Janice for the nice song… In a few minutes it will be Easter here…
Have a Happy Easter too!
Ferdinand
I decided not to vote. I see scepticism as an individual trait, and I always find it hard to support ‘statements’, however well they are written. Fundamentally, Nature is the key to this whole scare, and for the last couple of decades Nature has been indifferent to global warming caused by CO2. Yes, it is irritating that governments, the media and the academies have not seen the light, but little chinks are occurring, and if Nature remains indifferent sooner or later there will be a lifting of the curtain.
But no-one much will apologise for their errors and hectoring in the past. Some will move into a new scare.
I recognise Anthony’s interest in posing the question, but for many of the reasons already given above, I think that a a ‘sceptical’ organisation would not get anywhere, and not fast (!).
I voted yes. Not for a ‘skeptic’ organisation, but for something like a citizens’ science one. The elite organisations such as, in the UK, the Royal Society have betrayed their own traditions, and have been ill-served by either very weak or very opportunistic leaderships. The fiasco over CO2 has revealed many political and intellectual weaknesses in western societies (for it is there that the hyperbole and sophistry has both started and thrived in this subject). Some kind of new organisation might help restore some integrity in the intersections between science and politics.
I remember vividly seeing Hansen lie, and saying to myself, “that lying m****** is telling falsehood after falsehood. Our avionic global industries fly through the tropopause all the time, and our instruments are fine. They got us to the moon. Surely nobody believes this obviously faked drivel.”
I was in avionics instrumentation school at the time and knew for a fact he was misrepresenting the entire situation.
The original sin of Hansen was when he constructed atmospheric models
whose temperature is governed by The Ideal Gas Law,
choosing instead to invoke something called ”green house gas effect”
wherein he taught people to weight the atmosphere according to a few scant percent proportion
instead of what it is really weighted by, the over arching law that governs gas behavior.
People have been saying it for twenty five years. Hansen’s science is fake.
That is why every one of you who touches it is humiliatingly proven wrong no matter how long you try to shove the fake science down reality based science’s throat.
Ideal Gas Law.
Until you can face the fact it always precluded there being a green house gas effect you’re still a failed engineering student telling working atmospheric energy and chemistry scientists, you know better.
When you don’t.
The certified experts in managing atmospheric conditions with human life in our hands – Aeronautic and Avionic Engineering – have repeatedly told you, and all these different media people, that James Hansens’ warming models are fakes.
James Hansen’s fellow employees at N.A.S.A. knew they are fakes that don’t have the atmosphere obeying the constraints of the Ideal Gas Law.
Multiple N.A.S.A. employees resigned in disgust before they would continue to work with Hansen.
“I’m a good example. I used to be fully engaged with the idea that we had to do something about CO2, and Dr. James Hansen in 1988 was the impetus for that. I remember vividly watching his testimony on the sat feed at the TV station and thinking to myself that this really is serious. It wasn’t until later that I realized his science was so week he and his sponsor had to resort to stagecraft by turning off the air conditioner and opening windows to make people sweat. It was the original sin of noble cause corruption.”
Roy Spencer says:
April 19, 2014 at 2:48 pm
Now we know what Dr. Spencer thinks of all of us. Thanks for that.
Unfortunately, the diverse opinions are created because of the very real lack of data on many aspects of the climate. Some have the temerity to see (and admit) this.
[snip – Doug Cotton]
I think a strong association could do quite a bit of good. To make the association strong, it should have a strong constitution and significant dues. In addition, there should be a test for admission.
I think the association should be something like the Association of climate scientists. However, no one could gain membership with full privileges of publishing and voting without passing a test with seriously difficult questions such as the observed temperature data, how surface station data has been collected historically, climate sensitivity, effect of carbon dioxide on plant growth, historical climate cycles, etc., etc. This might even force some of the more dogmatic climate scientists to do some real research and confront their own beliefs
No. If there were a ministry of truth that properly dispensed revealed truth as an oracle, it would be very inconvenient – for Gore & Co. We live in a world where one side screams “tastes grate”, and the other “less filling!”, and no one really wants to find the truth – at least not through reason or the traditional methods. Reasoning to a conclusion is as obsolete as retaining one’s virginity until marriage, or marriage itself. (I don’t mean to be shocking or insulting, merely coldly illustrative).
This thread will not solve the loose-knit nature of skepticism. The problem is exactly that people are only skeptical on a few issues, and utterly reject even seeking the truth on others. Is an unborn baby a person or just “a blob of tissue”? Is homosexuality either innate, immutable, or both? Ought those who wish to amputate a limb and those who wish to change their (anatomical) sex through surgery be allowed to do so?
The fundamental question is when and/or how far can we as a society or community allow or tolerate individuals to deviate from what we accept as truth – some certain, some more fuzzy.
I think if I asked “If it was properly, scientifically, proved tomorrow that human activity X would cause a serious, threatening environmental effect Y, would you endorse action to mitigate or prevent it?”, most would agree. Yet I think I can say equivalent if not worse has been proven for divorce, or the hook-up culture, or even HIV, they would make an exception. If there was an STD that had a morbidity and mortality rate worse than the black death, I doubt anyone would lift a finger to do anything public health wise. (some of the XDR “moldy oldies” like gonnorhea and syphlyss might prove to be exactly this). I’m again merely illustrating or observing, not hoping or condemning. On a lesser harm, the housing bubble was prophecized well in advance, and Madoff too and nothing was done.
A is A is acknowledged by Aristotle, Aquinas, and Ayn Rand. It is not by the warmists. But also not acknowledged by many others. Warmism is merely a microcosm, a symptom. Chesterton said when you reject what is true, the problem is not that you believe nothing, but that you will believe anything.
[Bye, Doug. ~mod.]
Thank you, Ferdinand! Thanks for saying something. So glad you liked that song.
My pleasure.
(so, though we disagree about atmospheric CO2 (ESP. v. a v. Dr. Salby, heh, heh), … we agree on the most important thing of all…. — cool!)
Can we please have WUWT focus in a major and prolonged way on the ‘doctoring’ of climate data?
Steven Goddard regularly posts graphs of the same data from the same organisation, one from say…twenty years ago, the other from today. And it appears they have been tampered with.
Assuming that these are not clever and careful fakes could we please bring the calm authority of WUWT to bear on this issue? Nothing undermines the alarmists’ more than these examples of scientific distortion.
By the way, I voted NO up above. The reason is simple- I believe that genuine science will always rectify itself. Our naming and shaming of the worst culprits in the climate scam has already degraded them. Oh it might appear that the establishment has closed ranks to defend them, but as the old saying goes ‘shit sticks’…how many of Michael Mann’s students sit at the back of the lecture hall wondering just how big a fake he is? That sort of stuff eats away at you. Ultimately climate science will purge itself of the Warmists, we need only sit back and enjoy.
How about it Anthony, a formal page where pairs of graphs demonstrating manipulation or distortion of data by the same organisation have occurred… they’d absolutely hate that!
I struggled a lot coming up with a response to the poll, but after considerable consideration I voted no. I just do not think another activist body could bring anything good to science, especially when it is that same sort of activism that has so terribly corrupted science. I was greatly relieved to see that Professor Svalgaard holds a similar view.
I voted yes, because an organization could be a useful addition to our present efforts, not a replacement.
I suggest a name like Reality Check, and not be limited exclusively to Global warming. It should be a counter balance to alarmism of all kinds, particularly the politics of crises. What it doesn’t need to do is promote or advocate any particular idea.
It simply needs to reiterate that often the best course of action is to do nothing and show why the current crises is overblown. The medical profession used to believe foremost in ‘do no harm’, now the medical profession is being destroyed because they have forgotten their primary mission, same for education, most of the environmental efforts, etc. Politicization eventually destroys.
Richard Petschauer says on April 19, 2014 at 2:40 pm:
“Of course minor changes in the OLR measurements could change the 2 W difference a large amount. And we still do not know what caused the 2 W OLR or 0.4 C surface temperature changes.”
= = = = = = = = =
Quite so Richard, we do not know and further more if the answers to the calculations:
”1980 Ts = 288.2 K Te = 252.64 K
2010 Ts = 288.6 K Te = 253.18 K
1980 greenhouse effect = 288.2-252.64=35.56°C
2010 greenhouse effect = 288.6-253.18=35.42°C “
are correct, then there is no enhancement of the GHE and therefore any increase or decrease (fluctuations) of T cannot be due to CO2, even to the GHeffect at all.
Warmists already have a large number of formal organizations where they belong; Universities, research institutes, government laboratories, etc., and they long ago learned to use their pulpits to amplify the gravity of their agenda.
The fact that the AGU, AMS, and the Royal Society issue “Position Statements” means we, the scientific opposition, have been left with no option but to fight fire with fire.
Skeptics need to find a way to get balanced media ( TV, radio, print ) coverage, but that’s easier said than done.
I voted YES.
I think the effort needs to be to promote the Oregon petition. It’s cover statement would work for a majority of those here. This new entity would simply be tasked with raising money and buying media time to put forward the intent of the Oregon petition. Buying media time is the ONLY way the warmist agenda can be countered. It’s a WAR now folks, and you don’t bring a knife to a gun fight.
I voted unsure.
key issue is that the risk is that if you create an organisation like this it becomes self serving just like the IPCC and employs publicity people who want to pursue a “line”. It would be very difficult to guard against this and if it happened would further debase he debate and make it more political and less about the science.
I say no because the diversity and continuum of skeptic views make it difficult for the warmistas to pin the tail on the donkey, as it were. This variety is the skeptic strength, it is generalized but not a formal movement, unlike the Warmistas. There can be no insistence on ideological correctness, unlike the Warmistas and its IPCC.
If it came to two opposing organizations, then the Warmistas would win as they have all the government money, while skeptics do not.
BTW Lewandowski was not able to make his claims stick. He is only listened to by the Warmista clericy and its captured faithful. Outside of that, he is derided.
I said unsure, because the skeptic view is more or less an anti cause. The climate movement has all the cards. It is laid out very simple and on top of that, it is not sufficient that you believe yourself. In most religions you secure your own salvation by believing and acting.
The climate movement demands all other to act also for your salvation, in that way it is worse than the most fundamentalistic religion. That is why the true believers are so hatefull and fight any dissenter.
There can never be a skeptical consensus. Once we start to cherry pick skeptical challenges to the “97%” certainty we will find splinter groups skeptical to our skeptical stance. The very nature of questioning consensus to push the boundaries of knowledge means we can never fully agree. By coming together in an organisation are we saying our version of the science is settled? However, contrary to that opinion is the clear need to challenge with authority and with a voice that can be respected and heard, the “consensus” stance of the IPCC and Mr Gore and, God bless him, Ed Davey
At the heart of every societal debate on appropriate governance is the natural friction between individual liberty and legitimate collective interests. SO YES!!! We need an organization in the climate debate that centers on the scientific argument and which prizes the values of individual liberty. Illegitimate science that supports an ideology prizing collective power and fancies hyperbole MUST be opposed with cool, calm and deliberate scientific argument.
Roy Spencer said:
I voted no. Herding cats immediately came to mind.
This is not an insult, but an astute assessment of the variety and range of skepticism. Remember that the gamut runs from lukewarmers to …? The only thing in common is an acceptance that climate change is mostly, if not all, natural. It is only the warmistas who have a fixed, unwritten, article of faith of a static climate.
I voted NO.
I would ask other readers to compare the apparent vote tally to the far higher “no” or “unsure” responses in comments.
My reasons for “no” are that the grassroots sceptic movement has already been highly successful in bringing the global warming fellow travellers to their knees. Part of this success is that the scammers tell themselves that they are a fighting “a well funded denialist machine”. If they don’t know who they’re fighting, the can’t win.
A second reason for “no” is that such an organization will adopt a “party line”. Currently most sceptics believe as AGW propagandists do that our atmosphere warms the oceans. When you have the physics wrong you can’t win. The lukewarmer position is a political position but this should be won on the science.
My third reason for “no” is the future. The fellow travellers plan to slink away and try again with a new manufactured crisis if this one falls. Give them an organization to plead and bargin with and they will get the “soft landing” they so crave. They will remain a threat to science, reason, freedom and democracy. If sceptics remain legion, the threat to the fellow travellers is not diminished.
Dan James,
My thinking is that it might be good to have some type of recognized go to source for the media to contact for counter points
That will never happen; the media are constantly criticized for presenting any counter whatsoever by the enviro-fascists. It is even BBC policy.
It is CURRENT BBC policy that is true….but even the beeb can be swayed by logical arguments on occasion. Doing nothing is imho not a solid argument, the cracks are appearing in the consensus view so now is the time to strike with real media friendly facts and arguments.
I agree it is somewhat like “herding cats” and that there are 100s of disparate views on this topic but *I* think a few intelligible voices would do wonders, even if shouting in the wilderness for a while…it’s worked before
We do realize, don’t we, that having an additional voice out there does not preclude anyone from still expressing their personal opinion?
I vote no, since I am a sceptic about many things, including CAGW, precisely because I refuse to be told what to believe (or to say that I believe what I am told to say). I would not join a “sceptical organisation” because I could not promise to toe the party line unless that line was so woolly as to be worthless.
I would support, and might even subscribe to, an organisation which brought pressure on journals, academia, and other producers of “science” to always make data and algorithms available, particularly where the outcome of such “science” informs public policy. But I would not support and would not join any organisation which had a “position” on specific aspects of science. Science is not politics, and we should not join the Alarmists’ game of making it so.
But why does anyone think such an organisation is needed? The sceptics have already won the argument, aided and abetted by our greatest ally, Nature. The Alarmists are in retreat, fighting (and losing) a rearguard action. Little more needs to be done now but wait.
jorgekafkazar says:
April 19, 2014 at 1:00 pm
Mike says: “NO… consolidating your forces is never a winning strategy. It simply allows the enemy to focus their fire. Having a diverse and dispersed opposition to this Redistribution Scheme is the best way to fight.”
Quite wrong. Obviously you’ve never taken any military strategy courses, Mike. The Battle of the Little Big Horn was lost precisely because Custer split his forces. Classic mistake that all the books warn about.
Actually, I think you’re wrong jorgekafkazar.
Guerrilla warfare is not about splitting your forces in one particular battle. It is instead about a war of attrition and subterfuge that is fought everywhere a conventional soldier cares to look. Crucially, it is also fought where a conventional soldier fails to look. It can be highly successful – look at Vietnam and Afghanistan.
I voted yes, but like all true skeptics I read what everyone here had to say and their arguments changed my mind. I realised that we are an effective guerrilla force that will not go away, no matter how hard the conventional forces of the establishment try to beat us back. We are a nebulous bunch who often have differing points of view that differ scientifically, politically and theologically but we are all people who don’t want our lives ruled by an oppressive and economically crippling authority.
Conventional soldiers fighting a guerrilla force often complain that when they enter a village they can’t tell the enemy apart from the civilians and that is what makes it so hard. I post under a pseudonym because I’m a school maths and science teacher who cannot afford to risk his job by letting his views be known. Instead, when the kids ask me about CAGW I present them with the facts and ask them to make their own minds up – it doesn’t take much to establish their scepticism. Does that make me a guerrilla hiding amongst the villagers? I suppose so.
Our many excellent skeptic sites (WUWT, Jo Nova, B Hill, Clim Audit, etc) are the places where our nebulous force can share ammunition to bring to the fight. We will win eventually, but it’s been a damned hard slog of a war.
tz2026 gives a perfect example to illustrate why NO:
“The fundamental question is when and/or how far can we as a society or community allow or tolerate individuals”
waving of ‘we, we’ and ‘allowing individuals’ is the mark of the collectivist and tyrant.
‘be the problem’ is never a solution to any problem.
do not violate my rights. they are sacred. you have no right to violate my rights and there can be no such thing as a right to violate the rights of any individual.
some people have their heads so deep in the marxist religion they don’t even have a vestigial concept of rights.
nobody needs a skeptic cult- the answer to a cult that makes human sacrifice is not another cult.
for the problem of leeches – do not add more leeches.
– O H Dahlsveen says:
April 19, 2014 at 11:33 am
Why not do it with mathematics? Here is what I came across a long time ago when I was looking for proof that CO2 was a GHG. I’ll put it here now so other people, that’s you – can check it out –
“The “greenhouse effect” is simply the temperature difference between the actual surface temperature and theoretical value of what the temperature would be without the insulation effect from the atmosphere. The greenhouse effect can easily be calculated from geophysical data that has been provided by weather satellites since their launch in late 1978.
“Climate change” is entirely based on the assumption that the rapid increase in global CO2 emissions is enhancing the greenhouse effect resulting in catastrophic global warming; but somehow no one ever bothered to verify this conjecture by actually calculating the greenhouse effect!
The 1980 value for the greenhouse effect is 35.56°C and the value for 2010 is 0.14°C lower at 35.42°C. This demonstrates that the 70.9% increase in global CO2 emissions since 1980 did not in any way enhance the greenhouse effect as has been falsely claimed since 1988 when this global warming debacle first began.
Since 1980 there has only been 0.4°C of global temperature increase, all of which occurred prior to 1997 when global warming officially ended.
The global temperature standstill reverted to a global cooling trend in 2002 and the Earth has been cooling ever since, in spite of the continued increase in global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels.
A similar occurrence of decreasing global temperatures with rapidly increasing CO2 emissions took place during the 33 years from 1942 to 1975 (the 70’s global cooling scare) so the stated correlation of increased CO2 emissions with global warming never actually existed.
In short, since 1997 there has been neither any global warming nor any enhancement of the greenhouse effect to cause it in the first place, and with no possible correlation between increased CO2 emissions and global warming; there is simply no scientific basis for the for the ludicrous concept that fossil fuel derived CO2 emissions are or could even cause catastrophic global warming!
The Science
This proper scientific definition of the greenhouse effect was known to Hansen who stated it as “Ts – Te is the greenhouse effect of gases and clouds” and defined Te according to the formula Te = [So(1-A)/4σ]1/4
(Hansen, J., D. Johnson, A. Lacis, S. Lebedeff, P. Lee, D. Rind, and G. Russell, 1981: Science, 213, 957-966, doi:10.1126/science.213.4511.957.)
So is total solar irradiance (TSI) and we have continuous measurement of TSI from weather satellites since late 1978 as shown on this graph from the World Radiation Centre in Davos.
This graph shows TSI to be 1366.6W/m2 in 1980 and 1365.8W/m2 in 2010.
“A” is albedo which is the percentage of energy from the sun reflected back into space by the atmosphere and the Earth’s surface.
Albedo can be determined by subtracting outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) from TSI. This graph of OLR (from http://www.climate4you.com ) compiled from data available from NOAA at shows OLR to have increased from 231W/m2 in 1980 to 233W/m2 in 2010.
Subtracting OLR from TSI/4 (division of TSI by 4 necessary for units to match) gives reflected energy values of:
1980 the reflected energy was 341.65W/m2 – 231W/m2 = 110.65W/m2
2010 the reflected energy was 341.45W/m2 – 233W/m2 = 108.45W/m2
And albedo values of:
A = 110.65/341.65 = 0.323869 for 1980
A = 108.45/341.45 = 0.317616 for 2010
From these values and using the formula Te = [So(1-A)/4σ]1/4 we can calculate Te to be:
1980 Te = [1366.6(1-0.323869)/4σ]1/4 = 252.64 K
2010 Te = [1365.8(1-0.317616)/4σ]1/4 = 253.18 K
This graph of Global Temperature Anomaly from NCDC shows the global temperature anomaly to be 0.20°C in 1980 and 0.60°C in 2010. (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cmb-faq/anomalies.php )
For simplicity if we equate 288 K to the zero reference on this NCDC temperature anomaly data, we get absolute temperature values for Ts of 288.2 K for 1980 and 288.6 K for 2010.
From here it is just a simple subtraction of Ts – Te to determine the greenhouse effect:
1980 Ts = 288.2 K Te = 252.64 K
2010 Ts = 288.6 K Te = 253.18 K
1980 greenhouse effect = 288.2-252.64=35.56°C
2010 greenhouse effect = 288.6-253.18=35.42°C
So, if this is correct then a fat lot of good 40 odd percent increase, since the industrial revolution, in atmospheric CO2 content is doing for the enhancement of the GHEffect. Oh yeah σ is the Stef/ Boltzmann constant.-
That seems reasonable in in terms of Math.
But one also say it this way. The greenhouse effect is largely actually an attempt of accounting for the daily effect of the sun in terms of air temperature. So the 35.56°C or the 35.42°C is what sun it doing in a day.
Or what the 35.56°C or 35.42°C is being added to is what sun has warmed in the past.
But it’s failing to include the heat capacity of the heat.
Or if one had the impossible of earth having no heat capacity, then roughly each day it adds 35.56°C [and loses 35.56°C].
Or the number one arrives at, in which one adds the greenhouse effect to, is how warm the Earth is. But you should not confuse how warm the Earth is with what temperature some part of Earth is. Or one should not confuse how warm earth is with a measurement of surface air temperature.
Or if Earth was 5 C, and then you add the fact that sun is shining on Earth- the sun is causing this addition of this 35.56°C of air surface temperature.
Though of course the Earth isn’t as warm as 5 C, if Earth was 5 C, the sun would add less to the increase in temperature.
Or more warm the Earth is, the less temperature is added by Sun, and colder Earth is, the more temperature is added by the Sun.
There is only one reason ocean and land temperatures go up or down, either there is sufficient solar activity for temps to go up, or there is insufficient solar activity, and temps go down. Further, the sun caused extreme weather events such as Haiyan, Katrina, and others.
Until Anthony, Leif, and Willis all agree that the Sun is responsible for warming and cooling and extreme weather events, and are willing to carry that message with full enthusiasm and conviction, along with the rest of us, and do whatever it takes to get that across to the whole world, we “skeptics” will always be sending mixed messages by arguing amongst each other all the time instead of exclusively against the CAGW true believers.
It’s not enough to consistently disagree with the true believers’ view of weather and climate with “just the facts” – there has to be a rational, provable, easy to understand, ongoing play-by play explanation for what has already happened with the weather and climate, and what happens on a daily basis. That’s what needs to be accomplished to completely demolish the warmists’ agit-prop.
That solidity of position has not been achieved here, in spite of all the years of the daily back and forth on this and other blogs. You can’t beat the other team when you’re always fighting amongst each other, often disrepectfully. There are times when I wonder whose team some are playing for…
Supporting objective reality is not groupthink. The problem is in establishing and conveying the true nature of objective reality. I think there has been a fundamental misinterpretation of reality by many players, some here, and by ALL of the CAGW (and AGW) believers.
If Anthony and Willis come back from the Heartland conference in July and are firmly and unequivacably in the solar camp, and Leif is right there with them, then I’ll change my mind.
In the meantime, I agree with Vuk and others. I vote no.
I voted no.
Science is merely applied reasoning. Science is not the sole user. Science is not the source of applied reasoning.
Skepticism is using it (applied reasoning) very very critically on everything all the time. It cannot be represented.
I recommend to work on PR and on representing philosophically the fundamental basis of rational human rights instead.
John
Keep it simple say – Science Watch America, so press releases are readily recognised. The preamble could be, an organisation dedicated to the protection and promotion of ethical science and promotion /protection of the scientific method or simply truth not political science.
We can call this the Solar Society which will place the crown of climate back where it belongs, on our local star.
bealtine says:
April 19, 2014 at 3:57 pm
“It is CURRENT BBC policy that is true….but even the beeb can be swayed by logical arguments on occasion.”
The BBC is a 100% Fabian Socialist organisation and will only ever promote Fabian Socialism.
I just found a “documentary” by them where they “show” that American obesity is Nixon’s fault.
Strange. I thought it was Bush.
Granted on the Fabian thing but I’d go even further and consider the F in Fabian to actually mean Feminist Broadcasting Corporation 🙂 That’s a tad beyond the scope of this topic but *I* think that feminism and climate hysteria are intimate bedfellows and both use the same concepts to promote “social change”
The executive board of such an organisation will be judged on its ability to rebut poor/unethical science without allowing political undertones or partisan sectional differences to destroy the impact of important announcements. and stick to that line.
The People’s Front of Judea
The pressing problem I see is the fact of policy to regulate us into absolute control by various organs of state, that Orwellian future is now, right now agenda, and that agenda is being implemented as social engineering power tools of mass psychological operations. I think more thought should be given to this idea of an organization or pool of truth seekers and reporters, a platform to push back against the wave of policy advancing on us. Hard fact of accurate data across time will eventually out the faulty CAGW models and predictions, but , this is not what is at stake is it? I agree with many thoughts from the NO voters here, yet, I still feel that something very wrong is going on geo-politically that is now affecting me locally. Even the right to grow one’s own food is now to be regulated with permits. EPA may soon outlaw wood stoves to warm my cabin because carbon is a pollutant! Yeah, something has gotta give.
Is it time for an “official” climate skeptics organization, one that produces a policy statement, issues press releases, and provides educational guidance?
I voted “Not Sure” on this as I would like to know more about what exactly is being proposed before making up my mind. I can see that there could be a real need for a new organization to take over the critical, rational sceptical function that the existing scientific institutions should be performing in relation to the warmist establishment’s propositions but aren’t because the warmists have taken them over in a kind of “Invasion of the Body-snatchers” operation and turned them into warmist-advocacy organizations instead.
However, I think the function of such a “sceptical” organization should be restricted to providing the necessary rational scientific testing and criticism of the warmist establishment’s propositions and should not include advocating or promoting any alternative “sceptical” propositions of its own, albeit that those may be the unanimous beliefs of its members. In my view its sole objective should be to expose the flaws, the irrationalities and the uncertainties in the now-orthodox “climate science” that is providing the fundamental ideological support for the warmist belief-system that is in turn supporting the entire social-political movement. That means taking the warmists’ climate theories apart and showing the public how and where they are wrong and/or at variance with reality. It does not mean proposing alternative “sceptic” theories to explain global warming or any other perceived climate phenomena. It is a purely sceptical, critical function that would exist to provide society with the vital negative feedback on the “climate scientists’ ” propositions of which society is presently being deprived.
As Richard Courtney pointed out (in “Global Warming: How It All Began” at http://www.john-daly.com/history.htm ) the warmist movement’s rise to global power and pre-eminence was achieved by the removal of the negative feedback processes inherent in society that otherwise would have arrested it at an earlier stage, thereby leaving only the positive feedbacks free to promote it. It was, you might say, an example of a runaway greenhouse effect (at the ideological level) that the early promoters of the movement were so strident in warning us about in relation to the physical environment. If we want to get this overblown genie back in its bottle, I think it is negative feedback that we need to apply.
I voted no. I am cynical and skeptical about most organizations, as they eventually degenerate into politics. I follow Marx’s philosophy: Groucho said “I would not join any club that would have someone like me for a member.”
While I voted “No” I AGREE with this firmly: we should boldly “promote the Oregon petition. (Steve in Seattle)
********************************************
AND NOW… SOME GREAT PROMOTION FOR TRUTH!
Truth-in-science people in the U.S. have often wondered about the puzzling lack of promotion (TV ads, etc…) of the truth about CO2… “Where are all OUR deep pockets? All the money has gone to promote ‘green’ this and that… . Surely all those shrewd capitalists can’t have fallen for the CO2 cult’s baloney?……”
They haven’t. They are simply doing what will make the most money for their shareholders. For the past 25 years or so, largely Democrat (they controlled Congress during Bush years) policies have made “green” investment and lip-service to “greeeennn” the way to make money. And, for just a little bit longer, in the SHORT-run, they can still make some money off of CO2 gassing.
They DO look at the LONG-run, however… .
And the handwriting is on-the-wall. For instance, Warren Buffett, seeing that his windmill stock price is going to tank within a year, made a hasty, stock-price boosting, purchase last fall of Siemens turbine technology. He has the cash to do that. Most windmill investors do not. They are selling. He will, too, but first, he had to bolster that price… .
Guys like Buffett are ANOMALIES. They like to gamble a little…, but, even a Buffett reaches a point where his risk-aversion says, “Sell.” Look at his TOTAL portfolio… it isn’t all in “green” junk.
It simply boils down to Enviroprofiteering — so far, the deep pockets out there have put their money on the Envirostalinists and Big Business has cynically used their CO2 policies to gain market share. Market share is market share, whether based on truth or l1es. It is sickening, but most business people regard business as a “game” and all is fair so long as all play by the same rules. So, if all are lying (here, about CO2), it’s okay to l1e.
SO, my POINT — IS…!
The truth IS OUT. CO2 UP — WARMING STOPPED is now common knowledge. It is becoming rapidly (exponentially!) more difficult to make a profit off of junk like windmills and solar (tax payers against this waste of their money are nearing “critical mass”),
The free market ship is turning…. (already is in Germany and elsewhere)…, a large ship takes time to turn, but it is turning. And NO amount of shrill screaming and jumping up and down on the deck by Algore, et. al. is going to stop the captain(s) of industry, now.
AGW IS DEAD.
Zombies sound kinda scary (some just sound dumb), but they are DEAD.
Hang in there folks!
Better days are close at hand!
******************************************************
And a song!
The captains of the ships of the world’s economies and of the world’s businesses, seeing an immovable object ahead, the Rock of the Truth About CO2, are, one after the other, bellowing the order: “HARRRD RIGHT!!!” (or left — had to choose one and I like right (smile), not a political direction, IT’S JUST ABOUT MONEY for them)
“Somethin’s Gotta Give” — McGuire Sisters
Truth Is IRRESISTIBLE …. #(:))
(those who do resist truth end up miserable — every time)
One thing is for sure — anyone who maintains their current course heading is going HARD aground. Only fools will fight on for AGW (and windmills)… . Let them. Every circus needs a few clowns.
Bwah, ha, ha, ha, ha, haaaaaaa!
TRUTH HAS WON!
I am mostly in agreement with those who voted “no”, although I do agree that it is appropriate to ask the question.
However, I do believe that, however and whenever possible, we support those who “issue press releases, and provide educational guidance” in support of the general skeptical position which I believe is stated well in the Oregon Petition Project petition.
Repeated here, for those who don’t have it memorized:
“There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth “
Bob Weber says:
April 19, 2014 at 4:07 pm
Until Anthony, Leif, and Willis all agree that the Sun is responsible for warming and cooling and extreme weather events,
I sincerely hope and pray that it would be so, as it would do wonders for my funding situation. Somebody, please, tell Congress that. Personally, I cannot in good conscience do so, but will, of course, accept the funding anyway…
Leif is on the right tract. I also voted no. The science will self-correct, embarrasingly so, and science will have crow to eat for a while. I know it sucks, but anything else will be viewed as being outside the realm of science and thus may serve only to mask the embarrassment due alarmist scientists who went rat-crazy over this stuff. It reminds me of the sage advice of older folks when dealing with a toddler tantrum in the grocery store. Let the child scream. Just walk away. Why? The more they stand alone in their mess without other voices distracting the eyes of the audience, the easier it is to focus just on that out of control toddler. Soon enough it’s own behavior will be its punishment, and the child will sculk away redfaced in search of mommy.
Can we please have WUWT focus in a major and prolonged way on the ‘doctoring’ of climate data?
We will be looking carefully at that subject in the upcoming paper on surface stations. We’ll be using the USHCN stations (unaffected by TOBS bias or station moves, while accounting for MMTS conversion). What I have found after breaking down both raw and adjusted trend data speaks directly to adjustment (homogenization in particular) and its spurious effects on trend. We believe this was not intentional manipulation, but, rather, an egregious (yet understandable) error on the part of NOAA/NCDC.
charles nelson says:
April 19, 2014 at 3:12 pm
Can we please have WUWT focus in a major and prolonged way on the ‘doctoring’ of climate data?
Steven Goddard regularly posts graphs of the same data from the same organisation, one from say…twenty years ago, the other from today. And it appears they have been tampered with.
=====
EXACTLY
I’m sick and tired of discussing someone’s theory/paper/whatever, and not calling out the fact that it’s based on some temperature/history/CO2 crap that’s fake to begin with.
Hey, Pamela.
It reminds me of the sage advice of older folks when dealing with a toddler tantrum in the grocery store.
Times they are a-changin’. If I had — ever — had the unutterable face to throw a tantrum in a grocery store, I can assure you it would have been my last. (And my folks never hit me once in my life, so it ain’t on account o’ that!)
And I must add that once the CO2-ers sculk away redfaced, Bob Weber-ish scientists will be next. Who will be calmly standing by the wayside to clean up the mess? Why Bob Tisdale of course.
Dear Evan M. Jones,
I sure hope you see this. I wanted to thank you last night, but, well, as you know, that was impossible. Thank you, so much, for your support. MUCH appreciated.
Gratefully,
Janice
Robert of Ottawa, perfect. Absolutely perfect.
I’m sick and tired of discussing someone’s theory/paper/whatever, and not calling out the fact that it’s based on some temperature/history/CO2 crap that’s fake to begin with.
We don’t find it to be fake, per se. We do find it to be significantly exaggerated. But that has taken a tremendous amount of time and effort.
We are effective because there is no target to focus on. That is why the alarmists and collectivists conjure up targets such as “Big Oil” and the Koch brothers. They need a big Satan to attack and be seen to be in the moral right by doing so. The less we seem like an organisation the more we seem to be the many voices of the people which is what we are and need to stay.
Also we have seen how organisations become monolithic in nature and we need have the internally dissenting and divergent views as a fundamental part of who we are. It is the open debate that we need to show and that is not helped by having a formal organisation as that will invariably try to focus the conversation on what those running the organisation believe to be right.
No-one has a perfect understanding of the universe. That means everyone is wrong. Any structure, no matter how well intentioned will always gravitate to uniformity which ultimately means that everyone ends up being wrong in the same way.
Roy Spencer says:
April 19, 2014 at 2:48 pm
I voted no. Herding cats immediately came to mind.
=====
Of course…and great analogy
Global warming believers tend to be much more tolerant of other GWBs/liberals…as long as you believe. ….as long as you believe in the save the planet, GMO, animal rescue, green mess….you can be anything else and they still think they share a common cause One of the main reasons democrats get away with all the crap they get away with in government….
Unfortunately, skeptics are a much more diverse group…and a lot less tolerant. Which is how people get away with saying republicans are divided…they are! Skeptics could win this war hands down in a second….the “science” is all on their side..but they won’t because they are not united in a common cause and are intolerant of all the rest.
(read the comments on Willis’ last post for a visual aid)
We don’t find it to be fake, per se. We do find it to be significantly exaggerated. But that has taken a tremendous amount of time and effort.
=====
ROTFL…..thanks evan!
Steve Goddard is doing it on a daily basis……..I think you just said it’s not really turquoise …it’s more of a teal
and # 1 on the top 10 reasons for NO:
“A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals, and you know it!”
I sure hope you see this. I wanted to thank you last night, but, well, as you know, that was impossible. Thank you, so much, for your support. MUCH appreciated.
I see you. Yes, I knew it was impossible and I knew darn well what you must have been feeling. I needed to try to bring Willis back to equilibrium. That was the best I could do for the both of you. Willis has much wisdom to relate. And, if you analyze it, it is not in contradiction with your own beliefs, it’s just a different song. I want you two to reconcile with all my heart.
Part of that is mere emotionalism. Part of it is practicality. If we do not stick together there is no hope for any of us. To the extent we are divided (I am a lukewarmer), let it be over the science, alone.
And, yes, I thought you might be around these parts, so I have been keeping an eye out.
To clarify my own views, as far as Christianity (and other religions) go, I am more concerned about the message — not the fiddlin’ facts. I don’t have to believe in Aesop’s Fables to garner their wisdom. I don’t believe in the Fox and the Stork. I believe in the message of the Fox and the Stork. That’s my “journey”. I’ll accept wherever that leads.
So, happy, happy Easter. That’s a message of peace, reconciliation, and hope — whatever else it is or isn’t.
i voted “no”, and was surprised at the results, showing 62% saying “yes”.
the MSM & CAGW websites already ignore the many & varied views expressed by CAGW sceptics, reducing us all to being “climate deniers”. an organisation claiming to speak on behalf of some unspecified large group of CAGW sceptics wouldn’t help, & would only provide an easier target for further mindless attacks. an organisation might also alienate some sceptics & non-sceptics (occasionally) who have chosen to participate on WUWT, CA, Bishop Hill, JoanneNova, etc.
@TRG: You seem to be missing the point. Nearly all of the existing “accredited” science organizations have sold out to the warmists and thus discredited themselves — AAAS, the Royal Society, Nature, and even the committee that awards Nobel Prizes. (I’m expecting any day to hear that the King of Sweden has resigned rather than be made a monkey of by those people again.)
Of course, no organization can be trusted to stay honest forever, and so I would not want one made “official” by any government. But we need somebody to carry the torch of real science, and a skeptics umbrella group would be a good start. Especially if it can publish a peer-reviewed scholarly journal.
The trick is to avoid infiltration by the liars without engaging in direct, arbitrary censorship as their scholarly journals now do, and without excluding potential allies. I would try to do this by being very strict about the methods of science, and of honest statistics, when evaluating any paper.
@jaypan: We already are a movement against the misuse of science (or more accurately, against the mischaracterization of fallacies such as argument from authority and assuming your conclusion as being science).
The trick is to get enough visibility so that the liars can no longer say there is only one science establishment and it equals them and their toadies.
Thank you, dear Mr. Jones, so much.
Why should an organization be started to address views on climate change contrary to the mainstream? Isn’t it all about first principles of physics? If the mainstream and any other contrary organization do not follow first principles, then, it is just hubbub amounting to no relevance to the real science. Just another way to validate a theory by inclusion of a false dichotomy.
I think the costs of a “climate skeptics organization” will out-weigh the benefits.
BTW, there already is a skeptic publication bought into CAGW http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/12-02-08/ so expect a turf-war.
Steve Goddard is doing it on a daily basis……..I think you just said it’s not really turquoise …it’s more of a teal
What I am saying is that there is no evidence the error is intentional. If most of the stations happened to be well sited (or if siting had no effect on trend), homogenization would be a mere boondoggle rather than a catastrophic fail. But homogenization is a boondoggle at best. I mean, why go to all the (considerable) bother of oversampling if you are just going to make pap out of the data?
Skipped all the comments. Voted yes for a simple obvious reason. Unorganized protesters are a rabble. Organized become the American Revolutionary Army.
There is a great difference between the Boston Tea Party and the Declaration of Independence, or better yet the Constitutional Convention that has stood the test of over 2 centuries time.
Regards
In Australia much of our serious media (ABC, SBS & Fairfax) takes the pronouncements of the IPCC and alarmist scientists as gospel. What is needed is another group of scientists and experts that the media can call on for an alternate view. I’m sure many the patrons of the above media have no idea that climate science is such a grey area.
When our governments consider or pass a new law, usually the media will interview someone from the Civil Liberties Council to provide an opposing but quite legitimate view as to problems the law may cause. Unfortunately with media releases relating to climate science there is no council or body that can provide contrary evidence or advice.
The problem here is that like any religious cult, the warmers will never admit
to anything that challenges their faith. Their central tenant is that the earth
is going to boil as a result of CO2 levels above 350 PPM. Anyone who
challenges them must be either evil or crazy.
Calling for deniers to be put in prison is entirely consistent with the history
of leftist political movements of the 20th Century. Both the Soviets and the
Nazis used sanitariums to house political dissenters. The Nazis found a
simpler solution to the problem using diesel exhaust.
Communism and socialism appeal to the simple minded who can be made
to envy the rich with simplistic appeals to class envy. Both Marx and Hitler
profited from this technique. This ideology is an anti-intellectual and
anti-science. While perverting psychology, the Soviets also supported the
great scientific hoaxter Trofim Lysenko, who set science in the Soviet Union
back decades.
The difference between us and them is that we think they are wrong, while
they think we are evil. Even if the majority of atmospheric scientists deny
AGW, to challenge their belief would be like walking into a Catholic church
and calling Mother Theresa a whore.
We are losing this debate because responsible scientists rarely jump into the
political arena, where this pseudo-religion resides. Being good Marxists, they
deny the existence of God, but have no problem embracing Gaia. They believe
in AGW because their belief is based on emotion and faith, not on science.
In 10 years time, someone in the government may find this post and haul
my ass off to a sanitarium, reeducation camp or worse.
I am a layman. It is time for the scientists to speak up.
Janice Moore says:
April 19, 2014 at 5:24 pm (Edit)
When you’re falling awake and you take stock of the new day,
and you hear your voice croak as you choke on what you need to say,
well, don’t you fret, don’t you fear,
I will give you good cheer.
Life’s a long song.
Life’s a long song.
Life’s a long song.
If you wait then your plate I will fill.
As the verses unfold and your soul suffers the long day,
and the twelve o’clock gloom spins the room,
you struggle on your way.
Well, don’t you sigh, don’t you cry,
lick the dust from your eye.
Life’s a long song.
Life’s a long song.
Life’s a long song.
We will meet in the sweet light of dawn.
As the Baker Street train spills your pain all over your new dress,
and the symphony sounds underground put you under duress,
well don’t you squeal as the heel grinds you under the wheel.
Life’s a long song.
Life’s a long song.
Life’s a long song.
But the tune ends too soon for us all.
The mainstream media are incredibly lazy. When they want people to speak on a particular issue they just look for an organisation and an official spokesperson. They are seldom willing to put in any more effort than that. Part of the reason why the reasonable voice of skepticism is not heard in the mainstream media is that when they look for a climate skeptic they can’t easily find one. An organisation for climate skeptics is a massive great big sign saying “climate skeptics here”.
Voted yes but not for the reason of an official organization. I see a scientific “clearing house” to praise or damn any and all papers presented on either side, and a fast moving team of “first responders” to get the word out to various outlets. AND, in words I can understand. I try very hard to keep up with the language here, but most times my last few hairs hurt. The one larrrrrrrrrrrrge problem I see is an organization being hijacked by a politician who can destroy it virtually overnight.
Another problem is media exposure. Good luck with that. Regardless of what one may think of talk radio, they do get the word out, and would seem to be the first avenue.
I would suggest, if an organization is begun, that there be one basic rule: No e-mails allowed; all communication through snail-mail. 😉
I think what really may be needed is a Scientific Ethics organization.
At this point its difficult to see hows AGW skepticism can be seperated from the Left/Right political struggle. I came to it with a bias against anything being promoted by our former local Congressman Al Gore. How can we seperate out skepticism of Leviathan from one of its greatest works. Maybe better to remain a plucky band of rebels fighting through existing institutions.
What I am saying is that there is no evidence the error is intentional…
Evan, adjustments…..when there’s no reason for them at all
In too many cases, the adjustments to past and present temps is more than the recorded temp change…
You know they’ve adjusted the past down..and the present up…to show a faster trend in global warming
Here’s an example of what I’m talking about…..2 1/2 degrees “adjustment”…that’s more than climate change
http://stevengoddard.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/screenhunter_303-apr-19-07-34.gif
In just this one year, NOAA has adjusted US temps up over 1 degree….
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/04/18/the-hockey-stick-is-real-3/
The word that comes to mind is “coalition” There is plenty of precedent for disparate organizations working together on something they have in common, even though they may be polar enemies in other areas.
Dear Mr. Evan Jones,
That took you quite some time to type all that (5:53pm post). Thank you for caring enough to do so. I think our philosophies differ …, but my heart hears yours. And it is grateful.
To end on both a sweeter note (that song was kind of a downer, you gotta admit!):
“Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds
on the heel that has crushed it.”
Mark Twain
…. and on a more hopeful note (for, to me, to whom death is only the door into heaven, it cannot come “too soon” — don’t worry, I don’t believe in suicide!):
“Love is eternal, life immortal;
Death is only a horizon, and
a horizon is only the limit of our vision.”
Your WUWT pal,
Janice (Moore)
FYI everyone: I never log onto WUWT as just “Janice”
Close call. I voted unsure. I think too little is understood in climate science, and threre remains too much diversity among skeptics. In the APS transcript of their recent review of climate science with 6 climate scientists, Judith Curry advised the APS review committee (if my memmory is correct) not to produce a(nother) policy statement- that it was premature to do so.
How do we return climate change science to climate science? Short run, I think it has to come from the climate scientists themselves. If more Judith Currys don’t stand up to the “consensus” then it will have to be the data over years and maybe decades that silences the alrmism or confirms the virtue of it, I think the former.
What makes it a close call for me is the success of the consensus propaganda and the resulting harm that is occurring from this propaganda, harm to the environment and to social justice and economic well being by those who, most of them, truly believe they are on the side of science and the side of environmental and social justice. On three different mass media web sites I have had this link to the APS transcript blocked (censored)-
http://www.aps.org/policy/statements/upload/climate-seminar-transcript.pdf
How can statements of a new skeptical body get through to the public when even the American Physical Society (APS) transcript is ignored or censored?
Absolutely not. Truth needs no laws to protect it, nor any organization. Worse, organizations have a way of subverting their founders’ intentions into “whatever it takes to secure the continued existence of the organization”.
I note feminists (I’m a woman, so I’m entitled to comment) who -need- misogynistic men, in order that they, the feminists, may go on being the “champions” of poor, downtrodden womankind. I note people of one race or ethnicity (including some of my own) who -need- attacks on their in-group, because so much of their own identity is invested in being heroes of the in-group.
I fear that any formal climate-skeptical organization — formed, be it noted, not for the purpose of promoting informed climate science but IN REACTION TO alarmist climatology — will ultimately either outright fuel climate alarmists, to justify its own continued existence, or, like so many militant feminists, merely -claim- the alarmists remain a problem.
Getting one unified statement from skeptics would be harder than herding cats.
jdgalt says:
April 19, 2014 at 10:33 am
“What I think we need, more than an “official” skeptics organization, is some kind of ongoing, print magazine of eco-skepticism, one not merely about “climate change” but which continually calls out every “green” person and group for every outrageous statement they make, not just predictions of harm but also policy goals such as those exposed on green-agenda.com.”
I encourage all to look at green-agenda.com as recommended by jdgalt. It may well be too late in the game to wake up, but at least we can make sense of what is happening and why. Climate Alarmist are the storm troopers of the NWO and they are on a mission.
I can think of several good arguments for why there should not be a central climate skeptic authority.
* It is unseemly for scientists to align themselves with an organization that appears to have predetermined the conclusion of an active scientific debate. Just because the IPCC does it, does not make it right.
* It provides a target for the alarmists, who will unleash every dirty smear ever at those involved. The organization’s name will become a sneering reference, like “Koch brothers”, “Bush”, “fracking”, and “tar sands.”
* There is a fairly broad spectrum of skepticism. The leadership of this organization could be captured by non-mainstream skeptics, and co-opted by the Dragon Slayer kooks at one end, or even by alarmists at the other. Look at who has captured the leadership of other scientific organizations, or the AMA for that matter. Disgusting.
* Skeptics who are not explicitly or implicitly aligned to a “brand” whose public image is largely controlled by those who are hostile to it may have more influence on their peers.
Janice Moore says:
April 19, 2014 at 6:23 pm (Edit)
Dear Mr. Evan Jones,
No need for formalities!
That took you quite some time to type all that (5:53pm post).
Not so much. I know it all the way through.
There are those who will tell you that if we have only the one time around the wheel, it can make no difference if one is good or bad. No difference?! If so, every moment is all the more precious. All the more reason for goodness. Why waste a precious minute on anything else if this is all we got?
“Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.”
I so hope you and Willis can go there.
the left/right CAGW “divide” stoked once again by Salon.com. sceptics as “mimophants” – “it is crucial for the public to understand this” says Lewandowsky:
19 April: Salon.com: Paul Rosenberg: Why climate deniers are winning: The twisted psychology that overwhelms scientific consensus
PHOTO CAPTION: Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh
But the growing sophistication of the scientific community is a cause for continued hope — if they can accelerate their learning curve, and follow the right path. They no longer mistakenly assume that the facts can “speak for themselves,” and they’ve gotten much better at developing ways to communicate lucidly about complex challenges and uncertainty. But the entrenched denialist, do-nothing opposition is still winning when it comes to writing the checks.
***If that’s to change, Australian psychologist Stephan Lewandowsky will almost certainty be part of the reason why…
The impact of worldview can informally be seen in partisan trend polling data on global warming evidence perception from Pew (graph here), as well as snapshot data showing Tea Party Republicans as significant outliers, with views significantly different from other Republicans, whose views are surprisingly close to average…
Conspiracist Ideation — Better than Science at Playing Its Own Game…
The second paper touched a real nerve, producing a great deal of conspiracy theorizing about Lewandowsky himself, his co-authors and others. So, naturally, being a good scientist, Lewandowsky decided to study that as well. The result was a third paper, “Recursive Fury: Conspiracist ideation in the blogosphere in response to research on conspiracist ideation,” which was subsequently retracted by the publisher, following sharp attacks from climate contrarians — even though the publisher found nothing scientifically or ethically wrong with the paper. Britain’s notoriously lax libel law (changed just this year) was supposedly the reason. Following a further retreat by the publisher, three editors with the journal resigned. Nuccitelli provides a good account in his column (as does Lewandowsky himself, here), where he notes that this is just the latest example of a pattern that’s played out before…
(Lewandowsky) “Deniers will claim in the same breath (or within a few minutes) that (a) temperatures cannot be measured reliably, (b) there is definitely no warming, (c) the warming isn’t caused by humans, and (d) we are doing ourselves a favor by warming the planet. The four propositions are incoherent because they cannot all be simultaneously true — and yet deniers will utter all those in close succession all the time.”…
When I asked about other aspects of conspiracist ideation, I questioned whether it didn’t reflect a quest for meaning, at the expense of information, along the lines of the mythos/logos distinction drawn by Karen Armstrong in “The Battle For God.” Lewandowsky agreed…
As a further refinement, I noted that conspiracist ideation thrives on creating specific malicious others as a particuarly powerful form of meaning-making. “Yes, absolutely,” Lewandowsky responded. “There is this tension between ‘victim’ and ‘hero’ within the conspiracist worldview that leads to those contradictory positions. On the one hand (the ‘hero’ frame) it is permissible to accuse scientists of fraud and harass them, but by the same token (‘victim’ frame) scientists must do nothing to cast aspersions on the accusers or to defend themselves. Arthur Koestler has referred to those people as ‘mimophants.’ It is crucial for the public to understand this.”…
(Paul Rosenberg is a California-based writer/activist, senior editor for Random Lengths News, and a columnist for Al Jazeera English)
http://www.salon.com/2014/04/19/why_climate_deniers_are_winning_the_twisted_psychology_that_overwhelms_scientific_consensus/
Absolutely no. And if one were formed, I, for one, would not belong. I have zero interest in the political views that animate many “skeptics”.
No!
Will there be a sunset clause? After Climate Science is steered back to science, then what?
Bulk mail requests for funds?
Cruises?
Dinners?
Awards ceremonies?
On the flip side; there are good reasons for your considering incorporation. For business reasons, legal protections and as future resources for health and life insurance.
One side of the issue could be your work to clarify and correct the scientific process. But that is secondary to your main business.
A remaining question is your official product/services. May I suggest that you organize a cadre of consultants providing research process certification.
Especially that research as it regards:
weather,
climate,
satellite information (graphics, downloads, types, software)
instrumentation,
review.
editing,
presentation,
networking,
measurements,
validation,
statistics,
school book review,
Lysenko warnings,
press releases,
correlations… and so on.
Right now you are one of the centers of a fairly vast network of talented professionals, experts, semi-professionals, experienced amateurs, engineers and many more.
Other centers could certainly either collaborate or join the corporation and literally overnight WUWT becomes WUWT international able to provide expertise in many countries around the world.
This isn’t a pitch for building another cold multi-national exploitive corporation, but a suggestion for leveraging individuals and their strengths at fair market prices.
This way the ‘organization’ is still a side shoot of your personal business and instead of strictly focusing on countering bad climate science it focuses on business reasons with a long future.
I think something along the lines of …. ClimateFactCheck.org … could be useful. An organized place to refute the constant propaganda that alarmists spew. Instead of being an organization to push skeptical views, it would simply be a place show the world that AGW is built on a house of cards.
In a way it could be ran similar to the surface stations project, but instead of looking at surface stations, it would look at alarmist claims and show where the science fails.
The reason it is happening is because climate has been politicized as means to promote ideology and political agendas.
So we are not climate scepticals but more skeptical of policy based climate claims? UNFCCC skeptical?
Absolutely no. And if one were formed, I, for one, would not belong. I have zero interest in the political views that animate many “skeptics”.
There’s the rub. This whole mess got rolling downhill because the science got all wound up with the politics in the first place.
We don’t need a big org but we do need to spread out a little. This cloistered web site has been a god send but I would like to hear Anthony (and our other stars) on mainstream radio and television shows. (Don’t believe the self defeating crap about black listing etc.) Anthony has proven his merit and can go from web print speaking to thousands to video speaking to millions any time he wants to. So can Lief and Judith and Willis and … When they argue amongst each other, the globalists will be left in the dust.
As a person with no political affiliation, I will try to understand how political views overrule science, but that’s not one of my strong points.
I’m an Engineer, I solve problems, I help others and I study. that’s all I do.
If my opinion and expertise is worth less because I’m not part of an important club, then I don’t want to be in your club.
My vote is no!
i voted — unsure.
Such an organization would need to be seen (by both the general public and climate realists) as having been formed as a reaction to climate hysteria and not as a group formed to push a particular climate agenda. A name like the following with an attached mission statement:might set the tone.
CLIMATE REALITY — The past and the present compared and shoddy science exposed.
Simply stated its mission would be to increase the media coverage given to climate realists. No other agenda than that.
It needs to establish that it has a broad base by having all supporters agree to one simple statement. That being:
There is no such thing as Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming.
What climate realist cannot put their name to that?
So we need people who can figure out how to generate media coverage — when the media will be deliberately turning its back on such an organization.
And people who will work for free and not pursue an agenda of their own.
Or maybe we should just sit back and let nature take it course.
(There’s an image for Josh — Science and Nature walking hand-in-hand.)
That’s enough gabbing for me.
Eugene WR Gallun
Certainly not.
An inhomogeneous network such as currently exists is far more difficult to tear down than a centralized opponent. Successful asymmetric warfare is characterized by the use of independent cells working towards a common goal. This is an information war and the opponent has control of more powerful megaphones (weapons). Setting up a singular entity or position allows the opponent to isolate and contain it. The principal method of the opponent is demagoguery, which becomes [i]less[/i] effective as it is used against more targets.
Latitude says:
April 19, 2014 at 6:13 pm (Edit)
Evan, adjustments…..when there’s no reason for them at all
Sometimes there is. I’ve had to deal with that. There are three issues: TOBS bias (the biggie), MMTS conversion, and station moves. To get where I need to get, I have simply dropped all TOBS-biased stations (the bias is real but I don’t trust the adjustments), and any station that has a record of moves (slightly more to it, but that’s the essence). MMTS adjustment I have to apply myself, but i think i’ve figured out a clever way that is consistent with Menne et al. (2009 & 2010).
In too many cases, the adjustments to past and present temps is more than the recorded temp change…
I know. If it were possible I would evaluate the entire GHCN. But I would need not only the station locations and raw/adjusted data for Tmax, Tmin, Tmean (at least), but the metadata as well. And, to be honest, I don’t think much of the crucial metadata even exists anymore.
I was inspired in part by Anthony Watts stadium seat graphic and the Blog
Doubleplussundead which used the 3-1/2 in 10,000 analogy to create a
simpler example.
I began stacking pennies 25 high in 20 rows by 20 columns. It took a couple
of weeks. I had to place an overturned drawer over the project to keep my
horny neurotic feral Tomcat from destroying the project. I was seeing pennies
in my friggen’ sleep! When I finally finished the project, I took a number of 18mp
dSLR images. One stack near the middle was short by the 3-1/2 pennies I laid
out in the foreground.
One of my first tests was to take my Kindle with the image to my liberal Aussie
neighbor. I pointed to the 3-1/2 pennies and explained that this represented the
350 PPM of CO2 in the atmosphere. I then told him that of that 3-1/2 cents,
96 percent is created by nature. So, with mankind responsible for less than
2 PPM of CO2, any fart from a major volcanic eruption could produce more
CO2 or Ozone depleting compounds than mankind has in 200+ years of the
industrial revolution.
He was unimpressed. His beliefs are based in the faith that Rachel Maddow, Ed
Shultz, and Keith Olberman are speaking the gospel truth, just as they are
when they call conservatives Nazi’s, racists, terrorists, etc. No amount of
evidence, scientific or otherwise will ever change their beliefs. Even if they
are not acting as guards in the camps or orderlies in the sanitariums, they
will be the people watching the trains knowing the fates of the unfortunate
AGW deniers in the boxcars.
The first rule of the environmental left: Demonize your enemies.
Nemo makes a fantastic point! The resistance movements in WWII Europe are
a great example. They were isolated cells where a single cell member could
only betray a limited number of his confederates if he were caught and turned.
This is the Mojo Nixon armed insurrection, only with science rather than arms
taken from a national guard armory:
I hope a link to a Youtube video is allowed.
Do you want to become your opposition? You do, you lose. Your opposition is composed of far more authoritative organizations than an “official” bunch of skeptics could be, however large the membership. Much better to show up in online commentary as an individual than a ‘member of’ or ‘spokesman for’ some organization.
There is nothing to stop individuals from writing convincing commentary. I write letters to my local paper in response to absurd claims and they print them, and I then banter with catastrophists in online comments. I research to bolster my claims, and as I do I become ever more convinced I’m on the right side of the argument and more effective in responding to criticism. I don’t want some organization doing my thinking for me.
Methinks those voting yes are craving an authority to appeal to.
At present, I am a skeptic of global warming science, for what I believe are excellent reasons. (The warmists manipulated data, use false models that do not consider known variables, use a form of deceit in pronouncements and presentations, suppress dissent, colluded or conspired to prevent publication of dissenting viewpoints, use grant money to sway working scientists, and a few other unsavory things.)
But, I am one who follows the data (not adjusted data, but validated data) based on decades of sometimes bitter experience in oil refineries, chemical and petrochemical plants, and power plants. Those industries do not have the luxury of manipulating data to achieve a political aim. If the validated climate data were to lead me to understand that global cooling is happening or is imminent, I would join the global cooling group. Similarly, if the validated climate data were to show there is an imminent danger of the planet overheating, I would join that chorus.
I believe the best name for this is a rational consequentialist. We carefully examine valid data, apply known laws of physics, math, and economics (where chemistry and biology, geology, and all the other hard sciences are a subset of physics), then make informed decisions in a rational manner.
I do not want to be a part of an organization that, conceivably, digs in its heels and no matter what the data says, remains at odds with the climate alarmists. I also would not like to see such an organization be formally at odds with the climate alarmists. The concentrated power in one body could do a world of harm.
Just my humble opinion.
Pamela Gray says:
April 19, 2014 at 4:43 pm
Leif is on the right tract. I also voted no. The science will self-correct, embarrasingly so, and science will have crow to eat for a while. I know it sucks, but anything else will be viewed as being outside the realm of science and thus may serve only to mask the embarrassment due alarmist scientists who went rat-crazy over this stuff.
___________________________________________________________________________
Pamela, how long do you think that the “Self Correct” will take as a reaction, as opposed to intervention?
Passive resistance is just that,,,,,,,,, passive…………
Yes, to a skeptics organization.
One means to get the message out would be to make a big box-office movie.
The audience learns about the big CON as well as the EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE that proves the CON.
(It’s a gripping story filled with lies, billions $, bum science, politics, pseudo-religion, moral prostitution, careers in jeopardy, first world gainers, third world losers, skeptic Davids and alarmist Goliaths, heroes/heroines and villains.)
The CON has gone on long enough now – the collection of facts cannot be ignored. The public is sick of being lied to.
.
.
lsvalgaard says:
April 19, 2014 at 4:37 pm
I sincerely hope and pray that it would be so, as it would do wonders for my funding situation. Somebody, please, tell Congress that. Personally, I cannot in good conscience do so, but will, of course, accept the funding anyway…
I can help you get that funding! because we’re gonna need it.
nutso fasst says:
April 19, 2014 at 8:14 pm
Do you want to become your opposition? You do, you lose. Your opposition is composed of far more authoritative organizations than an “official” bunch of skeptics could be, however large the membership. Much better to show up in online commentary as an individual than a ‘member of’ or ‘spokesman for’ some organization.
There is nothing to stop individuals from writing convincing commentary. I write letters to my local paper in response to absurd claims and they print them, and I then banter with catastrophists in online comments. I research to bolster my claims, and as I do I become ever more convinced I’m on the right side of the argument and more effective in responding to criticism. I don’t want some organization doing my thinking for me.
Methinks those voting yes are craving an authority to appeal to.
__________________________________________________________________________
So,,,,,,,,,, what you are saying is we should yield to the same thing of which you condemn…….
No!
Re: “Organized become the American Revolutionary Army. … .” (Rud Istvan 5:35pm)
Your premise is sound, Mr. Istvan, however, it is not relevant in this context.
THE WAR IS OVER — just mopping up, now, and keeping the enemy on the far frontiers.
That’s why they scream so loudly these days — getting heard from that far away is tough.
To organize implies a need to.
AGW IS DEAD. It was D.O.A., but now everyone not in the Cult of Climastrology knows: the gig is up.
(the true believer cult members are not significant influencers; they are just brainwashed followers).
REALITY finally overwhelmed the climate l1ars.
Rejoice!
I am afraid I voted “unsure” as both sides have merits. But when I voted the majority of votes was in favour of such an organization. I’ve only read a few of the comments as I am both late to this party and it is a late hour after a full day of work.
If such an organization were to be formed, there would have to be several individuals paid to provide responses to IPCC reports, media queries, and educational matter. Is there enough consistent financial support from skeptics for this to work? I would suggest that fairly pricy memberships would be required to enable this, as the organization would have to categorically reject any funding from oil companies or right-wing organizations.
The stance would have to be purely scientific, but since policy is the objective, it would also have to focus on exposing the underlying political and policy aims of the alarmist cause, consistently building arguments and scientific evidence to show that the ‘solutions’ posed by alarmists are either irrelevant or unnecessary. Of course, the alarmist science would require tireless debunking. The plus side of such an organization would be that WUWT ‘crowd sourcing’ could provide instant critical responses to weak or lopsided alarmist claims in myriad publications. If experienced professional scientists were to screen and summarize the better WUWT responses, a summary position showing the scientific weaknesses of many of the very sketchy publications could be published.
As for a name, I would suggest something similar to the names of organizations formed to rescue Jewish scientists from Nazi Germany: viz. “Society for the Protection of Science”. For many of us, the climate policy shenanigans of recent science and the damage activist scientists are doing to science is a major source of grief, and a name like this would reflect these concerns.
The temperature profile of the atmosphere is utterly unrelated to the amount of CO2 in it as dictated by the Ideal Gas Law PV-nRT.
The gas constant R represents any particular gas mix whatever it’s chemical composition and this is the reason every one of you who believe in the CO2 fantasy can’t predict what the temperature is going to be for the past 17 years.
You’re what’s called a new guy.
The working scientists, the people who were around laughing when Hansen lied on tv
are what’s called,
the ones who wore out the last bunch of hog callers
who told us all why “they believe.”
evanmjones says:
April 19, 2014 at 4:55 pm
We don’t find it to be fake, per se. We do find it to be significantly exaggerated. But that has taken a tremendous amount of time and effort.
Oss Qss — I want to compliment you on how well you have articulated your “Yes” position far above (and just now). I’m wondering, however, if maybe (just maybe) you are misunderstanding us “No” people.
To put your mind at ease (I hope), none of us wants to quit fighting for truth. We just don’t want to be part of a formal organization to do that. We will remain FOREVER VIGILANT and continue the (as someone ably pointed out above) war of attrition and the mopping up operations… . We will maintain a ready, strong, defense of truth.
So, we AGREE! #(:)) NEVER YIELD to l1es!
I hope that might have reassured you a bit.
Your WUWT ally for truth (no matter how you voted!),
Janice
P.S. Thank you, again, for all the nifty videos you so often share with us. I know your business keeps you very busy, but, do try to share more often — they are cool!
I suggest rather than a central organization, we form a peer reviewed academic journal with an editorial board from the NIPCC. This journal would be a place for academics and others to publish papers on climate science without requiring fealty to Phil Jones. The journal would have a website where all the data and code was published for individuals to use in replication.
I voted No.
In the immortal words of Groucho Marx ‘I don’t want to belong to a club that will accept people like me as a member.’
No. You will only create a Name the media will discredit with bogus lies for the LIVs to mock. You are better off waging a “guerilla warfare” type campaign instead of gathering up all the rebels under one banner to be nuked.
I’m an amatuer re the science, especially when it gets deep in the weeds like Climate Audit does (though having hard scientific data to link to is vital). But for the politics, I’m somewhat of an expert. And one thing I have noticed in dealing with public support for Climate Alarmism is the need for these LIVs to feel enlightened and sophisticated. I can post reams of studies debunking Climatology, but what resonates with them is this: “In 5 years you’ll be pretending you never believed in this crap”. Those in the public that support Climate Alarmism wants to be viewed as intelligent chaps, not fools. Attack them there.
I voted no.
An official position is not necessary and I appreciate hearing and thinking about the multitude of thoughts on climate here and elsewhere. Especially the ones I disagree with.
Eugene WR Gallun mówi:
Such an organization would need to be seen (by both the general public and climate realists) as having been formed as a reaction to climate hysteria and not as a group formed to push a particular climate agenda. A name like the following with an attached mission statement:might set the tone.
CLIMATE REALITY — The past and the present compared and shoddy science exposed.
100% yes.
I’m with george e. conant – I think an organized campaign against climate alarmism is needed. I’m not concerned about differences in detail among skeptics’ positions. I have very definite ideas about what is wrong with climate alarmism, and I personally believe, based on the evidence I’ve seen, that there is no identifiable effect whatever of CO2 or man’s activities on global climate, but rather than try to adopt an official position as a group, I think that we should attack the specific false or unscientific aspects of alarmism. This can be as simple, for example, as responding to claims that “the years 2001-2010 were the warmest in history” with the factual data we have that proves otherwise, or a synopsis of Steve McIntyre’s demolition of Mann’s hockey stick model..
As one who engages in blog wars, I feel we need truthful versions of:
SouceWatch
SkepticalScience
RealClimate.
In other words, Quick reference guides to the truth. Simple statements, with good backup, such as CO2 FOLLOWS temperature, Climate data is adjusted from cooling to warming, the Earth quit warming, earlier warm periods were warmer, who is raking in the money.
There needs to be rapid response to new warmist papers.
I feel all this can be done without politics – stick to climate facts.
Look at skeptical science for format, then do it truthfully.
thanks
I think the cacophony of individual voices carries more weight than an easily mischaracterized organization of skeptics. The warmists will attack and paint all of us with the beliefs – or past words – of our most outspoken affiliate.
Dear Mr Watts:
If you care about the science, I would say it would not be a good idea to form a pro-anti-CAGW organization. I was going to elaborate why, but I see that rah has already listed the most cogent reasons including his first point that should be definitive (I’m not sure on his third point):
rah says:
April 19, 2014 at 1:38 pm
I voted no for several reasons:
1. Such organizations tend to become a thing unto themselves where the survival of the organization becomes paramount and the original mission is either given lip service or changed completely.
Steve McIntire also makes a pithy point on which I totally agree.
I voted no, because I agree with Oilwatcher (April 19, 2014 at 11:01 am) and climatereason (April 19, 2014 at 2:23 pm) about a journal that would allow more and better science to be produced.
I do not find it very necessary to formalize a body around climate skepticism as such, but perhaps it would be worthwhile to consider the formation of professional organizations, say for example, a National Meteorological Society, or a National Geophysical Union, to provide a voice of equal standing to those in the field, who differ with the so called consensus view.
It connects us one thing: there is no evidence that one molecule more CO2 will melt all of the ice in the drink.
Another no vote here, for the reasons well articulated by others above.
There is absolutely no shortage of data around the blogs that addresses pretty much any issue that people want to research. Not only all the stuff on the sidebar here (thanks, Ant-hony and elves) but at places like MasterResource for energy stuff, Bishop Hill and Donna’s place for IPCC and other policy stuff, Climate Audit for proxies and other things, and so on. It is not the the material is inaccessible, it is that lazy or prejudiced MSM journalists don’t want to read it.
Oh, and Happy Easter, Janice Moore. I am not a Christian, but have no trouble at all with saying that. I’m not Jewish, but just wished another friend all the best for Passover. And I manage to do this politely despite being as “passionate” and “complex” as the next person. 😉
No. Absolutely no. I mean, if you are into knowledge, and not into activism. You need competing ideas and tests to advance the knowledge. You need heresy. You need to look at every corner of the table. And this is the opposite of “position statements”.
But the GWPF is doing a great job. Probably because they don’t seem to be in the consensus business. “The GWPF does not have an official or shared view about the science of global warming”.
The world’s human rights, democracy and rule of law champion (UN) cocoons in my opinion the worst threats to all of them (cAGW).
Perhaps the World Tax-payers Associations will be pondering the same paradox in Vancouver at the end of May. Although I answered ‘yes’, perhaps we should let them take this on.
Ferdinand
For what its worth I do a lot of primary research on the historic climate record back to 1000AD.
It is quite noticeable how earthquakes appear in the record in bunches, in as much they are mentioned for a number of years, then there is no mention at all of them for many more. Similarly with the Aurora Borealis as see from Britain.
I cant comment on whether any of this coincides with sunspot activity, but I did make this observation a year or two back but no one seemed interested enough to comment.
There have been a couple of earthquakes in Britain this past week
tonyb
Absolutely no.
That scepticism is unorganized is it’s very strength. There is no ‘body’ to criticise, and attempts to do so looks ridiculous to everybody still able to see the daylight.
I voted no, primarily for the same reason as many other commets, the sceptics are too heterogenous to form an efficient campaign organisation.
The othe important reason is that the sceptics would never be put on equal footing with an orgnaisation perceived to be instrumental in orchestrating vital change. Our successes erode the support for the AGW machine but also reduce our own significance as the IPCC “lukewarms”. First the technical part, the implications and the mitigation crowd.are more die-hard fans of the changes they advocate so if they comes around to the facts or fight a rearguard action until their money and influence is taken away will be a test of their integrity..
Local organisations like the NIPCC in the US and the GWPF in the UK is another matter, with the right people and pushing the right story they can have an influence individual scientists or bloggers can’t achieve.
johanna correctly says: “There is absolutely no shortage of data around the blogs that addresses pretty much any issue that people want to research.”
The problem is that it is not organized in one “go to” place like skeptical science.
Or one place to find the dirt on any opponent like source watch.
The lazy journalist can simply check two or three sites and get, believable, easily understandable false science.
thanks
In a few years you won’t need one because most likely temperatures will continue to fall. Skepticism is growing by the day the longer the weather continues “normal” the more skeptics will arise. Even die hard warmists will one day be skeptics or even deniers hahah
I would question the word “official.” If something is official then it tends to close down opposing views. The strength of the sceptical movement has been allowing people to express doubts, and alternative explanations, of the climate. Some of these will be mistaken and others will be modified but the important point is that we embrace the idea that scientific views should only be accepted if they are the most convincing explanation of the facts at a particular time.
I can see the use of having a “centre of excellence.” Indeed we have several of these already generally based around the various blogs. But let those spokesmen within the centre be there by merit and the conclusions of the centre be continually modified as demanded by emerging evidence. And let there always be debate.
Joseph King, writing an introduction to “A Memoir of David King” said, “There are dangers, however, that must not go unheeded. All reforms tend to become stereotyped into sectarianism. The “plea” becomes a creed, and dogma becomes legalism. Every plea ought to be held in solution and tested, ever and anon, by the essence of truth; and so all foreign growths be precipitated and, in due time and order, removed.” His remarks were about religion and this is about science but I am convinced that the same spirit should prevail.
I voted “yes” on Anthony’s poll. (And unlike most at Bishophill blog.) But why?
First, a more centralized leadership – like in the UK, I believe – is not incompatible with guerrilla-style dissent.
Second, as in the UK a few years back, the US is facing a change election this year (the opposition Republicans are likely to capture the Senate, and thus be able to kill AGW-dumb funding – but only IF properly organized to do so). In the UK, the Global Warming Policy Foundation was founded in the wake of climategate, less than one year before the government of the UK changed. And maybe, with the next US presidential election, there will be two change elections in a row, if one thinks out to 2016.
In the US federal budget, global warming related research spending is SECOND only to medical research. This is INSANE. Now is the time for this measure – because it is important to think how to reorganize the failed, centralized, government funded parasitic AGW establishment that the US government created in the first place – in 1992, when Al Gore became Vice President, and “climate science” funding exploded 10 times its previous size.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science has a perch in Washington, DC DESIGNED to lobby for more federal monies. This means they’ve recently endorsed retro-alarmism of the 2005 to 2007 variety, not anything realistic after 18 years of a climate temperature “plateau.” In other words, they are lobbying for a “science future” using all the failed rhetoric of many years past.
Third, because of this, it is increasingly important to prep science and administrative leadership to not just supplant and defund the old AGW-alarmist spouting idiots, it is important to think of how to supercede the IPCC/UNs increasing irrelevance to the real environmental problems we do face. We need people ready to head the federal machinery to put it to new, clearer, anti-orthodox, anti-AGW alarmist purposes. For example, what would a Bjorn Lomborg styled-Copenhagen Consensus Centre look like for the US?
It could generate a new list of post-AGW-alarmist agendas, suitable for the entire world – not just the US. In other words, the long hijacked scientific talent and vast charitable funding domains (eg, think of the Bill Gates Foundation’s mega-billions), need leadership to solve real problems – not the pseudo-problem of man-made global warming.
If this New Agenda is not carefully developed and leadership not nurtured, then the same old anti-human and anti-industrial Paul Ehrlich-style (eg, think John Holdren, his co-author – President Obama’s science advisor – think of the AR5 WG3 report!) enviro-Nazisim will continue to waste tens of billions of dollars annually – while other solvable problems go neglected.
Finally, let me remind my Algosphere brethren that time has shown that there is no real AGW-debate. Neither Marcel Croc nor other open-minded people, at least among those open to rethinking AGW-alarmism, have been able to show that there is any substantive one.
The serious choice is indeed binary: are you for AGW-alarmism or for sound science? There is no middle ground.
Therefore, in the US at least, there is a crying need to prepare for the Post-Al Gorical era of sound, skeptical science!
And that’s why I voted “yes” in Anthony’s poll. (ORIGINALLY posted at Bishophill, Andrew Montfort’s blog.)
The GWPF is set up as an authorative, expert body that can gain ready access to the media. Thus it offers science, as well as policy, based input to the debate that helps to counter the official view.
It seems to be, as an outsider, that in the US you don’t have this. Marc Morano often gets reported, and occasionally other sceptics, but none have scientific authority behind them.
There is so much that could be offered up to the media from the sceptical side (just think NIPCC for a start) but we need an organisation to do it.
There is validity in concerns that any sceptical organisation would suffer the consequences of internal splinter-groups and varying opinions. That would be seized upon by alarmists as them being ‘divided’, ‘at odds’ and ‘not in agreement’, thus any central message is discredited.
Rather than being an opinion-based think tank, perhaps any organisation could concentrate on presenting the facts? eg…
* Disastrous performance of IPCC computer models
* Totally unpredicted and unexplained Pause
* Failure to agree climate sensitivity
* Lack of positive feedbacks at the required level to drive warming
* Historical record shows (literally) nothing weather / climate related is outside existing parameters
* Blatant data tampering
* Failure of C02 to credibly explain warming when compared to solar-based evidence
That’s just a few examples, there are plenty more. These could be a central resource that is the starter point for a sceptical fight back. Currently all the above are available, but they’re spread across a wide range of sceptical blogs.
Develop a single fact-based go-to resource that specifically undermines multiple pillars of support for AGW theory. Show their claims are falsifiable – and falsify them, and any credibility the theory still has will evaporate.
Look how Lord Monckton humiliates warmists most damagingly just by setting out observed facts. C3 do a similar job. David Evans has repeatedly made a superb case by surgically dismantling alarmist claims. WUWT’s superb regulars often reduce alarmist rational to rank stupidity with calm, analytical posts. Too many others to mention do likewise.
Facts win the case. Set them out, liberate them onto one resource. There is no need to bang the table when facts are on our side! It really is as simple as that.
A terrific idea Anthony, and fwiw I voted yes.
Anthony. Overall conclusion here seems to be that cats can’t be herd. Nor heard it seems. But, last time I checked, cats are agile and share affinity for game. What better place than the World Taxpayer Associations? Their purpose seems both compatible and inclusive:
“The taxpayers’ movement has grown out of the desire of citizens to protect themselves from ever-expanding, unlimited government. This movement works towards a society with lower taxes and more individual freedom. It wishes to stimulate efficiency and economy in the public sector. It supports legislation to limit tax burdens, prevent unjust harassment by tax collectors, and provide clear information about government taxation and expenditures.”
D. Cohen says@April 19, 2014 at 10:18 am has it right.
United the enemies of the AGW scam would present a single target.
This is one situation where unity does not maximise strength.
My story. I am a retiring Australian farmer. Every day of my working life I have paid attention to the weather, because it profoundly affects what I do and how successful my work is. I have observed over time that the weathermen have beccome more reliable with their short term forecasts, but their longer term forecasts still do not inspire confidence.
My grandfather’s diary shows that 100 years ago he was searching for a cycle in local weather records which might be useful for forecasting. He found none, and I don’t think that in Australia there are any that are useful.
AGW? We have known all my life that CO2 is a “greenhouse gas”, with its increase in effect diminishing as the level in the atmoshere rises.
In 1986 the Hawke government, which I could see while many couldn’t was a subscriber to Marxist doctrine, removed the board of scientists who ran our quite marvellous CSIRO and replaced them with party hacks, with the national president of the Labor Party as chairman. He was the first non scientist to hold that position. Previously the CSIRO had been an absolutely non partisan organisation.
The only possible explanation for this was that they intended to direct our science to suit their political aims, by abusing science to corrupt democracy. So December 1986 was the date I became a sceptic, before I knew where this bogus science would turn up.
The first identifiable example of this corruption was a full front page headline in our newspapers: “Cows Australia’s biggest source of greenhouse gases”. They told us that a CSIRO scientist named Galbally working in Tasmania had discovered this.
Now I never believed that Dr Galbally, a scientist, ever said any such thing. What had happened was that the CSIRO’s now Marxist publicity machine had seized some of Dr Galbally’s Tasmanian research figures and extrapolated them across Australia. It was a monstrous lie.
But, at that time nobody had researched Australia’s other sources of greenhouse gases, nor even how much greenhouse gas would have been released from an acre of Tasmanian land if no livestock had grazed on it. So this lie stood for a very long time, and was taught to our schoolteachers and in our schools. Agriculture is now a long way down the list of emitters, but that lie is remembered by many.
For what purpose this lie? In Australia agriculture was the last sector of the national economy still dominated by small business capitalism. The last of the truly free enterprise economy, where the owners made the business decisions. The purpose of that lie was to convince the wider electorate that the farmers were villains in society, who must be put out of business.
I find it grotesque that people who cannot reliably tell me what the weather will be more than a week out are telling us what it will be in a hundred years.
I know that weather and climate are exactly the same thing, viewed in different time frames. If you want to build a climate database, you must start with 365 consecutive days’ worth of weather data. So why the lie that they are separate things?
I see so many lies being told that even the sound science is tainted.
I see that the most energetic promoters are politicians, not scientists.
I know that while computer models can be useful, a computer model can only tell us what it has been told. I know also that if a person using a computer model is not the person who wrote the model, then that person is quite unable to tell if the result is sound. And if more than one person wrote the model its integrity must always be suspect.
I know that the models are “reverse engineered”.
I know that statistics is a very inexact science, and a study of weather/climate is wholly based on statistics. Only a genius can maintain a competent understanding of it.
I close with the note that superimposing the last 25 years’ temperature data graph and the CO2 level graph shows that whatever effect increasing CO2 has is lost in the noise. There are other far greater factors affecting climate change which are still not well understood.
I spot an omission in my comment. In the 5th paragraph should be: ..i don’t think that in OUR PART OF Australia there are any…
As a non-credentialed observer, my perspective suggests (perhaps wrongly) that the CAGW house of cards is teetering just short of full blown collapse. Now is not the time to add what will be easily painted as a “skeptical-contrarian” “official” voice which will inevitably provide complicit media a ripe target for diversionary, obfuscatory political attack.
What is currently emanating from “skeptical”, traditional science is getting the job DONE.
Dance with the dame what brung you.
It would benefit from 2 separate organisations, one purely devoted to the scientific sceptical position and critique of CAGW science. The other being an economic/technology based organisation devoted to identifying the optimal approach to dealing with the solutions offered to the supposed CAGW.
I’m unsure. I think “skepticism” in this or any other sense is mostly a personal journey.
I have been organizing my thoughts and typing out notes related to ideas I have on climate science organizing, but I need another day or two to fill in details, flesh out the ideas and finish reading the many comments as well as visit family. I voted yes because I don’t think it would hurt, it would be an additional thing. But what I am proposing can complement the new organization or stand on its own with an option of integrating with WUWT. I hope that you dear WUWT regulars will think of what I hope to post in a day or two as an eloquent solution or idea.
Since I think about climate science, or rather the perversion of the science, pretty much from the moment I get up in the morning to the time I go to bed at night, I might as well spend my time and energy working to solve the problem because I can’t get away from it any way. The sooner this battle is won the sooner I can get on with real world problems to solve and other interests.
A couple or so years ago I decided to put aside my climate science research, perhaps for good. I spent several hours working on what I had been working on before my climate science research began, and then I decided to take a break. And I kid you not, I sat down with my family to watch the news, and I don’t think even a full minute went by before climate change nonsense was flung my way via the CBC news, thus ending any thought of giving it a rest. I think I doubled down instead.
What I will be posting in a day or so will be only a few of the ideas I have been formulating over these past few years related to my specialty of computer science and software development.
ggm
P.S. I have a feeling, developed by my current observations, that the most recent IPCC report was so over the top alarmist that it has undermined its intent. I notice a remarked absence of the term climate change in the most recent media reporting, news papers and TV within the regional area where I live. It still seems to be in full blown alarmist mode in the UK and Australia though. I feel sorry for the people that live in those regions. My region is south western Canada. I think the fact of a 17 plus years global warming pause message is reaching more people. This extended cold winter in Canada must have also had an effect. CTV hilariously continuously hyping a report that the polar vortex is caused by climate change caused by global warming is most likely not being believed by their regular viewers. Low participation of earth hour power reduction is also probably a factor.
As just a layperson interested in the science, I think one of the most beneficial moves would be for someone like you or a group of you to put together a slide show or something similar, even just a bookloot that explains the skeptic side and the facts to back up this position. Al Gore is able to get his message out this way, but we don’t seem to have anywhere for a person like me to get a consolidated message without going to different blogs, websites, etc.
I’ll vote no, it is not time for a central organization. It can be controlled and/or discredited. But a number of hubs for interaction? That sounds good. Reminds me of this site, NIPCC, …
(Response #1)
But safeguards could be installed. For instance, any policy pronouncements or PR efforts by Climate Contrarian Central (CCC), as I hereby dub it, could require the approval of ¾ of an unpaid or minimally paid board of overseers. The board could consist of the blog owners of the current 24 or 36 top-rated contrarian blogs. Plus 12 (say) leading skeptical scientists (who’d nominate their successors in the event of their death or disablement). Plus 12 (say) leading skeptical authors or journalists (e.g., Laurence Solomon).
Such a board could hardly get polluted by warmist infiltration in the foreseeable future. It would not get corrupted by go-along / get-along careerism, etc., either. (There’s no career path for people on our side who take the “right” contrarian positions—nor is there ever likely to be so.)
And a board like that would be unlikely to diverge dangerously from the contrarian consensus, such as it is. So it would not open all contrarians to attacks by warmists on unrepresentative some position it might take.
On the contrary, I can see an upside. Such a board would have scotched Heartland’s unfortunate Unibomber billboard. Fair or not, that misstep WAS used to tar all contrarians. So merely not having an official CCC will not spare us from guilt-by-association attacks.
I voted “NO”. An official organization can be spied on, infiltrated, and taken over by a “Manchurian Candidate”, who would go out of their way to discredit climate skepticism. Skeptics are independant by nature… otherwise they wouldn’t be skeptics. They come from many different political/religious/social backgrounds, and have different takes on what’s wrong with the CAGW worldview. I believe that we should continue attacking on multiple fronts, which gives the warmists a hard time. And an organization would divert us from productive work on our cause, to internal politics. Do not want.
(Response #2)
Our decentralization is also a weakness. We’re already having a tail pinned on us because of our diversity. Consider this statement by the Village Lewnatic, which he couldn’t get away with if a Contrarian Climate Central were in existence and had made a formal statement on those matters, such as I suggest below:
These claims were presumably made in contexts that render them non-contradictory. (Note that Loo failed to observe Willis’s rule about quoting what you’re rebutting, because doing so would have exposed those contexts and undermined his claim.) The fleshed-out, in-context versions included conditions or qualifiers and were, I presume, something like this:
(a) temperatures cannot be measured reliably, except by satellite. To date, they have not been measured very well or very consistently, and the adjustments needed to compensate for these uncertainties have probably made things worse, not better.
(b) there is definitely no warming over the past dozen years, and less warming than predicted over the past 17 years.
(c) the warming up to 1950 isn’t caused by humans, and much of the warming since then is likely due to oscillations in the PDO.
(d) we are doing ourselves a favor by warming the planet, by a degree or two, IF we are doing so, and the proposed positive feedbacks that would warm the climate more than this are implausible.
I voted yes, I’m also skeptical of gun control and am glad there is an NRA to fight gun control. If there was no NRA we would have effectively lost the 2nd Amendment long ago. There are many other good things that have been lost and a big reason they were lost is because there was no effective organized opposition.
Our right to honest weather and climate reporting shall not be infringed!
The truth is winning… so NO. Too much downside in creating a target to take shots at.
Another truth is… by AGW numbers… the great sacrifices demanded would have little to no effect. I could support an organization that did nothing more than promote that truth.
I see that the relative number of ‘no’ comments versus the number of ‘yes’ comments is opposite to relative number of ‘no’ votes versus the number of ‘yes’ votes.
That may have some interesting implications.
John
“…his science was so week…”
I should have stopped reading right there. But I didn’t, and now I’m more stupid than I was when I first stumbled upon this worthless article.
An official skeptical organization is impossible, because skeptics are so diverse. And it risks being taken over by the fringe elements such as Principia. The last thing skeptics need is an official mouthpiece spouting crackpot theories about there being no greenhouse effect.
The battle is being waged in the media, while side skirmishes occur on the Internet on sites like this and Skeptical Science. If you contrast the approaches of the two extremes, SkS has a core group of apostles who meet behind the curtain and direct their activities. They recognized that they needed an information product that they could push to the media, so they conducted their (highly problematic) “Consensus Project” which they then promoted with slick marketing, PR, and it’s own website. Because MSM have been so dessimated by the Internet, news outlets pick up stories from the PRWire and play them almost endlessly. This site publishes good information, but it never goes farther than here. It is written for a skeptical audience and works well here. If good content can be developed that sounds unbiased and scholarly and it is put on PRWire, media outlets will pick it up. The message must be reasonable and centrist so as not to offend those who innocently believe in warmist theories, such as those millions of children who have been fed CAGW theory in k-12 education. The data is there. It needs to be packaged and presented well. (For example, information on “non-warming” and how long it has occurred, corroboration of “non-warming” from IPCC, etc.) University PR departments are packaging CAGW studies and putting them out. SkS and the Big Green groups all have PR operations. Al Gore is all about PR. Articles need to be written and published, and then PR needs to disseminate and link back. I don’t think an anti-CAGW organization is needed. That would be like building a great big battleship for the enemy to aim at. An ongoing PR campaign is what is needed. A humorous, hip, anti-warming site that is sarcastic and snarky might appeal to younger, up and coming skeptics. The comments on this site are where the fun happens.
No, it buys into and lends credence to the idea of consensus. Science is independent inquiry. You already pointed out there are no targets to attack. It’s a huge advantage. The main disadvantage is getting ideas air time. However, even with an official organization, there would not necessarily be any more air time than we already get. Was Galileo part of an official skeptic organization? Did he have a profound impact?
Oh! Way to go Eyal. I just saw that. Right on brother.
Maggie says:
…now I’m more stupid than I was when I first stumbled upon this worthless article.
Impossible.
Anyway, Hansen’s ‘science’ has been repeatedly debunked. All of his predictions have failed.
You can believe in someone who cannot get anything right. That’s your choice. But the rest of us prefer to listen to people who can make at least a few correct predictions.
@dbstealey – “Impossible.”
2014/04/20 at 8:08 am
Short and succinct.
I had to ponder the three choices in the poll for quite a bit. It was a difficult vote/decision for me. I voted UNSURE. A NO vote is where my heart and mind is and probably the way I should have chosen. I think I exercised a poor use of the precautionary principle on this one.
While it may be a good concept to create a depository of research and articles with an index linking to the source, the idea of a “controlling authority” is IMHO a poor one.
There are an “army of ones” that have been and are now working independently at breaking the CAGW scam down. They have not and do not need a central authority. McIntyre, Watts, Lindzen, Montford, etc., etc., etc. do not need a unified statement. They make their own and the guests and commenters do the same.
I should have cast my vote as ABSOLUTELY NO.
No – Science needs to get as far away from politics as possible. Officially organized groups on this subject will have to become political. Just keep calling them out on the basic – bad science. The reason it works today is because the diversity of skeptics and insanity of the CAGW people to call anyone who disagrees even a fraction a skeptic. At the rate they are going, there will not be many left their core pool for the future. They are self destructing and can’t even see it. Let them keep going.
I voted unsure. However I have it on no information whatsoever that John Kerry voted no before he voted yes.
Another thought: whatever we do, if we organize, we MUST hammer relentlessly on what is the REAL object of global warming alarmism. It ultimately has NOTHING to do with climate – that ids only the manipulative pitch to the uninformed, to get them to go along with the alarmists’ program.
It also has NOTH*ING to do with the environment. Wind and large-scale solar power are highly destructive of the environment – killing birds, destroying ground habitats cver vast areas,, emitting a whole new array of especially nasty pollutants – and actually resulting in more carbon dioxide emissions and plain dirty pollution, because more fossil fuel must be burned than if there were no wind or solar – to fuel spinning reserve (generation that isn’t putting power4 into the grid) that MUST be running to prevent collapse of the grid when the wind stops blowing or the sun goes behind clouds, and which run dirtier than baseload generation. In short, so-called “renewable” power is far dirtier than fossil fuel power.
The alarmist agenda is simply, straightforwardly to deprive people of their liberty and the fruits of their labor. All “green” programs function as upward redistributions of wealth, from poorer to richer. Poor farmers in Uganda are driven off their land so billionaires can plant trees and earn carbon credits. Low- and middle-income consumers pay higher prices for gasoline so that billionaires can make money trading carbon credits. Low- and middle-income people who can’t afford solar panels on their homes pay higher taxes and higher electric rates so that more affluent people can have solar panels on their houses. Ditto for electric cars – lower- and middle-income people pay extra taxes so that rich people can buy (worthless) $100,000 electric cars that actually cost up to $300,000 to produce, the balance paid from tax monies.
These are the themes global warming skeptics should be emphasizing in our communications.
I voted yes but I agree with many that an organization might have negative consequences. On the one hand, it would be useful and beneficial to have an organization that can counter the IPCC and the organizations that advocate for the fear of global warming and climate change. One of the reasons such a giant fraud has succeeded is the propaganda of the organizations behind it. Such an organization would be able to publish objective data that has not been “adjusted” to look more alarmist.
However, it’s also true that an authoritative body could not possibly speak for the diversity of opinions that span skepticism, and would possibly marginalize some of those views in the same way that the IPCC marginalizes some scientific views today. Additionally, science does not move by consensus, and trying to form a body that represents a skeptic consensus might be counter-productive.
As I said before, I voted “unsure” and haven’t changed my mind.
But there is something on the plus to consider. Someone mentioned the NRA (not the Irish one). The NRA is a single issue group. Come election time they rate US politicians solely on their voting record concerning 2nd Amendment issues. Sometimes a “liberal” gets a higher rating than a “conservative” because of this. A single issue voting guide on CAGW would be helpful.
Hey, Johanna (smile),
Thank you, so much.
We may not agree about the significance of Easter or Passover, but,
we agree on a LOT — a lot that matters very much to the people
of the world. Life (with affordable energy, etc…) and death (from freezing)
importance.
And I hear you, girl — #(;)). I remember… .
Have a good week and enjoy your birds!
Janice
Any such organisation such as Anthony proposes would be ethical. The other side are not. They will win because they do not play by the rules.
They ARE winning because they do not play by the rules.
minus one “such”
Harold says:
April 20, 2014 at 7:50 am
“And it risks being taken over by the fringe elements such as Principia.”
You know what is funny Harold. This is exactly the phrasing used to marginalize the skeptic community by the alarmists when all this crap started. Please bear in mind that I have been watching this thing evolve at least 2 decades longer than anyone here. My father was first attacked in the early 80’s. They have been trying to marginalize him ever since, but none of the smears have stuck, mainly because they were untrue. And there was good science behind my father views.
I am troubled that even the moderators here use terms like “Slayers junk”. The earmarks of a dogmatic echo chamber are growing apparent, even at a wonderful place like WUWT?.
Now I fully admit some of the actions of the some of the slayers have been deplorable, but that is very different from them being wrong. Keep some objectivity, as that is what the alarmist side lacks.
One wonders what sort of ‘political vacuum’ you reside in, Mr. McIntyre. Perhaps some day you can expound on that, staring first with a cataloging of the ‘socialist’ communes and societies and where they are now (starting first perhaps with the account and journal kept by William Bradford circa 1620). In the mean time, thank you for your tireless statistical work on climate-related issues.
.
I just had a thought. This morning, I finished rereading a book by Ann Coulter
and it dawned on me that our side needs a spokesperson. I am a big fan of
Coulter’s style (Sharp wit and sharper tongue.) We need someone with a more
than passing knowledge of the science and someone with the wit and humor
to deliver the message with an appropriate degree of sarcasm.
If the people on the other side insist on demonizing their opponents, the least our
side can do is to issue some Churchillesque zingers as a part of our message.
Who would you get to be our spokesperson?
At the several meetings we’ve had both Tom Fuller and I have suggested one thing.
That Anthony would benefit from making clear what he believes.
The same would go for steve mcIntyre I suppose.
Until such time folks like lewandowsky will effectively group you with the many nut jobs that run rampant on the web.
Positions on the following would help
1. Is the rise in C02 since 1850 due to man? Stop entertaining and promoting the nonsense that say no to this question.
2. Does C02 cause warming or cooling. State this clearly in your “about” statements on your blog
3.what range of warming are we talking about? (1-6C per doubling) and are you sure of your position
The luke warmer way of doing this.
1, The C02 rise is due to man.
2. C02 causes warming not cooling.
3. Our best science indicates a warming of between 1C and 6C per doubling
4. If offered a bet that doubling will cause 3C of warming, we will take the Under bet
5. If offered a bet that doubling will cause 1C of warming, we will take the over bet.
Everything else? its open to debate and that debate should be good.
Its pretty simple. When I grew tired of being lumped with skeptics and nut jobs I just made in clear
what I beleived on 1-3. I did this repeatedly in comments I would make on blogs.
the lewandowsky of the world will pigeon hole you as they see fit. You dont need an organization to stop this. Just persistent repeated statements of what you do believe. what you doubt and what you have no clue about.
There exists a possible remedy within the system although I think it would be very difficult: The False Claims Act, http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/31/3729.html, and the associated Whistleblower Protection Act. These laws provide a mechanism for private individuals or other entities to file suit for damages when the Federal or State governments have been defrauded by a variety of contractors. It was designed to assure that government funds are not paid to contractors or other performers who claim payment (quoting from the act at http://www.justice.gov/civil/docs_forms/C-FRAUDS_FCA_Primer.pdf
and A) knowingly presents, or causes to be presented, a false or fraudulent claim for payment or approval; or
B) knowingly makes, uses, or causes to be made or used, a false record or statement material to a false or fraudulent [claim];
Google it yourself and you can find out about it. Any knowledgeable attorneys could also weight in. There are specified procedures for discovery, deposition and conduct of the case. The DOJ may choose to take over the prosecution of the case if the evidence warrants (unlikely in the current administration) but in any event the claimant can continue the case alone. It would require identifying a recipient of government funds associated with likely GW fraud in which the funds were large enough to warrant action (unless an argument could be made against a class of contractors). It is possible some set of the bankrupt government loanee firms could be identified. It does take a fair amount of effort to develop the information demonstrating the likelihood of fraud. It also usually takes a fair amount of legal representation, which in the past has been done by law firms working on a cut of the potentially large damages (trebled according to the act). There is also a restriction against the news media initiating such claims.
On positive outcome if the suit got far enough is the discovery process which in the past has involved provision of all supporting data by the defendant, sufficient to enable third parties to reproduce the supposedly fraudulent analyses (or not, as the case turned out.)
Steven Mosher says:
April 20, 2014 at 11:51 am
A rise of 6 degrees C from a doubling of CO2 (~280 ppm in AD 1850 to ~560 possibly sometime before 2150) is ludicrous. The only way that could happen would be for a net positive feedback effect of water vapor to exist (it’s not in evidence), be much stronger than physically possible & not cancelled out by negative feedbacks known to operate.
Mosh….you left out the most important part
Everything is based on a temp history that has been so fiddled with and jack around….no one knows anything anymore
Latitude says:
April 20, 2014 at 1:52 pm
There are also human activities with a climatic cooling effect, so the net sign of anthropogenic “climate change” cannot be known, but it’s liable to be negligible. So far, more CO2 has been beneficial.
My answer is “no.”
Official organizations already exist, and while they may be temporarily corrupted by hysteria and advocacy, time has a way of smoothing out these little wrinkles in science. Furthermore, nobody would pay any attention to such an organization except the choir that it preaches to.
No, because it would still be a means to talk past physics and physical chemistry to some emotionally held personal beliefs. Beliefs such as: an intensive measurement like temperature can be averaged in some objective way; that a photon absorbed by a gas molecule will do no work on the molecule which absorbs it and thus have no increase in entropy and be emitted at the same wavelength that it was absorbed; that the atmosphere is heated somehow by emission from carbon dioxide and water vapor and not by work done from absorbed heat energy and transfer of momentum with other molecules: the belief that incoming solar long wave radiation is not absorbed by CO2 and H2O; that air temperature without knowledge of the local heat capacity of the earth and the entropy change are irrelevant; that only sea surface and land air temperatures are significant and not the local soil temperatures and energy content; that the solar radiation can be averaged over the Earth’s surface; that black body theory is applicable to a low density fluid such as the atmosphere; that high entropy radiation can cause a decrease in entropy in a lower entropy situation; that an abstraction (climate) about weather can be reified to a causative concrete which causes weather changes over periods of time; and many other things which are held by those who disagree with the most verbal of the climate soothsayers.
@Orson Olson –
Yes, the spending on AGW propaganda is INSANE. Just think how many millions of people in poor countries could have been provided with clean water and electricity with the money and other resources wasted on chasing a bogeyman? Makes one sick to think about it – and it shows how heartless and callous and just plain evil the AGW crowd really is.
No, I can’t see an ‘organisation’ working out well in the long run. Herding Cats as many have pointed out.
As Latimer Alder said earlier… “Such individualists [sceptics for want of a better label] do not, in general, take easily to formal structures and institutions”. Which means, of course, that those who do love the cut and thrust of political structures will quickly rise in the new central committee.
Doing this because Loo papers are getting some exposure is an even bigger mistake. The guy and his life’s works are pretty much unknown outside his clique and those he has offended. May the silly little man long remain a legend in his own lunchtime.
A formal organisation gives the bed wetters a clear target. Personalities at which to aim their venom. How about we just keep them guessing?
On the one hand I can see that a single source would be advantageous in knocking down the extremists on a particular day but, in the long run, we have been very successful as we are. It is fine watching some extremist tell the world that we are few and shouldn’t get any air time.
If we are ‘the few’ and we have no impact then why do we get Loo Papers and constant debate as to who should be allowed to speak? Plainly, the extremists are losing the debate. They are losing because they are wrong not because we are better funded or better organised
I voted no since I agree with Mark W. and others that there is no official position of the skeptics or dissenters of which I am one. True scientists always are ready to question their own positions. The only thing that we all probably agree on is that the Theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming is pseudoscience. Phil Fishman – author of A Really Inconvenient Truth – The Case Against the Theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming.
Why? Just my 4 cents.
lsvalgaard, is not WUWT organized promotion of scepticism? If Warmists are wrong about global surface temperature projections for the rest of this century then organized promotion of AGW scepticism has to be good. If we followed your advise decades ago we would be driving solar powered trucks and living in caves.
“Our best science indicates” that they don’t know or have a best guess. 1C and 6C per doubling is no use for any policy maker. Have you had a good think about that statement of yours? If I were a policy maker I would see this as akin to telling me that tomorrow will either be a heatwave or bloody freezing. Utter, useless garbage. If they don’t know then they should shut up and tell us that things will be bad anyway. GIGO.
Jimbo
““Our best science indicates” that they don’t know or have a best guess.
1. That has been true for many scientifically difficult questions. Look at the history of measuring the speed of light.
2. The science actually DOES indicate a median value. They refused to state it.
3. You are defining what can be known by refering to the shortcomings of others. you do not seek knowledge, you seek to score points.
“1C and 6C per doubling is no use for any policy maker. ”
1. you dont know that.
2. Its immaterial to the truth of the statement. Take the example of earthquakes. We have little clue
when they will hit or how big they are. A broad estimate can be useful.
3. You dont get to decide what policy makers find useful. For example, If I were a policy maker a
range of 1 to 6 would be very useful. How? simple. As a policy maker I have to make decisions
under uncertainty. Yup. I get to decide as a policy maker. I can decide to plan for 3C. I dont
need science to tell me this is the truth. I get to decide along with other policy makers. Note
we make decisions ALL THE TIME based on shakier knowledge. This war planning
“Have you had a good think about that statement of yours? If I were a policy maker I would see this as akin to telling me that tomorrow will either be a heatwave or bloody freezing. Utter, useless garbage. If they don’t know then they should shut up and tell us that things will be bad anyway. GIGO.”
Yes I have had a good think about it. In fact, policy makers rather like the formulation. The difference between 1C and 6C is not the difference between freezing and boiling. Most policy folks will hear 1-6 and focus on the upper end. Guess what? they absolutely get to do that and they dont need any justification.
Others focus on the lower end and they too get to that. Guess what? Jimbo… they dont listen to you.
They dont read your work or ask you questions. Why? because you are a know nothing. Sorry
While the frayed rope is still open, I thought I’d give a Tesla update; almost two hours old now.
I had previously reported that the model S uses a single electric motor, plus a rotary three phase AC inverter.
Just discovered that is NOT the case. The three phase AC inversion is in fact all solid state; it is just packaged in a cylindrical can that is the same size and shape as the single three phase AC motor. Variable frequency of course, with up to 20,000 electric RPMs, and a 9.xx:1 step down via spur gear and mechanical differential.
So 85 KWh is the top model and they claim a 260 mile EPA range.
Also claim they have 85 fast charging stations (30 min) in the USA.
I told the guy, I have 85 fast charging gas stations right here in Sunnyvale.
So it looks like they are moving along, of course on taxpayer greased skids.
I told the guy, that since they had SS AC inverters, I would not buy their car, until they get rid of the mechanical differential, and put in two electric motors, and two AC inverters, so they could have automatic wheel torque balancing, including anti-skid. And if they get rid of the differential housing, they get plenty of space to put the rear brakes inboard, and get them off the rear wheels for better ride.
Now the battery coolant system, I had seen before as a simple liquid cooled radiator dump, system, that seemed to have a vulnerable radiator location; is more complex. I think it may be integrated with the air conditioning system, so it is a real refrigerator system, not a passive radiator. Well why ?? are the batteries that inefficient, that they generate a lot of heat ?
Well NO, and YES.
The gas station rapid charger, clearly charges the battery, at a very high charging current rate; in fact it is likely limited by the permissible Temperature rise; so that fancy refrigerator, really works full bore during rapid charge, when presumably the car is not moving. And underway, the battery heat is modest under power or under regenerative braking, so it can be used for air conditioning.
Actually, it is seeming an even better design, the more I learn about it.
I hope they fired that guy who told me earlier that it has a rotary inverter. Made no sense whatever then, and even less now.
So I should save all my pennies, for when they 86 the differential, and go to two motors and alternators.
An all wheel drive version is coming. Even more reason to dump the differential, and go to four wheel inboard disk brakes as well (in AWD models.
Hey they are doing regenerative braking anyway, so they only need mechanical brakes for dead stop and panic stop situations, so they can use more compact brakes, and put them inboard to further reduce the unsprung weight.
There is a general opinion blog in Prince George British Columbia called Opinion 250. I referenced a link to WUWT and a commenter called Gus considered WUWT funny. This coming Friday is called Friday Free For All, anyone want to join me to answer Gus.
Jimbo says:
April 20, 2014 at 3:42 pm
lsvalgaard, is not WUWT organized promotion of scepticism?
WUWT is a disorganized [as it should be], loose meeting place. Many of the comments here should itself be met with utmost skepticism [planets causing sunspots, lunar nutation causing oceans to slosh causing climate change, solar magnetic fields causing flows in the Earth’s core, mysterious solar cycle interruptions, claims of prediction thousands of years ahead, etc, etc] dwarfing even the wildest AGW claims. So, WUWT is a good training ground for honing your skepticism.
I’m opposed to to an organization for a simple reason.
If you read this site, you were once a young child. You may now have children, but, regardless, the first question out of your mouth as a child was probably ‘WHY?’ It’s natural, it’s innate, it’s hard-wired into our being. The CAGW crowd has missed that basic fact and it it condemns them to eventual failure. They are trying to ban the questions from being asked, the germination of the natural inquisitiveness, the search for knowledge.
We may all have different reasons for being opposed to the CAGW crowd. I don’t need to belong to a group to ask ‘WHY?’. We are in the skeptics camp because of our questioning, not because of the flavor of skepticism that we’ve come to accept. Instead we’ve adopted an on-going search for knowledge, either because we are truly undecided or do not believe the CAGW crowd.
I was asked by a student who was graduating a basic question for the future. “How do you know who to believe?” I told him to:
1. Don’t ever believe anything you hear, including from me. Instead look and study for yourself.
2. Follow the money. Money doesn’t follow the truth, it follows the power. That will give you an idea of where the vested interests are, then you can decide for yourself if those in power are trustworthy or corrupt.
Well aren’t we all getting testy.
No way I have time to read most of the comments. But I checked out a few, and this one caught my eye:
Terry Oldberg says:
April 19, 2014 at 10:53 am
The need is for a grass roots political organization that lobbies for creation of a logical and scientific basis for policy making on CO2 emissions replacing the illogical and pseudo-scientific basis that now exists..
I agree, and I think that there is one thing that nearly all skeptics agree on, and that is that the policy making process is completely screwed up.
I voted yes, because I think the organization could work if it focused on this issue. The policy statement would be heavy on promotion of things like the depoliticization of government organizations such as NOAA and NASA. Press releases and educational guidance would also focus on such things. Discussion of science in the latter two would be entirely appropriate, but would mostly be about pointing out flaws in the science produced by the politicized processes, rather than promoting any particular brand of climate skepticism.
To the extent WUWT continues to inspire an extremely argumentative joy de vive it is the perfect organization of intellects. I hereby name it Universitas Scepticus Antonius.
Argue on . . .
John
Personally, I don’t think it’s such a good idea to play into their tactics.
RULE 12: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions. (This is cruel, but very effective. Direct, personalized criticism and ridicule works.)
Rules for Radicals → Saul D. Alinsky
Isn’t the NIPCC of Fred Singer organized in 2003 for this purpose?
Why make it easy for the warmists by giving them one target to attack and discredit?
Climate skeptics are not a monolithic block. While most appear to be on the conservative side politically, not all are, and many would be alienated by an organization with mostly conservative leadership.
A clearinghouse of information would be somewhat beneficial, I think. It would allow skeptics to cite current and accurate information on the subject. This would aid in countering the claims of the warmists, but might in the end have little impact. It has been my experience that, when faced with irrefutable data, warmists will simply call you a liar and storm off. It was never the data that was important to them and they don’t want to be confused. AGW has become a religion, and the only way to purge it is to supplant it with another religion.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
Mahatma Gandhi
CAGW is at the beginning of the end stage of its absurd existence. After ignoring and laughing at skeptics for decades, the empirical evidence against the CAGW hypothesis has become so overwhelming, the warmunists are now desperately fighting skeptics to keep their silly scam going for a few more years.
The warmunists will get a 2-year break during the next El Nino cycle starting later this year, but once it’s followed by a La Nina event, the flat/falling global temp trend will be into its 22nd year, at which point, any further assertion that CAGW is a viable hypothesis will be untenable.
According to a recent Gallop poll, only 31% (down from 43% in 2007) of Americans think CAGW is serious threat and within 4 years, this number could easily fall to below 25%. At such a low and falling level of support, politicians will eventually view CAGW as a political liability and will be forced to abandon it and find another crisis to propagandize.
My opinion is that leftist will devote all their time and energy to ye ol’ tried and true tactic of class warfare propaganda. Perhaps on purpose, governments’ CAGW policies have destroyed the Western industrial sector, which has created a growing number of poor, which they can easily exploit.
Since this is an open thread I just wanted to record the FIA’s judgement on Red Bull Racing’s Ricciardo’s disqualification at the Australian Grand Prix. You may remember that their fuel monitoring system failed so they had to show by other means that they had used no more than the allowed amount of fuel. The FIA’s judgement was:
“It added that Red Bull’s attempt to prove they did not exceed 100kg/hour was insufficient and relied ‘on a software model’.”
Perhaps we should have the FIA pronounce judgement on the IPCC?
(details at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/motorsport/formulaone/10775982/Red-Bull-did-not-deliberately-cheat-during-Australian-Grand-Prix-says-FIA.html)
My answer is no. There is a huge spectrum of opinions amongst the ‘sceptics’. They are mostly independant thinkers who have come to a personal opinion based on ‘hand weighing’ pieces of evidence, arguments and intuitions. I would probably not feel represented by a one size fits all movement of ‘luke warmers’. My personal view is relatively extreme it seems.
I seriously doubt the existence of gradual ‘warming’ since the industrial revolution. The only reliable measurements we have are from satellites since 1979. From these measurements we see current temperatures being higher than the ones measured in 1979 but there is no clear trend. There seem to be step changes in 1998 or thereabouts. Could be some error, year 2000 correction perhaps? Furthermore the variability on a month by month basis is enormous. Altogether, also given the short time span, inconclusive in my opinion. The measurements on land (and on sea) are notoriously unreliable, biased by urbanisation effects, hopelessly incomplete and seemingly tampered with by NOA, CRU and similar organisations.
The only phenomenon I am inclined to accept is the steady rise of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, probably due to human emissions. Whether this rise has a descernable upward effect on temperature I seriously doubt. Arrhenius retracted his findings in this respect and concluded he had not measured CO2 effects but the effect of water vapour. Furthermore I would argue the super tiny theoretical temperature effect of CO2 would be dwarfed by convection, water vapour condensation, etc. very much like the mechanisms as proposed by Eschenbach. The theory of run away heating through positive feedback of this tiny theoretical CO2 effect on water vapour etc. I consider a laughable highly improbable long shot.
There is nothing measureably out of the ordinary going on at all in my opinion. We have no reliable long term data. We simply don’t know.
Just because your enemy uses tanks and poison gas doesn’t mean you should.
The only way the vast majority of that sections of the public that is still able to think independently is going to come to a sceptical viewpoint is by explaining the issues.
There are plenty of places where the issues are explained.
Creating a propaganda unit like an Anti-Greenpeace of whatever to directly lobby government lays you open to the charge of being more interested in winning arguments and bending policy, than the truth, and funded by [whoever is funding you].
The strength of the ‘sceptic’ movement’ is that it is dispersed, it has no centre, its has nothing that CAN be attacked beyond smearing its diverse members with the ‘denier’ term and claiming they are all paid for by Big Oil..
Sceptics dont want to affect government policy to make money. Sceptics want to stop people making money out of government policy.
Steven Mosher says:
April 20, 2014 at 11:51 am
“Anthony would benefit from making clear what he believes”
—————————————————————————-
Anthony keeps an open mind.
In that he has demonstrated one very important thing.
He is smarter than you are Steven 😉
I regard Climatechangeology as a religion like Scientology or a secular religion like Communism or Environmentalism. People who believe in such things cannot have their minds changed by valid reasoning so any organization to combat such beliefs would be a waste of time and effort. An intervention may be needed but Mother Nature is the only one who can provide it.
Come on, Mosh and Anthony are both very smart.
Besides, some of the worst of the alarmists could eat me for breakfast. Sometimes high intelligence is an actual drawback. The really high IQ crowd just loves the counterintuitive, and that all too often leads them badly astray. Q.E.D. They often eschew the practical. (Carter vs. Reagan springs forcibly to mind.)
Every now and then you get a startling exception to the rule and you get all kinds of practical brilliance. (Feynman and Herman Kahn being excellent examples.)
Regular good intelligence combined with a grounding in common sense make excellent bedfellows. Especially in combination with scientific discipline.
Steven Mosher says:
April 20, 2014 at 4:28 pm
You don’t actually believe that, you’re just posting fantastic nonsense to score points in some bizarre game you play here.
Pithy! I wonder if the person who wrote this actually reads what he writes before he hits “Post Comment”. He might try it once in a while.
I voted “yes” because what scepticism lacks is branding. Alarmists don’t argue with facts, they argue with glossy sound bites.
The sceptic message is thick on facts, thin on re-tweetables.
Well, I have another idea of what to call this venue of Anthony’s.
The Academe of Individual Skeptical Reasoning AISR
Actually, it already does exist so it is formal/official no matter what it is named.
John
The conflict between climate activism and climate skepticism is unresolvable.
On one side are the politicians – those who use Rhetoric (in the classic Greek sense) and emotion to persuade people lacking in critical thinking skills in an effort to accept their premise and their promise of a solution (if you just hand over control to *us*) and thus increase their own self-esteem, personal assets and control over others.
On the other side are the honest scientists – those who use the scientific method and Logic (also in the classic Greek sense) to test assertions against reproducible empirical evidence and, using critical thinking, to determine the truth or falsity of propositions regarding the observable universe in ways that will lead to improved understanding of the universe through demonstrable hypotheses and theories.
The hope for the Future lies in the accumulation of good data and the erosion of bad hypotheses by their own failures to describe the universe.
tadchem says:
April 21, 2014 at 11:27 am
– – – – – – – –
A well constructed statement.
Thanks you.
John
Oops, edit to my comment above (John Whitman says:
April 21, 2014 at 11:45 am)
It should read,
“
ThanksThank you.”Sorry.
John
Half the population or more employs magical thinking on a daily basis. It is no stretch at all to believe that tiny, tiny amounts of a gas essential for life on earth can cause extreme weather and planetary overheating. These people also believe a single butterfly beating it’s wings in, say, South America, can cause a hurricane on the US east coast.
Yes, it is long past time when at least one foundation would put out the truth. The world is flooded
with foundations and NGO’s spewing out propaganda. Someone needs to endow at least one chair at a university and get the anti warming message out there. The Carnegie foundation and the Rockerfellers and Bill Gates have pushed some dangerous agendas such as fluoridation and population reduction and eugenics to name a few. It’s time for someone with money to fight back.
Anthony
I endorse your proposal for such an association.
Reasons:
1) To provide a collective voice to “climate realists”.
2) To improve climate science by holding it to the scientific method.
E.g. to provide the public service of a “red team” to challenge, verify and validate existing climate models, and to develop climate models with better skill.
3) To add public voice to other policy options.
E.g. to compare adaptation with mitigation.
“Skeptics” is often used in contrast to “alarmists”.
However, ALL scientists by definition should be skeptical of models and require that they be independently verified and validated. Thus prefer “Realists”.
Possible names:
Association for Studying Climate ASC
Association for Climate Realists ACR
(Benefit – begin with A)
Federation of Climate Realists
Compare some existing climate associations
Almost daily reader but non-contributor to WUWT as I come here to learn from those more educated and articulate than myself. I voted ‘yes’ but what I’d really love to see is a place where all the relevant facts are on display and easy to find. Things such as sea levels, temperature, hurricane/tornado numbers, Antarctic ice levels, the long term temperature history of the planet etc. are all findable, but I’d love somewhere to go where I can click on a button saying ‘Hurricane stats’ and find the updated numbers.
Why? Because I get into discussions with friends who are CAGW believers and often end up saying something like ‘I know there is a graph of it somewhere.. let me find it for you.’ I’d love to say ‘Go to this website and all the data will be there.’ When your eleven-year-old nephew tells you that Antarctica is melting and he says it with sadness and conviction because his father works at a university well known for its CAGWism and his school teachers tell him so, it’s hard to refute without trawling for the latest stats and thinking ‘I know it was on this website somewhere, but in which thread?’. I’d love to say ‘Go to justhefacts.com and it’ll be there’. It is fun though when the father can’t refute my arguments and his mother takes my side. 😉 I’d also love to send links to journos who espouse mistruths and other nonsense.
If there was such a place, its motto should be ‘Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. No one is entitled to their own facts.’
It is a great discussion here, as usual, and very convincing on either side. Policy statements are problematic.
I support Sen Inhofe in giving states both the power and the political will to keep our coal and hydro power on, and to reject the regulations of the EPA. These are local decisions. I am not interested in top-down policy statements from another group. These decisions belong to the states. It was always axiomatic in the United States of America that those who raised our taxes had to come home and look us all in the eye. Distant bureaucracies shutting down power is the root of the problem. We need to simply keep our lights on and our manufacturing and farming profitable and productive. No one will have any money to donate to another group sending emails and asking for donations if these coal plants are shut down.
ref:
The planners of the CAGW crusade prepared by hijacking the scientific organizations, before they even started the CAGW ball rolling. It’s not clear to me how they did it, but the results speak for themselves. Agitation from within the ranks, to retract or at least to tone down alarmist position statements, is effectively quashed. A few brave souls with rock-solid reputations have resigned in protest, and that has NOT led to any mass exodus of members. Nor do the members seem able to vote their apparatchic leaders out of office.
If sceptics were to establish a formal organization dedicated to maintaining scientific scepticism, experience suggests that sooner or later it would go the way of previously hard-headed organizations from the Royal Society, through university science departments and “investigative” journalist organizations down to SCICOP; people we thought we knew and trusted, would be using the organization as just one more platform preaching scepticism of us “antiscience deniers”.
Figure out how they hijack these organizations, and hammer out a set of bylaws that make the organization immune. Until you can do that I vote NO.
This is a bit late, but I’ve been busy pushing a similar idea for us Brits at
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2014/4/19/order-of-battle.html
with near zero success.
Note that the GWPF is not membership-based, and has no blog interaction with the public. It’s got a distinguished panel of scientific advisors, but its basically two or three members of the House of Lords (read: unelected Senate) which allows them to get interviewed on the BBC. (The BBC has interviewed Judith Curry and I think Roy Spencer, but claim they can’t find a suitably qualified sceptical scientist in Britain). In the colonies you’ve got political parties and a media free-for-all that allows space for differing views. In Britain the BBC and the five big serious daily papers are rigidly pro-consensus. Only an organisation with a popular base could break in.
I see the “herding cats” argument used a lot. From what I’ve seen of organisations like Rotary Clubs, they make an effort to attract / co-opt members from different walks of life and with varied political opinions. Why shouldn’t we be able to live with our differences? We’re not proposing a political party with a manifesto.
I’m surprised that you use Lewandowsky as an example of how it could be useful. His hold on the liberal media environmental mafia hasn’t been shifted an inch by the retraction of his paper. See Salon, Huffington Post, Chris Mooney’s, the Conversation, the Guardian etc. They’ve been told hundreds of times by me, Barry Woods, Foxgoose and others that Lew is a naughty fibber, but our comments just sit there, unchallenged and ignored. I don’t see how any organisation can cure that.
Still, I’ll vote yes. Time to turn Groucho round and insist on joining an organisation, even if it’s just to annoy the people you don’t agree with.
My feeling is that the yes majority in the poll is not reflected in the comments. I might do a quick count when I get back to the hotel tonight.
I guess the yesses are just not as vocal as the noes and maybes? Or is there something else going on here?
The word week as in what day of the week it is…Like the English language test is Thursday …Weak as in physically or mentally weak…Like a progressive idiot is for believing in the sky is falling progressive modern day soft gloved commie way to further tax, regulate, and control human and business endeavors…
An interesting read, I do get a strong sense of “we must be better than”, “purer than”, “more ethical”, “above politics” “scientific” “untainted by organisational ties” “free scientific spirits” or whatever. I also note Rud Istvan, a strong and blunt recommendation to organise and in my own backyard Australian Ted O’Brien sets out the things that have been set in train over many years and basically we stood back and allowed politics to wreak havoc with pure scientific organisations. It is clear we can no longer afford the ethical luxury of ignoring the implications by turning a blind eye, or turning the other cheek!.
The point is, do we maintain our own “pure amateur ethical self image” while allowing other insidious organised subversion of the scientific method? Many have pointed out the main proponents of climate disinformation are highly organised with well developed PR affiliations and few scruples.
That says to me, there is a crying need to challenge disinformation, to correct and set the record straight. My feeling is that we do not need to create a monolithic organisational structure, A simple hard hitting media response is the way to go.
Perhaps a luncheon between the main sceptical bloggers leading to a small executive steering group, to quickly explore media disinformation and supply timely corrections delivered professionally in a media release on the subject.
Additionally backed by a “fact check” grouping of patrons with suitable qualifications and expertise and able to be contacted for instant response and back up. I suggest this would become am automatic go to route for reporters that want impeccable sources and hard hitting confirmation of the story they are writing.
So the simple message is get organised and get on with it. The most effective organisations are simple in structure, tightly organised, and effective communicators tasked to deliver timely media announcements.
With the backing of internet blogs, the extended reach and the patronage from credible scientists these are valuable assets. Most media organisations would pay to have access to such a credible set-up and expertise.
================================================================
What you describe is a lot like SEPP before there were “blogs”.
Perhaps someone could put together a “the best of” the blogs (but closed to comments)? Maybe the blog hosts could submit a link to the post and the “best of” hosts could put up a brief description? That’s much like SEPP but this would be limited to CAGW topics rather than environmental topics in general. Is that what you mean?
I voted “yes” and I’d like to outline my reasons for doing so.
http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2014/04/24/get-real-get-organised-and-finish-it/
Pointman
Of course. There have been easily avertable losses. Why are some skeptics so proud of the absence of organization? Do we like being losers? As a Delingpole regular I have asked him why there isn’t a modicum of organization among the handful of skeptic bloggers/writers. A simple mailing list so that when one of you spots something where skeptics might help in the real world, you might alert the others on the mailing list – a simple email – and they in turn might alert their readers. Nate Silver was left hung out to dry. That was a loss of informing a whole new set of people, as opposed to preaching to the choir, and it has a chilling effect which will stop any other new and unexpected mainstream blogger from daring to put his toe in skeptic waters. The skeptic bloggers all could have put a skeptic post on his blog to offset the foreseeable warmist onslaught and alerted their readers and readers who chose to could have put a skeptic post on that blog.That simple effort by skeptic bloggers would have been more valuable than a month of articles. After all, your articles are read mostly by the already skeptic.
I was slammed on both the Delingpole blog and also the Booker blog, where I said the same thing. People called my suggestion a suggestion for some sort of fascist efforts or organization like the warmists/leftists use. Huh? I suggested nothing of the sort. There are other losses that could have been easily averted with a little coordination among the skeptic bloggers/writers and an alert to their readers. We are being outplayed and I don’t understand skeptics taking PRIDE in that. I think it just makes us losers. And I don’t want to lose this war.
Steven Mosher
“Is the rise in C02 since 1850 due to man? Stop entertaining and promoting the nonsense that say no to this question.”
Actually while it is virtually certain that some (even most) of the rise in CO2 since 1850 is due to man – although there is no proof that this is true – it is not possible to say that all the rise in CO2 since 1850 is due to man, since there is no conclusive evidence. In fact therefore to say no to the question that Mr. Mosher poses is no more nonsense than to say yes.
If Mr. really believes that all the rise in CO2 since 1850 is due to man then he has crossed the boundary from science to religion.
I think physics in particular and science in general have to win the battle. The more Scientists that examine the information and become contrarian to the “consensus” ,then the more papers we are likely to see refuting the stance of the IPCC and the geniuses who have gorged on this man made paranoia.
The more information we get out to the public the better, the more we can demonstrate via items like the CRU emails ,the duplicity and mendacity of the leading Authors ,the more the public will turn and when the public turns the politicians turn, it really is that simple.Education ,Education ,Education.