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.
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.