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.
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.