Last weekend, I conducted a poll asking this question that has been on my mind for a couple of years:
Is it time for an “official” climate skeptics organization, one that produces a policy statement, issues press releases, and provides educational guidance?
The results are in, seen below, and there is an interesting dichotomy that can be observed in the excercise.
I’ve closed the poll with a count of 2701 votes. While there was a clearly decisive result, there were over 440 comments on the thread, many of which argued for “no”. A common reason discussed was that “organizing skeptics is like herding cats” or that “it will provide a target”. While that may be true, I really wasn’t all that interested in herding or target practice, I was thinking about representation. By its nature, all representation of varied viewpoints of a group of people is imperfect, but it does have its advantages if that representation satisfies a common need. The common need I see is getting a slowdown on the freight train of bureaucracy that is growing from CAGW claims and more coverage in media.
Pointman writes about the poll results and that dichotomy in Get real, get organised and finish it.
Anthony Watts recently ran a poll at WUWT that posed the question – “Is it time for an “official” climate skeptics organization, one that produces a policy statement, issues press releases, and provides educational guidance?”
I voted “yes” and I’d like to outline my reasons for doing so.
Any scattered and disparate opposition to an unjust law, policy or controversial issue which doesn’t get organised under some umbrella organisation is not only politically naïve but a consequently weak faction which doesn’t need to be taken seriously. More often than not, they’re comfortable in their armchairs living in their own deluded and secluded cloud cuckoo land.
There’s nicer ways of saying it but if want to be a force to be reckoned with, you have to get all ganged up. You seriously want to take on that exploitive employer, get unionised brothers and sisters. You want political change, form a lobby group. You don’t want that wind farm monstrosity blighting your life, start a local campaigning group. You want equal civil rights irrespective of the colour of your ass, start marching en masse. You want women to have the vote, get those bustles out of the drawing rooms and onto the streets as a mob waving placards and make the powers that be listen to you.
There’s simply no other way to get an issue onto the political agenda, and if you happen to think global warming isn’t a political thing, you pop that blue pill brother and dream on.
Give people a standard they can rally to and if the cause has real popular support, they’ll flock to it and become a bigger voice which will be heard despite any attempts to suppress it. Those attempts will just serve to strengthen group identity and make it a much more powerful force.
The deep primordial history of us as a species is all about getting together and cooperation. You might be rubbish at knapping a flint spearhead, but as long as one of the group can do that specialist thing, everyone is happy. Crap at tracking game? No matter, that runty kid over there is somehow brilliant at it. You might just be a spear carrier, but you know you play your part for the good of everyone else. That compulsion to gang up and work together is by now deeply embedded in our DNA. It’s been selected for. Without it, civilisation would fall apart in a day.
The worst thing you can ever do is sit in grumpy isolation doing nothing more than bitching away to a few cronies, and that’s exactly what’s all too common across the skeptic blogosphere. I call it the whinge and dump mentality and in the whole history of the human race, it’s never achieved anything other than being known as a complete bore to be avoided at all costs. Here they come – run away, run away!
As I look at the poll results to date, out of 2,683 votes cast, the response was 63% Yes, 24% No and the rest going for unsure. Scanning through the five hundred comments below the piece, a substantial majority expressed a “No” for various reasons. That’s an interesting dichotomy but an unsurprising one given the web dynamics of such a controversial issue as global warming.
There are just simply too many polarised people on either side who’ve spent years doing nothing more than venting spleen at each other. It’s become a social activity, a recreational pastime, a macho ego trip, a catharsis for a lot of tangential frustrations. Log in quickly, hurl an insult or two and surf onto the next brawl. Underneath the most combative blogs, out of hundreds of comments, barely a single digit percentage of the comments even reference the original blog topic, whatever it was.
Full essay here: http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2014/04/24/get-real-get-organised-and-finish-it/
He’s right, it has become a social spleen venting activity, and that my friends doesn’t get much traction.
This passage:
More often than not, they’re comfortable in their armchairs living in their own deluded and secluded cloud cuckoo land.
There’s nicer ways of saying it but if want to be a force to be reckoned with, you have to get all ganged up.
Could just as easily be used to describe crazy Bill McKibben. Most of us think he’s nuts, and he most likely is. The difference is he got out of his “armchairs living in their own deluded and secluded cloud cuckoo land” and formed 350.org. Now look at what we have, an organization that has successfully lobbied for blocking the Keystone pipeline by affecting the office of presidency. Do you think weepy Bill could do that himself without having organized first?
Think about it, and sound off in comments.
dbstealey says:
April 26, 2014 at 8:23 am
Also, I like your idea of multiple responses to our side’s articles.
Thank you! There are a huge number of ideas here in both posts. I guess we will have to wait and see the direction this takes and how we can contribute.
sturgishooper says: “I agree with those calling for a name contest.”
I would not recommend that for the following reason:
When we started the Scottish Climate & Energy Forum, we had a meeting and a number of people I did not know attended. At the meeting, we agreed on the name “Scottish Climate & Energy Group“. One person then promptly registered the name on their phone saying they did web sites and would run it for us.
That was the last I saw of him that if he wasn’t a paid wind stooge paid to wreck the organisation, he was that way.
As such I do not recommend having a name contest, unless it is a contest between names for which an appropriate domain name has already been secured.
Scottish Sceptic says:
April 26, 2014 at 1:02 pm
Good point. Final list of names on which to be voted should all be registered before posted here.
Or just let A.W. choose it from suggestions or his own ideas.
How about two organizations, one for the general public & scientists, & another for credentialed scientists? The first could be a climate realist version of the Sierra Club, for instance, with a more political action bent. The second could communicate with the public, press & government officials to offset the AGW mafia’s death grip on academia.
– – – – – – – – – – –
Gary Pearse,
I tend to concur with parts of your analysis. Thank you for articulating it.
The collectivist context of Europe (both the continent and British Isles) developed with the past 100 years seems implicit within the spectrum of political discourse there. It does not often appear to be a fundamental that is explicitly / significantly contested in the mainstream political sphere. There are some limited exceptions.
In the USA the collectivist ideological import from Europe has not displaced the core individualist foundation . . . . . yet. The USA is now where Europe was shortly after the start of its descent into collectivism about 100 years ago.
This, the most fundamental intellectual discourse within the USA, rages on. Actually this is a raging dialog that goes all the way back through time to Rome and further backward in time to Ancient Greece.
I am optimistic that the collectivist intellectual import from Europe stays marginalized within the USA.
Disclaimer/Disclosure: I am a Yankee. : )
John
@richardscourtney, 12:22 a.m.:
I categorically reject that my pointing out the fundamental connection between skepticism and conservatism, and the resulting cognitive dissonance for left-leaning opponents of AGW, is in any way divisive. I’m prepared to live with people I don’t fully agree with, in the skeptic camp. I can only take your comments as indicative that you are not. You are no Harold Ambler, and frankly, your comments make me question the sincerity of your opposition to AGW.
The fact remains that AGW, with its focus on wealth redistribution, central control, and suppression of dissent, conforms quite exactly to leftist orthodoxy. It is only natural that leftists would support such a meme so profoundly consistent with their overall ideology. And regrettably, both the left historically and the AGW crowd today have demonstrated utter disregard for the value of human lives – individual human lives. 250 million lives destroyed in the name of Marx and his offshoots, the Nazis – and already today, millions dead from carbon taxes, the ethanol program and other “green” schemes.
It is you, richardscourtney, who is setting up for conflict between left and conservative in the skeptic camp, not me, not cwon14, not DirkH. When you use this forum repeatedly to justify leftist ideology, you leave us no choice but to draw the connections between leftist ideology and AGW.
What the dickens? “A war leader”? Who? “Ascorbic”? ‘Acerbic’ maybe?
/Mr Lynn
If that’s all you want, why don’t you join CFACT? I have. How much they’re getting into the MSM I can’t say, but they have at least become a focus for the Realist position at Climatist events. CFACT is as close to a ‘skeptic organization’ as you’ll find, and it already exists. I expect CFACT could do a great deal more with thousands of new members and donations (as of now I think they rely entirely on donations, not membership dues—I’d recommend the latter).
http://www.cfact.org
CFACT is overtly political. Any public action contra the Climatists who dominate the academic, media, and political elites has to be.
As I see it, the other options are:
(1) a bona fide scientific academy (society, association), dedicated to Earth Sciences and stripped of any ideological bent, open only to professional scientists, which would certainly be welcome, but have no overt political purpose, aside from being a home for scientists disgusted with the CAGW stance taken by the establishment societies; and
(2) a public organization dedicated to promoting and promulgating the the goal of enhancing human Progress and Civilization by the rational exploitation of resources and the humane stewardship of the Earth, based on principles of freedom and property rights, and eschewing statism, like the Terra Home idea I resurrected above from discussions on this board five years ago:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/04/25/results-of-my-poll-on-forming-a-skeptic-organization-plus-some-commentary/#comment-1621368
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/04/25/results-of-my-poll-on-forming-a-skeptic-organization-plus-some-commentary/#comment-1621397
The ‘skeptic’ position on climate dynamics (starting from the null hypothesis) would be a natural corollary of the basic principles of this organization, but ‘climate’ would not be an exclusive focus.
/Mr Lynn
Anthony, I think you have some people expressing support, and some people (like me) not so much.
Why don’t you invite people who support the idea to join your new climate organisation, while the rest of us continue as we have?
I have no problem with interacting with and helping organisations whose goals I support, for example I regularly receive and respond to Heartland posts. Its just I don’t think your new organisation is the most effective strategy. Having said that, I’m happy to be proven wrong ;-).
@Mr. Lynn 4-25 @12:49 pm –
I believe that “AGW is false in all its essentials” is no more sweeping than saying “the Earth isn’t flat.” Claims that the Earth is warming are sufficiently obviously untrue that it is quite safe to say this. None of the calamities posited by alarmists has come to pass, the historical and geological records alone disprove any relationship between temps and CO2, we know that CO2 does not possess the properties ascribed to it by alarmists, the scope of the “science” practiced by the alarmists focuses on a single insignificant, conjectural causative factor while ignoring all other likely (and now known) factors, the modeling procedures and statistical methods used by alarmists have repeatedly been shown to be faulty, and the alarmists have been utterly unable to respond with anything but lies, threats, invective and ad hominem and ad verecundiam arguments to the evidence against their position. That seems to me to be more than enough to justify taking a firm position that AGW is wrong in all its essentials – which I have just enumerated.
Chad Wozniak says:
April 26, 2014 at 2:45 pm
Chad Wozniak, I would like to thank you for your post. I would like to further support what you have said by observing that progressive scientists who claim to be skeptics are not an asset at all to any skeptic organization. I say this because in my experience, progressive scientists who claim to be skeptics are still highly likely to be in total support of all the rest of the political, economic, and societal activism required by the UN and the “sustainability” agenda.
So a progressive who has a small nit about AGW in general is still moving in the same circles and applauds the same goals as the “sustainability” advocates. For example, he still seeks to destroy the fossil fuel energy sector and the agricultural advances in the US, and supports extreme central control of water resources, and is very likely a Malthusian. In general, pandering to their hurt feelings is not worth the trouble because a progressive scientist who is a skeptic about AGW but still endorses the global “sustainability” agenda is the world’s biggest distinction without a difference.
%100 YES.
The secret to success is a unified front where a clear set of rational objectives are spelled out in a non inflammatory and uncontroversial way.
As I pointed out above to DirkH,
If you challenge the Climatists to produce any evidence that anthropogenic CO2 has actually affected the global climate since the Little Ice Age in any measurable way, and they cannot, then you have demonstrated that “AGW is false in all its essentials.” I think a broad-based organization aimed at rational solutions to promote human progress has to work from principles, not conclusions. The rigorous application of the scientific method has to one of the principles, and that alone will give the lie to the cult-like pseudo-science promulgated by the Climatists.
If you want a more narrowly focused organization, that restricts itself to the question of ‘global warming’ and the government policies it drives, then you want something more like CFACT, as I mentioned a couple of comments above. In which case, go there: they are doing a pretty good job, and could use the help.
/Mr Lynn
I’ve been around enough organizations to know how internal politics can cripple them. This one would be no doubt among the worst. Your only hope would be to come up with a plan and stick to it right away. Some people would bitch about it and leave. Good. Several fewer headaches. My reasons for voting no remain valid, and I don’t care to reproduce them save one. You will lend credence to the notion of consensus science. Pamela Gray is so right on target [April 25, 2014 at 10:26 pm].
Chad Wozniak says:
April 26, 2014 at 2:45 pm
I’m a conservative, but I don’t doubt the sincerity of the Courtneys’ (père et fils) commitment to combating the lies of CACA adherents.
Perhaps you’re not aware of their association with British coal miners. To put it in American terms, think of our Appalachian coal miners whose union goon bosses are Democrat stooges towing the Party line to the detriment of the rank & file, ie the men who put their lives on the line underground, & who would support a pro-energy Republican if he came out strongly in favor of continued mining, even if the coal produced wasn’t burned in the US but exported to China, to displace more costly & polluting, lower BTU indigenous coal.
One reason Romney lost was because in VA & OH miners who might have supported him stayed home because they couldn’t chose between their Democrat shop stewards & a guy who inadequately spoke their lingo, that of hard but honest men who hew an honest living at hazard in the earth’s crust.
Meant toeing. Sorry.
– – – – – – – –
milodonharlani,
Your comment has something in it wrt richardscourtney, AGW and British coal.
I do not understand.
John
John Whitman says:
April 26, 2014 at 6:44 pm
I guess you’d have to have followed the thread about political ideology & adherence to CACA.
The Courtneys object to the frequent excursions, usually off topic, on WUWT threads into the association between conservative politics & opposition to CACA. They consider themselves socialists (or at least one of them, but IMO both father & son) who never the less oppose CACA.
Their view is that in countries other than the US, elements in both the Left & the Right support climate science over climate religion. Reading Richard’s prior comments might help you appreciate the issues.
There are commenters here who share my political beliefs, ie that libertarianism & socialism are opposites, who believe that socialists perforce cannot be their allies in the fight against CACA, but must be their enemies, which is practically the case in the US, except possibly for the union coal miners whom I mentioned. The Courtneys however argue that in Europe, there is not such a bright line between Left & Right on the issue of man-made climate change. Supposedly “Conservative”, ie Tory, governments in Britain are practically as pro-CACA as their Labour opponents.
I hope this helps. If still in a quandary, please read prior exchanges between my conservative comrades & Richard Courtney.
Zeke
Chad Wozniak, I would like to thank you for your post. I would like to further support what you have said by observing that progressive scientists who claim to be skeptics are not an asset at all to any skeptic organization. I say this because in my experience, progressive scientists who claim to be skeptics are still highly likely to be in total support of all the rest of the political, economic, and societal activism required by the UN and the “sustainability” agenda.
Zeke, that is total nonsense. If you want to exclude people with left wing views, then you would have to tell Steve McIntyre of Climate Audit that he isn’t welcome – McIntyre is a socialist.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100055793/steve-mcintyre-total-bloody-hero/
It is not total nonsense. I have simply pointed out that the “sustainability” goals of the UN are going to cause a division with the majority of progressive skeptics.
This is a practical point, and a generalization. It does not include every single case. And I did not say that any one should be excluded. It is just that no one should be expected to bend themselves into pretzels trying to avoid dealing with political issues, just to include people who will push for global “sustainability” politics and economics anyway.
Man up, and find a big progressive anti-AGW group, if a platform is not to your taste. I have to avoid forums I would otherwise have joined, because of their stated ideologies. I don’t complain and expect them to change. You just go down the street to the society to which you can hopefully positively contribute.
It is a good discussion, and I realize I have taken CFACT for granted and should support it as soon as possible. Sustainability includes all of the monstrous AGW solutions (and then some), and they are really great researchers and communicators.
– – – – – – – – – – –
milodonharlani,
Thank you for your response.
For >5 years I have followed fairly closely the discourse on the political discussion here at WUWT wrt CAGW.
Of course richardscourtney featured prominently in it in behalf of his very vocal and explicit socialist politics. That is legend.
I am a simple Yankee farm boy, so excuse my impoliteness, but what the hell does coal unions in Britain have to do with the ongoing specific discourse wrt to richardscourtney? I understand Oreskes’ and Mann’s bullshit crap wrt climate critics being coal mercenaries of doubt, but why do you associate such things?
John
John Whitman says:
April 26, 2014 at 7:27 pm
==========================================
Single Issue
No matter who is using the lever or to what ends, lets keep the “hockey stick” straight and honest.
Yes, but….and a big but…sort of the “Elephant but” in the room. Or should that be the “Elephant in the room” but?
Yes, but…”the big ole elephant sized butt in the room” but, is the political system you are trying to influence. A political system that does not and has not represented what it’s “constituents” / countless voters -that is to say, “voters whose votes don’t count”- want. And many of the “constituents” want what they say they want out of imaginary fears – because propaganda tells them what they want.
So, when the “constituents” get what they are told to want, they get it…good and hard.
Thanx, Mencken.
Many of the people we see on TV are employees of Street Theater NGOs who just want to get paid…for pretending to want something so bad, and so badly. All based on an imaginary consensus of conclusions which induce a mental / emotional retardation and an ego unwilling to admit they were duped…or bought.
You know…the pseudo-liberals that call the pseudo-conservatives stupid…all working for the same entity when viewed from the top…making themselves not just their own worst enemy but a willing employee and target of their real enemy…the one they share with the pseudo-conservatives. Go figure.
Yet, none of that matters. Bread for some, circus for others. As long as the “Grand Wurlitzer” keeps pumping out the poop, the people will consume it through a tube we call Television…
Look, it’s no secret that the only WMD’s that were found in Iraq -if any-were purchased from the same government that came to destroy them…ultimately sell them more weapons… keep Iraqi oil off the market to maintain high oil prices,..and reassert Petro-Dollar hegemony.
Oh…and find a place to dump thousands of tons of nuke waste – for fun and profit.
You know…the war whose booty of oil would pay for it’s self?
Well, Santa Claus turned out to be the Booty Bandido, and again our asses got tapped.
No dinner. No kiss. No oil. Drilled hard – put away wet with a kick to the curb. Treated like a two bit whore in a ten cent rest room stall.
Where was I going? Oh, right. No Iraqi WMD’s…the discovery thereof… the admission by default and continuation of agenda – that WMD’s were not the reason we murdered hundreds of thousands of innocent people….topped off with the illusion of a change in administrative agenda. Complete with Nobel Peace Prize winning President, re-elected despite serious electoral disappointment, with the help of the erectile disappointment presemted as opposition from the pseudo-conservatives pretending to play defense this inning.
You know… Mitt Romney. Who went limp and went home as soon as the Media announced the outcome – with less than 1% of the ballots counted.
Wait… What did I just say? Election results announced with less than 1% of the ballots counted.
Come on! Bal-lots! Those things that represent your input on important issues…like limits on how deep the Booty Bandidos can go while they drill in all the wrong places!
We know about the Princeton voting machine test. And the Diebold programmer testimoney. Whatever. This is much worse.
We are offered terrible choices and then psyched into believing our votes count – as if it would matter whether they were counted or not… With all the bread and circus two billion dollars of campign funds can buy.
What passes as our government is really just an illusion created and supported by our media. Special interest groups and lobbyists write the bills that Congress never read but are told to sign. Our so called government is a hoax and exists to give us the illusion of choice while they sell us out to multinational corporations and banks. The reality is that the government we see is literally just a bunch of actors and the New World Disorder took control long ago.
Bottom line – I know you have the best of intentions…and truth on your side. But, life is not a game show. There are no prizes for being right. By the time they admit that AGW is not real, it will be another ten years before they admit that AGW was not the real reason for Carbon Taxes. Beyond that…even temporary taxes are not temporary. I gave up expecting any of the temporary, emergency sales tax raises in Californian and Los Angelean history to end.
Now, they want to “modify” Prop 13… to take away the Property tax relief we vioted on years ago. Did I say Property tax? Sorry, I meant to say rent…because if you don’t pay they kick you out – like any landlord would. Rent goes to the owners, which they call taxes to make the slaves believe they are free men with property rights…and the illusion of governmental choice. The manufacured consent of the poorly governed.
Total servitude under a pathocracy of kleptocrats, insane war criminals, Satan worshipping death cultists, and “alchemical” banksters that know how to convert your gold into paper.
You know…the 0.00001%.
With no way to vote the bums out, the bums will see your hand of truth, and leave the table with everyone’s chips…without even showing their hand of lies.
Hey…they kept their campaign promises. All the ones they made to everyone but you.
What’s in your wallet? Not enough for them to care.
@Zeke –
You will recall that in my first post on this thread I said that I am prepared to participate in an organization with others with whom I might not agree on other matters. That includes people who call themselves socialists, who by their actions do not support alarmism or engage in some of the other sins of the left. John Whitman (see above) indicates that Steve McIntyre is a socialist, but I see no evidence of Steve McIntyre doing anything but fighting the good fight against AGW. If he is a socialist, he plainly isn’t buying into the standard leftist mendacity – he’s actively and resolutely fighting it. From what I’ve seen of richardscourtney’s posts, I can’t draw the same conclusion about him. The difference is, perhaps, that Steve McIntyre hasn’t been vocal about his political views in his work on climate, whereas richardscourtney is, as everyone here can see.
How about you make a Law of the Medes and the Persians that:
Resolved: No Baby Boomer Ubermensch Hippy Glory Hound who want to arrange everyone’s diets, medical treatment, transportation, power, and education, can join the board or do anything but send money.
Resolved: And be sure to have fun and learn from each other.