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.
I voted “unsure”, but I’m open to changing my mind.
I’m also aware of alarmists who claimed “Only 5 years to save the planet” more than 10 years ago as part of their demands for immediate action: ‘No. Don’t stop and think. You must do as we say. Now.’
My point being that I may possibly join such an organization. But I’m not about to start denigrating those who don’t, those who choose not to be angry in public, those who may still achieve much behind the scenes. Politics never was simple, even before the internet.
gnomish says April 25, 2014 at 8:59 am
“Hey Pointman- you really should take the purple pill. It will give you strong powerful erections and then you can go around passing out pills when you wave it.”
QED or quod erat demonstrandum …
That’s their game, who’s up for something a lot more aspirational than obscenities scrawled on a urinal wall?
Pointman
On the other hand,
I made a bold and defiant claim back here:
And that’s great.
But the fact is, without a larger organization, when the time comes my not going quietly is going to amount to putting the government through the same difficulty you or I might have in squashing a bug, or flushing a dead mouse down the toilet.
The opposition is organized and numerous. Perhaps Ignoring their efforts and doing nothing but blogging is the same as consent.
It’ll be far too late to realize this when they come for you and I.
I personally believe nature will show how scientifically sound the cultists’ conclusions aren’t within just a few years, but it couldn’t hurt. And after the fact at least the public will see that not all scientists were pushing a political agenda and masquerading it as sound science. We need to mitigate the damage done to the reputation of science from the movement.
before starting, you’d better realize that science or political efforts on our part are going to be competing with a full bore religious cult with an already strong political wing and the leaders of this cult are cut from the same cloth as jim jones.
[snip you are long time banned here sir, you know why – Anthony]
Whenever you read or listen to MSM or many pollies its nearly always “scientists are telling us etc” or “what the science is saying is etc”. I don’t agree with an organisation but if it must have a name delete “skeptic” – too much of a target and conveys and reinforces the perception of unrepresentative ‘denier’ voices. It has to be ‘Concerned Scientists.org” or similar, that would have greater traction and counter the ‘all scientists agree’ position. Most people who post here have a scientific or engineering background.
If I might toss out some suggestions:
One of the things I would like to see such an organization focus on is the things underlying the policies that have cost us all so much real money and are hurting people. For example, the study that caused polar bears to be listed as “threatened” has been retracted and shown to be bogus. Therefore, the “threatened” designation should also be pulled and with it, the justification EPA used to regulate CO2.
In California there is an entire package of regulations designed to reduce state CO2 emissions to 1990 and is used for justification of bypassing local governance through projects such as One Bay Area. We are already at 1990 levels. The goal has been reached. Force them to justify any further projects, programs, and regulations. They have no legislative justification for them any longer. There are similar projects in other states.
Use their own “lawfare” tactics against them. Force them to PROVE in court their claims. Too often we have had this notion where projects and companies are forced into a position of trying to prove something won’t happen in the future against claims by “environmentalists” that someone has predicted that something might happen in the future. What other predictions have also been made that have caused decisions to be taken where the prediction never came to pass? It is time to start hammering them on their credibility and hollow out the foundation on which they stand. Show the court the other “predictions” that have been made and what has actually happened.
Go back into the regulations that have been imposed since, say, 1980 based on various “predictions” of “environmentalists” and start unwinding them. Once the underlying assumptions have been successfully refuted, start removing the piles of regulations built on top of them
For example, reducing CO2 emissions to 1990 levels is the basis of California’s project to convert 30% of power production to renewables. Since we are already there, there is no reason to add even a single additional kilowatt of “renewable” power to meet that goal. Force them to justify it. Show them how the entire emissions reduction would have absolutely NO global atmospheric impact at all. Put the onus on them to PROVE their regulations would have any impact at all and force a cost/benefit approach. Spending billions of dollars for something that has absolutely no measurable impact is called waste. Expose them.
Why not approach Big Oil ? Maybe they might be interested in supporting the skeptic side of the debate .It would be interesting to see a proposition that they could either agree to or dismiss .A small step for the skeptic community but a giant leap for man kind . I can hear the howling now :>)
I voted yes. No hesitation.
michel wrote: “The issue is that this is a political issue. The issue is not so much a debate about a scientific hypothesis or a series of them. The debate is about what measures are to be taken. When things are at that point, because what is at issue is political action, those who advocate policies have to act politically.”
Excellent point! Skeptics of many different stripes can agree that expensive measures to reduce greenhouse gases is not a good use of our resources.
I think this is essential. We should focus on goals, not specific theories, or methods, or even ideologies, except for broad general principles. And the goals should be positive. ‘Terra Home’ would look to moving human civilization forward, by the wise stewardship and use of the Earth’s (and eventually the Solar System’s) resources. The underlying principles would focus on the rights established in the US founding documents: to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; to individual freedom, and private property. Skepticism and good science are essential concomitants to achieving those broad, general goals. The problem with the Climatists and their supporters in the erstwhile ‘environmental’ organizations is that they aim for goals that work to the detriment of freedom, science, progress, prosperity, and civilization. In the long run, it’s about a lot more than ‘global warming’.
/Mr Lynn
What the newly formed group would need is a prominent leader. The person that comes to mind is Freeman Dyson. Can you get him? He is both an Obama supporter AND a sceptic. Also, maybe get a couple of other top scientists and Nobel Prize winners to sign on. Then we will get noticed and not so easily marginalized.
I skipped the bulk of the comments so apologize if I’m repeating anything.
I voted “no” because I think the matter is too complex and the opinions on the science too diverse for an organization that spans large demographics and geographies to arrive at a consensus position that can be effectively promoted.
That said, I would absolutely join anyway and work to make it successful in the fervent hope that my opinion above turns out to be wrong!
FWIW, I once challenged a warmist to a debate. He was allowed to bring any materials and expertise to the table that he wished, and I would come alone, armed with nothing but a single web site for reference – WUWT. He ran away like a frightened rabbit. I’ve since thought about the value of an organization that could bring local presence to the debate and engage with local media and challenge local warmalarmists (in my geo, Suzuki and Weaver) as well as attend local events (like Michael Mann speaking at U Vic a while ago) to get local context.
I echo David M Hoffer. I voted no. But I will support it.
I am still undecided.
I remain skeptical. I don’t listen to scientific organizations. I don’t like my thinking done for me by a crowd. I think we are winning the debate. But only because of the temperature record. I can argue on those grounds. But what if the temperatures change and there is a causal link to CO2? Keynes’ comment springs to mind.
I am a lukewarmer, and I do not agree with a lot of you-all on the science. Our paper crew finds that bad microsite — unchanged over time, rating unchanged — has a profound effect on trend. But in order for microsite to affect trend in that manner, there has to be a genuine trend to affect in the first place.
I look at the record from 1950, when CO2 became an issue, and I see pretty much the final version of Arrhenius — without much (if any) net positive feedback. Two full PDO phases and ~1.1C per century warming left over. We are in a negative PDO now, but with less cooling than in there is warming in positive PDO phase. I think that CO2 is a constant thumb under the scale. A fairly small one, but ubiquitous in effect. In order to believe otherwise, you must also reject the science that claims a very large effect for the 1st 100 ppm, with a diminishing effect of a constant per doubling.
Where does that leave me in such an organization? Is there a “stance”? I echo the words from my March 2008 guest post here: Who Decides?
I do not fear the future on our current path. I think we are winning the war of attrition on all fronts. I do fear having to choose between opposing and embracing an organization which I love but makes me cringe. It would offend my independent mode of inquiry. It would shut me off from access to the other side. And I hate changing a winning strategy, especially when doing so cramps my style.
Pointman has long extolled the virtue of the partisan. Now he proposes forming logistics, donning uniforms, and creating corps like Tito’s partisans after the Invasion of Italy. It worked for Tito. It defeated Milosovic and even (sort of) kept the beastly Sovs at bay after the war. But I am not sure that there is room in such a new organization for me. I may find out that I am in the position of a Milosovic.
I am not a convert. I have been skeptical since day one in this entire debate. But now, when things are going better than they ever have, when our paper nears completion, after years of elbow grease, we want to go org.
Well, maybe. I will join. I will fight. I am a rare hand at herding cats, too. But I am one of those cats. And I don’t like to be herded. And that is not going to change. I fear the experience would be analogous to a marriage that goes bad. Fear is not always a mindkiller. It can be. But it is also a survival mechanism. Despair, however, is a mindkiller every time. And I fear coming to despair over this. I don’t want to wind up like Auchinleck. I don’t want to wind up “deserving better”.
But I’ll tell one one thing for sure. If this shindig does materialize be ever, ever so careful about what acronym you wind up with. The alarmist blogs know all about this here modest proposal, and they are cranking out the parodic names and acronyms as we speak.
I will be with you if you go there. But if so, it is a war in which I will likely become a casualty, one I will not survive. And the bullet could as easily come from behind as from in front.
Anthony says:
“…. out of 2,683 (2,701) votes cast, the response was 63% Yes, 24% No and the rest going for unsure ….
Think about it, and sound off in comments.”
——–
If a “target” data base of “names and E-mail addresses” was created for those persons and organizations that are “spouting” the CAGW manta …… and including the same for those who have “decision making” power or influence on/over government policy/law making …. and they all began getting “flooded” with E-mails from the current 2,683 WUWT voters each and every time an “issue” is raised or mentioned in the media ….. it will surely get their attention as well as entice others to “join the cause”.
And when the proponents of CAGW start making public comments about the “barrage” of E-mails ……….. the ranks of the E-mailers will surely begin to increase.
No organization, no lobby, just a “data base” of names for one to voice their concerns.
REPLY: And the SPAM laws would surely be used in that case. – Anthony
given the billions at stake it is naive to think it won’t be taken over by agent provocateurs and or vested interests who have the time and the money to dominate.
its a science issue not a political one. Doing this is politics. The reason it doesn’t get in the media is because they have decided not to print any anti co2 stuff not because there isn’t a voice or case for it.
Just tell me where to send my contribution / membership dues.
I’d suggest 700.org for a doubling of Blubbering Bill’s gang, but that might echo the 700 Club too much. So maybe 800.org, which is about the CO2 concentration IMO “safe”, but actual greenhouse levels like 1350.org could also work.
Or 3500.org, the average ppm on boomers (big, nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines), a little lower than on smaller nuke attack subs (mean of 4100). But the range is huge, with some levels higher than Cambrian Period concentration, ie 7000 ppm, or even Precambrian.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/10/17/claim-co2-makes-you-stupid-as-a-submariner-that-question/
given only co2 programs get funded whats needed is an alternative research program rather than another media tub thumper. Setting up and funding [thro online subs] that would be of more use imo.
I kind of liked Mr Lynn’s: Association of Earth Sciences. Add to that focus on methodology and hypothesis-testing. What media might embrace is a proper other side: less contrarianism, less activism, more equivalence (as in ‘false equivalence’).
I voted yes. A rope is stronger than a strand.
One thing WUWT whould do is produce a page setting out the main sceptical position. For example:
The world has warmed.
Co2 is a greenhouse gas.
Water vapour is a greenhouse gas.
Man’s co2 has helped in the warming. Blah blah.
and end with a question: How much of the warming since 1950 is due to man’s greenhouse gases? Nobody actually knows.
cbb says: “I would be interested in joining a group that had a broader perspective than just climate change.
Mr Lynn says: “I think this is essential…”
Danger, Will Robinson! Bad advice, very bad. There are already plenty of groups with a “broader perspective.” That “broader perspective” would weaken our focus and create more dissent than the primary issue. Yes, there may be other issues that we’d like to address, but these should not be allowed to divert us, nor should they be listed explicitly by whoever is in charge.
I’m still wondering how many of the naysayers were people we’ve never seen on here before.
Science will eventually settle the issue, but in the meantime damaging and unneeded policies are being developed at all levels of government and in all kinds of organizations. A ‘skeptics organization’ could help us fight such efforts at local levels – person to person. Remember the thought – “all politics are local”? An organized group that believes that “all is well” (that’s us) could help by developing material for presentations at local club meetings, for example, or for letters to the editor of local papers.
The average guy and gal are beginning to wonder about all the warmist hype, even those who believe there is something to it. We need to be able to talk with people in a sensible way about all that is wrong with the warmist agendas, to calm fears and get our friends and neighbors to question the powers that be.
I voted against the proposition but if it gives ahead I believe the organisation needs a built in review of its goals and reason for existence and be prepared to dismantle itself if it is not fulfilling it’s purpose …..the review should occur after every two years ……otherwise it becomes just another organisation whistling in the wind ……and the power hungry take over sanctioning acceptable views and ostracising the adventurous and courageous …