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After a 239 post exchange on Facebook, an alarmist gets the last say.
Mark Ruscoe, of Asheville NC writes.
Anthony,
Reading your latest post regarding the lengths to which “tauntology” is used by the alarmist crowd, I wanted to forward something from a long FB thread I’ve been involved in for the last 8 months or so.
I’ll also preface that besides having biological science degrees and enjoying a long career in health care, I’m a climate nobody. So it surprised me how exercised global warming disciples could be out here in the hinterlands when their faith was questioned.
This was occasioned by the Typhoon Haiyan last year, when one of my (many) liberal friends linked it as a sign of our warming planet. It piqued my decidedly non-climatically oriented interest, so I decided to delve in a bit. Lo and behold, thanks to your site and others, I found that events such as that have actually declined in the past several years. I made note of this, and expected not much more.
Little was I prepared for the onslaught to follow. One thing led to another, and I spent much of my winter brushing up on the climate war. I engaged my local FB friends in what I took to be honest skeptical debate.
In particular, one of my antagonists proved unappreciative of my arguments or my sources. Especially, so it seems, yours.
After 239 posts to this particular thread, I felt as if I had made a sufficient skeptical scientific case, and decided that enough was enough. I announced that I was through.
To which my antagonist got the final word:
“…I’ll also give you this: You and your fellow deniers are wrong, and you will be on the wrong side of history. In 50 years you will be scattered with the witch-burners, the white supremacists, the birthers and the creationists who illustrate the limits of the human mind and the danger that come (sic) with them. You’ll be crammed into historical footnotes that students around the world will chuckle at for those five minutes you are mentioned. I wish you could be around to see it, if for no other reason than to hear you bray frantically that Anthony Watts is still right.”
I certainly won’t be around in 2050 and neither will possibly another 2 or 3 billion who will have died of starvation because of the lack of useful energy and the much reduced food production areas in the northern hemisphere due to decreasing temperatures.
Alarmists do what alarmists do. Always vitriol never facts and reality. How ironic that the borg drone says you will be on the wong side of history. The very thing he has to ignore to be an alarmist.
Scientific American Facebook climate related postings offer similar opportunities for “interesting” dialog.
One thing I’ve learned over the years is not to try to persuade people by slinging “facts” at them. They aren’t required to accept your authority; nor are you theirs.
I try to use the Socratic method with alarmist adversaries. Question them. Ask them to explain. Often they come to realize how much they don’t know.
e.g.:
-Is the current climate “incorrect?” If so, has a “correct” climate been defined?
-What percentage of the atmosphere is carbon dioxide?
-What is the most dominant greenhouse gas in the atmosphere?
-What makes carbon dioxide a greenhouse gas?
-What is albedo?
-What is the Pacific Decadal Oscillation?
etc.
Mark,
Their minds are closed. Festering. For the sake of your health turn your back on them.
When it gets colder (soon) and more and more of their parents/grandparents/friends of same/the infirm/homeless/etc die from said cold these folk will still be sneering along the lines of ” …. just you wait, it’s going to get hot-damn-friable soon … scientivists told us, so it must be trooo …”.
I gave up pitying them a few years back. I gave up engaging in conversation a short while later. I am in process of giving up my anger toward them (not succeeding quickly enough on that front). True environmentalism may never recover from the steep cost of their delusions.
Near me the most active ‘environmentalists’ happen to be on long-term ‘sickness’ benefit. They are the only ones in our county with sufficient free time to write in to the local ‘news’papers EVERY damn week about how no-one should build houses near
herethem because a particular (flower/insect/bird/small mammal) is endangered by our selfish desire to house our children/grandchildren, using the fruits of our own endeavors, within walking distance, on brownfields/ex-industrial estates. Oh, and climate change. Echo… echo… echo ….@ur momisugly Bob Johnson
You’ve got the definition of cognitive dissonance a little skewed. In psychology, cognitive dissonance is the excessive mental stress and discomfort experienced by holding two or more contradictory beliefs. It would be cognitive dissonance for someone to hold to CAGW and fully accept the evidence against it (the 17-year pause, etc.). To avoid CD, the alarmist crowd rejects the evidence in favor of the preferred belief. Why people like to scare themselves silly beyond ghost stories and horror movies is a psychological exploration for another time. That they like to be on a “winning side” is abundantly demonstrated. For now CAGW is winning in the minds of many so the less than skeptical pile on. The sort of attack described in this post reminds me of the mindless hooliganism at sometimes breaks out at soccer matches.
From the original post: “when one of my (many) liberal friends”….
I hope Mark Ruscoe, and others in the same boat, have figured out that this was the original mistake. People of that view are not “friends”, they can never be “friends”, because their only interest in you is either to control you, or to use your acquiescence to enable them to control other people.
You need to divorce yourself from them.
Richard111 says:
June 18, 2014 at 8:56 am
I certainly won’t be around in 2050 and neither will possibly another 2 or 3 billion…
___________________________
Hey, speak for yourself. Just because a guy’s old and ugly doesn’t mean that he can’t eat all the barbecue and chase all the women and still keep Methuselah as role model.
docstephens says:
June 18, 2014 at 8:58 am
Scientific American Facebook climate related postings offer similar opportunities for “interesting” dialog.
I had to comment about your use of ‘interesting’. I use the word in the same way. There are times when the subject is matter is too revolting and I just can’t use the word ‘interesting’.There are many warmists who are very willing to destroy anyone’s reputation to strike at skeptics. They are just borrowing their tactics from politics, which is what this really is all about. The science long ago was hijacked. I am very thankful for scientists on both sides who strive to be honest in their work.
“So it surprised me how exercised global warming disciples could be out here in the hinterlands when their faith was questioned.”
Mark,
Welcome to the club, but what took you so long to get here? ; – )
I too live in Asheville and have been addressing climate issues locally for quite a few years, but first became interested over 2 decades ago while getting my engineering degree. My college professor was a colleague of Hanson’s and worked with temperature data for over half a century.
Just take a look at the Asheville Citizen Times website to get a feel for the “climate” in Asheville. Make sure to take a look at the comments!
http://avlne.ws/1l32KIB
I travel a good bit and when people ask me where Asheville is located I describe it like this… go to Berkeley, CA and take a hard Left… keep going and you eventually come to Asheville.
MarkW says:
June 18, 2014 at 8:39 am
GlynnMhor says:
June 18, 2014 at 8:10 am
—-
A birther is someone who tries to argue that Obama wasn’t born in Hawaii and that the released birth certificate is a fake.
=======================================================
Or anyone that dares to question “The ONE”
@Bob Johnston
There also an aspect of “Buyers’ Stockholm Syndrome”, also known as Post-Purchase Rationalization. If people have bought into a notion without doing their homework, there’s enormous self-imposed pressure not to question, but to dig in, defend and attack.
Gary – Perhaps I should have said “avoidance of cognitive dissonance”. But I think you got my point. 🙂
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Speed says:
June 18, 2014 at 8:02 am
“…I’ll also give you this: You and your fellow deniers are wrong, and you will be on the wrong side of history.
Time will tell.
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I’ve often wondered how things will play out in the next 20 – 40 years, especially if the data still doesn’t show the increased warming and correlation to increased CO2. How will the warmists likely respond?
I seriously doubt there will ever be any acknowledgement that they are/were truly wrong. There will be some honest scientists who will come out iteratively over time – much like Judy Curry did several years ago. But I think for those who are currently the most visible advocates, the talking points will be mostly about the lack of data that was available at the time and the need to rely on proxy variables. They will stand by their “science” as being the best they could do at the time, but they will also resort to the nobleness of their motivation – saving the earth. How will anyone be able to hold their feet to the fire when they had such pure intentions? It will be very reminiscent of those who were so damn sure about how Y2K was going to play out and be such a catastrophic event. They never admitted they were wrong, they just spun things to say how preparation was never a bad thing to do.
in 50 yearsyou ll see that i am right now….
do you think it helps proving me that you are right now?
no…but i said first…
In engagements like these, I’ve found it’s useful to remember several things:
1) You’re not trying to convince the true believer.
It’s not possible, don’t waste your time.
2) You’re trying to get other readers to learn, think, and reconsider their beliefs.
Those you have a chance to win over, or at least to stop spouting the warmist mantras.
3) Make your points.
Don’t make them multiple times.
4) Let the true believer have the last word.
If you both insist on having the last word, the bickering will never stop. There’s no point in continuing the discussion when everyone else has moved on to something else.
The quickest way to make someone angry is to be right.
Think about: If Mark Ruscoe was using evidence that was blatantly wrong, there would not have such anger. People would have pointed out the errors or just ignored the message. But since the evidence cannot be debated, the only option is to make the messenger look evil — The messenger is evil so don’t listen to him.
I’ve been telling people “Patience, wait 10 years and see how things have changed.
Late last year I reduced that to 5 years. By then the AMO may be flipped with related impact to reduced hurricane risk and increased Arctic Sea Ice, SC24 will be winding down and people will be looking at SC25, solar effects on climate may be more clear, the pause in global warming may longer than the climb from 1979-1998, and the pause may be looking like the start of a decline.
All these are arguably visible today, in 5 years, (a geological instant), they may be strikingly clear. Since last year, there are now predictions that Arctic Sea Ice may be above the long term average during the end of this year’s melt season. I’ll stick with the 5 years for now.
Patience.
I unfriended two childhood friends on Facebook, both highly intelligent because despite sticking to facts and hard data in my posts, and never making it personal, my friends would eventually make it personal. Fortunately, away from Facebook, they were cordial and friendly but I sensed a difference in their attitude towards me. It really is a religion to true believers and skeptics are regarded as climate apostates. I can only hope that logic and science will eventually prevail but I am not optimistic,
Tim Walker Said:
I had to comment about your use of ‘interesting’. I use the word in the same way. There are times when the subject is matter is too revolting and I just can’t use the word ‘interesting’.There are many warmists who are very willing to destroy anyone’s reputation to strike at skeptics. They are just borrowing their tactics from politics, which is what this really is all about. The science long ago was hijacked. I am very thankful for scientists on both sides who strive to be honest in their work.
““““““““`
Tim,
I dared to offer two completely civil but skeptical comments to an article posted on Facebook by Scientific American that described the “Unstoppable” glaciers in Antarctica. First, I was viciously attacked by several other commenters, then my commenting and sharing rights were revoked by SA. I contacted SA and had my rights reinstated with an apology from the Webmaster who said it was a mistake that I had been banned. I noted that I was the only commenter who was a climate realist. Either other realists like me have learned not to submit themselves to such viciousness, or SA was filtering comments deemed contrary to their agenda or politically motivated perspective. By the way, the articles shared by SA were authored by journalists not scientists.
Dyrewulf says:
June 18, 2014 at 8:00 am
“Time to start unfriending and/or blocking people…”
Not only that…start disconnecting yourself from ***ALL*** of the manic, misinformed, CAGW-supporting media, including the Weather Channel, Weather Underground, ABC/NBC/CBS/CNN/MSNBC news, NY Times, etc. etc. Don’t give them ***ANY*** of your precious time or money. And tell their advertisers and supporters that you no longer are viewing their shows or accessing their websites. For example, CNN is already feeling the heat of low ratings. Other CAGW media will, in the end, suffer a similar fate…if we all do our part.
And also – remember the fascism that is CAGW warmism in November when the elections are held here in the U.S.A. It is VERY, VERY SCARY what is happening to us in the name of “global warming”…and this election is really our last hope in attempting to reverse the considerable damage in my lifetime.
Bob Johnston and others:
Nick from NYC hit on the key point, which is that when people attach their EGO and self worth to an ideology, religion, belief, etc., that their reaction to being told they’re wrong essentially becomes a “survival” defense. Nick from NYC describes a collapsing paradigm, but the problem is not just a collapsing one, but the very fact that people attach themselves to things in this manner in the first place. It is the essence of faith and religion, yet obviously in this case, the issues being discussed have nothing to do with either. The nature of their belief in climate change/global warming etc, mirrors a good vs evil narrative. With them, of course, being good.
It is not just unscientific, it is the complete opposite of the scientific method and is void of any truth in analysis and facts of the given paridigm (the world’s climate and our influence).
It is no coincidence that the all of the isms of the world that have caused such destruction to mankind in the last 100+ years (socialism/communism/etc.) all have religious desriptors in their overtones.
“…I’ll also give you this: You and your fellow deniers are wrong, and you will be on the wrong side of history. In 50 years you will be scattered with the witch-burners, the white supremacists, the birthers and the creationists who illustrate the limits of the human mind and the danger that come (sic) with them.”
That Alarmist’s response only underscored the fact that this issue has nothing to do with science and everything to do with politics. For myself, I wouldn’t have kept up the “dialogue” 8 minutes let alone 8 months. If the answer to 4+4 was political, you can be assured that 40% of the public would say the answer was 9, and Lord help the “denier” who said it was 8.
In the words of Barney Fife, the man is definitely not “all choked up with humbility.”
And it is also no coincidence that the above isms all restrain freedom, freedom of speech, and open debate and discussion, for fear of upsetting the dogma, which their “survival” often depends on, metaphorically and often literally.