There’s been a fair amount of niggling in social media over my presence at the Mann talk at Bristol. I find it humorous that there seems to be almost as much interest in my presence there as the Mann talk itself. It all started with this tweet from Leo Hickman at the event:
You can see just how far separated the audience was from Dr. Mann, as I was seated in the front row in a seat reserved for me. You can also see the band of the hearing assistance headset I was wearing, graciously and at extra expense, provided by the Cabot Institute when I informed them of my disability. Kudos and my sincere thanks to them. Also, thanks to director Rich Pancost for his openness with me.
In a Tweet from Dr. Mann, taken from the balcony seating you can see just how isolated Dr. Mann was from the audience. The stage extended so far forward that you can’t even see the first row of people on the ground floor. You can also see the video production crewman and camera. Rich Pancost promises me the video of both the Cook and Mann talks will be made available.
Obviously from his tweet and photo of me from behind, Leo Hickman expected some “fireworks”. Perhaps though, he missed my tweet earlier on the day of the Mann talk:
For all attending the Michael Mann lecture tonight, remember that we are guests, there to listen and observe. Be respectful of the venue.
— Watts Up With That (@wattsupwiththat) September 23, 2014
The reason I sent that was that in my opinion, for climate skeptics, almost any public interaction with Dr. Mann would be a “no-win” situation. Given the track record of hostility that has been on display from Dr. Mann (and blowback from skeptics too), I felt that if tough questions were asked, we’d be vilified for “badgering” Dr. Mann or being “out of order” in a polite venue. Since Dr. Mann framed the venue as “Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars” I thought that taking the advice of WOPR in the movie “War Games” was likely the only winning move:
A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?
One commenter, the pundit known as “Climate Nuremberg” had a response to my suggestion that would later prove to be prescient:
@wattsupwiththat I bet when hordes of deniers turn up and listen courteously, you'll be accused of sending us there for that exact purpose!
— Climate Nuremberg (@BradPKeyes) September 23, 2014
Indeed, and that’s what happened. Leo Hickman got a question in the thread he started from behind me from the known unknown known as “and then there’s physics”, who used to run a blog that had nothing but “Watt about…” in the titles. He changed to the new theme/name when he realized how stupid he looked.
Dr. Richard Betts (who I met for the first time at the extraordinary meeting prior to the Mann talk) also wondered why skeptics had been so quiet. I tried to locate that Tweet today, but it seems to have shuffled off the digital coil, perhaps one of the readers has saved it or can locate it. It said essentially:
Richard Betts provided it in comments, added for accuracy rather than my one from memory:
@cartoonsbyjosh @barryjwoods @leohickman @lucialiljegren @nmrqip But why no sceptic hands up? It's the quietest I've ever seen you guys 😉
— Richard Betts (@richardabetts) September 24, 2014
Dr. Mann himself responded to a question posed by GISS employee Chris Colose on Dr. Mann’s Facebook page, asking if there had been any “disruption” of his talk:
Note my response at the bottom, we’ll get back to that in a moment. First I want to address Dr. Mann’s “tinfoil hat” assertion.
My opinion is that the environment at the Mann talk contributed greatly to the lack of interaction from the other climate skeptics present. Though Barry Woods notes that he and “Katabasis” both had their hands up during the Q&A period. Even so, from my perspective, asking a question at the Mann talk was an exercise in futility, due to the choice of Q&A moderator, Dr. Stephan Lewandowsky. He is seen in these two photos below standing on the stage, watching for questions, and directing the microphone bearers:
Here, Dr. Lewandowsky directs a microphone bearer to a person in the balcony:
Here is one of the microphone bearers from the Cabot Institute going to one of the Lewandowsky selected persons:
Note the empty seats, despite Dr. Mann’s assertion of a “full capacity crowd”, it clearly was not. There were empty seats directly behind me also. As one might expect in a packed lecture, there were no people standing along the walls or near the doors, other than the security guards.
The Q&A session was short, about 5 questions, all softballs, and much shorter than the Cook lecture, where the majority of questions were in fact from climate skeptics. After the short Q&A, Dr. Mann was immediately whisked away to his book signing table, complete with a policeman standing guard. The line was rather short as I walked by and snapped this photo:
The Mann talk seemed much more tense to me with the addition of police.
While I had stated clearly in a tweet earlier that I was there to “listen and observe” imagine if I had tried to ask a question.
These thoughts went through my mind.
1. Lewandowsky knows me and knows where I’m sitting, would he even call on me if I raised my hand? Doubtful. At the Cook talk, I did not see Dr. Lewandowsky directing microphone bearers, and the majority of questions were in fact from climate skeptics. The Mann talk had an entirely different vibe, and seemed much more tense than the Cook talk as I describe here. Director of the Cabot Institute, Richard Pancost said in a tweet today that Lewandowsky was directing microphone bearers at the Cook talk too, but I sure didn’t see it.
2. If Lewandowsky did call on me, would he do so only for the purpose of spite, and do something like announce “here’s a question from Arch-denier Anthony Watts, whose ‘conspiracy ideation’ I’ve written about in my paper Recursive Fury.” I could only wonder, especially since I lodged a complaint that aided in getting that horrid, spiteful, and ethically irresponsible paper retracted.
3. Would Dr. Mann preface his response to my question with something similar, such as saying I’m funded by the ‘Koch machine’ to be there and harass him with questions, much like he did when I sent him a free Christmas Calendar on my own dime? This sort of worry is evidenced by Dr. Mann’s response to the discussion today on Twitter:
4. If Dr. Mann responded to my question with a question of his own (a typical tactic when inconvenient questions are asked) would I even be able to hear him correctly and respond? If I misheard him, would I accidentally make a fool of myself due to my hearing issue? The crowd would not know of my difficulty, and I’d be laughed at. Despite the hearing assistance device being graciously provided by the Cabot Institute, it had issues and would only work correctly if held away from my body due to the loop circuit having a fairly weak signal. I had email discussions with Cabot about this after the Cook talk, but there wasn’t much they could do. They tried though, and I give them props for doing so.
So, in effect, asking a question was very likely a no-win situation for me. I knew this going in, but with a Q&A moderator documented to be hostile toward skeptics (Lewandowsky) directing the Q&A session, it was even more of a losing proposition. I don’t think the director of the Cabot Institute, Richard Pancost realized how intimidating it was to have a person who had named and shamed climate skeptics in peer reviewed paper, only to have it retracted by complaints from climate skeptics, and then to have the journal defend the rights of climate skeptics as unwilling “human test subjects”.
I can imagine the reticence of many other climate skeptics present, seeing Lewandowsky up there on stage pointing, wondering if asking a question was worth the risk. As I said, the advice from WOPR “The only winning move is not to play.” seemed best.
But, as indicated by the responses of Dr. Mann and company, they weren’t happy with that either. We are damned if we do, damned if we don’t.
Now back to the other issue raised earlier. On Dr. Mann’s Facebook page, he lamented that I didn’t ask a question, so I asked permission to ask one of him then. However, it seems that Dr. Mann has BLOCKED my question from appearing to him and others, as I soon found out, nobody else could see it:
@wattsupwiththat Can't find it! Must be doing something wrong…
— John Dunton-Downer (@doubledee3) September 26, 2014
and…
@wattsupwiththat @tan123 @MarkSteynOnline All I can see on that link… pic.twitter.com/zp6oFs99mC
— Уинстън смифф (@AndyMeanie) September 27, 2014
My Facebook question was also made known in a Twitter post, and it has been over 24 hours and no response from Dr. Mann. I know that some climate skeptics wanted to ask why Dr. Mann chose to cherry pick surface temperature data only to 2005, with the suggestion that it might be so he could “hide the pause”. It is a valid question, especially since Dr. Mann had been called out on the tactic two years ago by Steve McIntyre when he saw the same slides at the 2012 AGU Fall Meeting. We also have a discussion about it at WUWT here.
Imagine if a climate skeptic did the same thing at a Cabot Institute lecture, they’d be vilified.
But clearly by his actions, Dr. Mann has shown that such questions are off the table. Dr. Mann doesn’t want honest questions, he only wants to play at denigration, as evidenced by his use of labels like “deniers”, “tin foil hats”, and “Koch machine”.
My mind was made up going in that I wasn’t going to engage. The humorous fixation on social media over my not asking a question at the lecture seems to be little more than a brouhaha of their own making. Wikipedia says:
Typically, a brouhaha is marked by controversy and fuss that can seem, afterwards, to have been pointless or irrational.
Indeed.
But it seems, the tide is turning against Dr. Mann, and the support for these sorts of unprofessional actions is waning, as Andrew Montford summed up:
As we waited in our seats for Michael Mann’s lecture at the Cabot Institute to begin, I was struck by the sight of the great man alone at the side of the stage. He stood there for several minutes, ignored by everyone, as the last of the audience appeared and the Cabot Institute people, Lewandowsky among them, scurried about making final arrangements. I couldn’t help but be reminded of Mark Steyn’s comments about climatologists’ stark failure to make any amici submissions to the DC court on Mann’s behalf. The other day I also heard a story about a room full of paleo people rolling their eyes and groaning at the mere mention of his name. Somehow the Cabot Institute’s abandonment of the honoured speaker at the side of the stage seemed to epitomise this growing isolation. Even the scientivists seemed to be abandoning him.
Probably the most valuable thing we can do, is simply to ignore Dr. Mann and his rants about climate skeptics being tinfoil hat wearers, Koch shills, or deniers. We are none of those.
But most important, and on full display now, is the fact that if Dr. Mann can’t even be bothered to update his slides with current global temperature data. In that failing, he has already become irrelevant to the climate debate.
Mann bolted from the scene 10 minutes early on the pretext of having “books to sign”, because Lew realised that the next question might have had to come from a sceptic.
Sitting next to “katabasis’ I can confirm that his hand was held high in an attempt to ask one, but he was deliberately ignored – his “roasting” of Cook a few days earlier might have had something to do with it !
The big unanswered question is how will Bristol regard Lew from now on, his reputation in Australia is hardly unblemished and as the World’s only “Climate Change Refugee” they must been expecting better things from his two “friends”.
I don’t get this at all.
“The science is settled / The debate is over”.
And they’re disappointed there were no serious questions or debate?
Bless your patience and composure Anthony. Dignity trumps ad homs by a significant margin.
How can we mere mortals fathom how the mind of a pretend Noble Laurent works…
More likely for them and their myopic view, debating “settled science” is their opprotunity for continual back-slapping and smirking.
Dr. Mann is not a scientist. Period.
Sums it up.
Overly dramatic?
Look, Mann is trying to destroy people with lawsuits. Mark Steyn fills in for Rush Limbaugh and when he does he has 20 million listeners. There has got to be at least one crazy in that audience, perhaps more. People know Steyn and many respect his genius. Those who love him have got to be angry at Mann for abusing the legal system to silence his critics. God forbid that anyone would do anything stupid and try and do him harm, but if something like that happens, some kind of assault with intent to do bodily harm, would anyone be surprised?
So of course he has police protection and the air is tense whenever he gives an open forum-type presentation. If he was a true scientist and not an ideologue who uses dubious scientific findings to promote — or rather impose — his agenda, he wouldn’t be having these problems.
Why ask him a question anyway? He’s got stock phrases and rote answers that help him avoid responding honestly to probing questions. You know what he’s going to say.
So the pretend Nobel Laureate’s ego needs to be protected by a bizzarely formed stage, security and police protection. I am not really sure why Anthony or anyone would want to interect with such a knuckle-dragger. I imagine though if Anthony was able to interact in a respectful, meaningful way with others at the event, it was worthwhile.
Proverbs 12:16 CEB
Fools reveal their anger right away, but the shrewd hide their contempt.
Thanks, A. Well said:
“Probably the most valuable thing we can do, is simply to ignore Dr. Mann and his rants about climate skeptics being tinfoil hat wearers, Koch shills, or deniers. We are none of those.”
“he has already become irrelevant to the climate debate.”, indeed!
The Irrelevant Mann and his Stick on display. I wonder if Penn State has yet mandated faculty training on Title IX.
The Mann-o-sphere v.s. Kochtopussy.
I’m surprised Mann didn’t put a bullet-proof glass between him and his audience, he’s so paranoid.
Was the venue in the main auditorium or the smaller lecture room? This building houses the music department. I can imagine the use of the platformed stage presenting smaller ensemble performances variously placed on the different levels. The overall size indicates a smaller, intimate performance venue as opposed to a full orchestra auditorium. A fire in the 1930’s apparently gutted the main auditorium of its Greek inspired ornate design and was replaced with a rather stale boring interior. If this is the smaller lecture hall, the speaker would be placing ensembles here and there to demonstrate various musical topics. It would also lend itself to intimate avant garde musical theater.
It appears that this stage would not be the best venue for scientific lectures. Bristol does have scientific departments and buildings. I wonder why such an odd space was chosen for this lecture.
By the way Anth***, I noted that Cabot retweeted on your house meeting tweeted by Ed Hawkins.
http://www.bristol.ac.uk/cabot/
Pamela, it was the main auditorium.
Then indeed it was, by all reviews, a poorly remodeled performance auditorium, though meant for musical stage performances. That explains the platforms. Apparently the pre-fire auditorium, also for performances, was quite ornate and possibly larger, built to enhance sound resonance. Greek architecture went the extra mile to enhance performance, all the up to the nosebleed seats. Most modern auditoriums don’t even bother, banking on electronic acoustics to enhance sound. Great if your ears are fine. Not so great if they have to then add FM and wireless loops, leading to “can you hear me now” seating.
its typical of Mann to gloat about not being asked any questions by sceptics and forget to mention is was due to the ‘success’ of the Lewandowsky little tricks with loading the basis.
For in the world of Mann n BS , outright lies , very poor scientific practice all those and more are justified if they feed his universe sized ego.
My question for Mann would have been:
“Now that the global temperature Pause is 17-plus years and climbing, have you filled out your McDonald’s job application yet?”
Mann’s new audience in that line of work:
http://cdn.theatlantic.com/newsroom/img/posts/2014/05/happy2ghjk/368ef7f84.jpg
He could run the onion “ring” fryer.
Can I ask a question?
Could it be that Michael Mann’s rings were also acting like rain gauges?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/03/19/treemometers-or-rain-gauges/
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2053
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/09/28/a-look-at-treemometers-and-tree-ring-growth/
What a cowardly weasel.
freedomfan,
You summarized it in just 4 words.
No wasted pixels!
How about a ferret-like poltroon?
My opinion, not that it matters any, is that the big question that should have been asked, even by the softball crowd is:
“Given the huge fee paid for Mann’s public speaking events, surely Mann is expected to earn his fee by presenting the audience information about current events using current data?”
From this seat it appears that the Cabot Institute and their interested audience have been defrauded for all costs incurred by Mann; including special accommodations for attendees.
Was Manniacal flown there and put up in a hotel by the Cabot Institute? Just that cost alone deserves more than just the physical presence of pompous fools regurgitating old presentations, running interface for the speaker or shills asking pretend questions.
Kudos to Cabot Institute and all skeptics who attended!
What a difference in culture, class and general politeness those skeptics demonstrated compared against the childish antics of the alarmists who also happened to be there. It is clear who the actual gentlemen and ladies of culture truly are.
Let’s be honest here, in case this hasn’t already been mentioned, any question from one of the skeptics in the audience would have been science and data based and neither Mann nor Cook was prepared for anything of that nature.
Mann et al all have huge egos that need to be fed by publicity both positive and negative. By not asking any questions at the lecture you did more damage than by asking. The police protection is a part of the ego stroking. During the lecture you might have noticed a slight hissing sound, it wasn’t static in your headset, it was his ego deflating.
All the wrong questions are being asked , why did Mann elect not to interact with quest of his so called presentation ?
The talk was not about the science of climate, but about “Climate Wars”. It seems that Mann is trying to capitalize on the controversy created by himself. Questioning him would only provide advertising for his lame lecture. Mann and his cronies must have spent hours planning responses to questions that never came. I’m glad they wasted their time.
I’m going to be the voice of dissent here. Anth_ny, your first reason makes no sense. If Lew didn’t call on you, you’d have nothing to worry about. Reasons 2 and 3 would have played into your hands. I doubt that Lew or Mann would have done any such thing. We may not like them, but they aren’t stupid. A disingenuous attack such as you describe would have gotten them a shellacking for the simple reason that you get the last word, right here on this site, and debunking claims such as those would be trivial. Had they tried such tactics, I’m of the opinion that it would have been an “own goal” when the dust settled over the next week.
As for reason number 4, this can be defused. Simply preface any question you may pose by noting that you have a hearing impairment and would appreciate that being kept in mind, then ask your question. Any attempt to take advantage of your hearing impairment in responding would have reflected poorly on them, and again, you get the last word here on your blog. They’d look like slime at best.
Lastly, this is a long drawn out war, no need to win it in a single battle or even a single skirmish. Part of the strategy is not necessarily score points on the first engagement, but to evaluate the other side’s response strategy. So, throw him a soft one next time, not because you want to expose some weakness in his position, but to see how he deals with it. For example, if you had raised your hand and Lew had ignored you, we’d know that’s what the strategy is for next time. Or you get called upon, and ask a real easy one, like does he think that updating his graphs from 2005 to current would change any of his conclusions. Pitch him three or four soft ones like that over the course of the next few encounters over the next few years and he’ll stop seeing you as an immediate threat, he’ll let his guard down….and that’s when you nail him with a doozy.
Me, I would asked how he felt about his talk being moderated by someone who recently had a paper withdrawn for breach of ethics…. but that’s me, born trouble maker, and probably best that I don’t show up at these things 😉
davidmhoffer,
I almost always agree with your analyses, but this time I agree with Anthony. He was in a no-win situation with Lewandowsky in that position.
Since Mann and Lewandowsky knew Anthony was in the country and would be there, you must know that they heavily strategized all possible scenarios, including the ones you mentioned. I would have, and I think you would have, too.
They completely controlled the venue. There is no doubt that they “worked with” Cabot on exactly how it would all come down. Cabot wanted Mann for it’s bragging rights, so they deferred to whatever he wanted regarding questions. It isn’t any different from when one of Mann’s ‘investigating’ committees allowed him to huddle with committee members beforehand, to formulate the questions he would be asked. Then of course, he was “exonerated”. <–[Mann's term]
No, it was a no-win. Under the circumstances, Anthony handled it the only way that made sense. Rocky Road had about the only workable strategy for asking questions:
Anthony, you should have raised your hand and asked if you could take a bathroom break.
They were ready for anything else.
Since Mann and Lewandowsky knew Anthony was in the country and would be there, you must know that they heavily strategized all possible scenarios, including the ones you mentioned. I would have, and I think you would have, too.
Of course they did. The point of throwing a softball question at them is to expose what the strategy is. Every insight one gains into their strategy by evaluating their response informs the next encounter. With skill and patience you can get the enemy to not only expose his strategy to you, but tell you exactly where he thinks the chinks in his armour are.
But, if you lob them a softball, and they hit it out of the park, you have just lent legitimacy to their cause. Next day headline: Mann Demolishes Prominent Skeptic’s Attempt To Disrupt Climate Presentation.
Nature is on our side, and they are floundering against it. Never interfere with an enemy while he’s in the process of destroying himself.
I bet there was a second interesting dinner meeting before the talk with Mann, Lew, et al about how to run the meeting and who would ask what questions. Anthony’s meeting would have been the much more productive one.
Did you ever see Steve Martin ask the bathroom question in the movie Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. It probably wouldn’t have been wise for Anthony to ask that question but somebody should have.
“Probably the most valuable thing we can do, is simply to ignore Dr. Mann and his rants about climate skeptics being tinfoil hat wearers, Koch shills, or deniers. We are none of those.”
Mann is so famous now he is a skeptic’s best antagonist, and a younger generation of skeptics needs to shout to the rafters out of turn as required about his support of the bladeless input data Marcott 2013 hockey stick that destroys his ability to bury hockey stick criticism in black box minutea. Pacifism is defeatism. You are declaring a general surrender, here, just as the culture warriors are going on the offensive like mad, to keep their dying show on the road for another election cycle or two. You own timid outlook was a personal and reasonable thing, but projecting it onto tens of thousands of regular blog readers is why news sites are still lacking many seasoned skeptics to strongly and morally counter propoganda. Most are safely behind enemy lines, preaching to the choir. Twitter becons, and VICE.com, and Gizmodo.com, and BoingBoing.com, and especially Phys.org. I’m the solitary person exposing Mann’s support of Marcott 2013. How can that be? Well, we see part of the reason in you call to now ignore Mann!
I think something seems to be on it’s head here. Mann had the advantage. Mr.W was a sitting duck and potentially could have been caused a lot of credibility damage. So the issue is not so much why Mr. W did not put Mann down, but one has to wonder why Mann didn’t take full advantage of the best possible opportunity he is likely ever to have, to score maximum points. It seems he was more than a little shy to engage,
So now that he has expressed his disappointment that a meaningful debate with the Sceptics didn’t happen, I suppose he will be glad to accept an invitation to a properly organised meeting… or is his bravery only when he’s at a safe distance.
Thanks Anthony for keeping us informed. Best goes to you.
Eamon.
Eamon,
I agree. Mann had complete and total advantage in this particular venue. “Pick your battles” is wise advice. So is fighting on your own turf. At Cabot, Anthony had neither advantage. It would have been stupid to engage there, IMHO.
The upshot of the whole thing is that Mann is clearly frustrated. Not a bad outcome, under the circumstances.
We all know what Mann’s answers are, no need to ask.
I can offer a neutral ground in Spain. Here nobody worries about global warming.
Question: does “and then there’s physics” work at Cabot? I chat with this person and have taken to calling him Andy, but if he’s a famous dude then I’ll call him Dr There.