Climate Crisis extremists attack experts who challenge claims of imminent climate Armageddon
Guest opinion by Paul Driessen
ISIL and other Islamist jihad movements continue to round up and silence all who oppose them or refuse to convert to their extreme religious tenets. They are inspiring thousands to join them. Their intolerance, vicious tactics and growing power seem to have inspired others, as well.
After years of claiming the science is settled and unprecedented man-made catastrophes are occurring right now, Climate Crisis, Inc. is increasingly desperate. Polls put climate change at the bottom of every list of public concerns. China and India refuse to cut energy production or emissions. Real-world weather and climate totally contradict their dire models and forecasts. Expensive, subsidized, environmentally harmful renewable energy makes little sense in world freshly awash in cheap, accessible oil, gas and coal.
Perhaps worse, Congress is in Republican control, and in 23 months the White House and Executive Branch could also shift dramatically away from the Freezing-Jobless-in-the-Dark Side of the Force.
Climate Crisis industrialists are also fed up with constant carping, criticism and questions from growing numbers of experts who will not kowtow to their End of Days theology. Once seemingly near, their dream of ruling a hydrocarbon-free world of “sustainably” lower living standards become more remote every week. Extremist factions had dreamed of a global climatist caliphate and want vengeance.
So borrowing from Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton mentor Saul Alinsky’s book, Rules for Radicals, they have gone on the attack: Pick a target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. A good tactic is one your people enjoy. A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag. Keep the pressure on, with different tactics and actions. They’ve also borrowed from the Islamic State playbook: Silence your enemies.
Led by Greenpeace associate Kert Davies, this Climatist Jihad wing of the climate chaos movement has launched a well funded, carefully choreographed vendetta of character assassination and destruction, vilifying dangerous manmade climate change “deniers” and trying to destroy their careers. Their Big Green, Big Government and media allies are either actively complicit, rooting from the sidelines or silent.
Instead of bullets, bombs and beheadings, they use double standards, Greenpeace FOIA demands, letters from Senator Ed Markey and Congressman Raul Grijalva, threats of lost funding and jobs, and constant intimidation and harassment. Submit, recant, admit your guilt, renounce your nature-rules-climate faith, Climatist Jihadis tell climate realists. Or suffer the consequences, which might even include IRS, EPA and Fish & Wildlife Service swat teams bursting through your doors, as they did with Gibson Guitars.
Their first target was Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics scientist Wei-Hock “Willie” Soon. Working closely with Greenpeace’s Climate Investigations Center, the Boston Globe and New York Times alleged that Dr. Soon received $1.25 million from the fossil fuel industry, but failed to disclose those funds when his scientific papers were published and falsely claimed he had no conflict of interest.
The charges are bogus. Harvard had full knowledge of Dr. Soon’s research financing and took 40% of the grant money off the top: some $500,000! The details are all public records, and Dr. Soon has a solid track record of going where his careful and extensive research takes him – regardless of where the money comes from. Not a scrap of evidence suggests that he falsified or fabricated data or conclusions, or twisted his science to satisfy research sponsors, on any of the numerous topics he has studied.
He has received incredible flak from environmentalist pressure groups, media outlets and even his own university – and has courageously stood behind his research, analyses and findings, which continue to withstand intense scientific scrutiny. Harvard-Smithsonian recently said it “does not support Dr. Soon’s conclusions on climate change,” and Harvard Earth and Planetary Sciences Professor Daniel Schrag averred that Soon’s approach to finding global average temperatures was perhaps not “as honest as other approaches.” But they offer not a scintilla of evidence to support their allegations of inaccuracy and dishonesty, and give him no opportunity to respond.
Indeed, one of the most prominent aspects of the climate imbroglio is the steadfast refusal of alarmist scientists to discuss or debate their findings with experts who argue that extensive, powerful natural forces – not human carbon dioxide emissions – drive Earth’s climate and weather. “Manmade disaster” proponents also refuse to divulge raw data, computer codes and other secretive work that is often paid for with taxpayer money and is always used to justify laws, treaties, regulations, mandates and subsidies that stifle economic growth, kill jobs and reduce living standards.
Dr. Soon is not the only target. The Climate Jihadists are also going after Robert Balling, Matt Briggs, John Christy, Judith Curry, Tom Harris, Steven Hayward, David Legates, Richard Lindzen, and Roger Pielke, Jr. More are sure to follow, because their work eviscerates climate cataclysm claims and raises serious questions about the accuracy, credibility, integrity and sanctity of alarmist science.
Climate Crisis, Inc. wants a monopoly over the issue. Its members focus almost exclusively on alleged human causes of climate change and extreme weather events – and would love to see skeptics silenced. Crisis proponents will not even attend scientific conferences where skeptics discuss natural causes and alarmists have opportunities to defend their hypotheses, models and evidence. (Perhaps the FCC needs to investigate this monopoly and issue “climate neutrality” rules, to ensure honest and balanced discussion.)
It fits a depressing pattern: of the White House, Democrats and liberals shutting down debate, permitting no amendments, conducting business behind closed doors, not allowing anyone to read proposed laws and regulations, rarely even recognizing that there are differing views – on ObamaCare, ObamaNetCare, IRS harassment of conservative donors and groups, PM Netanyahu’s speech to Congress, or climate change.
The Climate Crisis industry thrives on tens of billions of dollars annually, for one-sided climate research, drilling and fracking studies, renewable energy projects and other programs, all based on dubious claims that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions threaten climate stability and planetary survival.
Businesses, job holders and consumers pay the huge costs of complying with the resultant regulations and soaring energy costs. Taxpayers pay for much of the research and propaganda that drives the rulemaking. Russia and hard-left foundations have also contributed billions to the process; and government unions, environmental pressure groups and renewable energy companies give generously to researchers and to politicians who keep the alarmist research programs, regulatory processes, mandates and subsidies alive.
All of this raises another elephantine issue. If a couple million dollars over a decade’s time creates near-criminal conflict-of-interest and disclosure problems for skeptic/realist scientists, what effects do billions of dollars in research money have on alarmist researchers and their universities and institutions?
Few, if any, alarmist researchers have disclosed that their work was funded by government agencies, companies, foundations and others with enormous financial, policy, political and other interests in their work, ensuring that their conclusions support manmade factors and debunk natural causes. Many of those researchers have signed statements that their research and papers involved no conflicts, knowing they would not get these grants, if their outcomes did not reflect the sponsors’ interests and perspectives.
Moreover, ClimateGate, IPCC revelations and other investigations have revealed extensive and troubling incidents of manipulated data, faulty models, wild exaggerations, and completely baseless claims about hottest years, disappearing glaciers, coastal flooding and other “crises.” And those claims severely impact our energy costs, jobs, living standards, economic growth and freedoms.
We need to end the double standard – and investigate the alarmist researchers and institutions.
Or better yet, let us instead have that all-out, open, robust debate that climate realists have long sought – and alarmists have refused to join. Equal government and other money for all research. All cards and evidence on the table. No more hiding data and codes. Answer all questions, no matter how tough or inconvenient. And let honest science decide what our energy and economic futures will be.
Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org), author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power – Black death, and coauthor of Cracking Big Green: Saving the world from the Save-the-Earth money machine.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Guest opinion by Paul Driessen
“… they have gone on the attack: Pick a target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. …”
____
That is indeed the foul tactic Paul, you’ve summed it up well, thanks.
I would just add that it’s not beneath these people to seed comments with political and propaganda advocacy types, to actively seek to derail and muddy all discussions of the actual science observations. What else can they do at this point but undermine skeptical centers of science observation and discussions with derailing political swill. There seems to be a lot of people making comments above who are pushing just that sort of anti-science, pro-politics and pro-propaganda-mangle line.
Climate Change. A horizon Guide. A programme on BBC 4 at 9.pm Wednesday 4th March. Should be worth watching. Flagged as “How did a little known theory become one of the biggest scientific undertakings in history?” We need a big sceptic tune- in and professional reaction.
Thank you George, I knew the BBC were planning to show the programme, but until your comment, was not aware of broadcast timings. I’ll be watching it.
Here’s the link to the programme.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b054fg05
Nature 399, 437-439 (3 June 1999) | doi:10.1038/20867; Received 21 December 1998; Accepted 12 April 1999
“The solar wind is an extended ionized gas of very high electrical conductivity, and therefore drags some magnetic flux out of the Sun to fill the heliosphere with a weak interplanetary magnetic field1,2. Magnetic reconnection—the merging of oppositely directed magnetic fields—between the interplanetary field and the Earth’s magnetic field allows energy from the solar wind to enter the near-Earth environment. The Sun’s properties, such as its luminosity, are related to its magnetic field, although the connections are still not well understood3,4. Moreover, changes in the heliospheric magnetic field have been linked with changes in total cloud cover over the Earth, which may influence global climate5. Here we show that measurements of the near-Earth interplanetary magnetic field reveal that the total magnetic flux leaving the Sun has risen by a factor of 1.4 since 1964: surrogate measurements of the interplanetary magnetic field indicate that the increase since 1901 has been by a factor of 2.3. This increase may be related to chaotic changes in the dynamo that generates the solar magnetic field. We do not yet know quantitatively how such changes will influence the global environment.”
http://www2.mps.mpg.de/projects/sun-climate/papers/nature.pdf
http://www2.mps.mpg.de/projects/sun-climate/papers/nature.pdf
“ISIL and other Islamist jihad movements continue to round up and silence all who oppose them or refuse to convert to their extreme religious tenets.”
So would it not to have been more appropriate to have had a cartoon showing Islamist extremists beheading Christians?
Alba
Actually, no. ISIS has killed many times more adherents to Islam than adherents to Christianity.
Richard
Every victim is one victim too much, regardless of its creed.
Non Nomen
YES! And that was my point.
Richard
Not that many may be interested but there is a “major” (official classification) geomagnetic storm under way.
http://www.n3kl.org/sun/images/noaa_kp_3d.gif
The comments here are quite enlightening!
I’m not a scientist so maybe some of the bright bulbs that are can answer a question for me.
I just read a piece and saw a photo indicating the sun is almost into full dormancy stage.
Would this not indicate that our climate will be cooler?
Not exactly a fresh news, at least not to me, it was known for nearly 12 years, and it was in print more than 11 years ago (see here )
“I just read a piece and saw a photo indicating the sun is almost into full dormancy stage.
Would this not indicate that our climate will be cooler?”
We’ve been following this for 5 years or more, see WUWT’s solar page in the resource pages. Very rarely the DailyMail in UK or Focus in Germany mentions it, these mentions will become more frequent as lakes and rivers freeze over that were predicted to never freeze over again.
Search in WUWT for Svensmark or Nir Shaviv.
…and for Jasper Kirkby.
As propaganda has been a primary theme of this thread, a useful summary of its time honored methods. Helpful to know the tools so you can know when they’re being used.
http://changingminds.org/techniques/propaganda/propaganda.htm
Why would NASA and NOAA lie?
Because the political class that runs government pays them to.
That is a bit too harsh. They do not tell lies, it is that few of their public exponents re-interpret data according to the set agenda.
NASA has done more for the advancement of science probably more than any other scientific institution in whole of the human history. This is of a view of an amateur, weekly pocket money financed researcher, who was in the past denounced by the NASA’s top solar scientist.
Here is a snippet from the NASA’s research
” it is that few of their public exponents re-interpret data according to the set agenda.”
Et tu Brute?
Hi Tom
No one takes much notice of my data re-interpretation, to be ‘honest’ very often I have nothing better to do, not that my wife would agree.
Ah… Yes, one set of data I re-interpreted made UK Met office recalculate not only CET but all other UK annual data for all sorts of things (rain, sunshine hours etc) and redraw all corresponding graphs.
All financed by my pocket money, any offers to refinance my past or future efforts will be politely declined, since I am truly independent data manipulator ! scientia absque labore
Correcting the UK Met Office was a good thing. But even a blind squirrel can find a nut now and then.
Tom, it was just a wink from the princes of Serendip that did it.
Whose bread one eats, whose word one speaks.
Why is it that ‘anthropogenic global warming’ is often portrayed in religious terms rather than secular, ideological terms? Why is it that persecution is usually portrayed as something that religious people do rather than something, which is far more common, that people with secular ideologies do? For example;
Czech Priest Witnessed the ‘Cihost Miracle’ and Was Killed for It (9309)
The life and legacy of Father Josef Toufar, who was killed in 1949 by communist police, was marked Feb. 22 at a Mass celebrated by Cardinal Dominik Duka, archbishop of Prague.
by BOHUMIL PETRIK/CNA/EWTN NEWS 02/25/2015 Comments (9)
Father Josef Toufar
– Courtesy of Father Tomas Fiala
ROME — A priest who witnessed a miracle in communist Czechoslovakia in the 1940s was tortured and beaten to death for refusing to recant what he’d seen. And now Catholics from the country are honoring his heroic virtue and pushing for him to be recognized as a martyr.
At a recent gathering in Číhošť commemorating the priest’s brutal death, his current successor at the parish church says he’s grateful for efforts to overturn the decades-long silence on atrocities against Catholics in the 20th century.
“Naturally, I am glad that the issue of Father Josef Toufar is starting to be resolved, in which it will be shown how the political regime in our country actually was,” Father Tomas Fiala told CNA.
During the season of Advent in 1949 — the early phase of the communist era in Czechoslovakia — Father Toufar and some parishioners said they saw a cross at the altar in the church moving from one side to another several times. The event has come to be known as the “Číhošť Miracle.”
To prevent the news of the phenomenon from going public, the secret police interrogated Father Toufar, demanding that he say that he had moved the cross himself.
The priest, however, refused.
In response, the police beat him so severely that he was unable to speak, walk or sit. He died two months after the miracle took place.
After Father Toufar’s death, the Church and all religions were suppressed across the Soviet Union-led communist regime. The state was officially atheist, and any accounts of miracles and those who spoke of them were treated in a way to be erased from the record and the historical memory. The regime even filmed a documentary that tried to show that the Číhošť miracle was a forgery.
Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/czech-priest-witnessed-the-cihost-miracle-and-was-killed-for-it#ixzz3T8tRK4QD
There are those scientists and journalists who are sitting on the sidelines and hoping the AGW Death Ray does not find them. It is time for them to stand up and be counted, they know that what is going on is wrong and the longer they keep quiet out of fear from the scientific thugs and even nuttier environmentalists, the more difficult and painful it will be for sanity to be recovered later.
It’s encouraging to see that this site is finally encompassing the political aspect of the subject. A preoccupation with the minutia of pure science will never win a war against mass propaganda, backed by billions of dollars and credentialed mercenaries. Their ‘science’ has been engineered into simple terms for the naïve masses. Hence no real in-depth scientific debates are necessary or permissible.
Keep it simple and spread it widely. Sceptics really do need to follow this successful platform.
“Keep it simple and spread it widely. Sceptics really do need to follow this successful platform.”
_____
Totally disagree.
Simplified ‘science’ is bubblegum with no flavor, it gets rejected and ejected fast, and rightly so.
Science is at its best when it’s most involved and mentally dynamic. What do you want, build another inadequate consensus that doesn’t reflect the actual science just so more false axioms can be constructed?
And when has belief not powered policy and politics? The Catholics ran the show in Europe for a very long time. When has a popular or socio-religious belief system not sought to avoid problematic observed facts and their implications? When have these not tried to hide from systematic testing and detailed data?
And when hasn’t fact continually and eventually always won the day over time when evidence was relentlessly methodically presented in very compelling DETAIL?
We examine data to work out how things work. It is a fascinating world we live in, in all respects. ‘Simplifying’ a political message and image or reality, so that it’s not longer scientific at all, so that people who are not actually much interested in science observations and data can be ‘informed’ by something that’s been rendered too simplistic to be scientifically meaningful?
Why bother with science at all then? Why not just make-up whatever you want and convince people of its merit given detailed data and rational exposition of evidence is not desirable within political fiction-swapping combat?
People need to smarten up to reality, not be given even more excuses to dumb down politics even further. The topic needs to be less political, less polarized, less dishonest and far more observant and accepting of what earth tells us, as it is.
The fact that the coldest temps ever measured in many places in the US (by a large margin) have occurred just a few days ago and are on-going, is a very powerful fact which shows the public via their frozen extremities and roof damage, what the reality is about dangerous CO2 induced global warming. I’m interested in what those people think of this, not what TV chooses to present and spin, nor the nonsense going on in the Oval Office or UN.
Do you really think those people are generally going to now accept the lame absurdity of AGW propagandists that the intense cold is really due to a too hot planet? Do you think they’ll need or benefit from some of your ‘simple’ science propaganda?
Or maybe some of them want some detailed observational facts now and will wander around the net looking for a plain-speaking website that can answer their questions?
Is simple flavorless bubblegum ‘science’ going to help them, or make them think maybe the skeptics aren’t the real deal, are really scientists, more a bunch of tedious political lobbyists with no real facts to offer?
Just like the other lot?
No disrespect, but I strongly disagree, the people who want politics and propaganda have it all wrong, and they’re also in the wrong place.
Unmentionable
Well said! Thankyou.
Richard
Great Lakes ice coverage is 88.8%.
We have broken the all time record for ice cover for this late period of the year. Forecast for the next week is continued anomalously cold. There is therefore an opportunity to break the all time Great Lakes ice coverage.
http://coastwatch.glerl.noaa.gov/glsea/cur/glsea_cur.png
Chris
February 28, 2015 at 8:45 pm
Look, I think it’s possible that those “97% of scientists agree” studies are bunk. But it is very clear that a majority of scientists agree that CO2 is the main driver and that climate change poses a real threat.
No, Chris, your statement distorts the positions of the “majority of scientists”.
I believe that the majority of scientists agree that atmospheric CO2 is part of what are called “Green House Gases” (GHG) and as part of this “green house” effect contributes at some level to the overall temperature of the atmosphere.
Separately, the climate always poses a threat to humanity in some form. Example: if one doesn’t have shelter in the winter, it is possible the cold will be lethal. A changing climate, whether changing to cooler or warmer, dryer or wetter, etc. will most likely pose a threat to someone somewhere.
Even so, the most rational statements regarding anthropogenic CO2 emissions into the atmosphere and its possible effects are:
“There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.” (Oregon Petition Project)
and
“We, the undersigned, having assessed the relevant scientific evidence, do not find convincing support for the hypothesis that human emissions of carbon dioxide are causing, or will in the foreseeable future cause, dangerous global warming.” (The Climate Scientists’ Register at the International Climate Scientists Coalition)
In neither statement is there an argument that the Green House Effect doesn’t exist or that atmospheric CO2 doesn’t effect the atmospheric temperature or that humans aren’t adding to the atmospheric CO2 level or even that the climate may be changing.
We do not know what percentage of “climate scientists” would agree or disagree with these statements nor do we know at what level there agreement or disagreement would be.
We do know that any real scientist who takes the time to look for evidence that anthropogenic CO2 is causing the atmosphere to warm at an unprecedented level will not be able to find such evidence because if they had, the real scientists who frequent this board would have discussed it.
Actually there is consensus among scientists that Man’s activities are warming the planet:: http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/
Warrenpound,
There is a consensus among scientists that for two decades, more or less, there has been no statistically significant increase in the global temperature index (excluding from that consensus the more rabid warmer types). Even the IPCC acknowledges this. And now that the chief molester has left, the IPCC will no doubt acknowledge other truths. Because, you see, under Pachauri, that organization molested science and women, both.
warrenlb
NO!
Firstly, it is not known if there is a “consensus among scientists that Man’s activities are warming the planet” because nobody has asked them. Administrators of academic institutions have published documents that say they think that, but so what?
Secondly, “warming the planet” is ambiguous. If I were asked then I would agree that “Man’s activities are warming the planet” but I would point out that any such warming is too small to be detectable and cannot become sufficiently large for it to be detected.
Thirdly, consensus is a denial of science.
Richard
I agree with all of those excerpts except the part about “investigate”. I think audits of a certain type would be good at this point but I do not think “investigation[s]” should be primary focus at this point.
Therefore, first, I think a scientific process audit of the government’s NASA GISS, not an investigation of it, is prudent if the audit is done by a very broadly balanced consortium of private sector scientists. The audit would not be a government sponsored one; it would instead be the broader science community checking on the scientific processes of NASA GISS.
John
that cartoon would be funnier if the AGWer was trying to light up the pyre with the ‘fiery earth’ on his staff…but then can’t light up because it’s really just not ‘on fire’ as he believes it is.
MattE,
Do mean a cartoon like this one?
John
Translation: “Sorry boss, it won’t burn.”
There is one problem with making wind turbines your gods(*); they don’t answer.
(*) which is what modern day secularists-atheists here in Germany do, as one can easily test by telling them that wind turbines are useless, expensive, uncompetitive, and a money-losing enterprise. The irrational explosion that follows points to the worshipping nature of their commitment to killing bats. Can’t Batman help his li’l fellows?
If the political system is broken (and many places apparently) then it’s the system that is at fault, not the facts and details of earth observations.
Do you lower your standards and simplify and effectively abandon facts and observation, so you can compete within the broken political sewer?
Or do you maintain your standards, keep it clean and keep presenting the facts and details of observation, relentlessly, methodically, and demand the sewer clean up its act?
What to do?
If propaganda is better at influencing people than telling the truth based on facts, then, in order for the facts to win the battle of memes, you propagandise them.
Or you commit suicide with the irrelevant facts and truth in your hands.
Demand the sewer clean up its act? Lol. You are quie naive. And ideology beats naivety every time.
Edit_XYZ:
“If propaganda is better at influencing people than telling the truth based on facts, then, in order for the facts to win the battle of memes, you propagandise them.
Or you commit suicide with the irrelevant facts and truth in your hands.
Demand the sewer clean up its act? Lol. You are quie naive. And ideology beats naivety every time.”
________________
Oh boy, what rot, where to start.
If good science and its presentation is ‘naive’ (a red herring I reject), and ideology always ‘wins’ over such (alleged) nativity, how is it then that Europe’s primarily a secular continent today? Why is the Roman Catholic church currently in courts, all over the world, defending itself (and its coffers) from an avalanche of criminal actions and law suits?
The recorded and reported truth came out – in detail. The propaganda of the religious idealism failed as a result and its bluff or innocence was called.
Propaganda designed to control perceptions can fail completely, it has happened regularly through history and the result is a mess.
The very proposition that the defense of science and reason in the area of climate variability, should be based on simplistic house-of-cards approaches promoted in media and civil forums as contrived propaganda is a about as silly a notion as has been spoken.
People like you are arguing that the sufficiency of clear-cut evidence and well developed carefully examined arguments of known merit be replaced with simplistic half-truths or even untruths to substitute the perfectly adequate material facts. You aren’t so brazen as to put it in such candid terms but that’s what you want AGW skeptics to do, or at least to accept others doing it. You want to literally trick people to ‘win’ them over. You want everyone to risk their credibility, to debase data, and sacrifice a massive store of current advanced knowledge, on the likely complete collapse of such propaganda.
Apparently people like you don’t even grasp how crazy that is, or why it’s thoroughly goofy, and what will happen. So here’s a head’s-up.
Most of the AGW skeptical scientists, in here, and elsewhere, would immediately turn on such propaganda, and pull its wings off, and expose it until it was demolished, and its proponents eviscerated, careers destroyed (if they had one, doubt it) and their heads metaphorically put on a pike.
You also wrote:
“… then, in order for the facts to win the battle of memes, … ”
No, the aim is not about a battle of wretched memes, that’s the most absurd rot. Science is not ideology, it is observation and examination and testing with reporting and thinking, then more testing and observing.
You so know that, right?
The point of doing it is to understand the physical world better with increasing clarity and communicate findings as clearly as possible to others. We don’t care about this petty battle of political memes. We only would like people to understand Earth better, and thus not be so susceptible to cyclical mass manipulators.
Like you for instance.
The only memes we battle are theories and on that level it sometimes resembles ideology and propaganda, but that is within a discipline and done with the aim of understanding earth better and increasingly clearly. It is not done disingenuously with the intent of muddying the waters so that no one can understand anything clearly, and it becomes easier to manipulate the ignorant and leverage some political ‘game’.
Which is what political propaganda seeks to do. That is a mechanism for lies and obscurations, to out ‘compete’ the other lies and obscurations, in order to gain the power of the state, and it enforcement,by force of concerted deception.
No my friend I am not politically naive.
I am politically astute, and that’s why I know the whole concept of political propaganda as applied to science skepticism of AGW, is both thoroughly mad, and doomed to certain failure and the epic blowing-off of online science’s foot.
PLUS, this whole infantile proposal implicitly paints AGW skeptics as being currently desperadoes, who somehow need to do drastic and crazy things to lash out like inept fools to try and land a telling blow.
Which again is complete rubbish, the could not be further from the reality. We are in a commanding position, the data is with us.
Furthermore, what I can assert and ever GUARANTEE, with 100% confidence and certainty, is that in the end the side that ‘wins’ this, will be the one most consistent with observed data.
And I am 100% happy for that to be whatever it is. I am not after some infantile ‘win’ of battling memes in a ludicrous transient political farce. I am after the data being respected and applied and agreed upon that it is what is.
Whatever it is so be it.
The proposition of deliberately perverting both science and debate and betraying the public interest, and damaging understanding, is in my view, nothing less than criminal, a madcap hideous lunacy, at best.
To wrap-up this debunking, I’ll say that I hold significant suspicions about the sudden surge of commenters who militate to turn the skeptical AGW science discussion position into some demented political farce. If I wanted to thoroughly discredit the skeptical scientific take on AGW, it would be just marvelous if I could trick the more dull, impulsive and dodgy fraction of AGW skeptics to do just that.
And falling for that would indeed be naive!
That would also be akin to your “commit suicide” act, as you put it.
Unmentionable
March 1, 2015 at 2:14 pm
“If good science and its presentation is ‘naive’ (a red herring I reject), and ideology always ‘wins’ over such (alleged) nativity, how is it then that Europe’s primarily a secular continent today? ”
Did it ever occur to you that Voltaire’s only occupation was that of a propagandist, for an IDEOLOGY calling itself the “Enlightenment”, call that propaganda or PR or savvy marketing, I don’t care, and their secret society “illuminists”. They also coined the propaganda term “Dark Ages” for all time before the “enlightenment”, which makes sense from their marketing point of view. Many warmist scientists still believe that, denying the medieval warm period.
@dirkh As unmentionable suggested, comments here read like y’all are trying to make the ‘skeptic’ crowd look bad. Your straightforward hostility to the Enlightenment is a really handy example. Yes, that title, and ‘dark ages’ was partly a matter of advertising. But … there certainly was a change between before and after ‘the enlightenment’. The after included greater attention to what was true, versus what people wished was true. Very handy of you, representing ‘your side’, to be opposed to that. And doing so in spite of @unmentionable’s warning.
It was once said
I sincerely hope you are correct!
Trouble is, we have already won the science ‘debate’ such as it has been. We have presented the clear cut evidence in a scientifically convincing manner. The ‘pause’ and hopefully soon-to-be(continued) ‘decline’ have already put the lie to CO2 forcing temps. The general populace has lost interest because they feel the difference between warm and cold and couldn’t care less what Gavin Schmidt says about it.
However, the CAGW scammers and many western governments are still working to impose policies that will wreck our economies and condemn billions of third world peoples to energy poverty for the rest of their short lives. Are we to await politely, preserving our sense of decorum, the judgement of a cooling earth to nail the coffin shut once and for all? What if the cooling is not so much after all? What if it is so gradual as to be nearly imperceptible? What if the scammers readjust the temps to suit their pretensions? Do you think they will not?
I would prefer this be a scientific debate where observation and evidence carry the day. As apparently do you. Unfortunately, we already know that observation and evidence do not matter to the anti-scientists who are engaged in a political battle, not a scientific one. They scorn observation and evidence, modifying it at will to support their pretensions. They and their political enablers attack and demonize any who do not toe the line exactly as defined by them.
They can, and no doubt will, cause enormous damage before any climatic cooling puts an end to them. We have to fight them and discredit them and their political enablers where they are. You may not like where they are, but we do not always have the opportunity to set the grounds we would prefer.
Michael Wassil March 1, 2015 at 11:57 pm
“… Unfortunately, we already know that observation and evidence do not matter to the anti-scientists who are engaged in a political battle, not a scientific one. They scorn observation and evidence, modifying it at will to support their pretensions. They and their political enablers attack and demonize any who do not toe the line exactly as defined by them. …”
—-
Are you talking about the Catholic Church? … or AGW there?
The Observations will win Michael. If science remains science, it will not lose. It can be delayed but the observations will win.
Other countries and other people are responsible for themselves being properly informed by the observations and reality checking, and acting accordingly. If they don’t, are you suggesting it would be our fault, because we didn’t use subterfuge to politically coerce a consensus?
We need to work with what we have Michael and others must to and learn from the mistakes they make and adjust their policies to match observations. When has this been different?
When has science observation and data ever failed to ultimately win these things?
Like church and state, parliament and court, science has to remain separate from politics. It will be the politicians who fail and are dumped not the observations. Let people make grand mistakes, the electorate also has to learn the implications of being mislead by treacherous politicians selling them out. Tough love.
When has reality not been a hard-core deliverer of severe lessons to people who won’t pay attention?
Who’s responsibility is it to pay sufficient attention to reality so that doesn’t happen?
I’ll say again, I sincerely hope you are correct.
CAGW. In my opinion what makes the current situation dangerous is that science (observation, objective evaluation, vigorous debate) is under attack from anti-scientists from within our own ranks. We’re dealing with irrationalism and quasi-religious devotion to a ’cause’. Feynman’s ‘cargo cult’, not science. Because of the power and influence of it’s political and academic enablers this irrationalism threatens to corrupt the rest of science. Already scientists, even if not remotely connected to climate science, must pay fealty to CAGW. Otherwise, they can kiss goodbye access to journals, tenure and funding. The current attacks on prominent scientists send the very clear and strong message: if these established scientists can be attacked and smeared, the rest of you nobodies can be destroyed if you try to buck the cause.
Do you honestly think any prominent CAGW advocate will ever say: “Sorry, I was wrong. I fudged data to support a political agenda, but in the face of undeniable reality I can’t continue it.” Even if the current cooling accelerates and becomes impossible to question, I can’t imagine anyone of them being honest enough to admit that publicly. Judging from the acrimony coming from CAGW for the better part of 25 years or more, I can’t imagine it happening even if the Laurentian ice sheet starts to form again.
Still, I hope you’re correct and I’m overly pessimistic.
The Administration just held an Extremism Summit and these questions of domestic terrorism profiling were addressed. The UN in these summits is given a key role in battling extremist violence. May I add that the majority of member states in the UN are neither economically, religiously or politically free.
As recently as 2012, domestic terrorist profiling did include people who talk about the Constitution, limited government or the Bible. Marie Harf claimed during the 2015 Summit this month that Christians are an extremist threat. Islamists were not named though some were included. Some will remember Harf’s remarks because they were the source of the laughter and hilarity – the “Jobs-for-Jihadists” policy. This approach claims that if only economic issues were addressed by government, the devil would not find such a work shop for idle hands.
Domestic terrorist profiling does include those who oppose the Administration. Perhaps some of the people who are so disappointed in this article can make themselves more useful by enlightening us about how the process of FBI, military, and police training on “domestic terrorist profiling” is proceeding, since they are so shocked at the mention of extremists.
This article simply points out that you can’t get any more extreme than the use of billions of dollars to dismantle the energy and transportation infrastructure in English-speaking countries. This would in effect place us under tribute and create a Climate Caliphate.
I fullly second that. And to make things worse, it’s these Muftis and Imams of that Climate Califate who are now declaring some sort of Jihad on dissenters. The same happened, when the Roman Catholic church decided to put into operation the beloved Inquisition. The results were ghastly as well. Some 2000 years ago it was a roman governor in Jerusalem who decided to crucify a certain King of the Jews. These momentuous occasions triggered evil and suffering. I do not want similar things happening again.
We’d better stop these enemies of free speech, opinion and science before things turn from bad to worse into an irrevocable, inescapable worst-case-scenario.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/01/30/what-are-your-fears-about-global-warming-and-climate-change/#comment-1847733
Hypothesis:
1. The next act of this farce will be characterized by global cooling starting by about 2020 or sooner, cooling that may be mild or severe. Global cooling will demonstrate that climate sensitivity to increasing atmospheric CO2 is so small as to be insignificant. The scientific credibility of the warmist gang will be shattered and some may face lawsuits and/or go to jail.
2. The scientific community will gradually accept the fact that CO2 lags temperature at all measured time scales, and that temperature (among other factors) drives atmospheric CO2 much more than CO2 drives temperature.
3. The foolish green energy schemes to “stop global warming” will be shelved and dismantled, but not before they contribute to a significant increase in Excess Winter Mortality, especially in Europe and to a lesser extent in North America, where energy costs are much lower (thanks to shale fracking).
4. The warmist thugs will still be bleating about a warmer world, wilder weather, etc., all caused by the sins of mankind, but nobody will listen.
Regards to all, Allan
Ridicule is the only honest response.
The beliefs of this Cult(CCC) are so absurd one can only laugh.
A magic gas, formerly known to be essential to photosynthesis and life as we know it, has been declared the cause of Galloping Global Catastrophe.
No proof, no data, no evidence to supplant the geological records…
The UN IPCC is “deferred to” as the complete compilation of all mans wisdom on the Catastrophe to come
Yet this wisdom is mighty thin, many words, no substance.
A Gospel in any other words.
Any soothsayer would be so proud.
On cannot argue with true believers of any sort, logic is defeated by circular argument and willful blindness.
One can only be honest with your own self and stay well armed.
Our bureaucrats have gone mad on this sweet scheme in massive crowds.
The scent of power unchecked by fact or taxpayer has made them insane, only as free individuals will they return to sanity.
A pink slip for each of them will do wonders.
For there is no place in public administration for zealots of any breed.
To quote well-known climate catastrophist Ross McKitrick, in a letter of his posted at CAGW central blog site climateaudit — “McKitrick Letter to Heartland”,
At the time, a mere 3 years ago, Anthony also considered such tactics a poor idea. Now something more extreme is a post he presents himself.
Beyond the moral high ground issue, there’s a pragmatic issue. Suppose there were a more or less mainstream scientist (i.e., the kind of person y’all claim you want a debate with), suppose for sake of discussion I’m one of the candidates. Lack of attendance at things like Heartland ‘conferences’ is also part of the original whinging by CFACT here. But, practically speaking, it strikes me as spectacularly absurd to think I’d be safe attending a meeting with some hundreds of people who think I’m ‘just like’ a mass murderer or ISIS/ISIL/… organization — or worse. Even if physically I got away with all body parts attached, unbroken, and in original arrangement, there is absolutely zero chance that people who equate me to Unabomber or ISIS/ISIL are going to listen to anything I have to say. So much for interest in debate. Again, as McKitrick said,
If you do not talk to the opposing forces first, what else remains to do? Kill first and ask questions later?
It’s you naming ‘opposing forces’. Once you’ve identified people as the enemy, you’re not going to listen to them if they do talk to you. Question is, why should your enemies bother talking to you?
There are undecided people in the world. There’s tons of good science to be done. Your enemies could go off and talk to those people, or do those things, instead.
Robert,
No one is perfect. Heartland put up one billboard, and they took it down within 24 hours, and apologized. But with all the carp-flinging and screeching by alarmist chimpanzees ever since, you would think that Heartland was the cause of the Holocaust.
The admonition of casting the beam out of your own eye comes to mind here…
[And as anyone can see who cares to look, I personally saw nothing wrong with equating the Unabomber with many on the alarmist side, for the following reasons. So to each his own.]
As plenty of folks have pointed out, there are reams of quotes by the alarmist crowd, demanding the scalps of people who are guilty of simply having a different scientific point of view! They have even gotten some people FIRED from their jobs — for simply showing both points of view. Other climate alarmists have called for the EXECUTION of people who have different scientific views. But you didn’t mention that. Why not?
You should re-think your criticism. No one is perfect. But the alarmist crowd is so reprehensible compared with your mild example, that it’s no real comparison. Also, I note that you have not called out anyone on the alarmist side. I wonder why not?
Not a matter of ‘imperfection’. Heartland took down the billboard, but Bast explicitly stated that he considered the equation correct and proper. You note yourself that you consider the billboard to have been appropriate. And then there’s this post, which is a guest post, not a mere comment. And which, when a regular (I’m guessing) notes as a bad idea, you take exception. No imperfection or mistake. These are things you stand by, and are proud of. Which is fine. You (and CFACT, Heartland, almost every commenter here, …) see things this way.
The number of things I didn’t mention is absolutely enormous. I try to stay on topic. It’s a cheap whine of yours to complain about what I didn’t mention. There’s always something I didn’t mention.
But there was no ‘calling out’. You think it is fine to call scientists mass murderers and terrorists. That’s your right/privilege/whatever. You just can’t turn around, as many commenters here did, and the original post did, and complain about scientists not coming to your ‘conferences’ and ‘debating’ with you. A point noted by Ross McKitrick. Well, you can do so. But you don’t have any ground to stand on.
Robert,
Some well-meaning advice: when you put together a comment, try relax for a while before posting it. Look at it later. Take out the emotion. Your comment above was a little disjointed. That’s because there was a lot of emotion there.
Next: I wasn’t trying to be critical; I was pointing out that the attacks made against Heartland pale in comparison to what the alarmist crowd does 24/7/365 — and in spades.
Many times I’ve tried to be nice to that side, but in every case their true colors show. So I don’t give them a second chance whenever I do that, I give back what I get if they don’t take the olive branch I offer. You are engaging in wishful thinking if you believe that turning the other cheek will convert a climate alarmist into a skeptic. No, it will just get your face slapped for your trouble. That’s a point I was making.
Anyway, we’re on the same side [and I am at least 97%+ in agreement with Dr. McKittrick, too]. It is the job of the opposition to point out our faults, and they do a very good job of it. So no need to do it for them. It is our job to show where they are wrong, and since there are so many places to do that, why waste your time criticizing your own side? They will do that for you. But it is not our job to correct our own people — while never, ever mentioning the much more egregious faults committed by the alarmist crowd.
Anyway, try to relax; your comment was very emotional. I make the same mistake sometimes. Best to calm down, and reconsider before posting. It will be easier to follow, and to understand what you’re saying.
@stealey: You seem to be missing your mirror. Try taking your own advice before passing it on.
Since you think it reasonable, even desirable, to equate those you disagree with to mass murderers and terrorists, we are definitely not on the same side.
Robert,
I have never been disrespectful to you, or treated you badly. I don’t address you as “@grumbine”. If you think constructive criticism is treating you badly, it’s not intended that way. I don’t say you’re ‘whining’ or other insulting labels, like you aim at me. Read over the post I was responding to. You’re clearly upset about something or other. I’m not sure exactly what it is. And it’s apparently not just me. You wrote: You (and CFACT, Heartland, almost every commenter here, …) see things this way.
Everyone sees things their own way. My problem is when folks who are presumably skeptics start attacking other skeptics. That is something I always steer clear of doing. It’s bad business.
You have not been on the receiving end of much worse criticism than you’re dishing out; I have been. As I pointed out, there are lots of alarmists who would like nothing better than to murder skeptics. This isn’t my imagination; they have explicitly said so. That is what Ted Kazynski wanted, too, so I think the comparison is apt.
What I don’t understand is the chip on your shoulder. Now you’re leaning on Dr. Soon, too [your comment @4:07 below].
What’s going on, Robert?
@stealey There’s only one stealey commenting, and only one grumbine. By all means refer to me as @grumbine. Or use my twitter handle, @rgrumbine.
At no point have I said that y’all can’t equate scientists to mass murderers, terrorists, jihadis, or whatever other evil you choose. I’ve merely reminded you that you cannot do so _and_ say that you’re interested in ‘debate’ with those you label so. Ross McKitrick had no difficulty seeing the problem inherent in that, nor did Steve McIntyre. Nor Anthony Watts, 3 years ago.
Indeed, if I wanted to make you look bad, or at least worse, I’d encourage y’all to do such things even more often and more extremely.
Since you repeat your support for the Unabomber billboard and calling scientists jihadis, no, you really can’t honestly claim to have been respectful of me*, and to not have treated me badly. As you have not been called a mass murderer or jihadi in this thread, and you have done so to me (even without knowing me!), no, you really can’t claim to have been treated worse here than I have been.
* (and every other scientist who disagrees with you about one thing or another)
McIntyre and McKitrick, at least, understood that. Having gone that route, you have no ground to complain about anything I say, much less that I call it a ‘whine’ for people who spend time and money labelling scientists this way turn around and complain that those same scientists don’t attend their meetings.
It’s a bizarre sort of skepticism that prohibits criticism of arguments, or pays concern to where they come from. As in, not skepticism at all. Real skepticism starts with doubting yourself and what you think you know.
But it’s been a weird week, where I wind up on the same side of an issue as Pielke Jr. _and_ Curry _and_ Legates, and am pointing to McIntyre and Mckitrick as examples of having some standards.
Dbstealey, I am unaware of any prominent “alarmists” as you call us calling for the execution of climate change skeptics. Can you provide examples? I would be happy to condemn them. I certainly would not want to be associated with a movement where this type of rhetoric was considered acceptable.
“So no need to do it for them. It is our job to show where they are wrong, and since there are so many places to do that, why waste your time criticizing your own side? They will do that for you. But it is not our job to correct our own people — while never, ever mentioning the much more egregious faults committed by the alarmist crowd.”
This is cult member logic.
“As I pointed out, there are lots of alarmists who would like nothing better than to murder skeptics. This isn’t my imagination; they have explicitly said so. That is what Ted Kazynski wanted, too, so I think the comparison is apt.”
Who is this mysterious “they” and “lots?” I am beginning to think these supposed alarmists who want to murder you only exist in your mind.
Well said, Robert.
May already have been noted, but heretics from CACA orthodoxy would have to be drowned, not burned. Wood fires release lots of carbon.
😎 😎
Let science reveal truth. If we enter cooling epoch, this will put and end to the mass-fear-intentioned CAGW campaign. If we warm a bit, we can measure natural greening and increased food production, and tell the fear-mongereres to put a sock in it.
There has been a smear campaign to destroy Willie Soon. In the name of transparency, can we investigate Michael Mann? A nobody at Berkeley (as in didn’t graduate first in his class, or 5th or tenth, didn’t make highest honors or high honors, took 9 years to earn his PhD (brilliant students do it in 3-4) average students 5-6, 9 represents severe laziness or driftingness (maybe too much pot-smoking).
Anyway, the IPCC wanted something to overcome scientists’ waffling about the effects of manmade climate warming, and suddenly a slow-to-progress graduate student gave them what they wanted, proof that after a millennium of little-variation, slight climate cooling, the 20th century experienced exponential-curve warming. The IPCC showcased the hockey stick, Al Gore made millions with his hockey-stick-showcasing “An Inconvenient Truth”, and the IPCC and Gore shared a Nobel Peace Prize. (Note, this was not a Nobel science prize, different judges and criteria).
Apparently Raj Pauchuri, after having a subordinate take the Nobel Peace certificate to Kinko’s to run off 200 copies and penning in each the name of someone who worked on the IPCC AR2-3, convinced many photocopy recipients that they had won the Nobel Prize. Mann, among others, believed they were Nobel reipients, despite not having been invited to Norway or receiving medals, and despite the limit of 3-max Nobel sharers, as per Alfred Nobel’s will.
So, for somebody as ill-informed and gullible as Mann, we must ask, Did somebody put the laggardly graduate student up to doing a report that showed phenomenal global warming in the 20th century, following a little-variation historical record, that of note, omitted the MWP? Skeptics need to examine Mann’s contacts. Somebody may have put Mann up to this. His yale thesis committee members ned to be grilled: “Why did you accept the astounding thesis of this student who obviously hadn’t previously made normal adequate progress? How many theses did you approve of 9-year PhD students?” If Mann was granted extraordinary allowance because he had a learning disability, this needs to be revealed.
Then after M&M demolished the Hockey Stick, showing bogus statistical methods, others “confirmed” the “hockey stick” ostensibly using sound techniques. Hw many times have we seen the findings of unscientific work being conformed by good scientific work? Does ZERO ring a bell?
Mann’s funding sources have been known for years. It is Soon’s which only went public recently. And that, in spite of Soon and his sources.
Really so what are Mann funding sources for the many legal cases he has started ?
After you done that you can tell us by what magic unacceptable sources of funding , ‘evil fossil fuel ‘ become perfectly acceptable sources of funding ?
They you can move on to the money Soros and co have thrown behind ‘the cause ‘ to get legislation which will favour their attempts to make themselves even richer still,.
Then you can tell us what was actual ‘wrong ‘ with Soon’s et al work , you do know that is was not the only author don’t you ?
Smear jobs may win you favours on alarmist web sites where your strength of belief in ‘the cause ‘ is all that matters , but most other places will ask you to back up your claims .
@knr
Sorry, I thought we were talking about science.
So you think Grijalva’s (D-AZ) fishing expedition doesn’t go nearly far enough. I’m opposed.
The catastrophic man-made global warming issue (for God sake, everyone, stop referring to the meaningless term ‘climate change’) is reminiscent of the Roman Catholic Church’s denial of the heliocentric theory. The Church was wrong then, just as it is wrong now on its stance in support of the IPCC’s catastrophic man-made global warming mantra.