Guest essay by Russell Cook
Upon seeing DailyKos’ 5/12/15 hit piece against prolific climate issue editorial writer Tom Harris, it reminded me of DailyKos’ hit against me just one day after my WUWT guest post detailing who was behind the smear of Dr Willie Soon. While the folks at DailyKos do all they can outside of their organization to portray critics of catastrophic human-induced global warming as corrupt, the one thing they excel at is suppressing dissent within their walls.
Witness the manner in which they did everything they could to prevent Harris’ rebuttal to the hit piece against him from appearing online at DailyKos, captured in screencaptures at Harris’ web site. When Harris was barred from posting comments at the hit piece against him, he asked others, including me, if we could comment on his behalf, suggesting that if we met the same blocked result, that we could protest to DailyKos’ HelpDesk just as he did. Sure enough, I signed up, attempted to comment but was blocked, and my questions about that appear as comments 17/18 at that HelpDesk link.
On 5/14/15, having not been banned as a DailyKos registered user, I thought I’d try my own experiment of placing a diary entry online there. Here’s a screencapture of the diary post in its entirety, and an archive link I immediately made after submitting the post, showing that its intro was viewable to the general public and not just logged-in users. But mere minutes after that, this screencapture shows that I as a registered user was not even permitted to view my own diary entry. Not long after that, as seen in the current link for my diary post, it all vanished.
For those interested in what was so critical to erase from all view, my diary post is verbatim below.
Meteorologist does “Psycho Analysis of A Climate Skeptic” – something he spaced out, though
Way back in 2009, Dan Satterfield, Chief Meteorologist for WHNT TV (CBS) in Huntsville Alabama, deftly explained at his web page why people like me belong to a “cult of deniers”.
Under his blog heading “Psycho Analysis of A Climate Skeptic”, he offers (boldface emphasis mine) this:
..let’s look at someone who has been convinced that doing something about climate change means a significant change in their lifestyle, wealth, or ability to drive their favorite vehicle. Understand here, that there is overwhelming evidence that this is not likely the case, but let’s assume our “someone” believes it wholeheartedly.
So, what’s most likely to happen when someone who believes this, encounters someone who says climate science is all wrong? They can choose to believe them, and not have to battle with their conscience about being selfish, or they can believe the nearly unanimous opinion of climate scientists that we are heading for a catastrophe.
Toward the end, Satterfield says:
…If I can introduce a reader to real science before they fall into the junk science cult, they will see very quickly how silly the material is on these sites. Perhaps the only way to convince the cult of deniers, is to convince them that their initial assumtion [sic] that doing something about climate change will require a dramatic change in lifestyle is wrong!
All this time I thought I was a guy who couldn’t get straight answers to simple questions, like those in my GelbspanFiles.com blog. But now it is crystal clear to me – among all the other sacrificial green things I do, I drive a 32mpg+ little car, I’ve been a recycler for decades, my utilities bill is so small it makes people gasp in envy, I turn on my A/C wen the temp goes above……… wait for it…………. 86° F, I harvest rainwater and grow tree saplings, and read at night under dim 60 watt bulbs. And I am petrified with the idea that to do my part to save the planet, I must retreat to the stone age!!
NOT. How about, Mr. Satterfield and all you other folks subscribing to that unsupportable talking point about ‘greedy deniers’, that you try this on for size: think of me as the Fox Mulder character from the X-Files TV series / movie, who wanted so desperately to believe in UFOs. Give me some kind, any kind of irrefutable proof showing big industry-inspired / industry-bought errors in the skeptics’ peer reviewed published reports, please hit me over the head with undeniable evidence of the lies skeptic scientists have told and what motivated them to do such shameful acts that are so easily exposed, please, please, please stagger me with point-by-point dissections of all these skeptic scientists’ junk science along with what precisely makes it junk and what evidence there is showing that junk was scripted and approved by industry executives.
If not for me, do this for your own self-preservation. Otherwise, if you keep putting all your eggs in two baskets – skeptics are all corrupted by illicit funding / ‘deniers’ fear change – you will have no position to retreat to when both of those are blown to smithereens. Don’t think of that as a hopeless prospect, though, look at it as one more among other reasons for an exercise in introspection that could very well open up a bright future for you that you’ve had your eyes closed to all this time.
Perhaps best encapsulating the entire situation of not only what goes on at the DailyKos, but also within the larger global warming believer community, was a pair of assertions in comment #20 at the HelpDesk page on Harris’ protest:
Comments that seem to “disappear” are not deleted. They can still be seen by trusted users. They just cannot be seen by people who are not trusted users. […] free speech does not apply.
In other words, Obey. Or risk being labeled ‘untrusted.’
Ranging from early efforts in the ’90s to brand skeptic scientists as ‘industry-corrupted’, to the infamous Phil Jones line “Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?“, to what we see today, can there be a more damaging way to undermine core scientific claims about catastrophic human-induced global warming than efforts to suppress all criticism of those claims by any means possible?
In all the millions or billions of words written about climate change, melting glaciers (glaciers melting in the dead of night?), drought, extreme weather, and whatever, I have yet to see any evidence that CO2 is the cause. Instead, the increase in world temps since the late 1970s is correlated with the increase in atmospheric CO2 in the same time span, and that’s it. The conversation immediately moves on from there and the presumption that CO2 is behind it all is left unremarked.
It’s exactly like Lysenkoism where a peculiar form of evolution was taken as fact, and an entire biological science was extrapolated from that unproven (and incorrect) starting point. CO2 has become “the god of the gaps” in climate science, whereupon anything that can’t be explained by obvious other factors is attributed to the malign effects of The Gas That Can Do Anything. It is assumed that so much is known about how Earth’s climate works the we can immediately determine what is outside the realm of normal variation — even though we know via the geologic record that normal variation is far greater than anything we’ve seen in the climate of the last 35 years.
Agree. The enviro-communists are fighting for control of economies via CO2. End justifies whatever means they use.
I wouldn’t think so, they are just bunch of economy (as some kind of science) loonies.
It is official, the UK May (so far) temperatures (even BBC says so) are up to two degrees below normal.
I don’t remember the name of the UN bigwig who stated several years back that it didn’t matter if CAGW was true or not, since it enabled them to implement policies that needed to be implemented anyway.
“….We are new world politicians,
Self-appointed science masters,
Conjuring up our false predictions,
Inventing fresh disasters.
You are not allowed to question
How we say that you must live;
Your free speech is only free,
If it follows our narrative.
Real world observations
Are not your concern,
We invent the truth for you,
There’s nothing else to learn.
So just follow Agenda 21,
It’s our World governance plan,
And repeat after us:
“Climate is changed by man”….
Read more: http:///wp.me/p3KQlH-EH
Daily POS. Didn’t know they still existed.
I think it most humorous that warrenlb’s complaint that WUWT doesn’t allow links to pro AGW sites is almost directly across from the link list to pro AGW sites.
Kos won’t even let me on. I feel privileged not to be allowed at a censored Leftist web site.
What/who is DailyKos?
Pretty obvious sign they are losing their battle. They now have to resort to coercion to keep the party line going because there isn’t any actual data to fall back on.
I realize why main stream media outlets won’t give air time to climate skeptics but why do everyday people take such offense if you happen To be a skeptic? They will say that I have no right to have such an opinion on the topic. Does anybody here even bother discussing this issue ever in real life if it comes up? I think with most people I’d rather chew on dirt.
Why were everyday people in the Soviet Union take such offense if anyone criticized The Party openly?
Because if you were not seen to be giving public condemnation of the political heretics, you could lose your social standing, and even your job. For average people who are just trying to live their lives, the constant intimidation by the leftists makes it not worth the risk.
That, by the way, is why secret ballots and elections are so important. See “UK Election Results, 2015” for a recent example of how that issue plays out over time.
p.s. You must live in a leftist enclave; if you lived in Texas, you’d be able to discuss the issue to your hearts content with just about anyone you met.
If you think that censorship of sceptics or those suspected of unorthodox views is bad now , it is mild compared to what will happen after the Paris summit .
At present the main concern is that the income of academics and some charities is threatened by the scepticism over AGW , insignificant sums compare to the 100billon dollars /year that will be available from 2016.
I have just been reading “The Ugly Game” by 2 Sunday Times journalists about the corruption over the 2012 Qatar Soccer World Cup bid , and that was about an event involving about 10 billion every 4 years not 10 times that amount each year . The scale of corruption that is likely will be such that anyone trying to interfere will be seriously “discouraged” . Do you think that Obama or Cameron will want their own electorate to know that the money extracted from them is being misused . Censorship will intensify – it has to in order to protect the politicians.
Whilst most of the Qatar bid corruption involved Asian , African and Caribbean individuals , this is not a racist post because , having just spent a few days in Venice I checked on the progress of the Moses barrier there , to find that the Venice mayor , the man pledged to protect his own city , is being charged with corruption over some of the billions of euros for the project .
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/10875534/Mayor-of-Venice-arrested-on-lagoon-barrier-project-corruption-charges.html
It seems inevitable that these enormous sums of money will result in large scale and vicious corruption and there will be intense pressure on anyone , journalist , politician or member of the public who tries to point this out.
mikewaite,
I’m afraid you’re right. They have decisively lost the science debate, as we see here every day. And when they resort to name-calling, they look despicable to neutral readers.
So the only thing left to them is to censor the views of anyone they can. I was banned from Scientific American after I posted a simple chart of temperature and CO2! I had been very careful to not give them any reason to delete my comment. But they did it anyway. Every time I’ve tried to post since then, my comment is never published. I’ve emailed them twice, asking about it. No response.
So you are right, that will be their tactic. I expect even more than that. But at least for now, we have WUWT and other ways to express our views. And to the extent that they censor skeptics, it will just push more readers into the available censorship-free sites.
Twenty years ago I wouldn’t have believed tis would be happening in America. But it is.
The general public scares me on this issue. This may be the most embarrassing portrayal of group think and ancient propaganda tactics working on the present day Western population. A large portion of the population actually thinks it’s okay to call agw skeptics deniers or flat earthers. These people generally require no actual scientific research to shun and harass someone who has these views. It’s one thing if people don’t value individual research or thinking for themselves. The problem hereis the subliminal commands these people are getting to abuse and persecute honest skeptics and willingly carrying out these orders like ww2 Germany.
Ok, now I’m sure you need to move to Texas.
The responses to questionary at the end of http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/05/12/1384339/-Facing-the-Facts-and-Fictions-of-the-Climate-Change-Deniers are revealing. Unless that’s also because of some conspiracy, of course.
I have been aware of the Daily KOS site for some years now. I have only visited that cesspool a couple of times and that was enough for me. I have, however, often heard of censorship there. The censorship there looks to be on par with the English newspaper called The Guardian.
It has been said up-thread that this site has no censorship, but there are people who post comments at other skeptical sites that disagree. I suppose that if one reads the site policy you will see that certain scientific viewpoints are not allowed to be defended here or even linked to. This is the right of the blog owner to censor whatever viewpoints he wants to, but let us not pretend that we are pure as the driven snow. Humans do seek to cut off debate after a certain point.
Since I am on that topic, let me say that Dr. Fred Singer once wrote an essay that ended with him saying that, ““I should note that I am somewhat out of step here with my fellow skeptics. Few of them would agree with me that the climate sensitivity (CS) is indeed close to zero.” Dr. Singer was correct, few agree that climate sensitivity to CO2 is vanishingly close to zero. Those who believe that modern climatology is wrong on how the atmosphere distributes heat, cools, and so forth are not free to debate their ideas here. That is fine it is a private blog, and they are allowed to hint at their viewpoint once in awhile.
I would note that sometimes people who agree with your position can be such horse’s rears that it damages yourself and your position. “With friends like this who needs enemies”, is an old saying. But I think it may be time to open up this site to all scientific viewpoints as long as they are championed in a polite and respectful manner. But that is just one old fellow’s opinion.
markstovalsays “let us not pretend that we are pure as the driven snow.”
I do not pretend it. I am it.
Of course I might have my own definition of what exactly “pure” means.
Purity in any sort of ideological debate means clinging faithfully to your beliefs which are themselves aligned to an authority of some sort.
Even your usage of “pure” is the same — you consider “pure” to be existing when debate is unfettered, somewhat like the “alt” unmoderated newsgroups; but that would be considered extremely impure on any orthodox religion blog (IMO).
There’s a bit of confusion on “free speech” and its contexts. Censors often claim they are not the government and so “free speech” isn’t an issue. It’s true that the First Amendment itself is not at issue, however the principle of free inquiry is.
The blogs that do not censor comments are better than those that do for the same reason South Korea is a better country than North Korea. Free inquiry is a moral principle.
Talking to yourself, or answering one of the voices?
Now FYI: most of us here (not you) are not “climate skeptics”.
Most WUWT readers are Feynman-type scientific skeptics. Every honest scientist is a skeptic, first and foremost. That leaves out the alarmist clique, but they’re actually a small minority.
Then there are the majority of scientists who are just being prudent. The ones who don’t speak their minds, because of intolerant little thugs like the Kos kidz. They have bills to pay, and they want their next pay raise and/or promotion. But if they retire and speak their minds, it isn’t to support the MMGW hoax.
So there you have it. We’re not ‘climate’ skeptics here, we are scientific skeptics — unlike the climate alarmist crowd, who have taken the ‘dangerous man-made global warming’ narrative as their new eco-religion. They wouldn’t know honest science if it bit ’em on the a… nkle.
[snip . . you are simply using invective which adds nothing to the debate . . mod]
(Another wasted effort by a banned sockpuppet. Comment DELETED. -mod)
Interesting how the trolls have keep reinventing this mythical consensus in order to defend what they can’t defend using science.
It has been proven that there is no such consensus.
icouldnthelpit May 19, 2015 at 3:33 am
“I’d say more like Fred Hoyle. He often went against the prevailing consensus with similar success.”
He may have been wrong about the “steady state” universe, but he was right in his analysis of stellar physics, Under his theory, all elements had to be formed in stars, and cycled into the universe. In this insttance he was spot on.
icouldnthelpit confusingly asks “So you don’t think there’s a scientific consensus regarding climate change, similar to the scientific consensus regarding the big bang?”
Yes, I don’t think that; which is to say, this question or comment is not on my mind.
But since you have put it in my mind, I really don’t know what percentage of relevant scientists ascribe to:
1. The climate is changing; that’s what it does! (hopefully all scientists).
2. The climate is changing solely because of humans (probably very few scientists).
3. Humans influence the climate in at least a minuscule way or more (probably a majority).
4. Humans are the principle driver of climate change (I suspect about 1/3 to half of relevant scientists think this especially if you define relevant scientist as someone that ought to believe this)
5. Humans are evil nasty creatures destroying the planet (seems to be confined to Australian scientists and everyone in the Sierra Club and the piece of green, except themselves of course).
How many cosmologists believe in the Big Bang is not known to me but scientists usually dispute everything.
Michael – there are, indeed, a good number of cosmologists who are disinclined to accept the Big Bang, for various reasons, and are working on alternate theories. Even those who accept it admit that it is merely the most useful theory thus far, and that it has its failings.
That’s pretty normal in real science, yet it’s an aspect of science that seems to elude the AGW true believers.
(Another wasted effort by a banned sockpuppet. Comment DELETED. -mod)
Funny, I don’t recall mentioning redshift.
JUST FYI: Just got this email today (I get 3 to 4 a day from the Daily Kos – copied email, but changed my name at the beginning):
JPeter, Republicans have set their sights on the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), a 50-year-old program, set to expire in September, that’s been the principal means through which we’ve acquired and protected new lands for national parks, public recreation, wildlife refuges, and habitat protection.
Join CREDO and Daily Kos in telling Congress: Fully fund and permanently authorize the LWCF.
Republicans plan to divert funds away from the program and strip it of its ability to continue acquiring land for public use. It’s a cynical attempt to keep new lands out of public hands and available instead to fossil fuel drilling, mining, and real estate companies.
This is just the latest assault in the war on America’s public lands that Republicans have been waging since the start of the new Congress–one we’ve been fighting at every turn. We can’t let this latest attack go unanswered.
Click here to sign the petition from CREDO and Daily Kos telling Congress: Don’t gut the Land and Water Conservation Fund.
Keep fighting,
Monique Teal, Daily Kos
Just how much land is it necessary to protect? Will they not be satisfied until all land is owned or controlled by govt?
“Will they not be satisfied until all land is owned or controlled by govt?”
Bingo! Give the man a cigar! You’ve hit upon the true goal.
Consider which other political system of the last 100 years thought it necessary for all land to be owned or controlled by the Government, and you’ll understand why this has been the True Goal for those partisans from the start. “warming” has never been anything but the excuse, a totalitarian regime that will re-order society according to their ideology is the desired end.
“read at night under dim 60 watt bulbs:”
Shouldn’t those be 13W CFLs or 9W LEDs?
I prefer the 13 watt LEDs – I hate to squint when I read!
I love the daylight color 5000k LED’s. It brings sunlight into my house for so little cost and when I finish moving partly to solar power their efficiency will be much appreciated.
from Monkton:
“Now that Auntie has parked her tanks on my lawn, I’m going to park mine on hers. Mine are bigger, and they serve the cause of truth, justice, and the British way. Perhaps, once the existing corrupt organization has been purged and the red-blooded Marxists replaced with blue-blooded capitalists, we can have Top Gear back”.
Does this not seem a wee bit two faced?
From what I Understand there are many climate change dissenter, dissenters who have been provably banned from this very site for simply posting what they understand to be the truth (not to mention all those dragons and steve goddard!).
Does this not seem a wee bit two faced?
sergeiMK
You ask
No, it is not “two faced” because it is not true.
Yes, the dragons are kept out of WUWT because otherwise they would monopolise almost every thread (the solar enthusiasts cause enough difficulty). Other than that it is simply a falsehood that any people “have been provably banned from this very site for simply posting what they understand to be the truth”.
People get banned from WUWT for breaking the site rules and NOT for posting what they think to be true.
Additionally, people who offend our host for some reason (usually arguing with his friends) get given a Time Out which consists of a temporary ban usually of 24 hours or 48 hours.
I should point out that I have repeatedly been given Time Outs so it is obvious that I am not prejudiced when I say the giving of Time Outs is very reasonable behaviour by our host: it is his blog. Indeed, he has never given me a permanent ban although it is clear that he would prefer it if I stayed away.
The tolerance of WUWT is a stark contrast to the behaviour of warmunist sites that ban anybody who presents evidence and/or argument contrary to their dogma.
Richard
sergeiMK,
‘Two faced’? No.
From what I’ve seen, the handful of people banned from WUWT are those who repeatedly violate site policy. They get warnings, but keep on. Then there are those who engage in identity theft, posing as other commenters. That is thoroughly dishonest, no? And there are those who use up to a dozen-plus fake screen names, to make it appear as if they have some sort of ‘consensus’ supporting their point of view. (There is somewhat of a conflict between some of the policy provisions, and no-censorship free speech. So far, free speech seems to have a bit of priority when there’s a conflict.) And the number of banned commenters is extremely tiny considering that WUWT has more than a million reader comments.
But I have yet to see anyone banned for having a different scientific point of view than Anthony Watts (with a couple specific exceptions, listed on the Policy page, like chemtrails).
And therein lies the problem: alarmist sites are trying to get skeptics banned (and even the name ‘skeptic’ changed to ‘denier’) for only ONE reason: skeptical commenters have a different scientific view.
That’s it. For having a different point of view, an entire group of scientists, engineers, and a public highly educated in the hard sciences are being attacked for merely questioning the “dangerous man-made global warming” narrative.
Don’t you see a major problem with that?
I’m not familiar with Daily Kos. Is that like the Daily Worker?
More hard core.
LOL – is that like being a “made man” in the mob?
This quote says it all concerning the science, when you don’t get the most basic precept of science that a hypothesis must be falsifiable, (meaning finding something wrong with the hypothesis, data or methodology), there is not much more to say.
In terms of public discourse the KOS of course is allowed to allow or disallow any speech it wants to, since it is privately owned, but lets look at 2 different approaches to the free market place of ideas. There is a program called “The Atheist Experience” that invites and welcomes opposing views since they understand discussions with opposing views is the best way to articulate and promote their views. A Ford auto dealer who is committed to selling Fords wants to only talk about Fords but will not disallow discussions of Chevrolet, since that would indicate they cannot argue their product is superior. In contrast, the KOS dis-allowing opposing views or hard questions indicates how vacuous and tenuous their positions are. To compensate for the impotence of ideas concerning climate and other areas and maintain their self-perceived position positions of intellectual authority the site has devolved to the intellectual equivalent of knuckle draggers.
We’re all gonna DIE! CO2 will KILL us ALL! Don’t try to speak sensibly or inject any sanity into our unreasoning panic! If you do, we’ll call you crazy, shut you up, and throw you in the lunatic zoo. Because that’s what anyone with an easily defended, well reasoned, scientifically valid point-of-view would do. Obviously!
/Need I mention that this is my sarcastic interpretation of the DailyKOS Terms of Service for posting on their blog and forums? Probably not, but I have done so to avoid any confusion.
Not always, but most of us aspire to reach those heights.
On the other hand, warmistas bear a striking resemblance to Stalin and Pol Pot.
I really love it when warmistas play dumb. They are so gosh darn good at it.
As I keep asking: What can be done?
I don’t see this changing any time soon. And when (I don’t think it’s ‘if’ anymore) it comes to the believers finally becoming violent against the dissenters, I don’t see anything happening then either.
Someone show me that I’m wrong. How do we change course?
You make a good point, TonyG, but the question “How do we change course?” today has about as much meaning as when the deck hand on the Titanic asked it 60 seconds before it got introduced to the iceberg.
All we can do is brace ourselves and get ready. The only good part is that I’m more ready for it than they are.
With the top 20% of income earners paying 90% of income taxes and the bottom 50% paying nothing, we have passed the point of no return.
A solid majority of voters in this country are convinced that they have a right to take whatever they need from anyone who has more than they do, they will continue to vote for more and more from govt and demanding higher taxes on the remaining producers.
We have already seen a slow exodus of people with high incomes who have decided to give up their US citizenship rather than be robbed blind by US taxes. As tax rates begin their inevitable climb, this trickle will become a flood.
The best we can do is make our plans for the transition and whatever comes next.
Why would you bloat the hit count of their site by even acknowledging the existence of such an article? They’re only preaching to the true faithful of their creed, so nothing you could possibly say will win you any “converts”. I avoid any contact with Vox/Salon/Puffington Host for the same reason.
Raising their visibility just might encourage a few more people to visit them.
The more people who see the kind of insanity that is displayed there, the more discredited they become.
Those who are truly vile already belong.
TomB “Why would you bloat the hit count of their site by even acknowledging the existence of such an article?”
To reveal the size of the iceberg you’d rather believe does not exist. DailyKOS and its readers believe they are numerous, 97 percenters and 99 percenters. Being in the majority is just about everything to a drone (reference to the workers in a beehive).
So once in a while it may be fun even if not useful to punk DailyKOS with a few thousand hits from a rival. If you look at the survey at the bottom on “do you believe fossil fuel burning is the primary cause of climate change” you’ll see that overwhelmingly the answer is “no” and the no’s are probably all coming from WUWT and this will show up in someone’s Deniers Report. Either way, DailyKOS cannot muster nearly as many “yes” as this site can produce “no” and that’s just people that follow the link and see the survey at the bottom!
Thanks for the heads up on the survey, I went and voted on it myself.
They barely have 200 votes on the survey, and 180 of them are no.
That’s gotta burn the editors there.
Surveys here usually get well over 1000 votes in just a few hours.
The survey was obviously “push-pull”. I actually had to lie when I answered “no”, fossil fuel is not the parimary cause of global warming. I was specifically thinking of studies by “McKittrick” showing most of the measured warming was where there was increased industrialization and productivity, implying the increased heat being measured is industrial waste heat.
In the vein of censorship of material that needs to be examined so that both sides of the global warming issue get vented and researched properly I should like to add the following:
I was very interested in the 22 inconvenient truths on global warming posted to the WUWT website May 12 by Jean-Pierre Bardinet of France. Subsequently, on YouTube, I listened to an approximately 1-hour long, data-filled presentation, by French physicist François Gervais, critical of the human-induced, greenhouse theory of global warming.
I think both the article and the presentation are so impressive that I wanted to use a local website, in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, to make people there, where I live, aware of those two contributions. That website is Unpublished Ottawa and what follows is my short message:
“For those who follow and accept the majority opinion regarding global warming you should at least familiarize yourselves with the information in the following link:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/05/12/22-very-inconvenient-climate-truths
For those who understand French it would also be useful to go to the next link and listen to Prof. François Gervais:
That was put up on the website, but subsequently removed by the website founder. It is his letter, also in quotes, which I find astounding, and which goes along with the notion of censorship.
================================================================================
“Hi Joe,
Climate Change denial is one of the subjects we don’t allow on UnpublishedOttawa.com because it’s not based on real facts. Anyone can grab facts and make an argument out of it, but when the vast majority of scientists, who have little to gain, agree that we have a problem, a problem that is already manifesting itself all around the world, then allowing posts that deny this reality, is in our opinion akin to intentional deception.
I understand you don’t think climate change is real. But, what difference will it really make if we are to build a sustainable society? How does living in balance with nature harm our society?
It won’t. In fact, I believe it will make us stronger and more resilient to future natural and man made disasters. And, it will make us more competitive by forcing the private sector to be more efficient, just how Free Trade did when Mulroney brought it in, in the 1980’s. Competition is good and so is innovation. Two things climate change adaptation will bring to Canada’s economy when we end our dependence on oil.
I don’t expect you to agree with me, but please know that I will never accept the CFRA (a local conservative radio station in Ottawa) view of the world… That all change is bad and that we all should be focusing on making as much money as possible no matter the consequences.
This is because I am hockey goalie. Someone who puts the team first, ahead of myself. I built this site for that reason… Having invested close to $100,000 already. One day it may benefit me, but right now, it’s just a cash drain. I keep it running though, because it’s needed.
My apologies, but if we let one letter on this subject to be posted, we have to allow others. I’m not prepared to turn UO into a forum to discuss a topic that is more deception than reality because to deny it, is to prevent the necessary change from taking place.
I’d much rather discuss what we’re going to do to adapt… Like burying our electricity power lines for example… Nothing has been done since the ice storm of 1998 when Mother Nature showed us how vulnerable we are to disaster. This is an issue that gets no attention because it doesn’t benefit any particular interest group, it benefits everyone.
If you want to write about how incineration will help Ottawa adapt to a changing world, that’s an idea I’d be happy to help promote.”
Joe Wallach,
I would write him back and ask what, exactly, are his qualifications for making such a judgement?
You can easily find climatologists and others with PhD degrees who have written articles here, by using the WUWT search box. You could write, for example, that “Climatologist Prof. Richard Lindzen says essentially the same thing. Dr. Lindzen was head of M.I.T.’s atmospheric sciences, so he understands the subject.”
This is just a suggestion. But if someone had written that arrogant and pompous reply to me, I would demand to see his C.V.
If you don’t get a satisfactory answer (how could you, from a hockey goalie?) then I would broadcast your letter and his response to as many venues as possible.
Don’t take that from these tinpot wannabe dictators/censors. Whatever you get posted here and elsewhere is on the internet forever. Hold his feet to the fire. At the least, make it uncomfortable for him. Post his answer all around the internet.
And don’t let him frame the debate. When he says, “I understand you don’t think climate change is real”, set him straight. Tell him that scientific skeptics have known for longer than many young alarmists like him have been alive that the climate always changes. That isn’t the question, and he knows it. He is just terrified of a debate he cannot win.
@dbstealey
You: “I would write him back and ask what, exactly, are his qualifications for making such a judgement?”
and “You can easily find climatologists and others with PhD degrees ”
and “if someone had written that arrogant and pompous reply to me, I would demand to see his C.V. ”
and “If you don’t get a satisfactory answer (how could you, from a hockey goalie?) ”
So do you now embrace ‘appeals to authority’ and ‘credentials’ ?
@warrenlb,
I was making fun of the hockey goalie ‘authority’. Not that I’d expect you to understand the distinction.
db stealey,
Your point about finding out the background of the individual is something I never thought to do. But, rather than call him, I searched and found out that he not a scientist in any field. On his web page bio at http://unpublishedottawa.com/users/james-ogrady he wrote that he is “an entrepreneur, communications professional, school teacher and community activist,…a hockey goaltender, political hack and most importantly, an advocate for grassroots, participatory democracy at all levels of government”. In light of the nature of his rejection of my post, his last phrase is illuminating. Thank you for the suggestion.
Real scientists are open to exchanges of ideas because it enriches them, whether or not they agree with the points being made by another. As a geologist I have been through those many times and have discovered, as I am sure that you have, that it is wise to listen to counter arguments. Regardless of how, those counter arguments might well help us frame our own understanding of issues. Thank you.
Reblogged this on "Mothers Against Wind Turbines™" Phoenix Rising… and commented:
Evil is the Imposition of Silence, upon others. JPCarse The Climate Nazis
Hate to break the news, but the progressives of Daily Kos have never believed in free speech.