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?
Something else to say is that the right wing sites aren’t any better. That’s the brief version. The long version is too long. Suffice to say that I’ve been banned by the best of ’em, both left and right.
In following up on my post of May 19 to this forum and dbstealey’s suggestion about writing to the antagonist, who has his own website, I did just that May 21 and found the reply very interesting. The highlight of this exchange is that, initially, he stated that climate change denial is not based on real facts as per the following statement extracted from his preceding reply to me:
“Climate Change denial is one of the subjects we don’t allow on UnpublishedOttawa.com because it’s not based on real facts.”
In the second paragraph of my letter below I asked him for evidence that arguments counter to global warming (that should have been anthropogenic global warming) are not based on facts. He did not do so in his reply. Following is my second letter:
James,
I must confess to having been stunned by your strident position and your explanation for having taken down my post to your website Sunday. You maintained that global warming is resoundingly accepted by the science community, and there is no doubt about it. I have seen posts to UnpublishedOttawa. com, and elsewhere, in which the correspondent wrote “the science is settled”.
According to you arguments counter to global warming are not fact-based. What is your unequivocal, indisputable evidence for such an all-encompassing, and incorrect, statement? (see the links below and the ones that I tried to put up on your website). Moreover, that is not how to proceed along a scientific pathway.
What about the argument that the Totten Glacier, the largest in eastern Antarctica, is melting from below, a phenomenon allegedly due to man-made global warming. Carrying that a bit further, how does warm air descend in cold water? Next there are volcanoes in Antarctica, some of which are periodically active. Since they are hot, and associated with hydrothermal fluids, would you not think that heat from circulating hydrothermal fluids or molten magma (when beneath the surface, but lava when it breaks through) would play a role in melting that glacier?
We all come to certain conclusions about things, and don’t want to accept the idea that we may be wrong. But none of us can always be right. What I had submitted was not offensive. It was merely a scientific way of proceeding by alerting those who blindly accept that anthropogenic global warming is occurring to give a look and listen to other viewpoints, presented by Jean-Pierre Bardinet and François Gervais (if they understand French).
Don’t misunderstand this e-mail. I stated and maintain that I’ll never submit anything else in the future to UnpublishedOttawa.com. This is to try to help you, as a school teacher, to become open minded; your students deserve to be exposed to, and taught about, differing view points
Links:
http://www.climate.gov/news-features/event-tracker/great-lakes-ice-cover-most-extensive-mid-90s
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/barbara-hollingsworth/more-ice-great-lakes-now-during-2014-polar-vortex
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/barbara-hollingsworth/satellite-data-no-global-warming-past-18-years
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2015/03/22/the-truth-behind-the-totten-glacier/
http://www.natureworldreport.com/2015/03/warm-ocean-water-causing-irreversible-melt-in-antarctic-glacier/
His reply:
Joe,
You are barking up the wrong tree. I’m not interested in having this discussion with you.
If you are not aware, I am a former Green Party politico. I was the director of communications for the Green Party of Ontario during the 2007 Ontario provincial when the party tripled its vote, reaching an all-time high of 8.3%. I have believed climate change is man-made for many years. Long before it became fashionable.
I have been and will continue to work toward building a sustainable society around the world until the day I die.
You are welcome to your opinion, but I do not and will never agree with it.
Joe,
I’ve argued with other alarmists on their own blogs, and I can’t recall anyone being like that.
He is a perfect example of Dr. Michael Crichton’s eco-religionist:
Today, one of the most powerful religions in the Western World is environmentalism. Environmentalism seems to be the religion of choice for urban atheists. Why do I say it’s a religion? Well, just look at the beliefs. If you look carefully, you see that environmentalism is in fact a perfect 21st century remapping of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and myths.
There’s an initial Eden, a paradise, a state of grace and unity with nature, there’s a fall from grace into a state of pollution as a result of eating from the tree of knowledge, and as a result of our actions there is a judgment day coming for us all. We are all energy sinners, doomed to die, unless we seek salvation, which is now called sustainability. Sustainability is salvation in the church of the environment….
[source]
So forget that guy, ‘green’ is his religion. Changing his mind would be like telling a Jehovah’s Witness that their religion is all wrong. But he certainly could have been at least a little gracious about it after your polite letter.
I’d keep his final comments, and post them wherever you see his name or his blog mentioned. It doesn’t reflect well on him. Let other folks see it, too.
dbstealey, I appreciate your advice because it is practical and useful. Once again, thank you
You’re a good guy, Joe. I can tell by your writing. You don’t deserve to be treated like that.
As dbstealey suggested poignantly, above, the fellow with whom I have attempted to communicate in a meaningful way is an environmentally religious zealot. Such people are not helpful even if they bring forth good ideas because it is impossible to dialogue with them, as I believe the series of letters that I have been able to bring forth in this forum shows. The letter below closes my series of communications with the founder and publisher of UnpublishedOttawa.com:
“James, I am not trying to convince you that you are wrong or that those who oppose your position, such as I, are right. I just wanted to: a) express my utmost surprise at your reaction to my attempted post to UnpublishedOttawa.com and b) provide you with examples upon which the other viewpoint is based. Your reaction, however, is “demonstrative” of the (lack of) scientific rigor supporting your belief.
Did you even look at the links that I sent? No need to answer.”