Skeptics aren’t funded or organized but they can still have an impact.
Guest essay by Matt Manos
In my previous post, Why It’s So Hard to Convince Warmists, I introduced the concept of bellwethers and rational ignorance to explain why it’s so hard to convince warmists using empirical evidence. The obvious next question is, how can skeptics move the needle on belief in CAGW? To figure that out, I have been researching various movements that have succeeded in achieving their goals despite entrenched social bias.
Climate Change exists in a larger political context best know as the culture war. Very few targets of the culture war have successfully combated the forces of “all right thinking people.” Like them or hate them, the NRA and #gamergate have been successful largely by motivating their membership to lobby state governments or put social pressure on companies. These avenues aren’t available for skeptics because the climate change pushers aren’t local and the skeptic community isn’t organized or well funded. Skeptics must find other ways to influence public policy.
Climate Change is different than most public policy issues. Little social pressure can be put on local governments because the funding for climate change usually comes from national governments and international organizations. While frustrating to anyone who wants to directly lobby their government, climate change’s top down approach should be seen as it’s greatest weakness. Instead of being forced to lobby in every state or district, climate change presents itself with large, ripe targets.
Since traditional organizing doesn’t apply or can’t be afforded, I only see one avenue left for skeptics. Lawfare is a combination of the words law and warfare. It’s a form of asymmetrical warfare that uses the legal system to tie up the resources of an opponent. The Greens have been using lawfare for decades. Michael Mann’s defamation suit is but one of the latest examples. In addition to lawsuits, lawfare can be used by legislative bodies to alter public policy funding and to investigate climate change financial impropriety.
Perhaps the quickest way to disrupt the message of climate change is to change the funding. Don’t eliminate the funding, change it. The NASAs, the NOAAs, the NSFs of the world must be co-opted. The big government institutions see skeptics as a threat to their power and influence. That needs to change. Institutions need to see that skeptics aren’t out to defund them, just refocus their efforts onto different types of projects. That is exactly what the US House did earlier this month when it passed a bill that would raise overall science spending but reduce NSF spending on climate change. The bill has an uphill battle to become law but the approach is correct.
Other ways that skeptics can influence the debate is through lawsuits. Skeptics need public policy lawyers filing FOIA requests every week. One obvious target is how Greens often seem to get their funding directly from the taxpayers. If corruption is exposed, it could cause a government to collapse much like the sponsorship scandal helped topple the Canadian government in 2006. Another obvious issue for skeptics would be FOIA requests around how NCDC functions and emails around why the GISS dataset keeps being adjusted only in ways that suggest AGW. Maybe there is a smoking gun email exchange. I predict that there is a lot of low hanging fruit out there.
Climate gate did more to disrupt CAGW belief than any amount of skeptical science. Instead of waiting for another leak, skeptics need to force the next climate gate with FOIA requests and legislative investigations. Since climate change isn’t a grassroots effort, it’s top down nature should make it especially vulnerable to lawfare.
Skeptics need to engage public policy lawyers and take control of their own destiny.
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How do we go about requesting FOIA information regarding the raw climate data, the adjusted numbers and the exact methodology to see how and why they were adjusted.
Can our author give us a ” cook book” on how to do this?
Please do….!!!
The 3rd International Open Data Conference is going on right now in Ottawa. Skeptics really need to network with people like the Sunlight Foundation. Even if they aren’t skeptical they might be able to help us if they think data that should be available is being hidden.
In addition to FOIA itself, the Federal Data Quality Act should be considered:
http://corporate.findlaw.com/law-library/federal-agencies-subject-to-data-quality-act.html
“Federal Agencies Subject to Data Quality Act
“The Data Quality Act (DQA) is an attempt by Congress to ensure that federal agencies use and disseminate accurate information. The DQA requires federal agencies to issue information quality guidelines ensuring the quality, utility, objectivity and integrity of information that they disseminate and provide mechanisms for affected persons to correct such information. It is important for natural resources and environmental attorneys to be aware of this law in the event that a client has an interest in filing a petition with an agency to challenge the quality of information it has used or disseminated. Questions that remain unanswered about the DQA are whether agency information quality guidelines apply to rule-making and whether an agency’s denial of a petition to correct information is reviewable by the courts.”
http://www.thecre.com/misc/20040606_worms.htm
“The Data Quality Act: A revoluation in the role of science in policy making or a can of worms?
“If you’ve never heard of the Data Quality Act, you’re not alone. What is being called the Data Quality Act (and the Information Quality Act) was enacted with no discussion and no debate as Section 515 of the Treasury and General Government Appropriations Act of 2001 (PL 106-544, H.R. 5658). The section directs the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to issue government-wide guidelines that “provide policy and procedural guidance to Federal agencies for ensuring and maximizing the quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of information (including statistical information) disseminated by Federal agencies.””
2nd paragraph, line 1:
Climate Change exists in a larger political context best know as the culture war.
Prolly s/b known, ne?
Hopefully I’ll never be judged on my typos. There’s not a way for me to edit these once the post is accepted.
Ah so. I was mistaken in my assumption that any such errata could be easily fixed.
Sincere apologies to anyone I’ve offended with my too-late proofreading. I just hate to see anything that is really good marred by tiny, seemingly easy-to-correct errors or flubs, but I erred in my own thinking.
I cringe at my own too frequent flubs, which I always try to correct, keeping in mind Battista’s Dictum:
An error doesn’t become a mistake until you refuse to correct it.
Meanwhile, keep those great posts coming.
Regular authors like Tisdale, etc. are able to correct typos. So keep pointing them out. (Even authors who can’t make corrections here can do so on their home documents, from which they might like to post extracts some day.)
It’s only websites like WUWT that provide international exposure of what’s taking place. Elsewhere information is just not allowed to be published or broadcast.
Maybe one big grid failure any place will wake up the public.
Nice discussion about these issues and there should be more like this.
Barbara commented: Maybe one big grid failure any place will wake up the public.
Nice discussion about these issues and there should be more like this.
Accompanied by deaths unfortunately. Yes as much as I abhor politics there’s a time and place for everything, I am amazed at how well the warmists have neutralized the skeptics without being called on the carpet for their own transgressions. I still miss the climate techy stuff even though I am not worthy.
Would becoming a believer make life any easier?
“I wish I believed in global warming,
In the pseudo-scientific consensus,
I could leave behind all common sense,
Become completely non compos mentis.
I wish I believed in global warming,
I could cast scientific principals aside,
And understand that a settled science
For the first time ever had arrived.
I wish I believed in global warming
And all of those wild climate claims,
And then if anyone dare question them
I could learn how to call them names……”
Read more: http://wp.me/p3KQlH-GD
One tactic that works especially well with millenials is to point out to them that the Government Lies; the Government ALWAYS Lies. That is something that every millenial I’ve ever met already believes, so it’s an easy sell. Point out to them how they are being lied to about everything important; student debt, the fraud (for them) of Social Security, the “free” health care they were promised (they thought) that they are paying through the nose for; believe me, every one of those issues is at the forefront of every millenials thinking, every day.
Point out to them that this is just one more lie, and that they are fools if they believe anything that is Officially the Truth. Like I said, they already believe that anyways, so it’s an easy sell.
“scientific principles” please!
Significant, scary planetary cooling as opposed to a period of 18 years without warming will end the cult of CAGW.
All of the scientific premises in the IPCC reports are incorrect.
There are more than 20 separate and independent observations and analysis results that support that assertion, however, discussion of observations vs incorrect models is academic as there is now unequivocal evidence that the cooling has started and that the solar cycle has been interrupted. What we are observing has happened before – the change to the sun and the change to the earth’s climate in response to the change to the sun.
http://www.academia.edu/4210419/Can_climate_models_explain_the_recent_stagnation_in_global_warming
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/05/is-the-current-global-warming-a-natural-cycle/
Greenland ice temperature, last 11,000 years determined from ice core analysis, Richard Alley’s paper. William: The Greenland Ice data shows that has been 9 warming and cooling periods in the last 11,000 years. The warming and cooling periods all correlate with solar cycle changes. There was an abrupt cooling period 11,900 years ago (Younger Dryas abrupt cooling period when the planet went from interglacial warm to glacial cold with 75% of the cooling occurring in less than a decade and there was abrupt cooling 8200 years ago during the 8200 BP climate ‘event’).
http://www.climate4you.com/images/GISP2%20TemperatureSince10700%20BP%20with%20CO2%20from%20EPICA%20DomeC.gif
What ever happened to the proposed US version of the GWPF?
http://www.thegwpf.org/
That may help with some of the issues mentioned.
Can’t argue with any of that!
Lawfare is pointless. The guy with the bigger wallet and better contacts wins.
That’s not odd for sceptics. We haven’t got that.
But we do have prudence on our side. The costs of acting now are huge – and only justified by a debunked economics paper by Lord Stern.
Keep pushing on prudence and the funding for boondoggles will dry up. Then the majority will just move on.
(And the True Believers can be ignored).
Libel lawsuits need cost nothing, if a lawyer will work on a contingency fee–as they usually do.
Just read some of the comments. Though I would try and give some of you a bit of hope after your gloomy “there is nothing we can do to stop them unless the Earth cools and probably not then either” depressions.
I was, until less than 2 years ago, a blind but very vocal supporter of the “save the planet from CO2” dimwit club! I publicly came out of the closet as a raging “denier” after someone with intelligence challenged me to back up my Al Gore channeled claims with actual evidence. All my Facebook friends, who are naturally Left leaning, have had to put up with my “denier” posts ever since. Apparently I’m worse than an ex smoker who preaches to people about the evils of cigarettes.
So keep plugging away, the facts are getting through!
I hope you realize that you are a rare bird. And a dangerous one. An ability to change one’s mind while facing the facts will soon be legally persecuted as “undesirable mutation.” Not to mention that, according to Obama, “climate change denial undermines our National Security.” You are being organized, gradually but unstoppably.
“The public will swallow anything, anything at all no matter how crazy, provided it appears to bear the seal of official approval, is sufficiently long sustained, never contradicted, and plays upon their fears.”
— Eric Frank Russell
Climate sceptics are just a symptom of a much wider change in society in which the ivory towers of academia are under attack from the ordinary world outside – not so much by intention – but because the internet has brought academia and outside into direct conflict.
The first two rules of politics are get elected and stay elected, given despite the ‘dreams’ of the green that no action will happen without a political buy-in , then ‘none action’ is a result of politicians deciding that action on this front breaks he first two rules and therefore not something they wish to pursue.
So one approach to make it clear that the electorate will remember, come voting time , those who thought that ideas like energy shortages and rising energy costs are a ‘good thing ‘.
Then there is ‘death by who cares ‘
In fact we seen this in action , CAGW was essentially a ‘none-issue’ in various national elections through-out the world. No one prompted it becasue they felt it simply was not a vote winner and the voters when it came down to it , had other things they felt where more important , the greens screams of ‘most important thing ever’ have mostly fallen on deaf ears. Here the voter can make it clear that ‘CAGW’ simply does not float their boat, so do not look for my vote by pushing this idea. Indifference is a very effective slow poison.
The exception to these factors, are places like China where the ‘voter’ is given a choice between vote for me or ‘re-education’ and the irony is in these countries they shown no willingness to rush down any ‘green road ‘
So even without voter disinterest , they are not buying it .
This of course does not included grand standing public statements, made to make the speaker look good they frankly are much smoke and mirrors but little actual affect .
When you look at it honestly, although we have seen bad, the mad and ugly ideas pushed through compared to what the ‘greens’ and the rabid CAGW supporters expected and wanted,and for a time they really thought they would get , we actual seen very little action come out of all the mountain of IPCC based BS . Not because those who could enact it are being ‘stopped’ by Lew style conspiracy, but becasue they feel these action are not in their own interest in the first place.
Paris will seen a great push , becasue there is real fear that is may be the last real chance has the already gone past the peak of opportunity for ‘the cause’ and then may now be looking at the down slope , but it is no more likley to result in real action then the many other meetings before it. Although a mountain of paper and BS, along with the running up of some serious hotel bills , is fully expected .
re: “Don’t eliminate the funding, change it. The NASAs, the NOAAs, the NSFs of the world must be co-opted.”
On the surface that might seem to make sense, but there are a major problems making that easier said than done even if the voters got Congress to go along in theory. Consider a funding decision maker who may know something about the topic but ultimately is more of a manager (or politician if we are talking about budgets that get to Congress) who can only fund 1 project out of 2 proposals. One proposal say “the sky is falling, even if you aren’t sure you should fund me just in case I’m right” and one that says “nah, nothing is wrong but we merely wish to research this cool thing”. Which are they more likely to fund “just in case”? Even if they were somewhat skeptical that the sky is falling, unless they were certain it wasn’t, many people would fund the chicken-little research just in case rather than risk looking bad later if they were wrong. It is easy to see how the funding disparity favoring alarm would arise even if the funders were mildly skeptical, it isn’t easy to see how to counter that.
In addition, there are lots of folks doing climate research now who are used to the current status quo approach. Unless you claim “we’ll only fund those skeptical of climate alarm” (which seems as unskeptical as many warmists, since most skeptics don’t rule out the possibility they could eventually have a solid case, even if they don’t know so we are doubtful), it seems many then will still wish to “play it safe” and not admit any skepticism of AGW alarm since they will be skeptical the regime has truly changed. Also, regardless of whether the funding situation helped push the field towards bias, many within it truly do believe the warmist story. It would take some effort to try to recruit true skeptics into the field after a culture has tried to push them out for decades, and those within the field would resist being pushed out.
The goal may make sense, but I’m just not sure what strategy will work. I don’t think merely trying to persuade them that overall science funding will remain the same will work. Even if overall science funding remained the same, without “the sky is falling” story it seems likely it would shift. Even if you claim that it won’t shift in order to try to make them open to being skeptical, they are going to be rightly skeptical of the situation and will suspect that the funding will necessarily start changing in the future if they don’t keep up cries of alarm.
There is only one valid strategy: Wait and see what the climate does.
I’ve seen the term ‘bellwether’ described as a sheep with a bell that the others will follow. Probably wit would have been sharpened in these threads if it were broadly known that a wether is analogous to a steer – it has been neutered. Perhaps someone pointed this out somewhere.
I’ve been watching this entire “Global Warming” aka “Climate Change” aka “climate weirding” thing very closely for more than 15 years. I’ve followed it through all of the Gore, Hansen and Mann nastiness and craziness, the “Climategate” scandal, the lawsuits and FOIA requests, and now the temperature adjustments scandal. It is pretty obvious to me at this point that belief in the AGW theory is collapsing, not just for the general public but also for many scientists involved. All the lying scandals alone show that the AGW proponents are desperate, not because they fear that the world is in any imminent danger, but because they see their circus parade coming to an end.
Unfortunately, government policy and spending is like a charging elephant. It doesn’t change direction very quickly in most instances. There are still a lot of people whose livelihoods are dependent upon the largess flowing from government coffers through the NSF. There are still a lot of politicians hoping for more revenue through the implementation of carbon taxes. There are still a lot of financial interests who hope to make a quick killing by scamming the public with unnecessary, unsightly, and inefficient wind and solar projects. There are still a lot of financial interests who are hoping to have a whole, new set of paper toys (in the form of carbon credits) to trade and manipulate.
So there are still plenty of stakeholders. These stakeholders have a vested interest in keeping the scam going for as long as they possibly can. Money is the key, and the NSF is probably the first step in squeezing off the money supply to climate research. Ahead of that, public opinion that passively accepts the wasting of tax dollars on climate research and on unnecessary alternative energy projects, needs to change.
However, public opinion IS changing, and it will change even more as our winters deepen and lengthen, our summers grow cooler and shorter, and the cost of food inevitably increases. The change to colder, wetter conditions is already under way, and the change will persist for many years. The majority opinion will change abruptly very soon, and it will have solidly rejected the AGW theory long before the climate flips back to warmer conditions. By then the scam artists will have moved on to other charades.
There are many more “stakeholders” motivated to maintain cheap energy.
I believe that the funding bias argument is a logical fallacy. At least in the US courts the accused is allowed to present a case in his defense.
There is no reason that the fossil fuel industry should not be permitted to fund its own research, so long as the research adheres to best scientific practices.
I bet temperature record corruption hits a new record this year because the people making money of the CAGW scam want to claim the pause has ended.
Using FOIA requests seems like a no-brainer. It reminded me of the ACORN scandal, where secret videos were obtained of low-level ACORN workers showed that they supported all kinds of questionable and outright fraudulent activities.
The one problem is that Climate-gate already exposed much of the unseemly activities going on within the Warmist community, involving top-level people not local stooges. This should have gained much more traction and led to more of a public outcry similar to the backlash against ACORN, but it didn’t.
I think the Climate-gate e-mails were released at a very opportune time to derail the rush into a global climate suicide pact, but in some ways it happened too early. ACORN was already viewed as a partisan organization who’s public funding was already questionable to begin with. I think Climate-gate hit before there was a general sense of distrust in society toward those pushing it, so the e-mails kind of fizzled out before there could be a public outcry for funding to be cut off.
This allowed time for the Warmists to circle the wagons and declare themselves innocent of wrongdoing. They also know they got caught with their pants down before and will be much more careful in how they conspire together in the future. I think the natural level of skepticism in society has increased since Climate-gate, and perhaps another event of its magnitude would be enough now.
A small portion of the true believers are persuadable. I’m afraid the simpletons attributing every rainstorm, tornado, hurricane, snow storm, heat wave, cold wave, drought, etc. to AGW are lost causes. It’d be like trying to teach a lizard how to do calculus, a waste of time.
It would be great if Africa and India took drastic action against foreign Green NGOs. Arrest anyone who opposes development (energy/water/GMOs) for attempted genocide. Make it clear they won’t be released until UN/Greenpeace/WWF/etc apologize and promise to stop interfering.
Of course this will create international incident, but the publicity will be terrible for Greens and stupid politicians who defend them.
The State of Texas should charge certain “climatologists” and their spokespersons with manslaughter. Didn’t climate prognosticators tell Texans they were destined for perpetual drought and thus had no need to prepare for floods? How is this different from Italy charging seismologists with manslaughter for failure to warn of a possible earthquake?
Attack CAGW using science, logic and legal action if you must but in our social media world, the real answer is mockery and peer pressure.
‘Everyone knows runaway man-made global warming is BS – have you only just found out?’
That’s all you need – works like a charm!