Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Senator Whitehouse has a conspiracy theory, about why people aren’t embracing skyrocketing energy prices and a substantially degraded quality of life.
According to Whitehouse;
Fossil fuel companies and their allies are funding a massive and sophisticated campaign to mislead the American people about the environmental harm caused by carbon pollution.
Their activities are often compared to those of Big Tobacco denying the health dangers of smoking. Big Tobacco’s denial scheme was ultimately found by a federal judge to have amounted to a racketeering enterprise.
The Big Tobacco playbook looked something like this: (1) pay scientists to produce studies defending your product; (2) develop an intricate web of PR experts and front groups to spread doubt about the real science; (3) relentlessly attack your opponents.
Thankfully, the government had a playbook, too: the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO. In 1999, the Justice Department filed a civil RICO lawsuit against the major tobacco companies and their associated industry groups, alleging that the companies “engaged in and executed — and continue to engage in and execute — a massive 50-year scheme to defraud the public, including consumers of cigarettes, in violation of RICO.”
Senator Whitehouse doesn’t understand that there is no “denier” conspiracy.
Ordinary people like myself, are motivated to act because we are fed up with failed climate models being paraded as settled facts. We are fed up with our kids being force fed messages of hopelessness and despair, when they should be learning about the wonders of science. We are fed up with endless schoolyard bullying tactics, the gratuitous name calling, the utterly disproportionate legal threats, and wild, baseless accusations, being used to harass anyone who dares to question the credibility of the self appointed prophets of thermageddon.
Climategate email 1212063122.txt
>> Mike,
> Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4?
> Keith will do likewise. He’s not in at the moment – minor family crisis.
>
> Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don’t
> have his new email address.
>
> We will be getting Caspar to do likewise.
>
> I see that CA claim they discovered the 1945 problem in the Nature
> paper!!
>
> Cheers
> Phil
Well said Anthony. Senator Whitehouse needs to realise the tobacco analogy doesn’t remotely fit the bill. For one thing every single person in the Western world is benefiting from the cheap energy provided by fossil fuels. Senator Whitehouse included. There’s no us and them, there’s just us.
Well said Eric too 🙂
Yes, Eric, good post thanks. Perhaps RICO should be used against the global warming conspirators identified in the climate gate emails.
We’ve been hearing about this misinformation campaign for many years. The claim has always been that it is “well documented”. Since no one has ever produced the alleged documents, I ask the senator to do so. I want to see them. These documents would influence my opinion dramatically… as does their absence.
Shouldn’t we go on the counter offensive by decrying The War On Plant Food? And the The War On Plants.
“Senator Whitehouse is part of the War On Plants.”
“Senator Whitehouse is part of the War On Plant Food.”
The whole AGW effort is a war on dark skinned people and the development of their resources and countries.
It should just be the war on food. We eat plants and we eat animals that eat plants. A war on plants is a war on food.
Read the next post too. Inherently Stable System. More heat = more thunderstorms. So we add CO2, and add H2O and the earth adds heat naturally. Sounds like a green eutopia. Why are the left opposed to fossil fuels? If their theory was right, we should be recycling more C into the atmosphere, not less. Burning any C is recycling by the way, just a longer cycle.
[snip – While this post was amusing and did not in any way imply any threat to anyone, I am, nonethelhess, exercising my prerogative. ~ Evan]
Humor Hog
Well, if you consider that tobacco users and companies are some of the most discriminated against, highly-taxed (though perhaps not so much in America), hounded, despised, perpetually legislated against and the subject of officially-sanctioned derision…maybe some tobacco analogies are apt.
Didn’t Gore make his money in tobacco? Maybe he simply moved on into Climate Change. Applying the tactics that worked for tobacco to help the democrat’s promote climate change.
Doesn’t the climate change textbook start with accusing you enemies of using the same tactics as you are using? Like the cheating husband that suspects the wife. He sees everyone else through his own actions.
Doesn’t denial start with denying that climate changes naturally? That like the tides, no man can stop natural climate change. Explain the little ice age, of the many warm periods prior. Climate science cannot. Yet it claims to know the cause of today’s warming. Salem witch trials, 2015 version.
Al Gore plowed tobacco with mules -or was it poodles? I can’t remember…
There are taxes on tobacco, paid to governments, to pay politicians like Senator Whitehouse …. to be consistent, he should work ‘pro bono’ for the common good and eschew all pension benefits.
Gore, and his family, made money on tobacco, oil and coal (Oxy).
Some analogies may be apt, but to me, it’s like the pimp (big government) scolding the prostitute (big tobacco) for selling her services to the John. Here in Canada, we get the argument that smokers cost the public health care system money. Not so. From a strictly economic viewpoint, smoking should be subsidized, not taxed. If everybody in Canada stopped smoking tomorrow, governments would immediately be deprived of $8 billion annually in direct taxes. A study by the Netherlands National Institute for Public Health found (using a model, I admit) that preventing smoking saves lives, but it doesn’t save money. In fact, the lifetime healthcare costs of thin, healthy people are higher than those of the obese and smokers. We may find to our surprise that global warming also costs less than the status quo.
This does fit the bill:
The Big
TobaccoClimate playbook lookeds something like this: (1) pay scientists to produce studies defending your product; (2) develop an intricate web of PR experts and front groups to spread doubt aboutthe real scienceskepticism; (3) relentlessly attack your opponents.Worth noting that this is the same model used by the recent Big Chocolate satire/expose that journalist fellow did.
The Big Climate Change playbook looks something like this: (1) pay scientists to produce studies defending your theory; (2) develop an intricate web of PR experts and front groups to spread doubt about the real science; (3) relentlessly attack your opponents.
Obviously it’s better in stereo
Guys like Whitehouse dont care about the truth. Their mission is so important, their ego so large, that they could care less as to how their goal is achieved. And like the spoiled children they are, they seek to rig the game so no one else can play unless they win. The sad thing to me personally is that this is the state where I was born, and the people are so complacent there, they elect someone who obviously knows nothing about the extremes that Rhode Island has gone through, like the 1938 hurricane and Carol. So if the tobacco analogy, or any other can smear an opponent that he will refuse to debate one on one in the open, he lets it fly. This is not about truth, if it was alot of these people would be nowhere near the reigns of so called leadership
The use of rogue agency regulation and color of law will eventually result in no truth getting out and thus any opinion that is contrary puts you in a jail.
I believe the Senator just called me a baby killing Nazi, but i’m not sure.
Hey Joe, speaking of ego, it would seem that the Home State of your birth, doesn’t even rise to the level of needing any more than one thermometer to define the climate of that State.
According to Dr Hansen you only need one thermometer for each 1200 km to measure the climate, so actually, Rhode Island could get by with NO thermometers, and just adopt the Temperature of Manhattan as their official State Temperature.
Well Joe, besides giving rise to you (our thanks for that) Rhode Island did manage to operate the America’s Cup yacht races for the New York Yacht Club or much of its first 134 years of history. (Before those pesky Australians came along.)
g
PS Could there possibly be any more bizarre oxymoron, than the words “global climate.”
The global climate temperature is somewhere between about -94 deg C and about +60 deg. C (maybe even more). So why are we concerned about one or two deg. C ??
I believe that “climate” is an entirely local phenomenon; not global.
Why do people keep saying “they could care less”? The correct expression is “they COULDN’T care less”. i.e., they care so little that they couldn’t care less.
Albert writes: “Why do people keep saying ‘they could care less’?”
Here’s good summary:
http://www.wisegeek.org/what-does-i-could-care-less-mean.htm
I’m old enough to remember when the apocopic version began being used in the 1960s and it still irritates me a little bit.
So a senator from the village of Rhode Island is the Spokesperson for the entire USA.
Let’s see, the Veep State of Delaware can fit in 15 different non overlapping places in the Alaskan Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, But Whitehead’s little burg can be put in 24.75 different non overlapping places in the ANWAR of Alaska.
So Pluto got demoted from planethood. Isn’t it about time that Rhode Island got a similar promotion.
Is Rhode Island bigger than Catalina Island Out in the Santa Barbara Channel Islands off California ??
Your point seems misplaced. Both Delaware and Rhode Island have larger populations than Alaska. Dirt don’t vote.
@opluso “Dirt don’t vote”
you’ve not been to Chicago in November apparently
“”””””…..
opluso
June 5, 2015 at 5:59 am
Your point seems misplaced. Both Delaware and Rhode Island have larger populations than Alaska. …..”””””
So far as I know, there is no data base of climate information measured on people. People seem to maintain a constant 98.6 deg. F Temperature regardless of their CO2 output.
I just watched Senator Whitehouse take part in a senate committee hearing on the legality of the IRS tax on people who don’t buy Obamacare Insurance, and the legality of federal government subsidies for millions of people that the law says clearly are not qualified to receive those subsidies.
So Whitehouse was bragging about how well the obamacare law is working in his state of Rhode Island (1212 square miles). He was bragging that so far 500 businesses have signed up their employees for his State’s version of Obamacare.
I wonder if Senator Whitehouse is aware that we have more than 500 businesses by far, just in downtown Sunnyvale California.
Yes it sounds like a rip roaring success Senator Whitehouse.
I say “Bring it on”, Mr. Whitehouse. I’d love to see the CAGW establishment (who really DO have a conspiracy going) exposed for what they are. It isn’t the “Deniers” who should be held accountable for violating the public trust. No, it’s the rent seekers that distort data and logic regarding “climate change” that should be examined and found guilty.
Quite so. The good thing about the far Left is that they leave behind club to beat themselves with. In Australia, they have 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. (But their affiliated terrorist organisations like Hamas – beloved of the Greens, who speak at rallies where the Black Standard and yellow flags wave proudly – can’t help but insult / offend pretty much every other race in the country.)
In the US you have RICO. And a smoking gun thousands of pages long. Big Government funding Big Green, who then pull stunts like harassment of scientists Soon and others – supported by the swivel-eyed ecoloons in academia and elsewhere. I would LOVE to see RICO brought onto the playing field. Because I know who will be wearing it. Den!@rs are not the ones taking corrupt payments and using fraudulent means.
Let’s see. If the Scientists concluding AGW are taking corrupt payments, and the skeptics are the new Falileos…pure as the driven snow…why is it that the following all accept the findings f those corrupt (sarc)
Ignore previous post..a mistake
“..Will the letter “D”
Be used to signify
That you’ve dangerous free opinions,
That you still won’t comply?
A “D” daubed on your house,
A “D” badge on your coat,
No employment available,
Not allowed to vote….”
From Environmental Nazi’s http://wp.me/p3KQlH-Mz
Thought Green might be a good color for the letter “D”, but lets stick with tradition and just make it yellow.
Big yellow letter “D”.
Besides, the color Green is needed by the Green Shirts.
Sen. Whitehouse can oversee the whole program.
He can be the new Oberster Sturmabteilung.
I’ve seen this some where before …
Morpheus: This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill – the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill – you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.
So, the blue pill allows you to believe whatever you want to believe.
Sorry. The “D” is the letter after Senator Whitehouse. As long as it means “Democrat” it will never be criticized.
I always thought it meant “dummy”.
And to really do it right, it means “dummy” as said by Redd Foxx (comedian). He could use that word and really make it mean something.
You’re talking Democrat; right ??
Now there’s a truly racketeering organization for you. Remember what Nancy Pelosi said; we have to pass this fraud to find out what’s in it.
What was in it, turned out to be exactly what Sarah Palin said was in it, and she knew, because she could see the bill from her front window.
So Whitehouse should be careful about throwing around the word RICO; his group are steeped in it.
Could also mean you’re a vampire hunter, sworn to defend the public from those who would drain their lifeblood.
When will the use the RICO law against ummm i don’t know the UN! or the climate change warmists as a whole?
I am called a denier because:
* I have the audacity to demand scientists follow the scientific method.
* I have the audacity to demand that those who tell me to live sustainably first do so themselves.
* I have the audacity to look at weather history to see if such events occurred in the past.
* I have the audacity to think for myself.
why is it that politicians that live high on the hog are always telling us to live sustainable? Are they not simply telling us to take a smaller piece of the pie, so that they can have a bigger piece for themselves? Are they not simply gluttons and hypocrites, telling us to do what they would never?
They are that… gluttons and hypocrites. And they *all* are that… even the few who publicly proclaim views that seem to coincide with sense and reason. It’s all show; the next election is the goal.
To quote Animal Farm “We are all created equal…But some of us are more equal.”
https://www.census.gov/dataviz/visualizations/019/
Drag cursor all the way over to the right, note location.
That’s a lot of audacity. Obviously we’ll need to sew a green hockeystick onto your clothing, readily visible, so that people can know you’re an audacious person.
That last one’s the real crime, alex. How dare you? ;-p
So if I understand this correctly, using RICO would mean a court case where the warmists would have to use something they know little about – facts – to prove their case. Whitehouse obviously didn’t get the memo that said ‘don’t whatever you do get involved in a court case where we would have to prove things’.
Dear Senator Whitehouse,
How is the climate supposedly changing that has you in such an alarmed state?
Yours very respectfully,
RICO Candidate
Senator Whitehouse would have fit right in with Tailgunner Joe McCarthy. Scratch the surface of a true believer and find a mental midget believing in magical thinking and calling for thought crimes.
In the real world a “crime” has to take place for RICO to apply.
Last time I checked, even if the kook’s ridiculous conspiracy were true, offering competing ideas regarding a matter of public interest is not a crime.
I think Woody Allen’s reply to Sen. Joe McCarthy in “The Front” is quite appropriate as a reply to Sen. Whitehouse:
Trouble is Tailgunner Joe was right. There were communists in high places in government.
And, there still are, and growing.
Leonard Lane – June 4, 2015 at 6:15 am
There are suspicions that it goes all the way to the top.
It’s instructive here to note that Joe’s claims were borne out as fact by the march of time. The problem was that his method was lacking when he made the claims. People simply couldn’t replicate the process involved. They could not discover for themselves the correctness of his claims. And while he ended up being right, he may not have had any process at all himself. It is that lack of process, or the lack of presentation of it, that we remember him for.
This is not dissimilar to the Climate Change fiasco. We have a lot of pronouncements of what is or will be — but there’s very little in the way of credible process to derive the conclusions. If, 50 years from now, the climate warms an appropriate amount, we’d be as amiss in stating “Mann was right” — and for the same reasons — as stating “Joe was right.”
Yes there were commies. But they failed. We won the Cold War. The USSR disappeared. Do we have failed commies running things, and trying to impose loser ideas and policies? Yes. That is not what McCarthy was working on. Even with Stalin getting traitors to give him the bomb he was still the loser.
Focus on the real threats: Idiocratic policies wankers by the likes of Whitehouse and Obama who are cowards, echo chambers, ill-liberal, and are most assuredly not at all interested in the proletariat revolution. They and their cronies are in it to make lots and lots of money for themselves.
Woody Allen’s response to the committee was perfect, and we should adopt it as our answer to the pathetic climate kooks who are too ignorant, cowardly and lazy to actually think about, much less defend, their climate obsession.
Senator Whitehouse, you are too insipid to offer a defense, much less a rational explanation of your ridiculous apocalyptic claptrap. Go f{}ck yourself for even thinking you should be able to make it illegal to challenge your pathetic ideas.
Did we win? Our government, educational system, news, and entertainment is largely completely under the control of statists who hate freedom and capitalism. Whole generations of Americans have been brainwashed, and our values and way of life are showing signs of crumbling from a 70 year internal assault. It may have taken generations, but their plan to erode from within appears to be largely working. It may not be long before we revisit McCarthy as a would-be hero who was ignored by his peers.
@ Richard Drake: Oh I don’t know, it looks pretty familiar to me 😉
The Big Green playbook looks exactly like this: (1) pay scientists to produce studies promoting your beliefs; (2) develop an intricate web of PR experts and front groups to spread belief about the faux science; (3) relentlessly attack your opponents.
You saw it too.
The Big Tobacco playbook looked something like this: (1) pay scientists to produce studies defending your product; (2) develop an intricate web of PR experts and front groups to spread doubt about the real science; (3) relentlessly attack your opponents.
Whitey needs to look in the mirror.
1) pay scientists to produce studies – See the NOAA purposefully using computer code (algorithms [2]) to lower historic temperatures to promote present day temperatures as the warmest on record. – See more at: http://notrickszone.com/2015/06/01/bombshell-comprehensive-analysis-reveals-noaa-wrongfully-applying-master-algorithm-to-whitewash-temperature-history/#sthash.IddWOu0V.dpuf
2) web of PR experts and front groups – Lew and Cook and Mann and Algore come to mind. Also the caption under the picture at the WashCompost – The dome of the U.S. Capitol is seen behind the emissions, and a smokestack, from the coal-burning Capitol Power Plant, in Washington, D.C., March 10, 2014. Since it would take a massive inversion to get smoke from the stack to ground level at the base, what is pictured is steam, the other GHG. Get the media on your side.
3) relentlessly attack your opponents.- The Tea Party Patriots group has accused Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) in a formal complaint of breaking ethics rules by pressuring the administration to target conservative groups engaged in political activities. She argues the senator’s “inflammatory attacks” against conservative groups appear to constitute “improper conduct which may reflect upon the Senate,” citing the Senate’s ethics manual.
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/207946-tea-party-hits-whitehouse-on-ethics
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) – WAPO article.
One scientist who consistently published papers downplaying the role of carbon emissions in climate change, Willie Soon, reportedly received more than half of his funding from oil and electric utility interests: more than $1.2 million.
Wow, I just read the how NOAA has modified the measured data from the past and changed it to match the political platform of Obama Administration. It’s like NOAA knows not the bite the hand that feeds them billions of budget dollars. However, it seems to me that the scientific method is being trashed in the process. Fortunately, we have satellite and weather balloon data that can not be significantly modified, and this data is the most accurate (but only starts in the 1970’s) and both indicate that CO2 plays only a minor role in global temperatures.
I think a better comparison of the Climate Change Theory than tobacco is how the Theory of Plate Tectonics has gone from very few to most every scientist believing that it is true within my lifetime. It was done by collecting valid data that was in disagreement with the accepted theory. The theory got changed, not the valid data. In the end, let’s hope that the scientific method rules get applied to climate change theories and get the truthful nonpolitical conclusion, but unfortunately trillions of dollars would be wasted before reaching this verdict decades from now.
The scientists employed in free market think tanks have produced only a tiny percentage of the studies cited in the NIPCC Report. The money links that exist for scientists in academia (such as Lindzen’s consulting fee decades ago) are pretty tenuous.
As for Whitehorses’s fantasy that “Fossil fuel companies and their allies are funding a massive and sophisticated campaign to mislead the American people …”, where are the Contrarian billboards? Advertisements? Those would be a part of any “massive campaign” to persuade “the American people.” Where are the articles in the bought-off media that trumpets the studies by the paid-for scientists? They are rare–95% of the media won’t touch them–look at the way Climategate was not reported.
For more in this vein, see my WUWT guest-thread, http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/16/notes-from-skull-island-why-skeptics-arent-well-funded-and-well-organized/
I recently had a so called scientist tell me that since Heartland is run by a lawyer, therefor none of the science they produce is worth looking at.
Alan…
You took my comment…I agree. The alarmist tactics are exactly what he is asserting skeptics do. They massively fund their agenda through government funded research, the IPCC, and university grants.
Then they use the media to hype their alarmist scare scenarios in opposition to all common sense and observation.
Then attack those that disagree as deniers and threaten legal actions to squelch any real debate of the facts.
I do sometimes wonder just how smart some of these people, not to see they could be called out on their statements about denial. Personally I have never denied “climate”, or that it “changes”. I have a “friend” on Facebook who regularly posts greeny statements & alleged science, I just post something from here, BH, of The Resilient Earth, & he gets all uppety with it, & descends into ad homs because I am reading the “wrong” websites!
It’s called Projection Disorder
Projection disorder with a large dash of noble cause corruption thrown in.
They believe that they are saving the world, therefore they are free to use any tactic to achieve their goal.
Do I detect the acrid odor of Saul Alinski in the Green SA?
+1 I immediately thought the very same, oh well I guess that’s what you can do when you claim the “moral high ground”…..lmao, we have to act now…we’re all doomed!
There is a rather lengthy list of experts, scientists, researchers and authors whose careers and lives have been drastically harmed by the in team climate mafia.
There is no lengthy list of climate alarmists whose careers and livelihoods have been seriously impaired by skeptics.
Yes! Invoke RICO, investigate the alarmist collusion.
“
Fossil fuel companiesThe US government and their allies are funding a massive and sophisticated campaign to mislead the American people about the environmental harm caused by carbon pollution.”—————–
Fixed that for you, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse.
Although in fairness to the original words of Sen. Whitehouse, many of the deep pockets funding the climate alarmist/warmist agenda are fossil fuel companies, like BP.
Yes. Psychological “projection” in all its glory. They see within others what within themselves is true. “When you’re in the mud all you see is mud.
They see within others what within themselves is true.
That’s it. Thieves think everyone steals. Liars believe everyone is a liar. ‘Projection’ is imputing your own faults onto others. This article shows Whitehouse’s projection.
There’s this thing about accusations. The first one to make a specific accusation, or the first one to accuse generally, gains the most belief from passers by. It’s a psychological quirk that shouldn’t be, but is.
Even if big oil was funding massive amounts of climate studies and misinformation(they are not) when did to public agree that big corporations are always guilty of fraud of unethical practices regardless of any facts or real science? Then when you question government funded science you are questioning the Lord himself?
Here’s just one example of fossil fuel industry funding of questionable climate “awareness”:
http://science.time.com/2012/02/02/exclusive-how-the-sierra-club-took-millions-from-the-natural-gas-industry-and-why-they-stopped/
Interesting line in the linked article: “The news of the gas industry donation—which had been kept *anonymous until now, as many of Club’s gifts from individuals and corporations are*—is particularly worrisome for the Sierra Club.” Apparently they want to criticize others’ funding sources without revealing their own.
Government funded science towing the Party Line. The Heath Monkey Studies. He asphyxiated the monkeys.
Okay, this is a great real life demonstration of McCarthyism, up close and personal.
The trouble with that is that there were Communists in government. Stalinist is a better term.
Statist is even a better term.
I know some better terms, but I would get banned if I used them.
McCarthyism is a great misnomer. If you look at the Congressional investigations after the uproar and at the KGB information released after the fall of the Soviet Union, you will see shy McCarthy had to be stopped. He was declaring the truth. All of this has been published in comments on WUWT before.
About that…
http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2007-11-07.html
Ann’s take on this is worth reading, even if you’re on the left.
I assume the tosspot is just playing to his core vote, but I’m sure the prospect of RICO will really alarm the alarmists
Seeing as how RICO was implemented to eliminate organized crime, I’d say RICO’s success rate rivals the success rate of the IPCC models.
Trusting the IPCC to do science is much like asking the US Congress to certify virginity
These are robots. All we have to do is find the “off” button and push it.
Whitehouse is just getting the ‘lie’ out in public. An old and favorite propaganda tool.
And Whitehouse (heh) is part of the war on plant food.
Yes, Please let me have my day in court!
What then is this “Carbon Pollution”?
A sinister, evil collusion?
CO2, it is clean,
Makes for growth, makes it green,
A transfer of wealth, a solution.
Let me first state I am serious about this Limerick. It is not even tongue in cheek. I am an engineer by training and look at the earth as a “living” organism that responds to changes in its environment.
First, the increase in CO2 concentration itself and how nature responds to it.
Second, the effect it has on the earth’s temperature and all its consequences, and finally
Third, the acidification of the oceans.
http://lenbilen.com/2014/02/22/co2-the-life-giving-gas-not-carbon-pollution-a-limerick-and-explanation/
Wow a Senator, who attacks free speech, make outlandish claims in public,then sit back and watch it unfold.
Why is it that we as humans ALWAYS elect the most stupid amongst us to form policy ? Is there any politician out there who can detect the difference between a sledge hammer and a tack hammer ?
Answer a tack hammer is used to drive bridge spikes !
Because the smart ones are too smart to put up with the s&&t you have to take in order to get elected to office in the first place.
but there is a consensus that nobody was able to poke holes in at all..totally valid…the 97%
There are no climate change deniers except those who are paid for shills. Every public figure of science that has a skeptical view is a shill and a crook. I don’t think people are buying this anymore. One only has to do some very basic research to laugh at this. it’s amazing every warmists climate scientist i see in an interview or mentioned n a news article seems to be form the same basic group of public relation scientists like gavin schmidt or hansen. Either that or actor scientists like Bill Nye or Degrasse. It seems to be all politics, phony consensus, bullying and shaming tactics. if a basic fact comes up that a warmists can’t refute they will always resort to these cowardly tactics..I never hear much science discussed by warmists.
He disgraces himself and the institution. He employs every tactic that he accuses skeptics of using. He is beyond the reach of judicial action and he knows it. Yet he threatens judicial action on the less powerful.
Tyranny.
And he’s beyond the wrath of the voters, being a Democrat from a deep blue state controlled by that party since 1937. Until this year when the law finally changed, voters could, and did, vote straight party line. Democrats occupy over 90% of the legislative seats and are cozy with the unions. Idiots like Whitehouse act with impunity and the majority of voters are too benighted to know what’s happening to them or are connected to the ruling class. Sadly, America becomes more like RI every day.
A denier is someone who doesn’t believe that the climate models match the global temperature record. The global temperature record agrees with the laws of physics (unless it was manipulated) and so the models don’t. That means the models are deceptive (and scientifically illegal) and anyone using them to support the hypothesis of climate change is being misleading. Why would they do that?
These are folks in government positions of enormous power having wet dreams over criminalizing “wrong” ideas and opinions.
And guess who gets to decide which ones are “wrong”.
Guess who? Left-leaning Google.
https://www.intellihub.com/google-thought-police-rank-websites-based-truth/
Ah! another politician who failed his science courses.
Just another Animal Farmer. Two legs bad, four legs good! (Bring in the guard dogs). Disgusting is the word for it.
I read this news at Iceagenow.info earlier today and commented:
From Wikipedia:
“A racket is a service that is fraudulently offered to solve a problem, such as for a problem that does not actually exist, that will not be put into effect, or that would not otherwise exist if the racket did not exist. Conducting a racket is racketeering.”
Sounds like AGW to me!
Spot on 🙂
Another aspect is creating a crisis, and then offering to provide a solution, for a big fee.
Kind of like a senator telling a businessman that he is thinking of supporting new regulations on his business, but can be dissuaded for a sufficient contribution.
This is fascism on the rise. Pure and simple. Environmental fascism.
I think the commonality with fascism is that the new left has decided the they must build a perfect world in their own image.
Except with with perfect weather.
I’m waiting to see how completely daft they can get.
My bet is we ain’t touched bottom yet.
A perfect world with perfect weather.
That’s perfectly daft.
I suppose this is a runup to taking Holder’s position… ain’t that scary?
If RICO can be used against climate change Truthers, how about using the same statutes against Bill, Hillary and the Foundation (otherwise known as the Clinton Crime Family). BTW, I lived in RI when Sheldon came to power. To suggest he is intellectually challenged gives a bad name to others who are challenged. The best word to describe Sheldon is DUMB.
The problem is that only the Justice dept can bring RICO charges.
There’s no way the govt would prosecute their side.
It also is a bit disengenous to accuse “Big Oil” of funding “denier” campaigns, when all major oil comanies are actively lobbying for a price on Carbon Emissions and the Rockefella family are one of the biggest cheerleaders of the Global Warming scare campaign.
It doesn’t take much investigation to see that the biggest profiteers from the war on coal are “big oil” companies or more accurately “big gas and oil”.
It should also be pointed out that raising taxes on Gasoline has shown to do nothing to cut consumption of it, but if 50% of the price is tax a 2% increase in price from the oil company only shows as 1% increase in retail price. That is the beauty of a fixed usage tax over a value added one.
In short, the war on Carbon is just as likely to have been instigated by “big oil” in the first place as it was from so called environmentalists.
If you look into the aims, goals and influence of the Trilateral Comission over the last 40 years, you will discover that this is more likely than not.
Well at least Senator Sheldon Whitehouse adds to the growing body of evidence that only idiots are elected to Congress.
That’s been the case for awhile, like getting the flu during the winter, you just come to terms with it and do what you can. It is concerning though when the idiots in charge exercise their idiocy in a way that not only undermines the practice of science but undermines a basic constitutional guarantee against government authority restricting speech.
Maybe it would be helpful for Senator Whitehouse to hit himself in the head with a wooden spoon until some semblance of sense gets knocked back into him.
The Democrat playbook looks something like this: (1) pay scientists, with tax payers money, to produce studies defending your viewpoint; (2) develop an intricate web of PR experts and front groups, especially green ones, to spread doubt about real science; (3) relentlessly attack your opponents.
Democrat senator from a postage stamp-sized state where the gene pool does not go very deep.
Good thing they’re not in the majority.
This is a conspiracy theory. Therefore according to many warmists types, (The ones that show up here are not on this thread, Hmm.) this guy is to be denigrated and then ignored.
This is liberal projection,
Good point- where are they? (They know who They are and so do we.)
I thought it was Big Gas & Oil funding the AGW crowd as part of their strategic commercial war with slightly less big Coal. This guy obviously didn’t get the memo. I guess he’ll be getting a call pretty soon about how unhelpful to the cause these comments are. It’s sure going to be tricky explaining why the Big Oil is pouring so much more cash into the climate change team bucket than the sceptics team bucket while supposedly conspiring with the latter.
Q: What do you call a politician who uses a law to selectively persecute those who disagree with him?
A: Tyrant!
As the planet fails to obey the CAGW models, the chorus of vested interests (follow the money) are becoming more alarming, more aggressive, more controlling, and much like a wounded bear, more dangerous. Talk of “rounding up climate deniers” via cutting funding to researchers who report unadjusted data and who fail to fail to exercise alarmist CO2 meme’s or firing such scientist outright, or politicians and climate alarmists refusal to even talk about failed predictions of said models et. , has now descended to the Nazi like prosecution / death threats / imprisonment for “Future Crimes against Humanity” and so on. SO then tell me , who are the conspirators? By the way I live 100 miles from NYC and for the last four nights I have had to keep my woodstove burning because overnight lows have been in the 40’s F …. Daytime highs in the 50’s and 60’s with a few hours low 70’s ….. Dang cold here for the first week of June!
“Senator Whitehouse doesn’t understand that there is no “denier” conspiracy.
Ordinary people like myself, are motivated to act because we are fed up with failed climate models being paraded as settled facts.”
I was just reading the previous post from Willis about the stability of the climate. In that post, he links to an earlier post of his called The Details Are in the Devil. I couldn’t help seeing an analogy.
In the devil post, Willis talks about a theoretical Tasmanian Dirt Devil (TDD) that pops into existence to clean up a local concentration of dirt in a large room. It’s not affected (and, more pertinently, controlled) by what’s going on in other parts of the room, it just cleans up it’s own dirt target. It could be the only TDD working in the room at that moment, or there could be others, but there’s no controlling central authority. (In Willis’ article, the TDDs are analogous to tropical thunderstorms “cleaning up” heat concentrations in the tropical atmosphere.)
Willis’ point is that because the premise on which climate models are made is wrong, the climate models are wrong. In his dirty room analogy, that there isn’t one sweeping thing (a single, large vacuum cleaner, for instance) controlling everything but individual, independent actors doing their own thing in their own area that together form the entire system of keeping the room in a steady state of cleanliness. Willis’ thought is that the climate system is regulated similarly and the models ought to reflect that.
And my claim is that Sheldon Whitehouse is making the same mistake about AGW skeptics that Willis thinks modelers are making about the regulation of the climate. Whitehouse is positing some giant, centrally controlled conspiracy that’s regulating the entire system. The reality, as far as I can see, is much more like the TDD analogy. Individuals with specific expertise and interest pop up to clean up local concentrations of pro-AGW gunk that they see in front of them. Some of them work on this side of the room, some work on the other, but they’re concentrating on their own tasks, as their motivation and abilities allow. While together they might be ridding the room of dirt, that doesn’t mean they’re answering to one set of marching orders..
Drawn by the stink of BS – I like it 🙂
Um I mean I like the analogy… 🙂
Part of the left wing psyche is that individuals do not control their own destiny. Somebody or something is always controlling. In their world there are three entities which are constantly fighting for control of people. Religion, business, govt.
This is why they fight for big govt, because they believe that there must be a master, and they want that master to be govt.
Therefor it is natural for them to see those who oppose them, not as individual actors, but instead as pawns being controlled by some evil organization.
Yeah, that was my underlying thought, too. It’s all part of a pattern of left wing thinking. It’s the grandiose, single-factor, control knob view of the world. Apparently it applies to the climate, science discussion, politics, the economy, etc. They don’t “get” individualism very well. Whether it’s the free market economy, or skepticism of CAGW. They can’t picture anything important beyond command and control from the top.
Sic Lewandowski on him! Counterfactual conspiratorial ideation!
🙂
err, in case it wasn’t clear, I mean, sic Lew on Senator Whitehouse. Sorry if my remark was ambiguous.
“Counterfactual conspiratorial ideation!”
Well interesting: Lew and Oreskes are BFF’s; Oreskes also peddles this conspiracy conjecture. Maybe Lew could therapize her? Isn’t he from the shrink profession?
No Lew is an “experimental psychologist.” It’s a field with no theory, no real subject matter, and no real intelligent discussion. It’s a bunch of craptologists who 1) make up nonsense hypothesis, 2) Run small scale odd-ball control group and treatment group tests, 3) hope that their manipulations turn up something to support the hypothesis. I actually had a member of my doctoral committee have me read a couple dozen articles from the Journal of Experimental Psych and comment on the issues of internal validity in order to sharpen my knowledge on “how not to conduct an experiment using human subjects.”
If I am not mistaken the Rico acts authorized Civil Asset Forfeiture. That allows police or government to seize the property of someone without due process of law, on the suspicion that the property was gained through some illegal activity. It is a flagrant violation of the 5th amendment. But since government no longer gives a rat’s petutti about the constitution they get away with it. This article from the Detroit Free Press shows some of the abuses:
http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2015/02/22/civil-asset-forfeiture-michigan-seizures-aclu-heritage-foundation-institute-justice/23737663/
You have to sue the govt in order to get your property back, and the burden of proof is on you to prove you didn’t do anything illegal.
Oh, and good luck hiring an attorney, since the govt just seized all your money and property.
“Fossil fuel companies and their allies are funding a massive and sophisticated campaign to mislead the American people about the environmental harm caused by carbon pollution.”
It would appear that the only person who seems to be misleading the American people is the Senator himself . The trend of US annual temperatures for the last 10 years since 2005 is declining at( -0.69 F/decade). This decline or nationwide cooling is happening in 2/3 of the US climate regions or 34 of the 51 states . So the entire premise for reducing carbon dioxide to protect the American people from man induced carbon dioxide is a mute and the threat is totally unfounded .. One can see how misinformed politicians like the Senator make it difficult to make things happen in Washington. The only significant region ( 10 states) showing warming is the west coast and this is primarily due to the warm Pacific ocean and the recent El NINO like effects. the last few years . Carbon dioxide is not an issue here nor is it a pollutant .
“the warm Pacific ocean and the recent El NINO like effects.”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/04/21/north-pacific-update-the-blobs-strengthening-suggests-its-not-ready-to-depart/
Whitehouse is just parroting what rational people have been screaming for years. A full blown RICO investigation of the climate fraudsters and their NGO’s and governmental partners. That date is getting close; they are panicking. Whitehouse has good reason to be worried. If these clowns lose their political cover, they should be worried, very worried.
FIFA now, OIC soon, F1 later, CAGW sooner.
http://www.cato.org/blog/sen-whitehouse-bring-rico-charges-against-climate-wrongthink
Dear Senator Whitehouse, you sir are a fool.
Sincerely,
Doug S
It may surprise many to realize that the US government actually operated a house of prostitution. For those favoring slang terms we could instead call it a whorehouse that it was that the US government was operating. Or, for those favoring brevity we could call it a brothel that our US government operated.
I brought up all three descriptions to try and give the impression, to any disbelievers, that I sort of know what I’m talking about (a wonder of the world). Anyway, the US government didn’t operate this brothel back when the country was first formed in the 1790s. Nor did it operate it in the rough and tumble frontier lands in the 1800s. It actually was operated sometime in the 1960s or 1970s. Nor did it operate it outside of the Continental US of A. And, it was not operated as a spy trap, or sting operation.
No, this brothel that the US government operated was a legally operating enterprise. In fact, it’s quite arguably a world famous place. After all, who hasn’t heard of the legendary Mustang Ranch just outside Reno, Nevada.
Now, how it came to be operated by the US government should be taught in every high school civics class across the land. Normal procedure for legal Nevada brothels is for the prostitute to keep half of what she gets from a customer and the other half goes to the house which provides her with her own room to live and work in: three weeks on; one week off. Each prostitute has a ‘floor’, or price which she will not go below. Outside of the ‘floor’ every prostitute will negotiate for the highest price they can get from a customer. The more money they make, the more money the house makes.
Does this sound like the prostitutes are independent contractors? Well, they are. Except in the Mustang Ranch case the IRS came to the conclusion that they were employees, and as such, demanded back taxes from the owner of the storied Mustang Ranch.
Needless to say, the owner didn’t have a prayer of making those kind of back tax payments. So, the IRS seized the assets and brought in an IRS accountant to run the operation. “Um, Lovebunny, you’ve got a tear in that fishnet nylon. Madame Desire, that garter doesn’t match your outfit.”
To my knowledge the shenanigans didn’t last long before (I believe it was the owner’s lawyer.) someone purchased the ranch. But, for 24-48 hours the US government was in the prostitution business.
What does the foregoing story have to do with Sheldon Whitehouse. Perhaps it’s just a cautionary tale to be careful
what you wish for. You see, my understanding of RICO is that it was enacted partly to get around those pesty Constitutional guarantees and the Bill of Rights. One of the more pernicious aspects of it being the seizure of someone’s property without due cause under the bizarre legal fiction that the property is charged with the crime, and as property it has no legal rights. Now it’s not unusual for our public servants to find themselves embroiled in corruption, whether it’s true or not, and if Sheldon (what kinda’ name is that?) should be he needs to remember that that blue jacket, black tie, and white shirt he has on are not the beneficiaries of legal rights. Imagine greeting guests at the Mustang Ranch wearing nothing but speedos.
Be careful what you hope for – you might get it. Once you set a precedent for using RICO under false pretenses, at some point ,it will end up being used by the opposition against you.
It seems to me that RICO might better apply to individuals associated with institutions (The Family) that knowingly produce a defective product (The Scam), are secretive and destroy outsiders (The Protection). These individuals and institutions organize around this framework to obtain grant money funded by the tax payers. Cheers, Mark
“Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations” sounds like a good description of the EPA and all the “scientists” and “Universities” and “Independent Researchers” that have colluded with Congress to defraud the American taxpayer of billions of $’s.
I read about this yesterday and my thought was…. Why not turn this around and use RICO against the Warmists!
“…playbook looked something like this: (1) pay scientists to produce studies defending your product; (2) develop an intricate web of PR experts and front groups to spread doubt about the real science; (3) relentlessly attack your opponents.”
Nope, doesn’t sound familiar at all…
Whitehouse looks like John Larroquette’s character on Night Court. And is probably just as charming.
Leftists wanting to criminalize opposition to their policies.
There is nothing new under the sun.
“Senator Whitehouse doesn’t understand that there is no “denier” conspiracy.”
These people are so convince of the righteousness of their cause, they find it impossible to believe that people can honestly oppose them.
Therefore anyone who does oppose them must be evil.
We’ve seen it over and over again.
Oppose affirmative action, you are a racist.
Oppose govt funded welfare, you want poor people to die.
Disagree with any increase in EPA authority and you want dirty air and rivers to burn.
^Oppose a quack cancer cure and you want uncle Julius to die.^
–Mencken
Not sure if this has been said but someone should look at where Whitehouse gets his funding. My bet is it’s from the middle east and/or Russia who want to stop US production of oil.
There is no one that regrets taking up smoking at 13 than I but I have to tell you big tobacco had nothing to do with it. At least as far as lying about their product. It started during the second world war with rations and stressed out young men creating a generation of Lucky Strike, Camel, and Pallmall smokers whose kids looked up to them. Que Korea and Vietnam with cigarettes still being passed out in rations and another generation of stressed out young men. The Viet vets became the Marlboro men! Nickel a pack. Kids could buy them from vending machines for a dime. And, trust me, Mom and Grandma let you know it was bad for you! The argument that “big tobacco” distortion of science had something to do with it is just stupid. They were called coffin nails in common parlance as far back as I can remember.
As far as I remember the way the story goes it was “Big Tobacco” refusing to acknowledge or report findings in their own labs that was the scandal not so much purchasing results. If anybody deserves racketeering charges it’s big green for the real suppression of science and distortion of results since Rachael Carson!
Everybody wants clean air. Everybody wants clean water. When corporations have allowed themselves to not treat cleanliness as part of the overhead they have done nothing but damage to an image of corporate responsibility that’s too bad. Let’s get over it and on with it!
Is using RICO laws under false pretenses a violation of RICO laws?
How long before Democrats accuse Republicans of violating the RICO Act by engaging in a conspiracy to defeat them and take away their right to govern? They already claim that if you don’t support their policies, you are as anti-science as Big Tobacco and Big Oil. The next step is to criminalize anyone who disagrees with them.
There’s a worse “D” word than denier.
Anyone who takes the garbage in Naomi Oreskes’ book as their message, as Whitehouse obviously does, is far far below reasonable intellectual capability.
John
John, the question becomes- is Whitehouse that stupid, or that corrupt?
Alan Robertson on June 4, 2015 at 12:12 pm
– – – – – – –
Alan Robertson,
I think he is a populist opportunist and will stoop to Oreskes’ hate (as shown in her book) when it suits him.
John
… in other words, he is that corrupt.
Alan Robertson on June 4, 2015 at 12:12 pm
– – – – – – –
Alan Robertson,
I won’t resist. At the least he is intellectually corrupt.
I would consider that there may be a cause and effect relationship between corruption and stupid. N’est ce pas?
John
John, you are too kind.
and yet big oil donates a lot of money to green endeavors.
Been an operational meteorologist for 33 years, on television for 11 years, then working independently(using my own accounts) forecasting crop yields/energy use from weather and its effects on commodity markets since 1992.
I am a skeptic that has never received a penny or been influenced one iota by anyone or anything except my first hand observations and analysis.
There are many others just like me that have formed similar opinions.
“First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they attack you and then you win.” – Mahatma Gandhi
Senator – Please produce a rebuttal to Eric and ask Anthony to publish it right here out in the open, I’m certain he’ll welcome it. Produce evidence that I and others here are being “paid” by FF companies. Prove that most here are not honest rational thinkers with technical and scientific backgrounds as opposed to lawyer politicians like you who have no working concept of science at all. Tell us why we should not be be alarmed by how politics from people like you has infected and is destroying the very fabric of science, the pursuit of the truth.
Oh Geez. Your Quote: “We are fed up with our kids being force fed messages of hopelessness and despair, when they should be learning about the wonders of science.”
Actually, if you go see the Disney Movie “Tomorrowland”, which somebody was cranking about the other day in this blog, you would actually see how it was spinning positive messages and the wonders of being an engineer or scientist or inventor and that the furure is not hopeless, despite humans. Go figure… (And so what if they briefly touched on climate issues and wind turbines …about 1% of the movie content).
Part 2: Since when are energy prices skyrocketing? My power bill, natural gas bill have been stable for 5 years, and gasoline is a buck lower than a year ago, and before the “summer blend switchover” and refinery maintenence the past couple months, I piad $1.99 for gas for a couple months.
-The Optimistic Skeptic
I’m shocked, I didn’t know that they are playing Tomorrowland in public schools? But I do seem to recall that some showed “Inconvenient Truth”; (didn’t work out very well in the UK though).
Not in schools. I didn’t say that. It’s in theatres the past 3 weeks.
Well gee whiz, Eric Worrall did specify movie theaters either so I guess you will just have to call it “even”.
Now there is a good reason to do away with the electoral college.
Do away with the electoral college and you guarantee that the biggest cheater will always win.
Right now, the big city machines are able to generate enough votes to win their state, but that’s all they can win. Doesn’t matter if the win the state by 51% or 80%, all they win is that state.
Get rid of the electoral college and the dead will start voting in multiple precincts in order to generate enough votes for the Democrat to win.
A better solution is district voting, which two states at present (Nebraska and Maine, I believe) use.
In that system, the votes for each congressional district are tallied, and whoever wins the district gets one vote. The winner of the state still gets the two senatorial electoral college votes.
yes
“A racket is a service that is fraudulently offered to solve a problem, such as for a problem that does not actually exist, that will not be put into effect, or that would not otherwise exist if the racket did not exist. Conducting a racket is racketeering. Particularly, the potential problem may be caused by the same party that offers to solve it, although that fact may be concealed, with the specific intent to engender continual patronage for this party.”
Sounds exactly like the activity by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
I wonder if:
The secretary general of United Nations has immunity to American laws, or the pope can be excused from his contribution by being a naive believer, Rajendra Pachauri by being blinded by love, authors of the assessment reports by lack of education in scientific theory and critical thinking etc.
I can see the ads if this guy ever runs for president.
Put a Whitehouse in the Whitehouse.
But, which in which?
How about, “Witless Whitehouse for the Whitehouse”?
Sequester carbon-based life-forms. Whitehouse is considering expanding the scope of pro-choice policy, including liberal societies’ selective-child policy. If humans are the cause… It would explain the ideologically-prejudiced popularity of planned parenthood and demand for State-establishment of sacrificial rites.
That said, let’s review the characteristics of all technologies equally throughout their full life cycle from recovery to processing to distribution to operation to reclamation. The value of so-called “green” technology should be assessed without shifting and obfuscating ecological and social disruptions.
Unintentional consequences, ‘Group Madness’ – Group madness is what happens if group beliefs cannot change/do not change and cannot be criticized.
It is a fact that the cult of CAGW is a key Liberal fundamental belief. President Obama is a Liberal, President Obama is a liberal ‘Bellwether ‘. Obama stated ‘Climate Change’ is the number one (I repeat number one, number one, number one, number one, … ) greatest threat to the US and to the world.
It is a fact that CAWG cannot be defended by observations, logic, and scientific analysis. It is fact that many other key Liberal beliefs also cannot be defended by logic and reason.
The cult of Liberalism has adopted by necessity many of the propaganda techniques that were used by the Chinese officials during the ‘Cultural’ revolution, for the same logic reasons. i.e. If a group cannot defend their ‘beliefs’ with logic and reason, alternatives to logic and reason are necessary.
If a group takes the turn where group beliefs can no longer change, can no longer be questioned, that road leads to chaos, fascism, group madness. i.e. It is possible to predict what will happen to a group and a country based on past experience of other groups/countries.
When it is necessary to defend a belief that cannot be defended by logic and reason, debate must be avoided at all costs.
1) There are only two types of people in the world. Those who are Communists and those who are evil, capitalistic dogs.
2) Those who try to start a debate about any Communistic beliefs are evil, capitalistic dogs.
Right thinking people do not question the key communistic beliefs.
3) Right thinking people repeat the communism slogans in lieu of argument/discussion and to avoid argument/discussion.
(See Yu Hua’s book China in Ten Words for an extraordinary succinct summary of group madness that occurred during the Chinese ‘Cultural’ revolution.)
http://www.amazon.com/China-Ten-Words-Yu-Hua/dp/0307739791
The Liberal Paradigm/Zeitgeist
A) The Unwritten Liberal Rules
1) A good Liberal does not question key fundamental Liberal beliefs. Group support is a key Liberal tenet
.
2) The key Liberal beliefs do not change. If one Liberal belief was incorrect then many of the Liberal beliefs could be incorrect. This would create chaos. (See Liberal rule 1)
3) Those people how criticize any Liberal beliefs are bad, capitalistic dogs. See Liberal Rule 1.
P.S.
1) It is a fact that the gas CO2 is essential for life on this planet.
2) It is fact that commercial greenhouses inject CO2 into their greenhouse to increase yield and reduce growing time. The optimum level of CO2 in the atmosphere for plant life is around 1200 ppm.
3) It is fact that are cycles of warming and cooling in the paleo record that correlate with solar cycle changes. It is fact that there are periods of millions of years when atmospheric CO2 was high and the planet was cold and periods of millions of years when atmospheric CO2 was low and the planet was warm.
4) It is a fact that the majority of the warming in the last 150 years was caused by solar cycle changes, not anthropogenic CO2 emission
5) It is a fact that the planet is about to abruptly cool as the solar cycle has been interrupted.
[“Right thinkning people” = Those are “Correct”, or those who are “Right”, or whose followers believe they are “right”? .mod]
In reply to:
There is an answer to your question.
Precise thought (I know precisely what I want to say and now I am looking for the words to say it) enables there to be a debate, a scientific discussion, assists in the solving of logical problems and assists in the formulation of logical public policy.
In science there are absolutes, correct and incorrect theories. What percentage of the warming in the last 150 years was due to the solar cycle changes vs the rise in atmospheric CO2? There is a precise answer to that question. Why has there been no warming for the last 18 years? What causes the cyclic warming and cooling in the paleo record? What cause cyclic abrupt climate change in the paleo record? Those are all scientific questions, not questions concerning morality.
Logic, observation, and analysis can be used and are used to answer scientific question, to determine if a scientific theory is or is not correct.
In morality there may be a gray area. Is it blasphemous (wrong) to draw a picture of the prophet Mohammad? Is it right or wrong for a husband to have an affair or to think about a girl friend of his wife in a sexual manner?
As a consequence of the climate wars, the scientific question: ‘What percentage of the warming in the last 150 years was due to solar cycle changes Vs the rise in atmospheric CO2’ has from the perspective of the ‘Liberals’ become a morality question.
To present logical arguments that prove the majority of the warming in the last 150 years was due to solar cycle changes rather than due to the rise in atmospheric CO2 is to be a denier, to be wrong, to be on the wrong side, to be a bad person, to be akin to a racist.
The Definition and difference of the words ‘Wrong’ and ‘Right’ Vs Definition of ‘Correct’ and ‘Incorrect’
In common speech the words right and wrong are used as a synonym for the words correct and incorrect which makes precise speech, precise thought challenging.
Wrong – 1) not in accordance with justice, law, morality, etc;
2) not in accordance with an established standard, previous arrangement, given intention
Right – 3) in accordance with justice, law, morality
It is helpful to reserve the words ‘correct’ or ‘incorrect’ for questions of science. You have summed a large list of numbers. Is your result correct or incorrect?
There are lots of grey areas in science, like, is “Lucy” just an ordinary ape skeleton or something that happens to be a kind of precursor to the evolution of Homo Sapiens. (the skeleton has no hands or feet so it’s a bit difficult to tell).
So assigning a TRUE or FALSE statement becomes impossible and one would have to work by assigning probabilities if one were honest, which doesn’t help book sales, funding or museum directors (so one gives the replica of the skeleton imagined hands and feet, see wikipedia for photos of those)
“In science there are absolutes, ” It’s comfortable to think that but likely unwise. I can think of many “absolutes” in science that were later modified. Best example is Newton’s law of gravity but then along came Mercury’s orbital period and Einstein.
The Senator from RI, constantly ridiculed by commercial fishermen in from the state knows its not the Big Tobacco play book, it’s the Pew Charitable Trust’s anti fishing play book.
ThePew playbook looked something like this: (1) pay scientists to produce studies defending your product; (2) develop an intricate web of PR experts and front groups to spread doubt about the real science; (3) relentlessly attack your opponents.
Pew’s Conquest Of The Ocean, By David Lincoln
“This is the story of how a handful of scientists set out from Oregon with an unshakable belief that they knew what was best for the rest of us. They ended up conquering the world (or at least the watery portions of it) and got rich along the way, while the fishermen and their families only worked harder and got poorer. When their scientific dogma connected with nearly unlimited resources, the earth quaked and the resulting tidal wave swept aside all the usual checks and balances. It carried along the media, the politicians, the government agencies and the non-governmental organizations with such force that seemingly no one could stand against the tide.”
Please read this. It’s the “Carbon” Copy that the global warming crowd has adopted.
http://fisherynation.com/pews-conquest-ocean
Fracking Has Had No ‘Widespread’ Impact on Drinking Water, EPA Finds
I bet that you could actually use RICO, per the suggestion of Sen. Whitehouse (D-RI), to go after science DENIERs in Albany where Governor Cuomo sat on a study of fracking, till he finally rejected it by DENYING the science.
Wouldn’t it be sweet irony if Whitehouse and his fellow Stalinists wound up being prosecuted on the very grounds upon which they are fraudulently attempting to persecute skeptics?
Senator Whitehouse needs to have the Spoonerism treatment, which would reveal him for the Huckster he obviously is. But hey, politics attracts such folk in much the same way as ice cream attracts wasps 🙂
And people are stupid enough to elect idiots like this to public office? Frightening.
Look at how many years Rhode Islanders actually believed Lincoln Chaffee was a republican. (Almost as bad as Pennsylvanians believing Arlen Spector was one.)
I think we need to use the RICO laws against the members of the United States senate.
His theory doesn’t apply to sceptics but I was struck by how accurate a description it is of warmists.
“We are fed up with endless schoolyard bullying tactics, the gratuitous name calling, the utterly disproportionate legal threats, and wild, baseless accusations, being used to harass anyone who dares to question the credibility of the self appointed prophets of thermageddon.”
If you want to see a perfect example of how the Media covers for failed “progessive” policy’s, then attempts to shift the blame onto Conservatives who are actually adressing the Issues the Left ceated and failed to do anything about for decades…
“Memo to the media: Residential schools were created by the era’s progressive “experts”.
Brian LilleyRebel Co-Founder”
http://www.therebel.media/_remember_residential_schools
We see much of the same willfull bias by a left leaning media in the Climate Debate, don’t we?
When I think of all the skeptical arguments I’ve pounded out over the years for free, my ears burn. Now I find out the rest of you yahoos were getting paid big bucks by Big Oil?
I had never heard of this Sheldon Whitehouse guy and actually thought this article was satire.
This is backwards!
“1) pay scientists to produce studies defending your product;”
How is that a crime? And why shouldn’t companies study the effects of their products and publish the results to defend themselves? Climate alarmists attack you for disagreeing with them and then attack you for defending yourself against their attacks.
By the way, the claim that the validity of a study can be determined by its funding source is a genetic fallacy. The validity of a study can only be determined by the contents of the study, even if the money was gotten by organized crime (i.e., the government). And the claim that climate skeptic’s studies are like tobacco studies commits a begging the question fallacy. They start with the premise that all skeptical studies are wrong because Climate Change is a fact, then they assume nefarious intent on the part of companies who fund any skeptical studies. Therefore, they conclude these studies are just like fradulent tobacco company research. BS! Assuming what your must prove isn’t evidence of anything but sloppy reasoning on your part.
“(2) develop an intricate web of PR experts and front groups to spread doubt about the real science;”
This is projection. The truth is that governments have spent many billions of dollars to advance the Climate Change hoax thru education and indoctrination. Not only is the Climate Change hoax woven into TV shows and movies, freethinkers who resist a total government takeover in their fictional stories are protrayed as dangerous Luddites.
Even some of the major companies that sell DNA tests have woven a Climate Change narrative into the “histories” of each haplogroup’s migration patterns! Why did your ancestors leave Africa? Climate Change. Why did they then migrate from Central Asia to Europe? Climate Change.
And recently some Climate alarmists have begun to advocate for outright brainwashing of children because they’ve failed to convince everyone using mountains of false propaganda.
“(3) relentlessly attack your opponents.”
This is the worst one of all because it is the Climate alarmists who have relentlessly attacked scientific skeptics. Everyone knows the history.
And regarding the funding, every time a skeptic spends a dollar, a Climate alarmists spends several thousand, AND almost all of the alarmist funding is taken from taxpayers. We’re all forced to pay them to churn out false propaganda and plan the demise of Democracy and Capitalism.
And they’re still not satisfied. It galls them that any skeptic is allowed to spend any money opposing their theory.
I’m almost 50 years old and I’ve never questioned the claims about tobacco and cancer. Now, though, all these comparisons between climate skeptics and the tobacco industry are making me start to wonder if maybe they know exactly what they’re talking about. Maybe someone needs to go back and critically review the tobacco literature to see if it was as shoddy and agenda-driven as the global warming “science”?
scp,
Many years ago I dated a pulmonary (lung) specialist M.D. She had similar concerns. What she was always ranting about was nicotine, which she said is completely harmless (although addicting).
The real problem is in the “tars” from cigarettes. Tar is what causes almost all the lung problems, but the gov’t as usual was targeting the wrong thing (nicotine). Same thing today. In this case, it’s CO2. “Carbon”.
Can the investigation cover the fortunes taken by Pachuri, Gore, Suzuki, Hansen et al in the name of the Climate Racket?
In my ideal world. Any public figure who chastises fossil fuel companies should be banned from any vehicle using such fuels. They will be forced to pay for absurd prices for alternate fuel sources and be forced to canoe across the planet instead of flying in an aircraft (which mostly uses fossil fuel based derivatives). The ban should be enforced by the military and prevent such individuals from even entering a vehicle powered by fossil fuels. The hilarity this would bring… They should not fret. I recall google maps has prepared these brave men with real time charting and direction by canoe across the globe. 🙂 (They could stand to lose some weight)
In my ideal world, anyone who rejects the findings of science should be prohibited from school boards, teaching of science, or voting on issues of Science. If they want to mutually reinforce their non scientific nonsense with other, let them knock themselves out…just not contaminate the teaching of our kids or the voting booth. RICO does seem severe, but maybe a little bit of ridicule in the public square would be a good corrective.
warrenlb says:
In my ideal world, anyone who rejects the findings of science should be prohibited from school boards, teaching of science, or voting on issues of Science.
May I edit that into an honest comment? Thank you:
In my totalitarian, propaganda-based, unconstitutional, hate-filled world, anyone who rejects the findings of my personal, evidence-free, wild-eyed nutso version of “science” should be prohibited from school boards, teaching of science, or voting on issues of Science, and sent to the gulag.
There. That’s much more accurate, no?
No it is not more accurate.
Joel,
Thanx for your opinion. I stand by mine — doubled and squared. Actually, I held back.
I wonder which deniers are going to be targetted – those that deny a lack of global warming or those who deny the existence of global warming?
The
Big Tobaccoplaybook looked something like this: (1) pay scientists to produce studies defending yourproductPOV; (2) develop an intricate web of PR experts and front groups to spread doubt about the realscienceresults from real instruments; (3) relentlessly attack your opponents.4; Pretend Karl et adjustments (2015) “Possible artefacts of data biases in the recent global surface warming hiatus” is some kind of real science and not just another politically funded POS timed to work toward the Paris junket.
There … Fixed.
Senator Whitehouse needs to get some original material.
I wrote about using RICO against warmists in 2012 or earlier.
Best, Allan
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/21/dr-john-christys-testimony-before-congress/#comment-1085683
Bob says: September 22, 2012 at 4:53 am
Christy has been a breath of fresh air. Do you think he can convince any of those on the AGW side of climate change politics?
_____________
Response to your question: Probably no Bob, for the following reasons:
There is strong evidence that global warming is a false crisis, manufactured to achieve an oblique political objective.
For evidence, please see
http://www.green-agenda.com
and
http://www.c3headlines.com/global-warming-quotes-climate-change-quotes.html
Excerpt:
“We’ve got to ride this global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic and environmental policy.”
– Timothy Wirth,
President of the UN Foundation
To these people, the science and the truth are irrelevant, so do not expect valid scientific arguments to change their political agenda.
_______________
I really dislike conspiracy theories, but the above references provide overwhelming evidence, in the words of the co-conspirators, of their objectives, strategies and tactics.
Their objective is political power; global warming alarmism is their strategy; and viciously smearing any dissenters and enforcing media bias are their “green-shirt” tactics.
Patrick Moore, a co-founder of Greenpeace, provides a history of the rise of eco-extremism, below. Moore says that the far-left political movement effectively annexed the green movement after the fall of the Berlin Wall, when pro-Soviet groups were discredited and needed to find a new power base for their far-left political agenda.
The extremists have obviously succeeded. Governments, academia, the media and large corporations are all cowed into submission. Leading scientists have been ousted from their universities for speaking and writing the truth. Only a few tenured or retired professors and the occasional renegade dares to speak out, and many use aliases for fear of retaliation.
When this worm turns, and it will, we can expect the RICO (anti-racketeering) laws will be put to good use.
As we confidently stated in 2002 at
http://www.apegga.org/Members/Publications/peggs/WEB11_02/kyoto_pt.htm
“Climate science does not support the theory of catastrophic human-made global warming – the alleged warming crisis does not exist “
Earth has not warmed for 10-15 years. Continued absence of global warming or global cooling will finally put an end to global warming hysteria, after trillions of dollars of scarce global resources have been squandered…. and then the wheels of justice will begin to turn… Watch for early signs of climate rats leaving their sinking ship.
__________________
The Rise of Eco-Extremism
by Patrick Moore
http://www.greenspirit.com/key_issues/the_log.cfm?booknum=12&page=3
There has been no significant global warming for close to 20 years. The polar icecaps are growing, not shrinking. The polar bear population is going up, not down. Carbon dioxide is not a toxin. It is a fertilizer and makes green plants grow. We all exhale it with every breath. It has nothing to do with the weather and besides , only 2-3% of it at most is man made. When Mount Pinatubo blew its top it put more C02 into the atmosphere that has man since the beginning of time. We cannot control the weather; we need to adapt to it. And every dollar we throw away on the “green revolution” trying to control it is a dollar wasted that could be put to use to help people in this poor suffering world. If anyone should be prosecuted under the RICO statutes it is Whitehorse and his Chicken Little friends
Hey – from what they tell me Monument Valley in Utah was formed by receding glaciers. Glaciers in Utah! Why didn’t Superman Whitehouse (his name or his ambition?) save them??? Talk about warming!