Hint: He did his homework, then took himself to the other side of the debate.
Guest essay by David Siegel
My name is David Siegel. I’m not a climate expert; I’m a writer. Early in 2015, I became interested in climate science and decided to spend the better part of this year trying to learn what I could. It didn’t take long before it was clear that there isn’t likely going to be any catastrophic warming this century. What was clear is that skeptics are losing this battle, and I want to tell you why.
For thirty years, James Hansen and Al Gore have been building their PR machine along with David Fenton, the wizard of nonprofit PR. They understand that the messenger is more important than the message. People don’t easily change their minds. People get their opinions from “experts” and brand names like NASA, MIT, Harvard, TIME, The Daily Show, etc. Fenton knows the game is about credibility and repetition, not science. As long as we are trying to convince people with the facts, we will lose.
So I did my homework and wrote a 9,000-word essay aimed at liberals who have a voice, who have access to media, and who might take 30 minutes to educate themselves.
I submitted my piece to every liberal publication, from the LA Times to the Atlantic Monthly to National Geographic to Huffington Post and many more. They all turned it down. Now I’m launching it myself and hope you will read it and help spread the word.
I ask you to help get the word out through social media, links, and the press, to the liberal audience I’m going after. Links really help. If you can help reach Bill Gates, Jeff Skoll, Jon Stewart, George Clooney, and other influential liberals, I hope to help them understand that the science is not settled. I think this is the best way to tip the scales back to reasonable, impactful environmentalism. If you can help move it on Reddit, Voat, Quora, NewsVine, etc., I would appreciate that.
I’m going to ask people to leave comments here, rather than on my page, because I can’t manage the comment spam there. I will, however, read the comments here and will respond if I can.
My work is aimed at your liberal friends; please send them to read it.
Excerpt:
What is your position on the climate-change debate? What would it take to change your mind?
If the answer is It would take a ton of evidence to change my mind, because my understanding is that the science is settled, and we need to get going on this important issue, that’s what I thought, too. This is my story.
More than thirty years ago, I became vegan because I believed it was healthier (it’s not), and I’ve stayed vegan because I believe it’s better for the environment (it is). I haven’t owned a car in ten years. I love animals; I’ll gladly fly halfway around the world to take photos of them in their natural habitats. I’m a Democrat: I think governments play a key role in preserving our environment for the future in the most cost-effective way possible.Over the years, I built a set of assumptions: that Al Gore was right about global warming, that he was the David going up against the industrial Goliath. In 1993, I even wrote a book about it.
Recently, a friend challenged those assumptions. At first, I was annoyed, because I thought the science really was settled. As I started to look at the data and read about climate science, I was surprised, then shocked. As I learned more, I changed my mind. I now think there probably is no climate crisis and that the focus on CO2 takes funding and attention from critical environmental problems. I’ll start by making ten short statements that should challenge your assumptions and then back them up with an essay.
1 Weather is not climate. There are no studies showing a conclusive link between global warming and increased frequency or intensity of storms, droughts, floods, cold or heat waves.
2 Natural variation in weather and climate is tremendous. Most of what people call “global warming” is natural.
3 There is tremendous uncertainty as to how the climate really works. Climate models are not yet skillful; predictions are unresolved.
4 New research shows that fluctuations in energy from the sun correlate very strongly with changes in earth’s temperature, at both long and short time scales.
5 CO2 has very little to do with it. All the decarbonization we can do isn’t going to change the climate much.
6 There is no such thing as “carbon pollution.” Carbon dioxide is coming out of your nose right now; it is not a poisonous gas. CO2 concentrations in previous eras have been many times higher than they are today.
7 Sea level will probably continue to rise, naturally and slowly. Researchers have found no link between CO2 and sea level.
8 The Arctic experiences natural variation as well, with some years warmer earlier than others. Polar bear numbers are up, not down. They have more to do with hunting permits than CO2*.
9 No one has shown any damage to reef or marine systems. Additional man-made CO2 will not likely harm oceans, reef systems, or marine life. Fish are mostly threatened by people who eat them.
10 The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and others are pursuing a political agenda and a PR campaign, not scientific inquiry. There’s a tremendous amount of trickery going on under the surface*.
Could this possibly be right? Is it heresy, or critical thinking — or both? If I’ve upset or confused you, let me guide you through my journey
You’ll find it at: www.climatecurious.com.
It’s a very familiar story, see
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/07/25/my-personal-path-to-catastrophic-agw-skepticism/
and the hundreds of comments on that thread.
“As I started to look at the data and read about climate science, I was surprised, then shocked. As I learned more, I changed my mind. I now think there probably is no climate crisis and that the focus on CO2 takes funding and attention from critical environmental problems.”
Yes yes yes. Been there, done that.
Sadly though, David’s call to “get the word out through social media, links, and the press, to the liberal audience I’m going after” is, I’m afraid, a bit naive. We’ve been trying to do this for years. David Siegel will continue to be ignored, as he already has been, by the left of the MSM. Of course the other side has also been trying to “get the word out”, with thousands of slick professional websites, propaganda organisations and most of the media on board, and they’ve failed too.
@ur momisugly David Siegel – I would recommend you take a look at the link above, provided by Paul Matthews. I just spent a couple hours looking at the thread from that post. It’s amazing how many engineers chimed in about how their BS detectors went off when digging into the real facts of AGW. There are many interesting comments, and these were from over 2 years ago…just would recommend that you take a look. Good luck to you as a convert – you will likely lose some friends over it. (but you will gain many other friends, or let’s say like minded individuals). – JPP
I appreciate your essay, and the work you must have put into your independent look at the issue. As you say, the real problem in getting a clear message out is more one of influence and communication rather than facts. We humans have a tendency to form and hold onto our perspectives quickly, and it can be difficult to break through conflicting noise.
I’ll post links to your essay, wherever possible, and hopefully a few of those who see it will stop by and ask themselves a few questions, too. The interesting (and tragic) thing is that I saw much the same stubbornness in many of my colleagues on this issue. They were and are intelligent, and very scientific when it comes to their own disciplines (I am a retired physicist), but somehow, once the issue became politicized, the way they thought about the issue changed.
Horses led to water decide when they drink.
Humans are led by their leaders and told what to drink.
Till the facts have emotion attached they are not palatable
The fact that rare birds are killed every day by wind generators
Or that solar farms cremate birds on the wing.
That Co2 is actually good for the trees and cereal crops.
Say these things to believers of A.C.C. they usually reply.” I did not Know that”.
It has probably already been said here and in a better way, but I’ll say it again. It’s about power, pure and simple.
…I ask you to help get the word out through social media, links, and the press, to the liberal audience I’m going after. Links really help. If you can help reach Bill Gates, Jeff Skoll, Jon Stewart, George Clooney, and other influential liberals, I hope to help them understand that the science is not settled….
Do you think this hasn’t been tried? What do you think happens to the people who try to do this?
They get laughed at and ignored. They lose all their friends. They may lose their job, and certainly lose any hope of advancement.
If they are in the communications business, all access to communication links is barred. Just read about the problems Steve McIntyre had in pointing out an obviously wrong piece of science. You will have no ability to tell what you want to say, and if you create your own magazine/web site/whatever, it will be attacked 24/7 by disruptors, both paid and amateur.
If you still manage to survive, criminal activity might be directed at you, as it was by Peter Glieck against Heartland. And lying behind this will be cod academic papers purporting to prove that you are certifiably insane, and continuous lobbying from academic and pressure groups to have your views declared illegal, for you to be locked up and punished for holding them, and, in several cases, executed.
I think you are an innocent abroad in the climate change business. It is a very ugly battle of science against money and religion, and your approach would have as much hope of working as a pacifist walking out of the trenches into no-man’s-land the day before the Battle of the Somme, shouting “Can’t we just discuss this quietly like gentlemen?”
I was a convinced warmist until ~1998 even though my father at the time, an atmospheric physicist/meteorologist told me literally it was all c@ur momisugly@@ur momisugly, a tax grab he said. However it was only when I read Svensmark;s work (after my father deceased), on cosmic rays that I changed my mind as I recalled that that he thought the same but years ahead. He was involved with the WMO, NOAA and EU for setting up the cosmic ray counters in Chacaltaya, Bolivia in the 60’s. I do not think C02 has any effect on weather/climate, I mean literally 0 effect because it has been at 1000’s ppm during glaciations and at 0ppm there would be no life but climate/weather would probably be unchanged.
I think David Siegel should be a bit more skeptical regarding the Solar (Total Solar Irradiance, TSI) relationship with temperature. The graph he credits to Willie Soon does not correspond to other TSI datasets that I’ve seen. I don’t know the source of the discrepancy, but most people who have looked at the topic do not find such a clear correlation. David’s other graph, which gives BEST as a source, also comes from Soon (using BEST temps) (see http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/sep/6/global-warming-fanatics-take-note/).
It’s been brought to my attention that there was a recent post on this very topic:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/10/08/a-short-summary-of-soon-connolly-and-connolly-2015-re-evaluating-the-role-of-solar-variability-on-northern-hemisphere-temperature-trends-since-the-19th-century/
Ruth, the underlying physics are undeniable. It would be quite an ignoramus that could deny that energy input would have an impact on energy levels, for which temperature is a crude proxy. It would be like saying that changing the knob on a gas stove doesn’t affect cooking time.
Having said that, once you have causation, the lack of correlation is not really a problem, given that it’s also well understood that there are significant and extremely complex physical and thermal dynamics involved and the input variations are relatively small.
It would be shocking from a system dynamics point of view if there were a clear correlation. Correlation does not indicate causation, and the lack thereof does not contraindicate causation.
Your reply to Ruth forthrightly assumes that radiation physics is the whole mechanism governing air temperature, VikingExplorer; as though convection and water phase-changes did not exist on Earth.
Once those mechanisms are included in one’s thinking about the problem, one sees that the evidence supports the high likelihood that the thermal effects from the radiation physics of CO2 may not show up in air temperature at all.
That makes the stove knob analogy hopelessly over-simplistic.
Pat Frank, you have completely misunderstood me. I would have thought that by now my reputation would precede me. The underlying physics are that solar input variation cannot help but have an effect on thermal dynamics.
Do you think that anyone who mentions “underlying physics” is an AGW proponent? It seems that people here have associated “science” with “pro-AGW”.
After 15 years of commentary, I would have thought that my position was clear:
I don’t believe that CO2 has ANY effect on steady state temperatures. NADA. ZILCH. NIL. Completely and totally ZERO. The effects of CO2 are transitory in nature. It merely changes the time constant by a negligible amount.
I’ve switched from a 13 mpg V10 Ford van to a Chevy Spark EV. I didn’t do it “save the environment”. I got tired of feeding the plants. By driving that behemoth around for 15 years, I’ve more than done my part for the plant kingdom. From now on, they are on their own. Find your own CO2 you silly green things.
You’re right, VE. It was about solar inputs, not CO2. My mistake, sorry.
When are these geniuses going to tell me the optimum average global temperature?
And if it varies from today, it means somewhere somebody has to get cooler and some get warmer. Now THAT will take a lot of meetings in Paris to figger out!!!
Excellent article. One query: I thought the hottest day of the year with the air conditioning turned off was the day of Hansen’s testimony to Congress, not the day Gore set up his committee.
My first thought was: “It won’t work” and my second: “We don’t know what will work, so let’s support every effort to get people off their backsides” (especially us liberals, or socialists, as we call ourselves in Europe). One day something will work. It might just be this.”
Good luck.
Things may not be at all that bad. The BBC has taken a neutral stance even criticizing me thinks the whole AGW dogma in this article
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-eu-34543588
Also its pretty amazing that the guardian even reported the story (also not pro agw, but neutral)
That cartoon …
Shouldn’t there be a lot of welcoming goldfish in the ‘cool’ climate skeptic bowl?
Not to mention at least a few fish floating belly up on the surface of the water in the ‘hot’ bowl. 🙂
Perhaps a few square and nerdy goldfish to welcome the jumper?
I knew that Global Warming was nonsense back in 2003, when a friend said: “do you know that there has been no global warming for four years.” (Now 18 years.) So I did a short investigation. I also knew that renewables were a load of tosh, so I wrote an article for WUWT outlining why, which was published in 2009.
But the clincher, if anyone ever needed a clincher to such an obviously idealistic fantasy as “governments can control the weather”, was the UK’s bedtime story advert. Yes, we all know that Grimm’s fairytales were – well – grim – but this New Labour grimmytale was in a league of its own.
And it does not take much political awareness to know that when a duplicitous regime like New Labour starts politicising and advertising science, there has to be something deeply wrong with that ‘science’. The moment that Kim Jong-un, Gaddafi, Saddam, Blair, al Gore or even Obama feel the need to make cast-iron pronouncements on science, the BS antennae should start twitching. And the twitching went off the scale with this advert — so Global Climate Warming Change Disruption could only ever be political propaganda.
ralfellis, aka sliver ralph, aka & etc.:
Your persistent publication of disinformation on a variety of subjects is annoying.
The AGW scare was deliberately created by Margaret Thatcher (i.e. an icon of the right) long, long before New Labour existed.
People wanting to know why and how Thatcher created the scare and why her political party (i.e. the Conservative Party) were willing to go along with it can read this.
Richard
The AGW scare was deliberately created by Margaret Thatcher (i.e. an icon of the right) long, long before New Labour existed.
__________________________________
So where do I say that Blair created AGW, eh? Nowhere. So your posts, as ever, are baseless rants based upon a curious and unfathomable hero-worship of the political wreckage of Communism.
However, the truth of the matter is that Tony Blair presided over a whole decade of AGW disinformation – the very years whan the majority of AGW promotion was devised and crafted. It was Blair’s nihilistic naughties that saw AGW transformed from an environmentalist curiosity into a global scam. And it was Blair’s amoral political spin meisters who tried to scare vulnerable children, so they would pressure their parents into feeling socially guilty and therefore accepting AGW as a fact and its increased taxes to asuage their social sins.
(Remember that it was Blair’s morally bankrupt government that said 9-11 was a fantastic day – to bury some bad political news in. Yes, that was the moral cesspit that New Labour had sunk into.)
The CO2 advert highlighted here was a disgraceful display of political disinformation, to manipulate the masses while witholding the true intention of the government. Thus Blair was advertising the fact that he cared nothing for the truth and nothing for the democractic process, as long as he could achieve his hidden political agenda. It was a disgraceful and shamefull display of political amorality, and anyone condoning his nefarious scheme deserves to be tainted with the same cloak of shame as Blair himself wears.
Ralph
ralfellis, aka sliver ralph, aka & etc.:
Why do you ask me
when I did not claim you did?
I correctly said
“ralfellis misled by being economical with the truth: in the UK – as in most other countries – the AGW issue is NOT an issue of ‘left vs right’, and ralfellis implied the AGW scare was a creation of New Labour. Indeed, he made no mention of the Conservative Party.”
and I explained that.
As is your usual practice, your comments only consist of baseless assertions; e,g. I don’t “hero-worship” “the political wreckage of Communism”.
I have always opposed communism in every possible way.
Please try to say something honest, truthful and not abusive. I know that is difficult for you, but I assure you that you will probably feel better if you manage to do it.
Richard
Richardscourtney
Thanks for the link. I’m ashamed to say I’d never come across your report before. Could you contact me at my blog?
Thatcher has been off the political stage for over 20 years. What’s happening now is what matters.
In the here and now, it is the left that has been pushing these schemes to use CO2 as an excuse to grow government.
MarkW:
You say
It is NOT only “the left that has been pushing these schemes”.
For example, Thatcher’s political party is NOW the UK government and is “pushing” the AGW scare.
The AGW scare is a bandwagon supported and opposed by people from all parts of the politicasl spectrum. I repeat,
Pretending the falsehood that the AGW scare is some kind of left-wing conspiracy is divisive of opposition to the scare.
Richard
“Pretending the falsehood that the AGW scare is some kind of left-wing conspiracy is divisive of opposition to the scare. ”
YES. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, YES.
EXACTLY.
CORRECT.
(Chances of getting that message into the brains of our fellow travelers: zero percent.)
Richard,
I think you’re correct that Thatcher’s political team came up with AGW or at least decided to capitalize on it as a way of making her science degree and the situation with coal mines into a political strength. This only proves that Thatcher was more of a politician than a dedicated scientist.
However, at least in this post, ralfellis didn’t dispute this fact. He merely said that the New Labor party was also capitalizing on a scientific fraud for political gain in a shameless manner. The ad makes this clear.
While remaining neutral on internal UK politics, I would speculate that the situation would be similar to what it is in the US, where there is no great abundance of honor or scientific integrity on either side of the political fence.
VikingExplorer:
I tend to agree with you when you say
But I disagree with the thrust of your post because it is not true that
ralfellis misled by being economical with the truth: in the UK – as in most other countries – the AGW issue is NOT an issue of ‘left vs right’, and ralfellis implied the AGW scare was a creation of New Labour. Indeed, he made no mention of the Conservative Party.
Pretending the falsehood that the AGW scare was a New Labour creation is divisive of opposition to the scare.
In reality, Margaret Thatcher created the AGW scare as a method to acquire personal political credibility: this was a successful tactic that was supported by her political Party (i.e. the right-wing Conservative Party).
The UK Government lost interest in global warming when Mr John Major replaced Mrs Thatcher as Prime Minister. The flow of Government money began to stop for conduct of global warming research. UK scientists then began to speak out in denial of the global warming hypothesis. It seemed that the issue was dying a natural death. Then the ‘coal crisis’ arose in October 1992 when the public protested at the scale of pit closures. This gave the UK Government a new need to find an excuse for its policy of closing coal mines. Global warming fitted this need and so the Government committed £16,000,000 to an advertising campaign which scaremongered about global warming, and re-established the funding priorities for climate research.
Later, at the start of May 1997, the Conservative Party lost office to the New Labour Party and Mr Tony Blair became UK Prime Minister. The UK had initiated the global warming issue and a change of UK policy may have had a significant effect on the widespread imagined risk, but by then the global warming issue had become important in its own right. Many countries had a stated global warming policy, 122 of them had signed a declaration of intent to reduce CO2 emissions at the Rio Summit, and the Kyoto Summit was scheduled. The UK was one of the very few countries that had reduced its CO2 emissions since the Rio Summit because the UK had replaced coal-fired generating capacity by gas-fired generating capacity. This provided the UK with a position of authority in this international affair, and Mr Blair committed the new UK government to strict action to cut CO2 emissions.
Thus, by supporting the AGW scare, Tony Blair (and New Labour) put on the credibility that Margaret Thatcher and the Conservative Party had worked so hard to obtain by creating the AGW scare more than a decade earlier. The Conservative Party had worked to sustain the scare until New Labour gained office, and the Conservative Party still does work to sustain it as the UK’s existing government Party.
UKIP is the only significant UK political party that does not promote the AGW scare.
Richard
>> and ralfellis implied the AGW scare was a creation of New Labour. Indeed, he made no mention of the Conservative Party.
Richard, I take your point. It was misleading.
Like most people, I believed in global warming because they all said it was true. I didn’t bother to do any fact checking until Bush refused to submit the Kyoto protocol to the Senate for a vote.
I decided to learn about Kyoto and climate to see if Bush was a total jerk or what. Turns out Bush was a jerk. If he had submitted the protocol to the Senate, it would have gone down to defeat, since the Senate had voted 95-0 previously in a Sense of the Senate vote that they would not approve any treaty on CO2 which did not reduce CO2 emissions from China and India. Bush incredibly took all the heat for the USA not signing onto Kyoto. Naturally, the Democrats of the Senate were silent as Bush took all the hatred from the usual suspects eg, BBC Headline “FUROR IN EUROPE.”.
The more I read, the more I realized what a climate of oppression there was in this field. Imagine astrophysicists publicly belittling the importance of the sun in the Earth climate system, being nothing compared to the decisive impact of CO2, but asking for some research funds anyway. They crawled on their bellies. Public humiliation.
Climate historians changed history. “We will never know why the Viking colony on Greenland died out.”
They changed the data.
The corruption stank to high heaven.
The arrogance of my Democratic friends astounds me even to this day. “Even if it’s not true, we should cut back on fossil fuels (ie. give me my tax break on my new car), push renewables (build windmills someplace else ), and raise taxes on corporations (but don’t tax my pension). Oh, and keep paying me my state/Federal pension with COLA and health benefits.”
The most arrogant people I know are the most ignorant on this topic. They wear their ignorance proudly. It is a sign of ideological purity. They are true believers.
>>The most arrogant people are the most ignorant.
>>It is a sign of ideological purity.
>>They are true believers.
+10
I appreciate your efforts, Mr. Seigel. The more people that talk about studying the issue and discovering they were wrong, the better.
However, I believe your effort, by itself, will not be successful. I’m going to guess–based on the headline to this post, and your inclusion of autobiographical detail– that you are operating under a fundamental misconception. You believe that because you are “one of them,” liberal, vegan, etc., your words will have more sway. In private, and in public, the only thing that will change is your reputation. You will be the friend who “went off the rails,” (accompanied by an eyeroll). I can personally assure you of this.
It will take thousands more “conversion confessions” to change the public discourse toward truth. That, and a strict pledge by us skeptics to stop being self-righteous, moralistic, red-baiting sore winners all over those who have newly converted to skepticism.
Good luck to you!
(Note: veganism isn’t good or bad for the environment. Good and bad aren’t scientific terms. They are interpretations.)
Ask yourself WHY did you decide to read about climate science???
Was it a hot topic for your writing? Or could it have been something more?
Dear Anthony,
The HEADLINE is wrong.
Respectfully I suggest that it ought to say “climate SCARE proponent”.
No-one is a climate proponent.
Regards,
WL
Manmade Global Warming/Climate Change is a growing bubble which needs ever more pumped into it to stop it deflating away, until the point is reached where it will burst. There are enough examples of this phenomenon.
The real problem is the damage that is done in the meantime.
It should be remembered too, this is an entirely Western Government obsession really about Western hegemonic Planetary rule, until now unchallenged, but Russia is resurgent, then there is China and India too finding its feet.
I have always been a left-liberal-green environmentalist – and actually also a scientist and policy analyst with decades of experience in advisory work from UK local council level through national and EU institutions, all the way to the UN – mostly on pollution protection strategies, energy policy and renewable supplies and some biodiversity work – with two books out on the latter. I was Greenpeace International’s chief advocate at the UN for ten years, and then a special advisor to the International Maritime Organisation. We had many successes.
Between 2000-2003, having accepted and never bothered to check the atmospheric physics of CO2, I engaged with UK government agencies on ways of integrating renewable energy with other environmental objectives such as landscape protection, community and biodiversity. In that work I realised that ‘going green’ would create huge damage to the environment – all in the name of staving off rapid climate change. I decided to check the science and see how much time we had because decisions were being railroaded, with no impact assessment on their consequences.
I spent three years studying the science. Within the first month I was shocked at how ‘bad’ is was – many untested assumptions and models that contained no natural cycles. And crucially, data which did not support the conclusions of the IPCC regarding ‘most’ of the driving force being CO2. NASA data on the trends of short-wave radiation at the Earth’s surface clearly showed that from 1980-2000, there was a steady rise in SW radiation – and this was the dominant input in wattage to warm the surface – by about 3:1, and even then the CO2 component was not measurable, but estimated from models.
I wrote a long report in 2008 and visited some of my old Greenpeace colleagues. There was absolutely no feedback – no one wanted to engage in rational scientific discussion – with one exception – Professor Jackson Davis, (University of Santa Cruz)with whom I had worked on pollution issues. He knew my previous work and was willing to look at the data. At first, he simply said ‘Peter, you cannot possibly be right’…and then ‘These questions you have about surface flux must be answered before we can accept the models’. He endorsed by 2009 book ‘Chill: a reassessment of global warming theory’ – and I also then discovered he was a drafting author of the Kyoto Protocol (that went on the book cover).
The silence was then broken. I was roundly attacked in all the left-liberal-green media, with critics refusing to read the book, instead focusing on my ‘mad’ beliefs derived from decades as a teacher of meditation and yoga (parallel to my governmental work, which was never mentioned!).
Jackson Davis began to study the science and by 2010, following a high level discussions on the science where we were received at top climate labs in the USA, he realised my analysis was correct. We have been engaged since then on analysis of climate cycles.
There are still no invitations to speak to environmental groups. All of the top groups – WWF, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, even the bird protection organisations, woodland and wildlife trusts and development lobbyists such as Oxfam, are part of the Climate Coalition, and they brook no scepticism.
The problem – as this site well understands, is that ‘campaigners’ run the show – even newspapers that were once relatively objective, have become campaigners, and the BBC joins them. Vast amounts of foundation money and even EU grants are channeled through these campaigns.
And it is certainly the case that real environmental issues are comparatively neglected – as are, still, the environmental consequences of ‘renewable’ supplies – most particularly the from the import of biofuels.
Facts will not change things. Sadly. Even could they be given a decent discussion in the media. Even the ‘pause’ has been airbrushed out. Global cooling – which is likely over the next five years, might do it – but I would not bet on that not being manageable by spin doctors.
“The problem – as this site well understands, is that ‘campaigners’ run the show”
And David Siegel is a campaigner. He admits he’s a Liberal. Should he be successful with this campaign, he and his other Liberals will still be Liberals. Climate Catastrophe is a symptom of a bigger problem.
I have no interest in helping a Liberal; he is the problem.
Gamecock:
You write
No, the problem is bigots who refuse to consider any view other than their own. Such bigots exist among people of every political view, and your post (that I have here quoted) says you are one of them.
All people of good will – including me – have an interest in opposing bigots: you are the problem.
Richard
Richard, the result is that Liberalism persists. Don’t help them. They created the problem; let them fix it. By helping them fix it, Liberalism survives. We have a never ending cycle of Libtards making a royal mess, then conservatives help them fix it, then the Libs get back into power again, and make more royal messes.
I’m saying BREAK THE CYCLE!
Mr. Siegel has taken what he believes to be the truth to his cohorts, and they have rejected it. Instead of normal feedback – hey, there’s something wrong with those people that they don’t want the truth – he comes to us looking for help.
“Bigots” is trashy ad hominem.
“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue! ” – Barry Goldwater
Gamecock:
You made an untrue accusation that David Siegel “is the problem”.
I refuted that saying “the problem is bigots who refuse to consider any view other than their own” and pointed out that your accusation demonstrates such bigotry; it does.
My refutation is factual and NOT “ad hominem” of any kind.
Importantly, bigoted belief in AGW is “the problem” under discussion, and whatever it is that you mean by “liberalism” is NOT “the problem” under discussion in this thread.
Richard
richard, in your opinion anyone who holds the opinion that liberalism has created most of the messes we are trying to deal with is just a bigot and you refuse to debate with bigots.
Nice defensive mechanism you got there. Anyone who spouts the truth is to be ignored.
MarkW:
I correctly said said
If you think objecting to bigots is a “defensive mechanism” then remove the beam from your eye so you are not blinded to the truth.
Richard
Interesting and informative. Thanks.
Mr Taylor, congratulations. We need a few tens of thousands more, like you.
A person is known by the company he keeps. When you send a list of facts to your colleagues and they refuse to respond, you must be honest with yourself about their personal commitment to sound science. Ask yourself: what kind of person permits ideology to control how they relate to facts? Just the fact that you pressed them on this point has already affected your relationship with them. You had better be prepared to understand the difference between liberals and non-liberals, for anyone who loves the truth more than they love liberal ideology will be regarded as an enemy.
Václav Havel: The Power of the Powerless (the social and spiritual consequences of socialism)
“The principle involved here is that the center of power is identical with the center of truth.” Havel warns that socialist regimes create and enforce their own truth to maintain power. As time goes on, this truth diverges from factual truth and it increasingly forces those who support and depend upon the power of the regime to corrupt themselves to sustain the artificial truth.
In the end, people not only lie to each other, but they start to lie to themselves.
see:
http://www.vaclavhavel.cz/showtrans.php?cat=clanky&val=72_aj_clanky.html&typ=HTML
Great analysis of the overall situation!
There are “paper trails” from one organization to the next. So many that it’s difficult to follow all the trails. However, there may not be all that many key players but there are plenty of foot-soldiers.
#1 Even I thought “What corporation is funding this ?”, cos the way the site looks very slick. However it is only 1 long page ..which he says is a one off essay.
#2 His survey has been filled in once.
#3 The hashtag has been used 2 times
Good luck the “Climate alarmist horses” have had the well of Good Skeptic info sitting right in front of them, but been refusing to drink… Alarmism is their cult/religion.
I always tempered my assumption that a whole field of science likely wasn’t wrong with a bit of skepticism, but I didn’t really look at it very much (because of course, I didn’t see it as the same looming crisis). But back in 2008, some friends pointed out there were some issues and I dug into the data. I was appalled. Since then I have watched as an already perverse adjustment of a dataset literally turned into an exponential curve.
It’s surreal knowing that these scientists are supposedly finding all this extra melt, extra expansion of the oceans, and yet there’s no increase in sea level rise. They ignore the fact that half of the “observed warming” since the spike in the 1940s is the result of adjustment. It was ridiculous watching a scientist get destroyed by a senator…after the scientist CLAIMED extreme weather a senator showed the actual data (which of course shows no unusual activity), forcing the scientist to back into pure faith with the assertion that the weather had become more extreme but not in a way that showed up statistically. It’s crazy how bad the supposed “science” actually is.
“It’s surreal knowing that these scientists are supposedly finding all this extra melt, extra expansion of the oceans, and yet there’s no increase in sea level rise. ”
Probably because the amount of melt we see per year we consume in a month. And as more desalination plants spring up, we might at some point slow or maybe even hault the rise…
I used to teach university students in their first year. In my lectures on climate change I started by asking the question: `who believes in anthropogenic global warming ?` (responses are in approximate %s). 80% said yes, 15% said `no`, and 5% said `do not know`. At the end of the lectures, which had set out the basic facts, the %s changed. 10% said `yes`, 80% said `no`, and 10% said `do not know`. This was carried out for several years and these were really intelligent kids. Imagine what the bulk of the population are susceptible to! At the recent UK general election, canvassers for different political parties called at my door. They all believed in global warming. Mr Seigel is right: it is only by ensuring that the real unmodified facts are made widely known that reality will prevail. Anything else will be spun by the political class for their own gains.
No car, but you’d fly thousands of miles to take pics of animals? Hey, look! You don’t have to abandon all your liberal totems to question CAGW? True, but unpersuasive. The rest they will recognize and reject.
Excellent post. Thank you. You listed very clearly the main points underlying my skepticism regarding the climate consensus.
And sadly you are correct. The climate loons are going to seek to outlaw cliamte skepticism and they are going to do it soon.
I have added David Siegel to my list of Converts.
Can you add me?
“Natural variation in weather and climate is tremendous. Most of what people call “global warming” is natural”
Does he have solid evidence of this and can he show valid references? I’m not sure ‘it has happened before” is a completely valid rationale. As for as I am aware there is no solid evidence either way.
Simply look at the UNADJUSTED history of Earths temps !!!!
Then as far as you are aware is not very far, Gareth.
Not very far at all.
There’s plenty of information available. I suggest you avail yourself of it.
“It has happened before” is a completely valid rationale for disbelieving CAGW. In fact, it is the core of the Null Hypothesis with regard to climate change (such as it is) and human influence thereon.
If it’s happened before, then before you can assert that CO2 is what done it, you have to prove that whatever caused it to happen before isn’t happening now. Commonly referred to as the null hypothesis.
Since we don’t know what caused it to happen before, we can’t prove that the cause of the previous warmings is not in operation now.
The warmists insist that most of the warming is caused by CO2, because their models, which were tuned to prove just that, have declared it.