Plans to generate a crowd-funding campaign to help silence dissent on news articles.
I’ve received this from two independent sources, which is said to be from a mailing list being circulated, and I believe it to be genuine. Climate Feedback is a website that rates news stories on climate on their “factuality”, but it has one major flaw: it is entirely one-sided, biased, and without checks or balances. You have to apply, and they decide if you get into the club or not. Of course, skeptical scientists need not apply based on their mission statement. They say:
Today’s media climate leads to confusion
With so much information available online, trying to figure out which information is credible — and what is not — is a real challenge. When so much of what we read falls outside of our own expertise, how can we know which headlines and news articles are consistent with science?
Yet they are the ones who decide what is credible under the guise of “peer review”. It has become abundantly clear that “peer review” is severely broken and biased, especially in the microcosm of climate due this one-minded consensus. The efforts of “Climate Feedback” amounts to little more than an organized consensus used to suppress alternate viewpoints and ideas about climate. Their list of people who get to do the reviewing makes Shukla’s RICO 20 look like a small time amateur operation.
Below is the leaked email contents. The fact that they put Mann and Oreskes, who are prone to hateful and irrational outbursts on social media, front and center, says a lot about their viewpoint and biases.
Climate Feedback works like this: Using the new web-annotation platform Hypothesis, scientists verify facts and annotate online climate articles, layering their insights and comments on top of the original story. They then issue a “5-star” rating so readers can quickly judge stories’ scientific credibility. Recognized by NASA, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and California Gov. Jerry Brown among others, Climate Feedback is already improving journalistic standards by flagging misreported climate science in mainstream outlets; earlier this month, for example, scientists took apart Bjorn Lomborg’s misleading op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. This is only a hint of what Climate Feedback has in store as it begins to aggregate those credibility scores into a wider index, rating major news sources on their reporting of climate change as part of a new Scientific Trust Tracker.
To that end, Climate Feedback is launching a crowd funding campaign on April 27 around the hashtag #StandWithScience, supported by leading climate minds like Profs. Michael Mann, Naomi Oreskes and others. I invite you to take a look at this sneak preview of our campaign (NOTE: please do not share publicly before April 27). The Exxon climate scandal has already made its way into the 2016 election season, but few have discussed the role the media has played enabling corporate interests to sow doubt about the science of climate change, which has long confused the public and undermined political support for dealing with the issue. As 350.org founder Bill McKibben said of Climate Feedback: Scientists are just about ready to come out of the lab and get more active and when they do, it will make a remarkable difference.
Note: within 5 minutes of publication, this post was edited to correct a redundant word and a missing word, along with a formatting error.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
You know you are on the right track when the opposition is trying to shut you up.
In a funny sense, Mckibben’s last quote is correct. ‘Scientists’ like Mann and Oreskes (and Trenberth, and Schmidt, and Karl, and Santer, and Hansen) have been out of the lab tryingnto sell warmunism for many years. Only buyers were watermelons. When real scientists start stepping out of the lab they will make a difference. Judith Curry and Richard Lindzen and John Christy already have. Just the opposite of what McKibben thinks.
Oh! The hubris…It burns! Funding from Big Al?
SMC: “Any articles with 0-1 stars…”
I suggest someone quickly set up a website that simply uses the inverse of their rating – wouldn’t be a lot of work, and might provide a valuable resource to who in the media is actually getting it right. I’m guessing it would quickly get more page views than theirs as well.
Looks like a lack of money has prompted bunch of zealots to together to try for another funding source.
“Climate Feedback is launching a crowd funding campaign on April 27”
“Peak funding” may have occurred sooner than was projected … the societal changes will be too difficult/numerous project, but we can be sure fallout will affect all socioeconomic strata blah blah blah
yes- i sense that also.
also, we know that the fuzzywarmies’ sanctum sanctorum has been infiltrated and their deepest secrets are not hidden from skeptical eyes.
one of the highlights of a mole hunt is that it institutionalizes inquisitors, protectors of the faith = internal thought police.
everybody loves the thought.police. they must detect and punish because they are the real guardians of Destiny.
my schadenfreude gland tumesces in anticipation of the splendid autos da fe in the coming season.
Wait A Minute…… Hold The Road…… What Is Going On Here
Just yesterday Capt. Capitalism reports on an identical system getting established targeting Social Justice Warrior issues. Now, I do not care about SJW stuff, and I am sure most WUWT readers do not either. The SJW effort calls itself Social Autopsy. These two efforts seem identical in operation and intent.
They endeavor to scour the media for stories on their topic and then use “experts” to rate them for conformance to their worldview. Then to carry on one step further, compile all these ratings to create ratings for the source organizations. Such a compiled ratings list is nothing short of a blacklist.
And the chance of two disparate fields of study such as Global Warming and Social Justice coming up with the same scheme independently is?
Here is the link to Capt. Capitalism:
http://captaincapitalism.blogspot.com
Scroll to “Who is Candace Owens of Social Autopsy?” and follow the link for more info. The link is to a video, which I did not want to link to directly. (too far O/T)
“Recognized by NASA, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and California Gov. Jerry Brown among others,”
I’m curious as to how much monetary support they have received from the (referenced) esteemed groups and individuals that have recognized them.
Marcus: Can anyone explain Gavin’s funky graph…
Looking at the plot and the axes, it appears his point is that (roughly) what ever the anomaly is in the first 3 months of the year, that will be the anomaly for the entire year (give or take a few tenths of a degree). If that the case, then it’s not the summers that are the driver for warming, but rather the winters. if it was summers, then Jan-Mar anomalies would be significantly lower than the annual anomaly. I wonder if he realizes how that contradicts the alarm about scorching heat waves? For me up here in Maine, a few degrees warmer in the winter would solve a lot of problems, including helping poor people afford to stay warm. Higher energy costs are the most regressive tax of all, and if Gavin is right (snark, snark), the problem will be solved!
..Taylor, that is exactly how I read it. but I thought, he can’t really be that dumb can he !! I assumed I was mistaken..silly me … It is Gavin, after all . ; )
And, particularly the northern hemisphere winter, at that.
Should go back and look at the pattern of temp adjustments for JFM in the cooked NH histories. We might find a bit of ‘anomalyzation’ there.
And, the correlation (if any) with JFM temps in Alaska, Siberia and Australia.
But Oreskes is an historian, not a climate scientist.
Geologist who tried to become history of science, but then drank warmunist cool-aid at Berkeley and began a long downward spiral into fantasy land with dreck like Merchants of Doubt and climate science fiction like The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View from the Future.
Oresekes quote from “Merchants of Doubt”
That detail she got right. She got wrong the main thesis analogy to big tobacco.
She is a geologist.
And that’s being academically polite, but not close to the nub of reality…
Obviously they know they will be out of a job once President Trump takes the reins !! Gotta feed their cats somehow !! LOL
If only life were so simple.
All newspaper articles could be rated for “truthfulness”.
I would be especially keen to turn to the business and finance section – to verify the truthfulness of all contained therein and subsequently make my fortune.
Accordingly, economics experts and social engineers could simply defer to the judgement of the self-styled council of truth and all of the problems of the world would melt away over night.
Plus – all of the contradictory advice over nutritional topics would be vanquished and we would all know exactly what diet was perfectly suited to our needs.
Of course, academic experts will also be able to confirm that individual characteristics are mostly determined by nature. Or by nurture. Or by a precisely quantified blend of both nature and nurture.
And having identified the source of differences of race and gender and social advantage then we will see how best to address issues of racism and sexism in society. A matter on which there is certainly no shortage of academic interest and “research”.
I look forward to being able to confirm the precise truth in relation to all such matters.
I assume that we will discover that all left-wing views are scientifically correct and all right-wing views are based on prejudice and greed. Obviously.
And then once the truth is finally established – then we shall be able to eliminate all critical discourse and create a perfect utopian society in which independent thought is unnecessary.
It’s not so hard to imagine that such a world awaits us.
(Warning above contains sarc.)
O.T. again, but very funny !
The Weather Network has a scientist claiming CO2 from volcanoes “eradicated a large part of earth’s wildlife.” 200 million years ago ! They have WWE superstar Chris Jericho explains volcanoes !! LOL
http://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/ancient-volcanoes-key-to-predicting-climate-change-outcome/66685/
This appears to me to be a centralized/official CAGW “talking point” dissemination system more than anything else . . A troll fueling station ; )
“Harnessing the power of the internet to amplify confirmation bias to heights heretofore undreamed!”
Stephan Lewandowsky, Professor, University of Bristol, is also one of their reviewers.
Lew will do all the conspiracy stuff. You know, the Exxon ‘scandal’ noted by the email. Big oil funding den1er sites like WUWT. All those obviously good journalism articles he will undoubtedly rate highly. He is the acknowledged expert at climate conspiracy ideation.
Mann is there to rank down any articles about MWP, Vikings in Greenland, LIA, cause his hockey stick showed those things actually did not happen, and he has a Nobel to show for it.
Oreskes rates future climate catastrophe articles, based on her newest ‘history of science’ book about the future. Nothing like the history of the future written in the past. True Harvard professor genius. She will be very busy cause there are so many articles and they are all SOO catastrophic.
They need to recruit Tom Karl to karlize any temperature articles.
This seems to stem from the concept that balanced reporting biases the discussion toward the “wrong” side, and should therefore be eliminated via censorship. This was eloquently presented by the Boykoff Bros. a decade ago:
Balance as bias: global warming and the US prestige press
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378003000669
or
“Journalistic Balance as Global Warming Bias – Creating controversy where science finds consensus.”
By Jules Boykoff and Maxwell Boykoff
Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) http://www.fair.org Extra! November/December 2004
“A new study has found that when it comes to U.S. media coverage of global warming, superficial balance—telling “both” sides of the story—can actually be a form of informational bias.”
Balance is Bias
– Boykoff Brothers, 2004
War is Peace.
Ignorance is Strength.
Freedom is Slavery.
– Big Brother, 1984
Censorship is FAIR.
..I wonder who keeps leaking all these Emails !! Can we give them a ” Medal of Honesty ” ??
“Recognized by NASA, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and California Gov. Jerry Brown …… supported by leading climate minds like Profs. Michael Mann, Naomi Oreskes …”
Now there’s a rogue’s gallery!
Recognized as what, exactly?
Good question.
Off topic, I’m afraid, but there’s unsettling activity in Yellowstone that isn’t making the news anywhere. It’s a little concerning.
..Umm, a link would be really helpful !!
But that’s the very trouble I pointed out – no news, just some ‘alarmist’ sites reporting it:
http://www.sott.net/article/316644-Video-shows-increased-activity-at-Yellowstone
..Bazzer, it’s nothing new..Yellowstone does it all the time, and the alarmists Hype and Exaggerate it all the time ! When Yellowstone starts shaking and quaking large, then we might have a problem, but it still has nothing to do with climate or temperature !
Well then those people sitting on those benches waiting for Old Faithful to blow better hightail it outta there:
https://www.nps.gov/features/yell/webcam/oldFaithfulStreaming.html
BTW this propaganda push is not going to fly. There is too much real science being done by scientists who are nice and more intelligent than than the ones mentioned in the email. And Jerry Brown??? – Please.
#StandWithScience The consensus canard becomes a lot more entertaining after learning what passes as a “climate scientist”.
My curiosity drove me to do a sampling of returns from a Google search on the terms ‘climate science curriculum graduate degree program’. The process was non scientific since I simply proceeded in ‘Google relevancy’ order until I felt I had acquired a very good picture of what academia is currently offering. I looked at around 40-50 institutions offering MS or PhD degrees with some self proclaimed association with climate science. I was specifically looking at the mathematics and physics courses mandated as requirements for each degree.
Of those programs, the vast majority of Master of Science programs required one to two undergraduate-equivalent calculus courses and generally one statistics course; physics courses were almost totally ignored. The odd PhD level science program added maybe an additional course but they were the exception rather than the rule. A large proportion of ‘science’ programs were oriented toward perfectly valid – but decidedly nontechnical – social sciences, governmental policy, or environmental impact fields. One program added an introductory course in numerical computing. Another required a course in differential equations, the underlying calculus, and one course in thermodynamics but it was specifically called out as an atmospheric sciences program.
The implication being that most climate science programs turn out graduates that simply aren’t equipped to critically evaluate technical issues. Statistical evaluation of data, analysis of variance, gas dynamics, numerical modeling, and the host of other hard science fundamentals are simply not in their lexicon By no means am I suggesting that there aren’t qualified individuals out there but they are much more likely to have a background in atmospherics than ‘climate science’. Consensus among what academia labels a climate scientists is a fiat currency; a belief that someone somewhere has done the math and done it correctly. They are scientists unequipped and totally unable to evaluate or replicate the claims for themselves. For what it’s worth, most of the “97%” might as well be made up of cows that once stared at a cathode ray tube.
[ I certainly encourage interested parties to do their own verification of what I’m reporting. The overall pattern is sufficiently obvious without the need for me constraining the parameters of your survey. ]
Nice analysis. Kudos. Should have thought of it myself.
If I decide to go forward with book #4, provisionally ‘a brief history of the climate war’ in homage to Steven Hawking, will if possible replicate your result and credit your original contribution. Now bookmarked. Makes a very important point about ‘climate science’ and ‘wicked problems’.
Also noodling analogy to American Revolutionary War as a possible fun background theme. Ragtag rebels beat mighty Britain. BEST founder as faux Benedict Arnold. AW as Thomas Payne. SM as LaFayette. Thought noodles. Curry as Jefferson? McIntyre as polymath Ben Franklin? Scrap the whole analogy thing and just write a history? Writing project just has not yet gelled.
Would be a more interesting book as things get along a bit further. Exxon ‘scandal’, CEI, maybe a UK blackout next winter, October 2016 Arctic sea ice… So many moving parts at present. Even if ‘brief’, would be my longest book, as so much to cover. So feel no urgency to begin until inspired by some upcoming key event.
Recognised by two government agencies and a politician, sounds so scientific. The Ministry of Space, the Ministry of Earth and Party Member Jerry Brown say it is true so it is true, all else is duckspeak and crimethink.
‘earlier this month, for example, scientists took apart Bjorn Lomborg’s misleading op-ed in the Wall Street Journal’
This is incredibly lame. Basically ten guys tried to find something wrong with his article and couldn’t, but pretended to.
http://climatefeedback.org/evaluation/bjorn-lomborg-overheated-climate-alarm-wall-street-journal
They identify not a single incorrect statement in Lomborg’s piece, while misrepresenting what he said. Lomborg did NOT imply that just because cold causes more deaths than heat mortality will decline as a result of warming; that’s a very simplistic view. What Lomborg did was linking to several papers that discussed mortality and, surprise surprise, found that it would decline with warming.
Lomborg’s piece:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/an-overheated-climate-alarm-1459984226
‘a 2009 paper from the European Union expects that the reduction in cold deaths will definitely outweigh extra heat deaths in the 2020s. Even near the end of the century, in the 2080s, the EU study projects an increase in heat deaths of “between 60,000 and 165,000” and a decrease of cold deaths of “between 60,000 and 250,000.” In other words, the effects will probably balance each other out, but warming could save as many as 85,000 lives each year.
An academic paper published two years ago in Environmental Health Perspectives similarly shows that global warming will lead to a net reduction in deaths in both the U.K. and Australia. In England and Wales today, the authors write, statistics show that heat kills 1,500 people and cold kills 32,000. In the 2080s, they calculate that increased heat will kill an additional 3,500. But they find that cold deaths will drop by 10,000. In Australia the projections suggest 700 more heat deaths but 1,600 fewer cold deaths.
Globally, one estimate of the health effects of climate change, published in 2006 by Ecological Economics, shows 400,000 more respiratory deaths (mostly from heat) by midcentury, but 1.8 million fewer cardiovascular deaths (mostly from cold).’
Agree. Lame. How one knows warmunists are losing.
“Leading climate minds”
God help us.
So, just more of the same. ! And its been working so well for them.. 😉
Maybe if they actually had a case they could debate openly, without the whole corrupt totalitarian mess collapsing, they wouldn’t need to block all contrary ideas.
Slightly boring O/T, but I really do appreciate the effort made to acknowledge things like: “Note: within 5 minutes of publication, this post was edited to correct a redundant word and a missing word, along with a formatting error.”
No one is perfect, but you get brownie-points for quickly and honestly making and acknowledging corrections. It will also encourage readers to correct mistakes and helps keep people on their toes.