Guest opinion: Dr. Tim Ball
President Trump did the right thing by withdrawing from the Paris Agreement. It was a bad deal for the United States. Despite this, polls claim a majority of Americans opposed his action. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Secretary Scott Pruitt is trying to take what appears to be a more balanced political and legal approach by allowing a debate presenting both sides of the science. It will have little to no effect because most of the public doesn’t understand the science. The big problem is it begs the question; Why is it necessary to provide a forum for balance? Why does the global warming story not go away after exposure to the corrupted science of the major players behind the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) through leaked emails, exposure of bureaucrats deliberately adjusting the historic record, and worst of all, the failed forecasts?
The answer is simple and therefore profound and makes an answer essential. I know from experience that after you explain to an audience what and how the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) deception was achieved the next question is inevitable. What was the motive? Unless you answer that question, people become a little more skeptical but remain, at best, undecided. They can’t and don’t want to believe that scientists would be involved in anything nefarious or even misleading. They can’t believe that so many of them were misled, which is why the 97% consensus claim was so effective.
Attacks on people who try to explain the motive indicate how threatening it is to the perpetrators of the deception. It intensified as the challenges grew. For example, the charge of “global warming skeptic” is far less vindictive and isolating than “climate change denier” with all the holocaust connotations. Similar nastiness is inferred in calling people who identified the motive conspiracy theorists. Definitions of conspiracy indicate why that term causes problems.
- An agreement to perform together an illegal, wrongful, or subversive act
- An agreement between two or more persons to commit a crime or accomplish a legal purpose through illegal action.
There is nothing illegal about the objective of proving AGW, so it was not a conspiracy. However, there was illegality in what some of those involved did, as the emails exposed. For example, a definition of conspiracy as a noun says
“A conspiracy to manipulate the results: plot, scheme, plan, machination, ploy, trick, ruse, subterfuge;”
They even introduced a semblance of a conspiracy by calling themselves “The Team.”
Hoax was another term incorrectly applied to what happened, partly because nobody wants to talk about the motive. It is not a hoax because although it may have a malicious effect, it is primarily a humorous pricking of pomposity. There is nothing humorous about the AGW story.
An appropriate appellation for the AGW deception is a cabal.
A small group of intriguers, especially one formed for political purposes.
In the case of AGW, the cabal was the Club of Rome (COR). There is nothing wrong with a political view or agenda, but the difference with the COR agenda was the misuse of science to promote it. Misused science is not science or even pseudoscience. Science and its practice must be apolitical and fact based. As a result, scientists prefer to avoid politics. Similarly, most politicians avoid science precisely because it is about facts.
An intriguing and telling part of the AGW war was that it quickly became political and a person was labelled based on their view. If you questioned the AGW claim, you were right wing, if you accepted it you were left wing, regardless of your actual political views. Ironically, the way to take the politics out of the scientific and debate is to identify the political motive. Here is a summary of what that is:
- COR expanded the Malthusian idea that overpopulation would exhaust food supply to all resources.
- They claimed each person used resources and the number of people was increasing so the demand would increase.
- Those who achieved development used resources at a greater rate and more nations were developing. They had to be stopped, and development curtailed overall.
- Development was achieved by use of fossil fuels and must be eliminated.
- A parallel population reduction program was essential, hence the Cairo conference in 1994.
- Beyond potential resource exhaustion (Limits to Growth), they needed a vehicle to manipulate people toward their agenda: a fear factor with a global threat.
- Through Maurice Strong, COR member, they set up the IPCC to prove that the use of fuels produced CO2 that was causing runaway global warming.
The global impact transcended nations that only a global government could resolve. Elaine Dewar summarized by Strong’s actions at the UN: “Strong was using the U.N. as a platform to sell a global environment crisis and the Global Governance Agenda.”
Their motive is acceptable as a form of socialism with which you can agree or disagree. The problem is they made it virtually impossible for people to make that choice by misusing the science and silencing those who challenged that misuse. A measure of that dilemma is a socialist scientist who doesn’t accept AGW.
It is quite straightforward. Scott Pruitt should abandon his attempts to present the other side and explain why only one side was presented. To do this, he must explain the motive and only then can people properly decide what the truth is about AGW.
Incorrect.
The IPCC was not set up and has never been concerned in proving that CO2 would cause runaway global warming.
Its terms of reference (if you can find them) assume this as a priori truth. The role of the IPCC is to advise governments on what to do about it.
Leo – you are correct. The IPCC reports do not explain how CO2 warms the planet. That is a given.
The answer to the headline question is tangentially answered by Terry Pratchett in his Discworld novel “Small Gods” and explains why climate sceptics have difficulty in presenting their case.
” ‘He’s muffed it,’ said Simony. He just told them a lot of facts. You can’t inspire people with facts. They need a cause. They need a symbol.”
That is where Gore, the greens et al have scored – and, indeed, all the world’s religions. They created a cause and a symbol, the end of the earth by boiling or whatever. All those of us on the sceptic side can do is present facts. We don’t have a cause, a symbol, a religion.
Here’s another example of recent scientific fraud.
Ancel Keys, an economist, started the theory that heart attacks were caused by fat consumption. He and his buddies managed to squelch sugar and all other probable causes. The science was bad and maybe fraudulent. It’s very much like CAGW. link
What was the motive? Ancel Keys had a wonderful career with much public and professional acclaim. His motive is clear, it was personal aggrandizement. What’s Al Gore’s motive? It’s made him a billionaire. He has a clear motive to continue. How about James Hansen? Much the same as Keys.
A single person, or a small group of people, can turn science if they are sufficiently aggressive. The science will follow the accepted bias.
Many people have tried to understand the global warming alarmism.
First:
I think humans should be considered “religious animals” . As a result of our consciensness we realize what we don’t know (such as the origin of the universe…) these questions require answers to suppress “existential fears” . The church supplies these answers about unknown phenonema. Religious theses cannot be proofed, do not need proof. They become true by authority and consenses, that’s why heretics have to be silenced.
second:
there is a general tendency in societies to form elites. A successfull group secures it’s wealth at the cost of others. Communism was a revolt of the elites, also the Club of Rome, socialism in Europa after 1975 and yes: climate alarmism is . In all cases, strong propaganda is needed to manipulate the masses.
third:
recently the church was replaced by the environmental movements. (Green Peace etc) God became (wild) nature. To live means to exploit the earth, but now, Earth being God, there is no other way then to live in deep sin. A strong business model indeed.
Traditionally the church legitimates social inequalities. Now the Green Church requires enormous sacrifices. (windfarms, solar panels) to compensate for our guilts to Mother Earth.
fourth:
evolution is amoral. Things happen because they are profitable. Nature is full of parasites.
Opportunists (banks, contractors…) are attracted by subsidies supplied without rational arguments (which religion does not need )
Consider:
– mostly higher educated people (and Holliwood artists) embrace climate alarmism.
– windmills and solar panels are promoted but this technology will fail to generate enough energy for all.
– nuclear may (in time) supply enough energy for all but is rejected.
– the cost of energy transition is socialized, which hits the lower income classes most creating more inequality.
To read more: http://www.davdata.nl/math/mentalclimate.html
I think we need better explanations of what is happening with the climate. What happens to the 10Gt CO2 we put into the atmosphere each year? What became of the 1100 Gt fossil C incinerated during the past 250 years? To that end I just promised myself to write a model/game/interactive video for the masses. Because I think this is the main sticking point. The masses know we burn fossil fuel. They know it makes CO2. They do not know that only 5% of CO2 in the atmosphere has a fossil fuel signature. They think the 400 ppm CO2 is mostly due to our emissions, rather than ocean out-gassing because of warming.
Or that water vapor is the real “greenhouse gas” that keeps us warm.
Indeed. All that irrigation for food and grassy parklands local councils demand from developers.
5 percent of 400 ppm is 20 ppm. CO2 from human fossil fuel burning does not accumulate in the atmosphere.
Atmospheric CO2 is one small part of the rapidly flowing biogeochemical cycle between much larger pools on and below the surface.
The public may disagree with the Paris treaty withdrawal because most don’t understand it, but unless they make this known to their representatives, it probably means little. Let us hope so.
If WUWT had a shop, its most popular products would probably be those emblazoned with the Royal Society’s motto: Nullius in verba.
How about a mug or t-shirt with “Nullius in verba” on one side, and “Be skeptical” on the other?
Tim, some of us ‘Energy Matters’ readers suspect you post there via moniker ‘songhees’. Is this you? If not, okay, but if, maybe, perhaps, youl’d care to comment?
Not me.
Wasn’r socialism supposed to be “scientific” at one time?
All my (late) uncles and aunts were socialists. (Netherlands 1900- 2000) They worked hard and invested in education with a strong sense for the general interest. Somewhere after 1975 however socialism became the art of passing the bill to your neighbours. Academics took over the party and so socialism became a vehicle to built a new elite. History repeats.
road to hell …
Let’s just think of the cloud feedback in the theory. Cloud feedback takes global warming from a minor effect to a potentially significant effect. Without the assumption that cloud feedback amplifies the warming, we probably wouldn’t be talking about this now.
In the theory, you put more vapor in the atmosphere and you get less clouds.
You put less water vapor in the atmosphere and you get more clouds.
Think about that. It is wrong on its face.
Why are we here talking about global warming then. Because some scientists did the math early on in the development of the theory and realized there wouldn’t be significant warming with cloud feedback amplifying the warming at a certain rate. They decided to just use the “wrong on its face” assumption and never test the assumption or talk about it much. They did this on purpose to keep the movement going and they are still doing it today.
I think there may be a simpler reason for this delusion:
* Nuclear power for electrical generation was implemented in the West from the 1960’s.
* Nuclear power became a politically unacceptable means of generating power for Greens and lefties sometime in the 80’s because of its association with nuclear weapons.
* ‘Peak Oil’ was forecast and politicians were faced with the challenge of how to keep the lights on.
* Nuclear power is relatively low in carbon output (no exhaust gasses after a plant is constructed).
* So, nuclear power ( and ‘renewables’) were made acceptable to Greens and lefties by demonising oil: a lesser of two evils argument.
I’m with Dr. Ball in recognizing the specific contribution of the Club of Rome… but even though the group itself is creepy in its presumptuous way, which is why so much Illuminati crap is written about them on the Internet… but the truth is somewhat more pedestrian.
Club of Rome re-branded the Generic Malthusian Warning to a wider audience, and pioneered (along with Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and Paul Ehrlich’s Population Bomb) DOOMSDAY THINKING. After centuries of implicit ‘manifest destiny’, the idea that human progress should and will continue and no one should try to arrest it because even if they did, their neighbors would not, the idea that the world could come together and deliberately begin to steer its course, that was intellectually interesting and was the genesis of the ‘feel-good scientist’. It was also the genesis of the ‘jack-boot globalist’ who is morally eager and prepared to break a few sovereign eggs to make a One World Governance omelet.
But that is now. In 1972 the UN Club of Rome commissioned a report from MIT, “Limits to Growth” (full text) that became a best-selling book of its time. It was a monumental piece of work! The first work to use as its centerpiece computerized models, and these were not the massively parallel models of today, think of them as essentially spreadsheet macros with simple feedbacks and tons of assumptions. But the models were presented convincingly enough that the layman (and laywomen such as Jane Fonda) honestly perceived the lines on the graphs into the future as fact. Our progress would kill us soon, the world would be overrun by pure-equation Malthusian population graphs (it doesn’t and hasn’t).
Limits to Growth also presented the idea that human cities are perilous as emitters of heat as if humankind were liberating a hundred thousand times more ergs and we are all living inside a Dyson sphere. A similar model appeared for nuclear waste, which completely overstated its hazard. LTG was a bazaar of presumtive science: If you could model it with a spreadsheet and it looked bad, and could plot a spooky graph, your work was featured.
Yes, there had been a crude optimism that technological progress was positive. But it has been replaced with an equally crude assumption that it is negative and must be tempered with the wisdom of the UN (like those weird Soviet central planners) to avoid catastrophe. In the sciences honest researchers are well aware when their models exceed reality. Limits to Growth was the first all-in-one publication to blur the line between fact and model, deliberately to achieve this end IMO.
Actually, unless you prompt them to think about the climate, it isn’t even on most Americans’ radar. When you ask them:
Climate doesn’t even make the list. link
The motive was MONEY.
The global warming industry was a gravy train if you were on the team. The “saving the planet” and “greater good” arguments made the industry seem altruistic but money was the motivator for science/climate departments around the world.
The big problem is it begs the question; Why is it necessary to provide a forum for balance?
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Mainly, because that is what we have been asking for the whole time. That is what they have been doing to us and we would be just as guilty as them if we did so.
I am amazed and a little shamed that any of ours would suggest that, to be honest.
TomRWorcMaUSA
Overreach fought Integrity, and overreach won hands down. Many still put integrity in pole position, but they tend not to be very influential, maybe those who favour overreach are also the ones who tend to better climb the greasy pole, in order to better promote the overreach.
I can’t see Integrity ever making a major comeback, the whole world seems to be embracing overreach, not just in science, but also in areas such as education, medicine, the media, religion, and art.
I think AGW theory has come about through gentle but unintended evolution. To have explicitly designed it perfectly from scratch to where it is today – undoubtedly the most successful s**m in scientific history, would be impossible.
Disenchanted left-wingers filled their lost purpose caused by the collapse of the Soviet Union by attaching instead to the Green God, via CND and ‘Peace and Love’ ideologues pushing extreme environmentalism, which led to it being adopted by politicians on the career make and chancers on the financial take.
Blaming CO2 – a normal product of human economic activity, progress, success and ultimately of capitalism, was the absolute stroke of genius. It enabled a starting position of ‘we’re all guilty’, which was paradise to interfering busy bodies with agendas to push.
Adherents have since recognised it provides a vehicle for whatever career or path they choose, from moral grandstanding to media, politics, business and beyond. Everyone wants to Save The Planet and hell have no fury like that which awaits those who question climate orthodoxy. Literally every person, animal, plant and country is impacted by the planets atmosphere so it’s the perfect coat of many colours that fits all-comers. ‘Roll up, roll up, folks, the great climate c*n is here to be whatever you want it to be. All you have to do is put it on’.
I don’t doubt that COR exists, but to me this is bigger. It is the elitists (of all stripes) not wanting the great unwashed masses using up all the stuff (planetary resources) because they (elitists) believe they have a greater claim on them (the stuff). What they don’t seem to realize is that the greatest resource we have is human ingenuity, and that the more people we have, the more ingenuity. In trying to limit the population, they are limiting our future possibilities.
Pay attention to carbon cap-and-trade systems and the potentially enormous sums of money and political control over economies and development.
http://www.investigatemagazine.co.nz/Investigate/13157/kyoto-conspiracy/
As more and diverse interest groups were persuaded that CO2 is a pollutant, especially when the idea supported their own interests (political control, population growth, environmentalism, poverty, racial inequality – pick a cause), greater grew the movement. What might have started as a money-making, market protection or political power scheme then took on a life of its own, well exceeding its original size. There need not be any conspiracy as such to propel and maintain the movement. At some point, it reaches critical mass and is self sustaining. It becomes a religion, requiring no foundation in evidence.
Here’s a Canadian cheerleader for such a system, convinced that CO2 is a pollutant, plain and simple.
http://www.davidsuzuki.org/issues/climate-change/science/climate-solutions/carbon-tax-or-cap-and-trade/
The carbon industry can be easy to hate, as it has been directly involved or implicated in a hundred years of war, worker and population suffering, monopoly, economic battles, pollution, lying and more. Cap-and-trade systems seduce hoi polloi into believing they are Davids winning battles against these Goliaths, while also thinking globally and acting locally. Everyone wants to do their part to help.
So, it is possible that AGW movement finds its origins in carbon trading and an alignment of shared causes in relation to CO2 as a pollutant would lead to religion.
I don’t know that it’s origins lie in that direction, but it’s certainly one of the ways it’s been exploited.
Posit an origin, or set of origins. Some group seized on the idea of CO2 as a pollutant and promoted it for some reason.
By this point, it might not really matter how it all began, except to not let another such one begin.
‘polls claim a majority of Americans opposed his action.’
Bull****
Pretty much strictly Progressives.
That’s pretty much a majority – and Trump is driving up our numbers every day.
If humans cause climate change then humans can stop climate change … if they buy my product, vote for my candidate, increase my agency’s budget, donate to my organization, fund my research, etc. This is how climate alarmism became a public relations juggernaut.
The global warming story doesn’t go away because the “corrupted science” exists only in the minds of those who will not see. The evidence that the science is founded in reality is all about us, and grows stronger every day. Rational people who are shown the science understand it. You can argue the future is not as dire as some predict, you cannot argue rationally that we are not heating the troposphere at an alarming rate.
…you cannot argue rationally that we are not heating the troposphere at an alarming rate.
Surely you can provide evidence of the “alarming rate”???
Well, Jack Davis, would care to comment on the so-called Climategate scandal?
What kind of scientists refuse to respond to freedom of information requests for data? Scientists who, in fact, present a reality that no one else can observe. That is about as far removed from science as it gets.
It would appear that the discussion has returned to “cause” and apart from pstevens2 there would seem to be no plan to inform and educate the public in order to regain the balance and construction as opposite to destruction.
I wish I was more adequate point the way because it needs to be done.
Fear makes people listen – e.g. AGW
Can we use that “fear” in a positive way?
Fear of the unknown. People obsess over supposed threats, real or manufactured, that they don’t understand, leaving them open to deception, especially if there is money to be made.
Don’t forget the Rockefeller influences… They are using their vast wealth to NGOize the world into a collective interdependent one world socialist hell. They are also hugely (and probably, mostly) responsible for getting the environmental movement going:
From page 21 of the link at the bottom:
E. SUPPORT FOR TRANSNATIONAL REGIMES
Through support for state and non-state actors, foundations have played key roles in advancing regimes to address global problems with practical and positive effect. In the 1960s, foundations supported the environmental and anti-nuclear movements, which led to the Clean Air Act and the Limited Test Ban Treaty. In the 1980s, philanthropic attention turned to the Nuclear Weapons Freeze campaign, which led to strategic arms reductions (START) and the extension of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). More recently, foundations have supported groups that have promoted the advancement of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), the United Nations Framework Convention on Global Climate Change (FCCC), and the Montreal Protocol.
http://www.rbf.org/sites/default/files/Advancing_Stability_in_Era_of_Change.pdf
Also, Rockefeller money helped fund the COR.