Reposted from the Fabius Maximus Blog
Larry Kummer, Editor Climate change 15 August 2019
Summary: A study reveals that the public debate about climate change has begun a new phase. Now the basic machinery of science becomes corrupted by politics.
The US public is experiencing a propaganda bombardment with few parallels in our history. For example, every morning I read Naked Capitalism’s daily links to see a liberal’s view of the world. During the past year their links to articles about climate change have become more frequent (now one or more every day) and less well-grounded (more alarmist, less often mentioning the IPCC’s AR5, usually quite slanted, sometimes quite imaginary).
This is a logical development. Climate alarmists no longer have effective opposition in the news media or major institutions of US society. Hence, their agitprop can be intense without regard for the accuracy of its information. In military terms, this is the pursuit phase of battle. Boldness is the key to consolidating victory over a broken foe. The patience, planning, and vast resources of climate activists have paid off (for similar reasons, the 1% are rolling back the New Deal). It’s a well-earned victory, although they faced no foe with equivalent organization, resources, or marketing skill. So perhaps we should say that their incompetence delayed their win.
The next phase is further politicization of the peer-reviewed process. See the scale of their success in a new paper: “Discrepancy in scientific authority and media visibility of climate change scientists and contrarians” by Alexander Michael Petersen et al. in Nature Communications. Such papers affect the public policy debate through the accompanying publicly campaign, which began with this from the Universit of California – Merced: “Media Creates False Balance on Climate Science, Study Shows.”
“The American media lends too much weight to people who dismiss climate change, giving them legitimacy they haven’t earned, posing serious danger to efforts aimed at raising public awareness and motivating rapid action, a new study shows. While it is not uncommon for media outlets to interview climate change scientists and climate change deniers in the same interviews, the effort to offer a 360-degree view is creating a false balance between trained climate scientists and those who lack scientific training, such as politicians.
‘It’s not just false balance; the numbers show that the media are “balancing” experts – who represent the overwhelming majority of reputable scientists – with the views of a relative handful of non-experts,” UC Merced Professor LeRoy Westerling said. “Most of the contrarians are not scientists, and the ones who are have very thin credentials. They are not in the same league with top scientists. They aren’t even in the league of the average career climate scientist.’ …
Data shows that about half the mainstream media visibility goes to climate-change deniers, many of whom are not climate scientists. This proportion increases significantly when blogs and other “new media” outlets are included – pointing to the rising role of customized media in spreading disinformation.
‘It’s time to stop giving these people visibility, which can be easily spun into false authority,’ Professor Alex Petersen said. ‘By tracking the digital traces of specific individuals in vast troves of publicly available media data, we developed methods to hold people and media outlets accountable for their roles in the climate-change-denialism movement, which has given rise to climate change misinformation at scale.’”
Note the bottom line: “‘It’s time to stop giving these people visibility.” Deplatforming. Collective censorship. Enforcement by the powerful of politically correct truths.
The paper is a travesty of the scientific method. Eminent climate scientist Judith Curry says “This ranks as the worst paper I have ever seen published in a reputable journal.” I have read papers in a wide range of fields for 30 years, including subscriptions to Nature and Science – and I agree with her assessment. Let’s count the ways.
(1) Failure to define key terms.
“According to MC project data reported in Fig. 1, the term “climate change” is currently used in approximately 104 media article sentences per week, roughly 100 times as much as the term “climate skeptic”, a broad term that collectively refers to contrarians and denialists, and also conventional scientific skeptics who are driven by more legitimate motives for dissent.”
What is a “contrarian” and “denialist”? The dictionary defines them as “a person who opposes popular opinion” and “a person who denies something.” That does not help much. The authors do not define them. Note that the authors believe they can distinguish a “conventional skeptic” from contrarians and deniers by their motives. How do the authors determine scientists’ motives? As with so many of the questions raised by this paper, the authors do not explain.
In a tweet, one of the authors gives additional color to the paper, explicitly referring to “deniers.” Nowhere in the paper is any support given for so labeling the scientists on their lists.
Very excited to see this work finally make it out today! Kudos to the lead author on this, Alex Petersen at UC Merced, for an amazing deep dive comparing the scientific credentials of climate scientists and deniers to their prominence in media coverage of the science. https://t.co/MNFmDvxMh9
— LeRoy Westerling (@LeroyWesterling) August 13, 2019
(2) Classifying and sorting people.
More fundamental to their analysis is the classification of people. Here the authors are quite clear.
“The entry point for our large data-driven analysis is to construct a comprehensive list of adamant contrarians, which we achieved by merging multiple data sources. To be specific, we combined three overlapping sets of names obtained from publicly available sources The first source is the list of past keynote speakers at Heartland ICCC conferences from 2008 to present; the second is the list of lead authors of the 2015 Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) report; and the third is the list of individuals profiled by the DeSmog project.”
They provide not the slightest evidence that everyone who spoke at the Heartland Conference is – anything at all. Showing the folly of this, A. Scott Denning is listed as a contrarian. He is a professor of atmospheric science at Colorado State University, and a strong supporter of the IPCC (as am I). He twice spoke at Heartland conferences to debate “skeptics.” In a display of tribal loyalty, Denning re-tweeted a complimentary note about this paper, not realizing that it classified him as a bad guy.
“For this reason, we focus on a select set of contrarians who have publicly and repeatedly demonstrated their adamant counterposition on CC issues – as extensively documented by the DeSmog project (DeSmogblog.com), a longstanding effort to document climate disinformation efforts associated with numerous contrarian institutions and individual actors.”
Like so much in this paper, this text raises more questions than it answers. What is “counterposition on climate change issues”? They subcontract this question to the writers of the DeSmog blog. This is problematic for two reasons.
First, what are the qualification of the people writing DeSmog to evaluate scientific papers? Its About page lists two people, neither having any relevant qualifications to do this. DeSmog is led by “one of Canada’s most respected public relations professionals.” The Executive Director provides “writing and communications services” and has a BA in “communication and environmental studies.”
Second, DeSmog is an advocacy project. That should disqualify them for a role in this paper. Put this in another context: a political science paper examing political extremism by having people on the staff of the Republican or Democratic party rate politicians’ extremism. Garbage in, garbage out.
(3) Methodological errors.
They sort people into two bins.
“To address this literature gap, we focus our analysis on a group of 386 prominent contrarians, denoted both individually and collectively by CCC. We compare these CCC with 386 prominent scientists active in CC research, denoted hereafter by CCS.”
First, these are overlapping bins. There are CCS who are CCC. For example, they label (falsely) Roger Pielke Sr. as a “contrarian” – but he is an eminent climate scientist. See his bio; also, he has a stratospheric H-index of 95. (The H-index is a measure of research productivity and citation impact.
There is a second and more serious flaw. In the press release, one of the authors describes their conclusion.
“’It’s not just false balance; the numbers show that the media are ‘balancing’ experts – who represent the overwhelming majority of reputable scientists – with the views of a relative handful of non-experts,’ UC Merced Professor LeRoy Westerling said. ‘Most of the contrarians are not scientists, and the ones who are have very thin credentials. They are not in the same league with top scientists. They aren’t even in the league of the average career climate scientist.’”
This is nonsense. The first bin contains non-scientist celebrities. The second does not. They show only that celebrities get more media attention than non-celebrities. Comparing celebrities on both sides of the public debate would have been interesting. That would mean including Al Gore and Greta Thunberg in their sample – neither of whom has relevant qualifications but whom journalists often regard as authorities. Equally interesting would have been comparing the attention given to scientists on both sides of the public policy debate.
I believe that both of those comparisons would show that the supporters of strong climate policy action get much more media attention than those who oppose it. But that study would not help activists, so we get this one instead.
A note from the past: mission accomplished!
Planning and execution shape society. As seen in this email from Phil Jones to Michael Mann. Jones was Directror of the influential Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia. Mann was Director of the Earth System Science Center at Professor at Penn State. Mann ranks as #1 on the paper’s list of climate scientists’ media visibility. Red emphasis added.
“I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow – even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!“
Updates!
The paper claimed that “All data analyzed here are openly available …”
If you download the “Supplementary Information” for this paper, you now get “The content was removed.” A change notice says that “The Supplementary Information for this Article is currently unavailable due to concerns regarding the identification of individuals.”
Click on the link at reference 64 to get the data files. You get a notice that “This dataset is private for peer review and will be released on January 1, 2020.” Long after publicity about the paper has established its claims in the public’s thinking. That’s a nice trick!
Conclusions
This study provides clear evidence that the peer-review process has been corrupted, enlisted as a supporter in the crusade for policy action to fight climate change. This is not the first time that science has been corrupted. It will not be the last. But it might be the corruption with the largest effect.
In July the BBC said that the climate change crusade must win in the next 18 months. I believe that might be correct, but not in the sense they intended. The current propaganda barrage cannot run much longer. Activists must either win politically – making massive changes to the economy and society – or burn out. On a longer time scale, sometime in the next decade people will look at the world and see some catastrophic changes – or not (pathologizing normal extreme weather probably won’t work much longer, either).
Either way, the politicization of science institutions has become normal. They will be enlisted in the next political battle, and their prestige as neutral authorities will decline. As has Americans’ confidence in most of our institutions.
Always remember the big picture: America is experiencing a widespread collapse of its institutions. Climate science is just an example of this larger process.
Other posts in this series
- A crisis of overconfidence in climate science.
- About the corruption of climate science.
- The noble corruption of climate science.
For More Information
See Judith Curry’s analysis of this paper: “The latest travesty in ‘consensus enforcement.’”
Ideas! See my recommended books and films at Amazon.
If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. For more information see all posts about doomsters, about peak oil, about The keys to understanding climate change and especially these…
- About RCP8.5: Is our certain fate a coal-burning climate apocalypse? No!
- How climate scientists can re-start the public policy debate about climate change – test the models!
- Follow-up: more about why scientists should test the models.
- Let’s prepare for past climate instead of bickering about predictions of climate change – Doing something is better than nothing.
- Focusing on worst case climate futures doesn’t work. It shouldn’t work.
- The Extinction Rebellion’s hysteria vs. climate science.
- Why we do nothing to prepare for climate change.
- “Climate’s Uncertainty Principle“ by Garth Paltridge.
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To learn more about the state of climate change see The Rightful Place of Science: Disasters & Climate Change
Here is Roger Pielke’s letter to the Editor of Nature Communications.
https://twitter.com/RogerPielkeJr/status/1161457589617483776/photo/1
“He is a professor of atmospheric science at Colorado State University, and a strong supporter of the IPCC (as am I).”…..?
If you support anything from the IPCC, then you are a fool not worth reading. IMHO !
absolutely…..the UN IPCC put together a plan that guaranteed CO2 emissions would go up
…and guaranteed that 1st world money would go to them to help them do it
and guess what?…..it sure as hell went up….the whole thing is a s c a m from the get go
even common sense says…it something is poison…you don’t let countries increase it because they are third world GDP….or have more people per capita
…even the UN IPCC knows it’s a s c a m http://www.yaleclimatemediaforum.org/pics/0713_Fig3.jpg
The IPCC is a political organization run by politicians for politicians. Is is plainly stated so in the founding documents for the United Nations Environmental Program, the IPCC founding documents, the UNFCCC-United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and other UN documents.
They don’t pretend to hide it, although they do. It UN plainly states the purpose is to “examine the effects of human caused climate change..”. Putting the cart before the horse, there is no scientific basis for studying the climate without first identifying the significant mechanisms that function in the climate. The CO2 “cycle”, such as it is, makes up only one small, and limited process.
I would not buy a used car from a scientist.
Even if it was peer-reviewed.
Richard,
“I would not buy a used car from a scientist.”
I have known people in scores of different fields, from ministers to used car salespeople. I’ve not noticed any difference in their honesty (excepting the actual criminals I’ve known). That still surprises me, because many occupations pretty much require dishonesty.
It’s a mystery of life, imo. Not the only one, not the biggest.
Trust engineers. It has been said that in times of stress or under pressure engineers tend to blurt out the truth.
My experience though, is that most people don’t actually want to hear the truth. They only want to hear a favorable version of it.
The problem with Mankind, not matter the profession, is that there are people involved.
PS I won’t buy a used car from a mechanic, unless I knew him and his character well.
hat still surprises me, because many occupations pretty much require dishonesty.
Praytell Larry, could you possibly list all these occupations that “require” dishonesty? You can leave criminal enterprises out of the list obviously, as they are dishonest by definition. Which non criminal occupations REQUIRE dishonesty Larry? Your list has to be long enough to satisfy your own claim of “many”.
Defense Lawyer and Politician are the obvious two .. in no way can you actually say the truth so you either lie or get good at evasion.
davidmhoffer
Praytell Larry, could you possibly list all these occupations that “require” dishonesty? You can leave criminal enterprises out of the list obviously, as they are dishonest by definition. Which non criminal occupations REQUIRE dishonesty Larry? Your list has to be long enough to satisfy your own claim of “many”.
I saw a TV interview with some American hookers. They explained why they enjoy their work and how they got into that line of business. One said “I used to be a police officer but I wanted to do something that did not require dishonesty.”
To be really successful in business you have to be at least somewhat dishonest. “Of course our product is better than all our competitors! Worth it at twice the price! Of course we can fill that order by Friday. The check is in the mail.” I’ve seen what happens to businesses that are run by honest people – they fail, no matter how talented they are.
What do you have against an analytical chemist selling his old ride? Some of us are pretty handy with a wrench, even able to work on the new computer controlled everything models.
Would you rather buy from a used tree ring salesman?
From the article: “In military terms, this is the pursuit phase of battle. Boldness is the key to consolidating victory over a broken foe. The patience, planning, and vast resources of climate activists have paid off”
I would have to differ with that. I don’t see that the alarmists have won anything. The polls do not show that climate change is a concern for most people, despite the alamrist having society’s magaphones at their disposal, and despite their efforts to censor the skeptics.
Winner ! 😉
Sweet,
You might think it is a winner, but reality disagrees. See the polls, esp showing trends.
https://news.gallup.com/topic/category_climate_change.aspx
the same gallup that said Hillary was so far ahead…her presidency was inevitable
…reality sucks
And Hillary is now President.
Larry- it is indeed a winner.
Despite a constant drumbeat from the media, hollywood, academia and their democratic socialist party, Pew puts climate change as the 17th biggest concern to Americans:
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/02/04/state-of-the-union-2019-how-americans-see-major-national-issues/
Your own Gallup source lumps CC in with pollution/environment (real issues) to combine as the biggest problem to 4% of Americans:
https://news.gallup.com/poll/1675/most-important-problem.aspx
As I’ve pointed out before, you document the Santer lie that turned the real scientist’s no discernible signal to a clear human signal, the 390x alg hokey stick, the blatantly adjusted nonsense that contradicts decades of peer review science in dozens of fields and the thousands of scientists disputing CAGW.
You ignore the greening Gaia, record crop yields, reducing poverty and hunger, the absolute failure of “green energy”- see Germany- and continue to support the IPCC CAGW fraud…
Staggering…
More like the battle of the bulge. A last ditch offensive by the losing side desperately attempting to turn the tide. I say Nuts!
Or like during WW2 in the Pacific when Japanese soldiers to whom surrender was dishonorable and dying for the Emperor was preferred in a last desperate futile Banzai charge.
Except the Warmunistas have no honor.
And ALGORE is their Emperor.
Tom,
They have gained support from almost all the relevant institutions in US society – academia, news media, NGOs, and big corporations. They are gaining strength, state by state — see the push for wind and solars.
“The polls do not show that climate change is a concern for most people ”
That is false. A majority favor several bold actions to fight climate change, and the polls show such support has been slowly increasing over time (trends are the key to predicting political events).
76% – spend more on solar and wind.
67% – mandatory controls on emissions of CO2 and other GHG.
58% – stricter regulation of fracking.
53% – impose carbon taxes.
Other Gallop polls show that 60% believe that the effects of global warming have already become visible.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/232007/americans-want-government-more-environment.aspx
https://news.gallup.com/poll/232007/americans-want-government-more-environment.aspx
Larry
The question that should be asked is, “what are we, individually, prepared to sacrifice for the environment”?
1. A car
2. A mobile phone
3. Electricity
4. Gas
5. Petroleum
6. Portland cement
So, no. I don’t believe asking if a remote government is doing anything for the environment is good enough.
Gallup polls are a business model designed to sustain Gallup’s business, not public opinion.
Hotscot,
Keep those eyes closed to any contrary information! That’s the post-mo way!
Larry, how about the contrary information collected by that huge survey conducted by the UN? Unsurprisingly I can’t find the link, but I recall a figure of something like 900,000 respondents. Climate change or its numerous variations figures last.
I suspect that you associate with a fairly rarified sources of information, and perhaps a similarly rarified group of personal contacts. Some of us live and work in the real world. My customers don’t usually venture an opinion on climate change. All the ones with something to lose avoid the subject. That is, until they realise that expressing their opinion to me is not going to backfire on them. Following “extraordinary popular delusions” may be a characteristic of humans, but there are a significant number who have another form of hard-wiring. They know when they are being lied to. It has nothing to do with the subject matter, and everything to do with the “body language”. The arrogance and condescension produced by the likes of Petersen and Westerling is obvious.
Keep those eyes closed to any contrary information! That’s the post-mo way!
Keep your eyes closed to the facts, that’s the Larry way!
Larry confuses token gestures with actual serious actions.
Despite alarmists supposedly controlling the MSM, all the major science institutions and journals, despite nearly every country in the world signing up to the Paris accord, what’s happening? All the wind and solar projects combine comprise a tiny fraction of the world’s power, and in every local where they get to a large enough percentage that they negatively impact price and stability to the point that the population gets upset, they’re getting rolled back. GHG emissions are climbing in all the countries that said they would reduce them in the short term, and they are sky rocketing in all the countries that said they would do something “soon”. Sales of gas guzzling SUV’s and trucks are booming. Electric vehicles cling to a tiny market share only because of large subsidies, and they drive for free on the roads that the gas guzzlers pay for. Look around you Larry.
The alarmist industry is like a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Apologies to Shakespear, but I see no concrete action on the part of either individuals en masse nor governments of any stripe actually taking place. Lots of token projects to be sure, highly visible, highly publicized, but not of any real significance. GHG’s, still they rise (apologies to Galileo).
If the alarmists were actually winning, they wouldn’t need to resort to papers like this one. That they do suggests their desperation. You want to be a pundit, you need to go a layer deeper in your analysis. Well ten for you.
Larry
Straight from the hoses mouth. A UN online study conducted over nearly 10M people, on 16 life affecting priorities such as health, education and internet access.
Climate change came 16th – behind internet access.
Larry
sorry, I think I forgot the link.
It’ll help you open your eyes to contrary information, and also help you understand that the USA isn’t the centre of the universe.
http://data.myworld2015.org
Come on man.
Bold action. Ha. Ha.
Be specific, what bold action would be required to say reduce US CO2 emissions by 90%? Reduce world CO2 emissions by 50%?
Wasting money that we do not on a silly plan that will not work due to basic engineering and economic reasons, is not bold action.
We have fake news that is a mouth piece for special interesting groups.
If you tell people lies and then ask them if they believe in the lies and they do, they will not support the lie when they find out they were lied to.
People support spending money on green stuff because:
1) They believe spending money on green stuff will make some measurable difference in global warming. The green scam plan does not work.
2) They do not understand developed country swill make almost no difference in world CO2 emissions
3) The green scams will make electricity unimaginably expensive, will result in high job losses, and will eventually result in power outages.
William,
“Be specific, what bold action would be required to say reduce US CO2 emissions by 90%?”
You appear to be a bit confused about “winning. ” Perhaps that’s why the skeptics are losing. If the climate activists gain power and implement, do you really believe they’ll cry about the difficulty of reducing US emissions by 90%?
One of my favorite military jokes from the 1970s:
I think a see your point, if something or someone does not stop the cult of CAGW, they will implement laws and push push policies that will destroy a country.
What will end the reign of cult will be joblessness and super high electricity prices and riots in the streets.
What we need is a different strategy concerning science. Fighting is not science. We need something that changes minds
The sceptics kerp losing? Except elections. Funny, that.
If the climate activists gain power and implement, do you really believe they’ll cry about the difficulty of reducing US emissions by 90%?
Do you really think that they could do so without dooming billions to starvation and sparking a massive revolt? Do you think the people pushed to the brink of extinction would just go quietly into the night?
Larry,
I spent a large amount (to me) on solar, NOT because I think this will save the world but because it makes financial sense for me to do so.
South Australia is high on the list of regions with the a very high proportion of wind and solar generation and also has the dubious distinction of the very high, some say the highest, costs for electricity supply.
I was almost forced by the Government to use their incentives for solar power in order to reduce the costs they had imposed on me with their stupid belief in CAGW.
You could be drawing false conclusions from the figures – sounds familiar re ‘climate science’?
John – you have done a good thing.
Every rooftop with solar takes money from the grid scale generators of intermittent power. Rooftop is the only source of electricity that has higher priority access to the electricity market than grid scale intermittents. The only way it cannot be sent out is if the local grid reaches the allowable voltage limit.
I will be looking for the Sunday lunchtime in October or early November this year or next when the SA network is fed entirely from rooftops. All the grid scale intermittents will be curtailed – maybe some output supplying Victoria.
With LGCs now oversupplied causing dramatic price drops and rooftop taking away market share, the grid scale intermittents in SA will struggle. Proponents of proposed subsidy farms must surely find funding difficult. They no longer have a guaranteed market and their subsidies are on a steep downward slide:
http://www.cleanenergyregulator.gov.au/PublishingImages/RET/February-2019-LGC-market-update.jpg
Farming subsidies in the electricity market in Australia is not what it was 3 years ago. With Shorten gone, there is little prospect of the RET being ratcheted up.
The polls you cite show that the population at large responds to stories in the media, taking them as true representations. That is because the money behind something like 95% of the news about climate change, climate events, is all in one direction. If people never hear, or never understand a subject they go with what they hear and see in the public news.
I had a horrible time this summer in a family visit to Minnesota. The topic came up and every comment was “I saw on TV” or “I heard on the radio”, or “my friend told me” or “everyone knows”. The closest thing to science was something like- “I read about a paper in Nature that said….”
Not a single reference to any actual science at all.
Stalin won the propaganda war in the Soviet Union with a simple expedient- If they do not submit kill them. If you don’t kill them someone else will”.
He also had a battle winning formula- the man behind every advancing platoon was the platoon leader whose job was to shoot anyone who didn’t press forward. Behind the Pl’s were officers to do the same.
In which battlefield have the alarmists prevailed? Only in the gullible unholy western science-politics-media swamp. This is a small part of our world. All the rest don’t even give a shrug about our hypocritical stupidity, and the only reason we still indulge in it, is that we can afford it, for the time being. Asia, Africa, Latin America, the great majority of the world’s population, pay no more than lip service to the climate disaster warnings. It’s no risk to them, they have no self-imposed climate obligations, and if they’re lucky, they might get a windfall of guilt-money from the west, or at least reap the fruits of a less competitive western economy, so why not join the scam?
“The American media lends too much weight to people who dismiss climate change” Not how I see it. Some newspapers and other media outlets have gone to the extreme of refusing to permit people with opposing viewpoint (aka climate deniers) to express their views and data. It tells me they know the opposing arguments are very valid and they don’t want them to be heard or seen.
“Most of the contrarians are not scientists, and the ones who are have very thin credentials. They are not in the same league with top scientists. They aren’t even in the league of the average career climate scientist.’ …” Again, some very prominent scientists with expertise in the climate have been speaking out but they are not allowed to write in peer reviewed publications because they don’t want the information available to all. More and more scientists are coming out of the closet, to use today’s imagery, which they also don’t want to become known.
Free the data! Free the science!
The authors of the ‘Discrepancy’ paper, as well as the reviewers, have stepped over the bounds of science into the realm of totalitarianism. Does no one respect the scientific method (as elucidated by Karl Popper) anymore?
The CAGW Cabal does not play by the rules of science.
Because of this, the battle must be fought on the political battlefield…or on actual battlefields…or not fought at all. There are no other options available.
On the political battlefield, the CAGW’ers have all the weapons and all the ammunition (they own all the press and all of the classrooms and too many courtrooms). All of our ammunition (i.e. THE FACTS) have been “De-Platformed” off the battlefield by censorship or just by simply failing to report the easily available facts.
Trump better get engaged in this political battle. There is EVERYTHING to lose. The Republicans will never willingly get into the battle…they are cowards too connected to and dependent upon the deep state…WHICH THEY DON’T CONTROL.
“Trump better get engaged in this political battle. There is EVERYTHING to lose.”
Trump said in a speech in New Hampshire last night that he was eagerly looking forward to debating the Democrat winner about the Green New Deal. Trump said he was going to tear them up!, or words to that effect.
I suggest that:
1. Peer review, aka pal-review, is worthless or less-than-worthless, based on past misconduct by academics.
2. Credentials do not matter either, because so many academics have published blatant alarmist falsehoods about climate and energy.
3. The best objective measure of scientific credibility is one’s predictive track record. It should be noted that the IPCC and fellow-traveller climate alarmists have a PERFECTLY NEGATIVE PREDICTIVE TRACK RECORD – EVERY ONE OF THEIR VERY-SCARY PREDICTIONS OF RUNAWAY GLOBAL WARMING, WILDER WEATHER ETC HAVE FAILED TO MATERIALIZE. Nobody should believe them.
Mr. Macrea
It’s even worse than you say:
If this was real science, the wrong guesses would falsify the “CO2 is Evil” theory.
But the wrong climate predictions, repeated every year since the 1970s, are not real science at all — they are climate politics.
The new way to sell socialism ( the ‘we need a strong socialist/marxist government to save the planet for the children’ BS )
People living on this planet have had almost 80 years of experience with rising CO2 levels and mild, intermittent global warming.
No one was hurt.
Winter nights are warmer in Alaska.
The planet is ‘greening’.
There is no need for wild guessing a future climate with a rate of warming quadruple the actual warming rate in the 1940 through 2018 period … with no explanation of why FUTURE global warming must be 100% bad news, while PAST global warming had been 100% good news.
There is no scientific need for (wrong) wild guesses of the future climate, because those wrong wild guesses are not real science at all — they are smarmy leftist politics, using government bureaucrats with science degrees, and computer games, to scare and control people.
Leftists = lame liars and losers ( always confident, but always wrong ! )
My climate science blog,
with over 40,000 page views:
http://www.elOnionBloggle.Blogspot.com
Not always. Even a blind squirrel finds the occasional nut. 😉
The over-confidence goes with their left brain thinking style. They are literally not in their right minds. It involves a disconnect with reality that mimics schizophrenia. link
‘If this was real science, the wrong guesses would falsify the “CO2 is Evil” theory.’
The avoidance of falsification through vagueness, a feature of pseudo science, was recognized by Feynman fifty years ago.
https://youtu.be/b1cGqL9y548 at time 53:00
Richard Greene: No argument here.
Recent articles:
Jul 20, 2019
WHAT THE GREEN NEW DEAL IS REALLY ABOUT — AND IT’S NOT THE CLIMATE
By Allan M.R. MacRae, B.A.Sc., M.Eng.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/07/20/what-the-green-new-deal-is-really-about-and-its-not-the-climate/
Jul 04, 2019
THE COST TO SOCIETY OF RADICAL ENVIRONMENTALISM
By Allan M.R. MacRae, B.A.Sc., M.Eng.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/07/04/the-cost-to-society-of-radical-environmentalism/
Jun 15, 2019
CO2, GLOBAL WARMING, CLIMATE AND ENERGY
by Allan M.R. MacRae, B.A.Sc., M.Eng., P.Eng.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/06/15/co2-global-warming-climate-and-energy-2/
May 25, 2019
SCIENCE’S UNTOLD SCANDAL: THE LOCKSTEP MARCH OF PROFESSIONAL SOCIETIES TO PROMOTE THE CLIMATE CHANGE SCARE
By Tom Harris and Dr. Jay Lehr
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/05/25/sciences-untold-scandal-the-lockstep-march-of-professional-societies-to-promote-the-climate-change-scare/
April 14, 2019
HYPOTHESIS: RADICAL GREENS ARE THE GREAT KILLERS OF OUR AGE
By Allan M.R. MacRae, B.A.Sc., M.Eng.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/04/14/hypothesis-radical-greens-are-the-great-killers-of-our-age/
What we have is asymmetric warfare. The alarmists haven’t noticed that the mainstream media are increasingly irrelevant. Most Americans get their news from the social media. link The alarmists only think they’re winning.
The mainstream media are not irrelevant.
The alarmists are winning.
Their climate claims are getting more bizarre than ever before, starting about five years ago.
Leading Dumbocrat politicians are endorsing climate related policies that would destroy the U.S. economy as we know it.
The leftists come up with ridiculous plans (The Green Ordeal), promoted by ridiculous politicians (Alexandria Occasionally Coherent), and ridiculous
spokespeople (Greta Thunderberg), and over 90%, perhaps over 95%, of news sources online take them seriously.
That’s not a “winning” position for real climate science (sometimes called climate deniers, or science deniers, by the always angry leftists).
Burg)
They are getting that way.
Richard,
See my comment about the civil war. Many of the people on this thread have their eyes tightly closed, seeing happy visions in their mind, and wave away any contrary evidence.
This is a commonplace in history. It’s often how wars are lost.
Oddly, this “dreamland” sometimes continues even after total defeat. See The Culture of Defeat: On National Trauma, Mourning, and Recovery by the great sociologist and historian Wolfgang Schivelbusch. I strongly recommend it! Perhaps a future edition will discuss climate skeptics – unless they wake up in time.
https://www.amazon.com/Culture-Defeat-National-Mourning-Recovery/dp/0805044213/
We’re losing?
You just wrote an article about a paper so absurd that it defies ridicule. It is a desperate attempt to silence skeptics and would never have been written if the alarmists were in fact winning. In fact, the paper whines about MSM being “crowded out” by alternative media. It isn’t being crowded out. It is being ABANDONED. The MSM is the town cryer complaining that it is being crowded out by newspapers. The newspapers complain of being crowded out by radio and TV. Now we have newpapers, radio and TV complaining that they are being crowded out by forums that facilitate (oh! the horror!) debate and commentary from one and all. The MSM is just the town cryer bemoaning his loss of relevance.
The war hasn’t even begun yet. When/if the alarmists gain enough power to actually substantially cut GHG’s in any meaningful way, do you think the loss of the ability to sustain life will be taken lightly by the populace? No it won’t. That’s when the war will actually start, if it ever gets that far (which I doubt). If it does start, it will be brief. You cannot tell 90% of the population to just lay down and die in poverty without push back… from 90% of the population. The notion that the alarmists can same day gain power and just do whatever they want is as absurd an alarmist position as is climate alarm.
and you think that is good? No one watches the Fake media?
We have a collapse of independent, thoughtful news.
We have lost thoughtful informed critical discussion where people and groups of people change their minds because of reason and discussions.
There once was an old system that had checks and balances, to chaos. The old news had charts, facts, and competition of theories, competition of policies, and so on.
What we have now is dangerous and destructive. Everything has become a fight. Problems are not solved.
The facts have been removed, now, because the CAGW policies cannot stand criticism.
Follow the (tenure and promotion) money in the volume-based academic advancement and accreditation system. Double your salary with a promotion via the re-accreditation process reporting position along side the volume-based academic promotion. Reproducible science is a distant or nonexistent concept in the modern era of academic promotions. A number of recent Nobel Prize winners said they would likely not get tenure in the current system. Peter Higgs was one of them.
Just to be real clear … if you don’t yet have tenure and you win the Nobel Prize, of course you will get tenure. Donna Strickland for example. The thing is, she wasn’t a full professor relatively late in her career until she won the Nobel Prize (but as far as I know she had tenure).
Science by legislation is not far off, if not already here…
Amateurs! “Contrarians”?? Not having the guts to call people ‘deniers’ will get you nowhere with the media.
And really piss-poor PR work by this team. They certainly did not have their ducks in a row at the point of publication because I’m seeing very little media coverage after 24 hours.
And so few co-authors! What were they thinking? They needed at least a dozen or more, from many more universities, to present a united front. If they’d had more, they could have issued multiple press releases well before publication and maybe gotten better media coverage.
That’s what Harvey and company did back in 2017 with their “Crockford is a polar bear denier” paper in BioScience. But where did all that media attention get them? I know it got me a ton of new supporters and thousands of additional readers for the paper they were trying to deflect interest from. Since that brief flurry of international attention, no one over the last year has mentioned the stupid Harvey paper (which was at least as stupid and badly conceived and executed as this one).
I predict the shelf life of this paper will be even less than Harvey et al. enjoyed, in part because it’s so boring.
My friend Jack started this thread, Polar Bears Are Thriving, which is about your book. The poor replies have been comical and full of fallacies, in a thread that is now 37 pages long.
https://www.debatepolitics.com/environment-and-climate-issues/348933-polar-bears-thriving.html
and this thread I started, which is now 48 pages long with similar hilarious replies against the research.
New Research Finds Polar Bear Numbers Up 42% Since 2004 – Survival Rates Unaffected By Sea Ice Availability
https://www.debatepolitics.com/environment-and-climate-issues/311882-new-research-finds-polar-bear-numbers-up-42-since-2004-survival-rates-unaffected-sea-ice-avail.html
YOU have been well supported in those two threads with comments and posted research.
Thank you.
Your polar bear science blog is very interesting, Ms. Crockford, and I didn’t even like polar bears before I started reading it.
Readers here should check it out:
https://polarbearscience.com/tag/science-blog/
Susan,
I’ ve been wondering about that, too.
My guess (guess!) is that this was too. Calling people deniers and such is nice for a mob on the street, but Springer executives were unhappy when they got a letter calling them on this. And probably more so after chatting with their attorneys.
Hence the actions described in my Updates section.
Journalists are more savvy about the libel laws, and might have avoided stepping into this tar patch.
But boldness often wins wars, even if it loses the occasional battle. Climate alarmists face what appears to be one of the least litigious groups in modern America – skeptical climate scientists. A decade of aggressive pressure might at last found the outer limit in the abuse they will accept.
Which the alarmists are happy about, as that gives them ample room to run and win.
Susan
The world loves an underdog.
Keep going, you’re winning.
Hear hear
This paper is weeks from being withdrawn by the publisher… if not days.
“‘It’s time to stop giving these people visibility, which can be easily spun into false authority,’ Professor Alex Petersen said. ‘By tracking the digital traces of specific individuals in vast troves of publicly available media data, we developed methods to hold people and media outlets accountable for their roles in the climate-change-denialism movement, which has given rise to climate change misinformation at scale.’”
“I have here in my hand a list of 205 that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department. ” ~ Joe McCarthy
I find this “study” to be profoundly alarming.
Rob,
Yes, that nails it!
The article in question has nothing to do with science but rather politics and the religion of AGW. To be fair, instead of the label “scientist” they should use the term: “antiscience alarmest”. There is no consensus regarding the validity of the AGW conjecture. True scientists have never registered and voted on the validity of the AGW conjecture. But even if they had, the results would have been meaningless because science is not a democracy. The laws of science are not some sort of legislation. Scientific theories are not validated by a voting process.
William,
“There is no consensus regarding the validity of the AGW conjecture.”
That is quite false. Many studies by different groups have confired that almost all climate scientists believe that the world has warmed since the 19th century, and that since WWII anthropogenic factors have played a large role. See some of the studies up to 2015; there have been more since. The existance of this consensus has probably better established than most aspects of climate science (which is nuts, imo)
https://fabiusmaximus.com/2015/09/09/consensus-climate-science-89186/
There is less agreement on the details of the past (eg, how much of warming since 1950 was anthro, with what certainty can that be said). There is, so far as I can tell, little consensus about the future.
No no no! All of the studies you speak of are some form of speculation. To actually determine a world wide consensus, the relevant powers would have to first register all of the Worlds relevant scientists and then have them formally vote on the validity of the AGW conjecture. They have never done that. But even if they had the consensus is meaningless because science is not a democracy. Scientific theories are not validated by a voting process. The reality is that the AGW conjecture depends upon the existence of a radiant greenhouse effect caused by trace gases in the earth’s atmosphere with LWIR absorption bands. Such a radiant greenhouse effect has not been observed anywhere in the solar system. The radiant greenhouse effect is science fiction so hence the AGW conjecture is science fiction as well. Any consensus does not change the science involved.
Very depressing post.
Steve,
“Very depressing post.”
Yes, it is. That’s exactly the point.
I’m reviewing a book about the Civil War, one of the best of the scores I’ve read about this important event. It brings out with exceptional clarity that many (perhaps most) of the Confederacy’s citizens (ie, not the slaves) were happy about the progress of the war – in the vital East, at least.
General Lee’s victories were amazing – brilliant and dramatic, some among the most so in western history. But they marked the slow defeat of the South. Roughly equivalent losses for the side with roughly 1/5 the GDP and population eligable for arms.
This is the story of the climate crusade. The alarmists take over institution after institution, amass vast resources, build a giant apparatus of NGOs to carry their flags. Their popular support slowly grows (ie, build the machinery first, getting the pubic’s support is the last step). They are patient, choosing the slow path to victory.
Meanwhile the skeptic do .. what?
In effect, the skeptics kick sand on the crusaders,’s columns of troops, put sugar in the odd tank now and ten, run lemonade stands to raise money, and have wonderful festivals. They are happy, so far.
On a different note, here is the book – which I strongly recommend. Easy for the general reader to understand, exceptionally clear maps and graphics, and tells the exciting story of Robert E. Lee’s first two years in the “War Between the States” (as they say in the South). Lots of fascinating but little-know information explaining why the South won (e.g., their archaic strategy and organization, Davis vs. Lincoln).
Someday a historian will write a similar story about the climate wars – unless something happens to change its course. Sometimes the sight of looming defeat is <motivational.
Robert E. Lee at War: Tragic Secessionist by Scott Bowden.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0985357223
Larry,
I have to correct you on one thing above: the Southerners I know do not call the US Civil War “The War Between the States”. It’s “The War of the Northern Aggression.”
The skeptics will win because the winner will be determined by nature. Time is all that is required. Anything that is done to buy us time, even if it’s just kicking sand, is a winning strategy. The world will be fine, regardless. We are just trying to keep them from destroying economies before nature proves them wrong.
US Grant’s campaigns and victories were even more amazing:
Fort Henry
Fort Donelson
Shilo
Chattanooga
The Disengagement of the Army of the Potomac in front of Richmond
The Appomattox campaign
And his masterpiece, the Vicksburg campaign where outnumbered, surrounded in enemy territory with no supply lines he fought 6 battles in 3 weeks, winning all and ultimately forcing the surrender of an army of 30,000 men in Vicksburg.
Grant forced the surrender of 3 entire Confederate armies during the war.
At the beginning of the war, a Confederate general, AP Hill I think, said the Union had most of the generals from West Point, but there was one in particular he hoped they would never find and place in command: US Grant. He was bulldog determined and would never give up until the enemy was defeated. US Grant directed the efforts of the entire US military during the final year and a half of the war, not just the operations of one army in one theater.
For these reasons, Grant is one of the greatest military leaders of all-time.
This paper is a open call for censorship of opposing views. Nothing more and nothing less.
I suppose it should have been expected in light of recent events. I the past few months we have seen it revealed that the major players have gone all out to control the flow of information wherever and however the public gets it.
Notable:
1) Facebook and YouTube have gone on a rampage censoring or “demonetizing” anybody who has a viewpoint divergent of the “Narrative”, on any topic.
2) Google has in place algorithms to hide disfavored facts and opinions and promote favored topics. One stated goal is to “prevent another 2016”, which is to say the reelection of President Trump. Rest assured that their goals go far beyond politics.
3) The unbelievable bias of the mainstream media, on display all day every day.
4) The correct political classes calling anyone who disagrees “raysis”, and now “white supremacist”, as if that wins an argument.
Proof:
1) Prager University videos were censored as pornography. They had no excuse, so they used the old catch-all.
2) Centrist political voices, Candace Owens and Dr. Ben Carson are labeled as “alt-right”, then as raysis, and then as “White Supremacist”, Owens and Carson are black, the Left considers them to be runaways, off the plantation.
3) Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is banned from Twitter for posting video of protesters outside his home making threats.
Nobody can say that the above examples are “isolated incidents”, because such things should not ever happen at all. What the above examples do show is a wide and deep censorship campaign targeting everything outside the preferred narrative of the Left. Yes, the censorship campaign goes too far and shuts down a voice with too much public presence. This causes unwanted attention to be turned onto the censorship programs. Damage control ensues, “isolated incident”, “algorithm error”. It will not happen again, we are assured. Adjustments will be made, algorithms corrected, in censorship programs which should not exist in the first place.
So what can we say about open calls for absolute censorship in Climate Science? Perhaps in this day and age, it is nothing more than “Business As Usual”. It is also a trial balloon, to see if it will fly. But more, it is also a call for more strident censorship wherever and however it can be applied. If you will, a signal to all the major players that open censorship is now in play. A message that with luck, dissenting voices can be stamped out, once and for all.
Tony,
Well said, great analysis!
The same battle is ongoing here in the UK. The younger generation now follow the musings of a 16 year old autistic girl and the ”environmental elite” are joining or believing the ”Extinction Rebellion’ anarchist mob.
Could we please hear from the sensible and respected scientists with some firm rebuttals of this alarmist climate change rubbish . If not then as Tim Rose has found out the battle is lost.
AGW’s biggest denier is the data.
Leitmotif
AGW’s biggest denier is the data.
B I N G O !
A comment on the feature photograph and the title of the article.
The feature photo clearly shows Arabic or Turkish warriors. These warriors were Islamic, and therefor were on a Jihad, not a Crusade. Further, the mixed use of the scimitar and firearms clearly visible shows that this attacking army is almost certainly of the Ottoman Empire. One of the primary goals of the repeated invasions of the West by the Ottoman Empire was the destruction of Christianity and by extension of all of Western Civilization. This was the goal of the Ottoman Jihad.
It seems that the Climate Wars, which now endeavor to destroy Science as we know it has much more in common with Jihad than the defensive battles of the Crusades.
Perhaps the article should be renamed to the “Climate Jihad”.
TonyL,
“These warriors were Islamic, and therefor were on a Jihad, not a Crusade.”
They might have been fighting Christian crusaders.
“by the Ottoman Empire was the destruction of Christianity and by extension of all of Western Civilization.”
That didn’t end well for them, since they were invaded and occupied by nations of western civ. Tit for tat is the rule of history.
“than the defensive battles of the Crusades.”
You must be kidding. Many of the Crusades were explicitly aggressive. Perhaps the one most similar (in a loose sense) to the climate wars is the Albigensian Crusade (1209 – 1229). They exterminated the Cathar movement (and many of the Cathars), began the Inquisition, and ruined southern France.
There is a lesson there for skeptics.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albigensian_Crusade
Not likely. The history books date the end of the Great Crusades as 1291, long before the introduction of firearms. Those Islamic warriors clearly have guns.
Yup, they sure were. Check out what the muslims were doing to the christian pilgrims to the Holy Lands, which started this whole mess. The phrase “An Eye For An Eye” comes to mind.
As far as the Albigensian Crusade goes, it appears that the only reason it is listed as a Crusade seems to be that Pope Innocent III declared it to be one. This one is utterly different from all the others in all of place, enemy, goals and objectives.
Your link to Wiki shows it was little more than a brutal power play by Rome to squash dissenting voices. Hardly the same as an expedition to defend the Holy Lands.
It wasn’t just the attacks on pilgrims.
Muslim slave-raiding pretty much depopulated the entire northern Mediterranean coast by the end of the 11th century. Their slave-raiding extended all the way to Ireland.
Eventually Europeans had had enough, and they had the power to counter-attack by about the 12th century.
However, the relentless hostility of Muslim societies toward an infidel Christian Europe is what prompted the Crusades. In a religious age, the argument for war was inevitably religious.
A moral guide and self-defense. The crusades were not so different from secular adventures, past and present, which claim ethical guides and self-defense, but typically lack the existential threat of old. Well, catastrophic anthropogenic climate change aside, where the end is nigh, nigh, nigh, and nigh.
I remember in the late 1970s, scientists who had defected from the (old) USSR.
I remember a talk one of them gave at McGill. He described how apparatchiks would go through the journals in the university library and razor out pages with articles they did not like and blackout references to papers that they did not like.
Seems like nothing has changed. Censorship is what socialists/totalitarians do.
Walt,
“He described how apparatchiks would go through the journals in the university library and razor out pages with articles they did not like and blackout references to papers that they did not like.”
That’s the kind of inefficiency that led to the Soviet Union’s fall. America is more efficient.
Climate skeptics are weeded out at graduate school. Any survivors are prevented from getting jobs at major institutions of academia, the news media, and many government agencies. Any that survive that culling are excluded from publishing in the major journals.
Apply this pressure for a few generations and climate skeptic scientists will be as rare as black swans (they do exist, but are seldom seen outside zoos).
Read Hamaker and Weaver’s “Survival of Civilization”. It is now a free download. Greenhouse Effect=Global Warming=Climate change. What will be the next more sanitized label? Climate change is part of a very long cycle. By the way, if those of you that garden or maintain landscapes use Glacial Gravel dust on your properties, you will be pleasantly surprised. How do you think the earth renews itself? It will do it whether we want it to or not.
If the authors of this paper are worried about “the media” giving too much space to climate change skeptics, this may be an expression of their fear that the skeptic point of view is gaining credibility with the public.
Global warming scaremongers are beginning to resemble apocalyptic religious cults that encourage people to join by saying that the world will end on X date, and only those in the cult will be saved by God. When the deadline passes and nothing happens, the cults adjust the dates into the future and start a new rumor. Unless the cultists drink the Jonestown Kool-Aid, some people get discouraged waiting for the apocalypse, and leave the cult for “life as usual”.
Various scaremongers have told us we would have an ice age in the 1990’s, a massive die-off in 2000, an ice-free Arctic in 2012, Florida underwater, and other calamities which never happened at the predicted dates. Meanwhile, the forested area of the planet is increasing, as are crop yields, while average temperatures are nearly stable (although seasonal variation continues). People are getting tired of being told they have to give up cars, planes, and cheap electricity to “prevent” some predicted disaster that never happens, so they tend to ignore the “warnings” of the scaremongers.
It’s a political and social adventure pursued by special and peculiar interests for wealth and leverage.
Nice and concise, nailed it. I tend to say “power” in place of “leverage” but yes. And what did Mr. Orwell teach us about power?
“How does one man assert his power over another, Winston?”
Winston thought. “By making him suffer”, he said.
“Exactly. By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own?”
They love equality – just as long as we’re all equally scared and miserable.
“Data shows that about half the mainstream media visibility goes to climate-change deniers…”
Wait, what? Was this “data” gathered in another dimension?
This article presented a liberal’s assessment of the Climate debate situation THAT IS TOTALLY DIVORCED FROM RESLITY…in every single aspect and declaration.
Skeptics have virtually no public visibility. I’m following the Climate debate very closely, and… 1.) There IS NO DEBATE because the Climate fraudster scientists/activists refuse to engage in debate.
Climate Skeptics have been deplatformed at every turn in every possible way. Skeptics get nothing but ridicule in the press with no paths to civil rebuttal.
2.) I have to use high level internet searching skills to follow any real climate science developments. All well read journals fail to report fairly…just the opposite in fact.
There are sensational and usually false weather related stories featured in the press on a daily basis (propaganda). NEVER are actual scientific facts reported.
I see no basis for any actual factual scientific climate discussions going forward. The CAGW Cabal was born 100% in politics…so that, unfortunately, is where the battle must be played out. THEY WON’T PLAY BY THE RULES OF SCIENCE, so all that is left is the political battlefield…or at worst an actual battlefield.
This CAGW crudade is a clever but thinly disguised plan to create mass political momentum towards a Centralized International (Totalitarian) Authority that supersedes the rule of Nation States.
If they succeed, individual liberties, the linchpin of the U.S.Constitution, will be crushed.
Many millions of us who cherish these liberties will not freely and never easily give them up. I hope enough of the rest of the country comes to the correct conclusion before the International Socialists somehow drag us into violent conflict. I don’t see any normal political path to CAGW victory. Democrats do not respect laws that don’t favor the fulfillment of their socialist goals. Any extra-political conflict is a conflict that would be won by whichever side the US Military is on…i.e. those who have taken oaths to defend and protect our Constitution.
Glass half full?
Larry you see success by the propagandists.
I see desperation.
The propaganda has become comedy,the most strident are the group who will suffer most for their participation in promoting what amounts to fraud.
These groups declared war on the taxpayer, naturally they now despair ..for their funding.
Canada will vote this fall on Carbon Tax, when asked to hand over money,then the taxpayer finally gets heard.
The Emperors are butt ugly, greedy little naked morons and the normal citizens mock them more each year.
The emperors of our government bureaus, have proven Big Government is massively destructive.
CAGW,AKA Climate Change will prove to be a massive own goal.
From personal experience, I can state that the politicization of peer review in climatology has been in force for at least 6 years.
From personal experience I can also state that climate modelers are not scientists. Also here.
Remove the climate modelers from the Climate Communications list of the holy among scientists, and you’d have a better view of the legitimate contestants in the debate.
I also get the feeling that climate modelers cite one another’s papers excessively in order to ramp a bud’s h-index. The hundreds of citations they get are vastly inflated compared to the important papers in Chemistry.
For example, Henry Taube, Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry, told me his 1952 review article, Rates and Mechanisms of Substitution in Inorganic Complexes in Solution Chem. Rev. 50, 169-126 was his most important and fundamental piece of work; one that really started the ball rolling for research on metal ions in solution; central to Inorganic Chemistry.
Since 1952, that paper has garnered 489 citations, according to Google Scholar.
Meanwhile, Kevin Trenberth’s 2015 paper, Attribution of climate extreme events Nature Climate Change 5, 725–730 already has 276 citations. (His webpage boasts his H-index.)
Presumably in the equivalent 67 years (2082) it will have a comparative 3698 citations.
And Michael Mann’s infamous 1998 Global-scale temperature patterns and climate forcing over the past six centuries Nature, 392, 779-787 has 2269 citations (its corrigendum has only 44).
The citation skewedness of climatology is very evident.
I’d suggest that Henry Taube’s work has easily had a more constructive impact on science than Kevin Trenberth’s or Michael Mann’s. And yet, Nature Communications would be dismissive.
The Climate Hysterics can write all the peer reviewed propaganda articles they want. And, yes, they will tend to dominate the narrative, especially in the shallow minded, snooty sectors of the bourgeois.
You can see this in a poll the NYTimes conducted a few years ago where 65% of respondents parroted the Climate Catastrophe line.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/01/29/us/global-warming-poll.html?mtrref=undefined&gwh=D0E4DA5422286AC09991DA0347DF1743&gwt=pay&assetType=REGIWALL
But the margins flip when pollsters get to the “Ask” and query how many people support taxes and surcharges respondents are willing to pay to deter consumption, ie turn energy into a luxury item only the 1 % can afford in order to Save the Planet.
This is what bugs the hell out of the ringleaders and High Priests of Climate Hysteria. They can saturate the population with propaganda until our head leaks, but once they reach into your wallet, people get all “irrational” and tell the Hysterics to pound sand. Hence the Yellow Vests; failed referenda in the Bluest of Blue State; a failed election for Labor Greenies in Australia.
This is Drump’s great advantage in the next election… he’s going to take the Green New Deal panoply of taxes and surcharges and hang the Dumocrats by the neck … all things otherwise being equal, this is Drump’s path to victory.
“In July the BBC said that the climate change crusade must win in the next 18 months. I believe that might be correct, but not in the sense they intended.”
This may be the most typical example of false claim effect on common folks. Contrary to the whole article, anybody with a brain void of a group-think can see through this. ippc was set-up as a proof that man-made OCO drives climate change. Their “models” indeed did. By coincidence, their models work on false premise — OCO is not the driver, it is the outcome of Global Warming.
However, the same models which predict so and so increment of global temperature (whatever that may mean) are absolutely inept in correlating the past trends — a make-up perhaps?
Didn’t we get quite a few “predictions” from those “ippc” persons? Did any of them came true???
I wonder how much introspection goes on in the alarmist world.
Do they ever ask themselves why they believe that the best way to argue their case is to prevent debate? Why do they feel that “false equivalence” is so dangerous to them? If they have the stronger case, why would a discussion not win them converts?
Do they not have ANY confidence in the strength of their arguments?
Larry,
Why is sorting people into two bins a “Methodological errors”? The authors
want to compare one set of people defined by a particular set of criteria (speaking
at Heartland conferences etc) against another set of roughly similar people. Hence
also by definition the same person cannot be in both bins? It would be pointless to
compare two identical lists of people. So for the comparison to be interesting you
have to put people in either category A or category B.
“In a display of tribal loyalty, Denning re-tweeted a complimentary note about this paper, not realizing that it classified him as a bad guy.”
I was the first to identify Denning as a mislabelling and informed him immediately.
weird
“and a strong supporter of the IPCC (as am I).”
Why? Even half the warming between 1951-2010 is too much.
I’ve done the calculation myself as to how much warming is consistent with an açceleration (other than the sine like oscillation with a 60 year period) and its half of the 0.6°C in HadCRUT4.
But the period where correlation was poor with my simple model was the past 20 years when it needed to be strong in order to be sure that even half was due to human emissions. This was before the adjustments to get rid of the pause but after many other adjustments. The whole global warming over the 20th C was 0.6°C in the mid noughties.
Now the IPCC in no way questions the reconstruction of these temperature anomalies even though obvious incompetence like getting hemispheres mixed up, getting a seasonal signal post 2000, or blatant bespoke adjustments to the 1940-1970 period.
It ditched the hockey stick but didn’t investigate what was obviously a dodgy reconstruction of proxies. It doesn’t do anything to examine if the Keeling curve is legitimate because the data shows its likely to be yearly increases based on the temperature anomaly 9 months in.
All of this is what comes from analysis of the published data. No extra information from an paid shill of big oil. The IPCC should address it.
Some Peer Review issues.
The next national election in 2020 will be an interesting measure of the mental state of our nation. But even they win hugely it will not be the last word on this alleged “victory” of the left, because there is rarely a final word in politics.
My general view of why they appear to have any success at all is that most people are utterly unaware of how their lives benefit from, and are even predicated upon things the left wish to destroy. I have trouble believing the oligarchs who finance the Democratic party–i.e. finance AOC, wish to make themselves poor. Yet, their dreams of eliminating fossil fuels without any replacement will do just that. They will have nothing but stranded assets on their hands, because there will be nothing but stranded assets.
I think this is a cognitive issue. The elites have trouble imagining that they won’t have their trust fund income and be living just as they do now. What they imagine is keeping their current wealth and privilege while reforming the world in a way that quiets their neuroses. The hoi polloi simply have trouble connecting dots from fossil fuels to anything other than their automobile.
I read recently about a tony apartment building in Caracas where the residents still have access to reliable power. But they have done this by purchasing and installing a diesel generator. I doubt they view the gulf between themselves and ordinary Venezuelans as a product of their increasing wealth. Rather, they must view themselves as poorer now for having to live in a ruined nation. Probably many of these people voted at least once for Hugo Chavez.
Projection, Dunning-Kruger effect, confirmation bias– do I wish I had a complete list of the cognitive troubles evident in the political left!
As sociology, this paper exhibits very, very poor (ok, outrageously poor) sampling methodology in support of a crybaby thesis… that the skeptics get more press than they ‘deserve’.
I see that Moncton of Benchly has served notice. Perhaps there will be an entertaining class-action suit.
I’m buying popcorn futures!
In the end there will be a stamped to crush the global warming con-game and the promoters
know they are running out of runway . Hence all the panic dates .
They have a business plan that has been blown well off course .