Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Scientists discussing the pros and cons of different means of coercing society into the correct climate beliefs, including imprisonment of climate deniers.
26 June 2020 8:00
Guest post: How climate change misinformation spreads online
Kathie Treen, PhD candidate in the computer science department at the University of Exeter
Dr Hywel Williams,associate professor in data science at the University of Exeter
Dr Saffron O’Neill, associate professor in geography at the University of Exeter
The rapid rise of social media over the past two decades has brought with it a surge in misinformation.
Online debates on topics such as vaccinations, presidential elections (pdf) and the coronavirus pandemic are often as vociferous as they are laced with misleading information.
Perhaps more than any other topic, climate change has been subject to the organised spread of spurious information. This circulates online and frequently ends up being discussed in established media or by people in the public eye.
But what is climate change misinformation? Who is involved? How does it spread and why does it matter?
In a new paper, published in WIREs Climate Change, we explore the actors behind online misinformation and why social networks are such fertile ground for misinformation to spread.
…
In the context of climate change research, misinformation may be seen in the types of behaviour and information which cast doubt on well-supported theories, or in those which attempt to discredit climate science.
These may be more commonly described as climate “scepticism”, “contrarianism” or “denialism”.
In a similar way, climate alarmism may also be construed as misinformation, as recent online debates have discussed. This includes making exaggerated claims about climate change that are not supported by the scientific literature. There is a negligible amount of literature about climate alarmism compared to climate scepticism, suggesting it is significantly less prevalent. As such, the focus for this article is on climate scepticism.
…
Then there are responses and regulation – bringing in a correction or a collaborative approach after the misinformation has been received, or even putting in place punishments, such as fines or imprisonment.
…
Regulation has been described as a “blunt and risky instrument” by a European Commission expert group. It is also potentially a threat to the democratic right to freedom of speech and has overtones of “Big Brother”.
…
Read more: https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-how-climate-change-misinformation-spreads-online
The abstract of the study;
Online misinformation about climate change
Kathie M. d’I. TreenHywel T. P. WilliamsSaffron J. O’NeillFirst published: 18 June 2020 https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.665
Edited by Irene Lorenzoni, Domain Editor, and Mike Hulme, Editor‐in‐Chief:
Funding information: Economic and Social Research Council, Grant/Award Number: ES/P011489/1; University of Exeter: Kathie Treen is funded through a University of Exeter PhD scholarship
Policymakers, scholars, and practitioners have all called attention to the issue of misinformation in the climate change debate. But what is climate change misinformation, who is involved, how does it spread, why does it matter, and what can be done about it? Climate change misinformation is closely linked to climate change skepticism, denial, and contrarianism. A network of actors are involved in financing, producing, and amplifying misinformation. Once in the public domain, characteristics of online social networks, such as homophily, polarization, and echo chambers—characteristics also found in climate change debate—provide fertile ground for misinformation to spread. Underlying belief systems and social norms, as well as psychological heuristics such as confirmation bias, are further factors which contribute to the spread of misinformation. A variety of ways to understand and address misinformation, from a diversity of disciplines, are discussed. These include educational, technological, regulatory, and psychological‐based approaches. No single approach addresses all concerns about misinformation, and all have limitations, necessitating an interdisciplinary approach to tackle this multifaceted issue. Key research gaps include understanding the diffusion of climate change misinformation on social media, and examining whether misinformation extends to climate alarmism, as well as climate denial. This article explores the concepts of misinformation and disinformation and defines disinformation to be a subset of misinformation. A diversity of disciplinary and interdisciplinary literature is reviewed to fully interrogate the concept of misinformation—and within this, disinformation—particularly as it pertains to climate change.
Read more: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/wcc.665
The main study mentions the need to distinguish between permissible skepticism and disinformation, but like other similar efforts does not provide a clear methodology of how to distinguish between the two.
It is clear that skepticism, contrarianism, and denial are concepts often associated with climate change misinformation. It should be noted that this is not skepticism in its original meaning as an integral part of the scientific method, but in its frequently applied usage to mean those who doubt climate change or reject mainstream climate science.
In my opinion it is impossible to create a definition of scientific “denial” which would exclude climate skeptics, but which would permit radical revisionists whose theories were later accepted, like Albert Einstein’s theory of General Relativity, or scientists like Barry Marshall, the courageous medical researcher who overturned decades of medical consensus on stomach ulcers by deliberately giving himself a stomach ulcer.
The difference between many skeptical positions and IPCC climate science is too narrow to differentiate by any reasonable methodology, and in some cases is non-existent.
The IPCC fifth assessment report estimated climate sensitivity as likely being between 1.5-4.5C, but also stated it is extremely unlikely to be less than 1C. Lord Monckton estimates climate sensitivity at 1.17C, close to the bottom boundary of the IPCC range of plausibility, but most definitely inside that range. Lord Monckton is frequently described by the press as a climate denier, but how can Monckton’s estimate of climate sensitivity reasonably be described as climate “denial”, if even the IPCC acknowledges climate sensitivity estimates above 1C are remotely plausible?
The inability to clearly define the difference between skepticism and denial is a major stumbling block for attempts to punish the spread of climate “disinformation”. But I doubt this will stop activist politicians from trying.
Calling imprisonment for climate deniers “Blunt and risky” is not the same as describing this horrible policy option as “ineffective”.
Severe sanctions for climate wrongthink are no longer a hypothetical risk – the “anti-Greta” Naomi Seibt was recently fined and sanctioned by the German government, for the crime of mentioning the Heartland Institute in one of her climate videos.
Even the USA is not safe from this kind of tyranny.
The USA has a constitutional right to free speech, but there are limits on that right; the right to free speech does not include a right to deliberately spread false information which leads to harm. Someone who falsely shouts “fire” in a crowded theatre to cause a stampede is not protected by the right to free speech. Some green academics argue the principle of prohibiting speech which causes harm should be applied to climate deniers. Al Gore called for climate deniers to be punished in in 2015.
Fines and imprisonment for the Alarmists, aka Climate Liars on the other hand are certainly warranted. They are responsible for a great deal of harm to humanity, with the poor suffering the most from their misdeeds.
Everyone is complaining about the idea that climate sceptics ought to be imprisoned.
This is not the problem. The problem is a wider one – it is that the fact that people can have these ideas without them being instantly rejected as deeply at odds with our culture which is the problem. You will see that it is not only ‘climate change’ which suffers here from this odd extremism – discussions on equality, feminism and much more are equally affected. It is as if the ground has been cut away from under our normal approach to social discussion – the rules that our culture had built up over many years have been abandoned, and nothing but savagery has taken their place.
This is NOT a scientific problem, nor even a political problem. It is a CULTURAL problem. Science, democracy, business and many other aspects of our lives flourish in a western liberal culture which has been developed from its origins in Ancient Greece. This is a primary reason why the Western mode of living has been so successful, and why other cultures around the world have taken it on board.
And for many years now it has been under attack. Typical readers of WUWT have a technological bent, and are quite uninterested in what people like Derrida and post-modernists like Alun Munslow have been saying since the 1980s. Indeed, they are unlikely to understand it, and reject it as rubbish , as with the Sokal Affair. Much of it is. But even rubbish – perhaps especially rubbish – can be VERY damaging if you come to believe in it. C.S Lewis made the point succinctly when he noted:
” Those who call for Nonsense will find that it comes…”
The fight against this darkness needs to be led by the Philosophers. That is where the field of battle needs to be waged. Scientists and Engineers will have very little to do with it. They depended on an underlying culture, which has let them down…
Western societies have forgotten the principle espoused by Voltaire, paraphrased as: “I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend with my life your right to say it.” The irony is that we are all turning into fascist cultures, despite the Left decrying it while pushing it forward.
Amen and amen, Geezer. In the post-modern West, we are grinding through a clash of world views that goes far beyond science, technology, climate or any -ism.
“There is a flow to history and culture. This flow is rooted and has its wellspring in the thoughts of people. People are unique in the inner life of the mind—what they are in their thought world determines how they act. This is true of their value systems and it is true of their creativity. It is true of their corporate actions, such as political decisions, and it is true of their personal lives. The results of their thought-world flow through their fingers or from their tongues into the external world. … Most people catch their presuppositions from their family and surrounding society, the way that a child catches the measles. But people with understanding realize that their presuppositions should be chosen after a careful consideration of which worldview is true. … The direction in which science will move is set by the philosophic world-view of the scientists. … In this setting modern modern [NOTE: “modern modern” can also be termed “post-normal”] science tends increasingly to become one of two things: either a high form of technology, often with a goal of increasing affluence, or what I would call sociological science. By the latter I mean that, with a weakened certainty about objectivity, people find it easier to come to whatever conclusions they desire for the sociological ends they wish to see attained” ― Francis A. Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live? The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture (1982)
In our anchor-less and increasingly savage culture, philosophers, artists, scientists, politicians, religionists, and popular culture have escaped from reason into a world of nonsense posing as profundity. Unless the tide is turned, we will devolve toward anarchy or totalitarianism, and those who speak out against the tide (or their children) will become enemies of the state (or the mob).
Mr Skinner said: “This is straight out of the Soviet Union. Next, we will have to denounce 5 ‘Climate Deniers’ and if you can only name 4 the 5th is you.”
That is not an exaggeration.
So true, yet people are so unaware of this pathological demon that resides in all of us. It makes us do demonic things, that we then reason into normality, justified by ideology, and group think.
Everyone eventually want’s their Komsomol Membership Card as protection because the stakes keep getting higher and higher, the start of the vicious circle.
“Yesterday” you couldn’t get away with saying “prison for skeptics” , today it’s not so unreasonable to some.
Political correctness (censorship) is a cancer.
Peaceful discourse is infinitely preferable to v!olent revolution.
These PHD-tards do not seem to understand that they may well be the first to go, when the ‘uneducated’ finally have had enough of their shenanigans.
A re publishing of the climates emails would surely show who should be prosecutad.
The latest Scientific American (July, 2020) has 2 essays which are fiercely against climate change skeptics.
1. “Are Tech Firms Antiscience?”.
“On April 1 Internet readers were treated to an announcement that
appeared to come from Google CEO Sundar Pichai: “Today Google
Stops Funding Climate Change Deniers.” It explained that Google—
the world’s preeminent information company—had for many
years financed disinformation, but the COVID-
19 crisis had made
it take stock. Google executives would “stop our funding of organizations
that deny or work to block action on climate change.”
The Twittersphere lit up as scientists and environmentalists
praised the corporate giant for offering the private-sector leadership
that has for the most part been missing on this issue. The
Web site A Greener Google, where the announcement was published,
received more than 100,000 hits, and at least one major
news outlet—MarketWatch—reported the story.
Sadly, it was just an April Fools’ Day joke staged by the activist
group Extinction Rebellion, intended to expose the hypocrisy
of companies that boast of green initiatives while supporting
institutions that deny or downplay climate science. It was
plausible in part because last year more than 1,000 Google
employees asked their employer to stop funding these organizations,
as have workers at Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook.
Like all good satire, it addressed a real problem. In the past
decade Google has contributed to more than a dozen groups that
have worked to prevent action on climate change by promoting
half-truths, misrepresentations and, sometimes, outright lies about
climate research and scientists. These include the Competitive
Enterprise Institute (CEI), the Texas Public Policy Foundation and
the Cato Institute, all of which have a long paper trail of skepticism,
if not outright hostility, toward climate science. CEI has
been directly involved in personal attacks on scientists.
So why do large companies fund organizations that attack science?
Nearly all leading corporations are part of trade groups that
lobby for “pro-business” positions, such as lower taxes, and they
typically turn a blind eye to these groups’ other activities. Microsoft,
for example, participated for years in the American Legislative
Exchange Council (ALEC), which describes itself as dedicated to
“limited government, free markets and federalism.” In 2011 it was
revealed that ALEC had lobbied not only for pro-business initiatives
but also for antidemocratic ones, such as restrictive voter ID
requirements. Over the next few years a bevy of Fortune 500 companies,
Microsoft included, began to withdraw support.
Since the New Deal, trade groups have tried to defend the prerogatives
of the private sector by claiming that the federal government
is a threat to freedom. In the 1980s and 1990s this transmogrified
into an attack on science. As Erik Conway and I showed
in our 2010 book, Merchants of Doubt, trade groups and libertarian
think tanks resisted the findings on issues such as acid rain,
the hole in the ozone layer, indiscriminate pesticide use and, above
all, anthropogenic climate change—because these were problems
that business created and that government was needed to fix. They
denied reality to protect their ideology and economic interests.
We saw this on full display in recent months as many American
conservatives refused to accept a significant role for government
in containing the coronavirus pandemic. An extreme case is
the governor of South Dakota. Even as COVID-
19 reached her state
and hundreds of workers became ill at a meat-packing plant, she
refused to implement any form of state control. To be sure, stayat-
home orders do decrease personal freedom and hurt the economy.
But governments that took early steps to contain the threat
have done far better in protecting both personal liberty and their
economies. In any case, “freedom” is an empty concept to the dead.
Sam Peinado of Extinction Rebellion told me in an e-mail that
many Google employees thought the April Fools’ announcement
was real because it was “what they expected from their company.”
And why not? Why shouldn’t employees and customers expect corporate
leaders in all sectors to disassociate themselves from organizations
whose rigid ideologies and pursuit of self-interest have
led us into an antiscientific dead end? COVID-19 has proved that
denying science protects neither individuals nor the economy. It’s
time for corporate leaders to step up to the plate and reject the
rejection of science.”
2. “Denial du Jour”
Galileo could be, let’s say, prickly. “Look, he was a genius, and
he was a truly unusual person, but he wasn’t exactly nice,” astrophysicist
and author Mario Livio, whose latest book is Galileo
and the Science Deniers, said by phone. “He was nice to his family,
he supported the members of his family . . . and he had a few
extremely good friends. But he could be nasty to his enemies.
His sharp pen was just incredible.”
The great man shared his lifetime with many people whose
understanding, if you can call it that, of the laws of nature was
strongly influenced by antiquity’s often wrong writers. (You also
share your stay on Earth with such individuals.) One such contemporary
was a Jesuit priest and scientist named Orazio Grassi,
who was known to mix it up in print with Galileo on numerous
occasions.
Galileo really didn’t like this guy. When he read a Grassi lecture
about comets, he wrote margin notes that included pezzo
d’asinaccio (“piece of utter stupidity”), bufolaccio (“buffoon”)
and balordone (“bumbling idiot”). I include the original Italian
because, hey, don’t be a jadrool.
In another work, Grassi, in theorizing about heat, relied
on those ancient authors when he claimed that Babylonians
could cook eggs by whirling them around at the ends of
slings. Livio writes that “Galileo pounced on this fallacy
like a cat on a slow mouse.” Galileo’s retort, written with
that aforementioned sharp pen in a work called The Assayer,
translates to: “If we do not achieve an effect which others
formerly achieved, it must be that we lack something
in our operation which was the cause of this effect succeeding,
and if we lack one thing only, then this alone can be
the true cause.”
The ball thus teed up, Galileo swings away: “Now we do
not lack eggs, or slings, or sturdy fellows to whirl them, and
still [the eggs] do not cook, but rather cool down faster if
hot. And since we lack nothing except being Babylonian,
then being Babylonian is the cause of the egg hardening.”
You could say this reductio ad absurdum left Grassi shelled.
“The more I thought about Galileo and his personality
and his fights,” Livio told me, “I realized how relevant his
fight for intellectual freedom and against science deniers
is for today, when we are really facing rampant science
denial on many fronts.”
Current investigators don’t typically have to face the
possibility of torture, as Galileo did from the Catholic
Church for being “vehemently suspect of heresy.” But modern
climate researchers, evolutionary biologists and educators
are threatened via e-mail and pilloried in social
media, sometimes by elected officials.
In 2012 two conservative outlets charged usually respected
Penn State climatologist Michael E. Mann with disseminating
fraudulent data (and compared him to a pedophile). Mann sued
for defamation, and the case is still unresolved. Worse than the
personal attacks, of course, is that policy is being made based on
nonsense and magical thinking. (I’m writing this in early May.
Has the coronavirus just, poof, gone away yet?)
It’s an almost comical irony that today’s deniers try to assume
the mantle of Galileo: people who disagree with the scientific
consensus on things such as climate sometimes cite Galileo as a
rebel (you know, like themselves) who is now seen as a hero.
“It’s really a logical fallacy,” Livio said. “Oh, look, here was one
who was going against the mainstream, and it turned out to be
right; therefore, those few who speak against climate change are
right. Galileo was right not because he was one against many—
he was right because he was right.”
By this point Livio was laughing: “It’s not the case now every
time that one speaks against the mainstream, he or she is right.
Most of the time those people are wrong. In some rare cases, they
are right. So to bring that as an argument is just ridiculous.” Sadly,
two arguments of very different weights can still convince a
lot of people at the same rate.”
Joseph Zorzin-“Usually respected Penn State scientist Michael Mann”!!
Have you read the climategate emails?? If not read them ,if you have read them – well,I don’t like putting people down but….
Zorzin pasted a pair of Scientific American essays; not his own thoughts.
And the essay was also incorrect in that Mann was NOT compared to pedophile; the President of Penn State and the board were criticized by Steyn et al for white washing Mann’s investigation in the same manner as they white washed the pedophilia investigation of Jerry Sandusky because the football program (like the Climate program) brought so much income to Penn State.
Wikipedia: “Additionally, three Penn State officials – school president Graham Spanier, vice president Gary Schultz and athletic director Tim Curley – were charged with perjury, obstruction of justice, failure to report suspected child abuse, and related charges.”
The left loves to twist facts in that manner against opponenets.
Right. I really like Scientific American- but was shocked to see it publish such bullshit.
Scientific American began to change in the 1990s as it switched from scientists writing about their own efforts, over to science journalists writing about things of which they had no personal experience. It became a microcosm of the problems that John Burnham outlined in his book “How Superstition Won and Science Lost.”
I’ve considered dropping my subscription.
Mann is not faring well in court as of late.
I suspect defining denial as “being rude to Michael Mann” is not really a scientifically sturdy definition.
From the first essay:
By what twisted logic can one conclude that proof of identity at a voting site is ANTI DEMOCRATIC?
These kind of statements are clear evidence that the authors of such essays have bought into “group think” with no actual thought on their part!
Yes. A good example of infection by the CAGW virus pandemic.
You are making it very hard for the dead to vote.
What could be more anti-democratic than that?
Requiring ID to vote will favor the GOP so it is anti-Democratic(party).
Democrat party, there is nothing democratic about them.
“democcratic” is a term descriptive of a political process, “democrat” is the name of the leftist’s anti-American party.
I’m guessing you meant to write Demoncrat.
If one is a member of the Democratic Party, that makes you a Democratic.
If one is a member of the Democrat Party, that makes you a Democrat.
I quit reading SciAm, except for some of the September issues, 30 years ago. Even before finally stopping my subscription, I read it mostly for Martin Gardner’s mathematical games columns and the occasional non-political geology article.
Scientific American’s astronomy articles are very good- though I now also subscribe to Astronomy Magazine which is fantastic.
I dropped my Scientific American subscription sometime in the 1980’s. I finally got fed up with seeing wild speculation about Human-caused climate change being presented as established fact in the magazine. They did so with the Global Cooling scare of the 1970’s, and now they are doing so with the Global Warming scare.
I also dropped my subscriptions to Science News and National Geographic for the same reason and about the same time.
I do subscribe to Astronomy magazine which is a very fine magazine. Its editor on occasion gets off track and does an article about climate, scoffing at skeptics. But he’s only done that once or twice, and I’m hoping he will stick to astronomy and leave Human-caused climate change out of it. Otherwide, I may have to write a letter to the editor. 🙂
“such as restrictive voter ID requirements”
The only people who have ever been restricted by voter ID requirements, are those who aren’t allowed to vote in the first place. Which is why the liberals fight so hard against them.
“In the context of climate change research, misinformation may be seen in the types of behaviour and information which cast doubt on well-supported theories, or in those which attempt to discredit climate science. ”
No question where they’re headed with or without a “well, we don’t mean REAL skepticism.” Just that which attempts to discredit the currently favored view of currently favored scientists. I have a major problem with the concept of “well supported theories”beings beyond casting doubt, as well. This is a complete set up for censorship and government run life that will be propped up with a few “academics” as long as they toe the line. These are the academics that hope to rule, yet will be used as initially willing puppets.
If people have no argument they resort to ad hominem, demagoguery, demonization. The next step they take is coercion and even violence.
The very last thing they want is a free and fair discussion of ideas
We see this in a lot of areas these days.
“The Great Terror” by Robert Conquest is relevant reading for these times. A great green terror is the inevitable destination of the current trajectory of green politics as its entrenching intolerance moves towards violence and repression.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Terror
“The Great Terror” was a game-changer opening the eyes of western public opinion to the almost unbelievable scale and visciousness of Stalin’s purges. For many left leaning intellectuals it was a pivotal moment of disillusionment with the hitherto almost romantic popularity of Soviet communism.
The most important aspect of the book was that it widened the understanding of the purges beyond the previous narrow focus on the “Moscow trials” of disgraced Communist Party of the Soviet Union leaders such as Nikolai Bukharin and Grigory Zinoviev, who were executed shortly thereafter. The question of why these leaders had pleaded guilty and confessed to various crimes at the trials had become a topic of discussion for a number of western writers, and helped inspire anti-Communist tracts such as George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon.[16]
Conquest argued that the trials and executions of these former Communist leaders were a minor detail of the purges. By his estimates, Stalinist purges had led to the deaths of some 20 million people. He later stated that the total number of deaths could “hardly be lower than some thirteen to fifteen million.”[17]
Joseph Zorzin-“Usually respected Penn State scientist Michael Mann”!!
Have you read the climategate emails?? If not read them ,if you have read them – well,I don’t like putting people down but….
Simple answer:
Science IS debate. When the debate is over there is no more science.
Nullius In Verba or loosely translated, take no ones word for it.
Are Dr’s Treen, Williams and O’Neil familiar with the motto of the Royal Society?
“Are Dr’s Treen, Williams and O’Neil familiar with the motto of the Royal Society?”
I don’t know but the Royal Society seem to have forgotten it.
Joseph Zorzin-“Usually respected Penn State scientist Michael Mann”!!
Have you read the climategate emails?? If not, read them ,if you have read them – well,I don’t like putting people down but….
You need to write that to the person that Zorzin was quoting.
” the right to free speech does not include a right to deliberately spread false information which leads to harm”
The content of many US Newspaper and Current Affairs programs would suggest that this is not entirely true… 😛 🙂
I wouldn’t have a problem with fines or imprisonment for those who improperly implemented principal components analysis, resulting in false claims of having found the dominant signal in historical northern hemisphere temperatures. Nor for those who routinely sample on the dependent variable via pre-analysis correlation screening, also resulting in a misleading representation of past temperatures.
Defund the universities … sort of.
Most people don’t need education beyond community college.
Universities act like businesses. They want the maximum number of customers. That means they need watered down programs so anyone can get in and most can stay in and keep paying tuition for four years. The result is the Grievance Studies departments with just about zero intellectual rigor.
One solution is for the universities to have quotas. example: a school could have 10,000 students. 500 of those have to be in engineering, 500 have to be in law, and 500 have to be in medicine. There should be a rule that a university can produce PhDs at a rate proportional to it the retirement rate of its professors. The number of PhD candidates a professor can supervise should not be measured in batches. Getting into university should be a competitive process.
The way it is now, universities are willing to crank out an endless supply of grievance studies graduates who, upon graduation, are saddled with a bazillion dollars of debt and no good job prospects. The situation is bogus from every perspective I can think of.
Ultimately those who control the purse strings may pull the plug on this nonsense. In Australia this is already happening to an extent, the federal government is trying to tilt the fee structure in favour of STEM degrees.
For many, the ultimate payer for college is government.
Unfortunately Democrats love ignorant and hate filled voters.
“an endless supply of grievance studies graduates who, upon graduation, are saddled with a bazillion dollars of debt and no good job prospects. ”
Let them eat tofu.
If they were willing to shut up and quietly munch their tofu, I would agree.
Marx (Karl not Groucho) called the class of useless people the lumpenproletariat. Perhaps he could not imagine anything worse, but that’s what these folks are. They can’t do anything useful but they think, due to their supposed higher education, that they should be the boss.
Tofu, or not tofu.
That is the question.
commieBob
Unfortunately, your characterization of higher education (at least in the US, with which I’m familiar) has been true since at least the 1970s. It is like a Ponzi scheme. The more people who have degrees, the more difficult it is to get a job without a degree. The people who need a job are coerced into extending their formal education, even if they have no talent for academic-like activities. I suspect that my parents, who were high school dropouts during the Great Depression, had better academic preparation than most of today’s college graduates.
Since I’ve been retired for a while, I can say the following:
If you live in Ontario, and I suspect anywhere in Canada, and you have good enough marks to get into a decent (university) engineering school, you should study engineering technology at a community college. Why??
When you graduate with your three year diploma in engineering technology, you will probably get a job and you will probably be supervised by an engineer. A couple of years of such experience is one of the requirements for a professional engineering license. Now, you can work on the educational requirements full or part time.
If you go straight into a four year engineering degree, you will probably not get a job that will give you the right experience for your professional license. In Ontario, only 30% of people with engineering degrees are working in engineering … and no, they’re not doing anything more remunerative. link
The bottom line is that community college is a better bet, for engineering at least, than university. If you’re so inclined, university can come later.
BTW, the former dean of engineering at the University of Waterloo started out as an apprentice in Britain. Can anyone tell me if that’s a feature of the British system?
Anyway, back to your point Clyde. People think they need a degree. That’s by no means a given.
“Defund the universities … sort of.”
Not just “sort of”.
There are way too many degree granting universities in the first world. Most students have no real purpose or goal for attending and graduate no more learned than they were upon entry. Some graduate intellectually confused and unemployable (grievance studies) with hideous debts. The flagship example of higher education gone rogue is Evergreen College where untouchable graduates dare not put their college education on their resume.
To me the CAGW Meme has gone viral and is now acting as an intellectual virus infecting across a wide range of human activity and thinking. It is as much a pandemic as Covid-19; but operates within the logical processes in the brain, rather than in physical biology.
It is easy to identify articles or individuals which have been infected by this virus; but very difficult to challenge due the powerful automatic defence mechanisms used by this virus.
I could expand on this; but I am sure many will comprehend what I say.
Sadly I see little hope of a vaccine being developed to control this pandemic; as vested and political interests are now totally entrenched.
The conclusions of institutional climate science is the prime source of misinformation. Because it is based on the false and unquestioned assumption that natural variability of weather and ocean cycles are internal, chaotic, and unforced. Evidence of these processes being discretely solar driven is also evidence that they have not begun to explain global change, and they never will while they believe them to be internal variability, like shadows on the wall of Plato’s cave. Though given that our needs are primarily the prediction of regional seasonal weather patterns and of ocean phases, global change is largely irrelevant and cannot predict either. It’s a huge white elephant.
The perversion of science, publication, and the professional integrity on which they rely will continue.. so long as those holding the purse strings continue to pay for it.
Could be the most important positive feedback in climate science.
So, to put it more precisely, the very people creating misinformation about climate want to put people who refuse to accept their lies in prison. Go for it.
More evidence science and politics is always a bad mix. One seeks the truth, the other power and control.
” the right to free speech does not include a right to deliberately spread false information which leads to harm. ”
I am not sure that that is a legal definition — a legal principle. If it were, then the Main Stream Media would constantly be jailed when a journalist gets a story wrong and the people riot.
I think it revolves on the INTENT to cause harm — not intentional false information — politicians do that.
In libel cases, you don’t have to prove that the person knew the information was false in order to prove damages.
The only exception is for people the courts have declared to be “public figures”.
You don’t think that a significant percentage of the media coverage of the latest BLM affair was intended to cause harm? If so, it certainly backfired on the media.
Obviously, burn the witches and dunk the warlocks. We already have witch hunters in the streets of our urban jungles, and warlock judges presiding, let’s throw another baby on the barbie and get all the witches and warlocks Planned.
Khmer Vert
Ok so their premise is that misinformation on social media should be punished.
Let’s just do a small sample experiment: go jail the Flat Earthers and we’ll see how that goes first OK? That will be the sample size for your great social movement to deny anyone with a viewpoint not your own.
Go for it. We’ll sit back and see how far you get.
Flat Earth believers are the perfect niche group to test your hypothesis on–why? Because they are true dissenters and disbelievers in a globe model that can be reproduced though science and experiment with consistent results.
Anyone can test the globe model with established principles. Not anyone can test the alarmists theory because they refuse to produce their raw data in order to do it. So go for it, jail the FLERFERS and when sitting in court in front of a judge you will need to PROVE that they are doing harm by not believe in a globe model. I want to see you try–because you have no idea that in doing so, you are positioned under the sword of Damocles.
“because they refuse to produce their raw data in order to do it”
More like they refuse to produce their data because they know it doesn’t work. Like all such minded folk, they constantly attempt to turn it around by claiming dissenters are doing what they themselves do. Quite often I have seen their defense against reality expressed as “the data is no good” or the even more blatant “the data doesn’t matter”.
From the article: “In a similar way, climate alarmism may also be construed as misinformation, as recent online debates have discussed. This includes making exaggerated claims about climate change that are not supported by the scientific literature.”
Yes, making exaggerated claims about climate change that are not supported by the scientific literature is exactly what Alarmists do. Alarmists should be asked to provide evidence that CO2 is doing what they say it is doing. Don’t be surprised when they don’t have an answer, because they don’t have an answer.
From the article: “There is a negligible amount of literature about climate alarmism compared to climate scepticism, suggesting it is significantly less prevalent. As such, the focus for this article is on climate scepticism.”
There’s some twisted logic.
From the article: “Climate change misinformation is closely linked to climate change skepticism, denial, and contrarianism. A network of actors are involved in financing, producing, and amplifying misinformation.”
Skeptics don’t peddle “[Human-caused] climate change misinformation”. All skeptics do is ask for evidence from the Alarmists? How is that misinformation? Just because skeptics require evidence before believing a claim? That’s a skeptic’s job, requiring evidence. The Alarmists don’t have any evidence, so they divert attention by claiming skeptics are on some sort of disinformation campaign, when all skeptics are doing is telling Alarmists to back up their assertions about CO2 and the Earth’s climate. One little bit of evidence is all it would take and the skeptics would convert to believers, but we have to have that one little bit of evidence first, and even though it is requested on a daily basis, no Alarmist ever steps forward and supplies that evidence. That should make a reasonable person think that maybe the Alarmists can’t back up their claims Asking a person to prove a previously unsupported assertion is not disinformation or misinformation. Prove it, Alarmists. That’s what skeptics say, and that’s what Alarmists don’t want to hear.
From the article: “It is clear that skepticism, contrarianism, and denial are concepts often associated with climate change misinformation. It should be noted that this is not skepticism in its original meaning as an integral part of the scientific method, but in its frequently applied usage to mean those who doubt climate change or reject mainstream climate science.”
Actually, it *is* skepticism in its orginal meaning. Skeptics of Old said, “Prove it”. Skeptics today say the same thing. Alarmists throw a lot of things out there that they claim is evidence for Human-caused climate change but when examined closely, it turns out it is not evidence, it is just unsubstantiated speculation and assertions. Unsubstantiated being the key word.
From the article: “Calling imprisonment for climate deniers “Blunt and risky” is not the same as describing this horrible policy option as “ineffective”.”
I would like to see them try to lock up skeptics. If they are crazy enough to try that, then it would be time to go to Plan B.
From the article: The USA has a constitutional right to free speech, but there are limits on that right; the right to free speech does not include a right to deliberately spread false information which leads to harm. Someone who falsely shouts “fire” in a crowded theatre to cause a stampede is not protected by the right to free speech. Some green academics argue the principle of prohibiting speech which causes harm should be applied to climate deniers. Al Gore called for climate deniers to be punished in in 2015.”
The people spreading false information are the Alarmists who claim Human-caused climate change is an established fact, when nothing could be further from the Truth.
The Alarmists can assert it, but they can’t provide any evidence for it. So that’s where we are. And that is where we will continue to be until evidence is provided. Al Gore or no Al Gore.
Alarmists can shut the Skeptics up with just one piece of evidence. That’s all they have to do. But they can’t do it because they don’t have any evidence, and they won’t admit it.
This post can serve as an example: Let’s see how much evidence is provided to refute the skeptics. The Alarmists have been challenged. Let’s see if they step up. Don’t hold your breath waiting for them to speak. They won’t speak up because they have nothing to say. This post will be more evidence of that. Silence from the Alarmists when challenged.
“I would like to see them try to lock up skeptics.”
Germany has been doing this for decades to skeptics of certain German government declared “truths”. This generates a little complaint but nothing even slightly effective.
As you can see, no Alarmist took up the challenge of providing evidence for Human-caused climate change. That would be because there is no evidence of Human-caused climate change for them to provide. This is the outcome every time alarmists are challenged about Human-caused climate change. All those really smart guys that contest the issue here and elsewhere have nothing to say when challenged to provide evidence. They go silent, as they are now. Those who are undecided about Human-caused climate change should take this into consideration.
And in reply to A: The United States is a lot different from Germany. At least until/if the Democrats get back in power and then all bets are off as far as our personal freedoms go. Democrats would definitely like to put people in jail who disagree with them. On anything.
Jail is where it starts. That’s not where it ends.