The Greatest Scientific Fraud Of All Time is the fraud by which government functionaries alter data collected and previously reported in official data bases in order to support a narrative of impending catastrophic global warming. No other scientific fraud in world history comes close to this one in scope or significance. While prior frauds may have scored a crooked scientist some funding or maybe some temporary fame, this one drives trillions of dollars of worldwide government spending and seeks to transform the entire world economy. The prior 31 posts in this series are all collected for your reading enjoyment at this link. (They are in groups of six posts each, beginning with the most recent. After each six, you must go to the bottom and click the “NEXT” button to get the next six posts.)
Those prior 31 posts have all concerned alteration of one particular sort of data, namely temperature records. The posts document how, at station after station, previously-reported data have been altered to make earlier temperatures cooler and later ones warmer, and thus to show an enhanced warming trend (or in many cases to replace a cooling trend with a warming trend). The altered temperatures then form the basis for hockey-stick shaped charts of world temperatures, showing rapid recent warming, and for claims from NASA and NOAA and the media that the most recent year or month was the “warmest ever.”
But why should we really care that the earth’s atmosphere is getting a little warmer? The UN has supposedly set some kind of Maginot Line at a 1.5 deg C temperature increase from 20th century levels — an amount so small that you can barely feel it when it occurs each day. The 1.5 deg mark is just not that all that scary. So the bureaucrats and leftists need a Plan B to scare the bejeezus out of the people. Plan B is sea level rise.
So don’t be surprised to learn that the sea level data, produced by NASA, have recently been altered — and of course, in a way to enhance the global warming scare narrative.
With a little looking you can quickly find hundreds of articles endlessly repeating the narrative that human-caused global warming is melting polar ice caps and thus causing the sea level to rise. But note that for this narrative to be effective requires more than just a linear rising. After all, skeptics quickly point out that the sea level has been rising at a slow, steady rate of a few millimeters per year since the end of the last ice age. So, to actually be scary, the narrative needs to be that sea level is not just rising, but that the rise is accelerating.
Sure enough, that is the party line. Thus here from the NASA website posted in November 2022 and still there today, we find a statement of the official position:
Global sea level has been rising for decades in response to a warming climate, and multiple lines of evidence indicate the rise is accelerating. The new findings support the higher-range scenarios outlined in an interagency report released in February 2022. That report, developed by several federal agencies – including NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the U.S. Geological Survey – expect significant sea level rise over the next 30 years by region. . . . The researchers noted that the accelerating rate of sea level rise detected in satellite measurements from 1993 to 2020 – and the direction of those trends – suggest future sea level rise will be in the higher range of estimates for all regions.
NASA is the guru of the sea level rise data because, starting in 1993, NASA put up satellites with altimeters to measure sea level. The data have been made public on a NASA web page, and various researchers have gone through the data looking for trends. Some have claimed to find an acceleration in sea level rise. For example, a 2018 article in PNAS by Nerem, et al., titled “Climate-change-driven accelerated sea-level rise detected in the altimeter era” asserted that the authors had detected an acceleration of 0.084 +/- 0.025 mm/yr^2. But is that purported acceleration real and, if real, is it significant?
And no effort to scare you about sea level rise would be complete without a picture of some coastal community under water. So they provide this one from Norfolk, Virginia:
As if that had something to do with human CO2 emissions.
Reader Bill Ponton has looked into this, and has had some back and forth with NASA about what their data show. He has also come up with a few graphics to help make this understandable for the readers.
On February 24 Bill used the NASA sea level data since 1993 to create a graph, and then sought to fit two curves to the graph — one a straight line, and the other a parabola implying acceleration. Here are the results:
A first obvious question is, does your eye detect in the plot of data points any acceleration in the rate of rise? It is certainly not apparent to me. What is very apparent is that there was an anomalous increase in the rate of rise in 2017/18, followed by two years of actual decreases. Those two years of unusual increases may well explain the results of the Nerem, et al., paper (published in 2018).
The linear fit shows a steady increase of 3.2629 mm/yr. (That would be about one foot per century.). The R^2 is a measure of the closeness of the fit of the line to the scattered data points, and an R^2 of 0.9869 is a remarkably close fit. With this close a fit, and the line actually higher at the right side than the most recent data point, is there really any basis to claim an ability to detect an acceleration?
The second graph has a curve based on a quadratic equation, and therefore is shaped like a parabola — although it is almost impossible for the eye to detect the very slight upward curve. The fit, as measured by the R^2, is ever so slightly better than the linear fit, 0.9899.
Bill explains that the formula of the quadratic equation in the second chart would reflect an acceleration rate (if it is real) of 0.045 mm/yr^2, or only about half of that claimed in the Nerem, et al., paper.
Bill then commenced an email correspondence with a guy name Josh Willis at NASA. He asked Willis whether there was any reason to try to fit a parabola to these data, rather than just a straight line, to which he got the response “A linear fit is not a ‘simpler’ explanation, it is an incomplete one. The acceleration is real, and there is no justification for ignoring it.” Note that Willis has no basis for claiming that the acceleration “is real” other than the data, which are the same data that you and I can look at. Willis then referred Bill to the Nerem, et al., paper. But Bill pointed out that Nerem, et al., claimed an acceleration of 0.084 mm/yr^2, whereas the NASA data as of February 2024 at best would only support an acceleration rate of 0.045 mm/yr^2. Bill remarks, “Josh must have found this to be a troubling contradiction because soon after he indicated that he preferred our correspondence cease.”
But meanwhile, in early March the sea level data reported by NASA suddenly got altered. Here is a graph provided by Bill showing the NASA data before and after alteration:
Before Willis cut off correspondence, Bill got the following (totally inadequate) explanation for the alterations: “[T]he data on the websites was recently updated to include improved estimates of sea level from our first precision sea level satellite, TOPEX/Poseidon, and to correct small errors in later missions. Sure. Most of the actual readings have become lower, but an enhanced curvature has been introduced. The quadratic formula of the best fit for the red (altered) data points now would imply an acceleration rate of 0.065 mm/yr^2. That’s still well less than the 0.085 mm/yr^2 claimed in the Nerem, et al., paper, but at least not so embarrassingly far off.
Is all of this anything to get scared about? Absolutely not. As stated earlier, linear sea level rise of about 3.3 mm/yr is consistent with what has been going on throughout history since the last ice age, and implies a rise of around one foot by 2100. Nerem, et al., state in their paper that the acceleration rate that they estimate of 0.084 mm/yr^2 would imply sea level rise of 65 cm by 2100, which is 25.6 inches, or just over 2 feet. The rate of 0.045 mm/yr^2 derived from the unaltered NASA data would imply a much smaller increase by 2100 of about 16 inches, really not much more than the ongoing linear trend. Meanwhile, here in Manhattan, where everyone claims to believe the worst climate scare stories, the fanciest new condos continue to get built along the shoreline, just a few feet above sea level. The new thing is to put the building mechanicals a few floors up, in case some big storm brings the sea water into the basement.
What’s most interesting about all this is what it reveals about the sea level rise scare story. The claims of “acceleration” prove to be based on dubious extrapolations from data that show only very slight, if any, deviations from linearity. Those slight deviations may reflect some underlying process or may just reflect the effect on a curve-fitting exercise of one or two outlying data points. Our overlords modify the data to enhance the apparent acceleration, and then claim the ability to use a slight non-linearity to project sea level out 80 years or so to try to scare us with a few inches of difference. In the real world, the few extra inches are insignificant, and none of us will even be around then anyway. I plan to recommend to my grandchildren — all now 5 and under — not to live too near the coast in their retirement. That should take care of it.
The lengths that the bureaucrats will go to maintain their scary narrative are truly extraordinary. And what’s most amazing is how many seemingly smart people don’t see through it.
I’m not sure about what is the greatest scientific fraud. Fraudsters high on my list include Gore, Mann, and Fauci for sure, however.
Mann is still my favourite. Just as with a previous greatest fraud (Piltdown Man), he welded together two pieces of information that should never have been welded together.
Mann actually put a bit of effort into his fraud. Fauci is just a liar. Gore is just a plonker.
IMO, as a (failed) divinity student and subsequently a retail politician, Gore saw the close similarities of purpose and methodology in telling naive people disingenuous stories designed to discomfort them and consequently feel disposed to sending $$$$s to Big Al so he could “save” them.
He calculated that a Global Warming religion was the more attractive course for him, as there were / are no requirements to be qualified or elected in any proper discipline in order to take to the pulpit and tout for paying acolytes.
Must give him credit for his prowess as a main-chancer though.
These fraudsters are certainly noteworthy figure(head)s, but don’t forget the vast Federal bureaucracies that perform the dirty work. No totalitarian could have killed millions without the aquiesence of such.
Francis, A few comments (although I agree with most of the post) – I think you meant to say the quadratic fit is above the data (not the linear). And the reason the acceleration is different is that this data goes to 2023 and the Nerem paper was in 2018.
Bad science to use just a few years of noisy data to claim an acceleration. This data from 1993 is combined from about 4 different satellites, each with its own calibrations, etc. The 3.2 mm/year is about double that from tide gauges. So, is that real since 1993? Or is it because they are comparing apples and oranges (tide with satellite data). And if it is real, shouldn’t it also show up in the tide gauges? Did Nerem have error bars on their data? These graphs would benefit from error bars for sure.
Great point about the lack of error bars. They seem to have gone on holiday from quite a few different places.
Climate science believes all measurement errors are random, Gaussian, and cancel. Therefore all measurement stated values can be considered 100% accurate and there is no use for showing error bars since there aren’t any errors.
Here is one of the exaggerated news articles:
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20240321-global-sea-level-jumped-due-to-el-nino-and-climate-change-nasa
Fraud is definitely the correct word to describe fraud. An endless endemic avalanche of fear mongering propaganda via systematic lying is motivated by the desire for political power and money or to be aligned with it, which is the same thing.
Francis – You cannot just look at the R2 values. You need to examine the statistical significance (known as a “t-test”) of the estimated coefficients, especially the quadratic one. The fit may be quadratic, but the actual quadratic coefficient may not be statistically different from zero.
Then there is also the issue of over-fitting the data. A higher R2 value does not necessarily mean that it is the best fit.
Yes the sea level rise story is insane. The military is wasting millions placing new buildings 11 ft above sea level at installations along the coast. It’s a waste of fill and tax payer dollars. Plus the additional cost of delays due to full not being available or not enough contracted workers
so far
Here’s a paper describing the satellite altimetry potential errors and how they have improved over the years.
We’re still at about 1 cm error on readings. Taking a million readings to improve accuracy doesn’t work with telemetry…cuz you are already taking gigareadings per second.
It’s where you calculate the satellite to be relative to the ground stations that is important…and those ground stations go up and down about a foot per day due to ground tides caused by the moon’s gravity. We only assume it settles back tomorrow to exactly the same distance from the average centre point. We only assume sea floors remain unchanged, while we assume isostatic rebound of melted 9000 years ago glaciers. We are truly deluded.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10712-022-09758-5
What is always unsaid with tide data is that daily ranges are 100, 200 times greater. These variances are simply ignored when calculating the daily averages.
Just like air temperature.
All measurements have uncertainty. Yet I can find no measurement uncertainty given for each measurement nor is that uncertainty propagated onto the average value.
We have too many statisticians in government that assume that all stated measurement values are 100% accurate and that, therefore, their averages are 100% accurate. Pete forbid any of these statisticians ever get assigned to a project for landing a man on the moon or mars.
We need to be very skeptical of sea-level measurements from satellites, which are in geostationary orbits about 35,800 km above the earth’s surface, or 42,200 km from the center of the earth. But this altitude can vary depending on the phases of the moon. If the satellite is directly between the earth and the moon, the distance to the moon is less than 10 times the distance to the center of the earth, and the acceleration due to the moon’s gravity (away from the earth) is more than 0.1% of that due to the earth’s gravity. If the moon is on the opposite side of the earth from the satellite, its gravity adds to the gravitational pull from the earth.
This might not sound like much, but 0.1% of 42,200 km is still 42 km, and how can a satellite measure an acceleration of a fraction of a millimeter per year^2 in distance between the satellite and the sea surface when the altitude of the satellite above the earth is varying by tens of kilometers every month?
At some locations along the coast, sea levels relative to land can vary by more than a meter in six hours, and ocean waves generated by wind or storms can cause swells several meters high between crest and trough, that can go through a cycle in a few seconds. For long-term sea level rise, the signal / noise ratio is extremely low even using land-based tide gauges, and it’s even worse when measuring from a satellite at a variable distance from the earth.
You could always use the satellite to measure the water AND the land adjacent at the same time. That way, the varying orbit height data could be stripped out, revealing the water height, relative to the local ground.
You only have the, (not inconsequential), issue of the varying ground level to consider then.
They have tide gauges for that…but wait their numbers are cooked too
Excellent article. Very clear and well-put!
“And what’s most amazing is how many seemingly smart people don’t see through it.”
And it seems SO HARD for them to even discuss the evidence contrary to the firmly held beliefs.
If I am not mistaken the NASA satellite estimates of sea level are also enhanced by adding in an adjustment for theoretical subsidence of the sea floor due to increase weight of water. This does not show up at tide gauges which show an even more modest rise of about 1.7 or so mm per year. Of course the tide gauges measure what matters when you think about flooding and encroachment on sea-side infrastructure. Who cares if the sea floor subsides a mm or so a year. But none of this is an issue globally when satellites tell us that seafront real estate is actually increasing, not decreasing and that includes most coral atolls as they tend to grow with rising seas. Not to mention there are former port cities from centuries past that are now far inland as the big trend for several thousand years was falling sea levels after the rapid rise in the early part of the current interglacial.
Francis & Andy, you may have missed some of the earlier “adjustments. See –
There Is No Alarming Sea Level Rise! by Nils-Axel Mörner
the El Niño/La Niña-Southern Oscillation, a quasi-periodic climate pattern that occurs across the tropical Pacific Ocean every few years.) Therefore, a much more realistic approach is to treat that ENSO-signal as a separate event, superimposed on the long-term trend, as shown in Figure 6 (Mörner 2004). Figure 6 shows a variability (of ±10 mm) around a stable zero level (blue line) and a strong ENSO-event (yellow lines) in 1997. The trend thereafter is less clear (gray lines). This graph provides no indication of any rise over the time-period covered (Mörner 2004, 2007a, 2007c).
When the satellite altimetry group realized that the 1997 rise was an ENSO signal, and they extended the trend up to 2003, they seemed to have faced a problem: There was no sea level rise visible, and therefore a “reinterpretation” needed to be undertaken.
Originally, it seemed that this extra, unspecified “correction” referred to the global isostatic adjustment (GIA) given as 2.4 mm/year (see, for example, Peltier 1998) or 1.8 mm/year (IPCC 2001). The zero isobase of GIA according to Peltier (1998) passed through Hong Kong, where one tide-gauge gives a relative sea level rise of 2.3 mm/year. This is exactly the value appearing in Figure 7. This tide-gauge record is contradicted by the four other records existing in Hong Kong, and obviously represents a site specific subsidence, a fact well known to local geologists.
Nevertheless, a new calibration factor has been introduced in the Figure 7 graph. At the Moscow global warming meeting in 2005, in answer to my criticisms about this “correction,” one of the persons in the British IPCC delegation said, “We had to do so, otherwise there would not be any trend.” To this I replied: “Did you hear what you were saying? This is just what I am accusing you of doing.”
http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/Articles_2011/Winter-2010/Morner.pdf
“We had to do so, otherwise there would not be any trend.”
I’m sorry, a line with a slope of 0 (zero) *is* still a trend. Why do so many involved in CAGW have such limited math skills, especially in calculus?
The major proponents of the catastrophic global warming/sea-level rise memes having a history of manipulating data to suit their not-so-hidden agendas: it goes back at least to Karl* et al. (2015) who decided that ocean temperature measurements from scientific monitoring buoys should be “updated” based on the far less accurate ocean temperature measurements obtained from ocean-going ship engine intake temperatures.
*Thomas R. Karl was director of the NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information at the time of this publication.
Story tip – BYD: Here Comes the EV Bloodbath Trump Warned Us About – PJ Media
Not a problem. Just have the US Commerce Dept. declared that the “technology” in the $14,000 BYD Seagull EV—or whatever its marketing name when it reaches the US—is a national security threat (i.e., will be surreptitiously gathering personal info and sending it back to China) . . . then BYD will be toast.
Not quite so. Starting about 11,000 years, until about 7,000 years ago, the rise was about 13mm per year. Only from about 7,000 years ago until the present has the rise has been approximately linear, but apparently at a lower rate than currently. The graph (below) gives the impression that the recent ‘linear’ section is actually slightly concave downwards, or decelerating. When the change, if any, took place to the more recent rates of 2-3mm is not clear. Except for the glaciated northern latitudes, where isostatic rebound is significant, there is little historical evidence of significant changes over the last few hundred years at major ports. I suspect that there are large error bars on the geological data.
http://www.earthguide.ucsd.edu/eoc/special_topics/teach/sp_climate_change/images/sealevel_pleistocene.png
Still waiting for:
German printpaper “Der Spiegel” 1986
Not to pick on the Germans, but the last time they wandered off the deep end of political economy, it didn’t end well for anyone.
If Trump gets another bite at the apple, he needs to appoint a no-nonsense ‘Administrator’ to NASA. Specifically, he/she needs to act immediately to ensure the removal of all ‘adjustments’ to measured data, i.e., data tampering, and to eliminate all pseudo in-fill data attributed to non-recording stations.
I’m willing to bet there are legal statutes against the falsification / misuse of Federal data. The new Administrator needs to enforce these vigorously against any staff members unwilling to clean up the data entrusted to NASA within a reasonable short period of time.
I remember vividly when Barry Obama named the new NASA Administrator: the guy (forget his name) made a big production about how Obama told him his #1 mission was to make NASA safe for Islamic employees.
Just one of many millions of examples that elections have consequences.
IMO, the discussion of which R2 value better describes the data is incomplete without consideration of measurement uncertainty in y values. And, on a second thought, since a single data point is not one measurement taken once a year, but an average of many data points taken through the year, there may be an error bar on x values as well. Also, an assumption that all data points here should be equally weighted is also just an assumption.
Try doing a numerical derivative on the data without all the averaging…
Where would climate ‘science’ be without estimations, modelling and consensus?
And statistics?
“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”
— author unknown
It would just be science.
Those predicting a catastrophic rise in sea level, supposedly due to CO2 absorbing more heat into the atmosphere, overlook the fact that the Antarctic and Greenland ice caps can only melt when surface temperatures above them are above 0 C or 32 F. This only occurs about four months out of the year near the coast, and even less often inland, where the surface of the ice can be over 2 km above sea level.
Melting of ice requires an input of heat, which tends to cool the atmosphere during the warmer season, and in order to provoke a sea level rise, the melting rate during the four “warm” months must be higher than the snowfall rate during the eight cold months.
Melting of sea ice does not contribute to sea level rise, since the ice displaces the same volume of water whether it is floating on top of sea water, or mixed in with it as liquid.
Even those postulating an acceleration in sea level rise of 0.084 mm/yr^2 would need to admit that the acceleration term would contribute a total of
0.084 * (76)^2 / 2 = 243 mm (about 9.6 inches) to the cumulative sea level rise by the end of the century.
With today’s technology and earth-moving equipment, it is definitely possible to build a sea wall 10 inches high (if needed) to protect vulnerable coastal cities over the next 76 years. They’ve been doing much more than that for the last three centuries in the Netherlands.
Sublimation also occurs.
I’m no scientist, but…
– using just 30 years worth of measurements
– then alter them by many millimeters in an effort toimake them more accurate (lol)
– make predictions about how much sea level rise to expect over the next century or so (way more than the time the measurements were taken over)
– have any level of confidence about how accurate those predictions would be
doesn’t seem very scientific to me. The amount of error to expect in the prediction would surely be so much as to make the prediction worthless.
Its not — extrapolation beyond the range over which the regression is calculated is a statistical boo-boo.
Statistics are useful for raw data believed accurate
They are worthless for adjusted numbers
Homogenized
Pasteurized
Adjusted
Re-Adjusted
Fuge factors added
Dog ate the papers infilling
Once raw data are adjusted, they are no longer data. They are numbers changed by humans who believe the original measurements were wrong.
And the adjustments do not necessarily have good intentions
A better way of evaluating sea level rise besides tide gauges would be to survey people who have lived in their oceanside homes for 20 years or more.
They would be the first people to know the effect of sea level rise on their properties.
Ism’t the goal: knowing the effect of SLR on infrastructure built near sea level?
A change in the price appreciation trend of oceanside homes could be a leading indicator.
Or an increase of those homeowners building sea walls, or even arks.
Every article about SLR should explain that Antarctica holds about 90% of ice on land but almost all of the continent will not get warmer from added greenhouse gases because of a permanent temperature inversion over almost all the continent.
No SLR article ever mentions that fact. You’d think more people would wonder why Antarctica’s ice mass is almost unchanged after the past 48 years of global warming
The Antarctica areas with a permanent temperature inversion are shown in pink on the chart below:
Is there any other field of science where measurements are adjusted to make them more accurate? I can imagine taking _different_ measurements using a technique that might be more accurate, but to actually alter some other person’s measurements seems very odd.
It’s not odd, it’s scientific fraud. If you don’t believe the measurements are accurate then assign an expanded measurement uncertainty to the measurement. Then those who look at the data later can make a judgement on whether their own measurements fit with the original measurement within the bounds of uncertainty. Climate science doesn’t follow that rule because they assume all stated values are 100% accurate and if they aren’t then they will make them so!
Climate science memes:
These are just some of the memes climate science uses. You would lose your Professional Engineer license for using these memes. But not climate scientists, they are rewarded for them.
Al Gore said the oceans ARE boiling. That means less liquid in the oceans.
Maybe that explains why the sea levels haven’t risen and my house in central Ohio isn’t part of the new CO2-caused inland sea?
(Or maybe Gore just lied again.)
Very nice Francis. I don’t trust anything that has to be adjusted to be correct.
Are ‘before’ and ‘after’ the wrong way round in the last chart?
Josh Willis is the same guy who “corrected” the Argo float data when they showed a cooling ocean. What a guy!
There’s a wonderful You Tube “Ask a Climate Scientist” featuring Josh Willis. I’m on an IPad somewhere otherwise I’d post the link.
Isn’t Josh Willis actually a glaciologist — working at the NASA Jet Propulsion lab?
“Is all of this anything to get scared about? Absolutely not. As stated earlier, linear sea level rise of about 3.3 mm/yr is consistent with what has been going on throughout history since the last ice age, and implies a rise of around one foot by 2100.”
The above quote from the article doesn’t seem entirely correct. It’s well-established that sea levels around the time of the last ‘Glacial Maximum’, which was 20-22,000 years ago, were between 120 and 130 metres lower than today.
For ease of calculation, if we assume sea levels were 120 metres lower, 20,000 years ago, then dividing 120,000 mm by 20,000, we get an average sea level rise of 6mm per year for the past 20,000 years, which is approximately double the rate of the rise that has occurred since our industrialization.
The attached image is from the following site:
https://www.e-education.psu.edu/earth107/node/1506
Some high school Algebra 1. If they recognize that the Earth’s ocean’s surface rises with time, and their assumptions are that the CO2 since 1850 has caused an acceleration in the rate of increase, the measure that should be looked at is the deviation from the expected linear rate of increase since 1850, not a measure of the change in the rate since an arbitrary 1993. Use of the parabola that crosses the x axis in 1993, and especially since it is a quadratic that also crosses the axis in about 1880 leads to some strange results. It results in changing rates of acceleration in the negative y values between these years with an inflection point about 1936, and large positive values prior to 1880, indicating a huge acceleration in the sea level prior to 1880. By 1800 the value of the y axis would be a positive 350 mm over the 1993 baseline for the parabola vs a negative 193mm for the linear equation.
The metric is wrong, and obviously a quadratic fit for sea level in the industrial age that uses data since 1993 is not appropriate.
Nerem et al grossly changed their CU Sea Level Research Group data in 2018. At the time Judith Curry pointed out that they altered the first several years of satellite data enough to produce the 0.084 mm/yr/yr acceleration.
Yes, it looks like fraud.
Is this the biggest fraud, or is it just one of a host of frauds? Climate, cosmology, medicine, food safety, vaccine safety, etc.. Name a scientific endeavor then dig into its current narrative.
All of these have become industries, commanding billions of dollars of cash flow, and all of them can be shown to be Jenga castles, with plausible scientific practices built upon quite shakey assumptions.
Once a narrative gets entrenched in one of these industries you find increasingly complex ‘science’ disguised with impenetrable studies that move ever further from provable, observable phenomena. The highest blocks in the castle are philosophy, not science.
The participants know that pulling on the lower blocks bring down the narrative. Bring down the edifice. Bring the cash flow to a trickle.
Maybe that is the story tip.