By P Gosselin
In an interview published by the German public broadcaster MDR (Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk) on September 1, 2026—titled “Es gibt einen Markt für Desinformation” (“There is a Market for Disinformation”)—prominent alarmist Stefan Rahmstorf spoke with MDR Wissen to address the tactics of climate change skepticism, which he says of course is funded by evil special business interests, and how communication to the public must evolve.
In the MDR interview and his broader public communication strategy, Stefan Rahmstorf addresses the rise of alternative, populist, and fringe media platforms.
Exclude skeptics from debate
He suggests that rather than trying to engage them in debate or change their minds directly, he calls on mainstream journalists and established media outlets to strictly avoid giving a platform to skeptic voices from alternative channels.
Investigate skeptics
According to Rahmstorf, alternative media channels often frame their content as independent, “free speech,” or grassroots skepticism, and calls on the established media institutions and investigative journalists to trace where these channels get their material, who funds them, and how political or economic interest groups amplify them.
“We scientists explain the data and facts of climate change, but journalists need to investigate who is serving the market for disinformation and where the money is coming from,” says Rahmstorf. “”It is the job of journalism to uncover who is behind these campaigns, who is funding them, and what interests are being pursued.”
Avoid debating skeptics
Rahmstorf says that it is ineffective to try to debate or convince dedicated alternative media creators or their hardcore audiences in comment sections. It’s a debate that alarmist climate scientists cannot win. The Potsdam Climate Institute researcher thinks communication efforts should focus on the broader public—those who are exposed to alternative media snippets via social media or messaging apps. Clear, accessible explanations using real-world data and verifiable facts help build immunity against misleading claims before they take root.
Rahmstorf tells MDR that science communicators and mainstream journalists need to anticipate the false arguments likely to emerge from alternative outlets and pre-bunk them.
Looks nasty…are there no places that catastrophists will not go..?
Neil Pryke seems to believe that shouting and yelling like a 4-year-old will help prove his point. IE, use of boldface and italics.
Yes. And he never engages, which tells me he enjoys the attention. A typical narcissist.
There are camps for that.
Replace “Climate Change” with “Eugenics”. Similar approach to the last time that government knew something that the rest of the world disagreed with. And they wouldn’t talk about it then either. And Jesse Owen’s gold metals couldn’t sway their thoughts then any more than the scope of natural variation on a millennial scale does now.
When I was five years old I was not an eloquent speaker, nor did I have well formed, cogent arguments based on facts. So I won arguments by placing my hands over my ears and yelling, “LALALALALALALALALALA!!!” at the top of my voice and if that didn’t work I’d start throwing rocks. These days I just resort to sarcasm on the internet. Anyway, obviously some people just never grow up.
Jim Carey playing the part of Stephen Rahmsdoof !
I don’t think the goal should be to obscure or exclude skeptical voices simply because they are skeptical.
Skeptical views should be welcome, but they should be held to the same basic standards as any other contribution: accuracy, honesty, and a fair representation of the evidence.
P. Gosselin is free to object to his exclusion, but if someone’s contributions consistently misrepresent evidence or rely on misleading presentations of data, there can be legitimate reasons to limit their reach for the benefit of the broader public.
To give one specific example regarding P. Gosselin of NTZ:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/02/01/germany-january-mean-temperatures-falling-since-1988-contradicting-claims-of-warming/
The argument relies on January mean temperatures in a single region, which are noisy enough that you can cherry-pick a particular period and manufacture a seemingly meaningful trend.
That’s just one of about a hundred simple examples of his.
But whine away, PG.
You must be delighted that you are able to come here and spout any nonsense you like without censorship. But of course sceptics actually believe in free speech.
I believe in free speech as well.
But only for people who agree with you.
“ people who agree with you.”
Skeptics agree with me on this because they also support free speech.
I understand that may be a controversial concept for you. It’s okay, though. Not everyone supports free speech.
Your reading comprehension is atrocious.
Bill remains impressively committed to being anti-free-speech.
Thank you for confirming what I said about your reading comprehension.
You didn’t say it explicitly, but you continued arguing against my position on free speech, so I think it’s fair to assume that’s what you were implying.
You assume and state as fact. You do not live up to those lofty standards you would have imposed on we, the DENIERS.
The problem with all your nonsense is the fact that the CO2 curve from Mona Loa, in spite of all the effort to affect it shows no response at any scale. Just one of many Proofs.
Mr. another whatever: Then you can post links to your comments somewhere criticizing Rahmstorf and supporting free speech? WUWT commenters support it, looks like your trying to play a troll who insists he agrees with us.
We’ll wait on those links.
Anyone who believes in free speech should be totally disgusted by Rahmsdorf’s tactics .
Free speech for me, but not for thee.
theeeeee
You believe you are free to speak as you wish and anyone who does not agree with your spouttings is in need of reprogramming.
Catnip time. Laughing at you.
We have quite a few authoritarians on this board.
Authoritarians?
We call them trolls, flame warriors, or Trans-Reality Alarmists.
You have earned all three of those monikers.
Catnip. Laughing at you.
You DO realize that most of us, including usual lurkers like me, place you in that camp because you don’t directly answer questions but defer to what you think are authorities instead?
It’s nothing to do with free speech but everything to do with legitimate scientific enquiry. Dogma belongs to religion not science. However, being contrary for the sake of it is not scientific either.
I don’t understand the downvotes. What exactly is wrong with what I said?
People are free to say the earth is flat but that is a belief not credible science.
Insisting the world is flat disregarding evidence to the contrary is not valid science.
Simply stating that Carbon Dioxide is the main driver of climate change and then trying to silence anyone who provides alternative hypotheses is not what science is. You don’t need to invoke freedom of speech.
But Bill T made the valid point that censorship/suppression is the antithesis of free speech.
People have a right to be contrary and you have a right to prove they’re wrong- but you don’t have a right to say they don’t have a right to be contrary.
He actually does have the right to say it. That’s the entire point.
I stand corrected. So, he has that right legally, but morally it proves he’s a failure in debate for saying that.
If you are claiming to have examined the entire body of evidence which disproves and contradicts ALL the models of the IPCC and found the fatal flaw in every one of them, then your freedom of speech is being used to present a downright lie.
We are indeed free to lie, but lying has consequences as it is evil doing.
The freedom of individuals is unlimited, it is culturally managed by having a system of laws and provision for a fair trial and punishments mandated and put in place.
Nobody here disbelieves in the empirical evidence that climate has changed, climate is changing and climate will continue to change.
MAN MADE – CRISIS – BY USE OF CARBON COMPOUNDS AS FUEL is not truth and never has been.
There are absolutely no grounds for declaring that the state of the earth covering the time since the Americas were colonised by Europeans to now is somehow optimum, or normal or divinely bidden to be stable as a gift from the gods. There is abundant evidence that a mildly warmer epoch will be beneficial to humanity overall, originating as a species out of the Horn of Africa.
S. Rahmstorf is a typical representative of activist science, true to the motto: “Here are the conclusions! What facts can we find to support them?” If contradictory facts are found, those presenting them must be silenced, because this serves a higher good—and, in any case, the findings cannot possibly be true. Consequently, significant claims published by Rahmstorf have indeed been debunked.https://notrickszone.com/2015/03/24/dead-at-birth-german-warmist-scientists-slap-down-rahmstorfmann-amoc-paper-offers-no-strong-indication/#sthash.oqt6Yt0w.2CvlHgem.dpuf
Here’s where he learned doing science backwards
The instrument-era Hockey Stick global chart creator.
He wanted to see the climate change science proven right so he bastardized the instrument-era temperature record so its temperature profile correlates with CO2 emissions to make it look like the science is right.
Michael Mann perpetrated a Big Lie with his contribution to the Hockey Stick chart, but the Phil Jones bastardization of the written temperature record is the biggest of the Big Lies in alarmist climate science. This distortion of reality is still fooling people to this very day.
Mann is simply the reincarnation of Johann Joachim Becher or Georg Ernst Stahl (reference: The Phlogiston Theory).
Funny that Jan Baptist van Helmont (1580–1644), actually got it right ~100 years earlier (gas sylvestre).
“. . . so the science could be proved right, regardless . . .”
Science is never “proved right”. The words “prove”, “proven” or “proof” are not found in any legitimate description of The Scientific Method.
I find it flabbergasting (a real scientific term, right?) that Phil Jones had any credibility at all in the science community after making such an absurd statement . . . no wonder the climate alarmists liked him so much!
“if someone’s contributions consistently misrepresent evidence or rely on misleading presentations of data”
And who is to decide misrepresenting or misleading of evidence?
Good question.
EXACTLY!!
There is no place in the field of scientific endeavours for self-appointed ‘official experts’ to act as the ‘settled’ arbitors / gatekeepers of evidence or findings.
We have the classical Scientic Method with all its steps & processes to follow. It’s produced the foundations of our knowledge advances to date over cenruries.
Just faithfully practice it ffs!
Agenda “scientists” like Rhamsdorf trying to act as some kind of self -appointed behavioral prosecutor / defender can just piss off!
Most people should be able to recognize NTZ’s misrepresentations.
So, NTZ shouldn’t be allowed to argue whatever it wants? No free speech for someone or an entity deemed not up to your standards? Most people and entities make lots of mistakes in many ways- with their opinions, policies, etc. But they mustn’t do that, only make correct, orthodox opinions and policies?
No, he can make his arguments on his own platform. But platforms have every right to demonetize, de-amplify, or otherwise limit the reach of his content.
“Most people and entities make lots of mistakes in many ways- with their opinions, policies, etc.”
True, but it’s not a mistake if the misrepresentations keep happening. At some point, the pattern makes it apparent that it’s deliberate.
“But they mustn’t do that, only make correct, orthodox opinions and policies?”
No good-faith challenges should be allowed.
Edit: No. good-faith challenges should be allowed.
Speaking of mistakes…….
“But platforms have every right to demonetize, de-amplify, or otherwise limit the reach of his content.”
If it is a government platform, that would be a violation of the Constitution.
In the US you’re correct. In quasi authoritarian states like Germany, Britain, Australia, and Canada (among many others) truth is not a defence or excuse for “misinformation “. The most visible arrests in the last couple of years have to do with borders and Islamic relations to local law/respect.
Gosselin started out, “According to the media and climate alarmists, winters like we used to have in the global cooling days of the 1970s were supposed to be disappearing due to increasing warming from rising CO2.”
The subject is Winter means. A focus on January temperatures is not surprising.
Also, the single region was all of Germany, which is likely extensive enough to reflect a trend in all of Europe.
So, it seems to me, E, that your post is overly dismissive of the facts and defamatory toward Pierre Gosselin.
He started his linear trend in 1988, even though he could have started at the very beginning of the time series. We all know he wouldn’t have done that, though.
https://www.dwd.de/EN/ourservices/zeitreihen/zeitreihen.html;jsessionid=4437E7B2722C84FC2888D859387C7964.live11043?nn=519080
“According to the media and climate alarmists, winters like we used to have in the global cooling days of the 1970s were supposed to be disappearing due to increasing warming from rising CO2.”
Starting in 1970 likely would have produced a positive trend as well.
Mr. whatever: Still waiting to see your free speech defended elsewhere link.
No link. I’ve never had to defend free speech elsewhere. The conversation upthread was the first time I’ve ever had to defend it.
Laughing at you, how do you possibly back up your claim to “support free speech” if you’ve never addressed it before?? According to you folks, if you can’t show a link it doesn’t exist!
So then pick 1860 which was during one of the coldest decades of the 19th century as the beginning of the time series.
Funny how the first oil well was drilled in 1859.
Hello kitty.
When will you hold yourself to those standards your endorse?
Catnip time. :Laughing at you.
I do all the time.
BS alarm is blaring.
Laughing louder.
I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your Constitutional right to prove yourself an idiot.
The problem with your post is the Trans-Reality Activism posts are not held to any standards the like of which you say skeptical views should be held.
What climate data is not noisy?
It’s noisy, but that’s why you want to use as much data as possible.
Volume, not quality. He swings. He misses.
Catnip again. Laughing at your idiocies.
Yes, there’s a lot of insulting language you’re throwing my way, seemingly because you are anti free speech.
Not anti free speech. I am not demanding your silence or you be banned.
Ridicule is the most effective weapon against trolls and apparently it is getting under your skin.
Chase the catnip, kitty.
We all are still laughing at you.
You do that while I defend free speech.
You say you’re not against free speech, but you guys sure seem to be arguing against me—even after I explicitly said:
“I believe in free speech as well.”
Ah, subjective and conditional censorship! That’s the ticket.
And Eldrosion gets to apply his personal judgement on these inquisitions.
Catnip again. Laughing at your idoicies.
Was MBH98 accurate, honest, and a fair representation of the evidence?
journalists need to investigate who is serving the market for disinformation and where the money is coming from
Please do! And when they not only can’t find where the money is coming from, but discover that there is no money, what will they do?
Most journalists these days don’t know how to investigate anything, they just know how to regurgitate what they have been told by “experts” or “scientists”.
👍
They do that out of a deep desire to support the agenda.
They would find that it’s the UN (oceans are boiling!), WEF, WHO (unlikely a lab leak), and lots of other “world” organizations which are serving the vast majority of disinformation.
I looked at the linked interview, and it didn’t have Rahmstorf saying anything like what is claimed here. In fact, it is about someone called Armin Falk. Rahmstorf is briefly mentioned, twice, but nothing about media, debating etc.
You are correct, it’s the wrong link.
Correct link:
https://www.mdr.de/wissen/umwelt-klima/klima-loesungen-zweifel-interview-stefan-rahmstorf-,klimawandel-282.html
Let’s look at just a couple of pieces of nonsense from Chris’s Rahmsdorf link…
….
“ have an interest in extending this business model for a few more years.”
How long until Rahmdorf retires ??
“Heat, drought and extreme weather are becoming more frequent.”
Data does not support that misinformation.
“Where does this false information come from?”
It comes from climate activists like Rahmsdorf. !!
“They are the cheapest form of electricity generation in many parts of the world.”
You mean like Germany that has decimated its manufacturing industry with some of the highest priced energy in the world ??
The guy is a delusional PAID climate cultist, still trying to twist his way around all the stupid climate comments he has made during his life
You used misinformation where disinformation is more accurate.
The difference between a mistake and a lie.
Wisely noted. Misinformation can be correct data that is inconvenient for a particular point of view. Disinformation is incorrect and intended to mislead from the truth.
Good catch.
Just goes to show that these self-proclaimed ‘skeptics’ aren’t even skeptical enough to follow links in the articles they are defending.
Spout 13 gives mud.
Mr. Nail: Looks like you and Mr. Stokes are skeptical enough to notice the mistaken link, but not skeptical enough to go to the correct link and comment on “top climate scientist shuts debate”.
You mean the ones who admit the error and provide a correction?
Quote from the text ““We scientists explain the data and facts of climate change”
The problem with that statement is that the ‘facts are not well understood or verified in many instances. He may be convinced but that is not any reason to silence opposing views. If he is a scientist who accepts the scientific method he should welcome challenge, that is how science progresses.
It is irrelevant who funds the research, as long as the paper can be easily scrutinised, and replicated, good science is good science, the finance source does not matter. Using that as a reason to dismiss any opposing view is illogical and pejorative.
How does one “explain the data?”
Curious minds want to know.
If data is factual, as it should be, then it need not be explained.
Delusional nonsense. Climate is the statistics of weather observations.
Rahmstorf was a lead author with the IPCC (oh dear!), and refuses to accept that the Earth’s surface was once molten, and has cooled to its present temperature. His delusional refusal to accept reality is shared by the faker, fraud, scofflaw and deadbeat Michael Mann, and the overpaid civil servant Gavin Schmidt who used to spend too much time producing amateurish video games, instead of making sure that the office lights were turned off when the office was empty, and properly accounting for paperclip use.
He apparently has a following of the gullible and ignorant, who refuse to believe that adding CO2 to air does not make thermometers hotter!
It takes all types, doesn’t it?
Rahmstorf/Thunberg message in heavy metal.
Start with the Secretary General of the UN.
Quite the role model, eh?
Is the /sarc annotation needed?
“Climate is the statistics of weather observations.”
This is a kludge. Climates – plural – are best understood by examining vegetation and transitional zones between them (ecotones), as was the original work of Wladimir Köppen. Such vegetation information is not as simple to collect as is a thermometer reading or depth of water in a rain guage. Thus the “statistics” of weather observations have become a substitute for the more informative plants. There is a Citrus County, FL but not a similarly named county in ID, MT, or SD.
Climate was once the province of paleoclimatologists who defined climate in 10K 100K 1M year sized chunks.
Climate in the IPCC model stole the definition of micro climate (30 year weather average of a location or locale) and applied it to the planet. The timing is interesting as the definition appeared just about the same time as satellite weather observations completed the 3rd decade.
If you say so – it doesn’t matter. Nothing is caused by “climate change”, in any case.
As Mark Twain opined, “Climate is what you expect, weather is what you get.”
Classifying something doesn’t change its nature. As Shakespeare said “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”
Climatology is about as useful as phrenology, and probably less respectable than astrology.
Surely he is not suggesting the high priests of Climate Alarm are failing to get their message across.
Greta Thunberg, Al Gore, George Monbiot, and all those other highly regarded scientists must be having an impact aren’t they?……
Maybe Herr Rahmstorf,/or Herr Falk should join their erstwhile colleague and avoid venturing down aisle nine in Wegmans if he can’t take the withering truth let alone the looks…..
Maybe.
And don’t call me Shirley. 😉
You have to admire the brass neck.
It should be noted that the dark, far-left and globalist billionaire funding of the climate scam is MANY times larger than any pittance of funding to realist scientists.
Come on now, don’t be a Pryke. (pronounced “prick”).
“There is a Market for Disinformation”
As the hundreds of billions spent on impractical “green energy” projects, ineffectual “carbon capture” schemes, and the inflationary market distortions of “cap and trade” and “carbon taxes” has proven. The market is artificial, created entirely by leftist governing elites, inspired by the biggest hoax ever perpetrated and funded by subservient taxpayers. It is not the result of any real-world pressure. But that artificial market, which has not diminished global temperatures the tiniest fraction of a degree nor even slowed the (modest) increase, is highly attractive. The money is real even though the “problem” it purports to solve isn’t.
And that market is enthusiastically served by the likes of special-purpose CAGW propaganda distribution outfits like Covering Climate Now.
Bingo.
I’d rather have questions that can’t be answered than answers that can’t be questioned.
The climate zealots act like the true believers and keepers of the faith.
No heretics allowed here.
Questioning science is how you do science.
Thing is, they know that when questioned… they have no answers, (not scientific one, anyway).
So their only avenue is to avoid questions… by running away.
It is a religion, complete with a priesthood.
“he calls on mainstream journalists and established media outlets to strictly avoid giving a platform to skeptic voices from alternative channels”
Uh… but that’s been the universal policy of the MSM for years.
Yeah, what else is new. Climate Alarmists have been trying to shut Skeptics up for years. It hasn’t worked in the past and it won’t work now.
Not just “years”, decades. And it hasn’t just been the MSM.
“We need to find better ways of lying”.
Yeah, we know. Here you are, decades in to your Campaign of Lying about climate, with everything stacked in your favor, and still, somehow it’s not working.
Go figure.
The climate alarmists have everything on their side but the facts.
They are pulling their hair out trying to figure out where they went wrong.
You mean like Michael Mann who has everything on his side but the facts AND hair? 😉
Rahmstorf suffers from confirmation bias which is characteristic of bad scientists.
I am experiencing climate anger against climate alarmism, climate fraud and climate deceit especially of mainstream media journalists. This is not a particularly German problem but across the world. In Western countries alarmist politicians and journalists want to discredit straight questions. In the Third World, especially Africa, the alarmist narrative is pushed because the West has promised billions to push poor countries to use renewables and abandon their use of cheap fossil fuels.
I just saw this headline on South Africa’s largest digital news platform:
‘No time to lose’: El Niño could hit SA’s farms, water and energy supply into 2028
Attached to a picture of a failed Sunflower crop:
“The WMO has confirmed a near-100% likelihood that El Niño will persist through February 2027 – the first time it has expressed such certainty.”
I wonder if the journalist understands the El Niño. It appears this journalist has ignored records of real observations and measurements.
On September 1 The South African State of Dams Summary reported that the level of dams across the whole country were at 95% compared to 96% at this stage in 2025.
In the case of both the German and South African website, the journalists are women.
Will these people ever be held accountable for their climate fraud?
Happily a few women like Kathryn Porter and Angela Wheeler with some climate sense contribute articles to this site but mainstream media avoids them like the plague.
So Stefan Rahmstorf is using a disinformation campaign pushing for censorship.
How very scientific of him. /sarc
Note: Disinformation is intentional lying. Misinformation is unintentional error.
”It is the job of journalism to uncover who is behind these campaigns, who is funding them, and what interests are being pursued.”
Should that not also be applied to Trans-Reality Activist organizations, who reportedly get funding 10 to 100 times greater than any true science site.
My late father flew 35 B-17 missions over Germany out of Thurleigh, England.
A Master of the Air (306 BG)
Koln 4 times, Frankfurt, Kassel, Munster 3 times each & Misburg twice.
That leaves 20 single 4,000 lb deliveries.
Seems German arrogance did not take those lessons to heart.
Tough, Germany, here in America we have the First Amendment and freedom of speech and the press. Truth and accuracy will win out.
My experience says not so.
My posts are widely cancelled, blocked and censored.
Even on other topics like race and C-19.
YouTube terminated my account but at least they told me why.
Many blogs say they decide what gets posted and what they consider misinformation is deleted.
I even suspect the USPS does not deliver my snail mail & without due process.
And what can an ordinary person do about it?
Nic,
You need a refresher course on the First Amendment and freedom of speech. In the USA, this means individuals can express themselves without government interference. Note the last two words.
It does not mean any media, at their cost, must publish your posts. You can say or print what you want from your own stage. Build or rent one. In the modern social media world — become an influencer.
Further: Iceberg C-19 broke off the Ross Ice Shelf in 2002 and then into two parts, C-19A (“Melting Bob”) and C-19B.
You jest, of course. I believe that an ex-FBI director is facing a lengthy prison sentence for posting a picture of seashells on a beach outlining the figures 8647. He captioned his post “cool shell formation on my beach walk”.
People in the US are subject to all sorts of restrictions to what they can say and what they can do. The US has the largest prison population of any country in the world. I assume the prisoners are incarcerated because they disobeyed a government law of one sort or another.
In one state in Australia, it is a criminal offence to say “from the river to the sea” if someone takes offence. No different to posting a “cool shell formation” looking like 8647, I suppose.
Ain’t “free speech” grand?
“Free speech” like most human endeavors is complexed with many nuances.
The 86 47 case is bogus and should be tossed out OR all those thousands of people who bought teeshirts with that same notation should be pounding rocks.
One thing is clear, the DoJ cannot prove he creates the shell work.
One thing is clear, the DoJ cannot prove intent.
On an aside, file 86 (in the 1970s and 1980s) was a trash can, which is why I disagree with that government postition.
A singular point. The government did not prevent him from the shell work or photographing it. The possibility of inspiring violence was at the forefront of concerns.
Moving on….
The government enacted laws do not restrict your choices.
Factually, they establish consequences for choices made, aka deterrence.
In an ideal world all of that would be based on the greatest good for the greatest number and do no harm philosophies.
I am making no claims of net zero injustice.
Nor am I making claims of 100% due process (compliance with the law is due process, not a court hearing).
Your assumption that the prisoners “disobeyed a government law” is an interesting turn of phrase.
In most cases, they made choices that incurred the legal consequences set forth in the law, were presented in court, and adjudicated by a jury “of peers” who rendered a verdict and often the scope of the sentence.
Do not get me started on “jury of peers” as in most cases, those jurors are not peers, merely registered to vote.
“I even suspect the USPS does not deliver my snail mail & without due process.”
Paranoid.
Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you” is a popular saying.
The term “a scientific fact” is a contradiction in terms.
You should, correctly, not just take the word of an anonymous Internet poster as “proof” of that declaration … but maybe the words of an actual Nobel prize winner in a “hard” scientific subject (physics) will be more convincing.
Richard Feynman gave a public lecture in 1964 on how “Real Scientists (TM)” go about finding new “laws” using the scientific method (full transcript at this link) :
“Real Scientists” are humble.
They do not go around saying “it is 100% guaranteed certain that we are (/ I am) definitely right about subject X”.
“Real Scientists” work knowing that they are definitely wrong, the only questions left to answer being ones like “How much ?” or “In what way(s), precisely ?”.
The fact that they are able to do this every working day without inner qualms is one of the (many) things that separate “Real Scientists” from “ordinary people”.
.
PS : Since approximately 2020/1 a new expression has entered the English language for people loftily declaring “If you disagree with me … meeeeeeeee, you ignorant peasants ! … you are disagreeing with ‘The Science’ !”.
This attitude is now known as “Doing a Fauci”, and is unfortunately all too often seen in “climate scientists (/ experts)” with widespread (social) media exposure.
Protagoras, 450 BC: There are no absolute truths.
Plato, 370 BC: There are absolute truths, but humans cannot perceive them any more clearly that shadows on a cave wall (words to that effect, in The Republic).
“Of all things the measure is man, of the things that are, the existence of things that are and the non-existence of things that are not.“
— Protagoras, quoted by Socrates, published in Plato’s Theaetetus
This, then, is the historical origin of the scientific method.
To Stefan Rahmstorf: Been finding favor with the writings and history of Joseph Goebbels, have you?
For WUWT readers that might not know, Goebbels was the Reich Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda under Adolf Hitler, starting in March 1933, controlling censorship among other nefarious things.
evil special business interest happens to be my brain.
Didn’t Biden also try to do this?
No time to look it up.
This kind of public statement deeply disgusts me. Questions should be put to Rhamstorf about his fixation on an AMOC shutdown, because “THE” science doesn’t really support his position on this one.
It would also be worth recalling Stephen Schneider’s famous phrase about the “double ethical dilemma” faced by scientists when they address the media. There is a name for it: lying. It’s frankly convoluted. Going through endless circumlocutions to explain why it is virtuous not to tell people the truth. But ultimately, it’s easy to tell stories while taking advantage of the spotlight. Intellectual honesty according to Feynman is the opposite: easy to explain, because very simple to understand in principle, but difficult to put into practice. Few people are willing to admit that they were wrong, or that they misled people.
My maternal grandfather used to say to my mother: “Lies have short legs!” Climate alarmism has put on stilts, I think.
“I always thought the truth was in the nation’s best interest,”
— Jenny Lerner (Tea Leon) to President Tom Beck (Morgan Freeman) in the movie Deep Impact.