They never came near to proving it, but that DIDN’T show science at its glorious best. Instead, we were treated to the entire scientific establishment suppressing any dissent.

And they would have gotten away with it too, if it hadn’t been for that blasted Steve McIntyre.

I think that depending on one man to keep science pure is cutting it a bit fine…..

Just realised what I wrote. I missed out the all important NOT to disappoint!

Thank you,

A very red faced Chris….

Don’t worry, we know what you mean.

Good Post Pointy!

I always thought ‘we’ need a political equivalent of someone like Hannibal Barca- but realised that he won his battles, but ultimately lost the war.

Perhaps a Sulla – who got rid of some of the greedy elites and relinquished his title as dictator once his work was done….?

I love your imaginative discussion of how Armenius annihilated the Romans. But I think the truth is that nobody knows exactly how he did it. The facts are that the Romans went into the forest, but never came out. All the rest is speculation.

But the general point of your parable is well-made. Use all resources wisely and adopt a strategy with a high expectation of victory. Choose your ground well. Fight on your terms, not the enemies.

All good sound advice that I agree with.

The question is ‘how do we do this’?.

And without wanting to sound like a wet blanket, one of the biggest obstacles I see is the nature of scepticism itself. We are all different, all individuals, and – despite what the alarmists believe – have no ‘central command’, no unified narrative or playbook. And few, I suspect, would welcome being ‘ordered’ to adopt a particular party line. Most of us, IMO, are far too individualistic for that.

These are not necessarily insurmountable obstacles, but things that need to be thought through and handled sensitively..

Within UK, I guess the good Bishop Hill acts as a sort of rallying point for sceptic views. On the wider stage Anthony’s blogs do so – but very much more divergent in topics and range of opinion.

As for topics, I had independently been very vaguely thinking along the same direction as yourself…that it was time to move from being reactive to proactive players.

The first one that springs to mind is to hit hard on the ‘we’ve found the missing heat in the deep oceans’ crap. They haven’t done anything of the sort. All they’ve done is come up with some better guesses of where it might be hiding. We could make real progress by demonstrating this at ever opportunity.

And the second is the much bigger one. Inspired by Feynman’s simple remark

‘It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong’

We should concentrate every time on making them show us the empirical data that they claim supports their claims. Don’t be distracted by insults and sidetracks. Just insist that they point to the data that they rely on.

Data, data, data. Measurements. Not ‘consensus’, or ‘greatest minds’ or ‘clever people say’ or ‘models’. Just empirical data.

A few months of that and we’d be tearing huge chunks from the alarmist case. Much of it is little more than speculation.

Overall then, a great and timely idea. But needs to be executed with care.

If anybody wants to contact me offline to discuss, please do so at

Surname dot firstname at btinternet dot com

I am like thousands of others in that I point out to every individual I can why the alarmist narrative is wrong, I respond in blogs online so that people can see the hollow argument the warmista use. There is definitely a sea change underway and the tide of history is running against these alarmists. Just today on BBC Radio 4 I heard Harrabin in a much less polemical role and was quoting Chris Booker. On the same radio an hour later there was Jim Hansen ho was unable to convince the interviewer that warming was still going on and getting worse so he dropped into an attack on shale oil out of Canada instead.

They cannot keep on trying to breath life into their story when all the data is conspiring against them. The stupid attempt to involve the ocean pH will fail in a spectacular fashion too.

Paleo is right, death by a thousand cuts. Fuck these people man.

As for skeptics working in a more coordinated fashion, a humble suggestion is offered. Why not use the tried and true “death by a thousand cuts?…”

Grüss, omb

In Australia we have a press council boondoggle that can be used against the ‘warmenistas’.

Re: Policy

Just throwing this in ‘the ring’ and my thoughts were prompted by reading this article at ‘The American Spectator’ – Is Kleiner Perkins Sorry It Ever Met Al Gore?… http://spectator.org/archives/2013/05/13/is-kleiner-perkins-sorry-it-ev

And what I was prompted to consider is that the entire “alternative energy” boondoggle is basically selling a revision of the perpetual motion engine.

Free Energy! Just kick it off and it will run forever.

You could even describe it as Welfare Energy. Something for nothing.

But no-one is actually telling the story about the greatest revolutionary series of inventions that produced the STEAM age and then ELECTRICITY.

And mass produced and distributed electricity wiped out WindMills and WaterMills.

The use of Oil in engines stopped ‘pit pony’ coal workers.

No one is teaching history!