My belated condolences. I always enjoyed reading his posts and will miss his insight and wide ranging views. May hew…
What I’m going to say will upset a few people.
This is not going to be a popular article with some people on the skeptical side of the global warming divide but you’re going to get it anyway, because a few things that have needed to be said for some time, now require to be said more urgently, especially in the light of recent events. I wrote this article last Monday and have spent the rest of the week considering whether I should go with it or not. It breaks one of my own rules but I’ll be damned if I’ll let pass what happened last weekend without comment, if only because it may prevent it happening again.
It’s always nice and comfortable being in the right but that’s not the same thing as ensuring the truth will get out. Unpleasant as it might seem, to get that truth out into the world, where it can actually have some effect, you may have to get your hands dirty occasionally. How dirty they get, is that eternal judgement call, governed by your integrity and each one of us has to wrestle with our conscience over that one.
We are in a war, not a debate, and though there are no bullets flying around, make no mistake, people are still being killed. I got into this fight to do my part in stopping that killing and that is always the focus, nothing else. If you’ve read the “about me” for this blog, you’ll know that I think the big, slow, invisible killing is happening in the developing world.
It is caused by eco-activist policies, which are supported by mainstream politics, which are in turn supported by a deeply misinformed public opinion and behind it all and underpinning it all, is the credibility of a degenerate climate science. Therefore, to stop it all, climate science had to be taken out. A simple line of cold logic with an extreme statement at the end and I make no apologies for that. Take out the science, and the dominos start to fall. That in effect, whether people knew it or not, was the first-phase strategy to fight the war and it worked.
It’s been obvious for some time, especially to any scientifically literate person, that the climate realists have won that debate in the blogosphere hands down. It was won, not only by pointing out how bad the science actually was, but in so many cases, how downright dishonest it was. I’m sorry but that debate in here is over, though I’m sure it’ll continue to tick over.
If you agree that we’ve carried the field in the debate-the-science-to-death phase, then you have to ask, what’s next?
We must move out of here. It’s no longer good enough to just natter amongst ourselves; we have to widen the dialogue to a bigger audience, in other words, getting public opinion on our side has to be the next objective. It is the next domino and it’s already tottering. Doing anything else at this point, is just allowing defeat to ooze from the jaws of victory.
The only remaining puzzle is, how does one broaden the audience?
The Heartland Institute (HI) ran an advert on one billboard over one highway for a period of twenty-four hours. It essentially said that some pretty unsavoury characters believed in Global Warming. So what? It’s true, they do. However, it seemed to polarise some elements of the skeptic blogosphere, with various parties strongly condemning or supporting the initiative. It’s interesting to note which bloggers decided not to even cover it.
The most exhaustive discussion of it can be found here at Anthony Watt’s site WUWT. There’s a lot of points made in the 500 or so comments under the piece, though personally what I found most interesting were the infowar aspects of them. At a guess, I’d say nearly a third of the comments were from people who’d never posted there before and what they all in essence had to say was very similar – I’m an outraged climate skeptic and I utterly condemn the HI advert and suggest we climate skeptics shouldn’t have anything more to do with them. They were of course, agents of disinformation, mobilised to stoke up a furore aimed at marginalising the HI. If you still think there’s no such thing as troll central, I suggest you read through the comments with a more cynical eye …
As all good PR work is designed to do, the HI advert got a lot of attention. There was nothing new in this approach, even would you believe, on our supposedly lily-white climate realist side. You may have noticed, Christopher Monckton, probably our strongest public orator, seems so often to make controversial and provocative statements just before major speaking engagements, which as a result, fill the venues, if only out of the resultant curiosity by the ordinary person of either side about him. The amusing thing is watching the climate realists rushing to his defense. I have too much respect for his intellect and political acumen, to think he’s prone to making such remarks without being only too aware of their PR impact.
Similar examples abound. Why write a book entitled, “An Analysis of the IPCC Working Methods” when you can go for something much more eye-catching such as – Oh I don’t know, how about – “The Delinquent Teenager Who Was Mistaken for the World’s Top Climate Expert”? Perhaps comparing the IPCC to a delinquent teenager is going a little bit too far, too personal, too much like propaganda or dare I even say it, an ad hominem attack? It comes down to your sensibilities, I suppose, but either way, you’ll get more attention with the latter title, and therefore sell more books, which will get your message out to more people.
It’s always nice to have allies in any struggle but in the fight against climate alarmism, I long ago recognised there was not much practical help to be expected from so many of the climate realists, for a variety of reasons.
If there ever was a central problem, it was going to be how to get the climate skeptics out of their comfort zone and into the real world, actually doing something, rather than endlessly debating. In any large sense, I don’t think that’s possible, so other avenues and parties, have to be explored.
Too many people on the skeptic side are just so comfortable bickering on about the science and do you know what? There are people ready to send them an endless supply of trolls to bicker with, which they do, because they know as long as you’re doing that, you’re having absolutely no effect in the real world. I no longer see any substantial gain to be had by indulging in what has become repetitive displacement activity, especially when we’ve already won all the significant scientific debates. Think about it. When you leave aside ripping apart new alarmist papers, what new significant issues have been discussed in the last two years by the climate skeptic blogosphere?
There’s simply too much of what I call the whinge and dump mentality as well. This war of shadows is not about you, your principles, me or my morality; it’s about saving lives, which actually means doing things like writing letters to your political representatives, getting actively involved in some politics or actually turning out for a demonstration. It’s a real thing, not some endless academic Oxford Union debate. At some point, if you’re really going to make any damn difference, you have to think through what you’re prepared to do, and that I did a long time ago. Apparently, where I draw the line, is a lot lower down that mountain of morality that some skeptics appear to live atop of.
We have to broaden the audience; there was always only so much which could be achieved in cyberspace and it’s been done. We’re going to have to pick up our game too. Coming out of the blogosphere spouting the science we’re all so comfortable with, simply isn’t going to make the cut either. The only thing the average person knows about science is that they don’t understand it, so you might as well be speaking Swahili to them. We do have to think up new ways to get the message across, and some of them will have to fit on a billboard over a highway.
I think there was another subtle but rather subconscious side to some of the skeptic reaction to the HI initiative. Because it was an attempt to move the debate outside that blogosphere we all know and love, it was perhaps leaving a few of the notables of that very skeptic blogosphere behind. I cannot help but get a sense, it was vaguely about reasserting some sort of control, as if they wanted to get the debate safely reined back into here. Why, I’ve read they were not even consulted with in advance by the HI, before the advert was ran. What on earth could the HI been thinking of, not to get prior clearance from them?
If you’re a notable climate realist, that means you will be exercising authority. As always, with authority comes a measure of wider responsibility, because the effect of what you say and do, is no longer confined to just you. Whether you like it or not, those who trust, rely or are influenced in any way by your actions, will implicitly hand you some leadership responsibilities. We have so few allies in this struggle, the rule I exercise here is not to criticise allies. It’s a hard rule to follow at times. You see them make a move that isn’t optimal or more commonly, fail to make an appropriate response to a rapidly deteriorating situation. The WUWT debate linked to above, is a particularly frustrating example of both of those errors. Over last weekend, it was like watching a self-inflicted and escalating cluster-fuck developing in real-time.
Yes, the HI thing might have been a bit clumsy, perhaps even a bit too in-your-face for your taste but it was trying to move the conversation out into the real world and to real people. If you had a problem with it, which I never did, then it should have been handled with some judgement or at least a modicum of tact. If you couldn’t get anywhere behind the scenes, then, as long as what they were up to was not totally outrageous, you walk away from them without any comment, resolving to keep your distance from there on in.
The way not to handle it, is to start blogging about it from on high, writing open letters to them or publically, via your blog, flouncing out of their conferences on your high horse. Well done, you now own some piece of useless higher moral ground because you created and then lost us a battle that not only didn’t need to be fought in the first place but which also, with a little thought, could have been fought so much more adroitly. If that was an example of your leadership thinking, then thank you but no thank you, I’ll take my chances alone without you.
There’s more at stake here than your sensibilities or your high moral principles, so for God’s sake, get into the fight for real or at least, don’t become a liability to those of us, who are actually trying to achieve concrete change out in the real world.
©Pointman
Related articles by Pointman:
Pointman's 
Goddam right. I posted a comment stating that I’d spotted these n00bs on Watts’ blog page as warmistas false-fronting as “skeptics,” and the goddam moderator obliterated it.
In the words of P.J. O’Rourke:
One weak-wristed cheese[phallus] – maybe two or three – among those of us who regard the AGW scam as nothing less than a concerted theft of value (billions of fiat currency units’ worth) by deceit might be credible. There are always prissy putzes who get all panty-twisted about a plain statement of spectacularly well-verified fact in such disputes.
But a horde of copypasta crotch-clutchers slamming the site so flagrantly? That goes way to hellangone beyond the “three times is enemy action” caveat, and I can’t imagine anybody with enough maturity to need a shave every other day honestly denying it.
Therefore there’s something damnably dishonest about Mr. Watts’ site, and that’s distressing.
Ya think our Mombasa Messiah’s Mr. Holder has been messaging him with reminders of Andrew Breitbart’s sudden “natural causes” disposal?
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Reblogged this on Climate Ponderings.
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REPOSTING my thoughts:
Personally, I think many realists were a bit dismayed because they wanted Heartland to stay a pristine think tank. Above such as Soros – Suzuki type funded think tanks.
Does the Warmist – CAGW side have a platform to get their panties in a bunch? NOT to my thinking. Clean up your own house before you attempt to clean mine. Heartland play’d YOUR game using the truth against you.
Did the experiment work?
Well, it certainly got me to read TK’s Manifesto and compare it to what what has been said by such as Mr Gore and many other CAGW’ers etc.
Should they have consulted supporters?
Probably, as some do not want their names – works associated with such acts.
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What’s the point of a think-tank if all it does is think?
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Thanks, Kim, for bringing Pointman’s blog to my attention.
I have been in this “battle” since 1960, but couldn’t identify the opponent until Climategate emails were released in Nov 2009 and leaders of nations, the news media, and scientific organizations (BBC, PBS, New York Times, Nature, the UN’s IPCC, the US NAS, the UK’s RS, Proceedings of the NAS, Monthly Notices of the RS, etc.) joined forces with those who manipulated global temperature data.
Here’s the rest of the story, beginning in August 1945:
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Pointman, I appreciate your perspective (as always!) … but …. considering that few in either the Real World or the blogosphere had ever heard of HI prior to Gleickgate and considering the very short notice (early April, as I recall) of their conference I’m not sure that a billboard in Chicago was intended to stake some ground in the battle as you perceive it.
I would be less skeptical of the motives behind HI’s choices of actions if they had not demonstrated similarly disheartening choices of PR prior to previous conferences. I’ll readily confess that I cringe when I read/hear people saying that AGW is a “hoax” or a “scam”.
My view is that the majority are among the undecided – if not amongst the “I just don’t know and it’s not my priority so I don’t have time to check it out”. The hoax and scam criers, IMHO, are unlikely to convince the undecided and just don’t knowers.
The view from here, so to speak, is that they were marketing their conference to the locals! And it worked, evidently. HI subsenquenty mentioned that they got 10,000 hits on ttheir site during the 24 hour period.(I should be so lucky!) They did not mention how many local registrations to their conference resulted from these 10,000 hits – nor which pages of their site also received significant spike in hits.
Consider the very late (if not opportunistic) tie-in with the NATO meeting. Whatthehell would particapnts at a NATO meeting know or care about “climate change” that would motivate them to stay a few extra days in order to attend?!
And I respectfully disagree with your contention that those who objected to HI’s strategy (for whatever reason) should not have gone public with their concerns. While you have not named names, the two most prominent objectors of whom I’m aware both gave HI an opportunity to respond before going public. In at least one of these two instances, HI chose not to respond.
But I’m not upset, Pointman, I simply (but respecfully) disagree with your take on this:-)
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At 9:17 PM 11 May, hro001 writes:
I’d agree, but just to the extent that a “hoax” is a deceit – like Piltdown Man – undertaken for no purpose other than to puncture pomposity and demonstrate the gullibility of the credulous – while “scam” simply doesn’t express the true severity of this economy-wrecking effort on the part of the leftie-lusers to ram their Watermelon authoritarianism down the throats of millions of innocent human beings with deliberate intent to work those victims’ injury.
No, only the word fraud will do to characterize this concerted and thoroughly criminal theft of value – billions of dollars in government “research” grants alone – by way of the knowing and malicious utterance of falsehoods.
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Hi Hilary, I’m in a rush so a short holding reply and I’ll get back to the points you raise later at the weekend. In the light of what you told me, I’ve removed the following sentence from the 3rd from last para.
“Personally, I think you might have had the good sense to have a private word with the HI.”
In passing, I have no problem with anyone disagreeing with anything I write, as long as it’s civil and lucid, two things which your comments here unfailingly are.
Pointman
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Pointman, I agree that the “war” against climate alarmism, and the multitude of thieving political scams that hang on its coat-tails, needs to be moved on to a wider audience than the blogosphere,
BUT there is no way I can applaud the HI publicity campaign! I think it puts us all on the same level as those who promoted the “exploding schoolchildren” theme and that is not where I want to be.
The fact that they fight dirty doesn’t mean we should join them, there has to be a better way and we need to find it.
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Reblogged this on gottadobetterthanthis.
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Personally I thought the reaction of many over a single billboard in a long corrupt city of Chicago was absurd because until Anthony posted it at his blog I would not have known about it.
Not only that in their rush to condemn it they missed the simple point of that billboard message.It seems that they will overlook the Viscounts occasional over the top incivility (I know since I have seen it in e-mails) where he gets away with it.
I am disappointed in this overreaction and wonder when the skeptics try some PR fighting that is always a little dirty.The victory in science in not reaching the many who are still in the grips of the alarmist PROPAGANDA they get everyday of the week.
How are you going to counter the propaganda that alamists are using so effectively?
Where is OUR own propaganda to counter with?
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The “touchy-feely” crowd have been in control of the media coverage of AGW for a long time. In contrast, the logic-and-reality folks have been honing their swords and getting a few ducks in a row.
However, the average dude-in-the-street (or TV watcher, or movie-goer, or web-surfer) has a really short span of attention. And, as the marketing folks know all too well, it’s the “sizzle” that sells. They cobble together a heart-rending myth about polar bears drowning for lack of ice, and then drive the guilt that they create into [useless green] actions that they tell us will assuage our guilt.
Since so much of today’s popular culture involves feuding and street wars, that probably means that most of the people whose hearts we need to win have a high tolerance for looking at the seamier side of life, and blood and gore. I am guessing that HI knew it would take something very edgy to come close to a punch-in-the-face that might get the attention of the masses…especially in Chicago.
Pman, your comments about wanting to save real lives agrees with what I have figured out.
I am reminded of the endless reports during the Vietnam War, telling how many troops were killed in the previous day’s fighting. If we had a way to convert to real numbers our vague knowledge that helpless people in the developing world are being literally killed to serve a myth, and we had a method for reporting those numbers on a daily basis to as many people as possible, I wonder if that would help make the point of what’s really going on.
Or, how about finding a way to boil down the massive impact on the world’s economy that all this green nonsense has had? How about some polar-bear-type stories about the families that have been torn apart, villages that have been cruelly destroyed, and incredible amounts of resources that have been squandered in the name of some pie-in-the-sky save-the-planet philosophy that benefits no one but the jet set?
They’ve got their movies and their Oscars and Nobels, but their “cause” is bogus.
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I disagree with you, Pointman. I think the AGW crowd is losing, not primarily because of the science, but because they are perceived as arrogant, closed minded and often just plain nasty. In contrast to people Anthony Watts, for instance. When Power Grab says that the dude-in-the-street has a short span of attention, that’s only true in a issue-focused, intellectual sense. Trust and distrust stays with people and sticks to those who are trusted or distrusted. Potentially forever.
Also, the warmists are losing because they are pretending to agree when they don’t. One guy says the arctic sea ice will be gone in 2020 and another says 2080. And both are equally sure. And I think people get this and become skeptical, because it happens over and over again. Not everybody gets it, but enough to influence everybody else. So I think the idea of playing down disagreement with your allies doesn’t work. The dude in the street has a higher EQ than most climate warriors and it works to the advantage of those who are honest.
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There are ways, surely, of getting the point across in ways that are not too alienating. A giant billboard with something like “Anders Breivik denies climate change – do you?” on it, for instance, wouldn’t be all that wonderfully successful at winning me over. There is common ground that can be utilised – for example, people generally hate to feel their money is being wasted. A good starting point, therefore, would be the reasons why Peter Lilley rejected the UK’s Climate Change Act in 2008, as he explains here:
“The costs were over £200 billion. The maximum benefits, according to the government’s assessment – and these are the benefits of reducing climate change worldwide, so most of those benefits accrue to other people – was put at £105 billion. So the government’s own assessment was that the costs were nearly twice the benefits.”
The makings of billboard material? I think so.
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Hi Pointman,
I saw your post at WUWT as well, and as I said there, I agree with you partially. I’ve always thought that the science bit is only a part of the battle and agree with you that this is largely an info war.
However, we do need the science and an info war has many facets. I’m not shocked at the content of the Heartland ad, and although at first I thought the concept sucks…because of the poor logic and tackiness… yours and Smokey’s posts convinced me that anything that gets attention is of value. The part of me that has worked in advertising (graphics, ilustration and writing) for over two decades evaluates such campaigns differently from the folks who were shocked on principle.
Where I disagree with you is not on the inefficacy of the ad, but that it flopped majorly and did some considerable damage. The problem is not the content, but who did it. It should not have been the Heartland Institute. The scientists and the mainstream skeptics are shocked at such stuff…we can all debate whether that’s right or wrong, but the fact is that some people were sufficiently upset to quit the conference, although I’m glad to know that Anthony Watt and the first speaker, Vaclav Klaus will attend. I haven’t heard whether my fellow Torontonian, Donna Laframboise will be attending. I wish everyone does, but I’m not going to condemn anyone who doesn’t.
If we are going to talk info wars, strategies and tactics, we must consider efficacy. Heartland was gaining reputation as a mainstream conservative organization, one able to attract support from big organizations, large corporations such as Microsoft and the moderates. It also became a meeting place, a venue of sorts for the middle class, skeptic scientist crowd, with its anual climate conferences, publish papers and all that paraphernalia. Let’s not forget: We need this. So, when Heartland went off its tracks with this ad, it sand-bagged a whole lot of people and deraild its own success as an organization that could speak to the moderates and the undecideds.
So, I’m going to say this to all of you in this battle: Welcome to my world. As an active Zionist who has worked in hasbarah (promotion of Israel), I have have had to face at least two decades of hatred, mistrust, unfair criticism and outrageous lies churned out by the media, governments, Churches, organizations and society at large with a deadly banality…without being able to do much about it. It looked hopeless, and many gave up. Israel was poor, its enemies many, its people exhausted and succumbing to “post-Zionism,” the army was humiated…the Dream was fading. Even among the friendsly nations of the West, we had reality turned on its head, where victim becomes perpetrator and is compared to his greatest enemies. We were expected to take suicide bombers, thousands of rockets, destruction of our communities, surrender of our lands and disgusting accusations calmly, with moderation and patience. It is only recently, thanks to the appearance of the Internet out of nowhere as it were, and thanks to the work of thousands of patient people ranging from mild and moderate Jews in high society, Evangelical Christians in the US, pockets of conservatives everywhere and even fiery, “knit-kippah” settler youths on hilltops, that we are beginning to see the tide turning. You can call this skewed situation a travesty, unfair, biased, antisemitic, frustrating, whatever, but it’s the only situation there is and you either give up or fight. And if you fight, you must be effective. And to be effective, you must aknowledge the necessity of the multi-pronged, multi-faceted battle and you must hold on to your morals and to the truth.
So it is in our case here. We are up against massive forces who threaten to destroy our lives, the lives of our children and the world’s poor, who already are the first victims. We all know how it is. But to win, we need the moderates and the mainstream, just as the radicals as well. Let me cut my bloviation here, Pointman et alia, you’re all saved by the fact that my Sabbath is coming up, and let me say that while I agree with all you firebrands, and I’m by character and skillsets in your corner, we must respect and protect the more timid, the intellectuals, the mainstream and the moderates. So yes, while I blanch at the gaucherie of Heartland putting up the mug of that crazy murderous idiot, and wish that the moderates and world out there treated us fairly and equally and let us get away with at least a tenth of what our opposition gets away with every day…reality just ain’t so. This is the kind of an ad they should never put up…it’s the kind of ad I can create and someone can put up. And we don’t need to lie, to create propaganda and twiddle with people’s emotions because we can use truth and we can use the truth to eviscerate them with.
Sorry for this chopped-up, stream-of-consciousness ramble and my apologies for the casual grammar, horrid spelling and all that. You must be regretting taking me off moderation mode, Pointman…oops, sorry about that. I’d also like to mention quickly that I’m game for a jolly and savage PR battle right in the open, that I have a few skills for that, but I can’t do it alone, so if anyone has any idears, I’m as they say, all ears. Ta-dah for now.
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This is a wonderful essay, as are the comments. Peter Kovachev’s comment is particularly stirring. Thank you to the various authors.
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Well said Pointman, it’s time to leave the echo chamber!
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Hi Pointman,
Great article, I had wondered if HI might have concluded that their recent ‘occupation of the moral high-ground’ was not actually a great place to be; you have to ‘dig in’ and go defensive whilst everyone takes a shot at you. Better to ditch the forward position before you get too comfortable. Either that, or both sides of the climate-war are controlled by the same hand.
*removes tinfoil* 😉
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Re getting the message across, billboards are expensive; how about sticky notes, as per the “Nobama 2012” campaign last year? A post-it note with a message on it can be left in many kinds of places for people to find. There’s always the risk that it could end up as litter, but then you could say the same about flyers.
If you have access to a laser printer, you can easily print a message on a post-it, although using a marker pen is obviously cheaper. Here’s one I made earlier as an experiment (not ideal, as it uses too much toner, but – early days.)
http://twitpic.com/9kjugr
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“In a report to be released today, climate commissioner Professor Tim Flannery said the region’s temperatures would rise sharply in coming years, leading to violence and more cases of mental illness.”
This is the lead story today in Sydney’s Telegraph News site…….
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/climate-commissioner-professor-tim-flannery-said-temperatures-on-rise-in-sydneys-west/story-e6freuy9-1226354331959
As you will see from the illustrating picture, the Flim Flam man is depicted in evangelical pose.
The “journalist” is described as “Political Reporter”. I have no clue as to the vintage of this doyen of the journalistic trades, but she leaves the reader to infer one of two things – either she is a breathless, dewy-eyed nymph in the thrall of highly-paid high profile people, or she is a jaded Leftist hack too lazy to challenge any garbage spouted by her heroes and is intent on grabbing a featured spot with her ‘by-line’.
Nothing more than a press-release flogging yet another speaking engagement by the Triumvirate of Climate Catastrophe. This is what we are up against.
I can understand why some bright spark from Madison Avenue thought that fighting fire with fire was appropriate for the Heartland Institute – after all, it wasn’t a lie – just an attention-grabbing billboard to shake up the complacency of middle America.
Some have the view “whatever it takes” – I prefer “whatever works”. After all, the Institute is a ‘think tank’ and I’m sure the strategies flying across the table are many and varied – some will work, others won’t – but I see no constructive point in scotching every challenging idea because the truth bruises the sensibilities of some people.
We have a long way to go and we’d better get on with it.
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I’m reading this blog because I’ve moved on from science blogs for that very reason. I needed no more convincing of the science. The question is how, because the alarmists are continuing in public as though they never lost!
In Australia, the govt climate alarmist claimed higher temps and madness in western Sydney. Which just happen to be marginal electorates. Fortunately it didn’t work, and Flannery was rightfully pilloried. The only gain made against the charade is inadvertently by the alarmists themselves by their outrageous proclamations.
You are right.
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No, I don’t agree “we’ve carried the field” in the debate-the-science-to-death phase – or we may have carried the field but are nowhere near winning the war. This for the very reason that the warmists have infiltrated not only the media, but government departments, learned societies, nature conservancies – you name it. They haven’t yet taken over the internet, but rest assured, they will keep trying.
Not only have they as good as won the war, but we are at present living under an occupation and our only course of action is resistance, non-cooperation and continually exposing their lies.
I too get depressed by sceptical blog commenters nattering amongst ourselves and have practically given up commenting these days. But the reason for these constant vicious circles comes from the other side’s endless recycling of the same refuted tired old lies and red herrings.
On the other hand I think it is important to never give up exposing these antics to an ever-growing audience; so all power to these blogs and their hard working moderators, but we have to be patient and not resort to the same ad hominem and sneering tactics.
I just don’t see how we can at present “move out of here”, frustrating as that may be.
As for the Heartland, there’s no doubt in my mind they’ve well and truly shot themselves in the foot. I’d be interested in knowing who suggested that billboard in the first place and who’s protecting him or her. It smells to me like some “communications” PR bod bursting with bright ideas and out of touch with reality.
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All morals and ethics, in this vicious war was kicked into the long grass long ago, flat earthers Brown called us, some labelled realists, holocaust Deniers, we are named scum and creationists, loonies and nutters – are they, these alarmists so scared of the truth?
They must be.
Any ‘moral’ highground is commanded by the good guys = the realists.
We are the side of the realists, we aren’t the liars, quack scientists and political dissemblers plugging a non existent effect. Don’t forget, the real bastards who lie in the shadows. Executives of Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs, Soros et al who are making a financial killing riding on the backs of the lowly taxpayer, after all this is the greatest Ponzi scheme known to mankind, even Bernie [Madoff] would be impressed by the scale of this scam.
Heartland’s billboard, was a legitimate though tongue in cheek attack on the loons, madmen who believe in their insane scheme so vehemently – indubitably and on the alarmist side of the fence sit the; Una bomber, Bin Laden, and Charles Manson and no doubt Jim Jones would be a AGWer if he was still able to preach his poisonous genocidal bilge.
What did Heartland do – that was wrong?
Don’t give me this sanctimonious drivel about ethics and priciples – its bollocks, this is a serious battle not a kids game.
I will not have, boneheaded advocates voting in ‘my name’ causing the de-industrialisation of my country because of some fanciful phantasm – it’s not right and it’s not going to happen.
Alarmism. is one symptom of a virulent pathogen which is metastasizing – it is killing our whole civilization, how the cultural Marxists, eco-fascists and doom mongering Malthusian nutters love AGW; in all its evil manifestations, it’s so perfect and for ‘them’ a vehicle heaven sent.
Alarmism, in the UK is corrupting our whole economy.
As the EU, that other great bane of the UK is slowly imploding, one of the reasons it will hit Britain very, very hard – is the stark fact that we have committed so much time and treasure to a fictional threat.
Our resistance has been laid low: by a financial yoke which after 13 years of withering wasteful Socialist + 2 yrs of the Red Tories scorched earth policy: we were ill-equipped to bear.
it wore us down and now as we require all our strength to combat this new financial armageddon [the euro collapse] – we are weakened and emaciated by a politically braindead adherence to CAGW, which was the cancer we should have cut out years ago.
Mad? ………………………… yup I’m Mad as hell.
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Wow Edward…..good rant!!
I’m with you on everything you say but I still don’t think we’re going to win over many people by this sort of stunt. It makes us look even more like nutcases than we’ve already been painted.
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I hear you meltemian, you know what they say though; “any publicity, is good publicity” and ‘the only thing worse thing about being talked about – it not being talked about’.
The battle is on and at all costs, it must be kept in the public eye, because otherwise the politicians will have it all their own way.
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Pointman as a climate realist, I have no problem with anything you have written here.
The real issue is that HI fired a cannon with a loud bang, but the ammunition was a ping-pong ball.
I have also started to see some of the “we are right” attitude at WUWT in the way they have treated Tallbloke and his site of recent times. Only the universe is right. Since no-one is perfect, everyone is wrong by varying degrees.
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Agree, especially the bit about the ping-pong ball.
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First of all, a big hello and welcome to the new commenters here. There’s simply too many comments to respond to individually, so I hope you’ll forgive this reply-to-all response to them. It gives me some badly needed time to work on the next blog.
Given the number of substantial comments and the diversity of viewpoints expressed in them, I now think that on balance, it was well worth going ahead with publishing this piece. We do need to have a debate about how to expand the reach of our message.
We’re 6 months off the third anniversary of Climategate but still the ordinary person has never heard that name, never mind the scandal. That simple fact represents the complete success of the alarmist MSM in suppressing an inconvenient event. Try a simple experiment for yourself. Next time you’re in a bar or cafe or getting your hair done or just meeting new people at a party, ask them what they think about Climategate. Nearly all the time, all you’ll get in response is – what’s Climategate?
This blog and the style of it, is an attempt to broaden the audience. Though I know certain areas of science well, I never blog about them because, as I said above, “The only thing the average person knows about science is that they don’t understand it, so you might as well be speaking Swahili to them.” This is absolutely not a detrimental reflection on them in any way but a recognition of a fact of life we have to deal with, if we want to communicate with a wider audience. This does not mean that I have to dumb it down for them, far from it. It means I have to work harder and outside my comfort zone. If the ordinary person doesn’t understand a piece, then it’s a failed piece. Period.
There’s a play called “The Heretic”, which after a controversial run in England, is now opening in Australia. It basically pokes fun at climate scientists and assorted savers of the world. Again, this is broadening the message and I’ll bet you there ain’t much science in it. It’s already attracting letters of complaint, so it must be hitting some sensitive spots.
We need more initiatives like these, because popular sentiment has turned against climate alarmism, so now is the time to take advantage of that.
Pointman
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Celebrity Deathmatch with Al Gore, watch from 2.30;
Eubank and Watson:
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First time on your blog, and have to say this argument is one I would echo. I have posted much of the same on WUWT including the article you cite here about the HI board incident.
I have said one thing all along myself: Keep it legal and peaceful. There are plenty of ways to do that and the goal is to stop the deaths as you say and we might differ on where the focus resides, but there is more then one way to skin the cat so to speak.
Yes, I think its terrible the policies that have resulted in deaths in other countries. I abhor that along with anything else, but I have always focused closer to home in the US and realized that either approach will work to stop the madness deaths that result from energy poverty among the poor and/or the same in developing countries.
I talk to various other sceptics as well and some of the things we do including fighting trolls is just part of the battle. That is something for fun that is like playing duck-hunt where all the ducks are just sitting there so to speak. There is no challenge as you say in it, but there is the tangible benefit that if you dialogue correctly online it keeps the trolls comments from being taken even somewhat seriously by casual browsers.
If that is what it takes, so be it. But my main focus is always on writing the representatives and keeping people I know informed of how this science will effect them. The science is besides the point and as I tell people often IRL, if you want to hear about it, I can convince you that the science is flawed in several ways, but I think the most pressing concerns are how these public policies are going to effect YOU.
That is the most important thing, making sure people realize how this energy policy is going to effect them, how the environmentalists do not really care about the environment, and other things of that nature. The goal is to reach beyond the blogosphere to different groups of people who will then talk it out among others and so on.
Just one thing we can all do, and I know several people who have their own soapbox type things they fight against and I agree with them on those issues as well, but we can only do so much. My focus is on AGW and I tend to keep it there since other issues tend to cloud things to some extent. It is all a learning experience, but in the end we sceptics have to become a very potent grassroots organization in order to stop any of the bad science, and yes that is where the solution is in the end. We have to get political.
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What a great picture . . . real or photoshop? No matter . . . still great!
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How about a provocative slogan
Here is one suggestion.
There is no “F” in global warming.
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Maybe the news of the death of AGW was somewhat premature…. At the moment, on France 24 and BBC, I still hear/see articles every week about the doom that awaits us if we don’t curtail our use of fossil fuels and reduce our CO2 emissions dramatically. The irony of the boat-trip in the Arctic, that was supposed to demonstrate its new ice-free nature got stuck in the ice and needed rescuing, was hardly remarked upon. The BBC has decided that “balance” on AGW debates is no longer needed, because the science is settled. They’ve obviously decided that “balance” on Trump is not needed, either, and in any case it’s somewhat hard to find a journalist or comedian available to provide that balance.
Of course there’s a low-Carbon solution available that would be cheaper and more reliable that solar or wind power, but (like an 8-year old kid) people don’t realise that nuclear can be very much safer these days, and the various failures of nuclear power stations in the past (3-Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima) were old designs where the danger was accepted as the cost of gaining stuff to make bombs with, and if you don’t want to make bombs then a benign and cheap alternative (molten salt reactors) has been available for almost all my lifetime. Rather than spending the design effort to produce one big one to power half the country, you could mass-produce a lot of small ones that pretty-well run themselves without a lot of people and get the cost per unit of electricity (and the costs to transmit it to the user) far lower. Once you’ve mentioned the words “nuclear fission”, though, people don’t want it.
Still, “The only thing the average person knows about science is that they don’t understand it”. I see this with most of my family and most of the people I know. Most believe what the media says, simply because it’s repeated so often. It’s inconceivable that the people in white lab-coats would lie, or that the politicians would support the lie, even though we don’t have to look back far in history to find a lot of examples of Big Lies.
Showing people the stats from 1940-1970, and how the “global temperature” dropped even though the CO2 levels were inexorably rising at a pretty constant rate, and pointing out that at the time the news was all about us entering a new Ice Age, doesn’t seem to be enough to counter the general consensus that CO2 is the problem today. Pointing out that the Mediaeval Warm Period was likely a few degrees warmer than today and was a time of plenty and a good time to live doesn’t cut much ice, either. Pointing out that the climate changed all on its own many times in history before the Industrial Age started doesn’t convince people it’s Not Our Fault now, and that there’s probably bugger-all we can do about the climate change anyway. They’ve claimed the moral high ground by decrying the use of oil and they’re not about to relinquish it, even though they tank up their cars and fly across continents to attend talks about how oil is evil. The computer models predict the End Of The World As We Know It, and most people haven’t learned how those models actually work and haven’t understood the GIGO principle. They haven’t looked at the previous predictions and compared to the current data to see how far out those predictions were, but instead believe the predictions made today even though they are basically the same models run on faster computers.
It looks to me that the war isn’t over yet.
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