My belated condolences. I always enjoyed reading his posts and will miss his insight and wide ranging views. May hew…
Get real, get organised and finish it.
You may get offended or not by some of the things I’m going to say in this piece but they’ll get said nevertheless, so damn the torpedoes and full blog ahead. It’s the acid test of a real friendship to at times tell them they’re acting like a prat, and by the way, your bum really does look gigunda in that dress.
Anthony Watts recently ran a poll at WUWT that posed the question – “Is it time for an “official” climate skeptics organization, one that produces a policy statement, issues press releases, and provides educational guidance?”
I voted “yes” and I’d like to outline my reasons for doing so.
Any scattered and disparate opposition to an unjust law, policy or controversial issue which doesn’t get organised under some umbrella organisation is not only politically naïve but a consequently weak faction which doesn’t need to be taken seriously. More often than not, they’re comfortable in their armchairs living in their own deluded and secluded cloud cuckoo land.
There’s nicer ways of saying it but if you want to be a force to be reckoned with, you have to get all ganged up. You seriously want to take on that exploitive employer, get unionised brothers and sisters. You want political change, form a lobby group. You don’t want that wind farm monstrosity blighting your life, start a local campaigning group. You want equal civil rights irrespective of the colour of your ass, start marching en masse. You want women to have the vote, get those bustles out of the drawing rooms and onto the streets as a mob waving placards and make the powers that be listen to you.
There’s simply no other way to get an issue onto the political agenda, and if you happen to think global warming isn’t a political thing, you pop that blue pill brother and dream on.
Give people a standard they can rally to and if the cause has real popular support, they’ll flock to it and become a bigger voice which will be heard despite any attempts to suppress it. Those attempts will just serve to strengthen group identity and make it a much more powerful force.
The deep primordial history of us as a species is all about getting together and cooperation. You might be rubbish at knapping a flint spearhead, but as long as one of the group can do that specialist thing, everyone is happy. Crap at tracking game? No matter, that runty kid over there is somehow brilliant at it. You might just be a spear carrier, but you know you play your part for the good of everyone else. That compulsion to gang up and work together is by now deeply embedded in our DNA. It’s been selected for. Without it, civilisation would fall apart in a day.
The worst thing you can ever do is sit in grumpy isolation doing nothing more than bitching away to a few cronies, and that’s exactly what’s all too common across the skeptic blogosphere. I call it the whinge and dump mentality and in the whole history of the human race, it’s never achieved anything other than being known as a complete bore to be avoided at all costs. Here they come – run away, run away!
As I look at the poll results to date, out of 2,683 votes cast, the response was 63% Yes, 24% No and the rest going for unsure. Scanning through the five hundred comments below the piece, a substantial majority expressed a “No” for various reasons. That’s an interesting dichotomy but an unsurprising one given the web dynamics of such a controversial issue as global warming.
There are just simply too many polarised people on either side who’ve spent years doing nothing more than venting spleen at each other. It’s become a social activity, a recreational pastime, a macho ego trip, a catharsis for a lot of tangential frustrations. Log in quickly, hurl an insult or two and surf onto the next brawl. Underneath the most combative blogs, out of hundreds of comments, barely a single digit percentage of the comments even reference the original blog topic, whatever it was.
That’s always forgotten in the light of the more important thing of continuing the niggling daggers drawn alley fights between the combatants that have raged on for years and will in all likelihood do the same for many more to come. If there’s a positive to such bad habits, I suppose the individuals in a sense are banding together for mutual support but underneath a blog rather than an organisation, and that’s an isolated waste of energy in what’s too often a never visited backwater as far as Joe Public is concerned.
Obviously, that’s not a characterisation of all people of either persuasion who comment on skeptic blogs but I think we all know it’s uncomfortably close to home in too many cases. What’s more interesting is to consider why a clear majority voted for some organisation as opposed to those who commented and were averse to any such thing.
If ever there was a graphic demonstration that the readers of blogs are quite a distinct grouping from those who choose to comment on a piece, that poll was it. It’s for that very reason that I exercise a zero-tolerance to trolling and although as a result I might only get twenty comments on a piece rather than two hundred of people intent on killing each other via the safe proxy of a keyboard, they’re usually twenty meaty ones. They’re my reward for writing the article and the viewpoints expressed very often round out the piece.
I’m target oriented, I got into this thing to win it, not to spend the next five years doing the same things like some obsessive compulsive stuck in a hopeless repetitive loop. The guerrilla phase served its purpose, but it’s high time for us to come out of the jungle, get organised and finish the thing off as a volunteer militia fighting it together. There’s no other way of putting some big tank tracks on the front lawns of governments around the world.
Global warming alarmism is going into the dustbin of history. It’s still got a fair amount of kicking and screaming to do but unless we ourselves get proactive in that endgame and are organised enough to have initiatives and policies already hammered out, we’ll be leaving those things to the tender mercies of those ephemera known as politicians. Make no mistake, it’s only a matter of time until they catch the popular sentiment and ride that bull to power, but entirely for their own selfish reasons and in the way they think it should be done.
I don’t care what particular form an umbrella organisation takes. I know it couldn’t address all my concerns, be led by people I totally like, perhaps not make the moves I would, become a liability at times, be a single target of focused attacks by the alarmists. I really don’t care.
It gets worse though. It’d be primarily a political organisation because it’d have to be and yes, that does mean dragging our hitherto pristine skirts through some muddy puddles, with the added discomfort of no pretty spiffing graphs or neat equations that nobody in the real world could make head nor tail of. And yes, some big fishies in our little pond might very well end up beached by events. There’ll always be casualties but the mission comes first, then the men. It’d never ring everyone’s bell but so what? I’d put on my I’m a big boy now long trousers and get stuck in.
The only shape any such organisation could take, and which I’d have a real objection to, is if it’s a thinly disguised lashup of coneheads who just know repacking and bombarding that tired bloke waiting in the drizzling rain for a bus home after a long day’s work with the REAL science is somehow going to make him get off it at Damascus. For God’s sake, give the poor bastard some credit, he already knows it’s a load of bollocks and at this point just needs nothing more than some decent leadership.
Yes, the science would always be a part of the package but we’ve tried that one to death and we are where we’ve been with that approach for a number of years, so it patently can never be the popular spearhead. Unpalatable as the idea might be, it really is high time for people to evolve out of some comfort zones.
Get it roughly, reasonably or even badly right and I’ll be content to chip flint spearheads or whatever I can usefully do to contribute. Just as long as most of us are moving forward together in some realistic manner.
©Pointman
Related articles by Pointman:
Some thoughts about policy for the aftermath of the climate wars.
Don’t just sit on your butt blogging, do something.
The WUWT poll being discussed.
Click for a list of other articles.
Pointman's 
Reblogged this on Quixotes Last Stand.
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Pointman,
“Give people a standard they can rally to …” Since the dawn of organised warfare, when troops rallied behind Standard Bearers to better follow the commands of their knights and princes, the Standard Bearers were the first targets of the enemy, the better to disorganise and destabilise battle plans.
The Bearers, often youngsters not yet grown and battle-hardened, rarely got any further than this brief moment of glory as they were the first to fall. The Standards were soon snatched up by others, troops were rallied and battles won … or lost, as the case may be.
The thing is, those young Bearers knew full well that the banners made first targets of them, but they swelled with pride to carry them anyway. They had faith that their Brothers in Arms would keep those colours aloft and the battle would be fought and won.
Can the Sceptic blogosphere boast such courage? Who among our number would be willing targets for the inevitable vicious attacks designed to discredit and destabilise such an organisation and leave it in tatters? Any rallying leaders would be looking straight down the barrel of that cannon on the tank in your very apt header pic – KABOOM! Next?
In 2011 when thousands of sceptics rallied in our national capital, Canberra, in a “Convoy of No Confidence” against our impending Carbon Dioxide Tax, members of the then Labor Government dismissed them as the “Convoy of Incontinence” ridiculing the more mature demographic, or the “Convoy of No Consequence”, patronisingly dismissive of the anger demonstrated.
Our national broadcaster the ABC, recipient of a Billion taxpayer dollars a year, led the MSM downplay of the event as in this news coverage ….. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-zURXPJNwM
In this 2.30 minute news segment, less than 40 seconds mentioned the rally, while the ABC deflected the coverage to finance, same sex marriage, and defending a crooked MP who has since been found guilty of fraud and theft and received a gaol sentence (currently under appeal).
While Tony Abbott has since been elected Prime Minister and has passed his Carbon Tax Repeal Bill through the Lower House, the Greens and Labor still control the Senate and refuse to pass the legislation. Abbott’s only recourse if the Bill is refused a second time, is to dissolve both houses of Parliament and call fresh elections.
Any organised cohesive effort from Sceptics is going to have to come from North America and Europe – we’re at an impasse in Australia.
Meanwhile, our MSM is still feeding the public this kind of ludicrous tripe ….
http://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/study-reveals-volcanoes-are-helping-to-protect-the-earth-from-global-warming/story-fnjwvztl-1226893963753
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Blackswan – Our wake up call is close at hand, when the Treasurer reveals the true horror of the last 6 years, and the measures required to put things straight.
We are being nightly bombarded with adverts from Queensland about solving their $80 billion debt, (how did that happen to a resources State) and your own fair Island is on life support, although luckily the quacks have now left the room, and the doctors are in attendance. Even here in the ‘powerhouse’ West, things ain’t so rosy.
I feel severe belt-tightening coming on, and would suspect that ritual panty wetting over an imagined threat is a luxury that we as a Nation can no longer afford.
Pointman – I agree we need organization. That I had the intellectual firepower to lead such a charge. I will content myself that I can be a loyal and effective foot soldier when such leadership emerges.
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G’day Hoppers – Our national recovery from the economic and social devastation caused by six years of the Socialist/Marxists will be long, slow and painful. Let’s hope a few Royal Commissions and Judicial Inquiries will lay the blame squarely at their feet (cloven hooves more likely).
Like you, I’m a rank and file footsoldier, albeit a really mean and angry one. We won’t see those ‘colours’ fall again.
On this ANZAC Day (Australia & New Zealand Army Corps for our other friends), it’s good to remember and honour our Fallen in all wars.
Be honoured to share this example of Jim Brown’s bush poetry, based on fact, and destined to become an Aussie classic…….
http://pickeringpost.com/story/the-anzac-on-the-wall/3149
Lest we forget.
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G’day Blackswan,
And how wonderful it is to see that despite the annual denigration of this day by those on the far left, once again the crowds turn out in their masses to honour our fallen, and the very young are well represented, and understand what it’s all about.
We in Australia have now experienced living under a Green controlled Government. Our peculiar Senate system and the foolishness of Ms Gillard allowed this to happen.
Scary to see how over 2 decades of progress can be wound back in such a short time when the lunatics are in charge of the asylum.
We, and especially you in Tasmania (where I spent a wonderful, but slightly chilly long weekend a couple of years back: didn’t want to leave) know only too well what happens when the cold Green hand rests on your economy.
The rest of the world should take note. I for one believe I will be in the tomb before the mess is sorted out, and I am currently well short of retirement age.
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Blackswan
I’m not personally fazed at the risk of vilification. I’m quite prepared to be part of an antipodean insurrection (of the courteous but intellectually rigorous kind). We are far from being at an impasse here.
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One random thought is that there is already a skeptics organization of sorts; The NIPCC http://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/study-reveals-volcanoes-are-helping-to-protect-the-earth-from-global-warming/story-fnjwvztl-1226893963753 sponsored by the Heartland Institute, which of course has been the target of much grief, including the phishing by that paramount of ethics, James Gleick. The NIPCC is focused on the science only, producing a pretty good series of reports, but that limits its reach. It would need more resources and organization to expand into less technical activities.
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Pointman, I greatly enjoy your posts and you have carved out your own niche in the blogosphere. I fully agree with your sentiments. I rarely comment on climate blogs because I believe that too much of it is simply “preaching to the converted”. However, your call to action merits a response.
I agree that an organisation would ultimately have to be political; i.e. it would have to make demands of politicians. For instance, a requirement that publicly funded scientists make their raw data available to other researchers.
I made some comments on Bishop Hill recently at http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2014/4/19/order-of-battle.html?currentPage=3#comments which you may find of interest.
Geoff Chambers and I are going to catch up after his break to kick some ideas around.
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Pointman, your rhetoric as ever is superb. I finished reading the article convinced you are right despite my misgivings when I first saw the question posed at WUWT. But the more I think, the more I hit the following problems:
1. Herding cats: there will be splits and public spats. How many sceptic splinter groups can you count on the head of a pin? How would a morass of fueding organisations help anyone?
2. Funding: time and again grass-roots political movements have shown that they lack the money-raising abilities needed to lobby politicians effectively. This means accepting large and/or anonymous donations, which opens up the ‘paid science’ can of worms.
3. Philosophy: if the organisation is based on the premise that CAGW is false, it is painting itself into exactly the same ‘settled science’ corner we deride the alarmists for. What happens if new evidence shows we are wrong? Would the organisation disband itself or start warping the science to fit the agreed agenda? Hmm, from my experience of human nature, which way would I bet?
I would prefer to see the GWPF, which is the closest I think we have now to a decent sceptic organisation, to attempt to widen its political patrons to avoid accusations of right-wing bias. I also quite like Mosher’s suggestion that sceptics publicly and clearly state their positions on the science, to show we are not all fruitcakes. Beyond that, I am stuck. Sorry.
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These are good points, for example the friction between sceptics on the lines of Watts, Curry, Spencer, etc. and “sky dragon slayers”.
The other issue is how would coordination be performed? As we know a private forum was uncovered within John Cook’s site in the past, revealing the M.O. of the “crushers” including Rob Honeycutt. I’m not sure if such is workable on the sceptic side as one has to be wary of infiltrators and while the likes of John Cook and Dana Nuccitelli can get away with such activities the alarmists have the MSM on their side, and we all know the faux outrage, hypocrisy, and double standards that they employ.
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Trying to set up an international organisation would be trying to herd tigers. Besides it would attract the very sort of power hungry types we don’t need.
A national approach is the maximum possible and even that might be optimistic. Nothing will stop a politician listening quicker than the thought that he is being addressed by a rival. Nor are the corrupt and self centred at all keen on change, and don’t forget that the public service and qangoes have their own policies. Any approach to politicians has to be specifically directed at those who will drive a decision. Any political work in the public arena has to be “why are they (unspecified) wasting your money? Why are you paying so much for nothing?” Obliquely pressuring the politicians with losing votes.
In Australia I had hopes of the Lavoisier Group which contains retired politicians and business men (and scientists) but it seems not to have made much impact. The other possibility is the IPA, which is also staunchly opposed to the global warming nonsense. It is a pressure group with vast experience and the ability to get to many politicians and access to some main stream newspapers.
The GWPF may well be the point of pressure in the UK, as might the NIPCC in the USA. But to take up the point of ossqss below, getting to the young will involve going direct over the internet, and with not much technical content. That parody in Germany doing the rounds might be a way, although from what I can see the threat / claim / scare should be more on the lines “do you realise that when wind farms provide the electricity that your mobile phone won’t work 11 days a month?” ” There will be no TV or internet at night when solar panels are your power source” etc. Grab their attention and lead them to further access.
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To not try, is failure in of it’s own right. Anything is possible when one applies themselves.
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☺☺
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Jonathon
I agree that GWPF offers very sensible informed commentary. It is the case that there are many really good ‘sceptical’ sites (I just tend to think of them as honest). Why don’t we have some panel emerge from these hosts – they could nominate people – who could be tasked with the work of establishing a public education and relations campaign? We need to lift the debate beyond discussions among scientists and aficionados, and get the issues out to the populace at large. Below are some ideas to do this, but there will be many others; I’ve just posted the following on Don Aitkin’s site (Don is a former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Canberra).
“I support the idea of some organisation to serve as a focus for good science and sceptical opinion. As you and others have pointed out, discussion of the science itself just doesn’t make any impact in either the media or the public’s understanding. Why? Because it gets too technical. That doesn’t mean it’s wrong, or that those discussions and arguments shouldn’t happen – limited as the exchanges may be, it’s critical that they occur.
But the pointman is right, that if we want change, we need to do far more about it. One of the first places to start is to get simple explanations of the science out in the public arena, that people can understand. That’s easier said than done, but we do have a great tool in the internet.
Now the public at large doesn’t get on to any of those good sceptical sites, and we shouldn’t expect that to happen. Gus has offered one good idea in chuckling at the emotional enthusiasm surrounding CAGW, as a way of getting people to look a little at themselves somewhat. (I have visions of 350.org scenes, charismatic enthusiasms, even old hat Billy Graham crusades, with if not a Credo, at least a “we shall overcome {the denialists}” theme.)
But the other useful approach is to put up a series of other youtube snippets of education about climate, attractively and preferably humorously presented. These should be short, each seeking to explain one simple concept. These could include for example, actual observations covering a range of timescales compared to predictions and the timescale of the models concerned; they could address geological time scales and methods of derivations of temperatures; others could look at what our written history tells us; the list is extensive. But that is what is needed, simple stuff, really well done with the best of expertise.
Meanwhile, spokespersons and political weight should also be brought to bear, as pointman argues.
I’m personally prepared to put my effort in to this. Talking among ourselves helps reduce the angst, but it doesn’t do much to changing what is around us.”
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Ditto PM
Every initiative has a starting point.
I was just thinking today how to pool the separated but associated talents in a way that could not be dismissed away by the MSM or government.
Exposure in a way that can be easily be viewed and understood by the masses. You don’t get that through blogs or detailed rebuttals to papers on given subject matters. You garner attention when you provide something that others want to share. Hence the term “going viral”.
How many climate study rebuttals have gone viral on paper or on a computer screen in text form to any great extent? Yeah, think about that.
Then look at that S Korean music video that has several Billion hits on YouTube. Yeah, spelled with a B.
We need consolidation of information that ties the pieces together in a sussinct and easy to understand manner from the wealth of diverse sources currently at hand.
We need the message to go viral and it has to be through a video format. I tried to start this process a few years ago, but it got stuck in mud.
In essence, we need a skeptical marketing firm and investors. Organizing only goes so far without funding. Just ask the TEA party folks who were single handedly squelched by the IRS. I don’t expect the government to subsidize things as it is their power grab that is in jeopardy.
Just sayin, there are other organizations out there, but no creativity amoungst them and subsequently not much in the way of results or lingering effect.
Billboards don’t work bro.
It is late, but I am all in for the change in approach.
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To piggy back on the data related to my previous post on video imact. Look a what a music video did.
It is about attention and sharing in the end in todays world.
2 billion hits, with a B.
Think about it…… how does that happen……..
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Absolutely right, ossqss! We should be using the interent, honestly but cleverly.
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Gang up is ok. But this stuff wont be going to the streets. Its about putting pressure on ingnorant politicans. What impresses them is numbers…- I represent 100.000 voters man ! …I have a hard time seeing international coop go here. Maybe a campaignorg for events…otherwise we have to get really in and aim for a org with economic power to support dissenting research n stuff like that…its to dizzy yet…lets talk about what frame we are talking about.
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I agree with you Pointman; global warming (AGW) is politics. As I stated earlier, I overheard at an UNEP initiation conference in 1972 (!) in Nairobi, two bankers discussing to declare Carbon Dioxide toxic substance because it was easy to administer and to tax. Anyway. as it is politics (what we want) we need an organised “movement” to counteract impending disastrous policies. As we are run by a political class interested mainly in self promotion based on (scare)stories, and have no time for scientific arguments, such an organisation or “movement” should be concerned with facts, the way they are collected and measured (and the uncertainties involved). To put in more colloquial terms we need communication people who can translate the e.g.”Lindzen/Curry/MciIntyre” findings. Blogs like this one, even WUWT/Jonova and Tallbloke/Notrichzone etc. have unfortumately limited impact.
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or just talk to people, the younger generation of scientists will push the old guard aside (kicking and screaming) as reality catches up with the models.
And I have got out of my armchair to do this.
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I tend to disagree.
Climatology is awash in authority, organizations and structure.
The war is only sputtering along, soon it will flare into vicious recriminations.
The cost is only now coming home to the uninvolved citizens, once the bill payers get irate and only when this anger is widespread, will a real discussion of the Cult of Calamitous Climate take place.
All our chatter is only a preliminary.
The usual process for politicians, to distract the anger of a population they have robbed and defrauded, is to declare war on some other country,group of people or activity.
The only thing different this time, the internet.
To me CAGW or Climate Change, as they now call this orchestrated theft from the many, by the well connected few, is an intelligence test.
One that has exposed the fools and bandits infesting our governments.
Forget organizing us contarians, just stop paying tax, any way you can.
The only cure for kleptocracy and parasitic overgrowth is starve them both.
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Ahhh John.
A man after my own heart.
“just stop paying tax, any way you can.
The only cure for kleptocracy and parasitic overgrowth is starve them both.”
It’s what I have been telling people for years.
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To rid the skeptical paper tiger wackos just call it The Empirical Society. A focus on scientific fraud is the only way to establish any breaking out of the consensus power of having *all* relevant scientific bodies officially against climate (model) skepticism. Arguing the facts simply fails in the face of such authority. That popular blogs like Steven Goddard and Judith Curry feature a handful of very outspoken crackpot skeptics is one of the biggest PR disasters of all, since much more organized activists on the alarmist side are using their extensive output over the years to slander all skepticism, very successfully, especially at the grass roots level where alarmists need merely point out the registered child rapist Iron Sun maniac who is often nearly the top commenter on Goddard’s blog, disastrously. On top of that, Steven “Godwin” Goddard keeps posting Holocaust photos, proudly oblivious to the first impression effect this has on casual observers. Yet almost nobody else but Goddard is digging into the basic data which clearly show that the actual adjustments to climate data are way beyond the few peer reviewed claims and that’s exactly the type of muckraking that is required to create a forceful message that isn’t just he said she said.
The biggest inertia these days is that a successful campaign threatens to topple not just the Hockey Stick Team but the entire left wing of politics and how the left so *totally* despises conservative puritanical and anti-science religious tendencies that the sudden adoption of skepticism by the right leaves the left little saving grace.
Given that the entire right wing of politics and most retirees are *already* fully converted to skepticism, this means that a proper focus on demographics should point to young adults and students who are still able to change their minds easily, exactly those who are by human nature still quite liberal in their outlook and thus very averse to political messages attached to conservatism. Yet that message is highly political since it’s about breaking their overall trust in liberal authority. At least the Obamacare lies helped that effort, as does their ridiculously inflated student debt.
As a guerrilla veteran, I’m just kind of bewildered at this new idea for organizing. How can an organization help convert the masturbatory 500 comments for each Judith Curry post into grass roots online activism on actual news and discussion sites? I have no idea. When I venture onto youthful blogs and news sites like BoingBoing.net or VICE.com, I’m nearly alone as the only skeptic around with quick access to convincing data plots, and *so* my voice is successfully drowned out by both amateur Fox News skeptics and whole armies of experienced Gorebots. At least the skeptics are no longer just claiming it’s all CO2 from volcanoes since skeptics *have* done a very good job of properly informing conservatives.
I’ve had a morbidly curious fascination lately with the near total ignoring of the devastating Marcott 2013 fake hockey stick blade by both alarmists I present the bladeless input data to, *and* skeptics who keep talking about the pause in warming as if a little variation within the normal noise range is their best argument against whole scientific bodies including the Nobel organization and it’s winning head of the Royal Society.
Unless an organization calls out actual fraud (Steig Antarctica, hockey sticks, Lewendowsky’s surveys, the 97% claims, sea level “adjustments” *away* from reality, adjustments *up* to temperature rather than down for urban heating, slander of mainstream skepticism as being against the greenhouse effect itself rather than its supercomputer model water vapor *amplification* that most of the public are completely unaware of, etc.) I doubt it can have much effect.
However, how could such an effective organization attract actual working academic scientists, fearful of Mannish law suits that can reference official consensus that really does exist in policy statements by nearly all academic scientific organizations?
And do you invite intelligent design advocate Roy Spencer? That single member would ruin any PR effort, I can promise you, having spent hours a week on liberal blogs and news sites. I don’t care if he has a point or not. That I live (as a bachelor) on the Upper West Side gives me a good impression of where the barriers are for liberals (and the hip urban professionals who now dominate national politics) to take skepticism even at all seriously.
One of the most famous contemporary physicists, Briane Greene, is himself anti-skeptical. With little money for serious documentaries or adverts, how would an organization put pressure on such public figures to finally speak out after confronting clear corruption of peer review in climate “science”? Again, I have no idea. But if it *doesn’t* do that, then it will fail. It’s my impression that it will require a youthful revolt, so giving students the best ammo would be a start.
What would really work is to remove the religious vibe from libertarianism, so you would have a socially liberal and fiscally conservative small government candidate for normal everyday people to actually *vote* for instead of small government, unelectable abortion-banning nanny state Drug Warriors. Tell a single woman in Manhattan that you support the current Tea Party and she will practically spit at you since to them the Tea Party represents an extreme version of old school puritanical Republicans.
-=NikFromNYC=-, Ph.D. in carbon chemistry (Columbia/Harvard)
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I must admit I used to visit Goddard’s site as he posted up some very interesting data. Then he posted some photos that were… let’s just say I’m surprised I don’t have nightmares about it. He’s a very odd character and I’m no longer sure I’d trust him if he told me the sky was blue. It’s one of the perils of being a ‘normal’ sceptic: some of our fellow-travellers are pretty unhinged.
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Are you sure you are visiting the real Steven Goddard site as the one I go to is called Real Science on WordPress and I have never seen any holocaust photos there mainly a lot of graphs and old newspaper cuttings. He lives in Colorado. There was a fake one I found but have trashed it ages ago. stevengoddard.wordpress.com
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While ‘ganging up’ may make some impact, the first real attack should be on the media, not just writing letters to the editors of the (left-dominated) media, but taking back some of the MSM that once had ‘The Truth’ as its banner. The power of the media is formidable and that’s why the organised left had planned its take over since the fall of the Soviet empire. When their mothership sank, the rats swam to the nearest floating plank, slowly pushed themselves to shore and commenced on their silent but pervasive invasion of our universities, media and finally political organisations. But the media is the most devastating weapon in their arsenal.
I do not know, and I cannot offer any ideas how to take back some of the MSM, but for sure we need lots of money to do that, money which is in the hands of the left, such as George Soros who lubricates the USA’ Godless left-wing machine.
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I’ve pushed for what you’re advocating for some time. But in retrospect I have to say I was probably too timid in my attempt.
But here’s the question. Who can we draft to run the organization? There has to be some central figure who is the leader. Pointman, will you do it?
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I go to monthly atheist meetings near Detroit. I am apolitical. I notice that most of the folks at the meeting are lefties, and for that reason they are AGW believers because it fits their politics. they are supposed to be scientists who respect the data, and of course they drive cars so they must not take AGW very seriously. I do not try to debate climate with them because the meeting is about atheism. I think we are on the right track overall, fewer people believe AGW each year.
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Pointman,
I am not sure if you read his blog but Geoff Chambers raised this at http://geoffchambers.wordpress.com/2014/03/28/a-bird-in-the-ear-of-the-episcopal-rhinoceros/#comment-6815
I totally support the concept.
But for my 2 bobs worth I think “It’s Time” for the dissenters to start getting out from behind our keyboards and organize protests against the insane waste of money being spent on the crony capitalist boondoggles.
“It’s Time” to stand outside the offices of Pension Funds who have “invested” members money in madcap fraudulent schemes.
“It’s Time” to start producing leaflets and lapel badges like ‘WWF – World Wide F*ckup’ or ‘GreenPieces want your Grandchildren to live in a cave’… whatever.
And it is definitely Time to call out and protest at the management of ANY company that claims to have Green credentials.
Whatever!
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I’ve had some time to think about Pointman’s proposal and I have to say that I am uneasy about the idea of some central body that would conduct strategic and the tactical activities of skeptics.
Here are some random reasons:
-Skeptics by their nature are likely to be hard to coordinate/organize. They have seen what central control has done in climate, and probably other areas as well, and my guess is that they don’t like it and would resist being part of one.
– There are already a large number of contrarian think tanks — 300 in the US alone — that regularly attack the dogma. I think that this concentration, complemented by strong networking between them, is already an effective force in the arena.
– There is strength in our lack of centralization and diffuseness of activities. Global warming dogma is an expression of left wing politics. It is populated by a motley group of green whackos, rent seekers, globalists, and political ladder climbers, many with significant financial resources and access to media outlets. Any central organization for the skeptical view would present a big bulls eye that these groups have not had before. You can imagine the demonization, lies, and misrepresentations that would follow. Look for example at the fearsome — and largely successful — propaganda offensive against tea Party groups in the US.
– Finally a central group may very well fail for nitty gritty reasons such as failure to raise money, disagreements over organizations and strategy, and a decreased ability to move quickly to counter initiatives by the dogmatists.
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Pointman,
You have on a number of your posts pointed out how we rule the internet and our strength is our lack of structure and cohesion. It gives the collectivists no target to aim at. Create a target and they can focus their energies more precisely rather than randomly scattering their shots into the internet jungle where we are little more than fleeting shadows, but we still can make them afraid of the dark.
Collectivists, by their very nature, are better at organising and focussing the faithful with a consistent, uniform and simplistic message that they can repeat over and over again. Libertarians, by their very nature, do not organise well and have many messages to deliver with a complexity of understanding in line with the way the universe actually is.
If people want to “organise” then form a political party with a set of stated principles and see if anyone likes them enough to support them. There is already a mechanism for this type of representation and we do not need to re-invent the wheel just so that we can all stand in the one place and make an easy target for the lies and smear campaign that will invariably follow.
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I voted no. although the Science is so overwhelming… If you want a “gang” to back you up, I’m sure you’ll find one. you will never possess the ground covered by the half wit conspiracy theorist denier.
I’ll stand my ground thank you.
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Anthony Watts referenced this piece when he announced the results of the poll. Some interesting comments there.
P
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A further thought.
Some are posting that a combined HQ will give the opposition a target to hit, which is true.
We are like guerillas in the jungle of the internet. We now ‘own’ the jungle, but the warmists still control the towns with the parliaments, media companies (RealScience, SkS etc.). From the towns comes ever increasingly hysterical claims and abuse, yet they don’t dare enter the jungle (debate the science) as they know certain defeat will occur.
The situation is a stalemate as in real life until we get regular troops capable of picking off the towns. Rather than try to operate as regulars which usually leads to disaster, we need to pick our target and cut it off from help. The best way we can do so, is to boycott some outpost e.g. a website that depends on advertising revenue based on the number of visitors. If every sceptic stopped using ??? for a week or two, the crash in their revenue would/could propel a change of attitude.
The warmists would be furious and complain loud and long, causing many who only give lip service to realise our numbers, and start to change their approach to neutral.
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Being new here(first post) and from the States, I find the frustration level here to be equal to the sites I frequent. The frustration of course comes from the prostitution of my lover (science) to the dirty bodies of politicians.
Unfortunately ,Pointman, you are correct in saying that to counter a political force one must use a counter political force. So as distasteful as it is we must approach any cure for the AGW disease from a political direction. The science is with us! But where has that brought us so far?
Heartlands has made the scientific case and the world has not really noticed…or if they have they have no effective way to respond. The choir knows the score, but the congregation is asleep in their pew.
Of all human endeavors the most onerous to me is the political, but it has become obvious that to fight in the mud, one must get dirty. What we need is a leader or 5.
A Pointman of sorts…..say!!!
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