You know how every now and then, Wikipedia runs ads asking for funding to keep their website running. Sometimes I am not sure I want to give them money. At others, I feel they deserve to stay on.
But here’s a service that is definitely, one-hundred percent useful and deserving of Internet users’ support: WebCite.
WebCite is in need of funds. I’m sure they’ll be happy if we help. As will anyone who uses an online archival service.
On his blog Skepticalscience, esteemed doctoral fellow John Cook writes of a commenter’s reaction to his colleague Lewandowsky’s as yet unpublished paper:
“LOG12 was fundemenatlly [sic] flawed from the start, and throughout. It offered no valuable insight or understanding as a result. It is clear to any rational outside observer it had one purpose – to be used to promote the authors advocacy of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming – and to demean and denigrate those who do not believe as he does. The fact this paper has never been published, as Lewandowsky’s repeatedly claims, confirms this finding.”
Cook laughs at this commenter as a ‘conspiracist’ for thinking non-publication confirmed how bad the paper really was.
It will be interesting to see whether this commenter resists the “Something Must Be Wrong” urge when LOG12 is published or continue to assert that the research is “a fraud”.
No, Cook. That’s not the ‘something must be wrong’ urge, that’s the ‘any serious academic would see right through this’ type of wishful thinking.
Thinking your colleague’s paper didn’t get published, because of how bad it is, is placing faith in the academic peer-review process, yet. Where one hopes reviewers and editors would see questions and criticism raised about the paper. Your commenters and critics come from a place where higher standards reside.
One of the tropes of environmentalism is that the (evil) Republican party used mind-altering framing techniques gleaned from Frank Luntz, a political strategist, to delay, disrupt or negatively affect in some form climate-related policy action in the United States.
This idea is has been so politically convenient, and useful, for environmental groups (who like to moan about their ‘failures’ and blame someone even as they mark off notch after notch on their policy totem-pole), Democratic Party supporters (for obvious reasons) and others , that Luntz’s name is invoked simply as an self-evident example of a black-ops framing hit carried out on the climate movement. Known simply as the Luntz memo, it was a 16-page pamphlet with which he’s supposed to have done this.
I offer two examples. First, you can catch from this clip, of the ho ho BBC’s Earth: The Climate Wars, what’s is pinned on Luntz (starting ~2 min in):
The essential bit transcribed (emphasis mine):
“But what was a secret was the strategy the Republicans used to get the American public on their side. That is, until a revealing document came to light in 2003. […] Frank Luntz was a pollster and political advisor with an impressive reputation. When an internal campaign memo he wrote in 2003 was leaked, it was revealed that it was the issue of the environment on which Republicans felt most vulnerable.”
[...][investigative gestures by narrator]
“Its pretty obvious that the aim of all this is to avoid taking action on climate change.”
Another one here, by the CBC:
Again, the point in question transcribed:
Underlying it all was a simple concept. The public can’t understand the complex science of climate change, [Luntz] argued, so convince them that scientists don’t fully comprehend it either. Then persuade them that without sound science it makes no sense to take preventive action at a huge economic cost. […] From Luntz’s lips to the President’s ears, that advice became George W Bush’s mantra …
Conspiratorial fear-mongering aside, what did Luntz really do? What tricks did he teach the Republicans? And why did he do it?
To answer these questions the first thing of course, is to find the Luntz memo and read it. This is important because you might notice is that it is not easy to get a hold of. You’ll also realise, there are any number of excerpted exegeses of the memo which push their inverted view by quoting selective passages from it. So, the next thing is to read it fully. Here it is.
What you’ll see, contrary to widespread rumour, is a document that is primarily concerned with strategies to connect to a majority whose views, as discovered by Luntz, were already favourably disposed toward the climate cause and the environment.
That’s right. Its about what Luntz found existing in the public, and his ideas for appealing to such an audience. The same thing has been turned on its head and blamed on him for having caused to come into existence, and nurtured to full growth.
For instance, Luntz found via his focus group methods that members of the American public believed “there [was] no consensus about global warming in the scientific community”. His recommendation, arising from what he found, was to make this lack of consensus an issue and defer to science, in order to win over such individuals.
The second famous item, the rebranding of ‘global warming’ into ‘climate change’, is even better. In the memo, Luntz is seen providing the insight that ‘environmentalism’ and ‘global warming’ invoke images of extremism and alarmist dogma, both of which turn off neutral voters who found ‘climate change’ more palatable.
How have the above been turned on their heads? Luntz is directly blamed for (i) trying to induce the American public to think there was no consensus about global warming. and (ii) attempts to rebrand ‘global warming’ to detract from its urgency. Quite the opposite of what he set out to do.
Consider how the environmental movement has used the Luntz memo. Firstly, it paints a picture of a nefarious conspiracy hatched by ‘industry’ to lull the population into sleep using clever slogans. Such characterization neuters Republican party attempts to gain a foothold in the climate debate arena. Secondly, it fixes blame for creating something he just found already existed. Lastly, even as it slams Luntz, it has borrowed and implemented ideas present in his report to advance its own cause.
Consider what has happened since the memo was written. Per Luntz’s focus group findings, a majority of the American public ‘believed in global warming, believed that humans were likely causing it, were not interesting in the science, but interested in positive solutions to the problem, wanted jobs, end to dependence on foreign oil, and a shutdown of outsourcing’. Correspondingly he came up with a number of words and phrases to be used by any political party to advance its case.
Last heard, he had just finished work for the pressure group Environmental Defense Fund (EDF).
Postscript: Luntz is just another pollster who has consistently worked toward ending real debate over climate issues. His advice on environmental issues in the Luntz memo is virtually indistinguishable from what is in the current US administration playbook.
I am looking at this at Tom Nelson right now:
I think our friend the saint gets almost everything right. It is heartening to know that there are those in the West who are kind enough to keep in mind folks who are trying to climb out of their holes.
Long live the Internet.
A couple of days back I was at Ben Pile’s Climate Resistance blog. Ben was taking Paul Ehrlich to the cleaners and on the way, I saw this:
[...], it is notable, then, that there has been no ‘situation of open debate, with experts weighing in, and with interactions between the public, experts, and political decision makers’ that Norton et al speak of, not in the case of recycling or climate change and energy policy in the UK. Indeed, the entire point of constructing supranational political organisations and panels of experts to lead policymaking on climate change has been to circumvent the problem of democracy.
Wait, wait, what? Read that again:
“…there has been no… open debate … in the case of climate and energy policy in the UK”
Well, blow me down! Is Pile suggesting that an open debate about climate change never took place in the UK? Looks like he is.
Would you believe that a couple of brilliant academics and skeptics would actively censor and shut down anyone for saying … the same thing?
He attacked a paper written by Naomi Oreskes and Michael Oppenheimer which showed that climate scientists err on the side of least drama.
Faced by the criticism, the powers that be went behind his back. And he was removed from the journal’s editorial board the paper was published in. Or so he thinks.
Pictured above is a zebra in the Serengeti, as it rolls on the floor laughing.
When I see this, there is a brief heart-crushing moment. These people did nothing to deserve this. Imagine being fooled into thinking that ‘climate change’ is your ticket to the big time.
We are led to believe Kenya thinks climate change is important. More precisely however, it is Kenyan top dog climate change pressure group Climate Change Working Group, or KCCWG, who thinks so. In fact, it thinks climate change is so important, that it worked tirelessly to draft a climate change bill that even passed through the Kenyan Parliament last December.
But the Kenyan president had other ideas. He sent the bill back to the house, saying there wasn’t enough public participation in its drafting (I guess he forgot to ask Roger Pielke Jr how badly the Kenyans want governmental tackling of global warming).
The KCCWG expressed shock at the decision. But its own internal documents admit that the climate bill was just a private member bill, helped on by Franklin Bett, a man dropping off from the election race for being Kericho‘s governor.
So much for top-down, activist-driven, global warming legislation.
The organizations that fund KCCWG are Trocaire, Christian Aid, Oxfam, Heinrich Boll Stiftung, Norwegian Church Aid, Cordaid, and Cafod. Many of these are Christian organizations. What are they mucking about in climate change in Africa?
KCCWG also worked with the State University of New York in the drafting of the climate bill. The money? It is from USAID, DFID, AFD, DANIDA, etc.
Donna’s dug up the trail from a nonexistent conference report to the same Christian Aid which became the source for the BBC to claim that Africa is heating up rapidly. The source of the error turns out to be the same Kericho’s. Contrary to the ravings of Carbon Brief, it was likely just a single individual who caught the BBC glibly passing off a 3.5 celsius temperature rise in Africa.
The Kenyan climate bill has tanked. Perfect time to take potshots at those who worked hard in pushing the climate bill in Kenya, eh? Go Hickman.
Incidentally, why does Kenya want a climate bill, one wonders. It turns out, that it wants to ‘reduce’ greenhouse gas ‘emissions’. The aborted law had a provision to throw you in jail, for five years, if you flouted it. Not kidding.
Dear Reader,
This has been a while coming. The blog will go into hiatus now. All available articles will remain accessible.
When I started, I wanted to do in-depth work. Among the articles I wrote, those on electric car manufacturer Coda, wind turbine manufacturer Suzlon, the Amazongate scandal, data availability in science, the IPCC SRREN, Skepticalscience and finally, the WWF, would qualify. Many of these were picked up by prominent outlets.
It is not easy to gauge one’s own contribution to the climate debate.
Speaking of which, will I stop work in the climate area? No. I’ll be around.
I know my regulars who are a handful. Thanks to them for their support. A special note of thanks to the readers and commenters at Bishop Hill and Tom Nelson.
I can be reached: nigguraths AT yahoo.com. Comments, suggestions and contributions are welcome.
There are several levels to this. What did Heartland do? Was it a nice thing, or the right thing to do?
Following all the questions raised about his blog John Cook has managed to respond. Or not.
I learned from the Guardian newspaper website in the UK that James Hansen is angry at Lord Lawson and the Global Warming Policy Foundation. As per the Guardian, this is because the foundation “…routinely casts doubt on the work of climate scientists”. This is quite puzzling. Shouldn’t James Hansen be thankful to Lord Lawson for this?
Mike Hulme the British Professor, has written a new paper that appeared in the 2011 issue of Osiris magazine. Hulme discusses what he has ferreted out, as a new revelation in climate science and climate studies practice. He then claims this method he sees scientists resorting to – which he calls ‘climate reductionism – has ‘deficiencies’.
I heard the news that Christopher Hitchens has died.
I was reminded of the so-many intellectual midgets who crawl parasitically in the climate debate. They survive because their very lebensraum is defined by the considered opinions of others, in the middle of which they position their own.
Hitchens had said in this regard:
The truth cannot lie, but if it could, it would lie somewhere in between
Settling down in the middle is easy because you don’t have to have an idea or thought. You only need to know how to mark out territory. This brings endless advantages, chiefly, the ability to constantly indulge in territorial wrangling and pass that off as new thinking.
In this regard, Hitchens:
If you care about agreement and civility, then, you had better be equipped with points of argument and combativity, because if you are not then the “center” will be occupied and defined without your having helped to decide it, or determine what and where it is
I hope his words are not lost on those who sacrifice principle at the altar of expedience.
Standing outside with a solar cooker, fully decarbonizing
Drinks with umbrellas (and enough bokeh for James and Jules)
Richard writes:
My thanks for everyone’s good wishes.These are much appreciated, and readers need have no fears. I am told that the operation does not confer a sunny disposition.
On the other hand out in the climate wastelands, people are wishing that the skeptics were simply gone. Once more.
Well, that is how children think – they wish their troubles (i.e., the skeptics) just disappeared. Grownups go to the hospital for a xenotransplant, … and carry their laptop with them.
