Bishop Hill Pointman on the climate wars
Mar 3, 2012 Climate: other Here is a very interesting essay by the blogger Pointman, about the asymmetrical nature of the climate wars:
The problem the alarmists had, was that there was never anything substantial to hit back at. They had the equivalents of the big guns and the massive air support but there never was a skeptic HQ to be pounded, no big central organisation, no massed ranks of skeptic soldiers or even any third-party backing the resistance. Every one of the skeptics was a lone volunteer guerilla fighter, who needed absolutely no logistical support of any kind to continue the fight indefinitely. The alarmists never understood this, preferring to think that there simply had to be some massive hidden organisation orchestrating the resistance. While they wasted time and effort attacking targets that only existed in their head, each of the guerillas chewed on them mercilessly in their own particular way.
H/T Ross McKitrick.
Reader Comments (79)
Don't stop there. How about these gems.
I prefer looking at it from Milton's perspective re free speech. As long as truth is on the field, those advocating it will eventually succeed.
And the mind-boggling extent of BS contained in propaganda such as this http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/mar/03/michael-mann-climate-change-deniers?newsfeed=true
will eventually fail. I'm not sure which is sadder -- that Mann has clearly lost his mind or that his fellow propagandists have joined him in his fantasy world down the rabbit hole.
His claim that his e-mails to Jones revealed by FOIA were 'distorted' is a new one to me.
Yes we have beaten them.
Although to be honest, I'm not sure they wouldn't have fallen apart any way.
So did we beat them, or were we just waving the right coloured flag as they all shot themselves in the foot ... leaving the public none too pleased at their antics?
Did we really make a difference ... I'd like to think so ... but as a sceptic I can't help wondering?
There always has been impressive deep conviction amongst the true believers that there is "a well-coordinated, well-funded campaign of climate change denial" . This forms a part of their belief system along with rising sea levels, melting glaciers, the wickedness of oil companies and so on.
It's much easier to belief that your setbacks are due to the malevolent power of your adversaries than to an inherent implausibility in the things you have come to believe are true beyond question.
Very fine article by Pointman. The guerilla war metaphor is apt.
Oddly enough, tactically it is a bit like how it was for environmentalists in the 1960s and 70s. Although, a major distinction is that people who resist CAGW are rarely possessed with the conviction that they are saving the world from Armageddon, or a desire to chain themselves to power stations.
As a veteran of both eras, 'meet the new boss, same as the old boss' has a resonance. When people tell me that I should use less water because building dams is evil, or I should use less electricity because building power stations is evil, my inner anti-authoritarian comes out, shouting 'f*** you!
These are just variants of the 'pulling up the drawbridge' arguments that will keep poor people in other parts of the world poor forever.
A corollary to Pointman's essay is that the good instinct of sacrifice for others is frequently perverted into the notion that subscribing to sacrifice for this year's cause is a sign of moral superiority.
Mar 3, 2012 at 4:00 PM Mike Haseler
"Yes we have beaten them."
Huh? You're joking - right? It seems to me that, to all appearances, their victory is rock solid.
I think declarations of having beaten them are premature, to say the least.
When the Climate Change Act has been repealed and I can once again buy 150 W tungsten lamp bulbs in B&Q then might be the time to declare that the Mass Delusion is over.
I think the defeat of the warmists was caused by the fact that the general public grew tired of being told for the umpteenth time that it is "even worse than we thought". You don't need any scientific training to become jaded with that narrative.
I wonder if it will not be the financial situation that they have exacerbated, when it adversely affects their finance that will be the final nail in their coffin. The wind turbines are a monument in the EU and elsewhere in the West.(Are there any in the East?) to a failed idea to a to a political endeavour for an economic world money laundering scheme through the UN. The politics that nurtured the idea is still in power and will not give up easily. I think the skeptic blogs will have to keep up their tactics of pushing science to the fore for somewhat longer and be prepared to question always the consensus that wants to give up questioning. As for now that consensus is crumbling, so well done the skeptic blogs.
johanna:
. . . a major distinction is that people who resist CAGW are rarely possessed with the conviction that they are saving the world from Armageddon
Very true though I'm not sure that the early environmental movement of the 50s, 60s or 70s was uniformly convinced of it either. Many pioneers had a strong streak of mysticism - emphatically not my thing - but were thoroughly rationalist on scientific issues. Many, such as Peter Taylor (author of "Chill", arguably the best one-book demolition of the AGW hypothesis) was and presumably still is, as "New Age" as anyone might wish for. But a very fine scientist.
Their epigones, OTOH, tend to eschew the mystical strain but have, as we know, a strongly irrational side. Over the years, environmentalism degenerated from a cause into an ideology as rapidly as it gave rise to a bureaucracy that sought wealth and respectability. Like most bureaucracies, it achieves the opposite of its apparent aim.
While sceptics have all but won the scientific argument, we are still, I fear, a long way from winning the political battle.
This is a very profound article and should be read by everybody in the AGW camp. The campaign that they have conducted has created far more sceptics than convinced waverers.
When I first started having questions about climate science the place I went first was Real Climate. It was my absolute disgust and horror at the way that the supposed scientists running that site reacted to questions and criticism that first alerted me that something was wrong. They were brutal, snide, vicious, impolite and often just embarrassingly wrong. But could never see it. They imagined every critic was a company stooge, rather than someone with questions.
The scorched earth approach of the AGW camp has been a disaster. They will probably be teaching it in public relations classes in 100 years time.
I think it's premature to speak of the demise of CAGW alarmism.
Their arguments are poor and their evidence is almost non-existent, but on matters of controlling policy they're still miles ahead - it's annoying but it's true.
We must not let up in the slightest - it'll be many years before we can dance on CAGW grave!
I don't think the climate scientologists are beaten and even if they are, remember a viscious animal is most dangerous when cornered
Martin A has it dead right. We're not near winning this one yet, and victory is not assured. Plenty of skirmishes and ambushes ahead of us yet.
While we're all busy patting ourselves on the back and doing high fives, perhaps another look at this post from Autonomous Mind might perhaps bring us down to earth a bit.
As I have been blathering on about for several years, AGW is and always was primarily political. The climate science community — babes in arms compared with the ruthless eco-warriors at Greenpeace, FoE, and WWF and the swivel-eyed neo-Malthusian eugenicists (have I spelt that right) — have largely been played for suckers though enthusiastic ones especially where their favourite food, kudos with money-flavoured custard, has been liberally available.
Yes, AGW is looking increasingly threadbare as a useful philosophy for keeping the sheeple in line but if we think that the Usual Suspects are therefore about to give up and go off to knit themselves new sandals and tend their organic vegetable patches then we are going to be sorely disappointed.
I have not yet made up my mind with 'biodiversity' or 'sustainability' — both in the final analysis synonyms for 'poverty' — will be the winner but recent events suggest that 'ocean acidification' is in line as a likely holding operation.
Whichever comes out top the UN will have an Intergovernmental Panel ready, willing and able to recruit — allegedly in the name of 'diversity' but in fact as a form of neo-colonialism — third-rate scientists who will probably struggle to spell 'sustainability' (not to mention 'eugenicist'!) but will be quite happy to bask in the plethora of meaningless titles which they will be awarded and only too happy to add their names to the pseudo-scientific drivel which will be cobbled together by whichever group of second-rate BSc graduates the eco-warriors light upon next.
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
The Michael Mann idolatry by McKie in tomorrow’s Observer linked by Stan (Mar 3, 2012 at 3:43 PM) is certainly mindboggling. There are maybe a dozen absurdities and outright falsehoods (treerings as a proxy for ocean temperatures; his research “revealed” the 150 year old temperature rise etc), quite apart from the disgusting tone. McKie clearly doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Ignorance on this scale in any journalist other than an environment correspondent would get them sacked.
Which is why I find the optimism of Pointman, Stan, and many other commenters so puzzling. The war has been going on about as long as WW1 now; blogged down in the trenches, up to our necks in muck and false memos, and the line hasn’t moved an inch. Pointman’s guerrilla warfare analogy may be good for morale, but frankly, has anyone here actually even been noticed by the masses we’re supposedly “defending”, let alone made any recruits to “our” side? (And I say that with the greatest respect for the enormous efforts made by His Grace, Johanna and eveyone else).
It has been clear for some years that the climate-changers – whether Mann, Jones, the RS, the Guardian, the NYT, UEA, Gleick, Trenberth, etc., along with all the other bigger bien pensant brains – have taken as read they are the natural heirs of all 60s progressives, forced to confront an unholy, corrupting alliance of shady business and political interests bent on the despoilment of the Earth in its own sinister interests.
The immense irony is that these same progressive types, championing science, asserting the moral high-ground, blowing ever shriller whistles, have themselves become a new establishment – and are reacting precisely as they accused the old one of doing: bending rules, cosying up to one another, launching a barrage of dirty trick assaults, sucking up huge funding.
What now must surely be their inevitable final defeat, however long-drawn out (and it will be: they still have vast resources to draw on), will accordingly be all the more comprehensive for those of us who still value truth over self-righteous, agit-prop self-promotion.
Mike Jackson:
Well said. Your prose marks you down as the Lenin of the Climate Wars. For my role, I hesitate between Lance Corporal Jones and Ernest Thesiger.
If it was the money and the influence they were fighting for, they won those years ago and they have them still. If we were fighting over the truth, or public perception of the truth, well, we may win that someday. But we'll never see the money again.
"up to our necks in muck and false memos"
Geoff, Arthur Haynes reference?
Surely the CAGW Alarmists must lose eventually due to the simple fact that they are wrong. How long can their predicted disasters go on not happening before even the most ardent warmists catch on?
Mar 3, 2012 at 6:07 PM Stonyground
It's a religion for some. And a source of wealth and prosperity for others. Why should they 'catch on'?
geoffchambers
I am inspired this evening.
Celtic could only manage a draw and Hearts beat Rangers. And at Ibrox, too. <]:-)
There are several things.
The climate hasn't obliged alarmist predictions.
The costs are becoming obvious.
They over-egged the pudding with scare stories about the drowning Seychelles, hurricanes and all the rest.
It's followed the dynamics of a scare or mass craze. and is fizzling out.
However, there's still the legislation, the crazy energy policy featuring windmills and legions of non-jobs. There's every reason to suppose an attempt will be made to keep all that intact under a new excuse, so it's nothing like over yet.
Geoff,
I am optimistic that truth will win out. I have no illusions that anyone has 'won'.
However, momentum has clearly swung away from Algore and his alarmists. In the USA, cap and trade is dead despite the most heavily funded and organized single issue political campaign in memory. Algore's 300 million was merely a drop in the bucket. All the ususal environmental NGO suspects threw hundreds of millions of dollars and legions of volunteers to help all the hundreds of hired guns that were employed full time in cities around the nation pushing for the law. They were aided by free media coverage worth billions and supported by scientists whose multi-billion dollar gravy train was on the line.
And yet, they got nowhere in pushing the bill. The American people made sure their reps and senators in DC were aware that they were against the bill. It was DOA. I consider that to be an incredibly important data point regarding current attitudes.
One reason why the alarmists like Gleick have become so crazed is that they got nowhere despite pouring so many resources into the fight. It was the most one-sided fight imaginable. Yet, the handful of mice stopped the stampede of elephants dead in their tracks.
It seems to me that the scientific commumity is now well aware that it needs to clean up it's act and start coming clean; the Paul Nurse lecture, and the growing unease of people like Richard Betts and Tamsin inter alia I think show that the last few years has seen the bloggers really have a positive effect, and have been very successful. Where the task remains a large one is with the populace in general and the politicians in particular. With the public, it's a matter of getting the material that already exists out there and understood by laymen. That will need a lot of talking to folks, but it's just a matter of doing it. Once the local, and national politicians here the questions often enough, they, like the good opinion driven sheep they are, will meekly tag on, more or less sheepishly depending on how far they dug themselves in.
The real hard nut to crack are the 'fundies', the eco warriors and commissariat that are idealism driven and want power, and those with pots of money in the game. They are powerful, and largely amoral. They will fight dirty.
Sigh, must proof read before posting: apostrophes all over the shop, and 'here' for 'hear'. Must try the registering thingy.
I clicked on Pointman's earlier essay http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2011/08/04/i%E2%80%99m-not-a-scientist-but-%E2%80%A6/
Interesting.
The contradiction for alarmists is that their cause is so noble that they have been reduced to lie, cheat and steal for it.
@ Martin A, Mar 3, 2012 at 4:18 PM
"I think declarations of having beaten them are premature, to say the least.
When the Climate Change Act has been repealed and I can once again buy 150 W tungsten lamp bulbs in B&Q then might be the time to declare that the Mass Delusion is over."
Fat chance, nice dream though.
We fight the ogre of the EU, our politicians in Westminster do the bidding of the EU Kommissars, hence the 2008 Climate Act [carbon emissions trading is where the money is at and this is where the EU is at].
An example of what we face and highlighting the unaccountable anti democratic process at the black heart of the EU - was Rumpy Pumpy's unopposed re-appointment - incredible, at least Vlad makes the pretence of 'democratic elections' in Russia.
This is another excellent essay by pointman.
I think his description of being in an asymmetrical war is apt.
I didn't think he was doing a general back-slapping bout how well the sceptics have done - this is more like a bit of stock taking, with some strategic thinking thrown in.
But I agree with Mike Haseler above: this is not primarily about science. It has been a political endeavour from the start, with the tortured and abused science being utilised as acceptable cloak.
Now that more good papers are getting through the gates, it is a joy to read and debate about the actual science, but while we do this,we must never forget the politics. Above all, we must hold the politicians responsible who have forced these failed 'renewables' on the world, and the scam that is cap-and-trade.
The fight is not so much against the dwarves which are 'the Team', but against the Goliaths that are the IPCC< Greenpeace, WWF and the other despicable NGOs who take our money any which way - e.g. from our taxes, to impose their envirofascist world view on us all.
Let us also not forget that these NGOs are false-flag operators, because they do not care for the environment, as they proclaim. Else they would not have supported the unspeakable Palm oil plantations, the corn-for-fuel, the bird shredders.
As I grieve for the abuse of the scientific method, so do I grieve for the abuse of those who work to care for their local environments.
Those NGOs and their money supporters are the enemy.
Stonyground: (Mar 3, 2012 at 6:07 PM) “How long can their predicted disasters go on not happening before even the most ardent warmists catch on?”
cosmic: (Mar 3, 2012 at 6:55 PM) “The climate hasn't obliged alarmist predictions”.
Every tornado, every flood, every drought, every heatwave counts as a predicted disaster. The occasional Richard Betts (or even Sir Paul Nurse) may admit that weather isn’t climate, but they’re not on Newsnight every night hammering home the point to counter twenty years of propaganda.
Like any form of irrational ideology, once the basic lie has been instilled into hearts and minds, there’s no need to repeat chapter and verse on every occasion. Once an evil doctrine like anti-semitism has got itself established in the public psyche, linked to the banal fact that some Jews are rich, or successful in the media, no more propaganda is necessary. A nod is as good as a wink, and a deadly tornado is as good as a peer-reviewed paper.
Pointman’s guerrilla warfare comparison is particularly unfortunate, I think. THEY are the ones who refuse to engage in direct confrontation. THEY are the ones who swim in the media like a fish in water.
If we must have a historical analogy, Nazism is far more apt. Not that I’m suggesting that Greens are brutal mass-murderers. (Why, many of them are vegetarians, and who ever heard of a genocidal vegetarian?)
The similarity is in the irrational nature of their beliefs; the way they fill a gap in the political void; the way the politicians think they’re using the Greens while in fact being used by them; their image as underdogs, despite their massive funding; their reliance on the media to create the illusion of popular support - I’m sure others can find other similarities.
OK, “An Inconvenient Truth” isn’t quite “The Triumph of the Will”; the Gleick memo isn’t quite the Protocols of the Elders of Zion; and the death threats against Mann aren’t quite the Riechstag Fire; but the similarities are there, and as someone (Mike Jackson?) once said “history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce”.
Every tornado, every flood, every drought, every heatwave counts as a predicted disaster.
Mar 3, 2012 at 7:42 PM | geoffchambers
Yes, but people are laughing at it or are fed up with hearing it. A less accepting attitude is coming about and people are less likely to take alarmist statements at face value and they listen to other explanations.
"Everything is down to climate change."
In fact I think you'll find the original is from someone likely to be a hero of yours rather than mine — Marx, K.
Mike Jackson, your post of 5.50pm makes some good points. But maybe what you are describing also reflects an innate need for a substantial part of the population for a spiritual/altruistic context for their lives, which persists no matter how rich and educated we are?
Cold rationalism is all very well, but many (perhaps most) CAGW unbelievers are as awed by nature as the most alienated crusty who chains themselves to a tree. The early conservation movements had nothing to do with redistribution of income or telling people in cities and towns how to live.
Maybe nature lovers should try to take back WWF et al. Maybe they should start new organisations. But, it is time that the false dichotomy of people who care about the natural world, and father-raping, grandchildren-murdering sociopaths was broken.
When millions of people believe in something (at little, if any cost) 'for the grandchildren', it is not enough to wave graphs at them. There has to be a counter-narrative about caring for the planet, which is genuine but practical. Their hearts and minds were not won over by graphs, but by the narrative. As you point out, the foundations for the next narrative are already being laid.
Mar 3, 2012 at 4:18 PM | Martin A
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I am firmly with Martin on this.
It will not be over until the BBC (and their ilk) run a programme explaining that CAGW was simply poor science and poor statistics, and the politicians repeal subsidies given to renewables and give the go ahead to shale and seriously fast track the building of conventional (or nuclear) power stations...There is a long way to go yet although it does appear that mother nature is running against CAGW and that will assist its demise.
Toast to high spirits, too premature I am afraid.
All churches fancy themselves persecuted no matter how powerful, even the Cardinals in Rome invents Satan galore.
Do not relax guerrilleros, the fight is not over.
I wish I could edit after posting, at least some permurtation of "s"s for grammatical consistency
I agree with those who say this is not over. If there ever is an "over", it may not occur in our lifetimes. Sometimes you play to what essentially is a stalemate, if that's what you determine is the best outcome. And then circumstances tend to change, so...
I can tell you this though, skeptics here in the USA aren't going to go away any time soon.
Andrew
It's strange how one mentally conjures up an image from a blog name and comment persona. For me Pointman is special forces, SWAT or SAS. A behind the lines sceptic warrior. With a literary prowess. I'll call him Pointman of Arabia.
It will not be over until the BBC (and their ilk) run a programme explaining that CAGW was simply poor science and poor statistics, and the politicians repeal subsidies given to renewables and give the go ahead to shale and seriously fast track the building of conventional (or nuclear) power stations...There is a long way to go yet although it does appear that mother nature is running against CAGW and that will assist its demise.
Mar 3, 2012 at 8:25 PM | richard verney
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I'm afraid Richard that will not happen all the while the government (UN, supranational and national level) has an ulterior motive for encouraging and lavishly funding the AGW lobby and its myriad of agencies, organisations and proxies.
There is too much money at stake and there are too many powerful vested interests that would be undermined. The people and organisations benefitting from all this are those who pull the strings of politicians. If the global warming narrative falls apart it will be replaced by another cause or issue that necessitates exactly the same 'remedy' - namely our money being siphoned off under UN instruction to be sent to the developing world to fund 'solutions' that are provided by the corporations.
What is happening is the result of erosion of democracy. To cement the new status quo we are being subjected to even more erosion of democracy, lest we have any tools with which to put an end to the political agenda.
Feel free to keep fighting against the Manns and Trenberths of this world. Just be mindful that once they have been removed from the board there will be new characters pushing a new issue and the game will start all over again.
Autonomous Mind: the money has run out and there are now three reports that above a critical penetration level, c. 10% for coal,. ~15% for CCGT, the windmills cause more CO2 to be generated than they save.
Once the public realise that the windmills become negatively green, they won't vote for the Mafia politicians.
http://www.clepair.net/windSchiphol.html
I'm optimistic, although I think it has to be said, this is a long game. One cause for optimism is surely that climate change has never grown to be the popular cause the believers wanted it to become, and there's little sign of that happening, now.
For example, in the UK between March 12th and 18th is Climate Week - a "supercharged national occasion" according to its corporate-sponsored website, but how many of your neighbours, friends or colleagues will know or care about it? Not many, I'd hazard a guess.
For me, the comparison that comes most readily to mind is eugenics. Diminished to the point of death now, surely, as a scientific or social movement, but that diminishing took decades. We're not there yet, with CAGW. But this is the end of the beginning, so to speak.
mydogsgotnonose,
The CCA was passed with a single figure of dissenters - half a dozen? All the political parties were completely behind it and there are no signs of it being repealed. People in the UK almost all vote tribally for one of the big three parties so there is effectively no choice on this matter.
Don't forget that much UK environmental legislation is based on EU legislation. Neither of the three main parties looks likely to defy EU legislation or leave the EU.
If engineering considerations had been understood or thought necessary by our politicians and civil servants we would never have had so much emphasis on wind turbines. I think reality may intrude and they will cause an energy crisis in which people die.
Another factor to consider in "winning this war" is language (and culture). As I see it, CAGW was a mostly anglo-saxon and, secondarily European invention. Here in my French-speaking home province of Quebec, CAGW was readily adopted by the press, politicians and the public perhaps because the province is left-leaning, anti-american and anti-capitalistic. Not a single line on Fakegate was written in the press nor did we hear about Climategate 2 at all. Not a word. In 2009, Climategate 1 was mentioned in passing in one editorial, as not impacting the science. There is no scepticism at all. The Quebec government just announced a cap-and-trade scheme to be implemented in january 2013. It was announced proudly as a sign that we, unlike western Canada (tar sands), are environmentally responsible. The situation may be similar in the non anglo-saxon world especially in latin America, Scandinavia and Africa.
I don't think the term "war" is appropriate. Climategate revealed conspirational networking against other views, but that is not a war. The term war was invented in my view to justify misconduct or in other words "war crimes".
Francois
Quebec used to boast the largest and most famous asbestos mine in the world, the Jeffreys mine in the town called Asbestos the Nicolet River SE Quebec. As the mine marched forth, they moved the houses to the other side of the hole. Strangely, little is heard of it now.
The problem with declaring a victory is two-fold.
1) Even if public opinion, the science and the media are swinging against the Warmists, they will not go away, as they have too much invested financially and psychologically. They may recast the scare as a 'sustainability' issue, but they will undoubtedly still fight.
2) More importantly, even if every politician on the planet declared the AGW scare dead and buried tomorrow, there is still the regulatory aftermath to deal with -- unravelling the wind farms, rescinding all the climate aid programs, the Climate Change Act and its entrenched bureaucracy. It will be as long and expensive as rehabilitating with any other scorched earth region.
@ alexcull
Sadly, eugenics thinking is not dead. Periodically one sees in newspapers arguments about how if people need to get a license to buy a car, they should also require a license to have babies. Of course, it's put in child-centred terms, but the real desire is to prevent the 'wrong' people from having babies. I lecture in the history of science, and following lectures on eugenics and the human genome project, some of the more forthright students will sometimes put forward arguments in favour of eugenics-like policies. Perhaps the naivete around the possibilities of breeding-genetics is gone, but the basic and seemingly reasonable desire to control people - including their reproductive activities - either for their own good, the good of society, or in the name of population control is still with us.
The CAGW issue has one ideological factor that will give it longevity, and that is simply the difficult-to- dispel anthropocentric understanding of nature, which in the past 40 or so years has been given a negative interpretation. People are so indoctrinated now in this attitude that it is difficult to see any possibility of it's being shifted in the coming decades.
However, countering this is the very real prospect of poverty ensnaring the formerly unassailably wealthy west. Now that we're suffering, and thanks to the activities of this and other websites, people are beginning to see the naked state of CAGW. If I bring up my skepticism in class, students no longer look at me as if I have developed a disgusting disease - they want to hear more, and now there always seem to be a few students at least who are also actively skeptical themselves.
As for the acidification of the seas, lots of luck to the eco-scammers. If it's hard to get people excited about fisheries conservation (and it is) I can't see too many people becoming willing to make major sacrifices over a slight drop in oceanic pH.
I think that it is an excellent essay, but it misses the point. The alarmists are in fact extremely well organized and well funded and don't understand how come the opposition isn't.
It's called asymmetric warfare, and as the British, Russians, and now Americans discovered, you can get your ass kicked by a bunch of disorganized impoverished Afghans who just don't see things your way.
Fenton the wonder dog chasing Deer being chased by his owner is rightfully a YouTube classic
This should be another
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhaoaZ2WxQE