Why the Climate Skeptics Are Winning

"Why the Climate Skeptics Are Winning

Too many of their opponents are intellectual thugs.

Mar 5, 2012, Vol. 17, No. 24 • By STEVEN F. HAYWARD

The forlorn and increasingly desperate climate campaign achieved a new level of ineptitude last week when what had looked like a minor embarrassment for one of its critics​—​the Chicago-based Heartland Institute​—​turned out to be a full-fledged catastrophe for itself. A moment’s reflection on the root of this episode points to why the climate campaign is out of (greenhouse) gas.

Peter Gleick: ‘a serious lapse of my own and professional judgment and ethics’

In an obvious attempt to inflict a symmetrical Climategate-style scandal on the skeptic community, someone representing himself as a Heartland Institute insider “leaked” internal documents for Heartland’s most recent board of directors meeting to a fringe environmental blog, along with a photocopy of a supposed Heartland “strategy memo” outlining a plan to disseminate a public school curriculum aimed at “dissuading teachers from teaching science.”

This ham-handed phrase (one of many) should have been a tipoff to treat the document dump with some .  .  . skepticism (a trait that has gone missing from much of the climate science community). But more than a few environmental blogs and mainstream news outlets ran with the story of how this “leak” exposed the nefarious “antiscience” Neanderthals of Heartland and their fossil fuel paymasters. But the strategy memo is a fake, probably created because the genuine internal documents are fairly ho-hum. It seems the climate campaign is now taking its tactics from Dan “fake but accurate” Rather."

http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/why-climate-skeptics-are-winning_631915.html

Hmmmmmmmm................

 

"Climate madness
Skulduggery undermines the case for global warming

February 25, 2012

Earlier this month, the Internet lit up with a tantalizing whodunit. Someone had leaked to bloggers confidential internal fundraising and strategic documents from the Heartland Institute, a Chicago-based think-tank that questions global warming orthodoxy.

The apparent goal: to discredit and embarrass those who raise doubts about the science behind climate change.

Heartland officials cried foul, asserting that at least one of the documents was forged. They vowed to track down the leaker and pursue charges.

This week, Peter Gleick saved them the trouble of a search. He confessed that he had assumed a false identity to obtain some of the documents and then leaked them. That sounded plausible: Heartland had said last week that someone got the documents by calling its Chicago headquarters and posing as a Heartland board member seeking information, the Tribune reported.

So who is Gleick? Some anonymous cyberhacker with a grudge against climate skeptics? Not quite. Gleick is a prominent environmental activist, head of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment and Security in Oakland, Calif. He's also a former MacArthur Foundation "genius grant" recipient, and ... chair of the American Geophysical Union's Task Force on Scientific Ethics.

Yes, ethics.

In his Huffington Post blog confession, Gleick apologized for using dishonest tactics, but said "the scientific understanding of the reality and risks of climate change is strong, compelling, and increasingly disturbing, and a rational public debate is desperately needed."

Gleick said his judgment was "blinded by my frustration with the ongoing efforts — often anonymous, well-funded, and coordinated — to attack climate science and scientists and prevent this debate. ..."

Two points here. First: Yes, a rational public debate is desperately needed. But Gleick's skulduggery in obtaining documents and leaking them to bloggers doesn't advance that goal.

Second: You get a rational debate when both sides are able to fully air their evidence and interpretations. Scientists shouldn't — can't — be in the business of trying to discredit opponents with sneaky Internet ruses, even if some of their opponents sometimes stoop to such dishonest tactics. Note that we're not dropping any sly hints here about Heartland, which in this drama is the victim of chicanery.

Instead, remember Climategate in 2009? Just when it seemed the world was about to get serious about battling global warming, hackers released a trove of stolen emails. Those emails showed how a cadre of the world's top climate scientists attempted to muzzle skeptics, freeze out independent researchers who disagreed with their theories, and fuzz over evidence that cast doubt on their own work.

That episode, too, was an embarrassment to serious scientists who warn about the dangers of climate change. RIP, any chance for global climate action.

Now this fresh climate madness, with Mr. Ethics stalking his Chicago-based foes from afar.

Gleick may have thought he could undercut Heartland and thereby advance the case for global warming. Instead, he fueled doubts about which side is right in this long-running debate.

That's a shame. Science relies on multiple layers of honesty. They include the honorably conducted gathering and analysis of facts, a perpetual quest for irrefutable evidence supporting conclusions — and trust that everyone is acting with integrity.

When scientific truth becomes sufficiently compelling, it matters little what the critics or skeptics say. It doesn't matter if everyone doesn't believe. Doubters cannot make the Earth flat.

But stunts such as Gleick's — this effort to sully opponents with dishonest tactics — undercuts scientists around the world as they marshal evidence to convince an increasingly skeptical public about the dangers of global warming."

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-edit-climate-20120225,0,3701177.story

Hmmmmmmm...........

 

You can claim victory when the majority of scientists agree with you. Until then, good luck with all that.

 

"Victory"? What would that be, eh: Einstein?

The majority of so called "scientists" thought the world was flat at one point in time..... burp.... Or that single celled life was real simple...... burp..... Or that the universe was a stable steady state...... burp....

Why would I care what the "majortiy of scientists"..... (who cornsume large amounts of Nanny Gubment grants), n' may say things from time to time ta maintain the ol' gravy train think?


Got some news fer ya: THE GUBMENT CAN'T CORNTROL THE WEATHER, no matter how much liberty n' taxes ya feed the ol' monster..... burp

 

The scientists that don't receive government grants do.

 

Yeah ... right.Spoken like a true Nazi.
Worked pretty good for Hitler and his 3rd Reich.
Up to a point.
We're at that point now with Al Gore and his Nazi Climate Control.

 

My unofficial climate change data: I've only shoveled snow here in CT twice this winter. Normally it would be about 10 times by now.

 

You're making a lot of assumptions here.

First of all, I'm not saying I support cap and trade. I think a lot of the measures that governments devise to supposedly halt or slow global warming are b.s.

I'm also not saying that global warming is necessarily a mostly human caused thing.

All I am saying is that the facts show that it's happening. There's really no debate on that, and the majority of government funded and non-government funded scientists agree with that.

The debate is what is causing it and to what extent is each factor involved significant.

If you understand anything about science, you should know that it's a continual work in progress. It's not the sort of thing where you discover something and that's the end.

Science is a perpetual exploration of a topic, so if you can't tolerate changes in perceptions over time, you're probably best off sticking with politics instead.

 

Could you refrain from Godwin's Law just once?

 

Intellectual thugs?

I've never understood why some people are dumb enough to think intellectuals area a threat. Being smart is good.

 

Great point. If we see this for only one winter here in the northeast, I'm willing to pass it off as 'weather'... if summer and next winter prove to be as unusual... then I'll be certain enough that it is "CLIMATE" and not mere weather.

Yeas ago, a relative of mine accompanied several scientists to the South Pole to gather data on the climate; even those 15+ years ago, he made clear that the data was "chilling" (no pun intended). I was pretty certain of climate change then, and more certain of it now.

Personally, I say regardless of the 'causes'... we need to seriously study what's going on, so that mankind might survive what is likely coming.

 

Ha-Ha!!

 

Common sense is better.

 

The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.(*) ~Bertrand Russell

 

Rothbard was quite intellectual.

 

He had a lot of common sense as well.

 

What makes you so certain, it is "common" at all?

 

It's a periodical/magazine they tend to do those things with dates.......

 

Absolutely brilliant!!

 

It "seems" to be warmin' in the Northern hemisphere over the last 15-20 years proir ta 1998, (due ta ice melts et al). Not so much in the Southern hemisphere as Antartica is accumulatin ice n' such. BTW: it has been flat since 1998, with a whole lotta CO2 from China n' India....... Imagine that......

No debate eh? Are you Algore or some such????

Methinks the flat line since 1998 may indicate a change in the trend, butt: I'm not allowed ta debate yer sayin'?????

Golllllllly geeee n' here I thought ya said all the debate was over..... silly me....

Are you my momma? burp......

 

I guess ya haven't noticed the growth of Nanny Gubment then.....

Are you livin' under a rock or some such?

Do ya cornsume lots of Commie kool aid?

 

Indeed.
But I think that Bertrand was paraphrasing William Butler Yeats.

 

Common sense isn't better because it's different for every culture and person.

There is no universal common sense in many issues.

 

Only one problem with your argument.

The flaw, the basic premise that "climate sceptics are winning"