Judith Curry responds to charges of “heresy”;
Let me ask you this. So how are things going for you lately? A year ago, the climate establishment was on top of the world, masters of the universe. Now we have a situation where there have been major challenges to the reputations of a number of a number of scientists, the IPCC, professional societies, and other institutions of science. The spillover has been a loss of public trust in climate science and some have argued, even more broadly in science. The IPCC and the UNFCCC are regarded by many as impediments to sane and politically viable energy policies. The enviro advocacy groups are abandoning the climate change issue for more promising narratives. In the U.S., the prospect of the Republicans winning the House of Representatives raises the specter of hearings on the integrity of climate science and reductions in federal funding for climate research.
What happened? Did the skeptics and the oil companies and the libertarian think tanks win? No, you lost. All in the name of supporting policies that I don’t think many of you fully understand. What I want is for the climate science community to shift gears and get back to doing science, and return to an environment where debate over the science is the spice of academic life. And because of the high relevance of our field, we need to figure out how to provide the best possible scientific information and assessment of uncertainties. This means abandoning this religious adherence to consensus dogma.
h/t Maz2
“The enviro advocacy groups are abandoning the climate change issue for more promising narratives.”
Now that is a bit of good news. We’re winning. Got to keep an eye though on where the rats scurry to though.
Between the lines you can sense Curry’s frustration, and it’s understandable. The circularity in this passage alone from Lemonick’s Scientific American article is mind-boggling:
“Which of these stories is more accurate would not matter much if the field of science in question was cosmology, say, or paleontology, or some other area without any actual impact on people’s lives. Climate science obviously is not like that. The experts broadly agree that it will take massive changes in agriculture, energy production, and more to avert a potential disaster.”
That’s just a roundabout way of saying that the science is settled – which it isn’t – and that Judith Curry, by simply wishing to return climate science to a more scientific basis and subject it to a more rigorous scientific method is only aiding people who are destroying the planet. It’s precisely that attitude – that the only “sound” science is that which insists that there will be horrifying consequences unless we accept the assertions of one particular group of scientists – that led to the *science* being so corrupted, and to the warmists being so discredited.
Talk about not getting Curry’s point.
Later Lemonick pays lip service to the notion that there should be a debate about the science behind the assertion of AGW:
“A crucial lesson for the public is that uncertainty cuts both ways. When science is uncertain, it means that things could turn out to be much rosier than projections would indicate. It also means things could turn out to be much worse.”
In other words, there are only two options: either he’s right, or he’s right. Or more like, “we’re right, and it’s final, but science is of course very important, so there’s still room for debate about how right we are.”
All this based on a model, at a time when the earth appears to be cooling.
Paganism died.
Now neo-paganism is in its death throes.
Long live pure science.
May the political scientist who perpetrated this and other scams continue to feel naked and powerless. Shame on them!
First heretic, next apostate, and then blasphemer and we all know what religions do to blasphemers – the “No Pressure” environmental extremists seem to be thirsty for a sacrifice to Gaia to appease this spiteful godesses vindictive anger, not to mention that of the so called scientific community.
I greatly admire Judith’s fortitude and integrity.
Definitely NOT Currying favour with the warmist set…
😉
So then, when is the Harper government going to catch on and pull out of the Cancun talks?
I don’t think this unilateral declaration of victory is very realistic. We have won nothing except an increase in self-esteem so far.
But I do think the AGW concept is on life support. Don’t get me wrong, I was a skeptic before most of you even heard about AGW. But I don’t really think this battle is won, we are just getting cocky. If we can’t even get the likes of Harper to speak out against it, then let’s be realistic, where are we at this moment?
And if we feel that we can’t speak openly about this issue, yet apparently the nation was ready for same sex marriage, then I have to say there is something fundamentally wrong with our national dialogue in Canada. We are still only one step short of being in bizarro world, and that one step is the conservative blogosphere.
If not for the blogs and forums, this issue of widespread skepticism would not even exist as many still pretend.
Wow, I was closer to the truth in my earlier comment on this thread than I could have possibly anticipated.
Exert from comment to Dr. Curry – his reply to her is very telling and the full response is definitely worth the read, if you want to know what a threat sounds like when worded by a scientist/assassin:
MikeH | October 26, 2010 at 4:49 pm | Reply
“Dr Curry,
Great article. You were made welcome into the cult of AGW probably without your knowing it even happened and not until it was too late. But with membership comes obligations. I am afraid your article clearly shows that you are not meeting them. So when a person of high stature within a hierarchy questions the established dogma, and when they follow up by questioning the structure and authority of the hierarchy itself, they place themselves at great risk of being accused of being an apostate and of being ostracized as a result. Being excluded from the cult can have very real and personal implications. I urge you to be very careful with the way you proceed. You may not be aware of this but you are rapidly approaching apostate status. If you would publicly repent and turn back from your wicked ways then you *might* be able to retain your position in the AGW hierarchy….”
It gets worse.
There is just so much here; I really don’t know where to begin, so I won’t. I don’t know about anyone else, but the “No Pressure” video came to mind while reading Mike’s friendly warning.
http://judithcurry.com/2010/10/25/heresy-and-the-creation-of-monsters/#comment-5741
Judith Curry blogs
“…so-called Climategate emails…”? Is their very existence now open to debate?
set you free said “May the political scientist who perpetrated this and other scams continue to feel naked and powerless.”
Actually that just might be a turn on for him.
The Eco-Grifters will soon invent another hairy-scary story they can use to fleece the pockets of the Stupid Class and corrupt another bunch of politicians.
They haven’t gone away and don’t understand defeat . . . they just morph their whackoism into another fear of nature.
Just what science is everyone talking about the science they manipulated or the science they made up. These people are like smelly communists you just can’t git rid of them.
There I feel better.
The outlines of the new environmentalist crusade/scam are already visible. It is bio-diversity. We need to shut down the economy, have world governance by the UN and be taxed up the ying-yang to save species threatened with extinction by our decadent western way of life.
Just take a look at the stupidity of our Alberta environment ministry, this clown still believes in globull warming, and wastes millions just to show us. Look at this stupid duck issue, oh my golly gee more dead ducks, why can’t these oil companies stop the death of ducks? Ducks die every day, big deal Rob. Shut down duck hunting season, ground planes, stop farming, yea thats what these metrosexual enviro-whackos will scream for next, I wish we had some men in govt who would take the little Mike Hudemas duck hunting with Dick Cheney preferably. The amount of money wasted on all this environMENTALism is criminal. My new bumper sticker for our government vehicles says,”Forget About The Children, Think About The Ducks
No, we skeptics certainly have NOT won. We’ve gained a foothold on the beaches,but it’s still a long way to Berlin,to use a WW2 analogy.
Gore and the rest of the money behind the scenes are going to continue to peddle their line,to their own benefit,and governments will go along as they have taxes to impose.
Most people still rely on the MSM for their information,and until the CBC fully exposes the scam that was AGW, the majority will still be stuck on last year’s theme,”the sky is falling”.
I’ve spoken to my MP about the scam that is AGW,but he merely nods politely and gives no response. The official line out of Ottawa is very different from what we’re seeing on the internet.
With Winter on it’s way,and the higher heating bills,I wonder if our governments have any plans to drop the carbon taxes on fuels to alleviate the pain. I doubt it.
I agree with dmorris; we haven’t yet won. To use his similar analogy, we’ve landed in Normandy but we’ve a long way to go.
The majority of the population still accept the theme of ‘global warming’. They accept it because it has been the normative verbiage on all their information sites during the last decade and in particular, the last five years. These sites include the daily weather updates which constantly refer to ‘climate change’ and ‘global warming’. They include our mainstream media, of radio, television and newspapers.
Most of this audience is not involved in researching the factual basis for these statements nor do they have any reason to doubt or confront the information sites. We, who reject AGW, live in our own bubble-of-knowledge, we read and analyze the more knowledgeable scientific reports, we are aware of fraudulent models, data gathering and inadequate science. We must be aware that it is still the majority who are on the outside.
That’s why the government has to play ‘in the middle’; it can’t confront the people with the truth when they are not interested either in that truth or in having to themselves confront all the information sites (weather news, news sources).
We haven’t won anything. I direct your attention to your driveway where a blue box still sits. When that f-ing blue box is gone, THEN we will have won something.
The path to victory is now revealed, however. When the people who conceived, planned and implemented the blue box program and all the other idiot greenie programs we labor under are identified and removed from governance in the West, that’s how the victory will be won. We aren’t on that yet.
Its one thing to discredit a public policy. Its another thing entirely to get it removed. Look at gun control. Entirely discredited as a method for reducing crime, everybody knows its a complete snow job, the researchers who did the junk science for it are in DISGRACE, yet the policy still keeps going on. Its like a vampire that’s been shot 40 times. Dead, but still sucking blood.
I’m not impressed by signs and portents. I’m impressed by -action-. When I see the price of gas drop 50 cents a quart because all the greenie tax got knocked off, when that blue box dissapears, when “saving the environment” is an accusation in a political debate instead of a policy platform, that’s when I’ll start pouring champaign and claim victory.
CPC officials, I know you guys lurk here. Listen to your Uncle Phantom. Find those greenies and communists ensconced in the bureaucracy and quietly edge them out. Faster, please.
far out.
our very own Martin Luther. whodda thunk it.
It is not won until the LPC admits the ‘science’ was tainted, at which point the Canadian MSM will finally shut up about it. That won’t happen until the UN shuts up about it, and that won’t happen until the ‘developing’ (i.e. most corrupt) nations give up on trying to wrangle international transfer payments through CO2 scare tactics. Not to forget the corruption in our own political systems and the UN itself.
No, this won’t go away until some better scam is invented, by which the usual suspects can line their pockets with our money.
Whereas I ended my subscription to Sci Am years ago exactly because of its descent from solid science into hysterical partisan advocacy, the action for the article is, once again, in the comments. It would appear very few of their readers are drinking the kool aid. Perhaps a crack of light may yet return to the editors of Scientific American as well.
When the people who conceived, planned and implemented the blue box program and all the other idiot greenie programs we labor under are identified and removed from governance in the West, that’s how the victory will be won. We aren’t on that yet.
~the Phantom
Exactly right.
The whole comment was perfect, can’t add anything to it.
The one thing Curry did notice was that the IPCC, Mann and the CRU were trumping up the 2005 Atlantic Hurricane Season to convince the ignorant masses that not only was man-made global warming real, but was, in fact, causing this anomaly.
But, if it was actual global warming then why not use the whole planets cyclic storms; typhons, cyclones and hurricanes. I mean you can’t use local warming seasons to form a consensus on global warming, can you ?
Well, either way, on Climate Change, my theory is and still remains Planetary Alignment and Solar Activity.
I mean you take a typical Global Warmist and even mention that the BIG FIRE BALL in the sky the SUN just might have an effect on global temperatures through Solar Activity and they go into a hissy, because according to a warmist the SUN cannot cause global warming , only SUV’s can do that. Plus, then you mention that every 50 years, or so, 5 of the 9 Planets are in the opposite guadrant* as Earth, which means that the 5 Planets, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, are all in a line like ducks in a row, and are on one side of the Sun and Lil Ole Earth is on the other side, now, you would think 5 Planets Magnetic Gravitational Pull would alter Earths Planetary Alignment to be closer to the Sun, maybe just a lil, like change it a degree or two, for a few years , in a couple of places on Earth, like maybe in the Cities that have the most concrete, the most SUV’s, kindof like Los Angeles, NY, Chicago, or Detroit.
So, in closing, you know the gig is up when you follow the money-trail back to the Carbon Trading Companies.
*The Jupiter Effect
“…so-called Climategate emails…”? Is their very existence now open to debate?”
Well…none of the computer models predicted them, so they must not exist, right?
Phanthom is correct, we aren’t winning we are losing for gawds sake last week my recycables were rejected because their was a piece of paper in with the plastics. I can’t keep up with the trash Nazis Fatwahs, paper can’t meet cardboard alas plastic can’t touch the metal. Fork I’ve had all I can take of those meddlesome arseholes.
JMD mentioned “biodiversity”, a term already bandied about in those updated “Hinterland: Who’s Who” spots. I remember when they used to provide useful bits of information. Now it’s just another harangue from the eco-pod people.
Rose, I think we can take heart from the Rob Ford victory in Toronto. I don’t mean to say that we can’t win, or that its all for naught, its just that what we’ve got right now is a major glitch in the greenies’ forward motion. They hit the wall.
With a bit more work we can make “environmental” a bad word. That’s when we start winning and blue boxes go bye bye. The really best part is that the greenies are doing some of the work for us. No pressure indeed.
Well, the great thing about “biodiversity” is that it smuggles in a heads-I-win, tails-you-lose approach to the issue. One more species here than there was a while ago? Alien invasion! One less? Mass extinction! And the grants flow on.
Loads of new vertebrate species disovered in relatively brief expeditions to Papua New Guinea and the Mekong River this year.
Not that biodiversity is in any way an inherent good, except in people’s imaginations – but it’s interesting to see how little they really know, as always…