Bishop Hill A study in groupthink
Feb 26, 2012 Climate: other Maurizio Morabito pointed out his Twitter exchange with Bora Zivkovic, a blogger at Scientific American. Zivkovic is rather worked up, but I think it's quite interesting too see what he has to say. He is clearly very much out of the same mould as Peter Gleick, viewing his cause as beleaguered by wicked big business. It's a fascinating study in groupthink.
(I was also amused by the argument that dissentients will not debate, when the Gleick affair seems to have had its roots in Gleick's refusal to speak to Heartland.)
Please try to avoid simply venting in the comments.
When slimey Watts sends his hordes over, result is a comment thread like this: bit.ly/yCkrtp full of greedy, duped cowards.
Finding it hard to make up my mind on Gleick. All made harder by the fact that Heartland is in the business of making and selling lies.
@krelnik @kieranmulvaney those who comment for free are really dupes, not realizing they could be paid for it by the denialist "think tanks"
@danfagin I agree w/Horgan this was big strategic blunder. But ethics are shadier: is he a journalist, scientist, activist? Whose ethics?
@omnologos GW denialism is dangerous, criminal and slimey. Again. #climate
@omnologos "enemies"? You admit you are waging a war on science now. #Gleickgate
@omnologos Heartland is waging war. Scientists were naive thinking that "truth will prevail". Money prevails, Kochs win. Have to fight back!
@omnologos is "questioning alarmism" a phrase coined by Dezenhall or Luntz? The proper terms is "denialist" so let's call it as it is.
@omnologos terms "alarmism" and "warmism" werr invented by rightwingnut PR hacks. We should continue calling you all denialists.
@omnologos btw, how come I see your tweets, I thought I blocked you years ago?
@omnologos ask the Kochs. Green Leviathans exist only in wet dreams of greedy, slimy, denialist rightwing cowards.
@omnologos and your repeated attempts to draw my employer into a personal discussion with ME is another typical rightwing slimy tactic
Denialists should be studied by psychiatrists. So much projection.
Educating people does not work, it assumes the 'deficit model'. Exposing shennanigans, sources of money, finding hypocrysy - that may work.
I should be able to open up the submission form for the next #openlab on Monday, bear with me...
Attacks paid for by big business are 'driving science into a dark era' bit.ly/zVL5pT Sad and scary when scientists are intimidated.
RT @lexalexander: Gleick was wrong no Q and end does not justify means. But what he did is NOT morally = buying denialism & its consequences
Catching up: @mocost's terrific piece skeptically sizing up the evidence for neurogenesis. bit.ly/wioUua
Right versus pragmatic bit.ly/y4CU9a
Ethical considerations regarding Heartland/Gleick bit.ly/w6DbTJ by @scruffydan
Thank you! RT @raewing: Hooray! @PSMHopkins @sunbrae @BoraZ @artologica @j2wade you are all going into my fake book's real acknowledgements.
LOL, this tweet out of context could be misinterpreted ;-) RT @raewing: @BoraZ Good nuts!
@rvitelli @raewing a recipe book for a Tea Party (with Mad Hatter)?
#SciOVanuatu! RT @mistersugar: I'm hoping to go w/ family to #Vanuatu this summer. Anyone want to come along?
@wittier @sciencecomedian @blocke23 Lying about science is also un-American, thus Heartland and denialist liars need to be stopped.
@raewing too many gallons of icecream ;-)
@wittier @sciencecomedian @blocke23 denialists are free to speak, but their speech should be received by sharp debunking and laughter.
@wittier @sciencecomedian @blocke23 if denialists had any arguments worth considering, they'd debate instead of bankrolling PR liars.
Wasting Twitter characters to say "have a good day" is so rude.
@RyanMadanickMD LOL! No, that's what rightwingers like to do when they want to duck out of a debate.
RT @blocke23: Gleick's strategy may have been "misguided" but climate is NOT trivial issue. H.I. must be stopped by a diversity of tactics.
IN climate "debate" one side won with facts, the other side won with dirty money and lies. That's politics for you, I guess.
Republicans 4 Environmental Protection vs. Heartland #climate disinfo campaign: Climate #Science Watch awe.sm/5fsrD
Reader Comments (126)
Following on from my previous comment,
and getting back on topic, I would add that the only medium-to-long-term response to the paranoia is what actually appears to be happening: prosecution for identity theft. I am no lover of litigation but in this case sincerely hope Bast and the HI will let nothing distract them from pursuing their action to the bitter end.
Otherwise the "mental derangement" screaming match will just go on.
Mike Jackson Feb 26, 2012 at 12:17 PM - Climate change denial is a growth area in Oz cognitive psychology. Our local guru is Professor Stephan Lewandowsky who researches and indeed teaches undergraduates the subject at the University of Westen Australia.
Here is one of his Gleikian offerings. Climate change denial and the abuse of peer review.
Thank goodness cognitive psychology is in good hands in the Southern Hemisphere.
Just retweeted that to a lot of my followers.
I wonder what they make of the fact (@flimsin @richardabetts @revkin, etc) that in America.. he would be on their 'side'
Not that I like 'sides' having had a fight with a few on my 'side' this week.
Hi,
In another place, (http://www.raspberrypi.org), I have observed the same excessive behaviour by the RPi fanboys as is exhibited by the global warming fanatics, mentioned above.
The Rasberry Pi is an ARM board, running Linux, designed and manufactured by a charitable foundation and will be sold for $25 and $35 depending on spec. It is a very interesting and challenging development, intended to bring simple computer programming back to young people, ala the days of the BBC or Speccy.
However, reading some of the comments to the foundation blog, fills me with horror.
Bearing in mind, that some of the commentators do not have English as their first language, and others may be just out of short trousers, there are still too many rude and illiterate comments. Anyone who criticises the Rasberry Pi are sometimes treated to foaming jawed abuse and hatred, with no chance of rational discussion.
The foundation has just had their first production run of 10K boards manufactured and are waiting for them to return from manufacture, with some delay. Rabid comments appear that claim the whole project is a scam and a fraud. This is despite the fact that nobody has been sold or presold a board yet. The shop will open when they have boards to sell.
These commentators pose stupid basic questions in the blog comments, despite there being an excellent wiki and forums available to them to read, to answer their own queries before they let their fingers mindlessly roam their keyboards.
The general impression I get is that most of the commentards want instant gratification of their desires, and if they cannot get that, they noisily sulk.
So, is it an education failure, or dare I say it, their behaviour and view of the world is coloured by the examples given to them by the constant flow of badly behaved media personalities?
My wife always says this behaviour is due to modern families never sitting round a table for meals, with NO media distraction, so they have to learn make conversation and listen to other peoples points of view.
God, I feel better now!
regards
GG
Just watched Dellinpole kick arse on some BBC debate show
This vicar and Lembit Opic was going on about Operation Noah
As a believing but non practicing Catholic this is the story of Noah and his Ark
God basically sent a flood to wipe out all the scum but warned Noah before hand and had enough time to built the Ark saved his family and all the animals because they were Good
And the scum got wiped out
So the question with the Operation Noah and Global Warming and Enviromentalists
Whose the scum and deserves to get wiped out and whose the Good and deserves a place on the Ark to get saved
So the scum would be people who do their shopping at Tescos Primark Debenhams and Superdrug play Hallo and Call of Duty MWF3 on the PS3 Watch Eastenders or Corrie on LCD Flatscreen tellys
and eat in McDonald's
Vote for any good dedicated and above all local Tory or Labour MP but they actually Support UKIP
And read either The new Sunday Sun or the Daily Mail and pay too much VAT and Income tax
Basically Blue collar Chavs and Suburbanites
And the good who do deserve to saved and not get washed away by Global Warming and melting icecaps
They all live in Islington Go to farmers markets are Proud Fair Trade Eththical shoppers go to Tuscanny on vacation or a Buddist Monastery for more new age enlightenment or a commune in wales
Watch Documentaries about Opera on BBC 4 (not Snog Marry Avoid on BBC 3)
Their clothes and furniture expensive designer and above all "recycled"
Unfortunately for them you cant get Hatha transcendental Yoga on the Nintendo WII fit
And of course they read the Guardian and the Independant
Basically Metropolitan Elitist New Age W--kers
The only thing bigger than their ECO Egos and pompous arrogant Environmental smugness
Is the their families money
So the Environmentalists and the ECO Celebs and the politicians deserve their place on the SS Climate Change Ark
The rest of us ordinary mass populous of CO2 polluters deserve to Burn or Drown
Climate change isnt about the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere or Hockey stick graphs its about ambitious ruthless control freaks and technocrats using junk science to impose their morals and their values and thereby their will on the rest of us
The Old Testament starts with creation and then carrys on with Family Feud and global death and destruction
The story of Moses is about The birth of a messiah during a period of Ethnic Clensing and enslavement
Its the plot of Clark Kent Lois lane and Superman
The story of Noah is about Moral Clensing (or Genocide)
In the tew Testament another messiah (not Brian he just a naughty boy)
came with 2 messages direct from his dad God
"Beleive in me and you will be saved"
That is the basic message of the Climate Alarmist
Al gore Gleick Micheal Mann IPCC Chris Hulme
George Monbiot Prince Charles Johnathon Porrot etc etc
But i like the other message Jesus brought
"All men and women are created equal in the eyes of God "
Thats all 7 billion of us
Start to believe that and all 7 billion and the billions after will be saved
Ps talking about Messiahs This week 40 years ago
David Bowie released Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
(Back in 1972 the 1st track on that album predicted the world only had 5 years )
God luck and may may your God go with you as Dave Allen used to say
Mike Jackson, here's another of Prof Lewandowsky's - a journey into the weird and wacky world of climate change denial, which concludes;
So there.
jamspid, are you on your meds or off it, dude? Sometimes it is hard to tell the difference.
Is this BoraZ that weird newsman from Kazhakstan, who was alaways in the tv few years back ?
Barry, I asked on climate audit about that 'debate' you had with Gleick but, probably, it would be lost. Can you remind me or reference it? I think the context, in this case, might be very telling!
It's not just twitter, I followed some of the links from here and elsewhere to sites supporting Gleik and where there were comments a large number of them were clearly nothing short of foaming lunatics of the "big buisiness is conspiring to destroy us all" variety.
GrantB
There are dents in every wall in the house where I keep bashing my head in total disbelief at some people's irredeemable pigheadedness.
I keep coming back to the same questions:
1. Who is this guy? (whichever may be the 'guy' of the moment)
2. What, if anything, does he know about climate science?
3. Why (assuming that his professorship/doctorate/whatever wasn't bought second-hand from a snake-oil salesman in Tennessee) does he appear to have no independent reasoning ability?
4. (And probably the most important) Why has no-one actually sat down with him and extracted an explanation of why he thinks and acts the way he does?
We appear to be surrounded by supposedly educated, intelligent, and articulate men (Lewandowsky, Nurse, Jones (S), others too numerous to mention) who in dealing with any other branch of science would consider themselves sceptics and would happily adopt nullius in verba as a guide but who in the face of climatology have lost all sense of objectivity, fair dealing and belief in scientific process.
And when I say that I am not drawing any conclusions on the rights and wrongs of the AGW hypotheses (though I have my views), simply enquiring how anyone who calls himself a scientist can have a mind so irrevocably closed to any other possibility in a field in which they are not expert.
It baffles me.
Feb 26, 2012 at 10:19 AM | Unregistered Commenter Autonomous Mind
I think you hit the nail on the head.
Problem is, when you research the depths of the conspiracy, and try to show it, your position is so easily equated to "conspiracy theorists" and arm-waved away. The most well known "conspiracy theorists" have been banging on about this for years.
Another problem is the depth of the rabbit hole, the number of dead ends, clearly fake intel on the internet, and in books written by insiders to counter productive research. IMO you could spend a lifetime researching and still only get a small glimpse of what lies behind the curtain.
As a slight aside. I spent a lot of time researching the Hollie Greig case, as there were assertions there were links to Dunblaine, an event which was used to ban handguns, which prevented my target shooting hobby at the time. Robert Green, her legal rep, is now serving a year in jail for the crime of handing out leaflets. On the surface it all seems a little odd, but very few will dig deep enough to see the wider conspiracy (conspiracy fact, not theory).
I tend to follow the names through various "elite/bankster" revolving door organisations like the CIA/CFR/IMF/UN. Follow the names like breadcrumbs, which often connect back to my aside, like some of the names down this rabbit hole
The problem is, anyone who has not researched, who is still following thus far, is already equating me to the likes of David Icke or Alex Jones, writing this off as rantings of a nutter. They will find it much more comfortable to stick to ping pong matches on CAGW "science".
There is no solution (that I can see) to this problem.
I have not hidden my interest in these debates is based in large part on the opportunity to see the psychodynamics of the participants in action. This is fascinating. Absolute gold mine on group think.
I think the most rational comment of all was:
this tweet out of context could be misinterpreted
The whole thing is a verbal Rorschach test of 140 characters. Just what is the context?
I really suspect Freud would have loved tweeter as an analytical tool.
Lewis
Tamsin had a debate about her blog name that started it all:
http://allmodelsarewrong.com/all-blog-names-are-wrong/
Which turned into this, which I think you are refering to:
http://www.realclimategate.org/2012/02/clarifications-and-how-better-to-communicate-science/
Thick green goggles and decades of 'outcome based education' have had the desired outcome. We now have a large population of Earthlings who are blind enough and ignorant enough to fall for the "Super-sized Chicken Little & Falling Sky Trick". These are the Malthus-Nihilist Eco-Zealots aka as the Mother Earth Zombies. They are opposed by the vast alliance of rational thought scientists, some of these the worried Zombies label as "Wattts Robots". [opening to my next satire]
I am an UNanonymous, UNwell-funded and only SEMI-coordinated DENIER, but i do have a functional grasp of the scientific method, the English language and our human MORAL responsibility. Therefore i cannot sit by and allow society to be trampled by Zombies. When your opponent refuses reason, resort to ridicule. There is a great selection of AGW ridicule at my website under the "Satire" tab. Enjoy and share TRUTH with all !
Mike Jackson / GrantB
There are some weird psychological things coming out of the cAGW woodwork at present. In addition to projection (taken to an art form) and faux victimhood.
Not least of the strange obsessions, is the extraordinary jealousy exhibited by Gleick and all his nasty little clones against anyone who they imagine has BigKochs on their side.
Could any Freudians comment?
Well now I'm feeling rather disheartened, having been informed that I'm a "dupe" by commenting here gratis, when I "could be paid for it by the denialist think tanks". Shame he didn't have enough room in the tweet for the 'phone number or email address where I could sign up.
Feb 26, 2012 at 2:19 PM | Don Pablo de la Sierra quotes and writes:
"'this tweet out of context could be misinterpreted'
The whole thing is a verbal Rorschach test of 140 characters. Just what is the context?
I really suspect Freud would have loved tweeter as an analytical tool."
Isn't what you quoted the last desperate cry of the control freak? I doubt that it is self-parody or an attempt to create a cute little paradox because long personal experience has led me to believe that the American Left firmly believes that words mean exactly what The Left intends them to mean. They exhibit no self awareness whatsoever. Freud would love Twitter. Each message (from The Left) comes with the full power of the conflicted psyche behind it.
"It's easier for scientists to dissect dubious behaviour in a peer, than to face up to the enormity of evil that
is Heartland"
-this is from a tweeter message by a scientist called Steve Easterbrook
New poster here,
I agree with everything posted here. I don't use twitter because of its limited ability to carry a detailed discussion.
I've kept out of discussions with friends when they use the new word for AGW, "sustainability". I agree with the need for long term planning; however there arguments are barely threadbare, and totally vapid when discussing energy policy and debt. I fear we're going to enter another dark age, where discussion and discourse will have no place in the marketsquare.
Maurizio, thank you for the twitter explanations. I didn't know how it worked, and truthfully don't want to.
Thanks, Barry ( you don't mind me calling you by your first name? )
First name friendly terms at BH ;-)
"Lets not condemn everyone of that crew" but it's very difficult not to do so. A quote from Gleicks tweets to Dr Tamsin Edwards
'@PeterGleick: @richardabetts flimsin Richard, which model is “wrong?” Wrong is the wrong term. It’s not what you mean, and it is misunderstood by public.'
The 'public'!
Could that be the voters in a democracy!?
huh. I don't get twitter at the best of times so none of that made sense to me - just series of disjointed arguments and whines as far as I could tell. I thought perhaps it was a ZOD for AR6 and the IPCC were getting started nice and super-early so that everyone could be "on message".
Feb 26, 2012 at 3:27 PM | Lewis Deane quotes:
'@PeterGleick: @richardabetts flimsin Richard, which model is “wrong?” Wrong is the wrong term. It’s not what you mean, and it is misunderstood by public.'
Ah, the dazzling inversion of scientific method! On this inverted view, the task of the scientist is to explicate "wrongness" endlessly for the purpose of showing that whatever he has said or written is not wrong but "wrong." In explicating "wrong," the brave new scientist introduces a new "framework" which enables his audience to grasp that his views are not wrong.
I note with interest that Bora is a specialist in Bird Brains
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/a-blog-around-the-clock/about.php?author=11
I initially thought we were talking about Bora Zivkovic, the soccer player!
More (this is very funny, in retrospect!):
@PeterGleick: @flimsin Last comment…. not all models are wrong.
@flimsin: @PeterGleick Sir, it appears we have a profound philosophical disagreement Nothing can precisely simulate reality, only approximate.
@PeterGleick: @flimsin Does that make them “wrong?” “Wrong” to you means “uncertain.” “Wrong” to public means “you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
@flimsin: @PeterGleick Exactly – all the better to explain the difference. Better to improve scientific literacy than to patronise, I think.
@PeterGleick: @flimsin But who’s the audience? The public? Policymakers? Other scientists or science communicators? It matters, as does the title.
@flimsin: @PeterGleick All those welcome. 1. Publicly funded -> communicate my research. 2. Research exposure 3. Engage sceptics. 4. Practice writing.
Bring back HUAC?
Are you now, or have you ever been a denialist?
The only way to rationalise the thought process of the dogmatic AGW zealot is to invert the situation. Make him a fiercely sceptical blowhard who is convinced that all climate scientists are monstrous demons in a conspiracy of evil, and it can then be more readily understood where he's at. He just lives on the wrong side of the track.
The CAGW community are increasingly closed to arguments and (as this blog has detailed) spend a long time on making sure that dissent is not heard. If you do are not able to hear alternative views, or only hear them once they have been filtered by a commentator, then you will get as prejudiced a view as many Soviet citizens had of the West during the cold war, or small extremist political parties.
A result of not listening to other points of view is that ones own are liable to become increasingly extreme. Another aspect is the belief that ones opponents are far more powerful and dangerous than they actually are. A way to combat this is to get people to substantiate their arguments. Twitter is hardly a medium for this, as dogma is more easily made concise than explanation
"When slimey Watts sends his hordes over, result is a comment thread like this: bit.ly/yCkrtp full of greedy, duped cowards.
Finding it hard to make up my mind on Gleick. All made harder by the fact that Heartland is in the business of making and selling lies."
- - - - - -
I think in that statement we see a Declaration of Implementing the End Game Strategy of the Scortched Earh (DIEGSSE) by the 'cause' acolytes.
John
Actually Pete, government and the corporates are using global warming/climate change science to drag us away from scrutinising their global agenda. Getting back to the subject of CAGW as you suggest, while missing the big picture, is exactly what they want you to do.
Feb 26, 2012 at 1:05 PM | Autonomous Mind
Thanks A.M. That is my fault for not getting the full picture across but I am sure you know what I meant. The last few weeks I have noticed that the gangs have changed tack. They are losing / lost the scientific side and are trying to distract and I truly think we should stay on the subject and keep the high ground.
Look at the prices on the carbon markets. The removal off the pay in on windmills etc. That is what will kill off the farce we have been feeling with.The public can be fooled for a while but winter fuel bill equals votes and M.P.'s are already getting nervous. I agree, show up Gleick etc but we already know what a bunch of fools they are!
Shub: "this is from a tweeter message by a scientist called Steve Easterbrook"
If this is the same 'Steve Easterbrook' that has participated in alarmist discourse in the past, I think you'll find that he is a 'computer scientist' rather than a scientist. Part of computer science ('theoretical computer science') is a branch of applied mathematics. Most of the rest is a branch of engineering. Neither corresponds to a science in standard Popperian terms.
Louis Hissink, I have the exact same opinion.
They seem unable to comprehend that perhaps our opposition to the AGW issue is based on it being dodgy science and not because we are right wingers etc. They simply can't understand that the AGW hypothesis might be flawed, and that if we do oppose it, is because of base and ulterior motives. This attitude is a real worry.
Yes, very dangerous. Things could get horribly out of hand, with the psychosis of Gleick on display.
Well, they know the word 'slimey'.
Jane Coles
"If this is the same 'Steve Easterbrook' that has ....................."
If he's a scientist, then I'm a call girl.
They are sounding more and more childish and I think it's because they are losing and they know they are losing. Every move they make ends up backfiring and they feel farther behind the eight ball.
They talk of war but I think they will keep it at a verbal level, with heightened adjectives, not moving into violence as some are fearing.
Theo Goodwin
While we are seeing mostly left-wing zealots, there are right-wing zealots as well. Both are unstable.
Amino Acids in Meteorite
Hopefully -- but some of these guys are as stable as nitroglycerin in the hot sun.
It is a bit hilarious just how much some of these people have invested in their self-images of being smarter than the so-called "Denialists". I think this is what really rankles them in this entire affair- that one of their bright lights, Gleick, was caught out so easily, and is now appearing dumber by the minute. It turns out, not so smart after all. That has got to hurt the ego.
http://youtu.be/FIcAjXjKsyQ
I had no idea this video would fit so many warmer rants
And to think, just like the suddenly resurgent ZDB, that these poor, sorry, deluded, sad, hopelessly diminished, would-be saviours of humanity still lay claim to the moral high ground.
They really should be put out of their misery.
It isn't 1968, you know.
I've always considered their own excesses would ultimately be their own undoing. The Alarmists have to win big and they have to win totally. There can be no opposition at all. Our continued resistance as climate skeptics would eventually goad them over any line of decency, as in the Gleick case.
Pointman
I'm an "out & proud" geriatric twitterer.
I had a look at it to see what all the fuss was about - and was dismayed to find it an overwhelmingly sceptic-free green zombie zone.
Hashtag #climate is mainly non-stop, brain dead, eager, young, green true believers, repetitively retweeting each other the latest Greenpeace or WWF nonsense.
I find it quite cathartic to try and stick a spoke in their wheel occasionally - and it has the advantage of reaching a much wider audience than the rather limited circle you get on sceptic blogs like this.
I've had some entertaining, educational and amusing exchanges with the consensus community - and even a few intelligent ones with people like Richard Betts.
Anyway Bish & Barry tweet - so don't be rude about twitterers - and give it a try ;-)
Jane Coles - it is my observation that those in 'hard' engineering disciplines, where a respect for the limitations of numbers and how they're collected is critical in not killing people, tend to have a far better grasp on the problems with climate science than do either the Hansen-breed of desk-jockey scientists where numbers are just another factor to be juggled to get the answer they want, or far too often those in the abstract engineering fields such as software who you'd think might have a better understanding of the limitations of software analysis.
To my mind what this Gleick affair has done more than anything else is to expose the lack of integrity of all those scientists and journalist who came out to try and justify the inexcusable. They could not be more exposed if they were naked. If they will try to spin or justify these crimes what are they doing to the case they are trying to make in support of MGW ? If they ever had it they have certainly lost the “Moral Highground” Ross Lea.
Careful, Don Pablo!
That could be interpreted as a threat.
I think “groupthink” is slightly the wrong phrase. It might be accurate to a degree, but a better phrase could be availability or information cascade, perhaps modified in respect of the fact that with Twitter, the focus is deliberately on the promulgation and recycling of a particular product or meme, rather than it’s promulgation as an accident or result of herd behaviour. Twitter amplifies the cascade exponentially simply by the nature of its connectedness.
Accordingly, Twitter is not a platform for debate, but a fantastic medium for marketing. Companies (like the one I work for) use it for engagement and outreach to spread their word or ethos to help shape their brand, highlight the deficiencies of competitors, enhance the perception of it in the marketplace, and all with the aim of garnering sales of its products, establishing their market positioning and driving awareness of its portfolio.
With respect to the Twittering above, I consider the main objectives to be:
The sale – or buying into – of the primary AGW product: radical, global decarbonisation within the established confines of the sustainable development political paradigm.
To enhance the brand and raise the profile of participating organizations – such as Scientific American - via their Twitter representatives, with the intention of shifting product, broadening revenue streams and
To introduce new “customers” or more precisely - advocates. These new advocates will re-tweet the desired meme, and their online behaviour will indirectly advertise the primary product. Most likely targeting young, digitally connected, socially networking, youthful idealists that go for the uncritical, “middle-finger”, confrontational type of language and expression we’re used to seeing in the climate change debate.
And lastly, to maintain existing customers – the poor, gullible diehard believers in the product, who, of course, require constant confirmation of their bias in return for their free online advocacy.
Twitter – powerful in the extreme, and I cannot in any way profess to be an expert but here is one from one, Timur Kuran:
And think Twitter here…
And quite a relevant peach.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=138144
CAGW has become a religion. When its leading priest says the data "is obviously wrong" then there are no possible arguments which can divert them from their belief. Every plausible straw-man argument---and quite a few implausible ones too---will be drawn upon to bolster their faith/belief.
The Cassandras have ever been with us, as have the True Believers. (P.T. Barnum put it well!) Looking through European history and touching down every couple of centuries we see a preponderance of the Apocalypse, the Second (or is that third?) Coming, a Great Inundation (flood), witch hunting (the little ice age), and a New Ice Age (1970s) which morphed into Hell on Earth (CAGW).
The cure for the new Ice Age was published in a book: "The Weather Conspiracy: a coming New Ice Age" by The Impact Team. It called for extreme resource husbandry, alternative "clean" and "sustainable" energy sources and moving money from the industrialised nations to "developing" ones.
Sounds like the cure for CAGW, doesn't it?
Too few people know their history, unfortunately, so the Cassandras can herd the masses to their own financial advantage. Many pockets picked lightly a fortune can make. I'm beginning to think some of it (maybe most of it) may be from "a fortune to preserve, " but maybe I have a suspicious mind ...
"Denialists should be studied by psychiatrists."
No problem with that if it were a proper double blind study. In other words, with the psychiatrists/psychologists analyzing the subject personalities being totally unaware of the climate persuasion of the participants. What we seem to have seen so far are so called scientists starting from the axiom that skeptics are "deniers" of fact.