Bishop Hill Silencing your critics
Feb 3, 2012 Climate: Sceptics Media Sometimes concurrent events can cause, if not cognitive dissonance, then at least a pause for thought. The news today brings two such events into focus.
Firstly, there is a petition to have Michael Mann disinvited as a speaker at a public lecture at his home university, Penn State, a kerfuffle reported in indignant terms by Andy Revkin here. (In passing I'm struggling to recall similar indignation from Revkin over all the disinvitations to sceptics -perhaps my memory is failing me, or perhaps it's the attempt to show public support for a disinvitation that is upsetting him).
Meanwhile, the Australian billionairess Gina Rinehart has bought major stakes in several media businesses, bringing with it access to Australian TV and the horrible possibility of sceptic voices being heard by ordinary law-abiding folk. The upshot is another petition, this time demanding that Australian media ownership rules be changed to prevent this kind of wickedness.
Reader Comments (78)
Cross posted at Mr Revkin's blog-
"Mr Revkin-
Did I miss your posting when skeptical scientists S. Fred Singer and Prof. Claes Johnson were dis-invited from an important international conference?
Surely, anyone with the strength of conviction in seeking open scientific discussion must be revolted by all this.
http://tinyurl.com/3she7bn"
BBD given the 'extraction' industries also provide funds CRU, IPCC etc will you be ingoring their views and calling them biased or is it once again 'different' when its in the name of 'the cause'
As for those with cash seeking influence, one name George Soros a very rich man that is looking to get richer still and one not worried about splashing the cash in the name of ‘the cause‘ , but once again ‘different’?
Ah, one more spammed discussion.
Revkin is going on and on about debating with Mann. Do you get a sense that Mann is raring to go, in terms of 'debating' anything with anyone? Moreover, many articles mention how he is accompanied by security guards everywhere he goes. Nice way to encourage debate, I guess.
I also think people who have secured their stream of income, often, are the ones who seek to prevent others from securing theirs. Same thing with environmentalism - "Yesterday's developer is today's environmentalist". Same with 'free speech' - those who have secured means to spread their own message, immediately work to shut down debate. At its base - it is just a type of self-oblivious self-interest.
As soon as Mann published his hockeystick and shaped the TAR - he worked so hard in shutting down any questions being raised about his stick - M&M, S&B, etc. Now that he has written a book, he wants maiden Free Speech to come and stand by his side. (well, he doesn't want it, Revkin wants it).
Bish is absolutely right - in the numerous instances of disinvitation and supression, never once have we seen Revkin step up for free speech. Ok, you don't particularly feel like supporting people you don't like....what about censorship at Realclimate? Here is a venue, run by scientists pretending to be bloggers, practicing censorship which Revkin's own readers have no doubt been subjected to. Ever heard a peep?
Shub: thanks for returning to the subject. Rest of BH folks: please have more control. BBD plays you like an instrument - and not a very melodious one! (There are probably some reverse sock-puppets to stir up the outrage as well and they're only doing what they're paid to do.)
Before it was hijacked I thought this was a excellent post from the Bish. This paragraph from Revkin got me:
Oh yes, what he's been through. That horrible, horrible McIntyre, asking him for data and all sorts of horrible things from there. There's a link Revkin provides at this point but I don't click into it and I stop reading. Why does the NYT man recycle such tripe? It only lessens his reputation with anyone who's looked independently at the hockey stick area.
Because they don't care what the Infadels think Richard. They are first ABD foremost playing to the converted. End of.
Mailman
Re: BBD
Have you read any of the Climategate emails? Do you really want the media run by a bunch of people who will carry out a vendetta against you if you disagree with them? Who will lie and omit results if they do not agree with their viewpoint. Who will probably "redefine free speech" to shut out opponents.
The Climategate emails are an excellent demonstration of why the people in 2/ should never be in charge of media.
Drake and Shub
Fed up with the nonsense about 'spamming' and 'thread hijacking'. Go back and look. See how my comments are all on-topic until forced away from the point by other commenters.
Please stop the smearing. It makes you look very bad indeed.
> 1/. The extractive industries - driven by profit and self-interest
> 2/ Atmospheric scientists - vocational exploration of the radiative properties of the atmosphere
> Who would you trust, eh?
That's very naive BBD.
30 years ago scientific research in UK universities was a different beast than it is now. Instead of
'publish and be damned' it's now 'publish or be damned'. Research ratings and therfore grant money
depends a lot on the number of publications, rather than the quality.
There has also been a big push for 'collaborative' research to bring in external funding, bring money in
can make the difference between a department folding or thriving.
There are pressures on British university 'scientists' other than vocational callings, at least you know where you stand with the 'extractive industries'
Nial.
Having worked in commercial R&D for many years, and interacted with academics at various times, I find the notion that the latter are somehow more worthy of trust to be complete garbage. It's actually in the self-interest of any industry to be right about the science and technology behind its business, because sooner or later reality will out. Anyone in my business who behaved in the manner of academics as revealed by the Climategate emails would be shown the door pretty quick.
Back to the actual thread. There's nothing to be gained, surely, from trying to prevent Mann from speaking. Let his audience be the judge on his credibility.
Mailman: you assume a strict dichotomy. In practice there's a spectrum of views with plenty of 'gray' NYT readers. The 'climate scientist as victim' meme is playing less and less well so I repeat my question: why does Revkin do it?
Someone else with three letters: nah, can't be bothered. They shall remain nameless.
Infamy, infamy.... (yawn)
I have no particular brief for Gina Rinehart, but the knee jerk reaction to someone whose views the CAGW believers are threatened by is to call for greater control of media ownership. It does seem to be a pattern with them. The amusing thing is, many of those who have been making derogatory remarks about her are employed (currently) by the media group she is buying into - whose shares have fallen from $5 a few years ago to about 80c today. They really do live in a bubble - without investors like her, they will shortly all be unemployed as the Fairfax group sinks further into the mire.
It is very hard to pin them down on who they think is fit to own a newspaper - but it seems to boil down to 'people whose political views are the same as ours'. That is their version of freedom of the Press.
Of course, nothing is stopping them and their supporters from starting their own newspaper, or buying into Fairfax, but they are strangely reluctant to put their own cash on the line. Far easier to just restrict the freedom of others, it seems.
Richard,
Ok, you could be on to something and I could be overly pessimistic :)
But it's the same time and time again, black, Harribin, moonbat, et al ate all the same, preaching to the choir and they couldn't care less about people who disagree with them. If they did care they would stop, step back and actually think about what it is they write.
Regards
Mailman
Mailman, it's a battle and in any real battle there are setbacks. The truth is mighty and will prevail - but I admit I don't know what the final body count will be. Courage.
johanna
Exactly. That is what modern environmentalism has been about for as long as I can remember. Apart from their overweening egotism (which I commented on yesterday) modern environmentalists are misanthropists in the most complete sense of the term.They hate humanity (at least the mass of the "great unwashed"). They are the true intellectual descendants of the early 20th century eugenicists. For the last 20 years or so their chosen instrument has been climate change. Increasingly that is looking passé and the next platform looks like being sustainability, one more seductive philosophy aimed at preventing the people from doing or having what they want.
I thought I had made it plain here at BH that I am agin all vested corporate interest when it seeks to warp public policy for its own benefit.
No doubt you are even more concerned that GE, with it's large presence in wind power, should own 49% of the American NBC TV network (down from 80%). If you hadn't noticed, NBC's coverage of environmental issues tends to be... let's just say "sensationalist." No doubt, that's what sells papers - sensationalism is a part of mass communication; but it also doesn't hurt the parent company's interests, does it?
Isn't General Electric also a producer of electric cars as well as a member of the Big Nuke club?
dcardno
That is indeed disturbing. Thanks for bringing it to my notice - I had no idea. Another example of why vested interest amplified by media ownership is a Very Bad Thing.
Go Gina go.
That's all I'm going to say, because once in a while it's nice to just rub it in...
... But I'll apologise in advance for my ungentlemanly Schadenfreude...
:D
To be fair, GE hasn't been the same since Jack Donaghy left to run Cable Town.
Regards
Mailman
BBD, Gina is an iron ore billionaire, not a coal billionaire.
Her father, Lang Hancock, discovered iron ore and left her a small fortune. She has turned that small fortune into a large fortune - based on opening more iron ore mines.
I think you are mixing her up with Clive Palmer, who is a coal billionaire. And he's a bloke. And he's from Queensland.
But apart from those little details, a fine way to disrupt the thread. What's not to like.
Hello from Australia.
I would like to correct your blogger who said Gina Rhinehart was responsible for Andrew Bolt's half hour conservative comment and debate show each Sunday on Channel 10.
.Andrew has said on TB radio and written on his daily blog (HeraldSun newspaper)that he was approached by his friend Lachlan Murdoch, and the producers have stated in Australia that the show was their own brainchild and nothing to do with any board member.
I guess though it won't stop the left from spreading the lie.
Andrew Bolt is arguably the most popular commentator in the country-certainly no other regular blog gets the traffic of his , monthly,and he is in print, on radio and on TV-- and the left and pseudo environmentalists and some academics hate him viscerally,as he so often writes what the average Aussie blokes and sheilas think..
If they are Catholic, I'm just hoping they do not take communion without going to confession first, so dark are their thoughts.misquotes,wild suppositions re his intentions and lies in commentaries, and blogs against this fine family man.
Love your work
Cheers
Jazza
Who could that have been? When a pseudonymous entity gets this much wrong, despite other signs of intelligence, and invariably stirs up so much trouble in the process, one begins to wonder. Well, in fact, I don't. "Deep Troll" is what I say to myself these days. (Related to deep cover in the intelligence services I guess. It's just what came out one day.)
But thanks for the further elucidation from down-under, Jazza.
I dropped out of this discussion way back because of the nonsense (to be excessively polite) comments about Gina Rhinehart.
I re-enter to say: read this story before making any assumptions about this lady.
Rinehart: reclusive, driven entrepreneur, but a mining pioneer at heart
To be fair, Gina has interests in coal (in Queensland). But as has been pointed out, the primary source of her wealth is iron ore in Western Australia. These are massive, hi-tech operations - its is not just a matter of digging a hole and posting the proceeds to China. Like offshore drilling (discussed in another thread), modern mining is very technologically advanced. It is tiresome to read again and again that it just means 'being a quarry for China'. The people who spout this stuff might just have the intellectual capacity to run the canteen in a Pilbara iron ore mine. One has to ask - if it is so easy to make millions, why are they not doing it?
It should also be emphasised that while she inherited a lot of money and a good business from her old man (Lang Hancock), unlike many trust fund brats she has multiplied the size of that business by 25-fold. It would have been easy to rest on the laurels and live comfortably. The fact that she has not done this seems to infuriate some sections of what passes for the 'intelligentsia' in Australia.
I'm a bit late on this, but Andrew Bolt works for the Herald Sun. An opposition paper to the Fairfax press. P.S. He's a ratbag of the first order, racist, inflammatory, populist. He's not someone you would care to get into bed with. He's also employed by Rupert Murdoch, also a ratbag but a very powerful ratbag.
I haven't actually watched Australian TV for several years now but when I did channel 10 was the least disreputable of the commercial TV stations.
Regarding any editorial bias by media owners, you only have to look at Fox under Murdoch who have a very active political agenda. Any bias by Reinhardt will pale in comparison.
Jerry: "I'm a bit late on this, but Andrew Bolt works for the Herald Sun. An opposition paper to the Fairfax press. P.S. He's a ratbag of the first order, racist, inflammatory, populist.
Whereas I would word that: Andrew Bolt works for the Herald Sun. An opposition paper to the Fairfax press. P.S. He's a champion of (genuine) aboriginal rights (perhaps the best friend our original inhabitants have); a genuine gentleman (in the best sense of that word); a man of culture with wide-ranging interest and experience in the arts both past and present; and a way with words that exposes cant and hypocrasy.