Bishop Hill On abusive analogy
May 6, 2012 Climate: Sceptics Climate: other The Heartland Institute is stepping back from their awful poster campaign, which has been widely reported and widely condemned by both sides of the debate. I think the reverberations are going to be felt for quite a while.
Abusive analogy and smear by association are a time-honoured rhetorical approaches, which people on both sides of the climate debate are very fond of. Although Brad Johnson's Think Progress article on Anders Breivik's dissent from the climate orthodoxy seems to have been "disappeared", it is still available on Google's cache, and I have taken a copy for posterity here. Some choice excerpts follow:
Although Breivik’s conspiracy theories are insane, they are in line with mainstream opinion among American conservatives. He cites Christopher Monckton’s speech before the Minnesota Free Market Institute in 2009, accusing President Obama of trying to cede United States sovereignty to the United Nations through climate treaties. Monckton — a rabid conspiracy theorist who claims his opponents are Nazis — was a Republican witness before Congress on global warming in 2010.
Breivik also believed that the “Climategate” hacking incident “revealed how top scientists conspired to falsify data in the face of declining global temperatures in order to prop up the premise that man-made factors are driving climate change.”
One of his sources for this delusional claim is right-wing climate conspiracy theorist James Delingpole, who regularly appears on Fox News, including Glenn Beck‘s now defunct show. The Norwegian terrorist also cited climate conspiracy blogger Steve McIntyre, who appeared in a one-hour Fox News special on global warming in 2009. McIntyre’s conspiracy theories have been promoted by Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) and Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK). Dozens of Republican members of Congress have endorsed the Climategate conspiracy theory.
It's also interesting to read the Think Progress view on the Heartland billboard campaign in the light of this earlier posting.
DeSmog's article on the same theme remains in place.
It is extraordinary that Think Progress and DeSmog seem to be allowed to do this kind of thing without attracting any significant criticism. I can't help feeling that the people who are now writing letters to Heartland's funders calling for them to cut off support ought to be writing to the backers of Romm et al and DeSmog too.
I think we can all agree that comparisons to individual mass murderers is beyond the pale, but there are of course milder examples of the abusive analogy too. I have spent many a dull minute snipping references to "eco-fascists" and "green Nazis" from the comments threads here. The use of these terms is widely seen as reprehensible.
On the other hand, use of "denier" and "denialist" is extremely widespread among upholders of the IPCC position - indeed it has been used by Rajendra Pachauri himself on occasion. I also wonder if the the Guardian's interest in the BNP's policies on climate change represents more of a general attempt to smear by association than a serious attempt to analyse the party's position.
Is there one rule for upholders of the climate orthodoxy and another for dissenters?
Bishop Hill
Grist's article on Breivik is here.
This one is particularly interesting because Grist is part of the Guardian's Environment Network.
Here is what Leo Hickman had to say about the Heartland billboard affair:
Earlier, I sent [Roger Helmer MEP] him an email with a link to Heartland's poster campaign press release and asked him: "Will you now be reconsidering attending in light of this new poster campaign for the conference? Do you approve of or condemn the poster campaign?"
He confirmed he was still attending, adding:
I am delighted that the Heartland campaign for the Chicago climate conference has succeeded in its purpose and attracted the attention of the Guardian. I urge Guardian readers to attend the conference if they can, but failing that, to follow it on the web.
I simply have nothing further to add.
If Leo thinks that Helmer should dissociate himself from Heartland, then presumably he thinks that the Guardian should remove Grist from its Environment Network?
Reader Comments (93)
Is there one rule for upholders of the climate orthodoxy and another for dissenters?
Yes, and if the dissenters wish to maintain the moral high ground, they (we) need to learn that lesson. How Heartland did not learn from the 10:10 "No Pressure" fiasco is hard to believe. Massive fail on their part. Disheartening and it undoes much good work.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/brendanoneill2/100156243/environmentalists-compared-their-opponents-to-mass-murderers-long-before-the-heartland-institute/#disqus_thread
Here is a riposte to some of the responses to the Heartland fiasco from Brendan O' Neill in the Telegraph.
The Left - used Breivik - t attcak people onth eright. poliutical nastiness
Sunny Hundal - A guardian luvvy..
http://liberalconspiracy.org/2011/07/25/oslo-terrorist-cited-melanie-phillips-in-his-manifesto/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2011/aug/06/anders-behring-breivik-melanie-phillips
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2011/aug/06/anders-behring-breivik-melanie-phillips
I think this whole debacle will make it a bit harder for the warmistas to use smear tactics because of the hypocrisy angle now so clearly visible. Maybe the Heartland posters will actually help calm down the smearers a bit!
Donna has cancelled her attendance of the conference over the issue:
Why I Won’t Be Speaking at the Heartland Conference
which is a real shame
Yes, you nailed it Bish.
The big story here is not the poster at all, it's the exposure of the rank hypocrisy of the consensus crew - who are all hyperventilating like maiden aunts over something they have enthusiastically supported from alarmist propagandists.
The biggest hypocrites, as usual, can be found in our own dear Grauniad - where Damian Carrington proudly & breathlessly revealed his "exclusive preview" of the exploding kids video with "our friends at 10:10 have given us the scoop.."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/damian-carrington-blog+10-10
........ and dear old Leo has been twittering on for ages about how his buddies at Desmog are not all all like his pet hate figure Morano, apparently not having noticed their Breivik piece - though he's now lamely trying to claim Desmog were only "saying people need to be careful about language".
Pathetic.
Exploding School Children ,Drowning Puppies ,Mass Murderers Recycled Film Clips, Swimming Polar Bears
Advertizing Climate Change and Climate Change Skeptism very tricky Diffulcult to get the Tone right
Best episodes of the Apprentice when the the contestants have to go off and make Adverts and then show them to Lord Sugar in the Board Room
However not as bad as this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2T6YdEcp6w
I think it was a mistake but we mustn't disregard what HI said. As far as I recall they said that they knew this was "experimental" (read offensive?) but they got the reaction they were expecting. And people have rightly picked up on the rank hypocisy of those who have been past and repeated practioners of this type of thing.
Thos who have expressed themselves to be incandescantly furious over the whole affair - both here and elsewhere need to calm down a bit.
Donna is making a mistake she is following the believers lead in refusing to debate she would be much better turning up and giving Heartland a dressing down if she feels that strongly that they were wrong, what they did was ill judged and they have found out to their cost but to see so many so called skeptics lining up to spear head the heaters kicking of them is sad !
It's my view and it won't be shared but we should do as RB says and calm down !
I think Donna is right to cancel and that Hearland has shot itself in the foot. I can't help comparing this site which is always measured and restrained and thus attracts intelligent and informed comment with overheated and abusive rhetoric (on any side).
Yes, lets ignore the fact that the hippies are causing massive human suffering and death (DDT - 50+ million dead to date; Stalin + Mao - 100+ million dead, and their buddies are adding ever more to that; etc. ; etc. ;etc.)
Lets ignore all that, so that you can have nice debates with the murdering, lying, hippies.
Because all that they really want is for you to point out that they are filth, in a very polite way, and then of course they will stop lying, and killing, and making the lives of millions of people a living hell - it would be the polite thing to do, because you were nice to them, and you respected them.
I can understand hippies being evil: they are sociopathic and that is inborn. What I do not get are the people who absolutely refuse to call them out for what they are: why, on the face of it, you are just as sociopathic as the hippies are. Huh, go figure.
Well, that should calm things down...
I've seen 2 main lines of argument, which are broadly:
1. We should maintain the moral high ground and not stoop to the level of the Alarmists
vs
2. This is a war, so anything goes.
If you pick 2., the additional question is whether what Heartland did was, or will prove to be, effective.
Rubbish heartland made a mistake and got burned for i
It exposed Hypociscy that just trying to put optomistic spin on a PR cock up
Bennetton Ads 1980s started out ok loads of multi ethnic kids wearing different coloured jumpers
Fiited in perfectly for the 80s Yuppy aspirations et all. Got a load of creative accolades created a buzz
Thats went it all went loopy Lou
Shock picture of New Born Baby with Tube and Placenta still attached Yuk
Mary Whitehouse had another baby herself when she saw that stuck up on a wall
There was also
Rows of naked Multi Colour Virginas ( fortunatley we didnt get that in the UK ) and Willies
And most contaversial a Black Woman breast feeding a white baby
Which propmted a couple of Nazi Fire Bomb attacks in France
The last one finally thank god was a Blood Stained uniform from a dead soldier from the civil war in Yugoslavia
Which was very worthy but i thought it was an advert for Percil Washing Powder
Bennetton should have just stuck to sponsoring their Formular One Team
Heartland take the hit for bad jugement proves your human and make mistakes
Mother nature herself provides the best PR for Global Warming Skeptism
December when theres 3 foot of snow outside and your stuck indoors
Saying goes "Give someone enough rope and they will hang themselfs"
Dont need to attack Enviromentalists Climate Alarmist
They are Smug Arrogent Priggish Pompous enough and everytime they speak they do it to themselfs
hypocrisy is the Left's stock in trade. Conservatives would do better to spend more time exposing/attacking it. Quite probably the relevation that Ken Livingstone paid himself through a company to dodge taxes, while having banged on about the evilness of tax dodging, was what cost him the London mayoral election. The Left, so lost in the purity of their own motives, hardly realise what sitting ducks they are for the charge of hypocrisy. And its a charge which particularly sinks them in the voters eyes: nobody expects a Conservative or a Republican candidate to be anything other than a money-grubbing tool of corporate interests, so no surprise and not many votes lost when such is revealed. However, when the People's champions, whose slogan is essentially "Vote for me I'm one of the good people", are exposed as not so good after all, and it turns out the crap they espouse about fair shares for all etc applied to you not them, they are stuffed. "Leave my kids out of it" is a frequent Labour candidate cry - yes, because of their tendency to send their own kids to private schools or specially selected state schools; ie they don;t believe a word of what they're saying should apply to themselves, and even the dimmest voter can get it, if they don;t believe it themselves well why should anyione else? They are as vulnerable on Climate Change as on any other topic.
Food for thought:
According to the book "Puzzling People", 4% of the population are psychopaths. Psychopaths aren't necessarily killers. Where do you think they tend to congregate? In positions of power or cleaning the streets? Personally I'm always amazed at the number of politicians who are able to lie or shrug off criticism without blushing.
And don't forget that Heartland has previous.
http://climateaudit.org/2012/05/04/mckitrick-letter-to-heartland/#comment-332495
It is difficult for me to get into the mind of anyone who believes that political/lifestyle disagreements are between angels and demons. Clearly the hysterical faction in the Globl Warming debate believes it's on the side of the angels. That's clear from their constant repetition that the sceptics, rather than being a bunch of eclectic opinion holders are a well- organized, well- funded arm of Big Oil, who are thwarting the attempts of Captain Eco and his band of earnest well meaning earth lovers from saving the world. Heartland's Billboard was and remains reprehensible, it's akin to shooting all the oppositions POWs during in the middle of a "hearts and minds" campaign.
cb, changing the minds of the most convinced environmentalists is a welcome bonus but it isn't the most important or achievable goal.
The vast majority of people who believe that WWF or Greenpeace are entirely benign and upright, or think that the IPCC is an unbiased scientific enterprise, or think that polar bears are nearly extinct don't believe it because they are evil or stupid or hippies or marxists, they believe it because they have been exposed to an enormous amount of propaganda supporting those views and little or nothing to the contrary. They haven't researched the subject, just as most of us haven't researched TB cures or the history of Flemish art.
They make the same superficial assumptions most of us make about subjects we know nothing about.
The way to convince these people - who are going to include a sizable proportion of all the reasonable decent people you've ever met, is not through nasty smear campaigns - or by calling hippies sociopaths for that matter.
I'm surprised the heartland campaign caused so much furore. The people who believe in CAGW do this sort of stuff day in day out. As far as I can see it only exposes their hypocrisy further. A clever campaign by heartland that has served its purpose well.
I don't think the fact that a far an organisation associated with the US far right has published a distasteful advert is the end of the world. Any more than the publication of "Slaying the Sky Dragon", with all its nonsense, discredited skeptical views of "climate science".
Breivik murdered the wrong people, if he'd been murdering away at a rally for BNP members he'd be lionised by the internationalist left and he'd be called a "political prisoner".
Don't believe me? Look at Che and Mandela...
On balance I think it was a mistake, especially as not many of the undecided will grasp the irony and double-standards of the warmists. The warmists think that their stance is acceptable.
I think also that Heartland should not have gone into this blind. If they didn't realise that it could alienate good assets like Donna they should have.
They may decide that the cons far outweigh the pros.
Remember the incident where Willis Eschenbach deleted user comments and then claimed that he did it as part of a big experiment? Remember Rob Wilson's provocative statement just to see the Bishop Hill reaction?
It always sounds unconvincing when you provide reasons, and post hoc ones at that, for what you did.
When you are a small organization antics make sense, because no sceptical entity with the few honourable exceptions - Lindzen, Dyson, and the GWPF apparently - have wide mainstream exposure. So you do the sceptical equivalent of the Greenpeace banner drops. But within the smaller circle of dedicated climate debate, Heartland at this juncture is hyper-exposed. Their name is on everyone's lips.
The old option of doing banner drops and shocking everyday traffic into flashes of realisation is suddenly not viable.
I think the same thing affects all entities. When you move up the strata in the debate, you are in mixed company, and you don't do splits in your cocktail dress. Your options are limited. The Bishop's seen the same - his book brings him, and the blog, in contact with more interested parties from different corners and suddenly the occasional rowdy banter looks strange and socially unacceptable.
The world is a big place. And there are those who are well-versed in the craft of dressing up their ideas, sometimes fundamentally unsound ones, so they can be presented with ease in all political circles. Amongst them, it is the dressing up that matters.
It does show that HI has no PR savvy whatever. Or just savvy whatever. Unless they meant this reaction? Maybe they were sick of being seen as too fluffy after the Gleick episode and wanted something designed to find the fastest way to throw away any sympathy gained from that and piss off the most people? Then way to go guys!
It does smack of the kind of arrogant presumptuousness that expects everyone to follow their lead (the kind you expect more from the believers) that they thought they could play around with far out “experiments” like this and still expect everyone to be so beholden to them they wouldn’t say anything critical and meekly come along to their shindigs. I like that Donna showed them otherwise.
BTW I am still surprised off I only got 33% on their Gore/Kacynsiki spot the quote page, what does that say about me? ;)
Yesterday I sent an email to Donna Laframboise with this message:
- – - – -
I have not received any response.
What happened to the fearless investigative journalist that I have morally and intellectually supported from well before her book came out?
John
PS - this comment was also posted @ WUWT
"It is extraordinary that Think Progress and DeSmog seem to be allowed to do this kind of thing without attracting any significant criticism. "
Absolutely agreed!
Moreover, the supposed problems Heartland's been having with its billboard are what these people have written about it !?!
The desmong thing is the most unbelievable to me. So are Keith Kloor and Leo Hickman for that matter. Here are people that participated in dissemination of fraudulent documents against a think-tank, when contacted directly by the original person who likely perpetrated the fraud. They duly collected egg on their face. And now they try to extract payback against the think-tank that enabled them to make fools of themselves.
"If you like your hypocrisy sandwiches served with a side order of double standards, then these leaked documents are certainly the place to dine out."
-Leo Hickman
I was disgusted with ThinkProgress's stupid article about Breivik being a "denier" and said so in a comment on Grist who had re-posted it. As noted above , the original article seems to have gone, but my comment can be seen in Autonomous Mind's post here.
Well done Donna Laframboise for pulling out of the Heartland conference. You can't say you want a debate and then use this kind of tactic.
Richard
Perhaps we should just ignore all such interventions into the climate arena. Less attention for the publicity seekers?
John Whitman [To Donna]"Your position seems inconsistent because you knew HI has always had a definite political stance and you must have known the nature of it. But now due to an exercise of that consistent political stance you back away."
-------------
Perhaps she thought that PR-disaster, leaden-footed, self-destructive, sleazy smear campaigns which wouldn't convert anyone with an IQ in single figures weren't a necessary part of being a right wing organization?
Maybe, like me she, lives in hopes that whatever someone's political beliefs they might at least behave in a dignified manner and be able to put aside their childish, tribal pettiness when faced with a worldwide disaster like CAGW alarmism.
If so, we have both been disappointed.
The furore over HI vs. the torpor over ThinkProgress and DeSmog ...
Gramsci was a very smart man for whom I have a lot of respect, because he told it how it is.
The following remains true, even if the ruling class to which he was referring is not the same as the one that prevails today:
Cultural hegemony is the philosophic and sociological theory, by the Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci, that a culturally diverse society can be dominated (ruled) by one social class, by manipulating the societal culture (beliefs, explanations, perceptions, values) so that its ruling-class worldview is imposed as the societal norm, which then is perceived as a universally valid ideology and status quo beneficial to all of society, whilst benefiting only the ruling class.[1][2] (Wikipedia)
The great disparity between the strident condemnation of HI and passivity over the other two is a symptom of that cultural hegemony. It is not a level playing field.
To suggest that just because various psychopaths support a point of view, that point of view is a bad one which good people should not hold is clearly a logical fallacy, and as such is not a smart move. It does coarsen the debate, and I think Donna Laframboise was entitled to withdraw from the conference in the circumstances. I do hope though that she will be willing to attend subsequent events organised by the HI since they are so worthwhile and important. I also hope the conference itself goes ahead. I feel sure there will be no obstacle to participants expressing their views there about the ad campaign if they so wish.
Many leftwing people seem to operate on an emotional level, basically one in which they see themselves as indisputably morally right on key issues, not least climate change. All others tend to be demonised and insulted by the more extreme holders of such a view. It clearly leads to hypocrisy and inconsistency, and remarkable conflicts between good intentions and harmful, even contradictory actions. They want to save the planet (good intention). They brook no dispute on that (fair enough, it is not such a bad planet). But they fail to see that good intentions are not enough. Not by a long shot. No end of hideous leftwing dictators, from the National Socialists of Germany to the International Socialists of the USSR, China, and many smaller countries such as Cuba, have left a legacy of bloody slaughter and repression on the 20th century. Yet their intentions were good in their own eyes. I have little doubt that the odious people scheduled to feature in the Heartland ads were also heroes to themselves.
Nothing in those ads was inaccurate, as far as I know. Unlike some of the smears and offensive insults from the 'other side'. Spinning to distract from the correctness of the ads will call for the invention and attribution of base motives, and all of that will distract from substantial discussion. Possibly in a big way, given that so much of the mass media, and well-funded PR groups, are disposed to relaying such spin.
John
I believe that Unabomber didn't actually mention climate change.
May 6, 2012 at 2:04 PM | Bishop Hill
Might be a good idea - it's very distracting and time-wasting, which I guess is the aim!
"It is extraordinary that Think Progress and DeSmog seem to be allowed to do this kind of thing without attracting any significant criticism. "
From whom?
The mainstream media aren't going to mention warmist excesses and most people don't read climate blogs and never hear about it and so DeSmog etc get away with murder.
10:10 only didn't get away with it because they made a big preemptive media and internet splash with their video so many more neutral and uninterested people got to see it. Had they had a similar embarrassment on a climate blog then the media wouldn't have brought it to public attention and the protests on sceptical blogs would have been ignored.
Heartland didn't get away with it because a) the mainstream media are gunning for them and anything sceptical and b) the billboards were very public.
But b is almost irrelevant as there is one practical reason, as well as the moral reasons, why sceptics can't descend to those levels. Nastiness from warmists will, as far as possible, be ignored and never become public, nastiness from sceptics will be hyped up, spread across the media and used as a weapon to show how evil we all are.
We can't win the war to scrape the bottom of the barrel while ever the media are overwhelmingly alarmist.
We have to win on reasonable, however passionate, argument and undeniable facts.
Richard
It's tricky though. If I ignore completely, I will be criticised for not condemning.
May 6, 2012 at 1:33 PM | John Whitman>>>>
This action does appear to smack of the usual left wing style 'politically correct' publicity stunt.
Will she also apply the same 'moral' response to the warmist organisations she debates with, and therefore lends publicity to, due to their use of similar behaviour towards those sceptical of their views?
Richard: Might be a good idea - it's very distracting and time-wasting, which I guess is the aim!
It certainly seems to be the aim of the journalists who are milking this story, demanding that everyone who ever spoke critically about climate change apologise for the billboards, and then whingeing that the apologies, condemnations, and distancing from the HI is not sufficient.
E.G. Kloor is now saying that Andrew's post above reflects 'partisan tendencies'. The irony being, of course, that Kloor's analysis, by demanding that Andrew apologise for the HI, and make a sufficiently dramatic gesture of contempt for the billboards, is precisely the partisanship he criticises Andrew of.
I don't see why anyone not involved in the HI needs to apologise, condemn, defend, or distance themselves from the adverts. And I don't see why anyone not involved in the HI's campaign cannot ask of the people who are demanding denunciations where their apologies for making connections between violence and scepticism are.
That is what Kloor says for anything he doesn't like. 'Partisan'.
He seems to think that everyone should behave like journalists. When the journalists themselves don't.
I for one appreciated the opportunity to remind people of the "No Pressure" 10:10 video and the Guardians' response.
"Edgy" is not what I call mainstream AGW fantasies about slaughtering children.
"Well, I'm certain you'll agree that detonating school kids, footballers and movie stars into gory pulp for ignoring their carbon footprints is attention-grabbing. It's also got a decent sprinkling of stardust – Peter Crouch, Gillian Anderson, Radiohead and others.
But it's pretty edgy"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2010/sep/30/10-10-no-pressure-film
Jesus! I missed that in my haste earlier. "conspiracy blogger" !? Frankly I think it is worth reminding people that this kind of opportunistic bollocks was being trotted out well before the more comically inept HI billboards.
As an advertising message it makes no sense to me. All sorts of people support the AGW belief and all sorts of people are skeptical of it. Whether that adds credence to the claim of it being an experiment to get attention I'm not sure.
- - - - - -
RKS & artwest,
Thanks for your comments. This discourse that HI has setup for us (thank you HI) is significant. I disagree with both your comments but will withhold return comments to you because I do not want to be diverted yet until Donna Laframboise has an opportunity to respond.
I would like to see Donna Laframboise answer my question about why she doesn’t go to ICCC-7 and be the famous fearless investigative reporter that, up to yesterday, I thought she was. She was a reporter I had previously admired in public.
John
Heartland's 'experiment' was incomprehensibly boneheaded. I feel that Judith Curry's reaction reflects the mainstream of the sceptic community.
http://judithcurry.com/2012/05/04/week-in-review-5412/#more-8256
John Whitman
I see nothing inconsistent in Donna's position.
You are assuming that because two people are on the same "side" they must buy into each other's philosophy and strategic thinking in toto.
Just because I am a Conservative I am not obliged to support gay marriage or reform of the House of Lords and I would refuse to appear on a platform with anyone who was planning to propose either.
Similarly I am by and large a supporter of the Heartland Institute, which didn't stop voting at WUWT against what I see as a major tactical blunder.
What about this one? I cannot fathom the insanity at work here. Why would anyone allow comments on how to disrupt functioning power plants using EMP devices to be published?
Here, on Joe Romm's blog
- - - - -
Mike Jackson,
I appreciate your comment. Thanks.
Please see my May 6, 2012 at 3:52 PM comment to RKS & artwest. I will without a return comment to you for a while to give Donna Laframboise more time to reply to my question.
John
May 6, 2012 at 1:33 PM | John Whitman
I expect Donna is simply enjoying her weekend not reading work email or blogs! Expecting a response within 24 hours, especially on a weekend, is asking a bit much
:-)
Cheers
Richard
Faux indignation is also SOP for Leftists. The outrage is a convenient way of distracting from the issue. How much easier too lambast Heartland for poor taste than confront the arguments.
- - - - - - - -
Richard Betts,
You may be right, but I suspect that Donna Laframboise may be a workaholic like many bloggers on the issues of climate science. : )
John
PS – Hope the AR5 efforts are going well with you.