Bishop Hill Public views of sceptics
Mar 7, 2014 Climate: Sceptics Greens Media Ed Hawkins tweets that most of the public don't see sceptics as lukewarmers. He's right of course. Nigel Lawson, for example, is regularly condemned as a "denier" by the chattering classes. Take these examples:
Robin McKie, the Guardian's science editor (in a letter to Owen Paterson): you arrive at your new post with the strong endorsement of Britain's chief climate change denier, Nigel Lawson, the former chancellor...
David Conn of the Guardian: Nigel Lawson, a very much ex-politician, now a well known climate change denier, getting a platform on the BBC: why?
Magnus Linklater: Nigel Lawson, climate change denier, says we should quit Europe: a very good reason for staying in.
Jonathan Porritt: Nigel Lawson (former Chancellor of the Exchequer, political street-fighter and spinner, and notorious climate denier...
Yet here are Nigel Lawson's stated views on the subject from 2010:
While CO2 is indeed a greenhouse gas, increasing concentrations of which may be expected to have (other things being equal) a warming effect, scientists disagree about how large that effect may be.
Similarly from 2011:
I don’t deny for a moment that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, but there are so many other factors that affect climate.
Owen Paterson is another who seems quite clear on the subject:
There is almost certainly bound to be some influence by man-made activity but we have just got to be rational and make sure the measures we take to counter it do not actually cause more damage.
The reaction by our green friends and their acolytes in the media has been as follows:
Mehdi Hasan (writing in the Huffington Post, days after Paterson had been admitted to hospital): It wouldn't be so bad if Paterson's denialism was expressed only in the form of rhetorical gaffes.
Natalie Bennet of the Green Party (while Paterson was still convalescing): It's an insult to flood victims that we have an Environment Secretary (Owen Paterson) who is a denier of the reality of climate change and we also can't have anyone in the cabinet who is denying the realities that we're facing with climate change."
Joss Garman of Greenpeace: “David Cameron went from promising the “greenest government ever” to appointing a climate change denier, Owen Paterson, as environment secretary.”
Seumas Milne in the Guardian: paradoxically, Paterson is in fact a climate change denier in what was supposed to be "the greenest government ever"
Or what about that other environmentalist bogey man, Matt Ridley:
Here are his views from 2011:
I fully accept that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, the climate has been warming and that man is very likely to be at least partly responsible.
Or from 2013:
Every time I argue for a lukewarm “third way” — that climate change is real but slow, partly man-made but also susceptible to natural factors, and might be dangerous but more likely will not be — I am attacked from both sides.
So if the public think that prominent sceptics are deniers rather than lukewarmers, we know who is responsible.
Bishop Hill
I've been sent this quote of Owen Paterson on the news last night:
Q: Have you changed your views on climate change?
A: Of course the climate is changing. There is a human element. What’s important for me and for Defra is to adapt and to make sure that we do have good coastal defences. And I’m very proud that although it was terrible for those who were flooded, families, lives and businesses, don’t forget that 1.4m properties were protected.
Reader Comments (74)
Bishop Hill
I'm not impressed by shub's attempt to smear Ed at 5.07pm above - the comment is uninformed, completely unnecessary and in my view an attack on Ed's reputation.
Ed very clearly stated that he was removing off-topic comments, and he invited feedback on whether he'd done this appropriately. This was in response to a comment by Maurizio that there was too much off-topic discussion.
Ed does great things in communicating science with the public very openly and honestly, and does not deserve to be gratuitously trashed - especially by people hiding behind anonymity.
Can I ask you to consider snipping shub's comment?
Thanks!
Chandra
"stop denying things"
What "things"?
"perhaps he should stop knee jerk rejection of climate science research"
How can somebody who promotes climate science research be accused of a "knee jerk rejection of climate science research" unless of course you deny the findings of the climate research he promotes?
Your interpretation of denial appears to be in the eye of the beholder.
All research is input, in the past, due to the salient derivation, data was directly relevant to the real world, now we are in a transition whereby research takes place in a virtual world. Is it relevant to the real world? Will the projections transpire?
Nobody knows! Well, homo sapiens don't know. But there appears to be a new species on our planet - homo superbus, they are convinced that their knowledge is all comprehensive and able to dictate the future climate of this planet.
Appendix
homo sapiens - wise and knowing man
homo superbus - arrogant
mannman, (sorry, but as a self respecting homo sapiens I could not resist)Richard Betts
"Can I ask you to consider snipping shub's comment? "
No Richard, this can no longer be a nice academic polite discussion. It has been allowed to fester for far, far too long.
Time for warts and all! Just what is Ed worried about? If "loons" (not Shub as you well know) are about they are obvious. That is life and it is life that your "research" is going to effect, whether you like it or not! So you and Ed need to get used to it and PWQ.
Again whether you like it or not, now comes responsibility, agreed not what you thought you had signed on for, but you, Ed and many others have now got it!
You found it, you promoted it, you demanded action, you convinced the politicians, the officers and more importantly the money men! Welcome to the real world! This is the time when the money men, and they tend to be not nice people, start asking questions.
Ed deleting comments why? Just leave the crap there for all to see, because we all know the loons and anyhow it is doubtful that you, Ed and Tamsin will see the your careers through this medium
Richard can you explain to me why you and Ed are cock-a-hoop at the new paper from GWPF? See my post in discussion, I'm baffled.
Richard (Betts),
I'm seeing this post and your tweet only now. Thanks to Green Sand for bringing this to attention.
First, to remove considerations of ill-will and personal attacks, let me rephrase. I am deeply mistrustful of any action/s to delete comments. Such actions do not win my trust. Is that a better way of putting it?
But, leaving personal elements out of the matter, what Ed did - delete Foxgoose's comments on Kevin Cowtan's paper - is not such a great idea. He may have the cover of 'keeping the discussion focused'. But Foxgoose's point was not to cast Cowtan and his colleague in a bad light, or drag out privately conducted discussions into view, but to highlight how this paper that Ed Hawkins like to cite and use in his graphs had its origins in strategic and motivated action by climate activists. Of course, it goes without saying that the latter cannot be done without doing the former. It is difficult to talk about what Cowtan and Way did and why they wrote the paper without making them look bad! This is not Foxgoose, or any commenter's fault.
That Cowtan and Way wrote their goal-directed paper is undeniable. What was surprising next was Hawkins starting using the Cowtan data in his famous graph to show how temperature data were still scraping through within model spreads. And then, he deletes comments about the true origins of this paper and you are telling me that it doesn't look suspicious? You've got to be kidding.
Deleting comments, in general, is not a good idea. It raises more questions than it answers. Hawkins should be questioning himself.
I've always commented under my pseudonym in a consistent fashion. Whether I have the right to say anything about Ed Hawkins or any other scientist, is a different discussion. Incidentally, it took place in this blog a while back. Ask Richard Drake and several others - we're in there fighting about this very thing.
I agree with Richard Betts in principle (11:53 PM) but find it a little ironic that concern about an "attempt to smear" a real-life individual is expressed on a thread detailing the pervasive use of the term 'denier' for sceptics, lukewarmers and policy dissidents of all stripes. I use the term stripes advisedly. Not to mention and repudiate this disgusting habit is to agree with it.
A lovely juicy cherry, Chunder. My word you are sooooo clever !
It's the 3rd Law of Climate:
Quite, Jack, I was thinking that in the hands of Ed Miliband recently that reduced to:
1. Look, floods
2. Tee hee, Owen Paterson has a damaged eye and can't defend himself, here's our chance
3. DENIER !
The recent attacks on Paterson reached a new low for our public discourse in my view. John Holdren's very public attack at Pielke Jr came not long after. These wee bairns certainly don't like it up 'em.
That weather- remember that climate is manifested as weather- is enabling a movement of people who claim to be enlightened about the weather to call for the suppression,firing, silencing, denigration, etc. of those who disagree about the weather is a fantastic, sad insight into human nature.
That this movement relies openly on deception, misleading, cooking the books, and lots and lots of other people's money is equally sad.
And when members of this movement are faced with questions they don't like, they refuse to discuss the questions and call names at those who ask the questions. Yet these people still claim to be on the high ground.
Over the weather.
Pathetic.
Got it @RichardDrake RBetts seems to tolerate the ROUTINE smearing of bona fide skeptics with the entirely malicious label "denier", jumps up to shout "smearer" at Shub
... but then immediately confirms the accusation Shub made was true. Irony meter broken.
- I agree withe ROAR rule for comments to remove malicious or intentionally disruptive posts, but I think for the record they should be transfered to a public page named Deleted Posts
Chandra
Your comments show a tendency to utterly miss the point.
Has it ever occurred to you that you may be involving yourself in a debate beyond your comprehension?
stewgreen:
Mine is kept in the back room, with the springs hanging out, as a bitter reminder of happier days. :)
climacatastrophrenics - you can't have rational conversation with people who aren't rational.
- I divide warmists into 2 parts those that logically believe due to the limited info/comprehension they have and those trapped in a cult climacatastrophrenics Sufferers of that psychosis, that mania live in a fantasy universe and PROJECT their own behaviour onto others.
... That is why you get all that bile, name calling and other loony behaviour like having certainty way beyond empirical evidence.
People like Chandra like to claim that the word 'denier' is merely used to describe people who deny something or other to do with climate, with no reference to the holocaust (see e.g. yesterday at 11:16 pm). I think he's probably right in the case of many people who use the word - though obviously some people do use it to make explicit or implicit links to holocaust denial. The word "denier" is first mentioned in the OED as being used in 1475, and has been fairly extensively used in the past. I think that usage in other languages is more revealing. In French, the word "négationniste" is used in a similar way to "denier", but the link to holocaust denial is much more clear there - I believe this word didn't really exist prior to its coining to describe people like Robert Faurisson. There's a discussion of this (in French) on this blog. In my view, once it has been pointed out that using the word "denier" is offensive, people should stop doing it - if it wasn't used in newspapers and by other people who should know better, its casual use by people who don't mean it offensively would probably decrease quite a bit.
Jeremy: Thank you for that but I don't think you go far enough, in two ways:
1. The issue is not with the English words denier and denial going back to 1475 or whenever. It's the form 'X denier' and 'X denial' where X is a noun. Where and when was this form used before Holocaust denier and Holocaust denial? How are we or any English speaker not going to read climate denier, climate change denial etc as anything but a deliberate allusion to the earlier term? And just to make sure, there are masses of celebrities willing to clarify.
2. Once any kind of case can be made that the connection was intended, by some users, then all users should be told to desist. The analogy with 'nigger' in that regard is for me completely fair.
But I agree with much of what you have said.
Don't ignore Lomborg style denialism, assume the worst case AGW scenario but question whether or not cutting CO2 emissions is the best use of resources.
Chandra,
Wipe the spittle off your face and tell us what science skeptics are denying?
As to pretending 'denier' isn't a pejorative specifically designed to cast climate skeptics in the light of holocaust deniers, I guess you could just be a lot dumber than you claim to be and have ignored the extensive, specific documentation to prove that it is.
As to my take that you use the term 'denier' like some slack jawed redneck would use 'ni**er', I think your lack of respect and utter refusal to consider that skeptics could be sincere or serious or even have legitimate points shows you are just a sour bigot.
The temperature history of the Earth over the past several thousand years (Late Holocene Period), as deduced from ice cores indicates a generally downward trend interspersed by warmer periods such as the Minoan, Roman and Mediaeval periods and colder times such as the Dark Ages and the Little Ice Age. Until the present generation of 'Climate Scientists' can explain why the present modest global warming from the LIA differs in extent and rate from these previous episodes, I remain deeply sceptical of the ability of CO2 significantly to influence global temperatures via its quantised absorption and emission of energy in two very narrow bands of the IR spectrum. I find the deliberate use of the denier epithet insulting, particularly in view of the Climategate 'need to get rid of the MWP'.
There is literally nothing left wing about environmentalism or the Green Party. All of it is conservative and regressive
This is the truth.
Green Party admits leading activists on BNP list (2008)
The Green Party was forced to admit today that two of its former leading lights were on a list of British National Party members leaked on the internet this week.
The party conceded this morning that Keith Bessant, a two-time parliamentary candidate, and Rev John Stanton, a former local party chairman, had defected to the far-right nationalist organisation. Mr Bessant, who ran for MP as a Green Party candidate in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, in 2001 and 2005, claims to have left the BNP soon after joining.
A spokesman for the Green Party claimed today that Mr Bessant was in the BNP not because he was a racist but because he felt they had better environmental policies. “He formed the opinion that the BNP climate change policy was more radical than ours,” he said
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article5197862.ece
The Guardian's current mission appears to be be a vicious, corporate funded war on men (unless they happen to be homosexuals) and to promote the ridiculous idea that homosexuals are born that way as the highest of political ideals. The purpose of this seems to be the creation of a generation of horrid young people dumbed down to American levels whose purpose in life is to sneer at anyone who hasn't been programmed like them.
Of all the terrible* things that America has foisted on the world, political correctness is the most horrifying .
*and fantastic things too.
Gavin Schmidt who is now rather well known as famous Jim Hansen’s replacement at NASA savaged a fellow scientist for promoting use of the term denier, captured here in a conveniently short video clip:
http://tinypic.com/r/2lsehp2/5
It's a fun little tidbit to toss into online flame wars to brain scramble activists and show them to be fanatics right from the head of climate alarm.
E. Smiff assets: “There is literally nothing left wing about environmentalism or the Green Party. All of it is conservative and regressive”
This recalls former chemist Thatcher’s Orwellian promotion of climate alarm during the coal miner’s strike, back in 1984, though Reagan actually mocked alarm by joking about cow farts.
NikFromNYC
I used to refer to AGW as the oil industry war on coal. Thatcher's husband was an oil executive and her government was a plaything of the American oil industry.