Bishop Hill Order of battle
Apr 19, 2014 Climate: Sceptics GWPF Anthony has a interesting discussion thread, asking whether sceptics in the US need an organisation - like GWPF here in the UK - that can be the first port of call for those looking for a sceptic point of view.
People like Lewandowsky were able to make their claims stick because with climate skepticsm, it is all about that personal journey, there’s no organization, no policy statement, no cohesiveness of opinion that anyone can point to and say “this is what climate skeptics endorse”. While there’s strength in that heterogeneity, there’s also a weakness in that it allows people like Lewandowsky to brand climate skeptics as he sees fit.
So after some years of thinking about this, I’d like to ask this simple question:
Is it time for an “official” climate skeptics organization, one that produces a policy statement, issues press releases, and provides educational guidance?
Do we need a proper order of battle, or should we persist with guerilla warfare?
Reader Comments (107)
As an American-born British subject I won't be offended if it is called "The Sceptic Tank".
Agree very much with Geoff Chambers above. Also voted yes at Anthony '. It's not about herding cats or having a controlling organisation. Ultimately, skeptics are fighting an apocalyptic narrative. It's about having a counter narrative, which also can be seen to have popular support, so will be channelled by the MSN.
...channelled by the MSM.
The GOOD are doing a great job, we just need more...
The true believers show a rather telling tendency for wild exaggeration. Somebody should write a psychology paper about it.
Maybe the US needs its own GWPF, a fresh start not connected with Heartland, but I hope the GWPF sticks to UK and EU issues, that probably helps to keep it focussed and clear.
What the UK lacks are media-skilled sceptic scientists and economists willing to go public, the BBC had to interview Judith Curry when the recent IPCC WG2 report was published.
I think we are doing fine as we are.
The alarmists have already passed "peak alarm" in 2009 and are in a long slow retreat in the battle of public opinion.
Just as an example, even the leftist 38degrees website voted "climate" as only 12th in a list of 18 issues for 2014. This is behind the NHS at number 1 and whining about Starbucks. Fracking is issue number 11.
There's plenty of work still to do - for example getting rid of all the greenery in the school curriculum - or getting a sensible energy policy.
Problem with the Skeptic Movement is that if we get properly organized we just become what we hate most in the world that is just another politicized NGO.
AGW Alarmism is a lumbering Scientifically and Politically Corrupt Monolith.Cant attack it head on.So the skeptic movement has become this rag tag scattered Gorilla Arm Chair International Diverse Community Dissident Army of Clictivist slowly relentlessly wearing it down.For every hundred stories about the latest Global Warming scaremongering nonsense theres a thousand comments in the comments section ready to steam in and knock it down.
If the Science is so settled then why do they have to keep saying the "Science is settled" ,Alarmist complaining that Skeptics get too much air time when we dont actually get ANY air time."97 Percent of Scientists" like saying "8 out of 10 cats".Simples Global Warming AGW ,Climate Change what ever they re calling it this week its bol..cks
Makes one wonder if the Alarmist have any confidence in their own argument.Global Warming is only an Urban Myth after all.Only got reliable Satellite Data from 1979 which shows a slight warming followed by a 17 ,18 year pause.
An apathetic public would rather vote for smoking drinking womanizing anti foreigner verbose Nigel than Tony clone Dave ,Nick or weird Ed
The Skeptic movement i think we have won the battle of hearts and minds the public they are not alarmed by Climate Change or angered by its scientific political corruption they are just bored of it simples.
Being a cynical dissident skeptic denier is much more fun than being some whining whinging panicky smug arrogant Alarmist specially when the Eco Opportunistic Alarmists have got everything to lose.
PS Happy Easter everyone.
PS: don't forget that ClimateNuremberg is a parody website with tongue firmly planted in cheek.
Like all good parody it's near enough to the truth to keep you guessing. For example here is Richard Black of the BBC at a climate comms seminar:
Think about this it's pretty sick - like wishing a car crash to remind people that cars can crash -or wanting your child to bang her head badly to remind her to wear a crash helmet next time.
I think it is pretty likely (95% certain) that English is not Chandra's mother tongue. (Based on Chandra's comments on English people's misuse of the language - not on his own usage.)
However, his misunderstandings are errors of reasoning, rather than errors of linguistic interpretation. He'll make an unjustified jump from what someone said to "so you mean xyz?" without apparently seeing that xyz certainly does not follow logically from what they said.
When he says "So and so said i j k", when they actually said j k l m n, it's perhaps due to his education in English usage having trained him to reproduce the flavour of what he detected in what was said, rather than the logic of what was said. Just my surmise.
No. I no more want a "skeptic consensus" than I want a warmist consensus.
Martin: If English is not Chandra's first language, does that make it impossible for him to quote us exactly before commenting? That was the issue I raised right away. The silence since is consistent with a troll of the worst sort, given the seriousness of the accusation against me at least (it's your prerogative how you view the misrepresentation of your own views). It wouldn't be the first time I've met nyms who lose their grip of basic understanding when they've defamed someone and a simple remedy is presented. So I'd prefer we didn't muddy the water with this speculation. I expect an exact quote or a retraction or both. That's clearly not beyond this personage, from the little I've read of his past interactions here.
Stick with the guerrilla warfare tactics. History has taught us that in the post war era the only way to defeat an opponent with superior firepower is to fight asymmetrically. The State can throw billions at 'climate research' and control the media and public policy formulation etc etc, the sceptic side cannot compete on any sort of equal terms in the public sphere. Our only strength lies in the fact there is no main control centre to be destroyed, there is no sceptic central that can be discredited. We are multiple and widely distributed. The march is long but we will prevail. Like the Vietnamese vs the USA and the Afghans vs the USSR, the monolith will fall to the ramshackle army.
How I regret the Bish used the guerilla warfare analogy. If it's an exact parallel I'm a banana. I urge climate dissidents to argue not from the anaogy but the realities we face in climate science and policy today, including Geoff Chambers' vital point about representation on the BBC and other media. (How does that fit with being a guerilla or not? It doesn't fit. Let's get real please.) Then everyone do the right thing and join the 62% :)
The warmists speak out of both sides of their mouths about the beliefs of Big Energy. Here's an appeal for indoctrinating school children in Wyoming:
Editorial board: Join energy industries and admit climate change exists
http://trib.com/opinion/editorial/editorial-board-join-energy-industries-and-admit-climate-change-exists/article_ca4a1bd6-e7d4-5dde-acad-140c21c8067e.html
I don't think I'm disagreeing, Richard.
It's a shitty trick to misquote someone whether done intentionally or whether done by quoting from memory what you recollect their having said without bothering to quote their precise words.
Likewise, it's a shitty trick to put words into someone's mouth and then it's another shitty trick to maintain that their not having raised an objection to the fabricated utterance amounts to their agreement that they were correctly quoted.
If you use a shitty trick, it's a shitty trick whether done intentionally or whether done because somehow you learned to use the trick without even being aware that it's a shitty trick you are exercising.
We need to continue both the informal grassroots work and build a formal organization that can respond with truth and fact against the persistent dependence of the AGW hypesters on deceptive and misleading promotions.
Martin: I think that covers it!
hunter: Agreed, I think it's both-and. There are so many open goals, if we focus on the important issues on which we agree, sceptics and lukewarmers alike.
Martin, in response to jones saying:
>> @jones "In principle I don't have an outright
>> objection to providing aid to anyone at all "
You said
> @MartinA: Well mabe you don't, but I do. It's harmful
> to everybody. ["taking money from poor people in
> rich countries and giving it to rich people in poor
> countries"]
You can wriggle all you like but that is what you said. So I understand you to have a principled objection to giving aid to anyone because it is harmful to everybody. The issue of whether power station aid is harmful is one of the five questions that you left hanging from our discussion on the 'What does "Robust" mean' thread (page 7). You could easily make your position clear by answering those.
Richard Drake, I cannot find the thread where the conversation occurred (I think I was discussing the harms caused by fossil fuels with you and Robin) but I do remember that you pointed out a supposed connection between third world deaths and people like me opposing world bank aid to power projects. I remember that because it stumped me and I took no further part in the thread.
I responded "No" to the poll. For one thing, as has been pointed out above, anti-consensus positions occupy a wide area on the science, from those who believe that additional CO2 will cause no warming, to those who believe it will cause modest warming. [In terms of the canonical CO2 sensitivity, I'd express this as 0 to 2 K/doubling.] Some seem to have no avowed position -- e.g., McIntyre, who seems interested solely in trying to keep the scientific results honest.
In "policy space", the divergence is perhaps wider. I think most would oppose energy subsidies. A similar strong majority against a high CO2 tax, or cap-and-trade. Some favor government investment in alternative energy technologies, while others think this is doomed to be unproductive, likely given to politically favored firms. Some favor continuation of fossil-fuel dominance in energy, others think that we should be transitioning to a greater reliance on nuclear power.
There are already several scientifically credible voices to which journalists can turn for alternative viewpoints to the consensus [if they wish to do so]. I see no advantage in creating an organization which would then be subject to a narrowing of viewpoint (groupthink).
On the other hand, should such an organization be created, I propose the name "Luke Force". ;)
Thanks Richard Drake for the appeal to get real. For the umpteenth time, I'm not calling for an activist group with an agreed position on everything. Do members of the Women's Institute or the Rotary Club agree on everything? All I'm suggesting is a properly constituted body with elected officers, an annual general meeting, and an email address and a phone number that the journalist at the BBC can contact for a comment. We would then exist. Bob Ward would no longer be able to complain every time Andrew Montford got twenty seconds' air time.
(Of course, if people want to attend UN conferences dressed as non-threatened species, or split into factions on this or that aspect of the science, they'd be free to do so, but that's not part of my Cunning Plan.)
Chandra: That's very poor. At the time you were so stumped that you couldn't challenge me or ask for clarification? Then you lost track of the thread and made up something on this one that I've definitely never said? The words you are looking for are "In the circumstances, I retract my claim and apologise." Or find the thread and quote exactly what I said, so all of us can judge if you represented me fairly.
Geoff: The appeal to get real. I'm rather proud of making that, now you turn it into poetry. Something I would never have done and that just goes to show how different we are. I completely support the loose-knit federation you propose. But most of all I'm struck by that 62% of WUWT readers in favour of something along these lines (out of a total of over 2000, at that particular juncture). Contrarians in the comments are to be expected, indeed welcomed, but the silent majority also needs to be listened to. That has set me thinking.
Martin:
Chandra:
Chandra, as I have said in previous replies to you on other threads: those were your words, not mine.
If you think what I said, in the context I said it, means precisely the words you incorrectly attribute to me - then that's what you think, I suppose. But it seems to illustrate your tendency to say what you *think* somebody said, rather than what they really said.
Why would having some kind of loose confederation prevent Bob Ward (and Alice Bell, and everyone else) from complaining when a spokesperson was interviewed?
I wouldn't wanna be a cigar in any portrait that pictured me as a cigar.
============
Paul: I took Geoff to mean that such complaints (which I agree would remain tiresomely predictable) would be more easily swotted aside by BBC programme editors, if a substantial number of lukewarmer+ members was seen to stand behind the person concerned. With the important consequence that there wouldn't be such a gap until the next time.
" about representation on the BBC and other media. (How does that fit with being a guerilla or not?"
Guerrillas can get on the BBC. The most egregious of them can be put on as freedom fighters. We can't. We don't fit. The BBC already ignores the GWPF or misrepresents its quite simple intent. It isn't really a question of forming some organisation which would raise our profile favourably. Anything we do can be twisted to their worldview.
Paul Matthews (Apr 20, 2014 at 3:34 PM)
Because the bods at BBC, as well as being blinkered Trotskyists or politically correct luvvies or whatever, are also journalists, and the one thing they hate most is Bob Ward types telling them who they can and can't interview.
In the heyday of Mary Whitehouse and her campaign against filth on the airwaves they refused to interview her despite her claiming 50,000 members for her National Viewers' and Listeners' Association, because she hadn't been elected.
You'd need, I'd guess, a couple of thousand members, i.e. the number who comment here in an average week, to put 5 quid each in a kitty and elect a few officials, and Andrew Montford would no longer be just a bloke with a blog – he'd represent something – a group of people with more PhDs per head than your average debating society, I'd bet.
Gaia wept. Here I am, the token lefty, proposing something like a Rotary Club, while all around me are libertarian conservative types fantasising about being Che Guevara. How do you think the Viet Cong was actually run? Did Ho Chi Minh have a chat with the lads of a Sunday afternoon?
Geoff:
Exactly what I wanted to say but much better said. Not to understand this is to be nowhere. (And I didn't know Mary Whitehouse was never elected. Funny what one learns and when.)
Thanks for answering my dumb question.
Do it, and my fiver is in the post tomorrow.
I doubt if there are a couple of hundred people (to put a fiver in) let alone a couple of thousand
Hey guys - go ahead and start a group. You have my blessing, but not my membership. Not yet anyway.
Barry: you're probably right. I'm just defending a point of view which I hold strongly.
Paul
Thanks! I'm off to Paris for a fortnight, so don't all post your cheques at once.
Back in the seventies there was a Public Lending Right bill before parliament, proposing to give authors a government subsidy to compensate them for the fact that people were borrowing their books for free from their public library. It was noisily backed by a thing called the Writers' Action Group, led by Kingsley Amis, Bridget Brophy and other starving authors.
I took the view that once I, or my public library, or anyone else bought a book, it was none of Kingsley Amis's business who I lent it to, and I wrote to the Guardian saying I was forming a Borrowers' Action Group which would hide the works of Amis and Brophy on the top shelves so they wouldn't get their hands on their unearned loot. The Guardian published my letter, together with my address, and I got a couple of angry letters from Amis & Co, a dozen letters of support, and a couple of postal orders.
It's easier than you think, starting organisations. Marx did it with a bloke called Odger and eighteen others. What did Ayn Rand ever do but shrug?
To test the water, I invite people here who are in favour of the idea of a loosely-knit pressure group of whatever kind or flavour to vote “Aye” at
http://geoffchambers.wordpress.com/2014/03/28/a-bird-in-the-ear-of-the-episcopal-rhinoceros/
where I proposed this idea recently. Send no money now.
I repeat, the one essential point it seems to me is that it should be officially constituted, with elected officials and transparent, minimal financing. The whole purpose would be to pay Andrew's (or whoever gets elected) train fare to Broadcasting House.
And I'm not up for office. I can't do accounts, and I don't live in the country anyway.
There is a need for someone to speak up for the British public. Not a political body or a sceptic group as such but one that demands the whole truth be told and not just the one that has been filtered first through activist scientists, then crusading politicians and finally journalists looking to sensationalise. I'd support a group that had a core message of 'the debate is far from over'. That could cover anything from the science to any plans our government might have to make the UK penitent for past CO2 sins ie 'set an example'. It doesn't have to have preferred values for sensitivity or sea level rise, so it would be flexible for different lukewarm and sceptic standpoints. A call for proper public discussions would be an ideal, to engage sceptic and believer alike.
Why hasn't anyone thought of this before? Just do the whole thing here. Call it the Bishop Hill Society and invite anyone who wanted to join to contribute a fiver. Nothing would change at the blog, which would still be open to all. Someone (call him AM) would have to be elected president and preside an AGM once a year. Someone else would be elected treasurer and open a Paypal account and make sure the president didn't run off with the funds. And that's it.
I'm sure Chandra would join, just to shame you all.
Martin, when you said "It's harmful to everybody" I took that to mean that giving aid is harmful to everybody. You are now playing at highlighting certain words to pretend you meant something else. I guess that is within the rules of Climateball. Now you want to say something like giving aid to anyone at all is harmful to everybody. Well I don't think that means much. One can clearly say that giving aid indiscriminately is a bad idea, but that is not what you said. And even then it is not clear that this would be bad for the giver - if a government has decided to spend £Xbn in aid, any supposed harm to the giver is done whether the aid money is well or badly spent.
So to me your position is unclear and or illogical. And you had plenty of opportuity in our 5 day discussion to make clear what you meant. Jones challenged you, saying
> I can't agree that it is NECESSARILY harmful and
> in all cases though. Sorry Martin, just
> can't. Do you ever give to a charity by the way?
You didn't feel the need to clarify your position after that, instead querying his reference to charity. In a later comment you did soften your position saying, "I think that foreign aid is generally harmful to its recipients", without any justification of that view, but you later went back to the old faithful:
> It's harmful to everybody, especially the
> recipient countries [Mercedes driving African
> pols and their families excepted]
My conclusion is that you do think aid is harmful and the fact that you can't think of any aid since the Marshall Plan that is not harmful makes me think you are just repeating some right wing populist rant, probably from an idiot at the Mail or from Booker in the Telegraph, without actually thinking about it. Can most of what the World Food Program or the World Health Organisation does really be harmful? Or UNICEF or UNAIDS? Can vaccination programs be harmful - would the world be better with smallpox or polio?
If what you are saying is just that giving aid to bad people is bad, well find me someone who disagrees. Hey, that is as banal as saying wouldn't it be nice if we could all just get along...
Richard,
> At the time you were so stumped that you
> couldn't challenge me or ask for clarification?
I didn't challenge you because any suffering caused by the failure to alleviate power shortages because of an ideological opposition to fossil fuels on the part of 'greens' wasn't something I had ever considered. And if taken at face value, I could indeed be considered complicit. That is not a nice feeling and I couldn't respond. However, building a centralized power system in countries lacking one and locking in a 50 year dependence on imported coal in a time of rapidly changing power technology does seem a bad investment. And the beneficiaries of building such power infrastucture are much more likely to be the urban rich than the country poor, which is in tune with what Martin was perhaps saying. So I do oppose such projects with a clear consciece.
You are most likely right that you (or Robin) didn't use the word 'murder' so I apologize for that. I'll retract the whole thing if you confirm that you don't hold greens in any way complicit for any supposed suffering that results from fossil fuel plants not obtaining World Bank (or similar) loans.
"...[A]n organisation is easier to attack than a diffuse set of informed sceptics." --alan kennedy
Events are moving beyond the point where that is a relevant argument. An organization can also attack easier and better than a diffuse set of skeptics. Must we always be defending? The best defense is often a good offense.
"No. Look at the ordure thrown at the Heartland Institute where climate change is only part of their overall policy analysis." --GrantB
So if your opponents throw ordure, then you should beg their pardon and just quietly go away? That's exactly why they throw ordure.
"[It would be like herding cats.]" --various commenters
Those opposing Hitler outnumbered the National Socialists. They were very diverse [33 parties, in all] and failed to put aside enough of their differences to throw their combined weight against Naziism. Are we doomed to repeat history?
The more I see such specious arguments against a unified group, the more I think we have no other option. Our message is not crossing the MSM barrier. We need to organize to reach around it.
Jorgekafkazar: Brilliant.
Andrew Montford:
A suggestion: Form a Bishop Hill Society, five quid to join. Articles of association, rules or whatever to be decided later. Your fans are suspicious, but not stingy.
When you've got a few hundred members, announce the rules and articles of association. (Those who don't like the rules can leave and be reimbursed). Hold elections. Form a charity or a not-for-profit wotsit. Ask for accreditation to COP21 in Paris and whatever else takes your fancy. Do another survey to find out how many of your members have MScs or PhDs. Tell David Rose, the BBC, Times Higher Education and anyone else who will listen.
The next time Davey or Deben says something foolish the Beeb'll be on the phone. Politically correct dweebs they may be, but they're also journalists, and they must have a story.
Apr 20, 2014 at 7:38 PM | geoffchambers
'Yes' to that.
jorgek - "you should beg their pardon and just go quietly away?" Nope, you throw the crap back at them along with a series of triple uppercuts if necessary. That's where Heartland were weak by not pursuing Gliek further by all means available.
Geoff Chambers "token" lefty - you're not Robinson Crusoe. I belonged to various unions over 30 years and was a rep for one of them. Like any large organisation they have good honest people as well as ratbags (is Doug Cotton a union member?). I've never voted Liberal (Tory) in my life.
I would chip in a fiver or tenner if something along the lines of what you are suggesting were to be set up. Barely half a crate of beer. I hope it would achieve something but remain sceptical. An example of what individuals rather than organisations can achieve can be found in Australian politics.
Some years ago, Malcolm Turnbull the Liberal leader agreed to pass Kevin Rudd's (the PM) emissions trading scheme through parliament. I don't know the exact figures but tens of thousands wrote to, rang, emailed and text Liberal MPs suggesting there might be dire consequences for their future if they didn't oppose it. Spontaneous with no organisation behind it other than JoNova, Andrew Bolt and the informal blog network. Turnbull was replaced by Abbott (by just one MP vote) and come July we will not have an ETS or Carbon Tax.
It's not a question of *either* a central organisation *or* splintered guerillas.
No reason we can't have both.
I think the Bishop Hill Society is the best possible name. Well done Geoff.
That seems very practical. Here are some further suggestions and questions:
1. It's UK-based and focused on the UK policy-wise but welcomes overseas members. We want your money but it's only fair that you know about the focus from the start. (The 'we' comes naturally but doesn't assume any official role!)
2. It's different from the GWPF by being genuinely and obviously grass roots and by expressing, from the start, scepticism about global warming science as well as policy. But the exact form of that expression will no doubt be hard. I won't be voting for mydogsgotnonose as chief scientific adviser, if he/she/they insists that their specific critique of greenhouse theory is make or break, let's put it that way.
3. All funding would be completely open. Fossil fuel companies welcome? Or is the only funding from £5 subscriptions? That's a biggie. Would the membership list be open? I'd argue yes. The impression of shadowy backers for the GWPF has been an open goal from the cheap seats in the media.
4. It would be very nice if lefties were prominent, as well as libertarians and conservatives. Despite the best efforts of Lord Donoughue and friends that's not the way the GWPF is seen. The Bishop Hill Society was the idea of a (no longer token) leftie and that in itself could be extremely useful.
5.What kind of website for the Society? I have a few, minimal ideas. Everything done affects Andrew's existing brand, that's one very important aspect. It might well be worth a chat to the blog's existing service provider.
It doesn't have to 'go my way' for me to want to be a member. I can hardly think of any circumstances where I wouldn't want to be one. But those are some thoughts and questions.
This thread has veered way off track. This was a thread discusing whether or not the US needed an organisation like GWPF but seems to have evolved into discussing the creation of some sort of UK pressure group/organisation/society.
Why not just give your fiver to GWPF and perhaps that would be alowed to evolve into something to include the man in the street.
Martyn: It's a valid point of view that the focus in the UK should be on the GWPF alone but I hardly think the thread's veered way off track. Anthony is thinking of something for the USA and that reminded Geoff of earlier proposals for something different for the UK. I personally feel that, given the breadth of the issues raised by climate alarmism, it wouldn't be at all wacky for there to be more than one UK organisation 'putting the other side'. I'd expect there to be warm and friendly relations between the two, if the Bishop Hill Society got off the ground. But I've also indicated some of the differences that can give us legitimate motivation for creation of a second front.
Martyn
I don't think the GWPF can evolve, being a charity and not wanting to reveal its financial backers etc. And why should it? It's fine as it is.
Britain has special needs, because of political consensus, the special role of the BBC, and the power of a still partly serious national press.
Richard Drake
Some interesting ideas, but why a website? We already have BH!
And, frankly, I think people like you and me should keep well away from it (except for joining of course). We're too opinionated and tend to split any discussion we get into. I'd be happy to join and then let one or two quiet, knowledgeable people get on with representing us.
Geoff: I'm thinking that the Bishop Hill Society would have a front page different to Bishop Hill now, not least pointing to how to become a member, but behind that there would a high degree of integration. My further thoughts would need a discussion with Squarespace, if the Bish himself thought that was worthwhile. I wouldn't worry about it, in other words. I mentioned it in case others had ideas in that area.
I do not understand why Richard Drake is upset about an accusation that he equated banning aid to build power plants in poor undeveloped nations with murder. Such actions are a form of murder; murder by organization. And I am well aware that much aid to undeveloped nations ends up in the pockets of the dictator or his cronies.
stan: Fail to understand all you like. The accusation was that I'd accused people like Chandra of complicity in murder. A nasty piece of trollery to take the thread off course. To show what he meant the writer needed to quote me, which he hasn't. This isn't the place to have the debate about World Bank loans and the policy not to give aid for coal-powered power stations. It was typical diversionary tactics by a troll and also nasty defamation. One learns that this is the price of taking part on climate blogs. I expect to take part much more so I can't be that upset.