Thursday
May142015
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill The lukewarmer meme
May 14, 2015 Climate: Sceptics The talking point this morning is going to be the history of the use of the term "lukewarmer" at the Making Science Public blog. It focuses on its appearances in the mainstream press, and thus misses the older history, going right back to the late John Daly. Nevertheless it's fun to see the way the term crept into the legacy media after doing the rounds of new media for years beforehand.
It would have also been interesting to juxtapose the term against the responses from the mainstream, principally the use of the d-word. Mind you, in the era when even President Obama is casually referred to as a climate denier for not toeing the green line, you can see that you are dealing with desperate attempts to smear rather than to enlighten.
Reader Comments (23)
It's all part of the Grand Retreat.
Popcorn!
I thought part of the Global Warmist's Master Plan for the human race, was to follow up the science busting paper by Oreskes and Lewandowsky, with a Papal Decree, condemning Lukewarmers as well as sceptics, so that Oreskes and Lewandowsky could be appointed Grand Inquisitors of the Church of Global Warming.
This was in response to the utter failure of mainstream climate science, to get anything right, and the fear that, any form of admission, that anything said by a lukewarmer might have a grain of truth in it, could destroy all faith. That is to say all faith, in all faiths.
The start date of the Climate Inquisition has yet to be announced. They wanted it to be unexpected.
If Oreskes and Lewandowsky are the best that Climate Science has to offer, no one need live in fear.
While technically I'm a luke warmer, since I expect some unknown amount of warming, I'd rather be considered a denier. I hate the way some are trying to pretend, that since many sceptics expect warming, the consensus side is essentially right - lets work from there. I think the climate edifice is built on very dodgy foundations, that are more fundamental than getting an agreed figure for climate sensitivity. The climate consensus has fraud woven in between truths. Not only has there been no attempt to remove the rot, many supposedly good people have worked hard to preserve it. We are not even at the same stage the Catholic church was when it decided to deal with child molesting priests by moving them to a new church and giving them additional religious councelling. As far as the church of CO2, no abuse has happened. I'd rather be excommunicated than stand along side those who turn a blind eye.
It never fails to surprise me that the official proponents of CAGW cannot understand why some scientists should cast doubt on a hypothesis, that continually over estimates global warming. And, furthermore, is poor in even hind casting. What is so difficult in a person accepting the fact of the greenhouse gas effect, yet rejecting the results of computer models, however complex they might be: because they rely on some parameters being nothing but 'inspired' guesses?
'lukewarm thoughts" since 2011 on twitter
https://twitter.com/BarryJWoods
As a non-lukewarmer, I can't say I'm bothered about the label.
Phillip Bratby
Me too.
Bill McKibben calling Obama a climate denier is the sort of remark that ought to get much more publicity. It really helps develop anger and bitterness, in the minds of people who had previously been converted.
golf charlie,
Lew & his new bff Naomi are busy putting the "creep" in "creepy extremist" and have appointed themselves Grand Inquisitors for the defense of the CO2 faithful and their divine apocalypse. The Pope, if he knows what is good for him, will ratify this promptly.
McKibben, on the other hand, puts the "kook" in "climate kook" and has started chewing on the more rational kooks as they are easier to reach.
Fun times to be skeptical of the entire movable feast that is climate madness.
Slightly O/T, but not too much, since we're talking about labels, I recommend an audio 20-minute interview which was conducted recently between Marc Morano and Suzanne Goldenberg.
As it's hosted at The Guardian, part of their full-court climate press, you may fear the worst, but actually, both of them conduct themselves with decorum, and the result is interesting. Morano (described in the blurb as "the king of climate denial" has all the facts and answers, and I can't believe The Grauniad will allow such a good advertisement for climate skepticism to stay online for long.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/audio/2015/may/14/podcast-biggest-story-us-episode8
The usual troll is disrupting the debate. It seems to be beyond our Ken to read and understand the meaning of the term 'Lukewarmer'. But he is getting his butt whipped by Lucia and Ben
ATTP: I can’t think of an example.
Lucia: As noted before: there are many examples. But your not knowing any is rather unsurprising.
ATTP: I’m struggling to see…
Ben: A recurrent theme of your statements on the internet.
Yes, ATTP s trying to disrupt. He's openly admitted on his blog (at a different time) that his intention is to innocently ask questions and break up discussions.
There's a community that says that climate catastrophe is imminent -- far more disastrous than what the IPCC predicts -- and thus a whole-scale restructuring of society is required immediately. Capitalism must go. Even democracy can be jettisoned so as not to slow down the implementation of enlightened policies. Anyone deviating from this script -- anyone even allowing for other possibilities -- is denounced as a denier and burned at the stake (figuratively speaking, so far).
Hilariously, they consider themselves to be terribly scientific.
Well, every fascist movement needs an excuse and a scape goat. Climate change is the excuse. Capitalism is the scape goat.
rabbit, there is a panic, and it is genuine. Even devout Alarmists can see that the 'happy days' are coming to an end, so they have to screw every last bit of taxpayer funding they can, before jetting off to their tropical island hideaways, to retire.
By boosting demand, the price of windturbines has come down, and by increasing scare stories, remote tropical islands have not risen in value too much either. Some have even risen relative to sea level, and they have really struggled to keep that quiet.
The more I think about the term lukewarmer the more I dislike it. It does several things.
1) It suggests we agree there will be warming of a ‘luke’ amount. Well I might think that but I don’t know it. By choosing to be ‘luke’ I give too much credibility to a science I think is truly bad. Where is the drive to improve if we indicate we think they’re roughly on the right track?
2) As the narrative from the consensus is that any warming is bad, then even ‘luke’ is bad and I really don’t think that is true.
3) Since the consensus also dominates what we do about AGW, then by being ‘luke’ I am seen to be in support of the actions proposed, although the opposite is true. Any subsequent objection can be portrayed as being obstructive to what I think has to be done or petty differences due to political outlook.
4) As many warmists are actually ‘luke’ there could be a common ground but such an effect is more inhibiting than assisting. If you’re trying to bridge a gap, you can’t also be pointing out how wide it is. You can’t be as hard hitting with objections. While we’re pulling our punches in respect for luke warmists on the other side, the true warmists are punching as hard as they can.
I think I'll stick with sceptic.
I don't think John Daly was a lukewarmer by the current definition. This is from his website http://www.john-daly.com:
He uses the term 'luke-warm' freely but I think to him it was a reference to his attitude to the greenhouse theory rather than having any specific meaning. The clue, I think, is in the original name of his site 'Still Waiting for Greenhouse'.
This is a quote from the 'Making Science Public' post:
“Luke warmers have come a long way from the day in 2008 when we first recognized that there actually was a position that was INSIDE the mainstream of science but at odds with the public face of that science."
I would say that some sceptics were really uncomfortable with the treatment they got from 'scientists' and desperately wanted to be accepted by those scientists. In order to "find their place INSIDE the mainstream of science" they grovelled and admitted that which they and the science had always denied; that CO2 can cause additional warming of the planet (over and above the normal range of temperatures experienced). Here's looking at you Bish.
They ignored the pause, they ignored the ice core records and they ignored geological records going back billions of years; after all what is more important than to be accepted?
BS terminology for a BS business.
Luckwarmers. The position requires quite a bit of luck, not only low climate sensitivity to greenhouse gases and low future emissions, but also magical limitations on lowering the pH of the oceans and disrupting a whole bunch of biology.
Eli Rabett, well you'd better hope we are lucky because your side are seriously unconvincing. Rather than getting your house in order, you squabble with sceptics. Like most failures, the temptation is to blame everyone but yourself. Even the Guardian has admitted that getting people to cut their CO2 is too hard and are now just sticking to mildly harassing fund managers. I dunno, maybe the conflicts with Germany would have been just as successful if we'd just stopped buying German shares instead of going to war?
Perhaps
Even if I wasn't a Brit I'd find it hard to see why that was relevant.
Tiny, keep praying, the Earth does not notice.