Bishop Hill Mooney on Climategate
Jan 16, 2011 Climate: other Chris Mooney gave a talk yesterday at the Science Online Conference. Apparently a large group of science communicators who are worried about global warming flew in from other countries to hear the great communicator talk about Climategate ;-). I discovered the talk too late to pick up the live stream, but we can get a feel for what was said by some of the twittering that went on. Chris Rowan's seems the most detailed account.
1. Now in session about climategate, or 'antiscience lies and the lying liars who tell them'
2. Chris Mooney on how 'climate' of scientific ignorance in which the scandal broke provided fertile ground for it to grow in.
3. Mooney admits grudging admiration for Mark Morano (in terms of his effectiveness at communicating his agenda)
4. Interesting: '6 Americas of global warming' chart shows that doubtful/dismissive are a hardly a majority. But they *are* very loud.
5. Mooney wants 'deadly ninjas of science communication' - to abseil down the through the windows of the Fox News building, perhaps?
6. Q being posed by @JoshRosenau: are climate denialists the new creationists? If so, we're screwed.
7. 'It's a knife fight', says Tom Peterson. I'd argue that we're considering picking up a knife while other side researching nukes.
The talk of ninjas and knife fights is interesting in the current atmosphere. (Tom Peterson is a scientist at NCDC. SOme may know him for his work on urban heat island effect).
Reader Comments (110)
E Smith:
This is not debate. I leave it to others here to decide what prevents you from addressing the flaws in your argument openly.
I think we all understand that left wing / progressive means benefiting those at the bottom.
Couldn't disagree more. Leftism is about benefiting producer interests over consumer interests. It's why every year when A-Level results are announced Labour applauds the teachers rather than the candidates.
Leftism requires the persistence of poverty and if it ever went away they reintroduce it it, usually through third world immigration.
Leftism in power is always the prisoner of its paymasters, be they union barons or billionaires.
This piece by Richard Lindzen fits in with some of the debate here especially around business lobbying govs.
Politicians can see the possibility of taxation that will be cheerfully accepted to save Earth. Nations see how to exploit this issue in order to gain competitive advantages. So do private firms. The case of Enron (a now bankrupt Texas energy firm) is illustrative. Before disintegrating in a pyrotechnic display of unscrupulous manipulation, Enron was one of the most intense lobbyists for Kyoto. It had hoped to become a trading firm dealing in carbon-emission rights. This was no small hope. These rights are likely to amount to trillions of dollars, and the commissions will run into many billions.
It is probably no accident that Al Gore himself is associated with such activities. The sale of indulgences is already in full swing with organizations selling offsets to one’s carbon footprint while sometimes acknowledging that the offsets are irrelevant. The possibilities for corruption are immense.
Yes Kevin, except that there will be no carbon tax. Enron entered carbon trading into the Kyoto Protocol through their little message boy, Al Gore.
A carbon tax would only be used as a temporary measure to keep the pot boiling for carbon trading.
An alliance of right wing businesses, a few right win Nazis and lot of very thick liberals.
The reason particularly American right wingers believe AGW is a leftist cause is that they are as thick as the liberals who believe the same thing from reading the cartoon, corporate media.
I was thinking it would be helpful at some point in journalism/politics/law enforcement to stop using adjectives/adverbs....lol. Can you imagine speaking in short direct sentences...maybe something based on loglan...short direct English (in this case).
I think it may be true that environmentalism can be neutral, but folks take up causes. What I hate as a moderate, is getting labelled at this or that because I agree with a cause that is left/right/liberal/conservative, etc.
One example to make a point. Atheists love pointing out that the church in the middle ages believed in a flat earth and went against reason and rationalism. The odd thing today is that the majority members of the Flat Earth Society are atheists. And all the religious people I know today don't believe in a flat earth.
Another point. I was at a conference on science and religion in 2007. Bush was being bashed for having conservative christian policies. I asked a panelist to name one of Bush's conservative christian policies. He only named abortion. Oddly enough, there are pro-life atheists out there. They are a minority, but they exist.
There are other examples of the rule and the exception to the rule, but I don't want to give a long post. My point is that humans make sh!t up all the time to fit their politics/ethics/coffers, etc. Look at all the human ideology and mental invention around us. As soon as one idea is saturated, someone needs to come up with a new one to wedge some advantage.
Kevin
As a former anarchist, I hate everyone equally !
However the American corporate media frames every issue as conservative vs liberal for specifically 'divide and rule' reasons. People vote on totally irrelevant issues like abortion and homosexuality when all that matters in politics is money.
To get your guy in the White House, all it takes is a few million dollars extra in TV advertising money for the victor to sway the relatively small middle ground. That's how Wall Street got Obama in the door.
E Smith
Well Said. Oligarchy, then?
"Oligarchy, then ?"
Yes, a corporate oligarchy.
Here is another:
http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=climate+change%2Cfeminism&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=0&smoothing=3