Back in the early spring of 2007, believers of catastrophic man-caused global warming were no doubt quite happy with Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” movie, Ross Gelbspan’s books, prominent pro-global warming blogs, mainstream media outlets, and others who gave essentially no fair play to the presentation of detailed climate assessments from skeptic climate scientists. But then came the announcement in the UK about a video to be broadcast March 8, 2007 on their Channel 4 called “The Great Global Warming Swindle”, which was met with UK media scorn before it was seen, not once (full text here) but twice in the same manner (full text here). But unlike the arenas where the other material was presented (Gore’s movie encountered a UK lawsuit), the opportunity to inflict a major hit against the video existed via the UK’s communications regulator (Ofcom), but only if you called in the cavalry to do so. Not to inflict a scientific wound, however, but one via character assassination. One that ends up being a case study of how any given corruption accusation lodged against skeptic climate scientists is separated from Ross Gelbspan by three degrees or less. Continue reading
Category Archives: Repeated talking points
“Long Established Evidence Proving Skeptic Climate Scientists’ Guilt, Baked Fresh Today!”
For all practical purposes, the collective Greenpeace organization committed outright political suicide two weeks ago, essentially telegraphing to the entire world that they never had the evidence they claimed they had, proving skeptic climate scientists lie to the public under a pay-for-performance arrangement with fossil fuel industry people just like the way shill experts lied for the tobacco industry. Their December 8 ambush blunder of skeptic climate scientist Dr Will Happer at Ted Cruz’s Senate hearing is best illustrated with a famous movie courtroom scene question, but let me set the stage with the following points: Continue reading
The RICO Letter’s Sole-Source Problem
News of a letter signed by 20 scientists to President Obama (imploring him to use the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) to punish immoral “corporations and other organizations that have knowingly deceived the American people about the risks of climate change“) first popped up around mid September. At my first opportunity to read it, I immediately recognized a fatal fault in its second paragraph, and I placed two short comments at Anthony Watts’ blog, first noting the problem with the US Senator pushing the idea, and then regarding the letter’s ‘accusation sources’. Afterward, alerted American Thinker editor Thomas Lifson about the latter comment, and he asked if I could flesh that out into a complete article. I did, and you may Continue reading at American Thinker —–>
Anti-intellectual Claims about Anti-intellectualism
Besides revealing at this blog how the ‘industry-corrupted skeptic climate scientists’ accusation implodes from any angle it’s viewed, I also show how people willingly accept and spread the accusation while never questioning a single element of it. Today, I feature a perfect case in point where an article writer attempted to call out the ‘problem’ of stupid rationale in the global warming issue, but his efforts only result in an undesirable appearance hugely undermining the overall point of his article. Continue reading
The Hertsgaard Error, pt II: Not a Case of Poor Wording
In a curiosity venture to see if the Union of Concerned Scientists regurgitation of the “reposition global warming” accusation narrative was getting any media traction, I instead stumbled across an unexpected example of outright either deliberate misinformation, or one of otherwise incompetent reporting from someone who is supposed to be an authority on the topic of ‘industry-corrupted skeptic climate scientists’. Continue reading
If You are Unaware You are in a Hole…..
…. stop and look around. If discover you are in a hole, for goodness sake, stop digging. Such is the advice I would have given to the Union of Concerned Scientists before they plunged off a credibility cliff with this wipeout.
“Skeptic Climate Scientists are Industry-Paid Shills” (sir, what is your source for that?)
What’s old is not new again, it is still old and literally unsupportable. Continue reading
The Ongoing Embellishment Problem
My recent Twitter debate with John Stauber, co-author of the “Trust Us, We’re Experts” book, reminded me of a particularly embarrassing embellishment error that pops up elsewhere among efforts to portray experts on man-caused global warming as authoritarians above reproach. It’s like the proverbial fish story, the tendency to make things bigger than they actually are. Continue reading
Naomi Oreskes’ Problems, pt 2
A brief set of questions and answers illustrates how any sort of examination of the ‘skeptic climate scientists are industry-corrupted’ accusation doesn’t reveal a nice, tidy, open-and-shut case against such skeptics, all that’s seen is something begging for a deeper investigation of why the accusation exists at all. Continue reading
‘Skeptic Climate Scientists Do Not Deserve Fair Media Balance.’ Spread This Line Widely; NEVER Check its Veracity and Don’t Examine its History.
‘When a topic is soundly settled, it is egregiously stupid to consider long-debunked counterclaims, and Ross Gelbspan was among the first to see the stupidity of anyone doing exactly that in discussions about global warming.’ This would be a devastating statement if either of the two premises within it were demonstratively true. So, why would anyone make such a statement if either premise cannot stand on its merits? Continue reading