Category Archives: Repeated talking points

The RICO Letter’s Sole-Source Problem

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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

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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

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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 →

The Ongoing Embellishment Problem

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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

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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.

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‘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 →

Timeline History and Inconvenient Truths of Ross Gelbspan’s and Al Gore’s “reposition global warming” Phrase

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The idea of man-caused global warming is especially effective because it can be pounded into practically everybody’s head via three easily memorized talking points. Global warming believers need only to counter dry recitations of skeptic science material with:

  1. assertions that the sheer numbers of ‘climate scientists’ on the IPCC side indicates this to be the overwhelming consensus opinion
  2. claims about leaked memo evidence proving skeptics are paid industry money to “reposition global warming as theory rather than fact” – dupe the public, in other words
  3. the obvious conclusion that reporters aren’t obligated to give fair balance to skeptics because of the previous two points.

In a nutshell, settled science, crooked skeptics, reporters may ignore skeptics — bam, bam, bam.

A timeline of where, how and when that “reposition global warming” phrase first appeared and where it prominently pops up afterward is something global warming believers would hate, since it might prompt a total loss of faith in the validity of that central accusation point. The loss could cascade into questions of whether the science actually is settled in the face of skeptics’ science-based criticisms, and people may also start to wonder about the ‘fair media balance’ idea, since they might not readily recall instances where skeptics actually received that from mainstream media reporters. Continue reading →