Normally, I don’t respond to comments about my articles. However, comments about my last article raise questions that I think require context and explanation in the ongoing search for openness and free debate on climate. This applies to even the most extreme challenges to the status quo. Many of the comments are predictable because they come from people who constantly beat the same old drum. It is usually possible to predict who will respond to any subject and what they will say. They are not necessarily trolls, although trolls are ever present, and are usually called-out or ignored. The critical issue is the danger of skeptics becoming a narrow-minded, tunnel-vision group that attacks, rejects, or simply ignores skepticism about the skeptic’s position or views. This is always a problem but is particularly problematic when the prevailing view in this polarized world is that if you are not with me, you must be against me.
The global warming debate has divided into promoters of the claims of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) and the skeptics. It is the nature of any group behavior to become increasingly dogmatic. It is part of the conditions that create Groupthink. The promoters are de facto ensnared in Groupthink. The skeptics are in danger of falling into the same condition. Anthony does a very good job of publishing material from across the spectrum. He also struggles with censorship of comments, being as accommodating as possible under the circumstances. It is imperative that as skeptics we keep open minds – that is, skeptics must be open to skepticism about their skepticism.
One of the comments said the article was more reasonable than those I usually produce. The writer said he could understand my anger because of the attacks I experience. While I appreciate his claim, I reject it because the one thing you learn when you choose to challenge authority is that you have no idea how nasty and demoralizing it becomes. People have a sense of the cost, and that is enough to make the vast majority remain silent. There is a reason they pass whistleblower laws, even in America where free speech is championed. As Voltaire said,
“It is dangerous to right in matters where men in authority are wrong.”
The truth is I consciously moderate my writings because of Ingersoll’s comments. Unfortunately, because of events and facts fading into history and the relentless spin and cover-up by AGW proponents, the level of deliberate deception and extent of the damage done is not appreciated by most anymore. But don’t just take my word for it. Consider the words of the late Professor Hal Lewis, Emeritus Professor of physics, when he discovered that the executive of the American Physical Society (APS) had given their support, without consultation with the membership, to the AGW story. He resigned in a very public protest. As he wrote in his October 2010 resignation letter,
“the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist.”
Challenges to official climate science of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) began small and gradually grew. It was pushed harder than normal for a few reasons;
- The people selected to participate in the IPCC were picked and controlled by the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
- Because of protests, a charade of external examiners was created. It was a charade because none of the early submissions were included.
- Several prominent people, like Richard Lindzen and Chris Landsea, resigned from the IPCC in protest about the practices and procedures.
- By 1995, the first major scandal involving Benjamin Santer and unauthorized alterations to Chapter 8 were exposed.
- After the forecast failures of the 1990 Report, the IPCC created a range of projections to improve chances of being correct.
- The IPCC did not follow scientific method because they set out to ‘prove’ the hypothesis rather than disprove it.
- The attacks on scientists who dared to practice proper science by challenging the hypothesis drew concern and attention.
- Growing awareness of the disparity between the Science Report and the Summary for Policymakers.
- Many knew that Al Gore’s claim that the science was settled is wrong.
- Important early skeptical web sites, like John Daly’s Still Waiting for Greenhouse, Anthony Watt’s Watts Up With That?, Steve McIntyre’s Climate Audit, and Sherwood Idso’s CO2 Science, provided forums for the skeptical view suppressed by those trying to prove the AGW hypothesis.
The shameful behavior was and continues to be by the business world, especially the energy sector. They profess to have a social conscience and care about the environment, but their actions belie those claims. If anyone has the expertize to know that the science of anthropogenic global warming was wrong, it is the energy companies. Despite this, they chose to appease the environmentalists. They are now learning that you cannot appease extremists. Besides as Churchill said,
“An appeaser is one who feeds the crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.”
Donna Laframboise wrote about the millions of dollars the appeasers paid out in a 2012 article titled, “Big Oil Money for Me, But Not for Thee.”
When I think of the devastating cost to me, both financial and emotional, all based on lies and misinformation made by these receivers of oil money, it is surprising I am as calm and controlled as I am. Remember, the basis for their proof is that I am a liar and totally compromised because they say I received money from oil companies. The sad part is I never received a single penny from any oil company. Presumably, the environmentalists who did receive the money are the ones compromised. At the very least, they are absolute hypocrites.
The truth is the oil executives didn’t care about the scientific truth regarding global warming or carbon dioxide. It was profitable public relations to say they were saving the environment and the planet because they received tax write-offs for the contributions and simply passed on other costs to the consumer. They were also able to practice advocacy advertising, an activity environmentalists condemned in the 1970s and 80s. This was the charge that corporations were advertising political positions rather than a selling a product. Environmentalists, who said they could not afford such advertising, wanted a law requiring the corporation provide money, or pay for equal time and space, for their opposing view.
