Some years ago I asked an old friend, who is a stockbroker and then in his forties, whether he was nervous about the expected onset of a bear market: one in which share prices fall over a long period? This was at the end of a very long bull market with steadily rising prices.
Yes, he said, he was pretty worried. Although there was no problem in managing funds successfully in these less favourable conditions, the city had recently gone through one of its periodic convulsions, with finance houses amalgamating, the upper echelons of management being ruthlessly culled, and new, younger, and more energetic blood being brought in.
He did not feel that there was anything wrong with this of course, but he saw problems ahead; in the short term at least. Although the new kids were bright and capable, they had learned their trade when the going was good and had experienced nothing other than relatively easy trading conditions. In his opinion, when the downturn came they just weren’t going to know what had hit them, and that could be a big problem for markets.
It would seem likely that a large proportion of the AGW activist movement are finding themselves in the same kind of situation at the moment. The eNGOs have grown rapidly over the last decade with a high intake of young graduates straight out of university.
So far, these keen young idealists have been pushing at an open door. Politicians, the mainstream media and, to a great extent, the general public too, have been sympathetic to their cause. No press release has been too absurd to find some journalist who will write it up. No scheme too fanciful or ill conceived to be turned down for funding. And all the time there has been an ever more vocal groundswell of public opinion urging them onwards.
There must have been periods of frustration for them of course, when progress was slower than they would have liked. But these clean cut knights in green armour had signed up to be campaigners after all, and few of them can have doubted that the triumph would be theirs eventually. All that was needed was to continually turn up the pressure with ever more extreme scare stories for the rest of the world to conform to their alarmist viewpoint.
They have become used to being hailed as the infallible fountainheads of wisdom on all matters to do with the climate, the arbiters of correct political opinion on environmental problems, and the conduit through which, provided sufficient legislation could be enacted and funding made available, the planet could be saved. The only opposition they have faced has been from a despised minority of sceptics who have persistently asked whether we can be sure that the planet really is in danger. These voices have been easy to marginalise and ignore. The forces of environmentalism have effortlessly occupied the moral high ground to such an extent that the merest hint of criticism of their views or actions has become tantamount to blasphemy.
What a difference the last two-and-a-half months have made. First Climategate, then Copenhagen, and now the seemingly endless revelations about IPCC incompetence – and worse – which is fast spreading suspicion that those who have been trusted to explain what is happening to the climate may have feet of clay.
If anyone expects that environmental activists, and the climate scientists who are becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish from them, will be able to mount a swift and decisive counter offensive that will win the day, they are likely to be disappointed. To do so would require them to react swiftly and with great skill to a situation that they have never faced before. These are folk who are facing the PR equivalent of shock and awe: terrifying, disorientating, and presenting a challenges for which nothing in their past experience has prepared them. Defending their beliefs is not something that they have had to plan for.
Recovery will require different skills, a new mindset, and a totally restructured strategy. This will not happen over night, and in the meantime, the panic-stricken desire to do something – to do anything – to stem the growing forces of scepticism will be irresistible. But deploying the tactics that worked so well for them in the good times is likely to have precisely the opposite effect to what they intend.
Last week, the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Ed Miliband, declared war on sceptics, and presumably he did so after consultation with those who have so successfully shaped public opinion on climate change.
Such a high profile campaign might have worked in October, or even early November, before the Climategate scandal broke , but now that even the Guardian is publishing stories that sound as though they have been lifted verbatim from the most sceptical blogs, his vituperation just sounds like a hopeless act of desperation.
At the moment, any attack on sceptics suggests that the person making it is unable to come to terms with the enormity of the Climategate revelations, or with the abject failure at Copenhagen and what that means for the balance of global economic power, or with the implications that continuing revelations about the IPCC will have for any future attempts to convince the world that AGW should be taken seriously. Mr Milibands declaration of war is more likely to encourage scepticism than vanquish it because it shows that he does not understand what is happening.
This morning the Sunday papers carry stories accusing the sceptics of launching a well-coordinated campaign funded by big oil. There is no convincing evidence to back this up of course, and as a sceptical blogger I know it is untrue. At one time or another I have been in touch with most of the high profile sceptics whose names have been appearing in the media recently. One of the things that troubles us all is that we are so totally and utterly uncoordinated and disorganised in the face of politicians and environmentalists who have vast manpower and financial resources to back PR campaigns run by experts whose calling is to manipulate the media.
Over the last few weeks, baffled MSM journalists have been desperately seeking out sceptics looking for guidance and background on breaking news stories of a kind that they never expected to see. That would not happen if there was any coordinated campaign, they would know exactly who to go to for the answers.
It is the sceptics who have brought the antics of the IPCC to their attention. They have been able to ‘stand up’ these stories, to use journalistic parlance, and produce powerful headlines. As one reporter said to me last week, ‘I don’t think we’ve heard the last of the Himalayas story yet by a very long way. Do you?’. The MSM know that this new slant on climate change ‘has legs’, and that it will run and run.
Attention is likely to focus on further shortcomings in the IPCC process, and those of us who read the sceptical blogs know that there is far more to come out. No doubt the cheer leaders for the warmist cause will be able to place the odd derogatory story about bloggers in the pages of the usual suspects – The Guardian, The Observer and The Independent – which is based on nothing more than bile and innuendo, but the public cannot fail to recognise that the questions that are being asked about the global warming message and the science on which it is based are well founded.
Once you know that there is a worm in the apple, who is eager to eat the rest? And if someone else has drawn the wriggling and writhing invertebrate to your attention, then you are likely to feel gratitude towards them, not suspicion about their motives.
Nigel Lawson published a very good reply to The Independent‘s claim that skepticism is due to a well-coordinated campaign funded by big oil:
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/nigel-lawson-a-climate-change-sceptic-bites-back-1898859.html
TonyN:
Re #75 and your having moved it from the NS thread. Fair enough. But, with the current proliferation of new threads on this site, it’s getting quite difficult to know where to post a comment. For example, perhaps my NS exchange with Max at 9592 and 9596 should be here also.
Robin #77 has a good point. It seems to me here is the place for the media and public opinion developments, Election Fever for the British political developments, Pachauri Death Warrant for IPCC, and the NS thread for shouting hooray, slapping each other on the back and passing round the champagne. Congratulations to TonyN for keeping such a multitude of balls (yes, I’ve read the blog rules) in the air at the same time.
TonyN,
You use the phrase “…environmental activists, and the climate scientists who are becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish from them”
I wouldn’t fully agree but I can see where you are coming from. However, isn’t the simplest explanation that climate scientists are convinced there is a problem and therefore some action needs to be taken? Advocating a need for action could I suppose define one as an activist.
How would you advise climate scientists, or indeed any other scientist, to behave? Should they, apart from their publications in esoteric scientific journals, keep their opinions to themselves in case they happen to upset the status quo in society?
PS Is this sufficiently on topic for you?
In the article above TonyN cites the Independent and Guardian – the two most virulent pro-warming papers. The Guardian is particularly interesting, since at
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/climate-change
They publish 5 -10 articles a day, making them the busiest source of warming propaganda on the planet.
Over at climate-resistance.org they’ve also been having a go at the Guardian’s coverage, and the paper’s Environment editor David Adam has deigned to reply.
I’m not sure if he’ll interact with commenters, but it seems worth a try.
Robin:
I sometimes have the same problem.
When a news story breaks, there is usually almost immediate discussion on the NS thread. This isn’t a news blog in the way that Bishop Hill or WUWT are and getting a post up fast about a new development isn’t a priority as far as I am concerned. So there is a problem when I do post and discussion has already started on the NS thread, which I have been aware of for sometime.
Until recently I have been unable to move comments from the NS elsewhere as the size of that remarkable thread was breaking the software. A new version has solved that, but a problem remains because people often cover several topics, or reply to more than one comment, in a single post.
Next week I’ll try to think of a solution.
Thanks for that Doug, Lawson hasn’t forgotten how to insert the stiletto.
Peter:
Honestly!
Tony,
Climate scientists obviously do believe what they say, even if you guys in your wisdom think they shouldn’t. So they are already acting honestly by speaking out.
So what’s the problem? You just don’t want to hear it, right?
PeterM (79, 84)
The problem is not that scientists may have an opinion on what they have found in their studies, which they are entitled to give.
It is that when they become activists for a cause (ex. James E. Hansen or the IPCC) they lose their objectivity and are therefore no longer able to give an objective and unbiased opinion to the taxpayers that pay them.
And when they resort to scare-mongering by predicting disaster for the future they can no longer be taken seriously.
That is the crux of the problem, Peter.
Max
Peter:
No, wrong. You evidently haven’t read Jones question and answer sesion with the BBC yet.
TonyN (81)
Whether this is what you wanted or not, the NS thread has become a general forum for discussing all sorts of topics related to the ongoing debate surrounding the AGW premise.
It has set a record for longevity, which tells me something.
There has been a preponderance of AGW-skeptical opinion expressed there, with Peter Martin almost single-handedly covering the pro-AGW side of the debate (at least lately).
In sharp contrast to the many “pro-AGW” sites out there, there have been almost no name-calling or “ad hom” attacks here, and I have found the contributions by many posters from several different locations interesting and valuable.
Thanks for giving us the platform to exchange our ideas.
Max
Max and TonyN,
The premise you are both using includes the conclusion and is used to prove the conclusion. Its just a circular argument!
To get out of the loop you have created for yourself you have to at least allow the possibility that the climate scientists you criticise for advocating action, thereby attracting the label of ‘activist’, may well be correct in their science and therefore are quiet justified in speaking out.
Another way of putting it, would be to say that, regardless of whether or not they turn out to be correct, all these climate scientists ( not just Phil Jones and James Hansen), who you are having difficulty distinguishing from environmental activists, are being honest providing they are truly of the opinion that AGW is a serious problem.
TonyN/PeterM:
Re honesty see my comment here.
They are really tangling themselves in knots over at Real Climate. What I found interesting is their complaint about the media:
As TonyN headlined; They just don’t know what hit them. It is actually quite amusing that for years the AGW proponents have used the media to amplify their increasingly incredulous claims of climate catastrophe. Now that the media have shifted ground slightly they are crying “Foul”. Apparently the media coverage is now all a scam. I guess you really do reap what you sow.
Potentilla,
You say “Apparently the media coverage is now all a scam” and “the media have shifted ground slightly”.
Not really. There isn’t really such as thing a single “Main Stream Media”. This term would have to include everything from the New Scientist to the Wall Street Journal. Generally speaking the political right wing media which would include Fox TV, the UK’s Daily Telegraph, The Times, The Australian, The Daily Mail, The Spectator etc run a very different line to the BBC, The Scientific American, and The Independent.
The title of this thread is “the warmists just don’t know what hit them”. What TonyN really means is “Climate Scientists (who, apparently, he has difficulty distinguishing from environmental activists) just don’t know what hit them”
Sure, climate scientists have recently taken several hits. With a knuckleduster and the blows have been below the belt! They’ve been treated as groups should expect to be treated when they threaten the status quo. Climate scientists certainly have been naive to think that it could ever be otherwise. They’ll have to wise up and they’ll need to do it quickly.
A week is a long time in the Climate Wars. There have been lots of good comments here about the clear signs of disarray in the warming camp (at RealClimate or the press) but none I think which follow up TonyN’s perceptive prediction that the young warmists, unused to opposition, will find it difficult to mount a counterattack to the sceptical tide, and that “the public cannot fail to recognise that the questions that are being asked about the global warming message and the science on which it is based are well founded”.
On the first point about the youth and inexperience of the warmists:- the corollary is that we wrinklies may still be of some use. There are even reasons to think that it’s evolutionarily beneficial to have a few oldies around, as a repository of memories of rare, unpredictable and potentially disastrous events (floods, droughts, plagues etc). It’s all very well having young Joseph and his predictions of the next famine, it’s also a good idea to have some oldies able to remember the last one.
The warmists claim to have turned all this on its head, by making catastrophic events regular, inevitable and predictable. In the long term, they are bound to lose either way. Either their predicted warming doesn’t happen, and they look stupid, as catastrophic weather events continue at the same pace as in the past; or it does, and the increased number of catastrophes leaves us no better prepared than in the past, because all the investment will have been in CO2 reduction. Imagine the public reaction if, at the next climate-related disaster, their only response is “If only we’d built more windmills, this wouldn’t have happened”.
But that’s in the long term. In the short to medium term, I don’t see anything dislodging them from their entrenched positions in politics and the media. The current public discussion will leave most voters indifferent. We’re in for a long haul.
PeterM
You wrote:
Your “proviso” is the key part of your statement.
I think the recent Climategate revelations have put this into serious doubt.
Peter, I think all of these guys may have started off being “honest scientists”, but somehow became victims of a basically corrupt process (driven by billions of dollars), which rewarded those whose papers supported the political party line (i.e. that AGW represents a serious problem) and punished or ignored those that did not.
It is hard to stay “honest” when you are operating in the midst of a corrupt process.
Max
Peter M (91)
They’ve been treated as groups should expect to be treated when they threaten the status quo
So what do you think is the status quo? The warmist agenda seems to hold sway pretty well everywhere I look – my car is taxed according to its CO2 emissions, I am encouraged to change my boiler for one that is ‘more efficient’ (even though the environmental cost of making it is unlikely to be offset in its lifetime) and I am supposed to light my house with bulbs that are shipped halfway round the world, give a disgusting monochromatic half-light and are impossible to dispose of!
PeterM
You suggest that TonyN should have given the lead blog a different title:
I’d agree, but would go a step further (to make it more correct).
Since not all “climate scientists” support the AGW premise, I believe the title you suggest should be corrected to:
“Climate Scientists supporting the premise that AGW poses a serious threat just don’t know what hit them”
Would you agree to this clarifying modification?
Max
The warmists are hitting back. Climategate and the IPCC scandals have not dented their certainty one bit.
Guardian Environment Climate Change has three articles today on the 2 trillion dollar damage to the environment caused by trade / business / world’s top firms. The information comes from yet another “UN report” which turns out to have been cobbled together by a consultancy / green PR firm.
The worst offenders include food processing companies, and the biggest share of the damage is production of CO2. In other words, global warming is being packaged together with deforestation and pollution, (rather as subprime mortgages were packaged with good loans) in order to sell the public the same old story – living is bad for the planet.
The fact that the public is not interested is no disadvantage to the warmist cause. For every numerate enquiring reader won over to scepticism (and there are hundreds on every comment page) there are ten average newspaper readers turned off the subject by what appears to them to be an arcane quarrel between pseudo-experts. I don’t believe we sceptics have “won” anything; I’m not sure we ever will “win” anything.
Rational scepticism has two footholds in the political process: in the Republican party in the US, and in the enlightened self-interest of the big developing nations like China and India. (ok, in Britain we’ve got Lord Lawson and the UKIP, but in the real world…)
It’s an interesting political choice for those who believe in politics based on rational scientific principles – Sarah Palin or President Hu.
Geoff, although I think you could be right, in that there may never be some sort of final, decisive victory for the sceptics, on the other hand it will be a little difficult for the catastrophists to regain the confidence they had back in 2006, let’s say. The scarcity of barbecue summers have taken their toll.
One irony, however, is that even with scepticism on the rise in the UK, we’re still subjects of the European superstate (accountable only to itself) where eye-watering sums of money are routinely blown on all sorts of mysterious, Kafkaesque and vaguely climate-related bureaucratic adventures (egregious example here.) Whatever happens (or doesn’t happen) climate-wise, I think that particular gravy train will be a hard one to derail.
They are really crying into their beer over at RealClimate with a diatribe called the Guardian Disappoints. Here’s an extract:
It really is very amusing for them to feel such anguish at the tables being turned.
Potentilla, Reur 98, Yes it’s hilarious how sensitive they are at RC. I’ve had a fun-time over there e.g. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/02/daily-mangle/comment-page-8/#comment-162071 -but getting going on page 7. BTW, note the subject of the Emails in that post; lamented by Trenberth et al: Re: BBC U-turn on climate.But, alas, I’ve just had the following exchange, (slightly OT), killed.
Max: If you will be returning to CC’s Trenberth thread, see below:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
397: Doug Bostrom says:
24 February 2010 at 12:58 AM
Interesting article in the Globe and Mail.
Cherrypick:
“The key objection to the work of bloggers such as Mr. McIntyre is that they are engaged in an epic game of nitpicking: zeroing in on minor technical issues while ignoring the massive and converging lines of evidence that are coming in from many disciplines. To read their online work is to enter a dank, claustrophobic universe where obsessive personalities talk endlessly about small building blocks – Yamal Peninsula trees, bristlecones, weather stations – the removal of which will somehow topple the entire edifice of climate science. Lost in the blogging world is any sense of proportion, or the idea that science is built on cumulative work in many fields, the scientists say.”
More: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/climategates-guerrilla-warriors-pesky-foes-or-careful-watchdogs/article1474924/
My response below; has since disappeared:
BobFJ says: Your comment is awaiting moderation. 24 February 2010 at 3:07 PM
Doug Bostrom 397:
Interesting article in the Globe de Blog:
Cherrypick:
“…5. Consistency of modeled and observed temperature trends in the tropical troposphere.Santer, B.D., et al [including G.A. Schmidt and S.C. {wind-shear} Sherwood & 14 others]
http://www.realclimate.org/docs/santer_etal_IJoC_08_fact_sheet.pdf
This paper is one of the great obfuscations from a champion cherry-picker. Fig 9.1[c], AR4, p675, unambiguously predicts a tropical hot spot [THS] from increased ACO2 warming of the surface. Santer et al finds it using a “global” weighting function, T2lt, derived from a synthetic [sic] base, T2, with an error margin of 0.0 – 0.5CPD, which means no warming at all would still produce a THS. A crescendo of Santer support followed based on increased humidity [not happening], changes in the moist adiabat and a rising tropopause. The THS is not hotter, it’s taller. This height issue was rebutted by Spencer and Christy’s response to Fu et al. Finally, the non-existent THS was rationalized by Tim Lambert as a signature of surface warming from any source not just ACO2…”
More: http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2009/04/more-worst-agw-papers/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gavin was one of the 17 authors of course, but I did not realise he was such a sensitive guy.
Potentilla:
The RC post is not only amusing in the way that you suggest but surely it also confirms that the warmists ‘don’t know what hit them’ and that they ‘just don’t get it’ either. That kind of arrogant and sanctimonious whingeing isn’t going to work from now on.