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.
Geoff:
In Classic times a hell of a lot more than 20% of the population lived in the countryside. The townspeople knew just who they depended on for food, and it wasn’t Tesco.
As I live in an area with one of the highest densities of second homes in the UK, I rather carefully left the green welly brigade out of the equation. In fact, holiday cottagers around here can make a very useful contribution to rural communities, but you are right, purchasing a place in the country doesn’t necessarily change your attitude to the natural world.
Oh yes it has! Our temporal horizon has shrunk immeasurably since the dawn of the Age of Reason. Prior to that most people could effortlessly think in terms of eternity. But that line of discussion could lead into dangerous waters in view of recent comments on this thread.
I sometimes wonder how much the pickle that we are in over climate change derives from scientists who think that thirty years is a mighty long time because it is a sizeable chunk of the human lifespan. I understand that belief in AGW is rare among geologists.
Your penultimate paragraph would be interesting to explore. I suspect that the problems that you are touching on have a great deal to do with why some people want to believe in AGW and feel that relinquishing that belief is a kind of deprivation.
James P (49)
I guess I really cant make much of case for absolute lily whiteness in the corner office when I next start discussing various mining frauds, can I! But I wish to assert that the mechanism selecting the good I describe, is operating as much as the ones tending the other way that you mention and I do not dispute.My comment was also intended to reflect the ironical situation in AGW in which academia and government collude in venality while industry is the whipping boy.
Why I hope this is on topic is that there is a very wide train of thought that industrial enterprise – ‘Big Busines’ ‘Corporations’ are bad things run by bad people producing bad CO2 that must be doing something bad like … wait for it…Global Warming!!
The fall from grace of industry had antecedents in Dickensian myths that were very much embroidered and Marxist theory to name a couple. Of course industries’ own missteps didn’t help their business case. However to say that industry is unrelievedly bad is very far from the truth (and neglects its status as the golden goose).
But the result is a population very ready to congratulate themselves for their own goodness while casting out the wicked from their midst (or at least forcing them to buy carbon credits for penance).
Which gives me an idea. Lets commercialise this and set up a corporation to produce Certificates of Goodness that can be displayed at home or office. We’ll make a killing!
Tom
TonyN (46)
Thankyou for this forum and for your graceful moderation of it – sorry for the bent or bruised rules.
The topic of psychological factors in this AGW debacle is very important. Especially our own. Which is why I am here.
Your thought that in our nannified state (Canada, too) we need to have some way of obtaining at least apparent control over the remaining dangers and uncertainties seems to chime. Of course attempting to obtain control over the unpredictable is hypothesized as an original motive for religious activity, which may explain the widely noted parallels with AGW and religion
But I also believe your argument can be turned around, that we are built for danger and stress, and if we dont have enough we will generate our own. Performance of a task improves with increasing stress up to a given point which varies among individuals. AGW can be seen as self medication to bring stress levels up to optimum, in an era of reduced danger.
The apparent contradiction between your point and mine does not mean they cannot both operate, which I believe they are doing.
PeterM
Your slant (43) on the psychology of the rise of skepticism regarding AGW is interesting.
You see it as a “rise of climate denial”, which you feel “is a worrying, but not surprising, trend.”
You go on to write:
You could add in Canada and Asia there, Peter. In fact, you could say “the Northern Hemisphere”.
Then you wrote:
Despite the fact that AGW proponents frequently used the reverse argument during the milder than normal winters in 2005 and 2006 as well as the European heat wave of 2003, this is all beside the point.
This is not the basic reason that AGW skepticism has grown.
Two things have raised the level of public awareness and skepticism of the so-called “consensus” premise that AGW constitutes a serious threat to our society and environment:
· Climategate and all the subsequent revelations of sloppy science and manipulation of data, which seem to be continuing on an almost monthly basis (reminiscent of the development of the Watergate scandal)
· The widely publicized failure at Copenhagen, which had been ballyhooed as the last chance to save our planet and turned out to be a non-event
In addition, the fact that it has cooled globally after 2000 despite record increase in CO2, has caused many people to logically question the validity of the AGW premise.
And, yes, the below-average northern hemisphere winter temperatures have also helped.
But an even greater help came from the desperate and totally incredulous news blurbs from AGW supporters claiming that the unusually extreme winter weather was really the result of AGW, a claim that no sane person could swallow.
The MSM is now also reluctantly beginning to publish reports that question AGW, as the scandals have taken their toll and AGW is no longer the only “politically correct” position.
But these changes were inevitable, Peter.
All doomsday fads, such as the fixation on AGW, have their day and then pass into oblivion.
It may be difficult for you to accept this fact, and you may even deny it, but the days when AGW was an untouchable “holy grail” are passing.
In polls taken from several locations, AGW is no longer seen as very important.
In the end effect, this is the result of people becoming more aware just how weak the science behind AGW really is.
And, yes, there is the “Emperor’s Clothes” effect.
Max
Potentilla #10
I found your list of beneficiaries of the AGW idea very suggestive. The silly accusation that we sceptics believe in a huge conspiracy is easily dismissed when you show how the interests of disparate groups may merge around a common goal, without some “hidden hand” guiding it all.
I checked out some sites for UK geography teachers, and to my surprise found nothing at all on climate change. It all sounded very sensible. But I’m sure that this approach – exploring how different groups interact with the AGW movement – is necessary for a complete understanding of the phenomenon. Obviously, for the moment, we’re all concentrated on the scientists, and to a lesser extent on the media and the politicians. If, as I fear, the scandal fails to ignite public opinion, it will be necessary to go further into the social and psychological ramifications.
TonyN #51
On our relation to time: yes, in previous ages men thought of eternity – their own eternal salvation – which led them to build cathedrals which are more durable monuments to their values than our own out-of-town shopping centres, I grant.
I suggest a society in which a large proportion of the population have become atheists without really thinking about it is likely to have a radically different attitude to the future than a society based on the hope of eternal salvation. I’m a convinced atheist, but I find G.K.Chesterton’s much quoted remark “When people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing, they believe in anything” very profound.
A society which stops believing in its own life after death, may project its unconscious worries about mortality onto the world. “I know I won’t survive, but will the world?” It’s incredible how often angry warmists accuse us sceptics of killing our own grandchildren.
Max,
You keep referring to the AGW issue as “A Doomsday fad”.
You could equally refer to a diagnosis of high blood pressure and high cholesterol as a death sentence. And yes, of course it could be if the patient was silly enough to ignore it and carry on allowing both to rise out of all control!
Max,
I think I understand what you mean about
“The widely publicized failure at Copenhagen, which had been ballyhooed as the last chance to save our planet and turned out to be a non-event..”
I agree that Copenhagen was a big disappointment, to say the least.But how does this relate to the psychology of AGW?
Many people feel, quite wrongly, that the AGW diagnosis, to continue my medical anaology, is more like one of terminal cancer rather than high blood pressure. I’d say it would be quite natural to enter a state of denial faced with this news.
To that extent, the failure of Copenhagen may well have added to this psychological factor in the rise of climate change denialism.
But, even you would have to agree that any failure, or indeed any success, of a climate conference makes absolutely zero difference to the scientific case.
Peter:
If you have doubts about a diagnosis, it is wise to seek a second opinion. That seems to be what a great many people are doing at the moment. Their problem is that the IPCC seems to be the only accredited ‘physician’ in town.
TonyN said
“Their problem is that the IPCC seems to be the only accredited ‘physician’ in town.”
What is worse is that they accredited themselves.
tonyb
Peter M
Not just ‘non-scientific’ people. After all, it was Dr David Viner (of the CRU) who proclaimed that “Children just aren’t going to know what snow is.” Well, my children do!
Back to the thread topic.
I noted that, commenting on Muir Russell’s current difficulty re the composition of his panel, Channel 4 News described it as
That comment shows that the MSM still doesn’t get it. Yes, the “campaign” (and I doubt if that’s the right word) is highly motivated. But nobody’s organising it – it’s the internet, stupid. The internet enables individuals to access data and, by networking, to exchange thoughts and ideas, to refine their views and, increasingly, to make things happen. And to do all this with extraordinary speed – it’s chaotic, very effective and improving all the time. It’s evolved within a few years and the MSM hasn’t caught up. Because of its own structured method of working, it cannot conceive of anything different. So it concludes there must be sinister “organisers” – especially “big oil” – working behind the scenes.
Richard North made this interesting comment:
Some very good points here. Re the “network” idea, it’s evident to me that the “other side”, e.g., climate activists, have always been far more organised than we are. Look at GreenPeace, FoE, 380.org, Avaaz, TckTckTck and 10:10 – vast numbers of members worldwide, very active (demos, videos, eye-catching stunts of all kinds) and very vocal. If it was just about the ability to organise, these people would be winning the public over in droves.
Professor Stott has an article here, that I think is worth reading and relevant to this thread. One point he makes is that a great many passionate believers in global warming hail either from Europe or from “the rich countries of the North that exhibit a residual Protestantism, such as Germany, the UK, and the East Coast of the USA, and which view themselves as having entered a liberal-thinking, non-dirty (no more “Where’s there’s muck there’s brass”), post-industrial metropolitan society.” I think it was Geoff (on climate resistance.org? I can’t remember) who raised a similar point that there appear to be large differences in attitude towards the climate issue when you look at various cultures worldwide.
Forgot to add that I agree with Robin; it’s an interesting comparison Richard North has made. Just as there is no Taliban High Command that might be taken out with a single air strike, there is no secret Denialist network (shades of Dan Brown) that could be crippled by cutting off its oil industry funding. It’s more like being part of a flock of birds, or shoal of fish, with some dominant characters maybe, but no real leadership structure. In being disorganised is our strength?
Robin tells us that talking about a ‘well organised campaign…” is putting the discussion back on thread. Please not TonyN before you take out your scissors!
Yes I think you perhaps should consider becoming better organised and take a leaf out of the climate activist’s handbook book. You could start by organising a demo.
You could march up the Mall chanting “Phil Jones! Out!. Phil Jones Out! Phil Jones! OUT OUT OUT!” You’d all have great time!
I’m sure those nice London Riot squad policemen would give you old guys too hard a beating :-)
It be of course “… those nice London Riot squad policemen wouldn’t give you old guys..”
PeterM
You asked me (57):
We were talking about the psychology of the general public, in becoming increasingly skeptical of the premise that AGW is a serious threat.
The utter failure of the much-ballyhooed Copenhagen conference to “save the planet” has given the average observer increased reason to be skeptical that there truly is a problem that is really threatening our planet.
Had Copenhagen resulted in strong and binding proposals to reduce CO2 emissions, signed by a majority of the delegates representing most of the nations of this world, the average observer would have reacted with the conclusion that there must be something serious here, i.e. AGW must really be a serious threat.
Your analogy with the medical diagnosis of terminal cancer is flawed.
What the general public is seeing here (as a result of Climategate) is that the “doctors” providing the “diagnosis” of “terminal cancer” (for our planet) have been exposed as “snake oil salesmen”, trying to sell a preconceived politically motivated agenda, rather than provide an objective and impartial diagnosis.
This has definitely influenced the “psychology” of the general public.
You stated:
I would agree. The “scientific case” has always been weak, in that it was not based on empirical data from physical observations, but rather from theoretical model simulations.
The fiasco at Copengahen has not changed this one iota.
Climategate has, however, drawn attention to the fact that many of the lead scientists were not giving us objective, unbiased reports, but were fudging the numbers and putting in their own personal “spin” on the data and conclusions, in order to make AGW appear dangerous.
This, in turn, has raised the psychological awareness of the general public to the fact that the science supporting the AGE premise is weak, thereby contributing to an increased skepticism that the premise is valid.
The recent and current harsh winters across the northern hemisphere (where most people happen to live) has not helped. Shoveling snow and hearing weather reports that this is the first time in history that all 50 US states have snow on the ground does not “psychologically” get people to worrying about manmade global warming.
Hearing desperate and incredulous reports from AGW-supporters that the current harsh winter weather is actually a result of manmade global warming also does not “psychologically” help the credibility of the AGW premise, Peter, as I am sure you will have to agree.
This thread was set up to discuss the “psychological impact” on AGW-proponents of the recent revelations and events.
You expanded it to include the “psychological impact” on AGW-skeptics.
I believe you must admit that recent events (as noted above) have had a “psychological impact” on the general public, making it more skeptical of the AGW premise, and that was my point.
Max
Geoff #55:
Maybe UK geography teachers need to be better educated! Here’s an example of typical climate change curriculum resources available to teachers in British Columbia.
I confess that I put that list of beneficiaries of AGW together quickly without thinking too much about providing references. The list could be expanded and links provided which might make an effective post.
For those who may doubt it (or even deny it) there is a good reference for research on the psychology of denial. The conference a year ago at the Centre for Psycho-Social Studies at the University of West England provided me with much amusement but sadly the conference website link is no longer active.
I found a link to some of the presentations at the March 2009 psychology of climate change denial conference.
Enjoy! as we say on this side of the pond.
So, PeterM, if you think that an observation about how the MSM is trailing in the wake of the blogosphere is not directly related to the topic of this thread, you’ve missed the point entirely. But then you always do. Pity really.
Potentilla:
That very strange conference didn’t pass un-noticed at Harmless Sky:
http://ccgi.newbery1.plus.com/blog/?p=162
In fact I seem to remember that one reader tried to get along to it.
Peter:
If it’s not bust, why fix it? Perhaps you missed Robin’s #61.
The prime minister of Britain and the prime minister of Ethiopia held a joint meeting to beg for £30 billion, and nobody laughed. Surely the most Monty Pythonesque moment in politics since the Polish Army occupied Babylon, and everyone kept a straight face, just as if they were announcing an aid package for Haiti. And in the minds of the political class and the media, it’s an exact equivalent. Haven’t we been told by Kofi Annan, Oxfam, Greenpeace, and all that 300,000 people are being killed a year byclimate change? A few rude emails and a couple of errors in an official report are not going to change that reality.
This is post-normal politics. Nothing will stop our leaders and their media supporters. You say: the Warmists don’t know what’s hit them. Maybe nothing’s hit them. They’re like an army of phantoms, invincible to reality. I fear they’ll march until they drop, till Burnham Wood comes to Dunsinane and then some.
Thanks to potentilla for the link #68. George Marshall specialises in psychoanalysing us, and I believe TonyB provided information about him being paid a hefty sum by DEFRA to indoctrinate trade union members there.
He has his own site at http://climatedenial.org/
An excellent summary of how we got here. The AGW camp does indeed seem unequipped to deal with the clear shift in mood. Their response to being on the back foot is merely just to turn up the amplification of their only tool – the smears and innuendo – and it is starting to look increasingly obvious they have nothing better to say.
I do wonder about whether there ever was a “groundswell of public opinion urging them onwards”, it seems to me that the public, whilst generally accepting of the theory, were more passive than that, and a lot of the noise was created in the echo chamber of the political and media world. I am thinking of Ed Miliband et al constantly asking for public demonstrations to help pressure government to justify their policies.
Potentilla (#67) and Geoff (#72) – the Centre for Psycho-Social Studies conference would have been very interesting to have gone to – observing the climate psychologists in their own habitat (shrinking the shrinks?) would have been a valuable and enlightening exercise indeed.
I’ve had a look at climatedenial.org (not updated since the rather weary and cynical-sounding post of December 18th) and the associated COIN site (“Climate Outreach & Information Network”), which has a mission “to inspire lasting changes in attitudes and behaviour through the use of innovative action-learning methods and by assisting people to communicate their own messages to their peers”. I’m curious to know how much headway it made over the past year, or whether it will survive this one.
StuartR (#73) – my impression is that the “groundswell” to urge for action on CO2 was bogus, pretty much. The poll tax riots of 1990 and the fuel duty protest of 2000 represented more of a groundswell of opinion, IMO, than anything the Milibands were trying to whip up.
I loved this.
In The Times today there’s a report that Professor Robert Watson (ex IPCC chairman and now chief scientific adviser to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs), following the IPCC’s recently exposed errors, has “held discussions with Al Gore … about creating a new climate research group to supplement the work of the IPCC and to help restore the credibility of climate science”.
One correspondent commented that that’s “like holding discussions with The Emperor Nero to help restore the credibility of the Roman Fire Brigade”.
[I’ve moved this comment here from the NS thread because it illustrates perfectly the point I was making in the header post. It will take time for the warmists to adjust their thinking the new post-Climategate, post-Copenhagen, post-IPCCgate situation. I expect the smart ones will already be trying to put some clear blue water between themselves and members of the old guard like Gore and Watson. TonyN]