Fully un-Skeptical

UPDATE 3: You will note that I have not allowed comments on this thread. However, if you take a look at Bishop Hill’s post here, there are now over 230…!

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Often I get links on my hit counters from forum posts on Skeptical Science to which even registered users apparently don’t have access. But now the lid has been lifted, as there are revealed a bunch of private forums to which only the “chosen few” have access, and where they plot and plan the continued crushing of any dissent of the Consensus.

Unfortunately, someone has posted copies of a whole stack of them on the Internet. Oh dear, how sad, never mind.

I don’t intend to repost them here or a link (you can find it yourself) – no doubt John Cook would get hot under the collar about it, and quite frankly, nothing would surprise me about the content.

Skeptical Science isn’t interested in free-thinking scientific enquiry, just about smearing genuine sceptics (realists) and propping up the consensus at all costs.

But I will read them eventually – I did a quick search for ACM which gets a few mentions, and there’s as much vitriol and hatred of any dissent there as you would expect. Apparently they were shocked, shocked I tell you, that so many sceptic sites reached the finals of the Bloggies. One commenter and well known SS writer quipped:

“Like locusts, these deniers.”

Noice. Apparently we filthy scum are effective at “swarming this kind of online contest”.

Tom Nelson has more. Go search there.

Yawn.

UPDATE: The most obvious thing is that Skeptical Science is a highly organised and well-oiled PR machine. There is a substantial team of contributors continually refining the message and collating new material. Yet somehow it’s the sceptics that are well funded and well organised and are therefore winning the argument. For comparison, ACM is a one-man show. Go figure.

UPDATE 2: Just for the avoidance of doubt, the original poster at Tom Nelson claims that all of this material was available publicly on SS anyway via a massive security hole – if you knew where to look… so it wasn’t a hack, and it wasn’t a leak either.

Recommendation you could do without

In a YouTube video (here), Gleick, he of Fakegate fame, says:

“There are some excellent websites that have debunked them one by one. SkepticalScience.com I believe is one that has a list of the favourite problems and misconceptions about climate change and the scientific refutations of those.”

I really wish I could get an endorsement from someone of Gleick’s standing in the scientific community… But I guess it takes a special kind of website to deserve such a recommendation, and Un-Skeptical Pseudo-Science fits the bill perfectly.

Fully un-sceptical

John Cook of Un-Skeptical Pseudo-Science  is at a “climate Q & A” tonight which is, quote, “brought to you by sustainme on behalf of Lane Cove Council”. Sustainme, I think, is a firm of “sustainability consultants” from what I can gather, so that kind of sets the tone.

In front of a (no doubt friendly and sympathetic) audience of twenty or so, Cook will bust all the filthy deniers myths, just like wot ‘e does on ‘is web site, innit?

He’s even got a companion puff piece on ABC Environment (where else) illustrated with a photo of the real Mythbusters:

Tonight, I’ve been asked to present a climate myth busting evening at Lane Cove in Sydney. However, instead of giving a prepared talk with a slideshow, the organisers plan to break the audience up into groups who will select the most persuasive climate myths they’ve heard. I will then attempt to debunk the myths. To add a little edge to the evening, the audience will vote to determine whether the myths have been successfully busted or not.

It feels a bit like going back to school and sitting exams. I don’t know what questions will be asked and I’ll be graded afterwards. Except this time, the examination and grading will occur in front of an audience. The result will depend not just on knowing the science but also successfully negotiating the psychological pitfalls and backfire effects. The evening could be a highly engaging, interactive and educational experience. Or it might be a train wreck. Either way, bring popcorn! (source)

You can guarantee the “myths” will all be the so-called “myths” of realists, rather than the thousands of myths perpetrated by alarmists.

Here are a few such alarmist myths, which you can bet the farm Cook won’t be busting tonight:

• That Un-skeptical Pseudo-Science presents a balanced view of the current state of climate science, not a smug partisan sycophantic repetition of IPCC propaganda
• That all those computer models can make accurate projections of climate 100 years from now, not hopelessly incomplete and flaky and which couldn’t predict their way out of a paper bag
• That the IPCC is a fair and balanced organisation, dispassionately reviewing climate science, and not a hopelessly compromised and politicised organisation that made up its mind CO2 was to blame before it even began work back in 1990
• That grey literature is just fine and dandy, as long as it helps The Cause
• That WWF and Greenpeace are reasonable and balanced organisations which can appreciate both sides of the climate debate, so they should be entitled to write half of the IPCC reports
• That climate scientists understand the magnitude and sign of all climate feedbacks to at least two decimal places
• That CO2 swamps all natural climate drivers, including the Sun (we don’t know how, it just DOES, OK?!!)
• That Henrik Svensmark is the devil incarnate, but James Hansen is the model to which every climate scientist should aspire
• That consensus scientists uphold the highest standards of integrity and Climategate was “all taken out of context”, and not that they were caught red handed fudging data, deleting emails, skewing peer-review and avoiding FOI requests
• That Peter Gleick is not guilty of scientific misconduct and possible criminal deception and is just a valiant whistleblower (© MeDog’sGob)
• That sceptics really are better funded and better organised than the entire Big Green movement bankrolled by national governments and the UN
• That Al Gore really knows what he’s talking about and his film was a balanced scientific documentary, rather than a bad fairy tale
• That global warming really does cause everything you could think of on this list (and plenty more besides)
• That black really is white, if you look at it long enough

Readers are invited to submit in the comments other “myths” that Cook wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot barge pole.

Roger Pielke Sr

Roger Pielke Sr responds to the trashy attacks on the UAH dataset and Roy Spencer personally from the likes of our own “Eureka Prize winning” John Cook at the web site (Un-) Skeptical Science.

A few quotes:

As a result of the persistent, but incorrect (often derogatory) blog posts and media reports on the robustness of the University of Alabama MSU temperature data, I want to summarize the history of this data analysis below. John Christy and Roy Spencer lead this climate research program.

The ad hominem presentations on this subject include those from the weblog Skeptical Science who have sections titled:

“Christy Crocks” and “Spencer Slip Ups”

If this weblog intends, as they write, to contribute to

“Explaining climate change science & rebutting global warming misinformation”

they certainly have failed in this effort, with respect to the outstanding research that Christy and Spencer have accomplished.

Pielke also cautions:

Weblogs such as Skeptical Science, if they want to move the debate on the climate issues forward, need to move towards a more constructive approach.

All I can say in response to that is “don’t wait up”. Skeptical Science isn’t interested in a constructive approach to this issue, because it is an agenda-driven propaganda site. It has nothing to do with seeking scientific truth, and everything to do with advancing a pre-determined position by rubbishing and dismissing anything (and anybody) that challenges it. The last thing Skeptical Science wants to do is move the debate forward – the debate’s over.

And if you want to understand your “denialist” psychological condition, all you have to do is read one of Cook’s books on the subject. See, no agenda there, clearly!

Read it here. (h/t WUWT)

That would be John Cook of the alarmist website (un-) Skeptical Science. For, wait for it, “Advancement of Climate Change Knowledge” – no, really. Words cannot begin to express…

A quote:

“His unique efforts using web and social media tools come at a time when accurate information is essential in terms of understating and responding to climate change,” said Frank Howarth, director of the Australian Museum.

LINK – near the bottom

Where is the gin?

Fully un-sceptical

Having cleaned the coffee out of my computer keyboard after reading this, and the fact that John Cook has just been appointed to the University of Queensland Global Change Institute as a (wait for it) research fellow in climate change communication (see here), I sent the link to my friend Luboš Motl at The Reference Frame. Luboš has already debunked Cook’s alarmist nonsense here, and I thought he might have a few words to say about this latest story. I wasn’t disappointed:

This guy has no clue about climate science or atmospheric physics but he has gained some notoriety for his mass production of talking points meant to spread the climate panic and produce doubts about well-established scientific insights that show that there is no reason to be worried about climate change.

Enjoy it here.

UPDATE: The most ridiculous thing about sites like Skeptical Science is that the agenda dictates everything. Cook completely believes that CO2 is the culprit, and anyone who doesn’t agree is a filthy denier (he believes this so strongly he’s even written a book about it), and so every single article and rebuttal is slanted to achieve that end. Science that confirms his position is treated with respect, science that contradicts it is rubbished and dismissed. It’s pure propaganda.

Now your response may be, well ACM is the same. And to an extent that’s true, except for the fact that ACM is here to respond to the alarmism spun by sites like Skeptical Science. We didn’t start it. We’re not the ones advocating the wholesale abandonment of Western economic growth.

At least the above story explains why he does it – fellowships, and the attendant research grants, and prizes are a pretty good motivation.