When the Gleick Heartland documents were first released, people who call themselves climate skeptics claimed that the strategy memo was a fake because Heartland wouldn’t be so blatant in its wording about its goals and strategy to undermine the IPCC and prevent teachers from teaching science:

Lines such as the following were given as examples:

“Heartland is part of a growing network of groups working the climate issues, some of which we support financially. We will seek additional partnerships in 2012. At present we sponsor the NIPCC to undermine the official United Nation’s IPCC reports and paid a team of writers $388,000 in 2011 to work on a series of editions of Climate Change Reconsidered.” 

And:

“Principals and teachers are highly biased towards the alarmist perspective. To counter this, we are considering launching an effort to develop alternative materials for hte K-12 classroom… His [Dr. Wojick's] efforts will focus on providing curriculum that shows that the topic of climate change is controversial and uncertain — two key points that are effective at dissuading teachers from teaching science.”

People on the “skeptic” side argued that the document must be fake because there is no way any right-minded CEO would write a climate strategy that bald-faced about its efforts to deny science and undermine the IPCC.

Then we have this:

Any organization that would put up a billboard that is as extreme as this is very very capable of writing a confidential document that contains the quotes above.

Simple maths.

Research shows that stupid people — people who truly are ignorant — tend to think they know far more than they do. They are also more likely to think informed people know less than they do. It’s the D-K effect and it’s rampant at both CA and WUWT and Climate Etc. If you’ve ever haunted those sites, you know what I’m talking about.

I’m always tempted to go to there and look for ‘teh stupid’ so I can mock it, but as the Twain quote says, they just bring you down to their level. Admittedly, there is a certain pleasure in mocking teh stupid, but life is short and its unnaturally warm outside. Time’s a wasting.

Instead of arguing with stupid people, I’ll instead try to point out really smart people and focus on what they say and do, in order to try to figure out what we should do.

So that’s the new me — not so much mock and snark (although I can’t promise that some won’t slip in now and then — it is my basic nature, after all) and more analysis.

I have several climate-related books on my bookshelf, including Michael Mann’s The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars, The Honest Broker, by Pielke Jr., Storms of My Grandchildren by James Hansen, Challenged by Carbon by Bryan Lovell and Climate Wars by Gwynne Dyer.

I hope to read and provide a review for each of them in the coming weeks.

Sisyphys (1548-1549) by Titian, Prado Museum, Madrid, Spain

I’ve been rethinking my role in these debates since the whole business. Gleick’s actions, whatever they were, served to illustrate what is wrong with the whole climate change wars. Evidence, in the end, doesn’t matter. Power matters.

Here’s an excerpt from a post by Peter Watts in which he laments the sorry state of humanity that I think is worth considering in this context:

I realized, at that point, that you just can’t reason with some people.  It wasn’t until much later that I began to understand why this should be so.  I think it comes down to the oft-revisited theme that natural selection has shaped our brains not for logic but for inclusive fitness.  We can use logic when we want to, of course.  We have tools of reason at our command; but according to at least some experts[1] we have those tools not to glean truth from falsehood but to help us win arguments; to make others do what we want; to use as a weapon.  It’s rhetoric and manipulation that evolution selected for: logic just tagged along as a side effect.  Sweeping oratory, rational debate, it’s all just a way to bend others to your will.

In that light, it shouldn’t surprise us that our brains have developed countermeasures to so-called reasoned argument.  A seemingly-endless list of cognitive glitches compromise the brain’s inability to perceive reality— but maybe they aren’t so much glitches as adaptations, meant to counter the pernicious effects of the silver-tongued.  Confirmation bias, for example, leads us to cherry-pick facts which support our own beliefs;  the Semmelweis reflex makes us automatically reject findings that contradict our expectations.  And perhaps most radically, the Backfire Effect.  You’d think a rational person, confronted with evidence contradicting their beliefs on a given subject, would at the very least grow less confident in those beliefs.  In fact, such contrary evidence often reinforces the very belief being undermined.

These adaptations, if that’s what they are — these defenses against social manipulation — would make rational discourse difficult enough.  But it gets worse.  We know from the work of Kruger and Dunning[2] that not only do people tend to overestimate their own smarts, but that this effect is especially pronounced among the incompetent. Furthermore, incompetent people tend not only to regard themselves as smarter than everyone else, they tend to regard truly smart people as especially stupid, even when shown empirical proof that they are less competent than those they deride.

It explains so much, these counter-rhetorical biases.  It explains why climate-change deniers dig their heels in even deeper with each new study confirming the reality of climate change.

Science is so wonderful because it attempts to remove these influences and stick with the facts and the implications of them, rather than ego-driven wish fulfilment clouded by bias and desire. But it seems to me, if we take Watts insights, that this means people are adapted to ignore science – ignore evidence – when it suits them. Hence, you have deniers who refuse to accept the science — not because the science is wrong, but because it is inconvenient to their economic self-interest. Or because they want to remain ideologically pure (Ayn Randians forex).

Facts and evidence won’t sway these folks. Science is wasted on them. They just shut off the part of their brains that can be swayed by evidence and stick with comfortable delusions.

The rest of the population is ready to accept what science tells them. They generally respect scientists. The problem is that journalism, as an industry reliant on selling newspapers or getting eyes on websites or advertisements, tends to present such a dizzying array of conflicting headlines and messages that it seems that science is up its own arse. Scientists appear to be a psychotic lot who speak in tongues and have multiple personalities. One week it’s good to eat this and then the next it’s bad, one week this causes cancer, the next it doesn’t. No wonder people are confused. I don’t blame the scientists, but the industry of journalism. Even journalists are victims of the system which forces headline writers to write the fantastic to draw readers. Not only are there conflicting messages; there are just too many messages. The average person is overwhelmed and does not have the skills necessary to sort through the dreck to find what’s worthy of thought.

Deniers rely on this confusion. They play it up, spouting alternative theories that do not make the grade. This leads to uncertainty in the minds of the public about what to believe. Uncertainty on the part of the electorate means that politicians, those weak-kneed lily-livered lot, can stall or ignore or sidestep making hard choices.

It comes down to a question, not of truth, but power. Power and those who exercise it and monopolize it, is what matters. Only when those who can make policy — politicians — feel under the gun enough, face a loss at the ballot box, and get the message loud and clear that it is time to act, will we see serious concerted action to mitigate fossil fuel-produced CO2 induced global warming.

It’s sad to say but I agree with Sir John Houghton:

If we want a good environmental policy in the future we’ll have to have a disaster. It’s like safety on public transport. The only way humans will act is if there’s been an accident.

Think of the 2004 Tsunami or the recent Tsunami in Japan. There were folks warning about the risks but no one listened. Humans procrastinate until it’s too late. Until we have disasters, we humans are too short-sighted to act, too self-interested, and too willing to ignore evidence in order to avoid making uncomfortable decisions. Because of vested interests, it’s all the harder. Because of the corruption of our political systems, it is even harder still.

The cards are stacked against rational action. At this time. Rational action will take political will and so far, there isn’t enough despite the growing evidence that we must act — and soon.

My little corner of the internet has been dedicated to poking fun at deniers, looking at their arguments and narratives and making fun, using sarcasm and satire to try to make a point. I’ve been preaching to the choir, and I thank everyone who has visited Policy Lass blog over the past couple of years. I have many regular readers who check in every day to see if I’ve updated. I know where you’re from and appreciate your interest. I feel somewhat pleased to have readers from NOAA, NASA, JPL, and dozens of universities and research institutes. People from around the world – amazing for one small person of no import. Thank you for reading. Hell, even Husky Oil — glad to see you.

This isn’t a swan song. I’m just going to focus less on snark and more on exploring how to build a political movement. Twice in my life I’ve been involved in small-scale political movements that had some measure of success. I’m going to have to spend some time thinking about this and reading about it and finding people who have ideas on how to move this forward. That includes finding public figures who are already or who can become climate champions, encouraging them to speak out, to use their sway with the public, to use social media to reach the electorate, to reach young people, and those who vote, and make it so that the decision makers and policy makers have to listen.

It’s the only way anything will change.

I don’t yet know how to do this, or what avenues to pursue, but I think those of us who spend our time attacking the deniers or even simply trying to push the truth will not achieve what we desire — serious action on climate change. There’s just too much noise and too much disinformation to succeed by either using satire or science to effect change. Satire is lost on all but those who are receptive to the message and science alone is not enough to sway.

We have to seize the discourse among the public using the tools that reach the public. It will be an uphill battle because corporations like EXXON Mobil have so much wealth and the fossil fuel industry has so much wealth and can afford to put on sexy ads about jobs and energy independence and economic security. Until we have voices as big and compelling who can reach into the lives and minds of Joe Public and show them the truth and what they can do to deal with it, we will remain locked in this Sisyphean struggle, expending a whole lot of energy without getting anywhere – fast.

I’m tired and frustrated by it.

The Gleick – Heartland affair and the whole debate that arose around it made this clear to me.

So that’s it for me for a while.

As usual, I will continue to read your blogs and keep up with the climate deniers, but I’m out of heart for what I’ve been doing for the past two years here.

Here’s an excerpt:

“One line item in every Alberta budget shows how the miracle unfolds: non-renewable energy resources. Last year, Alberta took in $8.6-billion in personal income taxes, $3.6-billion in corporate income taxes, $3.8-billion in “other” revenue, $4.7-billion in federal transfers and $8.3-billion in resource revenues. In other words, oil and gas revenues (about half of which – $4.1-billion – came from tar sands oil) poured almost as much money into the Alberta treasury as personal income taxes. What provincial government wouldn’t love that?”

Often misattributed to Otto von Bismarck, this is a truism well appreciated by the policy analyst and policy maker alike.

I just spent a day in a policy seminar on the policy process put on by our local graduate school in public policy and co-hosted by the public service commission.The seminar was led by an academic and a senior bureaucrat and the room was filled with civil servants from a number of different ministries and with different titles following their names. Despite our differences, we could all appreciate the sentiment contained in that von Bismarck mis-quote, having been involved in more than one sausage-making session.

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As with all such seminars, one is exhausted at the end because the room is too small and hot, but one comes away with a confirmation of what you already knew, a few pointers that you didn’t know, a new respect for your superiors (the assistant deputy minister was freaking amazing), a bit of a skeptical eye for the pure academic policy type (when she mentioned “wicked problems” I got all nauseated).

You also come to the realization that there is always a blowhard ideologue participant who thinks they know it all and better than everyone else to gum up the discussion. Luckily, when it came time to present our “Recommendation to the Minister” on the case study — the culmination of our day of learning — he went last and since most of us were already brain-dead, we ignored him. My colleague and I rolled our eyes at each other from across the room as he spouted his drivel.

He was a climate denier and I fantasized about inflicting a few mental (and physical) Judo chops on him given half a chance but I was restrained. I have to keep my super secrit identity super secrit so as to not lose my job because I have teenagers reliant on my bringing home half the bacon.

So what is the upshot of my 8 hours of continuing education? And how does this apply to climate change / global warming policy?

NOTE: This does not represent what I think SHOULD be the way policy is made. It represents my best understanding of how it IS made. Warts and all.

First principles:

Civil servants like me don’t make policy. Policy Makers — aka politicians — do.

We don’t work for “The People” or “The Public Good” or “The Betterment of Humankind” or even “The Truth”.

We work for the Premier (or Minister or Prime Minister, at least in the Westminster System of Government).

The purpose of policy analysis is to develop sound policy that addresses the policy problem without losing your boss’s job.

You have any qualms about what you are doing, you quit. That’s pretty much your only option.

Period.

The purpose of the policy analyst or advisor is to provide the (Insert Political Overlord in Question) with options to address policy problems and the implications of those options and a recommendation based on all considerations, but most especially, the costs. Not just any cost, but foremost is the political cost of the options to address said policy problem.

Now, there are many ways for a timid policy maker to avoid doing something he or she is uncomfortable with politically.

You can merely ignore the problem or deny it exists. This is a favoured option as it simply avoids making a bad or politically costly decision. Of course, no decision is still a decision, so the timid politician can’t weasel out of things too easily. At some point, the policy maker may just have to buckle down and recognize that the problem exists, especially, and this is key, if the public sentiment is leaning towards addressing that problem.

Having been forced to recognize that a problem exists, the next dodge is to deny that government has any purview over the problem. This is the cry of the libertarian climate denier — government just isn’t the right instrument to deal with the climate problem. It must be left to the invisible hand of the market. Lately though, one gets the feeling that the invisible hand has been giving us ordinary folk the finger… But I digress…

The policy analyst or advisor must present the policy maker with options to address the problem. But another key dodge is that problems can be framed in different ways to accommodate political ideology. For example, a denier may present climate change as “a natural phenomenon” and thus, the only real option is to “adapt”. Policy options will then be focused around adapting our behaviors and institutions and actions to the new reality. Certainly not doing anything to prevent it or moderate it.

And even if the policy maker acknowledges the problem and thinks it’s appropriate for government to address it, and even if they accept that it is possible to try to mitigate it, there are still many dodges left.

For example, one could focus on addressing “Carbon Intensity” when referring to the problem of “greenhouse gas emissions” thus one can do not much of anything whilst looking as if one is doing something. This is perhaps one of the most favoured options of the timid policy maker. It’s called “half-assed is better than nothing”. It amounts to nothing much more than wheel-spinning or hamster-wheel-running. Lots of activity but not much of a result except a less bad outcome that makes one exhausted.

But what about the science? you ask, and rightly so. What about the science?

Science is just one form of evidence. It can be included into the mix, and should be, of course, but it is just one form of evidence. Other forms of evidence may be deemed to be more compelling. More pertinent.

Science is added to the mix of other evidences, such as local stakeholder opinion, opinion of industry, and other forms of “evidence’ such as political cost.

Science is important, especially when making a case for a particular action. One then runs to the evidence to justify a decision. However, when the science is against your interest as a policy maker, for whatever reason, one can point out that the science “isn’t settled” or that there’s conflicting scientific opinion, thus allowing the timid policy maker to conveniently ignore it for other evidence.

Such as the political cost of an action.

This is when consultation comes into play. One must consult. Stakeholders. Interested parties. The public. One must consider their opinions on the problem and what should be done.

In the issue of climate change, the key stakeholders are all those who are affected by a policy to address it. The public, industry, workers in the industry, etc. One consults the science, the think tanks, the advocacy groups, the industry affected and the citizens. The consultations produce mounds of evidence that must be considered and weighed.

The goal of the policy analyst is to come up with good public policy. Good public policy is a policy that achieves its objectives — address the problem without losing your boss’s job.

Which brings us to the political cost of an policy option.

Politicians will rarely make a policy that is certain to lose them an election. It would be political suicide and politicians get into politics to exercise power, not to lose it or throw it away. They occasionally do it out of sheer incompetence, but not usually intentionally.

In our case, the political cost of mitigating climate change / global warming is a key bit of evidence for the policy analyst and policy maker — perhaps the most important. This bit of evidence has a lot of weight in the policy process.

The ethical policy analyst should consider all the evidence. The policy recommendation and options should be “informed by the evidence” but not determined solely by the science.

Remember — the policy analyst works for the Premier or Minister and the political cost of an option must be key to determining its appropriateness.

In other words, if an option is so politically costly that it would lose the politician’s seat in the next election, you can fuggetaboutit.

There is no use having power if your actions lead to you losing it.

So the best the ethical policy analyst can do is present the options, present the evidence supporting the options, and present the political costs of each option, present the recommendation that achieves the goal of solving the policy problem without threatening the continued existence of the policy maker and hope the policy maker does the right thing.

Because in the end, it is not up to the policy analyst or advisor to make policy. It is up to the policy maker (hence the name). One can only be as inclusive in one’s portrayal of the policy problem, as comprehensive as one can be in a short document (policy decision items are several pages long but the policy maker may only read the first page, zeroing in on the recommendation and costs) and let the elected representative make the decision and take the resulting heat.

Our system of democracy means that the people, the citizens, have ceded power to the elected official and have given them the right — and the burden — of making policy. If we don’t like the policy they make, our only option is to chuck them out the next time we get around to voting.

And in the case of global warming, the only way that policy analysts will recommend serious actions to mitigate CO2 will be when they deem that the political cost of not doing so will trump the political costs of doing so.

Until the public gets on side and threatens to throw the bastards out of office for not mitigating CO2, it ain’t gonna happen.

This — this reality of the policy making process — the political cycle and the election cycle and the problem of political power — is why the public is the target of the denialist campaign to discredit climate science and climate scientists. Confuse the public about the reality of global warming, undermine their sense of trust in the science and scientists, and the public will prefer the status quo.

Business as usual.

For those hoping to influence the policy process, the main strategy is to build public momentum for action — or inaction, depending on your position — and force policy makers to make appropriate policy.

It’s all about political will.

Only the threat of loss of political power will work.

Like Rick Perry, for example:

“I think there are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects. And I think we are seeing almost weekly, or even daily, scientists are coming forward and questioning the original idea that man-made global warming is what is causing the climate to change.”

Luckily, he’s out, but srsly, he was the top runner for a while.

“My view is that we don’t know what’s causing climate change on this planet. …And the idea of spending trillions and trillions of dollars to try to reduce CO2 emissions is not the right course for us.”

This is most distressing to those of us who acknowledge the reality of climate change / global warming because one of these folks could ultimately lead the US next year and to the man and woman, they are all in denial.

So what is denial? As the saying goes, “It ain’t a river in Egypt”…

Denial:

denial [dɪˈnaɪəl]

Denialism: the employment of rhetorical tactics to give the appearance of argument or legitimate debate, when in actuality there is none. These false arguments are used when one has few or no facts to support one’s viewpoint against a scientific consensus or against overwhelming evidence to the contrary. They are effective in distracting from actual useful debate using emotionally appealing, but ultimately empty and illogical assertions.

We believe there are five simple guidelines for identifying denialist arguments. Most denialist arguments will incorporate more than one of the following tactics: Conspiracy, Selectivity, False Experts, Impossible Expectations/Moving Goalposts, and Argument from Metaphor/violations of informal logic.

“Follow the money and understand what’s really going on. This is a hoax. It’s junk science. It’s being portrayed as something to make you scared to death we’re all going to die. You’re supposed to vote liberal for this; supposed to make some sacrifices; pay higher taxes; drive a car you don’t want to drive; live in a house you don’t want to live; live where you don’t want to live … I don’t know who’s in the crosshairs on this, the US government, but it’s going to be various industries who are said to be polluting and Big Oil will probably be the big target here, Big Oil, Big Natural Gas, electricity, utilities, this sort of thing, it’s coming, you have been warned.”  Rush Limbaugh

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“The billion-dollar hoax: global warming rapidly falls from the ‘great moral challenge to our generation’ to ‘the great con that’s falling to bits’.”

Marc Morano

“much of the debate over global warming is predicated on fear, rather than science.” I called the threat of catastrophic global warming the “greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people,” a statement that, to put it mildly, was not viewed kindly by environmental extremists and their elitist organizations. I also pointed out, in a lengthy committee report, that those same environmental extremists exploit the issue for fundraising purposes, raking in millions of dollars, even using federal taxpayer dollars to finance their campaigns.” Inhofe

And Ken Cuccinelli:

“We cannot allow unelected bureaucrats with political agendas to use falsified data to regulate American industry and drive our economy into the ground”.

“Instrumental temperature data for the pre-satellite era (1850-1980) have been so widely, systematically, and uni-directionally tampered with that it cannot be credibly asserted there has been any significant “global warming” in the 20th century. “

“While it is true that global temperatures have risen somewhat during the past 100-plus years since the Little Ice Age ended, there was little room for temperatures to go at the time but up. The Little Ice Age, lasting from approximately 1300-1900 A.D., brought the planet’s coldest extended temperatures during the last 10,000 years. Saying that temperatures have risen by 1 degree or so since the end of the Little Ice Age tells us essentially nothing in the long-term temperature context because the arbitrary baseline of the Little Ice Age was an exceptionally cold climate anomaly.” Heartland Institute

“Yes, the decline had been disclosed in the “peer reviewed literature”. Indeed, that was how I became aware of the trick – long before Climategate and why, as an AR4 peer reviewer, I asked that IPCC not use the trick once again in AR4.

IPCC presentations are how the climate science community speaks to the world. Climate scientists, including CRU scientists, have a far greater obligation of full, true and plain disclosure in IPCC reports than even the specialist literature. Oxburgh pretends that (partial) disclosure of adverse results by CRU in specialist literature is sufficient. It isn’t. There was a continuing obligation to disclose adverse results in IPCC graphics.”

Filed under: Uncategorized ]]> http://metaclimate.org/2012/01/22/climate-denialism-for-dummies/feed/ 12 thepolicylass images-14 images-29 images-30 images-18 images-19 images-21 images-26 inhofe Unknown images-24 images-25 images-27 images-28 http://metaclimate.org/2012/01/08/the-top-ten-signs-that-youre-a-denier/ http://metaclimate.org/2012/01/08/the-top-ten-signs-that-youre-a-denier/#comments Sun, 08 Jan 2012 17:05:37 +0000 Policy Lass http://metaclimate.org/?p=1539 ]]> There’s a lot of confusion out there in the climate denialosphere over the title “Denier” vs. “Skeptic” and their proper application. Many deniers seem unable to recognize themselves in the mirror while others deny their denialist tendencies, like an addict who says they can quit anytime they want — really!

Some get really really upset that we call them Deniers.

Just to help them figure it all out, I decided to post the top ten signs that you’re a denier.

Public servant to the core, or what?

10. When you watch a story on the telly about global warming, you look out your window and see snow and heave a huge sigh of relief because snow means it’s cold out and therefore, there can be no global warming.

A climate scientist would say that weather is not climate and will warn you that even though the average global temperature may be warming, there will still be winter and there will still be snow and there will still be a change in temperature between summer and winter, day and night.

For more on this story, you can visit the inimitable Anthony Watts who regularly mines the “weather is a sign that there is not AGW” meme.

For the antidote, you can visit Skeptical Science: Does Cold Weather Disprove Global Warming?

9. When a climate scientist points out that weather is not climate, you point out that the climate scientist is living high off the hog at the public trough.

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This meme suggests that climate scientists make the claim that the average global temperature is warming in order to keep lining their pockets with all those trillions of dollars.

In other words, climate scientists are primarily liars and cheaters and fraudsters who cook the books and create a false view of their work in order to rake in the dough. You know, like the folks on Wall Street.

A person with half a brain keen observer would point out that climate scientists spend at least 10 – 12 years getting their educations, then spend some years as underling research fellows before getting tenured positions at universities, where they get grants to do research and tend to live off a salary that, while it may be above the average wage, is far from the kind of income that would tempt corporate psychopaths, who tend to go into executive positions in banking or commerce. In other words, it’s far too much work and takes far too much education to get a job as a climate scientist for the average social psychopath to bother. They go where the money’s a lot easier to get and much bigger in magnitude.

It’s far easier to go into politics or business, where the rewards vs. effort expended is much more enticing.

That denizen of fair and unbiased reporting The National Review is a place to find this meme being replicated.

8. When some alarmist tells you that its warmer today than for at least 500, 1,000 or 2,000 years, you say “the hockey stick has been broken” and mention Steve McIntyre.

According to Steve McIntyre, the infamous “hockey stick” papers produced by Mann, Bradley and Hughes in 1998/99  used flawed data, methods and deliberately misrepresent the uncertainty in their findings. This was done, he argues, to make sure that the medieval warming period was wiped off the climate history books so that today’s warming would seem unprecedented. In other words, he’s suggesting that this was done deliberately and to mislead the public and policy makers. The hockey stick graphic and papers were then used to promote the theory of anthropogenic global warming at the IPCC and in governments around the world.

A climate scientist would argue that while the de-centered PCA method may be inappropriate as a methodology, this is a methodological debate not grounds for claims of fraud. Using a properly centred PCA analysis makes little difference in the end. A climate scientist would also point out that McIntyre and McKittrick use an improper “red noise” model to do their own analysis, thus their conclusions are flawed. A climate scientist would point out that other analyses not using the same proxy measures also find hockey-stick-like graphs of paleoclimate reconstructions.

Tim Ball, Canada’s Climate Denier Extraordinaire is the exemplar of this, although Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick started the meme and keep propagating it.

You can get the antidote by reading at Real Climate and Skeptical Science.

7. When the IPCC is mentioned on TV or in print, you froth at the mouth and point out that its just a front organization for a world socialist government.

This appears to be the great obsession of the more libertarian-minded climate deniers, who fear that any intervention in the market will result in the apocalypse itself. They fear that if people accept the reality of global warming caused by CO2 emissions, governments will intervene in the market and regulate CO2. The average libertarian, fed on Randian breast milk, fear government more than death itself, since, they believe, government is antithetical to freedom.

You’ll find many libertarians among deniers. It almost seems a pre-requisite for membership.

Viscount Moncton of Brenchley is a key spreader of this meme.

A social scientist would point out that the market which libertarians worship is not free and exists only because of massive government intervention in society to ensure that capital is mobile and protected. One of the most basic roles of modern governments is to ensure that conditions continue to exist so the market can function as it does. Capitalism is not the natural expression of human nature. If it were, we wouldn’t have needed a revolution to free the merchant class from the traditional bonds of feudalism and to allow people to own capital and dispose of it as they see fit. Because it is not natural, we must continually police it to make sure it doesn’t transgress those conditions which allow it to exist.

I’ve written about this many times before, but for the credible journalist’s take, you can read George Monbiot: Why libertarians must deny climate change, in one short stroke

6. When the news reports that average global temperature was once again in the top ten hottest on record, you pull out your hair and shout that the temperature record is flawed, that it is biased by station moves and station drop outs and bad siting.

This meme was largely created by Anthony Watts and Joseph D’Aleo, who spread unfounded alarmism about the quality of data used, and made outlandish claims that undermined some people’s confidence in the temperature record.

It doesn’t really matter that this meme has recently been debunked by none other than the Denialist’s once-golden boy Dr. Richard Mueller and the team at BEST — the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Group.

Watts claimed that he would accept the findings of the BEST analysis, no matter what they were. However, he’s backtracking now and finding fault with BEST.

Surprise surprise surprise…

5. When someone mentions Al Gore, you mention a) the size of his mansion b) the energy use of his mansion c) his green energy business interests and d) that he’s fat.

This is particularly hilarious when repeated by libertarians who otherwise laud the free market and market and capitalism and claim that it’s all a socialist fraud meant to destroy the free market. There’s money to be made in the green market, for sure. People will continue to make profits even if CO2 is regulated. Al Gore is rich and rich people tend to consume more than average income or poor people. The American Dream is carbon-intensive.

This is just more denialists talking out of both sides of their mouths. Google “Al Gore” and “Mansion” and you get over a million hits. This is prime denialist crack.

If you find yourself responding to it as outlined above, take the first step and admit you’re an addict. You’re a denier. Seriously.

4. When someone says that CO2 emissions grew yet again this past year, you point out that CO2 lags temperature.

This is often repeated by folks who have no real understanding of the difference between past climate change, which was natural and the result of larger geological, planetary and solar influences and current climate change, which is largely anthropogenic. It is also indicative of a lack of understanding regarding the role of CO2 as a forcer as well as a feedback.

Climate science understands this quite well. The glacial cycle is dominated by shifts in the earth’s angle to the sun over longer periods and how increases and decreases in solar insolation resulting from these shifts warm the earth, leading to the release of CO2 from the oceans and land masses, wherein CO2 becomes a feedback.

You can get the antidote at Skeptical Science: CO2 Lags Temperature.

That CO2 is also a forcer is supported by past climate change events wherein huge infusions of CO2 into the atmosphere led to climate change and global warming. Most of these events took far far longer than our current infusion of CO2, which is cause for concern, but that’s for another post.

3. When someone says that glaciers are melting and Greenland is losing ice mass at an unprecedented rate, you mention that Leif Ericson called it Greenland and therefore, Greenland had even less ice than today and hence it was once warmer than today.

Yes, and Greenland was once partially covered in a forested paradise — 450,000 years ago.

Historians like to point out that Ericson called it Greenland as a way to entice unsuspecting Norse farmers to go there.

It didn’t work because Greenland’s a fricking cold icy place.

However, that’s changing and you can watch this amazing video record presented at a TED Talk:

Repeating this meme works only because people are generally ignorant.

2. You get all your news on global climate at Fox News, Climate Audit and Watts Up With That.

Nuff said.

And the top reason you know you’re a denier:

1. You ignore the vast preponderance of evidence in the peer-reviewed climate science literature and post about every one-off contrarian paper that comes along before it’s even been replicated.

Like Watts Up With That.

You see, deniers deny the consensus opinion of established science and fail to appreciate the difference between real skepticism and faux skepticism — or cynicism.

A real skeptic bases their opinions on THE BALANCE OF EVIDENCE. They go where the preponderance of evidence leads them. They read the peer reviewed literature and base their opinions on the data and research as a whole, not on a single paper or scientist’s opinion.

In the matter of climate change, the consensus among climate scientists — real climate scientists — is that the world is warming and it is largely the result of human burning of fossil fuels.

All scientists are skeptics. They understand that no theory is ever perfect and that there is always room for opinions to be revised as new data comes in.

And they certainly don’t trumpet every contrarian paper that manages to get published.

That’s what deniers do.

Purporting to be the website of a grassroots movement of tens of thousands of “energy citizens” who are up in arms about the plans of those nasty anti-freedom un-American types to tax oil and GAS AND DESTROY JOBS OMGWTF!!!11 it’s nothing more than an attempt to protect its tax breaks by creating a false sense of threat to fossil fuel industry jobs.

It’s so crass and blatantly misleading that I’m disgusted and disheartened to think that anyone in his or her right mind would believe it.

Pure bunk.

Mother Jones covers the story here:

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Have you heard about the massive public uprising to protect Big Oil’s tax breaks? No? Oh, probably because it doesn’t exist. But that doesn’t mean the American Petroleum Institute won’t try to convince you it does!

API has launched a “new” Energy Citizens campaign to convince you, the average American, to help the oil industry trade group protect the lavish tax loopholes they currently enjoy. With that whole oil disaster in the Gulf, it looks like Congress might cut off the gravy train for oil companies when it comes to billions of dollars in tax breaks and direct subsidies every year. Now API has launched a new ad campaign to protect the handouts, as well as a new “grassroots” campaign to protect them. One big problem: Their latest astroturf effort looks a whole lot like their last astroturf effort.

In an attempt to counter this bunk Greenpeace through Polluter Watch has launched its own bunk-countering campaign, Vote 4 Energy.

Seriously, I don’t know how these people in the API and Fossil Fuel Industry / Denialists can live with themselves. But, as I read recently in the online version of the newspaper The Independent, the heads of many big corporations are likely morally deficient Corporate Psychopaths who have no moral conscience.

You’d have to be to so blatantly misinform.

Here’s an excerpt from that article:

My companion, a senior UK investment banker and I, are discussing the most successful banking types we know and what makes them tick. I argue that they often conform to the characteristics displayed by social psychopaths. To my surprise, my friend agrees.

He then makes an astonishing confession: “At one major investment bank for which I worked, we used psychometric testing to recruit social psychopaths because their characteristics exactly suited them to senior corporate finance roles.”

Here was one of the biggest investment banks in the world seeking psychopaths as recruits.

You can watch the Polluter Watch video Vote 4 Energy here: