The Policy Lass

(h/t to climategal and www.curryquotes.wordpress.com)

ETA: This post is in honour of Judith Curry being declared “Climate Scientist of the Year” at the Post-Normal Conference in Lisbon – h/t to Bishop Hill. Tallbloke gave her a commemorative t-shirt with a Josh cartoon on it — the cartoon depicts a trash can labelled “Climate Science”. Curry quips “My reaction to climate change”. Say no more…

Here’s the video:

Over at Curry Quotes, I came across the use of the term “cadre” in Judith Curry’s commentary on climate science.

Here is the  quote in question:

“When I refer to the IPCC dogma, it is the religious importance that the IPCC holds for this cadre of scientists; they will tolerate no dissent, and seek to trample and discredit anyone who challenges the IPCC.”

What image does this language create in the mind?

Here’s the Oxford definition of “cadre”:

Pronunciation:/ˈkɑːdə, ˈkɑːdr(ə), ˈkadri/

noun

• 1 a small group of people specially trained for a particular purpose or profession:a cadre of professional managers
• 2 a group of activists in a communist or other revolutionary organization.
• a member of an activist group.

Now, I don’t know about you, but the term “cadre” has a very negative connotation to people in the west. It smacks of communism, of totalitarianism and as you can see from the Oxford excerpt, that connotation is well-deserved.  It may refer to a group of specially trained personnel or it can be a military term (cadre is used in West Point to refer to senior students in charge of junior) and it is used in reference to communist revolutionaries and activists.

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We all know that climate deniers produce a load of horse hockey and lie, deceive and smear climate science and climate scientists. They belong in the corner wearing the climate denial dunce cap.

We can claim they’re dunces and that they lie, dog whistle and smear, but it helps to have evidence. To that end, I propose this post solely for the purpose of collecting examples of these dunce moments, smears and lies. Document it, in other words, so that it’s more than just accusation.

So, as you go about your day surfing the climate blogs and you come across a really juicy example of climate denialism, copy the example, in context, and provide it in the comments to this post, along with a link to the source.

Have at it and have fun! Let’s see how many examples we can collect.

Here’s an interesting example of denialist chumming by Curry for your delectation: (h/t to Willard for giving me the scent)

I am putting this out there for discussion. Why do scientists see the need to jump right out there and make statements like this without even looking at the basics of the regional climatology? Trenberth and Somerville are activists on the topic of AGW
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/09/the-road-from-climate-science-to-climate-advocacy/

I am open to other/better interpretations of this situation, but I am personally not seeing any. The better question is why does NOAA find attribution services to be important, and why was there a consensus at the Workshop on its importance? Exactly how is someone supposed to make use of this information? [my emphasis]

Gobsmacked here. Absolutely gobsmacked.

First, this is pure denialist chumming, and the evidence is in the comments. Curry throws out some bait and here come the sharks — or guppies depending on your take on this. 🙂

Here’s some bait, just to get the scent in the water:

Summary: Not sure what the motive is for the attribution of extreme events, other than to build political will for climate change policies.

Here’s another bit of chum:

why does NOAA find attribution services to be important and why was there a consensus at the Workshop on its importance?

LOL! She answers the question then asks it.

The very first poster gives Curry the answer that deniers have been working hard to create in the minds of the gullible:

etudiant | January 15, 2011 at 10:08 am | Reply

Clearly science is becoming more market oriented.
NOAA sees a need for a hook to highlight its Climate Service. Extreme weather events are tailor made for this purpose. Funding is made available and “science” follows.
Rather sad, imo.

Willard reminded me of the Trenberth travesty in another post. Apropos is this quote, taken from one of the illegally hacked / released CRU emails. Given the continual misrepresentation of it in the denialosphere, it, and the misrepresentation, deserves reconsideration:

“The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.”

To consider something seriously, you have to look at it in its proper context. I argue, as do many others, that this line taken from the CRU emails, along with countless others, are used out of context to condemn climate science and smear scientists. Perhaps this line, along with “the trick” to “hide the decline”, is one of the most clear examples of the machinations of the denialist machine and its witting or unwitting dupes who propagate such tripe around the blogosphere.

I’ve come up with a term for the trainwreck that is Curry’s blog and similar ventures  — Climate Denial Chum. It’s pretty self-explanatory, but just to be clear, people like McIntyre, Watts and Curry throw bait out there knowing full well (or at least, they should know full well) that when they do, the sharks will come. Then, they do little in the ensuing frenzy. Hey – it feeds the tip jar and garners traffic…

What do you think?

The infamous and much-misrepresented quote and Trenberth’s submission “Promoting climate information and communication of climate change” to the annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society, are not given serious consideration on skeptic / contrarian / denialst blogs. They are, in fact, merely used as convenient truncheons to make one’s personal and very biased point.

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I’ve posted on this before but today I want to explore one of the most oft-repeated canards of the denialist crowd — “Climate science has been corrupted by all the untold trillions in money flowing its way” and that they are only studying global warming because that’s where the money is or “They study global warming so they can get huge science grants” or they’re only “in it for the gold” after the title of Michael Tobis’s blog.

Just as one example of the meme that scientists are living high off the public purse is the recent resignation letter of Harold Lewis from the APS. Here is an excerpt:

The giants no longer walk the earth, and the money flood has become the raison dêtre of much physics research, the vital sustenance of much more, and it provides the support for untold numbers of professional jobs. For reasons that will soon become clear my former pride at being an APS Fellow all these years has been turned into shame, and I am forced, with no pleasure at all, to offer you my resignation from the Society. It is of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist.

Here is the APS response to his accusations:

_

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Many who call themselves “skeptics” rail at the label denialist or denier when applied to climate science, or Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW). Some make the specious claim that the label is a deliberate reference to Holocaust Denialism when I and others who use the term never had any intention to make the link. I believe they do so because it allows them to wear a mantle of martyr, but hey, feel free. If that’s what you want to be…

When it comes to climate denial, I think there are few legitimate skeptics remaining and ample reason that it so. That said, an honest skeptic is known by their questions and answers. They have a role to play in keeping the debate focused, but as I say, there are few honest skeptics remaining. Instead, most of those who call themselves “skeptics” at this point in time and who parrot the arguments of denialism are, for all intents and purposes, denialists.  Sorry, folks but there comes a point in time when to reject is to deny, no matter what your intentions. When you reject the findings of a science that has such overwhelming evidence backing it, you are a denialist. In this case, at this time, “skeptic = denialist”.

Speaking of denialism, I was reading over at Keith Kloor’s place as a result of a link there that Willard posted and came across this discussion by David Brin, noted SF author (a favourite of mine BTW). I have the article in Skeptic and wanted to post his comment for discussion:

“The denier movement pretends to be about asking honest questions about a scientific matter that is both complex and *possibly* fraught with systematic errors.  I believe that honest skeptics can play an important role there.  But denialism is ALSO about preventing the community consensus in atmospheric science from affecting public policy. “

Yes! This is what the famous tobacco memo noted — “Doubt is our product since it is the best means of competing with the “body of fact” that exists in the mind of the general public. It is also the means of establishing a controversy.” The goal of denialism, whether about tobacco or climate, is to create an atmosphere of doubt around the scientific consensus.

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