It looks like I missed quite a bit over the last couple of weeks. Not only have I not been writing, I haven’t done any reading! Very unusual for me. I had to check if global warming was still happening, whether the sea still had ice and whether climategate 3.0 had broken out.
It turned out pretty much as before except for the Heartland institute exhibiting Gleick-like reasoning skill. WTF?! Hell, every time I turn around someone does something so rock bottom stupid that it is difficult to get your head around. Then I see people withdrawing from a conference over this and wonder why.
Here is how I see it. Heartland is a group, not an individual. A group will always have individuals which make mistakes. These things are correctable. Apologies and terminations/reassignments are in order but to chuck the message out over this stupidity, and it was spectacularly stupid, is silly. When I can make a better PR judgment than your hired PR professional, you need to hire a new professional. They took the dumb add down and issued an apology but I haven’t heard of any terminations yet. It is painfully obvious that whomever approved the ad. is completely out of touch with those who understand physics and still don’t see climate doom in our future. It is also obvious that they are unaware of the progress being made within the science.
Reality trumps all arguments.
My advice to Heartland is to first, improve the apology. Making mistakes will not hurt you when you admit them. Second, find new advisors who can detect something so blatantly extreme. Extremism is the shelter of the slow witted, and that was really slow! Third, recognize that your organizational message will only generate a specific amount of attention. If you are looking to grow your organizational cash beyond that limit by efforts other than content, it will absolutely fail in the scientific arena on which all sides of AGW are rooted. Keep the message reasonable in all cases no matter what the goals are and you will maximize your results.
Of course, I don’t run a non-profit but I did warn another one.
Ironically, I run a blog which is premised on venting. The difference is that this is for fun and I am not looking for a maximized result.
the Air Vent 
Jeff,
I’ve been out of the loop for a while too. What the heck are you on about?
This:
http://climateaudit.org/2012/05/04/mckitrick-letter-to-heartland/
Thanks!
This is interesting and relevant …
An internal study by the U.S. EPA completed by Dr. Alan Carlin and John Davidson concluded the IPCC was wrong about global warming. One statement in the executive summary stated that a 2009 paper found that the crucial assumption in the Greenhouse Climate Models (GCM) used by the IPCC concerning a strong positive feedback from water vapor is not supported by empirical evidence and that the feedback is actually negative. Water vapor in the atmosphere causes a cooling effect, not a warming one. Carbon dioxide also causes a slight cooling effect but it so small it could never be measured by man’s instrumentation.
EPA tried to bury the report. An email from Al McGartland, Office Director of EPA’s National Center for Environmental Economics (NCEE), to Dr. Alan Carlin, Senior Operations Research Analyst at NCEE, forbade him from speaking to anyone outside NCEE on endangerment issues. In a March 17 email from McGartland to Carlin, stated that he will not forward Carlin’s study. “The time for such discussion of fundamental issues has passed for this round. The administrator (Lisa Jackson) and the administration have decided to move forward on endangerment, and your comments do not help the legal or policy case for this decision. …. I can only see one impact of your comments given where we are in the process, and that would be a very negative impact on our office.” A second email from McGartland stated “I don’t want you to spend any additional EPA time on climate change.”
McGartland’s emails demonstrate that he was rejecting Dr. Carlin’s study because its conclusions ran counter to the EPA’s current position. Yet this study had its basis in three prior reports by Carlin (two in 2007 and one in 2008) that were accepted. Another government cover-up, just what the United States does not need.
Eliminate this regulation immediately. This is a scientific tragedy.
Hmmm…. Exactly the same post, word-for-word, as one on Spenser’s site by he-who-must-not-be-named.
Has the moron come up with another alias?
Jeff Id wrote,
” It is painfully obvious that whomever approved the ad. is completely out of touch with those who understand physics and still don’t see climate doom in our future. It is also obvious that they are unaware of the progress being made within the science. ”
I would yes…..But I would not be so arrogant to say anyone understands the physics.
Especially when the “majority” still accept P/4 as a perfectly good starting point for GH “theory”.
ie, http://www.globalwarmingskeptics.info/forum-118.html
Graham Thompson said
” This is a scientific tragedy. ” Yes, it is also a skepticism tragedy of similar proportoins.
The skepticism tragedy is why I wrote the following,
“Do not shoot the messenger.”
http://www.globalwarmingskeptics.info/thread-1865.html
“Gleick-like reasoning skill”
One group mocked … one person most likely committed fraud.
Big difference.
“Extremism is the shelter of the slow-witted.” I like that.
Why is it that Heartland couldn’t ask a couple of media-savvy folks like Steve Mc and Anthony if their ad was a good idea? Are they high schoolers? It is telling, however, that it took less than a day for the climate skeptic crowd to let them know of their stupidity. The response to Gleick’s escapade from his compatriots was no where near as fast or severe.
Thanks. I’m as conservative as they come but the adds were nonsensical.
Gary, in the grand scheme of things, what has Steve Mc accomplished? Other than being called “climate conspiracy blogger”.
“The Norwegian terrorist also cited climate conspiracy blogger Steve McIntyre, who appeared in a one-hour Fox News special on global warming in 2009. McIntyre’s conspiracy theories have been promoted by Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) and Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK). Dozens of Republican members of Congress have endorsed the Climategate conspiracy theory.”
From Thnk Progress’s article via Bishop Hill via google cache.
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2012/5/6/on-abusive-analogy.html#comments
Honestly I think the AGWers deserve a Heartland style kick the … ********.
Sunshine, kicking back may feel good for a bit, but it yields the high ground of integrity. The best revenge is being right in the end
Don’t be naive.
Naive? No, wise.
The Big Lie is selling well. Not as well as it used to. But that doesn’t matter. The politicians have been captured.
Jeff, you got it right and that is that if HI wants to be known as promoting a reasonable and factual discussion of AGW it needs to distance its organization from the signboards idiocy and restate its mission while showing how those ads were opposed to that mission. Otherwise HI becomes like the references that Sunshine1 made from the other side above.
The reason Sunshine1 is wrong is because he indicates that that is how the game is played and infers it should be played that way by all sides. It should be obvious what is wrong with that approach in his examples and that it rests on name calling and characterizing those with whom you disagree as evil. Those discussions go nowhere and I mean nowhere.
Organizations I think sometimes hire a PR outfit that have no principles or major knowledge of what the organization they are representing is attempting to do. They prJeff, you got it right and that is that if HI wants to be known as promoting a reasonable and factual discussion of AGW it needs to distance its organization from the signboards idiocy and restate its mission while showing how those ads were opposed to that mission. Otherwise HI becomes like the references that Sunshine1 made from the other side above.
Kenneth,
The disappointing bit is that you know full well that my PR skill is on the same level as an eggplant. Er…a fossilized eggplant! 😀
My reply above got a bit jumble but my point about PR was that organization might pay a PR outfit to do PR on something they have little knowledge about or any pricipled concern and then because they have a sunk cost the organization feels obligated to use the PR regardless of quality. In HI’s case that might not be true since the weak apology and calling the blunder an experiment just does not do it for me.
After years of distorted science, lies, personal attacks on sceptics, and outright lunacy in suggested policies, I think the billboard was not only funny but appropriate. Sorry to hear they took it down. Seriously, there are advocates on the environmental side who DO recommend getting rid of over 50% of the population. That makes any of the characters used in the ad lightweights in comparison.
Those of you who take a dim view of this type of advocacy, well, I would suggest you try and DO something about the nut jobs causing this reaction instead of continually making excuses for them. I note that Anthony over at WUWT has FINALLY lowered himself to actually using the word liar in reference to the criminals at CRU.
Seriously, you saw the paper ADJUSTING the satellite record to .2c/decade?!?!?!
Still waiting for them to adjust the PRECIPITATION record to match the amount and distribution in the models!!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
I note that Anthony over at WUWT has FINALLY lowered himself to actually using the word liar in reference to the criminals at CRU.
Funny that. And true. But it does not go far enough. Criminals is probably a minimum. If not “planning mass murder”.
sunshinehours1-Notice not just that someone called Steve a conspiracy theorist but who. The left wing advocacy group of unhinged fruitcakes known as the “Center for American Progress”-Steve has made a difference among sane rational people. This naturally excludes the ideological left.
The sane rational people do not control the billions being squandered on “climate change” and all the madcap schemes designed to solve a problem that does not exist.
Face facts … the corrupt and insane have won. They will be responsible for the destruction of dozens of economies and have condemned the poor to freeze to death.
Heartland is absolutely right to link terrorism to climate change. Not all terrorism comes from a bomb or a gun.
The logical fallacy of implying a POV is psychopathic because many psychopaths hold it might be mitigated or removed by examining the reasons each of the “psychopaths” had for espousing CAGW. Was it not to justify powerful top-down authority aimed at reshaping society and the world’s economy by suppressing human activity and self-determinism? The excuse of Noble Cause Corruption sometimes applies, and sometimes not — it’s frequently hard not to see the hyper-environmentalism as a ploy and distraction.
In the end, it’s their solutions which are the problem; the extremity of the ranting about the destruction of Gaia and extinction of the world’s proliferating species etc. is necessary given the mass-murderous steps incorporated in their plans and programs.
And if there’s one thing that should have been learned, but seems almost impossible for the world to ‘grok’ or retain, is that tyrants tell you in advance of gaining power, often at great length in published tomes and pronouncements , what they intend to do. And then they do it!
Consider, as few have, the standing ovation Chavez received at Copenhagen for his de-industrialization anti-Western civilization rant. Was that just for his personal charm and flowing rhetorical brilliance? I think not.
Here is an interesting if off beat look at that very topic that I’m currently reading – I’m up to page 45 or so. It is in English.
http://www.realpeacework-akademie.info/sofia/Englisch/E-betterworld/E_DiverseScriptures/Hitler&TheAgeofHorus.pdf
Let me add that one of the planks of the Golden Dawn in Greece is a return to craft work and a de-emphasis of the Industrial Revolution and a dislike of self government. A return to the Leader Principle (it sounds worse in the original German).
The stuff seems to be catching.
From what I saw, the Heartland did NOT apologize. They “explained” that they wished to be provocative and experimental and then said they would do something provocative and experimental again. They never suggested they understood, sympathized or, for some of them, empathized with the offence given and received.
The lack of apology, actually, recognition that a stupid, vicious, insulting pronouncement on the moral qualities of those the Heartland disagrees with – something like half the American population! – is why Donna LaFramboise said she cancelled her appearance. The Heartland, just as the Pacific Institute, causes all those who appear on its behalf or in support of its beliefs, to be tarred with what they did: no one could possibly say that appearing at a conference sponsored by, say, the White Supremacy Foundation, would fail to find themselves considered supportive of racism. The HI fans don’t seem to understand that.
Is it possible that Canadians don’t understand that Americans, with their history of political mudslinging, disregard egregious insulting behaviour? Is that true, that what one American says is not considered a reflection of what he actually thinks, to another American? I don’t know. When a ‘merican says his opponent shares beliefs with mass murderers and psychopaths worthy of instant execution or assassination (itself boastworthy of a President), his neighbour says, huh, I guess they disagree with each other, and though I’m one of those he disagrees, it is no reflection on me?
Right. Most survived the schoolyard; only the bullies excelled. Only the bullies think putting others down is of no consequence.
The demonization of the exact target audience was both dumb and a further polarization of an already highly polarized (and politicized) subject. Everyone attending the conference should expect future reference to their work to be appended with a note about their support of a right-wing group who equates Mom with Ted and the Twin Tower Killer. Don’t we think the same about the Pacific Institute after Peter Gleick?
You are quite right. It is very important to be nice to the folks planning mass murder. Otherwise how will we ever get them on our side.
Doug, many AGW cult members make the Unabomber look very sane. HI have nothing to apologize for. Many are the people who called George Bush BushHitler for 8 long years.
David Suzuki fantasized about jailing politicians who did not give into eco-blackmail. He is mainstream eco-thinking in Canada. HI were right.
“David Suzuki has called for political leaders to be thrown in jail for ignoring the science behind climate change.”
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=290513
More or less crazy than the Unabomber Doug?
Doug, here is a mainstream leader of the environmenalists in Canada. If it looks like a unamomber and talks like a unabomber …
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2012/05/12/suzuki-humans-are-maggots-who-defecate-on-the-environment/