Silencing Dissent the Environmentalists' Way

[Adam's Apple]

Silencing Dissent
By Walter E. Williams
August 8, 2007

Global warming has become a big-ticket item in the eyes of its supporters. At stake are research funds, jobs and the ability to control lives all over the globe. Most climatologists agree that over the last century, the Earth's average temperature has risen about one degree Celsius.

The controversy centers around the source of the temperature change -- man-made or natural causes. Global warming alarmists hold the view that it's man-made emissions of CO2 that's driving climate change, and they seek to suppress any dissent suggesting other causes.

According to the July 16 Washington Times, Michael T. Eckhart, president of the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE), sent a threatening missive to Marlo Lewis, senior fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based Competitive Enterprise Institute, which read: "Take this warning from me, Marlo. It is my intention to destroy your career as a liar. If you produce one more editorial against climate change, I will launch a campaign against your professional integrity. I will call you a liar and charlatan to the Harvard community of which you and I are members. I will call you out as a man who has been bought by Corporate America. Go ahead, guy. Take me on."

For full article:
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WilliamEWilliams/2007/08/08/silencing_dissent

 

[RetiredGySgt]

That is exactly how they oppose anyone. They never address the science, it is always attacking the person.

 

[Larkinn]

Silencing Dissent
By Walter E. Williams
August 8, 2007

Global warming has become a big-ticket item in the eyes of its supporters. At stake are research funds, jobs and the ability to control lives all over the globe. Most climatologists agree that over the last century, the Earth's average temperature has risen about one degree Celsius.

The controversy centers around the source of the temperature change -- man-made or natural causes. Global warming alarmists hold the view that it's man-made emissions of CO2 that's driving climate change, and they seek to suppress any dissent suggesting other causes.

According to the July 16 Washington Times, Michael T. Eckhart, president of the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE), sent a threatening missive to Marlo Lewis, senior fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based Competitive Enterprise Institute, which read: "Take this warning from me, Marlo. It is my intention to destroy your career as a liar. If you produce one more editorial against climate change, I will launch a campaign against your professional integrity. I will call you a liar and charlatan to the Harvard community of which you and I are members. I will call you out as a man who has been bought by Corporate America. Go ahead, guy. Take me on."

For full article:
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WilliamEWilliams/2007/08/08/silencing_dissent

Any evidence that Marlo Lewis isn't a liar, a charlatan, and one who has been bought by Corporate America?

That is exactly how they oppose anyone. They never address the science, it is always attacking the person.

So in response, you oh so unbiased man, decide to do what...do you attack his argument and say how Marlo Lewis is not a fraud, charlatan, and global warming is incorrect? No, you attack "them" and their tactics, not their message. You sir are hilarious.

 

[Adam's Apple]

Any evidence that Marlo Lewis isn't a liar, a charlatan, and one who has been bought by Corporate America?

Any clear-cut evidence that the global warming crowd aren't a bunch of liars, charlatans, and anti-corporate Americans? Just because they cry that the sky is falling does not make it so. There is substantial evidence to the contrary, as you no doubt know.

 

[Angel Heart]

Any clear-cut evidence that the global warming crowd aren't a bunch of liars, charlatans, and anti-corporate Americans? Just because they cry that the sky is falling does not make it so. There is substantial evidence to the contrary, as you no doubt know.

All while using corporate products. They all have cell phones, computers, cars, clothing, food, etc etc....

 

[MysticPhD]

Any clear-cut evidence that the global warming crowd aren't a bunch of liars, charlatans, and anti-corporate Americans? Just because they cry that the sky is falling does not make it so. There is substantial evidence to the contrary, as you no doubt know.

Apparently I am not allowed to post url's until I have more than 15 posts. But here is an excerpt that might help answer your question:

NASA global warming temperature revision redux: How big is the problem?

Via Noel Sheppard, the guys who exposed the big data bug in the NASA temperature calculations last week have now responded to the global warming believers who naturally downplayed the error and dismissed it as irrelevant to GW trends. No commentary here from me; just follow the drill from the last post and read Steve McIntyre's and Warren Meyer's posts slowly and carefully. The bullet points version of McIntyre to guide you as you go:

1. NASA and James Hansen have allegedly shown an astonishing amount of bad faith in protecting their bogus numbers. Last week's posts noted how secretive Hansen has been in hoarding the algorithm he uses to make temperature adjustments, but most of McIntyre's wrath this time is reserved for NASA, which pointedly declined to mention prominently that it had revised its own data lest it attract any unwelcome public attention.

2. While the revisions to U.S. data didn't have an affect on global averages, they did obviously have a "significant" effect on U.S. averages while pointing up potential errors in data collection worldwide. Specifically, according to McIntyre, not only are certain U.S. temperature measurement stations that are thought to be unreliable being "adjusted" by algorithm, even stations not thought to be unreliable may be undergoing adjustment. Quote:

The USHCN station history adjustments appear particularly troublesome to me, not just [at the Grand Canyon] but at other sites (e.g. Orland CA). They end up making material changes to sites identified as "good" sites and my impression is that the USHCN adjustment procedures may be adjusting some of the very "best" sites (in terms of appearance and reported history) to better fit histories from sites that are clearly non-compliant with WMO standards (e.g. Marysville, Tucson). There are some real and interesting statistical issues with the USHCN station history adjustment procedure and it is ridiculous that the source code for these adjustments (and the subsequent GISS adjustments - see bottom panel) is not available

3. The flip side of the last point: how many global measurement stations are unreliable and are not undergoing adjustment? Quote again:

[M]any of the stations in China, Indonesia, Brazil and elsewhere are in urban areas (such as Shanghai or Beijing). In some of the major indexes (CRU,NOAA), there appears to be no attempt whatever to adjust for urbanization. GISS does report an effort to adjust for urbanization in some cases, but their ability to do so depends on the existence of nearby rural stations, which are not always available.

Thus, ithere is a real concern that the need for urban adjustment is most severe in the very areas where adjustments are either not made or not accurately made.

Meyer makes a similar point about what systemic problems in U.S. data collection and adjustment portend for global measurements. As he put it last week, "This is not the end but the beginning of the total reexamination that needs to occur of the USHCN and GISS data bases." Which explains his first recommendation now.

Quote]

 

[Adam's Apple]

Thanks for your input. The intention of my post was to look at how global warming advocates respond/react to those who challenge their case, not whether global warming is fact or fiction.

 

[ReillyT]

Thanks for your input. The intention of my post was to look at how global warming advocates respond/react to those who challenge their case, not whether global warming is fact or fiction.

It is kind of hard to separate one from the other. If it is a widely accepted scientific fact with a sound scientific basis, then the dissenters may well look to the establishment as being willfully deceitful, in which case the reaction makes sense.

 

[Larkinn]

Any clear-cut evidence that the global warming crowd aren't a bunch of liars, charlatans, and anti-corporate Americans?

Yes, actually, quite a bit. However that has nothing to do with the original statement.

Just because they cry that the sky is falling does not make it so. There is substantial evidence to the contrary, as you no doubt know.

Thats nice. Whether the substantial evidence is true or false has nothing to do with Marlo Lewis as an individual.

posted by AH
All while using corporate products. They all have cell phones, computers, cars, clothing, food, etc etc....

Food is a corporate product?

 

[Adam's Apple]

Your viewpoint, not mine. The environmentalists have not presented an open-and-shut case. The verdict is still outstanding. No definitive answer has been arrived at that I am aware of. Regarding the point made by Williams' article, threatening your opponents with personal destruction is no way to make believers out of them.

 

[Larkinn]

Your viewpoint, not mine. The environmentalists have not presented an open-and-shut case. The verdict is still outstanding. No definitive answer has been arrived at that I am aware of. Regarding the point made by Williams' article, threatening your opponents with personal destruction is no way to make believers out of them.

I don't think he cares whether Lewis believes or not. Rather the point seems to be that he believes that Lewis is lying for monetary reasons.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

I don't think he cares whether Lewis believes or not. Rather the point seems to be that he believes that Lewis is lying for monetary reasons.

Once again that is what is claimed of any scientist that shows any data that doesn't conform to the doom and gloom, man caused it all crowd. The rise in temperature is not even out of whack with historical rises. And there is absolutely no credible way to "prove" it will continue , nor how much it will rise in the next hundred years.

 

[Larkinn]

Once again that is what is claimed of any scientist that shows any data that doesn't conform to the doom and gloom, man caused it all crowd. The rise in temperature is not even out of whack with historical rises. And there is absolutely no credible way to "prove" it will continue , nor how much it will rise in the next hundred years.

Any evidence that the "claim" is incorrect? Or do you just dislike it and so assume its incorrect.

And perhaps they want to discredit scientists like Lewis because fools like you believe them.

 

[Bern80]

I don't think he cares whether Lewis believes or not. Rather the point seems to be that he believes that Lewis is lying for monetary reasons.

no, he did say he beleived him to be a liar. He said he would call him one if he published anything oppossed to his view of global warming and tell people he had been bought. He provides no evidence as to whether that is actually the case. All he states was his intent to ruin the person if he said something he didn't like.

 

[Larkinn]

no, he did say he beleived him to be a liar. He said he would call him one if he published anything oppossed to his view of global warming and tell people he had been bought. He provides no evidence as to whether that is actually the case. All he states was his intent to ruin the person if he said something he didn't like.

It is my intention to destroy your career as a liar.

The above quote means the writer believes that Lewis is a liar. And as for the lack of evidence...it was a letter...not a published piece. By the way...when you "out" someone for something it generally means you believe they are guilty of whatever you are outing them of.

 

[MysticPhD]

The majority of scientists that support global warming agree ONLY that global warming is taking place. A much smaller handful are convinced that the cause is human activity. This fact is disingenuously misrepresented on purpose IMO.

 

[Adam's Apple]

If it is a widely accepted scientific fact with a sound scientific basis,.....

That indeed is the question.

Global Baloney
Jack Kelly, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
August 19, 2009

It turns out the last decade wasn't the hottest in history

It was a small change, made quietly two weeks ago on the Web site of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies. But it could have big implications.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07231/810390-373.stm

Warming Debate: Scene 1, Take 2
By Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe
August 19, 2007

If there's anything climate-change crusaders are adamant about, it is that the science of the matter is settled. That greenhouse gases emitted through human activity are causing the planet to warm dangerously, they say, is an established fact; only a charlatan would claim otherwise. In the worlds of Al Gore, America's leading global warming apostle: "There's no more debate. We face a planetary emergency. . . . There is no more scientific debate among serious people who've looked at the evidence."

But as with other claims Gore has made over the years ("I took the initiative in creating the Internet"), this one doesn't mesh with reality.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ed...es./2007/08/19/warming_debate_scene_1_take_2/

 

[Adam's Apple]

Oops! Try this for Jacoby.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/jacoby

 

[CSM]

The above quote means the writer believes that Lewis is a liar. And as for the lack of evidence...it was a letter...not a published piece. By the way...when you "out" someone for something it generally means you believe they are guilty of whatever you are outing them of.

No, it doesn't. You know damn well that some people will try to destroy their opponents by any means (a particularly favorite tactic of libs is to destroy them through defamation of character) with total disregard of the truth. It happens all the time on this board for example. Of course,you see nothing wrong with that.

 

[Ninja]

Larkinn defending the circumstantial ad hominem attack against Marlo Lewis!

Obviously Marlo Lewis is wrong - CEI received funding from ExxonMobil!