Climate Buffoonery
Climate skeptics may be loathe to admit this, but they have a Monckton problem. The guy is just too clownish to be taken seriously, as Lucia recently demonstrated. Yet, there’s no denying he’s the go-to-guy, the U.S. Congressional Republican witness, the conference headliner, the unofficial spokesman who is quoted prominently by the NYT.
So this George Monbiot column headline is dead on:
Monckton’s climate denial is a gift to those who take the science seriously
And a cross to bear for climate skeptics who want to be taken seriously.
Similarly, it’s too bad that Jeff Id can’t grasp that his political rantings undermine his otherwise serious technical posts. Here he is in full froth, going on about “corrupt liberals” and “our extremist in chief.” What’s got his goat? The Federal Trade Commission recently put out a discussion paper on some not-so-brilliant ideas on how to “reinvent” journalism. The paper includes, among other things, a hefty dose of government intervention in the form of tax breaks, subsidies, and shudders (!), increased funding for public television and radio.
Now if you want to read a well argued rebuttal to the FTC’s proposed meddling in the news business, Jeff Jarvis is your man (and I largely agree with him). But if you want to read boilerplate liberal bashing that verges on unhinged hysteria, then the other Jeff is your man. Here he is, near the end of that post, reading the tea leaves of Obama’s policies:
We are way past our limits, but this is truly evil. There is going to be a revolt soon, we are NOT Russia yet but there is a reason that half of Obama’s appointments have been self proclaimed Marxists at one point or another.
Jeff, that alarmist doom and gloom schtick works both ways, you know. You and the peak oilers and climate advocates who also portend the end of capitalism have more in common than you think.
Jeff gets a bit excited at times, but overall he's okay. Monckton, however, is not. As I'm not a skeptic, I don't presume to be prescriptive–but he's not okay.
I am somewhat skeptical and a layperson. So… does that mean Lord Monckton is my problem? I don't think so. I don't think Jeff Id is my problem. And whose problem is George Monbiot?
It seems these are only real problems for the 95% of participants of the climate change debate on the internet who find themselves entrenched in one echo chamber or the other.
Best,
Alex Harvey
Jeff seems a bit out of date on the whole Russian thing, too. I suppose the old memes are still the most comforting.
I think there is still weaselling going on. Is the Monckton problem that he is clownish, that he attacks people with ad homs – or is it that his presentation of the science is totally broken? I think it is the latter. From reading the Lucia post you linked to, I can't tell which she thinks. Nor can I tell which you think. That looks evasive to me.
William, I think Monckton is a problem for skeptics the way I think a high-profile, overheated climate catastrophist might be for AGW advocates. Both misrepresent the science for rhetorical and political purposes. Both use ad homs to attack people in a personal manner.
Clear enough? 🙂
The problem, as I see it is summarised by Mike Lockwood:
"some Internet sources with otherwise good reputations for accurate reporting can still give credence to ideas that are of no scientific merit. These are then readily relayed by other irresponsible parts of the media, and the public gain a fully incorrect impression of the status of the scientific debate."
Solar change and climate: an update in the light of the current exceptional solar minimum
Mike Lockwood
Proc. R. Soc. A 8 February 2010 vol. 466 no. 2114 303-329
It would be interesting to have examples of high-profile talking head that does not overheat most of the times. I can't think of any one right now. Let's not wonder why yet.
Jeff's rants are not different from the paranoid musings of the AGW activists like Micheal Mann, Naomi Oreskes or anyone else who thinks that the AGW scepticism is a nefarious plot by the 'tobacco lobby'.
Monkton is no different from Gore, Obama, Boxer or any other politician that misrepresents the state of the science in order to push their pet AGW policies.
One question – did you even know of Jeff Id's existence a year ago?
You may not agree with his views, his ideas/information may not always be accurate, his politics may not coincide with yours – but it is, after all, HIS blog and he gets to determine what gets put on it. Just as you do here. :))
Just as his inaccuracies, etc draw this kind of semi-negative discussion, so do yours, Joe Romm's, RPJ's, etc, etc.
And none of that kind of discussion here is any more meaningful in terms of the realities/facts of climate science – or any other kind of science – than Jeff Id's.
Not criticising – just sayin' – at this point, he's a "voice" in the debate that, for good reason, has an audience.
Yeah, I'm back – for a while. Ask me someday about the realities of "climate change" in the Rockies and the Sierras.
Jim, sounds to me like you're giving him a pass. In recalling your many comments over the last year at this site, I can safely say that you're not so forgiving with the other side of the excitable spectrum.
So this is a good opportunity for me to wonder: why don't more people in their respective camps call out the ranters when they go off in such over-the-top fashion?
Answer: because they're tribal.
I think Monckton's science is not science. .
However, you are correct that I don't specifically engage his science errors in that post. People ask in comments and my reasons for not specifically engaging specific statements are discussed in comments. One difficulty is that accurately engaging youtube presentations is very time consuming– you have to rewind over and over to make sure that you really address precisely what was said. (If you don't do that, the rebuttal is "that's not what I said.") The other difficulty is that a certain fraction of the presentation is exaggerations or can be characterized as his interpretation. We can all discuss whether these intepretations are remotely reasonable, but debates over that become POV debates. (That's actually going on in the comments.)
When Monckton just makes stuff up and I have information readily at hand to discussed that (like his version of the IPCC temperature projections,) I discuss that. The current post links back to several posts on those. But otherwise, I'm really not going to dive into precisely what the IPCC said about polar bears and how that compares to Monckton. I can say that if Monckton said the sky is blue, I'd look up to check.
I used to visit JeffId's blog, but stopped doing so once I learned what "Id" was short for.
Of course there are none so tribal as those who point to others and acuse them of being tribal.
Keith, like most of your material this tribalism business suffers from a serious lack of intellectual underpinnings — you know, evidence laid out and connected with the asserted phenomenon via reasoning.
OK, Jim, tell us about the realities of climate change (no quotes needed) in the Rockies and the Sierras.
FWIW, in separate posts on this blog I 'called out' both Id (not my camp) and Romm (my camp) — Romm for painting malaria epidemiology as climate change denial, Id for his florid socialist conspiracy Teabaggery. That doesn't mean I consider them equally, er, notable in this regard.
I think you are overreaching the Monckton problem here. Is he a buffoon? Certainly. But there are so many outspoken buffoons on this issue Monckton only stands out when someone actually pays attention points it out as Lucia did. Gore is a good counterpart to Monckton and most don't want to talk about Al "super-consumer" Gore these days either. Monckton is in with the political category on climate and I don't think serious people pay much attention to the political types of climate activist.
> Both misrepresent the science… Both use ad homs… Clear enough? 🙂
Yes, very clear: you subscribe to "false balance" and you're trapped in your tribe.
Keith you're beginning to sound like someone who thinks science is only what you believe and everything is a matter of opinion. Please don't go down that road as so many like Jim are.
And Monckton isn't a super consumer? Not that has anything to do w anything. Gore gets the science right. Monckton makes it up as he goes.
No pass. He makes mistakes – like the rest of us humans. But he spends more time and energy actually "doing science" – and publishing his results and methodologies – than most of those on the "other side of the excitable spectrum" have ever dreamed of doing.
Understand that I HAVE called out ranters on both sides. Not for expressing their personal or poliical opinions – they have every right to do so (at least so far in this country, at this time) no matter how bizarre, off-the-wall, unusual, etc. Any good science history course examines the bizarre views of many of the world's greatest scientists of the past. It's often surprising.
But when/if someone wanders off into stupidity/ignorance I am perfectly willing to nail their foot to the floor – regardless of their tribe.
A question – the most potent evidence for GW is when the "cold places" of the earth get warm. So – what does it mean when those same "cold places" aren't getting warm, but are getting colder?
Do you understand the answer to that question?
Yes, climate change IS happening there – but not the way you apparently believe. I know what the reality is because I've spent time in those places for 12 of the last 13 years. And I just came back from some of those places.
Hmm – "tribal". Yeah, and unlike Steve B, I don't need "evidence" or "intellectual underpinnings" beyond common sense observation of the attitudes and actions of the members of the various tribes. There's an old poem, titled: "You tell on yourself" (http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/tell-on-yourself/). It's something that everybody should read and understand, but very few do.
More common sense, I'm sure.
LOL!! Of course….
But can you answer the question?
Al Gore actually gets the science mostly right. How does that make him the equivalent of Monckton?