Discussion > GWPF Heartland a hinderance ? "The The Heartland tainted ! Dismissal"
I was just trying to point out that while the GWPF and Heartland may do good in the advancement of fact, they are fighting a losing battle because part of the alarmist narrative is that there is a secret cabal of rich white old men banding together to thwart the goodies. Banding together in a cabal is playing up to the alarmist narrative.
It's fine to say we need to redefine the terms of battle, and not play to their terms of reference, but the climate war is much more a battle for the narrative as it is a scientific argument about facts. People are too stupid to care about the facts, their primitive tribal primate brains have developed to reduce complex situations into archetypal narratives. Because climate science is hard with lots of unknowns, this reducing effect is even greater. People can't get a handle on the facts, so they try to get a handle on who are the good guys and who are the bad guys.
Unfortunately I think that foundations old vested interests plays up to the bad guy half of that narrative.
TheBigYinJames
Copied from Unthreaded and expanded
It's worth remembering that the media, especially the BBC are endlessly bemused why the public ever vote Conservative. If the Conservative Party can survive endless slurs that they're a party for rich b'stards who hate the poor, then it proves that the public can see beneath the smears. One of the reasons they have less votes than in the past is because they're LESS Conservative than their core supporters want them to be. Hence the rise of UKIP. One of my all time favourite TV programmes was a BBC pity party admitting that if the public didn’t become socialist or anti capitalist after the banking crisis then they never would. Turns out people like capitalism.
There are a lot more pragmatic consumers out there than green wingers (or whingers). They can shrug off any fossil fuel slurs the same way we can but they're highly unlikely to read Bishop hill so the only way to contact them is through sound bites from Lawson or Peiser in the press. If they are interested enough then the GWPF is somewhere where they can find more information. Without people writing reports for them, there would be nothing to back up GWPF’s more public, but brief arguments.
Unfortunately the media won’t engage with members of the public unless you’re spouting something highly controversial. Climate scepticism is the boring voice of reason and because it’s complicated, doesn’t lend itself to sloganising. Sadly the Bish will get more recognition as an offshoot from GWPF than as a successful, intelligent blogger. We’ve floated the idea of forming a more coherent body but we’re just not that interested. Me, I’d like to see a Bishop Hill guide to climate scepticism, preferably as a video, but we’ve got too many points to make and we can’t agree what we agree on.
TinyCO2
You're right, Tiny. Most people don't care about the climate issue. They're happy to either believe the scientists, or to quietly just think it's all a load of scaremongering. They have their opinion, which they don't even think about.
I think people are becoming less trustful of science as reported in the media, since it's often contradictory.
They reap what they sowed.
TheBigYinJames
"Climate scepticism is the boring voice of reason and because it’s complicated, doesn’t lend itself to sloganising. " said @TinyCO2
The irony is that if we were really nutters, warmists project us as , then we'd be doing wild interesting things like jumping on coal trains running across Nazca Lines etc line they do
..and be getting the publicity they do.
..Our equations and explanantions are banned from the BBC
yet climate activist stunts go straight on air.
stewgreen
Not only do I agree with TBYJ that citing GWPF or Heartland (and the same applies to the D Mail, WUWT, Lindzen, Soon … and many others) is counterproductive, but I go much further and suggest that going head-to-head with warmists re the science of climate change is a waste of time. They’re too well dug in and their defences, although commonly little more than ignorance, bluster and invective, are too well established for sceptics to have any realistic prospect of overcoming them.
So (I suggest) the best course is to outflank those defences. And they are vulnerable in two areas: (1) the hopeless impracticality of their solution (renewable energy) and (2) the near certainty that, whatever the science, global GHG emissions will not be cut for many years – if ever.
In these areas, warmists cannot hide behind appeals to authority, ad hominem attack, accusations of evil backers … and all their other well-honed defences. Nor can they avoid dealing with clear empirical evidence. And they don’t like it.
I specialise in item (2). See, for example, my exchanges with Stephen Ferguson, George Crisp and Mike Hansen here (note that other BH denizens – Geoff Chambers, Barry Woods, Paul Matthews, Hilary Ostrov – were also involved) and with Warren and Drb here. And here’s an extract from the opening post of my Discussion thread Current climate policy is pointless – we need a new approach:
… the only rational response now is to stop bickering about the science and to focus on politics and policies. The object should be to determine our optimum course in a world where we are rapidly losing influence, where emissions will rise and where our trying to prevent that from happening is pointless. Far better to face up to the reality that there’s no longer much point in emission mitigation and instead take account of what’s actually happening in the world by an overall strengthening of our economy, energy supply and infrastructure and the prioritisation of long-term adaptation to whatever climate change may occur.
Get some momentum behind that message and we could make real progress.
Robin Guenier
TheBigYinJames
People are certainly distrustful of how research is reported in the MSM. Mrs S, a linguist with no great interest in science, usually says this week's scare is ..... after a BBC News report. As you get older the scares come round again and again, I can't remember how many times red wine has been good/bad for you; sometimes it changed in the same week.
The search for additional funding to ensure continued employment leads naturally to it's worse than we thought. As much of the research is done by post graduate students who have spent their entire lives being "educated" asking themselves and others difficult questions doesn't come naturally. Reporting to politicians and civil servants who have PPE degrees and no real life experience means their unfamiliarity with answering difficult questions continues long into their careers. BBC science correspondents probably haven't asked a difficult question during their time at the BBC.
SandyS
@Geoff said don't go head to head
.. Remember you do win some silent lurkers over
..As the warmists twist themselves in circles trying to cover their own disinformarion. and get caught out.
.. Skeptics can be seen sticking to the truth
- Problematic dynamic : warmists are the most beautiful couple in the playground who lie and bully, whereas we are the spotty uncool geeks.
...Alienating neutral people. 1. They want to side with the cool guy 2. When we point out a problem, rather than thank us many are annoyed for having their simple picture ruined.
@Geoff says better focus on CO2 Mitigation and the magic solutions.
- In neutral venue I don't start debates, but do firefight against propaganda. But when Mr Solar man posted his and I countered, I ended up pointing out to Mr Neutral that he forgot to take account the cost of his solar loan. Result he hates me for spoiling his dream.
Do we self-censor ? Yet activists can fire out any old crap.
- Yes citing certain sources is vulnerable as activists will attack at the weakest point. But that Susan Crockford polar bear story has it's own merit ..should not just dismissed by extrapolating that she is a Heartland stooge .. like we dont dismiss other scientists when we know they have done work for WWF Greenpeace etc.
@SandyS shows the line "oh you don't want to listen to that it comes from scientists funded by big oil " doesn't' work with the public.. they say "hangon I do, and why are you trying to stop me ?"
"If the $8m Heartland/GWPF are supposed to be the disinformers paying off lots of scientists then why are all the dirty tricks we see from the $800m WWF/Greenpeece ?" like getting their people working inside the IPCC.
The Guardian/BBC/MSM are all alienating themselves from the public . Especially as more of the public have seen for themselves when they come across GreenBlob in their work/location.
stewgreen
(moved from Unthreaded)
- Is it a help or hindrance to have orgs like Heartland and GWPF ?
I asked what is a good call back to when a debate point is answered with "Ah well they get $X from Heartland" ..
The activists try to use this "Heartland close" to smugly closedown debate.
(note we skeptics don't do the same since we always have strong arguments against the alarmists we always just continue with the argument; we don't need to say Gleick is a thief or Black profited from Climate Course or that Stern is paid by Grantham etc.)
@TheBigYinJames came up with the point ..that we could do without GWPF & Heartland
cos the Alarmists who comfort themselves by imagining they are angels and there is a Devil a Heavily Funded Big Evil opposition ..can point their finger at GWPF Heartland & say "see their is a Devil"
And BigYin says "When I hear someone say "they'll listen now the GWPF have published this paper" I ask that for a moment you replace the word GWPF with the word 'SPECTRE'. Now you will see how the announcement looks from a true believer standpoint, and how useless such a paper becomes except as more evidence of a secret evil organisation working against the common good.
- If the enemy is accusing you of being funded by a secret cabal of vested interests, the last thing you should do is align yourself or support a secret cabal of vested interests, no matter how much their aims overlaps with your own."
ie it gives them a narrative
Others and I disagree ..we need all the help we can get
not "just get cast aside with that's just another conspiracy theory nutter"
@johanna said "while I see your point, I don't agree. We need to stop allowing the opposition to define the terms and set the agenda. Skulking away from GWPF - which has a wide spectrum of political and scientific opinion on its Board - just legitimises the slurs.
On the contrary, we should be out and proud about these things. There is nothing to be ashamed of in associating with GWPF. Acting as though there is just gives comfort to the merchants of slur."
@Tiny CO2 said "while there might be some small damage to the public perception, on the whole the public have stopped listening to both sides. Their biggest influence will be in the corridors of power where there needs to be a group of influential names to make themselves heard. It's more important to have somebody generating a counter message than maintain a pure image."
@Sandy went on to discuss systematic margilisation used against skeptics.
added "Not wishing to start a discussion here, but I don't think I agree with you 100%.
This recent posting at WUWT illustrates the problem to a certain extent in the attempts to marginalise the famous famous sceptical blogger. Written by a nutter who never publishes scientific papers for other nutters if you will. As individuals then divide and conquer is much easier to achieve."