The environmental organisation Greenpeace, which I have been busy criticising for the past few days (they published a report that is pure poppycock), is now in hot water about careless remarks posted on a weblog by one of their workers. A certain Gene, blogging from India, wrote,
“Let's talk about what that mass civil disobedience is going to look like.
"If you're one of those who have spent their lives undermining progressive climate legislation, bankrolling junk science, fueling spurious debates around false solutions, and cattle-prodding democratically-elected governments into submission, then hear this:
We know who you are. We know where you live. We know where you work. And we be many, but you be few.”
And we are the world... Greenpeace has stepped over the line once or twice in the past, but I have to say I think we're making a mountain out of a molehill here.
First, Greenpeace doesn't know where you live or where you work. And in fact, they are few, not many. (I guess I should say they be few...).
More importantly, it's fairly clear that Indian Gene is targeting companies and organisations (like Koch Industries and the Cato Institute, which are unfairly criticised in the Greenpeace report I was lambasting), not members of the general public.
I know this, because with my dogged and tireless investigation, I discovered that Greenpeace does not take contributions from companies and organisations, but only from members of the general public.
The blog post got a lot of comments, although not as many as Real Climate got in the days after Climategate. Some of them were from people who had gotten a bit hot under the collar. So I added my own:
"Well, this little thought experiment didn't work out so well. Next time you try this, you should remember:
Veiled or ambiguous threats will be exaggerated by your opponents.
Demonising the opposition leaves you no-one to negotiate with.
Equating Bjorn Lomborg's appearance at the Manhattan Institute with a 'climate denial machine' just makes you look foolish, and robs your report of all credibility.
Trashing the Kochs is all good fun, I'm sure, but they were contributing to the Cato Institute back in the days before climate change was ever discussed. Remember this when your opponents come after your supporters.
Now that you've shot yourselves in the foot, apologise and start to fix it.
Guys, you're in a bit of a hole right now. So first, stop digging. Put a post at the top of this that says something like, "Wow. This went viral big time. We are going to make a statement when we've had a chance to think about it. While we're scratching our heads, let's be clear about a couple of things: First, we apologise to everyone for the language that was used by our friend Greg. We not only don't know where you live or work, we don't want to know. We don't want to confront any of you--friend or foe--and we now recognise that his language on our behalf is offensive. Second, we truly believe that the language used on our behalf, which we are ultimately responsible for, was figurative, not literal. Greenpeace is willing to confront those in a position of power about actions that they or their organisations may take which are damaging to the environment. But not the general public, and even with those in power, not violently.
So, until our media types actually hammer out a real statement that includes an apology, please let us use this as a first attempt to defuse this situation.
To our friends, we're sorry for actions that make you less than proud of us. To our opponents, we may never convince you that we are right or that you are wrong, but we can show you by words and actions that we do in fact play fairly, and will do so in the future."
Couldn't hurt..."
My reaction after a couple of days is, tempest, meet teacup. I'm still upset about Greenpeace, but if every skeptic (or even, ahem, lukewarmer) weblog was snapshotted to catch the most vehement comment, or even (in my case) intemperate post, we'd all be looking to change the subject.
So why don't we?
As was mentioned during the recent inquiry by the UK House of Commons, Steve Mosher and I have written a book about the leaked emails that have caused so much controversy. The title is Climategate: The CRUtape Letters. It is available on Create Space here, Amazon here, Kindle here and Lulu here. One Amazon reviewer wrote, "Mosher and Fuller do a good job putting the ClimateGate documents in context, and the book is a riveting read. I received my copy yesterday, and find the book to be faithful to the climate war events that I have followed over a period of years. It reports actual email communications of a small group of paleoclimatologists and their roles in perhaps the biggest scientific hoax since Piltdown Man."
Comments
(4) When publishing and peer review in the discipline is cliquish.
(5) When dissenting opinions are excluded from the relevant peer-reviewed literature not because of weak evidence or bad arguments but as part of a strategy to marginalize dissent.
(6) When the actual peer-reviewed literature is misrepresented.
(7) When consensus is declared hurriedly or before it even exists.
(8) When the subject matter seems, by its nature, to resist consensus.
(9) When “scientists say” or “science says” is a common locution.
(10) When it is being used to justify dramatic political or economic policies.
(11) When the “consensus” is maintained by an army of water-carrying journalists who defend it with uncritical and partisan zeal, and seem intent on helping certain scientists with their messaging rather than reporting on the field as objectively as possible.
(12) When we keep being told that there’s a scientific consensus.
Let's see, what might fit the logical absurdities ladled out in many of today’s AGW articles responding to ClimateGate revelations of scientific, political, media and academic misconduct and outright RICO ACT fraud? #10 looks pretty good to start with, but here, you choose the rest:
(1) When different claims get bundled together.
(2) When ad hominem attacks against dissenters predominate.
(3) When scientists are pressured to toe the party line.
Jay Richards’ “When-Not-To-Believe-The-Science-Of-Scientists” is the best rebuttal to the relentless drum beat of the Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) zombies. A person’s retort only has to quote one or more of a dozen of the reasons listed below, depending on the offending Eco-hype in question, to give Jay Richards' logic and common sense wings. His 12 point checklist should be taught in the classroom to inoculate our youth against the rising flood of propaganda manufactured by Big Government, Big Media and Big Academia working together against the best interests of the American people.
If you think only Greenpeace is the only organization that is looking at Koch Industries, you are sadly wrong!
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