Reading an article on WUWT, I wanted to work out how I originally came to accept global warming as true and see what I knew about those who believed fitted in with what Dr Ball was suggesting. It really boils down to this: “Ten years ago I simply parroted what the IPCC told us. ” … people just go along with the crowd unless or until something unusual happens to us, which then causes us to want to verify that the crowd is correct. And the more you are “part of the establishment”, the less you have reason to question “the establishment”.How did I get to become involved in “global warming”?
It started because I was running my own small electronics business and looking for customers. As a small company I needed customers who couldn’t afford large companies and several of those I started working with were involved in “renewable energy”.
This isn’t the “renewable energy” we see today, instead it was small systems for off-grid use. E.g. one application was a solar powered street light.
I had obviously heard about global warming – and like everyone else I hardly needed convincing when the BBC reported that scientists said it was going to happen.
However, then I heard about this new government scheme worth up to £1billion a year. As a new company, this sounded enormously interesting and so I started trying to get actively and like so many other people I might have had a well paid job except for two problems:
- Rather than work in the wind developers – I wanted to work in engineering – and it soon became obvious that the only jobs in the UK were going to be effectively “real estate agents” buying foreign equipment. That wasn’t for me and I was furious that the UK was yet again planning to spent £billions with absolute lies about the numbers of jobs.
- I am a physicist and so I couldn’t unequivocally state it was true unless or until I knew and understood the science behind it. I could say “the best scientists say”, and parrot what they said as I assumed it would be rock solid. But I needed to see the evidence myself to say it “I” rather than “they” … ” know it is true”.
Strangely for someone who is sceptical by nature and trained in science and who saw the real wind developers from inside and was not at all impressed by their honesty and someone who even joined the green party and found they were totally naive – I had to be convinced that global warming doomsdayism was false rather than having to be convinced it was true.
So I suspect something like 99% of warmists are warmists purely because they feel that global warming doomsdayism is a “science” because a very small number of people labelled “scientists” tell them so.
But what about this very small group of “scientists” whose (false) accreditation as “scientists” has enabled them to convince everyone else? How can they have stated black is white – no warming is warming, a plantfood is a poison, etc. The following are a number of explanations which I have developed to explain to myself their behavioiur:
- They just aren’t very good. The inability of Phil Jones to use a spread sheet and the appalling standards of programming and e.g. the obvious failing of Mann’s hockeystick paper demonstrate to me that these people are not the brightest sparks in the barrel. It’s obvious to me, that some very poor quality people got into climate. I suspect it attracted the environmentally active people rather than good scientists.
- They believe their own PR – they are “scientists” (or so their Universities called them), so they believed they were actually doing science , without any of the rigour or any need to apply the scientific method. But they were called scientists and so they believed their own PR and as scientists they were infallible.
- Confirmation bias – because they only search to prove manmade warming to be true – and because they identify those who disagree with them as “non-scientist” and therefore lacking credibility, no one they think is credible has ever shown them to be “false”.
- Even if they know their subject is problematic, they think to themselves: “we might not be perfect, but there is no one better so what we produce, no matter how imperfect is the best that anyone will get”.
- False application of “precaution”. In normal life we use the precautionary approach to stop us doing things we know to be harmful. Not speeding on wet roads. But in this area the precautionary approach has been used to imagine risk where none is know, then imagine solutions where none are known, then to say that we must do things known to damage our society and economy in order not to face imagined risks.
- Financial interest – it is well known that many university big-wigs saw “global warming” as a huge gravy boat for funding. Researchers with doubts were told to keep quiet. Research that was likely to undermine this research was repressed and those researchers who would not toe the line were got rid of. So, in most Universities there was a strong financial interest to promote global warming alarmism and a very strong disincentive to rock the gravy boat.
I’ve now reread the article on WUWT by Time Ball
and I more or less agree with most of it, although the “new world order” feels to me like trying to shoe horn the evidence to fit a political viewpoint. But this statement by German meteorologist and physicist Klaus-Eckert Puls highlights a story that has been repeated time and time and time again and more or less sums up my own, so I suspect it is by far the most significant reason:
“Ten years ago I simply parroted what the IPCC told us. One day I started checking the facts and data – first I started with a sense of doubt but then I became outraged when I discovered that much of what the IPCC and the media were telling us was sheer nonsense and was not even supported by any scientific facts and measurements. To this day I still feel shame that as a scientist I made presentations of their science without first checking it.”
Yes, like so many alarmists, there was a time I simply parroted what I was being told (although I personally felt uncomfortable with this as I knew I hadn’t actually seen the evidence). And the last sentence, is probably why I became such an active sceptic. I was ashamed that I had help perpetuate a lie.
I would add this to the reason that the IPCC has lost its way.
You have to first accept, whether consciously or not, a certain type of idea, or creed, that society has serious underlying flaws which cannot be resolved without first stepping outside the system itself. This creed involves the rejection of paradoxes and multiple competing factors, and once you blindly accept such a creed without realising there are paradoxes and competing factors, then one then blindly follows whatever science supports the creed that one has unconsciously accepted to begin with. One follows from the other.
To take Dawkins idea of memes, it is actually the creed itself which then fights and determines behaviour, rather than the people involved. The people themselves become disciples of the creed, rather than free thinkers who evaluate evidence. In a sense they are no longer in control of their own identity. The ideas and the creed are ultimately determining their behaviour.
Making people aware of their blind acceptance of the creed is not easy. It erects barriers to defend itself. All their science must fit into the creed.
Once you have blindly accepted an idea, the science has to then blindly fit into that idea to be consistent, so any science which doesn’t fit is rejected, and that which does fit is cherry picked. This all follows from accepting a false and distorted creed to begin with-garbage in garbage out.
I would also add, that most of this occurs at an unconscious level, I wouldn’t call it ‘lying’ so much as deliberate and systemic bias.
One of the key factors that science has that religion doesn’t in this area is empirical evidence, which usually is the major factor undermining false beliefs and destroying and exposing creeds which should not have been accepted to begin with.
I’m less inclined to believe in the big plot idea too. While I’ve no doubt that people like Maurice Strong and Jeremy Grantham have pulled political strings, I believe CAGW has a force of its own that is self sustaining. I don’t think most climate scientists started out to deceive but were carried along by the seductive idea of saving the planet. Once they had been convinced of their own place in history, it has become almost impossible for them to admit they’ve made mistakes. I see builders who know the foundations are dodgy but hope the stuff they build on top will make up for it.
Like you I initially accepted the science but was inclined to doubt it for several reasons. Firstly there were too many categorical statements, too much certainty. I found myself asking ‘how do they know that?’ and was alarmed by how little detail was being mentioned. The second alarm bell was the company warmists kept. I’m sorry but Greens have long struck me as narrow minded and anti human. Add all the bonkers NGOs and charities and I was fairly sure that there was a lot of deception for a cause going on.
At the same time I was doing many of the suggested things to cut energy use and I knew that those in charge had no idea what they were talking about. I knew that nothing they mentioned makes that much difference to CO2, especially as we add more and more, bigger and bigger electrical gizmos to our lives. I’d already looked into windmills and solar panels and was dubious they could offer much benefit.
I could see a lot of political misdirection too and was aware our self deluded politicians were blythely sacrificing our country for their dreams of being a beloved international saviour. They clearly weren’t speaking from deep contemplation but from band wagon enthusiasm.
The turning point was Durkin’s Great Global Waring Swindle. While it had flaws, it solidified my concerns over where climate science was coming from and ultimately going.
I used to write letters to the Scotsman highlighting the lies about UK jobs (which I was proved right on). But I’d say thinks like “whilst scientists tell us we have to tackle CO2 … we should have Scottish jobs”. And I can remember thinking to myself “I’ve never actually seen how this think works – perhaps I ought to have a look myself”.
Why rock the boat? Surely if everyone says its true, then there is a really solid foundation.
The reality is that far from being solid, it was just a lot of PR – of which the most evil to my mind and perhaps most persuasive to those who believe it – is that somehow people were being paid to deny it or that they were somehow bordering on insane.
Like both of you, I initially just assumed that the “scientists” were doing good science. The thing that made me suspicious and moved me to start looking a little deeper were the very much un-scientific responses that the CAGW supporters gave when questioned about their theories. Instead of responding to sceptics with reasoned arguments, they responded with personal attacks and rhetoric. “This does not smell right!” I thought. I started doing some minor looking around and quickly ran across E.M. Smith’s (aka Chiefio) blog. What a change from the CAGW crowd! Smith had reason, evidence, unbiased investigation — all the hallmarks of scientific thought. It did not take long to see what the science REALLY said.
At that point, I thought that the CAGW “scientists” (and note that I am not taking about the rank-and-file warmists, but rather the top tier of CAGW talking heads) were merely confused. By the time another year and more piles of bad data had gone by, I thought that they were suffering from a really bad case of confirmation bias. By the time another year or so (and even more bad data and stupendously stupid predictions) had gone by, I was convinced that they were willingly and consciously lying. I have pretty much stayed with that opinion for about the last three years.
My only encounter with the top “warmists” was when I went to the Royal Society. I found that they agreed with me on virtually every point. So, I went away thinking “this is it – they will soon be publicly admitting we are right”.
But that’s now several years ago and still they come out with the same absurd non-science that they can predict the climate even though no sane person who understood anything of science could hold that view.
They seemed reasonable honest people, but were just incapable of accepting the truth that we sceptics have always been right. The nearest I can use for an analogy – is when I had to take a person with Alzheimers back to their house. I asked them for a front door key, they gave me a hairpin – and they appeared convinced it was their door key (fortunately it was unlocked).
In other words, it is as if there is something missing in their mental picture of reality which makes them incapable of seeing how absurd their position is. The only way around this I know is to keep rubbing their faces in the facts until they finally admit that they are wrong.
I see it as a process that’s easy to get into, and difficult to extract yourself from. The originators of the scare such as Carl Sagan and Jim Hanson did worst-case back-of-the-envelope calculations which frightened them. Then Club-of-Rome and World Wildlife types jumping-on-the-band-wagon forcibly explaining that nothing would be done unless you exaggerate the evidence – politicians are too short-term to bother about next century. There’s a famous quote of Carl Hanson’s that explains his thinking along those lines.
Once you’re into a deception like that, it’s hard to get out.
Besides, they still believe that the earth is gaining radiation energy which will manifest itself as increased surface temperatures in the future (as well as more violent storms). With the atmospheric lifetime of CO2 estimated at 30–95 years the calculations get very scary [Ref 1].
So they feel they have to stop CO2 production. That’s also why they won’t think of diverting any activities towards adaptation – not even improving land-use (industrial farming creates approximately 16% of emissions).
Personally, I want to play the Precautionary Principle Get-Out clause of ‘provided it cannot do worse harm’ – and they haven’t proven it isn’t doing so. Unintended consequences abound from Appallation forests cut-down to feed UK’s DRAX power-station to agricultural land being disfigured with windmills and their access roads when their life-cycle is not carbon-neutral …
Once at school, I intentionally started rumour as a practical joke As far as I could see no one was interested and I forgot about it. Then about a week later someone told me the rumour – and at first I believed it – because it was told to me in such a believable way that it seemed to be true. Only when I realised it was the same rumour did I twig that it had quietly spread throughout the school and that by the time I heard it again it seemed to be beyond doubt.
Even though I knew it was false – I was still taken in. Perhaps what we are seeing with global warming, is an extreme example of this – one person tells another “I think it is true” and within a few years that single assertion comes back to them as “unequivocal” truth, and then because “everyone else believes it”, it must be true.
It become a fact – not because anything supports it – but because everyone believes it.
Yes, it’s very easy for outsiders to believe there’s a conspiracy; and also for insiders to feel the accusation is unjust.
“It become a fact – not because anything supports it – but because everyone believes it.”
I would go further, and say that there is actually a deeply rooted evolutionary instinct to strongly believe in ‘moral causes’, but that aren’t necessary true, or at least very well supported.
(Was the ‘rumour’ you mentioned on the surface at least, ‘moral’ in any way, in which case it would tend to have more legs than something which wasn’t. The other common one is a rumour which denigrates someone of something which appeals to prejudice. )
I think there is an instinct within humans towards ‘a moral imperative’, to take up causes, especially in the young. In the old days, people needed this deep instinct to fight wars, to be ready for battle etc, and so it was easy to accept that the enemy was ‘evil’ and their ’cause’ justified. Not too much critical thinking was necessary.
It was also often channelled into religion, which was often used as a kind of substitute fighting for moral causes, instead of fighting morally based wars. But the same ‘moral imperative’ was used to fight for a ’cause’ in both cases, which is a kind of evolutionary adaptation. And evolution isn’t perfect, it cobbles things together without noticing too much the side effects (just look at the Middle East), which in our technological age also manifests as bad science, or science which is too sure of itself.
CAGW is an example of a moral imperative which is too sure of itself, and it fights its’ way forward using moral instincts and justification, which is not the same thing as empirical evidence.
One of the (IMHO) critical elements that I see missing from your list is the role of the so-called “peer-reviewed” journals. And the extent to which the IPCC’s reports, aka the various chapters and verses of the “climate bible”, have been flogged/touted as being “all peer-reviewed” literature; when, in fact (at least prior to AR5), this was definitely not the case!
Not that there is there any requirement that all source material relied on actually be “peer reviewed” literature (and recognizing that even material from a peer-reviewed journal is not necessarily holy writ, so to speak) but the IPCC reports are “advertised” as such.
Similarly, the much touted actual “review” process does not take into account the fact that the “reviewers” can pick and choose that which they review and comment on. This being the case, for all that the IPCC likes to claim that there were x “comments” by y “reviewers”, there’s no guarantee that all aspects of an IPCC WG report have, in fact, been subjected to an appropriate level of scrutiny, oversight and/or correction.
Furthermore, there’s no guarantee that all comments – when made – are even seriously taken into account by the Lead Author “team” for all Chapters. Notwithstanding the putative role of the designated “Review Editors”.
Not to mention the (rarely advertised!) role of Editor in Chief (although that may not be the correct title) played by IPCC (i.e. UNEP/WMO) staff – who get the last word, so to speak.
I recognize that none of the above speaks directly to “motive”; however, I do believe it speaks to “quality” and as such, it is worth keeping in mind.