How not to win the climate wars – DeSmugBlog

It seems that The Smugblog must have been reading my articles because they seem to have tried to follow the conclusions I presented that alarmists are persuaded by ad hominen attacks. However, the work is so appallingly bad as an attack piece that I thought I should highlight this because those paying the numb skulls know they aren’t getting much for their money.
The poster I refer to his this.
It is in essence a replication of a similar poster by the Heartland Institute. However, when I went first to the Smugblogs poster my immediate instinct was that they must have got the links mixed up. Eventually I did find the tell tale marks showing the immoral hatred of the typical alarmist.
So, here are a few of the problems in no particular order:

• Even an idiot would know that you remove all suggestions of credibility. So why on earth do they highlight their credentials by listing their PhDs. On the positive side, I note there are no titles like “profs”, but what would it have taken to have just used the first and last name?
• The title is a dog’s dinner of how not to do it. They specifically refer to the Heartland Institutes “experts”. Thus informing anyone who wanted to know the “other side” where to find it and where there is a body of expertise. They reproduce opponents message top of the page “global warming is not a crisis”. And they fail to provide any evidence anywhere on the poster to counter the Heartland statement that is is not a crisis. Therefore the only information available is the Heartland message.
• But worst of all, as far as I can see in each description they reproduce the evidence that these people are indeed credible experts. They even give a potted summary of many of the best arguments against global warming being a “crisis”. For example taking “Habibukki Abdussamatov, Dr Sci”: “Mars is also warming” – so clearly if Mars is warming, this could explain our warming.
• They fail to marginalise those involved. So rather than suggested this is just an isolated group, they instead publicise that this is a global group, mainly from scientific but in general quite diverse backgrounds. In other words, suggesting that experts from a whole range of areas and nations have think global warming “is not a crisis”.
• Each and every description appears to have been written to bolster the credibility of the person. So J.Scott Armstrong, PhD. “Does work on forecasting and holds the opinion that experts are no better at forecasting than unaided college students”. First it highlights the forecasts have failed so ensuring the reader knows this argument as well, then it shows he is a modest person who the public would admire. And finally it fits in with what most of the public know about the weather forecasts.

Yes there are a few comments that amongst the dog’s dinner do have a good go (but not very good) at undermining the people being portrayed, but overwhelmingly this is one of the crappiest bits of marketing I’ve ever seen. The effect is just to demonstrate that the Heartland Institute have a panel of experts of whom many do publish on climate. And the rest are clearly experts in their own fields.

They’ve shot themselves in the foot.
(and what a waste of money for their financial backers!)

Having done so much to demonstrate the credibility of the Heartland panel, they then do a very good job of listing all the many good arguments supporting their view from the warming on Mars to the lack of correlation of CO2 and tempreature. So that the very few instances where anyone might see the statements as negative are easily dismissed because it’s clearly an attack. The result is that even Heartland’s detractors admit that overwhelmingly this is a group of highly qualified people who have good reasons to think global warming is not a crisis.

PS. If you are wondering why I’m giving the Smugblog this good advice. The answer is that the alarmists have tried and failed to convince anyone and now as the data begins to make it impossible to deny we sceptics were always right, not even the most slick marketing (and certainly not crap like that poster) can keep this scam going much longer.