Scottish Sceptic

With Lamar Smith’s help NOAAgate is going to turn into a big scandal, if for no other reason than that the Republicans are going to enjoy dragging NOAA’s and by them Obama and the Democrat’s reputations through the dirt.
However, as they are the steam engine that’s going to pull this reluctanct scam into the glare of public scrutiny, the time table is going to be theirs to pick and choose.
What sceptics can do to help
First, we’ve got to keep up the pressure on climate to demonstrate that NOAAgate is a vote winner. That is particularly important for US sKeptics. The politicians have to be reminded as often as possible that climate & energy is a key election issue – for whilst we have great friends in the Republican party, they too are fighting their corner to ensure climate is high up on the campaign hit list.
Second, we need to “hit the floor running” with this scam. So, when the Republicans choose to go with it, then we sceptics/skeptics have to be ready to put in the time and energy to make a real buzz. That doesn’t mean going to WUWT and having a moan, instead it means going onto normal newsmedia sites and getting stuck in with people who may have no scientific qualification at all and need our help to understand the shear appalling nature of the scam.
Also, we need to do what we can to prepare for NOAAgate even though we cannot be sure exactly what form it will take. So, e.g. I’ve spent a bit of time taking the nearly 100 press articles on NOAAgate and tweeting them under the hashtag <a href=”https://twitter.com/search?q=%23noaagate&src=typd”>#NOAAgate</a>
And please do make further suggestions about what we can do to make sure this scam really does take off this time.
Mike
Addendum
Just a thought – with NASA up to the same tricks and NOAA – perhaps we ought to start tweeting under “NASAgate” also?

My normal attitude to politicians is “a curse on all their parties” and there’s few I can honestly say I voted for rather than voting against the person they’re standing for, but from what I’ve seen of Ted Cruz, he comes across as intelligent, articulate, focussed on the important issues & best of all he runs rings around climate extremists:

This is a quick report re NOAA-gate. After posting the scandal online on a few forums I was inundated with extremely annoyed climate extremists trying to use every trick in the book to attack me. But it failed for very simple reasons:

• I wasn’t the one caught upjusting global temperatures
• I wasn’t the one denying legally sanctioned oversight by the committee whose duty it is to carry out oversight.
• So, I wasn’t the one now acting illegally
• And I wasn’t the one whose reputation and credibility is now in the gutter

Basically the argument goes like this:

NOAA have refused to defend their warming adjustments to global temperature to the Congressional committee charged with oversight. As such it now appears that the reason the “human adjusted” global temperatures show warming is because of that global warming. And now as there’s no smoke without fire, the whole work of NOAA is suspect. That means that NOAA, and ALL it’s work, and ALL who work for it are now suspect unless or until it submits to the duly sanctioned and legal scrutiny of the committee duty body to carry out that oversight.

For example one climate extremist got so annoyed, that by the time I went out there were around a couple dozen of his posts that he wanted me to answer.
LIVID!! That’s what they were. This NOAA-gate looks like dynamite as it really gets up the noses of the extremists!

One thing I could never understand from the #ClimateExtremists, was how they could say “it’s the world’s greatest problem” in one breath and in the next “we can’t release that because we can’t get permission”.
Surely, if it really were the world’s greatest problem, then a simple problem like obtaining permission to release data or documents would be almost insignificant and not at all something that could be allowed to stop the #ClimateExtremists convincing the public by releasing the data.
It’s a bit like a disaster movie – the boat is sinking, the passengers are running to the lifeboats, and then they are handed a form to fill out before getting on the life-boat. It’s either an emergency – in which case all the normal protocols go by the way, or it’s just another boat trip in which case, yes there might be forms to fill in.
And now by the most recent behaviour of NOAA, we see that “global warming” is so unimportant that they will fight tooth and nail to stop publishing something they say proves their case … as if anyone believes the fraudsters any longer!
But come on! When sceptics ask for evidence … we get told it’s the world’s greatest problem and we should be so petty as to need evidence. But when it comes to manufacturing petty bureaucracy to obfuscate due oversight, nothing is too small an issue to put a break on due oversight.

• Back in 2009, academics are UES broke criminal law by refusing legitimate FOI requests.
• Now in 2015, NOAA climate extremists are breaking US law by refusing legitimate congressional requests.

The similarity is striking, but so also the difference. Back in 2009, it was a few climate “nerds” like me creating petitions and trying to stoke up interest. Now, it is highly professional politicians, with crushing scientific evidence of 18 years without warming, in a run up to a US election, who have have the bit between their teeth.
I remember Climategate – and I remember thinking it was all over even before it had really started. And then it just took off! And so I’ve not lightly dismissed the various other scams as they came along – but none got traction with the public – mainly because it was still only a few nerds pushing it.
But something is really different this time. This time the forums are filled to the brim, not only with those like me who understand the issue, but an even greater number who appear to be only just coming to grips with the shear scale and audacity of this scam. The Republicans have introduced a whole new audience to this scam.
Also, this “Gate” is very different in nature from what we sceptics have been used to, because it is no longer an issue on its own. Instead it is now tied up in a raft of actions including the notorious wiping of emails by Hilary Clinton, and the rule by executive decree by the US EPA (environmental agency), which the Republicans are skilfully putting together. So, at best this “NOAA-gate” as I’m sure someone will call it, is just another issue in their armoury. If the Republicans can run with it (which now looks certain with the NOAA refusal which plays straight into their hands), then they will use it. If however, it doesn’t look like it’s spilling the dirt – it’ll get sidelined as they focus elsewhere.
But more than likely this NOAA-gate will be more like an orchestra – at times the republicans will ask the string to play – but before they audience gets fed up – they’ll bring about a new melody on the woodwind – Then change the tune with some drums – before going back to the wind (scam).
For those in the US, it will sound like one harmonious onslaught on Obama changing smoothly from subject to subject to create hell for the Democrats across a raft of areas. But for us outside the US with a focus on climate, it will seem as if climate suddenly becomes important – then even before it reaches a conclusion – to our amazement, it will disappear from the news.
But like all music – they real climate will come at the end, and unless I’m very mistaken 🙂 there will be a climax.

There’s “No ambiguity there” says an article in “Scientific Method“,”[Congressman] Smith is clearly suggesting that the NOAA is manipulating its results to further an external agenda.” The full statement, which Rep. Smith’s office provided to Ars, reads as follows:

It was inconvenient for this administration that climate data has clearly showed no warming for the past two decades. The American people have every right to be suspicious when NOAA alters data to get the politically correct results they want and then refuses to reveal how those decisions were made. NOAA needs to come clean about why they altered the data to get the results they needed to advance this administration’s extreme climate change agenda. The agency has yet to identify any legal basis for withholding these documents. The Committee intends to use all tools at its disposal to undertake its Constitutionally-mandated oversight responsibilities.

Now Smith has called out Obama and NOAA as climate extremists manipulating the data for political ends, and not without compelling evidence, this issue now boils down to one single question: “who runs America?” Is it unelected bureaucrats pushing an eco-political agenda with nothing but a thin veneer of “science” to hide their lies and deceit, or is it the duly elected representatives in Congress who have a duty to carry out oversight of these bureaucrats?

You’ve got to hand it these guys at NOAA – they don’t do arrogance in a small way.
What was once a question of science and asking NOAA to justify their methods that create warming out of nothing, just got a whole lot bigger as they challenged the right of congressional oversight of US democracy.
There’s no doubt whatsoever that those producing data for what was billed as “the world’s greatest problem” costing more than any other issue, must have their work scrutinised. There’s no doubt the US congress has a right and duty to perform that scrutiny. And now … there’s no doubt whatsoever that the temperature data has been fraudulently produced for political and personal gain – for what other reason can there possibly be to deny due oversight by those legitimately charged with that oversight?
But how stupid can they get? If they had nothing to hide, why not just hand over the emails as requested and bluff it out as usual? Clearly they cannot do that!
And now, this is no longer a matter of science, it’s not even about the climate, instead it goes to the heart of democracy. Who runs the US? Is it self-appointing public servants who are forcing their own “law” through illegitimate and unconstitutional decrees and denying oversight. Or is it the politicians elected to run the country?
 

I was looking through “global warming” news today and trying to spot anything worth reading. There was nothing worth reading, and the the articles worth even commenting on were not accepting comments.
But as I scanned the list and tried to work out why it had all got so boring, I saw that something had changed, all the same idiotic eco-fascists regurgitating the same eco-fascist trash. All the same stories were appearing, there was not much let up in the green spew of crap from the “normal sources” with the normal crop of “denialists”, Green lies, etc.
But, why was I not at all concerned to read the same bullshit? A year ago, I’d be desperate to put the counter view. Today they didn’t seem to matter.
And then I realised – it was because it was just the same boring bullshit that has been trotted out time and time again until everyone is sick to death of it.
And that is when I realised what had changed in climate …
what has changed, is that there is no change. Like the Pause, the climate “news” has stagnated. It is now a stagnant pool of shit that has been long ignored by the public and is only dangerous to the unwary because beneath the green exterior are all these turds.

The ultimate aim of us sceptics must be for good science, that is to say free, fair** and open discussion based on the evidence where all views are welcome, so long as it is accepted that the evidence is the final arbiter (not some fake consensus).
As such, we sceptics readily accept and thoroughly endorse the right of people to disagree with us. Indeed I would argue very strongly, that the greatest compliment one person can do to another is to take the time & effort to find fault with their arguments.
Unfortunately, in the area of climate due to a number of factors (of which the rise of the internet was one), at one time, much of academia was of a single mind – or at least allowed itself to be portrayed that way. That the “debate was over”, that alternative views were not allowed and that sceptics were wrong merely for raising our concerns over the standard of work and evidence.
However, it is now very clear that increasingly academics have changed their views and that now large numbers accept that climate is a legitimate area for debate. Whilst relatively few speak out, there’s more of this kind of view being heard:

French Mathematical Calculation Society: Global Warming Crusade is absurd and pointless

As such there are now two fairly distinct camps on non-sceptics:

1. Those like the French society, who whilst they may not agree with us sceptics entirely, they have looked at the evidence and concluded that the issue needs further “discussion”.
2. Those like Obama, Lewandowsky, Tamino, Anders, and a host of other small minded people, who continue with their doomsday claim that the climate is extreme,their own self-proclaimed “omniscience” and there lies that all significant weather events are the “most extreme yet” that anyone who disagrees with them is a criminal, that free speech must be denied any who disagree with them.

I therefore feel the sceptic terminology of others needs to reflect this change. In the past we have used various terms:
Warmist
We have won the war of public acceptance of the “pause” and so the term “warmist” is no longer relevant to the actual trend. Indeed, it was never an ideal name (shortened from global warmist – as in those supporting the PR), because it implied something about future warming. Whilst I personally think cooling over the next decade is slightly more likely than warming, I don’t fundamentally object to the view that CO2 ought to cause a bit of warming (instead I would argue that we are very unlikely to see such a small change within the context of much larger  natural variation). Therefore I have had to stop using the term  “warmist”.
Alarmist
The term alarmist, came to mean those who were alarmed by the climate and those who were not. This accurately reflected a significant difference as most sceptics accepted 20th century warming, that CO2 should have a small effect, but the significant difference was about the alarm expressed about CO2.However, as the global population and academia have become less and less alarmed and as I’ve come to see the potential for rapid cooling that is possible as a result of the ice-age cycle, I have to say I was somewhat alarmed by the possibility.
So, I can reasonably see that alarm is quite possible over the climate (at least regarding cooling). And I’m not convinced we are against “alarm”, which is a judgement of the importance of the evidence so much as poor quality science, and the vicious cycle of those whose alarm causes them to look for problems and manipulate data and models to promote further alarm.
Climate extremists
But, by far the biggest concern I have for previous categorisations of the “other side” from sceptics, is that they lumped both the extreme eco-fascist alongside those who were genuinely concerned – largely based on the science (as they had available even though that “science” is highly suspect) that CO2 might have a small effect.
We need terminology, that does not condemn the well intentioned academics (even if somewhat naive about the manipulations that go on) who, whilst not being as sceptical as a real sceptic, are now at least speaking up about their concerns over the subject area of climate. Indeed, we need terminology that condemns extremisms without condemning those who reasonably put forward the argument based on the evidence they have.
Therefore I would like to encourage all sceptics to cease categorisation our opposition as “warmists” or “alarmists” and now refer to those against our position as “climate extremists”.
Mike Haseler
**Note, “fair” must mean equity of funding and not the present system where funding goes to one viewpoint not only within academia, but much worse within the public debate itself.