So what do you do when someone posts a YouTube video saying you're a crock? One way is to complain and get it wiped clean off the 'inter-tubes.'
A video called "Climate Crock of the Week" about head-in-the-sand global warming denier Anthony Watts was posted last week on YouTube by Peter Sinclair who has been running the "Climate Crock" series for quite sometime now.
The video was making the blogosphere rounds, getting a lot of comments on YouTube and on a post I did over the weekend here on Huffington. And then "poof" this happened:
Scrubbed.
The video was removed after Watts complained under YouTube's Copyright Infringement guidelines. This has become known as a DMCA Takedown -- with the DMCA being the U.S. copyright law used to criminalize anyone infringing and/or circumventing copyrighted works.
Before I posted Sinclair's YouTube video, as I normally do with any YouTube video I post, I vetted it from a DMCA point of view and, quite frankly, I don't know what part of the video Watts would have a problem with. There's nothing I saw in the video that appears to break any copyright as it relates to Watts. Now maybe he took issue with the short (credited) clip at the beginning from Will Ferrell's Anchorman movie ... but I think this is more about a video that thoroughly shreds Watts and his argument that the world is wrong about climate change and he is right.
So what is it, Watts? Instead of hiding behind an automated service that deletes any video on YouTube that someone claims infringes DMCA, why don't you email me (desmogblog [at] gmail [dot] com) and explain why you think Sinclair's video should not be viewed by the public.
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"The APS has not reversed its position on climate change, which states:
"Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth's climate. Greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide."
"The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth's physical and ecological systems, ...and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now."
"This statement was reaffirmed on July 22, 2008 in response to a controversy prompted by the publication of an article by amateur climate skeptic Christopher Monckton. That article was published in the APS Newsletter, not a scientific journal, and is not peer reviewed science, nor is Monckton a scientist. The material Monckton presented has been thoroughly refuted by many working climatologists and the apparent embarrassment of the APS has prompted them to preface that article with a disclaimer:"
"The following article has not undergone any scientific peer review, since that is not normal procedure for newsletters. The APS reaffirms the following position on climate change adopted in 2007: "Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth's climate"."
http://www.ask.com/bar?q=american+physical+society+climate+change+statement&page=2&qsrc=0&ab=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.grist.org%2Farticle%2Fthe-american-physical-society-denies-the-so-called-consensus
Using the term "denier" to describe someone who happens to disagree with your point of view about one topic is extremely damaging to your credibility. You are trying to tie this person to those who deny the death camps of World War II.
If you think the Yankees are the best baseball team in the world, and I think the Redsocks are, it doesn't help your case if you call me a Yankee denier. It is simply childish.
Science is one of the great inventions of our civilization. Scientific subjects should be treated with respect. Every person who has an opinion about a scientific topic deserves the respect of others. Name calling simply weakens your position.
As expressed in one study, "The scientific consensus is clearly expressed in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)......IPCC is not alone in its conclusions. In recent years, all major scientific bodies in the United States whose members' expertise bears directly on the matter have issued similar statements. For example, the National Academy of Sciences report, Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions, begins: "Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise"
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686
I could pretend that physics is wrong and does not exist! It does not change the laws of physics. In fact, my opinion says much more about me and my faith in my own opinion than it does about physics. The deniers do not get this reality!
Real science books don't have the concept of "consensus" in their indexes.
Prominent physicists, such as Freeman Dyson, at Princeton, have clearly voiced their disagreements with the idea of Global Warming.
The request by 50 prominent physicists for this change is, by itself, solid evidence that there is no "consensus" regarding global warming among American physicists.
Whether or not the professional association repeals its current finding remains to be seen, but bears watching.
There is a You Tube video by Peter Sinclar titled “Climate Denial Crock of the Week” which ridicules the important contribution of Anthony Watts in identifying poor siting issues with the US Historical Climate Network (see his report). The video is clearly a biased presentation of what Anthony has accomplished, even resorting to the absurd connection of climate to how the health issues of tobacco were reported. The video fails to recognize that the National Climate Data Center (NCDC) invited Anthony to present his work in Asheville, and recently, one of the NCDC scientists invited him to co-author a research paper with him.
I will report if NCDC refutes this personal attack against a well respected colleague who has provided a much needed analysis to the climate science community. Stay tuned also for at least two peer reviewed papers which are quantitatively analyzing, using Anthony’s data, the impact of the poor sitings of the HCN sites on the long term surface temperature trends and anomalies.
"Nothing occupies global warming deniers more than trying to prove the U.S. temperature record — a tiny portion of the global temperature record — is not reliable. Now NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center has issued an excellent Q&A, “Is the U.S. Temperature Record Reliable?” that should settle that question for any objective observer."
"The NCDC paper proves we should all be delighted that deniers like Anthony Watts and Steve McIntyre spend so much time on this: It is clearly a fruitless effort that consumes time which they might otherwise spend spinning out more potent disinformation."
http://climateprogress.org/2009/07/07/noaa-ncdc-is-the-us-temperature-record-reliable-deniers-anthony-watts-surfacestationsorg/
Or see: New NSDIC Director Serreze explains the "death spiral" of Arctic ice, brushes off the "breathtaking ignorance" of blogs like WattsUpWithThat.
http://climateprogress.org/2009/06/05/nsidc-director-serreze-death-spiral-arctic-ice-wattsupwiththat/
http://climateprogress.org/2009/01/05/anthony-watts-up-with-that-anti-science-denier-website-weblog-awards/
If you ask a hundred people about the weather, you might get a hundred opinions. Seems like it is reasonable to assume that if you ask a hundred people about climate change, you might also get a hundred opinions. Since when are scientists not supposed to ask sceptical questions?
The accuser has no such problem. There is no penalty for someone issuing a false takedown request, which has led to the cynical use of it by anyone wanting to stop dissenting speech from coal companies to the Church of Scientology. Record companies issue blanket takedown requests and lawsuits for anything that has even the name of one of their artists (in one infamous case a professor was targetted for uploading a recording of his lecture named usher.mp3).
Support copyright reform.
When speech is silenced, liberty is lost.
http://www.gi.alaska.edu/snowice/sea-lake-ice/Brw09/forecast/
"We would like to emphasize that the images released are scientifically extremely valuable. They both clearly demonstrate the year-to-year variability of ice conditions and document the progess of summer ice break-up in Barrow 2006 in unprecedented detail. However, unlike suggested by some, comparing summer ice conditions in July 2006 and July 2007 is not sufficient evidence to verify a trend."