Virtually all the climate data we've gathered over fifty years points to the same conclusion: humans are warming the planet by burning fossil fuels. But the data have no credibility with global warming deniers, who view science and knowledge as opinions that can be argued into submission. There is a vast Army of Armchair Antiscientists - a shadow AAAS - intent on doing just that across a wide range of science findings they disagree with. They are militant, impassioned, cunning and deceitful, and they seek to quash any messaging that does not agree with their narrative.
My book, Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America, due out from Rodale Press on October 11, is being attacked by such activists before it has even been published, and so serves as a good example. In this case, they are enrolled in customer review programs at online retailers like Amazon Vine - where frequent customer reviewers are given pre-publication books, and their reviews receive exclusive early posting. These activist reviewers are self-described "climate skeptics" - code for global warming deniers - and they are using their reviews as a platform to spread climate misinformation and promote their political agenda.
To see what I mean, consider the book's reception by other reviewers first. Fool Me Twice received the best possible review from Kirkus, - "the world's toughest reviewers since 1933" - a star for "remarkable merit." They call it "a gripping analysis of America's anti-science crisis." Harvard's Steven Pinker says "This book illuminates the alarming hostility to science in contemporary America." Bill Nye the Science Guy says "Otto makes a case that can't be refuted...He backs it up with peer-reviewed studies, with carefully researched numbers, and with his own extensive experience," and Bill McKibben says "We're seeing right now a titanic battle between the power of science and the power of money - and money is winning. This book explains why."
In contrast, the activist reviewers gave the book a single star, the worst possible review, and characterize it as "rambling," "cobbled together," "biased," and "anti-Republican, anti-religious, anti-anyone-who-disagrees-with-Mr.-Otto." The reviews are full of politically motivated misinformation. For example, one reviewer writes that "climatologists are puzzled as to why average global temperatures have stopped rising over the last 10 years" - which a) has nothing to do with reviewing the book, and b) is totally false. The review goes on to promote the names of "eminent" scientists paid to deny global warming - many of whom have been identified in the book Merchants of Doubt. By contrast, this reviewer gave five stars to Brian Sussman's Climategate: A Veteran Meteorologist Exposes the Global Warming Scam.
This activism is further illustrated by, as of this writing, the 10 out of 14 people who rated one of the reviews on Amazon as "helpful," even though the book has not yet been publicized or published. Such responses are clearly being solicited by the reviewer herself.
Deceit is a common theme in antiscience assaults, and so it is here. In their write-ups, the reviewers attribute the statements of others to me as author, quote parts of sentences in ways that change their meanings and make the book appear partisan, and otherwise cherry-pick bits and pieces of information to give a dishonest portrayal that supports their political agenda.
Similar tactics were used against climate scientists Phil Jones, Michael Mann, and others in the "climategate" email scandal, which turned out to be nonsense, or the CERN CLOUD study, as deniers present a concocted conspiracy story about how the paper disproves anthropogenic global warming... or in the revisionist edits to the Paul Revere entry in Wikipedia to make it comport with Sarah Palin's mistaken historical account of his ride. If reality does not agree with the narrative, it seems, these people seek to change reality - which is, of course, the antithesis of science. It is antiscience.
In attempting to paint the book as partisan the activists don't mention that it includes interviews with senior republicans like Doug Holtz-Eakin, chair of President George W. Bush's council of economic advisors. In calling it anti-religious, they neglect to report that it devotes a chapter to an interview with the Rev. Peg Chemberlin, president of the National Council of Churches. In calling it biased, they never say that it takes on antiscience on the political left as well as the political right, because that doesn't fit the reviewers' narrative.
All of this is, of course, to be expected when one writes a political book - especially one defending science from its attackers. In fact, the attacks prove the book's point: science is under assault in America. But they are also a reminder to anyone who doubts just how impassioned, organized, articulate, granular, and cunningly deceitful that assault really is.
Pre-order Shawn Lawrence Otto's Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America, "a gripping analysis of America's anti-science crisis." --Starred Kirkus Review. Like him on Facebook.
Follow Shawn Lawrence Otto on Twitter: www.twitter.com/shawnotto
As far as that goes then - you loose all credibility in the rest of your article. Because you have shown an inherent bias in your own language.
Most of the readers are simply not sharp enough to see this, or are brainwashed into your way of thinking already.
The essence of science is discussion and research. Everyone should be able to bring ideas to the party irregardless of how crazy or unsubstantiated, and those idea will naturally be discredited in the process if they do not have supporting evidence. But people of both sides of any heated debate, such as global warming, lack this patience.
The truth is Al Gore is as irresponsible in the process as the hard-core right-wingers who deny any global warming. Now we have research from CERN which proposes some new ideas. I guess CERN is evil too??? Sure, go try to discredit them also, they only have produced the most important research in the last 50 years. If you really were responsible, and a true 'scientist' you wouldn't care. But would present facts and interesting information - in effort to solve the problem. Isn't this what we all want: SOLVE the problem.
Unfortunately you not unlike the majority - you are picking a side.
-Advancing the Science of Climate Change, National Academies Press, 2010, p 21
More here: http://www.americasclimatechoices.org/
As to your comments about CERN, you are misinformed. The author of that paper himself said that it says nothing whatsoever about climate change - that is simply the spin put on it by deniers who are making rhetorical arguments to confuse people. You are obviously getting your information from partisan sources that are distributing propaganda.
If you want to SOLVE the problem, as you indicate, you would be well-served to QUESTION your sources.
And what will happen to "wealth redistribution scams" like the Kyoto Treaty?
And will CERN end up like Professor Peter Duesberg of the University of California at Berkley?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Duesberg#AIDS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duesberg_hypothesis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Duesberg#Academic_misconduct_investigation
"Letters of complaint to the University of California, Berkeley, including one from Nathan Geffen of the South African Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), prompted university officials to open an inquiry into possible academic misconduct related to false statements and failure to disclose potential conflicts of interest.[18][19]
The investigation was dropped in 2010, with University officials finding "insufficient evidence...to support a recommendation for disciplinary action." The investigation did not endorse Duesberg's article, and TAC's Geffen stated that "this finding does not exonerate Duesberg".
Witch hunt? CERN and Danish Space Research Institute scientists will be brought up on "charges" of "academic misconduct", too? All for challenging powerful, vested, and leftwing interests?
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v476/n7361/full/nature10343.html
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/08/the-cerncloud-results-are-surprisingly-interesting/
I found it interesting that Kirby said, as found at:
http://press.web.cern.ch/press/PressReleases/Releases2011/PR15.11E.html
"However, we've found that the vapours previously thought to account for all aerosol formation in the lower atmosphere can only account for a small fraction of the observations - even with the enhancement of cosmic rays."
Sounds like Kirby, et al. are in search of data to 'fit' their conclusion, since the results of the experiments show that 'cosmic rays' (which they aren't) form condensation nucleus' of many orders smaller than first thought to be involved. Oh well, that's not stopping the anthropogenic warming 'deniers' from raving like the zealots and 'ignorista' that they really are
Simply ask, "can you back up that claim"...and the wonderful sound of crickets fill the forums...
It's not hard, the effort may be more, it takes a lot to counter a single l ie when science is concerned. But it can be done. Just look at the excellent job some of the pro-reality climate push-back posters here accomplish...
Kudos to the book. Can't wait to read it.
"The reviews are full of politically motivated misinformation."
I saw a couple of those reviews myself. Chalk up another sale.
The anti-science movement has to be stopped. They're trying to take away one of the finest tools humanity has ever invented: science. Worse, they're trying to take that tool away just as we're getting into the future, when we're really going to need it.
The data is there, they refuse to look at it.
They of course will deny it, but it's a fact.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Physik#Effect_on_the_German_nuclear_program
Joseph Stalin rejected established agricultural science in favour of the nonsense promoted by Trofim Lysenko and the result was that the Soviet Union could not feed it's own population and in fact millions starved.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trofim_Lysenko
Mao Tse-tung ignored the established science of metalurgy and embarked on a program of small-scale production of iron and steel. The result was a disaster called the Great Leap Forward. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_Zedong#Great_Leap_Forward
More recently, in 1995 Thabo Mbeki announced his belief that the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is not the cause of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). I wouldn't put him in the same category as the first three I mentioned but here we see a similar rejection of scientific consensus in favour of an ad hoc belief system. Governor Perry and other tea party fundamentalists are on the same track but they are in illustrious or maybe I should say infamous company.
These attacks on the facts are based on money, always has, always will.
* Climate is not changing: Look at the melting ice caps and rising sea levels and higher average global temperatures. It's obvious that climate is changing.
* Climate is changing but human activity has no influence on this change vs. human activity having influence on this change: The simple to understand fact that burning fossil fuels reintroduces solar energy from the past and adds it to the currently radiated solar energy reaching the earth means that we have more solar energy released in the earth's troposphere than if we did not burn fossil fuels. The simple fact that we now have 6.8 billion people who are all like furnaces burning solar energy, with a huge proportion of them living in homes with furnaces, and a huge proportion driving cars that act like furnaces, and all of them cooking on little furnaces and creating more particles in the atmosphere that allow air masses to heat up differently, makes it obvious that human activity turning all the reintroduced ancient solar energy into heat, results in more total heat in the troposphere today. Add to that the heat introduced into the atomosphere from nuclear fission and its cooling towers, and certainly there is more heat in the global climate today. Who would deny that?
Who clicked on this post hoping/thinking they were going to read a blog on climate deniers...
...only to be smacked in the face with some dude hawking & hyping his book?
Is that a scientific term?
Hide the decline!!!
Denier talking point number 137. This is getting to sound like a broken record.
Your "decline" does not refer to a decline in global temperature as you're obviously suggesting. It actually refers to a decline in tree growth at certain high-latitude locations. This decline began in the 1960s when tree-ring proxies diverged from the temperature record. The divergence of tree-ring proxies from temperatures after 1960 is openly discussed in the peer-reviewed literature. The divergence problem has been openly discussed in the peer-reviewed literature since 1995 when it was noticed that Alaskan trees were showing a weakened temperature signal in recent decades (Jacoby 1995). This work was broadened in 1998 using a network of over 300 tree-ring records across high northern latitudes (Briffa 1998). From 1880 to 1960, tree growth closely matches temperature measurements. However, the correlation drops sharply after 1960 for certain trees at high latitudes.
http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/fac/trl/public/ftp/pjk/BBCCArcticClimate/Krusic/jacd%27a95.pdf
http://eas8001.eas.gatech.edu/papers/Briffa_et_al_PTRS_98.pdf
It was the central artifact in the AGW movement, but it turns out it wasn't based on good science.
How are those Himalayan glaciers doing?
Are they going to be all gone next week?
Or was the science corrupted by AGW zealots?