Reddit’s science forum banned climate deniers.

[tvbcof]

It's a big Internet - there are plenty of places you can go and air your views.  Or you can create your own site.  Meanwhile, reddit has apparently decided they are serving the market of people who want to discuss the subject without the interjections of those who disagree.

Freedom of speech is a property right - you have the right to use your own press, your own soapbox, etc.  Nobody's obligated to provide one.  And some people just want to be left alone in private.  If they do, of course, the rest of us are free to point them out just in case anyone wants to avoid that group.  Maybe that's all you were doing here.

It is perfectly fine that Reddit bans science deniers.  It is a private organization.  It is kind of like Fox News banning intelligent and honest people from being guests on their shows.  Private companies can do what they want. 

It's perfectly fine to hold a book burning party as well, and if a majority of a community desires it it's OK to raid the public library for fuel.  Democracy.  It's mighty unsightly though.

In my research so far I am finding (to my shock and horror) that the 'skeptics' tend to have at least as high quality science and they have a lot more transparency.  And a lot more fun, but that's beside the point.

The recent 'secret science' bill which just passed the House is really pretty interesting.  The vote was straight-arrow party line.  On the face of it I would agree in the strongest possible terms that all science used to implement public policy be open for scientific review.  This especially since when it comes to climate 'science', the 'scientists' were caught red-handed doing severe crimes against any conception of science, and there results fed directly into various policy making apparatus.  The left wingers had to really reach to find an explanation for why data had to be hidden from the public.

The most interesting thing is that there has been a giant push by the media to push the 'secret science good' paradigm and demonize the right wing for trying to get transparency.  Of course the right wing is going to use it to attack the EPA and their policy making methods, but the fact that they could use transparency to do so speaks volumes about the kinds of corruption that is actually going on and that the EPA (and likely many other government bodies) are using as an increasingly necessary crutch.

[Saltzman Alaric]

It's a big Internet - there are plenty of places you can go and air your views.  Or you can create your own site.  Meanwhile, reddit has apparently decided they are serving the market of people who want to discuss the subject without the interjections of those who disagree.

Freedom of speech is a property right - you have the right to use your own press, your own soapbox, etc.  Nobody's obligated to provide one.  And some people just want to be left alone in private.  If they do, of course, the rest of us are free to point them out just in case anyone wants to avoid that group.  Maybe that's all you were doing here.

It is perfectly fine that Reddit bans science deniers.  It is a private organization.  It is kind of like Fox News banning intelligent and honest people from being guests on their shows.  Private companies can do what they want. 

It's perfectly fine to hold a book burning party as well, and if a majority of a community desires it it's OK to raid the public library for fuel.  Democracy.  It's mighty unsightly though.

I am going to stop reading and responding to you right here because I am going to assume that the rest of what you are going to say is based on the same kind of logic that you opened with. 

1. It is perfectly fine to have a book burning party if you A) own and lawfully came into possession of said books and B) hold said book burning party on your own private land.  The point is, if it is your private land you can do what you want.  Reddit has its own little private space in the internet, it can do what it wants. 

2. If a majority of a community desires to raid a public library and burn the books it is not okay, it is against the law.  Right now the majority of Americans want to make Obama quit, but they don't do it because that would be against the law.  Just because the community up and has a desire doesn't mean they get their way.  I seem to remember some recent Presidential election in 2000 where the majority of Americans voted for one candidate but instead because of silly lines drawn on a map the other candidate won, yet there was no revolution.  That is democracy for you; real democracy, not the silly one you are imagining.  It isn't perfect and people don't always get what they want, but usually there isn't wild chaos when a community gets some kind of wild spur desire. 

[tvbcof]

And how about those Republicans?  Just today they decided to pass a bill so that when considering official government policy that “academic scientists who know the most about a subject can’t weigh in, but experts paid by corporations who want to block regulations can.” Way to deny those scientist that spend their whole lives publishing in peer reviewed journals. American conservatives are just stupid.  This kind of ridiculousness doesn't happen anywhere else in the world.

http://www.salon.com/2014/11/19/house_republicans_just_passed_a_bill_forbidding_scientists_from_advising_the_epa_on_their_own_research/

Also, as far as global warming goes, 97% of all journal articles that are peer reviewed agree that there is indeed global warming.

The debate in these journals is not weather the Earth is warming, all reasonable scientist believe that.  The debate is whether it is fast or slow and human caused or nature caused.  http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/10/peer-reviewed-papers-supporting.html

The trouble with 'climate science' seems to be that it is very heavily funded by entities who have certain political interests.  Most specifically to 'inventory and control' all of the resources on earth, and a 'crisis' provides a lot of tools to do this.  What has happened (fairly demonstrably) is that being on the 'correct' side of the argument ('panic and give central governments unlimited power because we are all going to die otherwise') get grant money and academic fast-tracking.  Those who are on the wrong side are induced to exit the field...so a 'scientific consensus' becomes a fairly weak sales pitch when one analyzes things.

The people who do 'make it' in climate 'science' are typically those who are not competitive in academia without some kind of advantage.  And if one can invent data or hide and tweak it as needed to achieve an outcome desired by one's patrons, this is a huge advantage.  The peer review process and transparency would ordinarily make such activities unreliable, but with a critical mass of similar 'academics' to participate in a closed-loop peer review process which seems outwardly to have some credibility part of the problem goes away.  And if one can feed the results of this subterfuge into the sphere of the political patrons for them to make the policy they want, everyone is a winner.  But the charade can only take place under the cover of secrecy.

These 'scientist' need to be able to live with themselves, but if they can justify their activities as 'saving the earth' they can get by.  Some of the older one's have some trouble with it.  In addition to Hal Lewis (a strong willed guy who also 'refused to sign the McCarthy era loyalty oath on principle' and paid the price at the time) Freeman Dyson who was studying global CO2 levels before it was cool is also calling bullshit.

Anyway, this secrecy and scientific corruption thread seems to be what the Republicans are pulling on.  If it's effective it means that there really is a problem here.  And the reaction from the 'panic now' side is even more evidence that there is quite a lot that is quite rotten here.

[Wilikon]

Scientists Split on Human Impact on Climate Change



A Purdue University survey shows that the scientific community is split on the question of whether human activities are at the root of climate change, with just over 50 percent of scientists saying that climate change is happening and that it is “caused mostly by human activities.”

The Media Research Center reports that the study’s findings differ largely from the often used statistic that 97 percent of scientists believe in man-made global warming.

Rather than claiming 97 percent of scientists believe in man-made global warming, hopefully now some media outlets will revise that number closer to 50 percent.

Contrary to the repeated insistence of both climate alarmists and the media, scientists do not all agree on the standard climate alarmism talking points. A Purdue University scholar, surveying scientists in the agricultural sector including climatologists, found surprising disagreement on humanity’s role in climate change. These findings, though contrary to popular narrative on climate change, are unsurprising to anyone familiar with the prevalence of dissent in the scientific community. [...]

This evidence is inconvenient to the many media outlets that have endlessly repeated that 97 percent of scientists endorse the global warming hypothesis. Prominent outlets like NBC and the New York Times, as well as countless others, have effectively shut down debate by asserting there is no scientific debate.

The Purdue study was done to compare opinions on climate change from scientists, climatologists, and the agricultural industry. Only 53 percent of climatologists said that climate change is caused “mostly by human activities.”

The number of scientists and climatologists that chose this option is still high when compared to agricultural advisers (12.3 percent) and farmers (8 percent). The majority of both agricultural advisers and farmers said that “climate change is occurring, and it is caused more or less equally by natural changes in the environment and human activities.”

http://freebeacon.com/issues/scientists-split-on-human-impact-on-climate-change/

[Saltzman Alaric]

There is no conspiracy by professors to lie to the world about their research.  

This is how the university works.  The students give money to the university and the university gives money to the professors.  Professors don't answer to anybody but the university president and often barely even answer to him/her.  Some of these profs are conservative and some of which are liberal, just like the rest of America. (though in academia there is a more of a liberal slant)  

If you think the professors are acting out of greed when they publish, you certainly have that part right.  The more they publish, the more they get paid.  It is that simple.  It really doesn't matter what they publish.  All they have to do is find facts that others haven't found or at least fake it well enough to fool their peers and they will get extra money.  These professors aren't all in a mass conspiracy to hide the truth and in doing so willing to sacrifice their paychecks.  They have houses and mortgages and kids too just like everybody else.  One friend on mine gets a $10,000 bonus for each good article in a reputable journal he publishes.  

This is how it works. They all on an individual level just want to get paid just like the rest of us.  And to that extent the academic system while having its many faults is still kind of working to generally discover the truth.  The fierce competition among the talent to be the next person with the best truth results in said victor getting paid the most.  It is constantly a race to be the next person to add the next fact.  And yes, this does lead to lots of individual cases where people lie or in haste make mistakes, but it just doesn't simply result in 97% of the professors lying in a big mass conspiracy in peer reviewed journals.

Just so you know what a peer reviewed journal is, when an article is submitted to a journal, a well respected team of academics in that field all read it and decide whether it has any new contribution.  They then have to agree.  If it does, it gets published, if it doesn't, then it won't.  Now there are lots and lots of conservatives that could have made their own journal and form their own little circle and publish for one and another but this hasn't happened.  Why?  Because they science just simply isn't there.  The only real source of anti-global warming science comes from non-peer reviewed articles, often times funded by big corporations, or by authors with suspicious ties to big corporations.  

[Saltzman Alaric]

Scientists Split on Human Impact on Climate Change

A Purdue University survey shows that the scientific community is split on the question of whether human activities are at the root of climate change, with just over 50 percent of scientists saying that climate change is happening and that it is “caused mostly by human activities.”

The Media Research Center reports that the study’s findings differ largely from the often used statistic that 97 percent of scientists believe in man-made global warming.

http://freebeacon.com/issues/scientists-split-on-human-impact-on-climate-change/

This article is correct.  It says the same thing that I said earlier. 

Also, as far as global warming goes, 97% of all journal articles that are peer reviewed agree that there is indeed global warming.

The debate in these journals is not weather the Earth is warming, all reasonable scientist believe that.  The debate is whether it is fast or slow and human caused or nature caused.  http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/10/peer-reviewed-papers-supporting.html

Basically, everyone knows it is heating up.  That is a fact.  The 97% agree on that.  What is a bit confusing is to "why" and "how much".  Some say nature, some say humans are the main cause.  But almost all of the 97% say it is a mixture.  They just disagree upon how much it is mixed up.  Some say it will be a little bit of a problem, some say it will be a big problem, but most of the 97% agree that sooner or later there will be problems of some sort.

[tvbcof]

There is no conspiracy by professors to lie to the world about their research.  

This is how the university works.  The students give money to the university and the university gives money to the professors.  Professors don't answer to anybody but the university president and often barely even answer to him/her.  Some of these profs are conservative and some of which are liberal, just like the rest of America. (though in academia there is a more of a liberal slant)  

If you think the professors are acting out of greed when they publish, you certainly have that part right.  The more they publish, the more they get paid.  It is that simple.  It really doesn't matter what they publish.  All they have to do is find facts that others haven't found or at least fake it well enough to fool their peers and they will get extra money.  These professors aren't all in a mass conspiracy to hide the truth and in doing so willing to sacrifice their paychecks.  They have houses and mortgages and kids too just like everybody else.  One friend on mine gets a $10,000 bonus for each good article in a reputable journal he publishes.  

This is how it works. They all on an individual level just want to get paid just like the rest of us.  And to that extent the academic system while having its many faults is still kind of working to generally discover the truth.  The fierce competition among the talent to be the next person with the best truth results in said victor getting paid the most.  It is constantly a race to be the next person to add the next fact.  And yes, this does lead to lots of individual cases where people lie or in haste make mistakes, but it just doesn't simply result in 97% of the professors lying in a big mass conspiracy in peer reviewed journals.

Just so you know what a peer reviewed journal is, when an article is submitted to a journal, a well respected team of academics in that field all read it and decide whether it has any new contribution.  They then have to agree.  If it does, it gets published, if it doesn't, then it won't.  Now there are lots and lots of conservatives that could have made their own journal and form their own little circle and publish for one and another but this hasn't happened.  Why?  Because they science just simply isn't there.  The only real source of anti-global warming science comes from non-peer reviewed articles, often times funded by big corporations, or by authors with suspicious ties to big corporations.  

What a remarkably stunning degree of ignorance, and also an exact match for the message which is hammered home in the various media.

You seem utterly unaware of how grants fund a great deal of academic research (and the funding in the field of 'climate science' is enormous.)  You also seem unaware that many professors make a good bit of their income (a majority in some cases) providing services such as being expert witnesses.  This is the case with one of my relatives.  There is nothing wrong with that, but there could be in some circumstances absent proper procedures including transparency.

I'll bet that you believe that banks take depositor's money and lend it out and that is how they stay in business.  Sounds nice and clean, but it is almost completely not true and understanding things on the simple public consumption level leads to a similarly defective understanding of the larger world.

If you are comfortable with your current view of the climate issue I would suggest you NOT dig into the climate-gate material beyond what your favorite sources tell you should think about it.  Indeed, you sound like you may be so programmed with 'new science' principles that what us old timer's consider to be fraud is actually just better science performing the greater-good duties that science should perform.

[Wilikon]

Kill Your Pet Dog To Save World From Global Warming...

Last week President Obama announced a historic climate change agreement with Chinese president Xi Jinping. Aimed at drastically curtailing carbon emissions into the atmosphere, the goal is to rein in the carbon footprints of the planet’s two major polluters, the U.S. and China.

I wonder if the agreement contains anything about carbon paw prints. While humans and their ravenous appetite for growth remain the primary drivers of climate change and the accompanying specter of climate catastrophe, pets have a surprising negative impact of their own. Bowser and Mittens may be your best friends, but with around one billion pet dogs and cats in the world, eating billions of pounds of canned meat a year producing half a billion pounds of waste daily, Mother Nature might just consider them to be—after humans—Public Enemy Number Two.

Cats and dogs eat meat-based diets, and we all know that is the most energy intensive diet there is. Then there is the staggering amount of bacteria-laden fecal material these beloved creatures produce. American dogs alone are responsible for 10 million tons of waste a year. Can anything be done to make our pets more planet-friendly?

The Carbon Paw Print

You consider yourself an environmentalist and are considering ditching that gas-guzzling SUV you bought a few years ago in order to reduce your carbon footprint. You might want to think of ditching Bowser instead. An average-sized dog consumes about 360 pounds of meat in a year and about 210 pounds of cereal. Taking into account the amount of land it takes to generate that amount of food and the energy used, that makes your dog quite the carbon hound. A 2009 study by New Zealand’s Victoria University of Wellington concluded that pet dogs have carbon paw prints double that of a typical SUV. John Barrett of the Stockholm Environment Institute, in York, Great Britain, confirmed the results of the New Zealand study. “Owning a dog really is quite an extravagance, mainly because of the carbon footprint of meat,” Barrett told New Scientist Magazine.

http://www.salon.com/2014/11/20/the_surprisingly_large_carbon_paw_print_of_your_beloved_pet_partner/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=socialflow

[Saltzman Alaric]

What a remarkably stunning degree of ignorance, and also an exact match for the message which is hammered home in the various media.

You seem utterly unaware of how grants fund a great deal of academic research (and the funding in the field of 'climate science' is enormous.)  You also seem unaware that many professors make a good bit of their income (a majority in some cases) providing services such as being expert witnesses.  This is the case with one of my relatives.  There is nothing wrong with that, but there could be in some circumstances absent proper procedures including transparency.

Again, I am just going to address your opening and I am going to assume that the rest of what you say is built up on the same faulty logic.

Okay, so first, just to be clear earlier when I said "my friend gets $10,000 per article" what I really meant is.... it is me.  I am a professor, so you don't need to school me on how the game works.  I have been in it for a long time.  

Despite your delusion that the whole of academia has been bought out and all are corrupt, let me try to explain to you again how it works.

Yes, you are right there is lots of money that goes into climate science, but it will only go to the top 2-3% of researchers at the top universities.  Nobody is giving big grants for your average state school or lower.  Big grants usually only go to the big schools with big names.  And no matter how much money you think there is, there isn't that much going into it.  And next, after that money is given to the profs it isn't conditional.  Once the profs get it, its theirs.  They can publish any finding they want regardless of who gave them the money.  It isn't like the grants come under the stipulation that their findings have to meet the donor's vision or else the researcher has to pay it back.  Almost all of the profs getting big grants also have tenure.  They don't really care what result their donor wanted.  

And yes some professor's make a good bit being witnesses, like about 0.5%.  The ones that do, can get paid quite well.  The other 99.5% get no gigs.  It is much like being a musician.  When you make it big, you are set, but the rest stick to their day jobs.  

The best way to make money outside of the university is a way you didn't mention.  The most common way to earn substantial cash is to become a consultant for private industry.  While I don't have any close relationships with anybody that made it to the rockstar level in academia of professional high paid witness, I do know quite a few that have gotten rich being consultants.  And of course we know that the private industry in the global warming debate that would hire said profs are the oil and gas companies.  They have very deep pockets to hire consultants.  Yet only 3% of profs are global warming deniers.  

Your narrative sucks.

You remind me of Fox News.  Lie as much as you can and then accuse the other side of lying.  Stall as much as you can and then accuse the other side of stalling.  

[Spendulus]

What a remarkably stunning degree of ignorance, and also an exact match for the message which is hammered home in the various media.

You seem utterly unaware of how grants fund a great deal of academic research (and the funding in the field of 'climate science' is enormous.)  You also seem unaware that many professors make a good bit of their income (a majority in some cases) providing services such as being expert witnesses.  This is the case with one of my relatives.  There is nothing wrong with that, but there could be in some circumstances absent proper procedures including transparency.

Again, I am just going to address your opening and I am going to assume that the rest of what you say is built up on the same faulty logic.

Okay, so first, just to be clear earlier when I said "my friend gets $10,000 per article" what I really meant is.... it is me.  I am a professor, so you don't need to school me on how the game works.  I have been in it for a long time.  

Despite your delusion that the whole of academia has been bought out and all are corrupt, let me try to explain to you again how it works. ....lots of money that goes into climate science, but it will only go to the top 2-3%,,,,,,,grants come under the stipulation that their findings have to meet the donor's vision.....Almost all of the profs getting big grants also have tenure.....some professor's make a good bit being witnesses, like about 0.5%.  The ones that do, can get paid quite well.....earn substantial cash is to become a consultant for private industry.....gotten rich being consultants.....the private industry in the global warming debate that would hire said profs are the oil and gas companies...... only 3% of profs are global warming deniers.  

Your narrative sucks.

You remind me of Fox News.  Lie as much as you can and then accuse the other side of lying.  Stall as much as you can and then accuse the other side of stalling.  

Okay, I also have taught college and engaged in research, and your reasonings and logic frankly don't impress me.  I've highlighted the blatantly illogical parts of your narrative and some of the blatant lies which are politically rooted.

If you are a prof you would need to ratchet up the quality of your writing, produce logical arguments that will withstand the opposition, at least holding their own, and eliminate the stupid references to Fox News and the like.

We've heard all those before.  Just for grins would you like to discuss Evil Exxon?  Polar bears?  Baffin bay whale bones?  Senator Inhoff?  Oxygen isotope level proxies?  Yanoff?   Miraculous metastocizing modeling by mediocre men?   I'm sure you have lots of evil oil-loving targets that worry you day and night.  How about Fracking?  Climategate?  The Scary, scary "Arctic Vortex."  Upper atmospheric emission/absorption?  Quantum mechanics of o-c bond?  Penquin barbecues?

Meanwhile, we're sitting on a planet that has not warmed in just about 20 years.  Isn't that nice?  Now let's get to it.  You can Gruber climate science, I will simply refute your arguments.  Likely by referring you to the section of this thread where exactly what you claim has been refuted previously.  Dogma does tend to the repetitive.

[Spendulus]

....One friend on mine gets a $10,000 bonus for each good article in a reputable journal he publishes. 

This is how it works. .....

.....when I said "my friend gets $10,000 per article" what I really meant is.... it is me.

SO for starters.....let's stop the lying, okay?

We've already outed on this thread two separate "Paid Trolls."  Basically just by being polite and patient with them.

[Anon136]

Kill Your Pet Dog To Save World From Global Warming...

Well if this logic applies to dogs than surely it applies to wolves also. Wolves eat meat. Oh and tigers. We better get rid of those also. Orcas too. I wonder if this guy supports reducing the tiger population even further inorder to protect the environment. Something tells me probably not.

[Wilikon]

Kill Your Pet Dog To Save World From Global Warming...

Well if this logic applies to dogs than surely it applies to wolves also. Wolves eat meat. Oh and tigers. We better get rid of those also. Orcas too. I wonder if this guy supports reducing the tiger population even further inorder to protect the environment. Something tells me probably not.

A blue whale's only function on this planet is to eat and eat tons and tons and defecates in the ocean. None stop. Somebody should start calculating a whale's carbon fin print...

[Spendulus]

Kill Your Pet Dog To Save World From Global Warming...

Well if this logic applies to dogs than surely it applies to wolves also. Wolves eat meat. Oh and tigers. We better get rid of those also. Orcas too. I wonder if this guy supports reducing the tiger population even further inorder to protect the environment. Something tells me probably not.

don't forget about beef.

You see, some cultures ... primative ones ... eat dogs.  Now here in Texas, we eat beef.  It's a proven fact (the science is settled) that those black Angus, or other high quality cattle produce the best steaks.  It's a bad day, and a nightmare night, if you don't get a prime level steak.  After all, we know the high marbling of the USDA Prime quality is the absolute worst for global warming.  So we do our best to eat those up.  Just think one day without one (or two) is the worst for the planet.  I stay up all night wrackd with guilt, if I go for USDA choice or select.  Doing less to Save_the_Planet.

[Wilikon]

I would like to welcome any trolls paid to participate in this thread. You do not need to bring any facts as you get paid no matter what.

To justify your salary from al gore here are a couple of ready-to-eat-TV-dinner like phrases you could use to prove your point. Just copy paste them. No need to read them:



Are you getting your facts from Fox News? (that one is a classic! Please use this as often as possible!)


“Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class - involving high meat intake, use of fossil fuels, appliances, air-conditioning, and suburban housing - are not sustainable.” - Maurice Strong, Rio Earth Summit

“We need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination… So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements and make little mention of any doubts… Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.” - Stephen Schneider, Stanford Professor of Climatology, lead author of many IPCC reports

“Unless we announce disasters no one will listen.” - Sir John Houghton, first chairman of IPCC

“It doesn’t matter what is true, it only matters what people believe is true.” - Paul Watson, co-founder of Greenpeace

“We’ve got to ride this global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic and environmental policy.” - Timothy Wirth, President of the UN Foundation

“No matter if the science of global warming is all phony… climate change provides the greatest opportunity to bring about justice and equality in the world.” - Christine Stewart, fmr Canadian Minister of the Environment

“The only way to get our society to truly change is to frighten people with the possibility of a catastrophe.” - emeritus professor Daniel Botkin

“We require a central organizing principle - one agreed to voluntarily. Minor shifts in policy, moderate improvement in laws and regulations, rhetoric offered in lieu of genuine change - these are all forms of appeasement, designed to satisfy the public’s desire to believe that sacrifice, struggle and a wrenching transformation of society will not be necessary.” - Al Gore, Earth in the Balance

“Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsiblity to bring that about?” - Maurice Strong, founder of the UN Environment Programme

“A massive campaign must be launched to de-develop the United States. De-development means bringing our economic system into line with the realities of ecology and the world resource situation.” - Paul Ehrlich, Professor of Population Studies

“The only hope for the world is to make sure there is not another United States. We can’t let other countries have the same number of cars, the amount of industrialization, we have in the US. We have to stop these Third World countries right where they are.” - Michael Oppenheimer, Environmental Defense Fund

“Global Sustainability requires the deliberate quest of poverty, reduced resource consumption and set levels of mortality control.” - Professor Maurice King

“Complex technology of any sort is an assault on human dignity. It would be little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy, because of what we might do with it.” - Amory Lovins, Rocky Mountain Institute

“The prospect of cheap fusion energy is the worst thing that could happen to the planet.” - Jeremy Rifkin, Greenhouse Crisis Foundation

“Giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun.” - Prof Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University

“The big threat to the planet is people: there are too many, doing too well economically and burning too much oil.” – Sir James Lovelock, BBC Interview

“My three main goals would be to reduce human population to about 100 million worldwide, destroy the industrial infrastructure and see wilderness, with it’s full complement of species, returning throughout the world.

“A total population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal.

“If I were reincarnated I would wish to be returned to earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels.” - Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, patron of the World Wildlife Fund

“I suspect that eradicating small pox was wrong. It played an important part in balancing ecosystems.” - John Davis, editor of Earth First! Journal

“The extinction of the human species may not only be inevitable but a good thing.” - Christopher Manes, Earth First!


Thank you and enjoy your stay (you can even use that too!)

[Anon136]

I do indeed for a fact get a $10,000 bonus for getting published in any international peer reviewed journal as well as all the other professors at my university.

Let me ask you something. A simple thought experiment.

Let us suppose arguendo that global warming is complete hogwash. Something is wrong in the science. Some variable is wrong in all the models due to some faulty measurement or assumption. Take your pick what ever is the most plausible reason you can conceive of for how the prediction of catastrophic climate could in theory be wrong. Just suppose, for the moment, for the sake of discussion, that that scenario is in fact the case, how ever unlikely you believe that may be. Suppose you go to one of these scientifically peer reviewed journals to submit this paper. This paper will show that infact the skills that you yourself and the vast majority of people who will be peer reviewing it spent years or decades learning are now no longer necessary. And that a good 75 percent of them atleast will need to retool themselves. Go back to school for another 6-8 years to learn some other new inorder to reclaim the sort of money and status that he had in his previous position except in a new field of study.

What do you think is going to happen? How likely would you be to get your 10k for submitting a paper like this compared to one which either justified the investments of the people reviewing it or made an argument for why they should have even more resources placed at their disposal? How will these incentives effect the people reviewing the paper? How will they effect the sorts of research that people like yourself try to pursue? Do you think the opposition to the sort of research which would render the researchers unemployed requires conspiracy? Or do you suppose that humans come built in with sub conscious defense mechanisms which provide a means protecting them from cognitive dissonance and destruction of their social status at the same time? Sub conscious defense mechanisms that allow them to not pursue the lines of research which would destroy their way of life while still maintaining their belief in their own capacity for objectivity and altruism.

Just some things to think about.

[tvbcof]

Kill Your Pet Dog To Save World From Global Warming...
...
http://www.salon.com/2014/11/20/the_surprisingly_large_carbon_paw_print_of_your_beloved_pet_partner/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=socialflow

I was wondering when we were going to get to that, and right looking forward to it in fact.  Forget about the carbon footprint for a minute and just think about the shit.  I'm going to have to spend $15k for an absurdly over-sized septic system.  The only reason I can even put that in is that my Dad had the good sense to get the site approved 30 years and two owners ago.  A vastly better site I tried to get approved for it about 200 feet away just failed (though I left the test pits open and the water doesn't come anywhere near where the 'professional' from the DEQ said it did after rubbing the earth and squirting water on it.)

Just as a back-of-the envelope calc, let's say that on average a typical American has 5% dog by weight.  That's a lot of poop and pee to be spreading around the environment considering the bazillion dollars that are spent on various septic infrastructure.  Ya, some people probably scoop it (when they think someone else might be watching) but I know good and well that a lot of it gets away.  And what is scooped tends not to be dealt with in a haz-mat suite like other things of similar danger.  Think of all of the children who are harmed by the ill effects of dog shit!  God only knows what the medical costs are.

Of course by rights dog owners should be paying a dog tax, and considering the damage relative to what we pay to deal with human shit, it should be a big one.  I cannot wait for the greenies to try to either ram the dog tax (or dog extermination program) down everyone's throat or try to justify why they have the inconstant science here.  This is going to be a fine line for the greens to walk, but they are going to have to do it at some point before they get us all herded into dense 'human habitat' housing.  Should be fun to watch.

[tvbcof]

What a remarkably stunning degree of ignorance, and also an exact match for the message which is hammered home in the various media.

You seem utterly unaware of how grants fund a great deal of academic research (and the funding in the field of 'climate science' is enormous.)  You also seem unaware that many professors make a good bit of their income (a majority in some cases) providing services such as being expert witnesses.  This is the case with one of my relatives.  There is nothing wrong with that, but there could be in some circumstances absent proper procedures including transparency.

Again, I am just going to address your opening and I am going to assume that the rest of what you say is built up on the same faulty logic.

Okay, so first, just to be clear earlier when I said "my friend gets $10,000 per article" what I really meant is.... it is me.  I am a professor, so you don't need to school me on how the game works.  I have been in it for a long time.  

Despite your delusion that the whole of academia has been bought out and all are corrupt, let me try to explain to you again how it works.

Yes, you are right there is lots of money that goes into climate science, but it will only go to the top 2-3% of researchers at the top universities.  Nobody is giving big grants for your average state school or lower.  Big grants usually only go to the big schools with big names.  And no matter how much money you think there is, there isn't that much going into it.  And next, after that money is given to the profs it isn't conditional.  Once the profs get it, its theirs.  They can publish any finding they want regardless of who gave them the money.  It isn't like the grants come under the stipulation that their findings have to meet the donor's vision or else the researcher has to pay it back.  Almost all of the profs getting big grants also have tenure.  They don't really care what result their donor wanted.

In climate science at least, and probably many other politically useful fields, you don't get the grant in the first place unless there is a pretty good indication that you'll come out with the correct results.  Sure, some profs might screw up and do real science, but typical when they were on the edge of retiring and wish to live out their golden years with some modicum of self-respect.  You did read the East Anglia CRU e-mails by now (not to mention their source code), right?

By rights everything the IPCC has ever touched should be thrown out the window and re-done as well as everything which was based in some part on it.  That is the pernicious effects of junk science.  That is not what is happening.  The whole charade is papered over as well as possible.  And that has gone as well as can be expected.  The scientists I've talked to have a vague notion that it was no big deal based on some 2nd or 3rd level description they read somewhere.  None of them actually looked at the leaked material.

And yes some professor's make a good bit being witnesses, like about 0.5%.  The ones that do, can get paid quite well.  The other 99.5% get no gigs.  It is much like being a musician.  When you make it big, you are set, but the rest stick to their day jobs.  

The best way to make money outside of the university is a way you didn't mention.  The most common way to earn substantial cash is to become a consultant for private industry.  While I don't have any close relationships with anybody that made it to the rockstar level in academia of professional high paid witness, I do know quite a few that have gotten rich being consultants.  And of course we know that the private industry in the global warming debate that would hire said profs are the oil and gas companies.  They have very deep pockets to hire consultants.  Yet only 3% of profs are global warming deniers.

No academics ever follow the revolving door into the eco-industrial complex of course.

Social 'scientists' have been the true trailblazers of the new paradigm for some time.  That is, pick an end-goal (lets say 'social justice') then work toward it at all costs.  That's why they have always been something of a joke.  Of course most real scientists and engineers are to polite to point out the obvious, but everyone knows the deal.  Now that the strategy is rubbing off into real science it is becoming a genuine threat.

Your narrative sucks.

You remind me of Fox News.  Lie as much as you can and then accuse the other side of lying.  Stall as much as you can and then accuse the other side of stalling.  

FWIW, I'm a hard-core left winger though I've always had certain views which differ from the party line (such as 2nd amendment stuff.)  I've always despised Fox News, but I must admit that I do less so as of late since they do bring on those with an opposing view from time to time.

As recently as the middle of this thread I was much more on the 'warmist' side.  You could see in my initial post here some time ago that I posited that corporate influence might have some effect on the science, and that whatever the case, the same old spam from the 'denier' side could get tedious and justify the ban.  What I did NOT do was to really take a side simply because I had not gotten around to studying the issue.  Since then I have, and the hypothesis that 'climate change' is part of a larger program of theft by a certain class of powerful people has remarkable explanatory power across a broad range of observations.

Most of my friends, family, and co-workers are greenies, and some of them fairly hard-core about it.  I know they are neither bad nor stupid people.  I think they've just been had.  Even the DEQ bitch who has been hassling me (until my attorney told her to cease communications with me and go through him) probably has no concept of what she is doing and who she is doing it for.  She's just a cog in the wheel.  She gets to play petty tyrant and feed business to her local industry friends, and that's the dynamics which keep the game accelerating.  That is I believe very much by design, and the design is very clever and effective indeed.

[hdbuck]

It is precisely oil company consortiums that fund AGW researchs...

[Wilikon]

It is precisely oil company consortiums that fund AGW researchs...