I see the left is still at stage one: denial.

Except for George Monbiot who has been disarmingly frank about its having been a total fucking PR disaster for the warmists, who have seen their reputation for good professional ethics go up in smoke.

This is all well and good, but let’s not make up our minds until we’ve considered the most vital factor, i.e. what does Sarah Palin think about it?

http://bit.ly/5Sm5Fu

You could make her your spokeswoman, Martin. Secret Commie conspiracy to contaminate our precious bodily fluids? You betcha!

“And today’s deniers are ………… (drum roll) ………………”

@1, no, we all agree it’s been a PR disaster, but only the idiot denialists think it’s any more than that.

john b re: Comment 4,

Don’t you think it’s a teeny bit funny …. the AGW people who are calling others ‘deniers’ are themselves denying the significance of the leaked emails and ploughing on regardless in the hope they will go away?

Monboit’s right: it’s a PR disaster in the sense that it has made climate scientists look dishonest but for those persuaded by the science not the personalities behind it the story is largely irrelevant.

Sadly the latter are in a minority, which is why a story which should be simply embarassing for those concerned is a major news story.

We EXPECT dishonesty from those with vested economic interests; we don’t expect it of those whose ‘vested interest’ is in science itself.

“we all agree it’s been a PR disaster, but only the idiot denialists think it’s any more than that”

I think it is important not to label everyone who is sceptical about climate change an “idiot denialist”, unless one is willing to maintain that it is something like an analytic truth.

The point is that the level of interference from the hardcore denialists has reached such an incredible level that it is stopping even otherwise sensible people from hearing the signal emanating from the science, if you see what I mean.

Take a look at this thread on the Guardian. Filter out the outright fruitcakes and there are still a hell of a lot of people there who have been taken in, people who are capable of engaging in rational debate but who seriously buy into, based on what they are hearing and reading, one or another broad denialist picture.

Yes, it is irrational not to respond to the available evidence. But the point is that the white noise emanating from the denialist blogosphere is warping many people’s perceptions of what and where the evidence actually is.

Dismissing people in that situation is a fast way to lose sympathy and incite anger. That said, I readily admit I am not sure how one goes about tackling it either. That Guardian thread is a torrent, a drenching toxic torrent, of denialist drivel, the same debunked points and arguments repeated endlessly, utterly impervious to evidence or explanation.

Not that I’ve had a chance to watch this because I’m at work, I just thought I’d point something out.

Smacking the CRU Hack Attack

by Unity
December 9, 2009 at 10:18 am

Martin Coxall 10:20 am, December 9, 2009

That’s an 8 minute video.

Martin, did you watch that or just copy and paste a snide catch all comment you’ve got for threads about the CRU that aren’t “omg conspiracy”? For someone who claims that the CRU e-mails are incredibly important because of what’s in them, it seems odd that you would want to criticise this post without watching it.

Unless the timings on this site are wrong, in which case you have my apologies. Perhaps an admin can tell me if Martin is simply trolling for fun or because he fundamentally disagrees with what is in the above video.

frolix22,

I agree with you about the white noise phenomenon.

It is as well for those that are pro AGW to recognise that the fruit loops can put out any rubbish they like and it actually takes time to produce the counter arguements, some of which are not terribly simple.

In the sense of a level playing field, it seems reasonable to me to accuse them of being conspiracy theorists and worse. Whilst we have the evidence they have the media.

————————————————————————-

If I were to say you were a charlatan, should I expect you to provide me with the reasons that you are not, or should I expect to reap what I’ve sown? Which is, I think, a direct analogy.

Kojak #5

only if you are incapable of differentiating between exactly what is being denied and with what justification.

If you can’t do that, you might complain, for example, that I am a hypocrite complaining about holocaust denial when here I am denying being a 7 foot tall Amazonian warrior princess.

Left Outside – what else did you expect from a Tory like Martin other than trolling and snidey comments? Serious discussion? Pah!

Martin Coxall: you are mistaken. See Monbiot’s video here:
http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=4537&updaterx=2009-12-01+17%3A21%3A02
which clarifies his view – that there is absolutely no problem here for the climate _science_. The only problem that has been turned up is some weak scientific _ethics_ on the part of some of the protagonists.

it seems odd that you would want to criticise this post without watching it.

@8 I agree.

Puts up hand.

Please Miss, Flying Rodent didn’t watch it either.

The joke is on Martin Coxall – 2 mins after the 8 min video was posted, he lays in with his worthless opinion. Do you not have a life outside trolling left-wing websites, you loser?

“Except for George Monbiot who has been disarmingly frank about its having been a total fucking PR disaster for the warmists, who have seen their reputation for good professional ethics go up in smoke.”

There’s a difference between accepting these emails change ANYTHING about the facts of the matter, and accepting that it’s a PR disaster. No-one is saying it isn’t a pain in the arse from a public perception point of view but then that won’t matter in the longer scale of things.

“The only problem that has been turned up is some weak scientific _ethics_”

It’s not even the scientific ethics being called in to question via the emails, it’s an individual (and maybe a few individuals) political ethics and the model of data ownership with regard to freedom of information requests.

And let’s not forget that while some are submitting FOI’s t these scientists because they’re sceptical, many more send them because of the chaos and disruption is causes the necessary investigation in to climate change.

I struggle to watch those things. His voice is far too nasal.

Incidentally, when the argument is from authority, then the ethics of those claiming that authority becomes a central issue.

Interesting video.

I agree with the so-called denialists that using tree rings rather than wacko Stalinist commie inventions like thermometers in assessing temperature and whether global warming is happening.

Isn’t that why the Met Office calculate all their temperature readings using tree rings? And why the doctor put a tree in my mouth and then counted the rings to see if I had a fever when I last visited the surgery

Crazy commie bastards.