Comments on: ClimateGate and Groupthink

By: C.L.

C.L. — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 16:24:22 +0000

Finally. The UK Telegraph investigates: Questions over business deals of UN climate change guru Dr Rajendra Pachauri.

By: asf

asf — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 06:43:23 +0000

So will those such as Stern, who are on record as saying Copenhagen was the last chance to do something to stop AGW, now move on to discussing adaptation options?

By: tal

tal — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 05:41:11 +0000

Hey whatever happened to the hole in the ozone layer? That was so popular in the 90s

By: C.L.

C.L. — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 04:40:16 +0000

Climate faster Anna Keenan denounces COP15. But there is an upside:

Ultimately, this is why I have decided to come off the fast – because I have a whole lot more to give to the climate change movement yet. There is a whole lot of work to be done. And I need to get stuck into doing it – as does each and every one of us.

If she had an ounce of sincerity she’d starve herself to death to show how much she cares.

By: dover_beach

dover_beach — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 03:57:38 +0000

John H, you make a fair point. Two points though: firstly, the fact that people generally think conventionally (similarly as opposed to the identically) about any issue is neither shocking nor a problem in the long run because these views happen to change. Not only do they change for the individuals concerned but they change in respect of what is now as opposed to then thought of as the conventional wisdom. To this extent, I don’t think that ‘groupthink’ is a problem here nor in any other discipline because in reality there is always a greater degree of heterogeneity then appears at first blush. Secondly, the problem is not ‘groupthink’ per se but the attempt to impose upon an entire academic community, at least in public, the appearance of a unanimity of opinion, the so-called ‘consensus’, which is more or less absent. If ‘groupthink’ were in fact the natural condition of climate science there would have been no need to engage in gatekeeping, etc. since they would more rather the less have agreed on the issues before them. The emails themselves indicate that they disagreed amongst themselves. And the only thing that keeps the purported consensus being somewhat credible is the extraordinary generality of the theses that are supposed to be its object. As soon as this extraordinary generality disappears, so too, does the consensus.

By: tal

tal — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 03:47:08 +0000

So shaving their hair and starving hasn’t worked?

By: C.L.

C.L. — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 03:42:50 +0000

HAHAHAHAHA! George Monbiot has finally flipped his lid:

Goodbye Africa, goodbye south Asia; goodbye glaciers and sea ice, coral reefs and rainforest. It was nice knowing you. Not that we really cared. The governments which moved so swiftly to save the banks have bickered and filibustered while the biosphere burns.

By: C.L.

C.L. — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 03:26:04 +0000

Warming cult members have stopped a coal train in Newcastle to protest Copenhagen's failure to formalise the destruction of the Western economy.

By: C.L.

C.L. — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 03:15:32 +0000

Gerald Warner has a most enjoyable take on the Copenhagen disaster - especially that last minute "leak." He concludes:

This week has been truly historic. It has marked the beginning of the landslide that is collapsing the whole AGW imposture. The pseudo-science of global warming is a global laughing stock and Copenhagen is a farce. In the warmist camp the Main Man is a railway engineer with huge investments in the carbon industry. That says it all. The world’s boiler being heroically damped down by the Fat Controller. Al Gore, occupant of the only private house that can be seen from space, so huge is its energy consumption, wanted to charge punters $1,200 to be photographed with him at Copenhagen. There is a man who is really worried about the planet’s future. If there were not $45trillion of Western citizens’ money at stake, this would be the funniest moment in world history. What a bunch of buffoons. Not since Neville Chamberlain tugged a Claridge’s luncheon bill from his pocket and flourished it on the steps of the aircraft that brought him back from Munich has a worthless scrap of paper been so audaciously hyped. There was one good moment at Copenhagen, though: some seriously professional truncheon work by Danish Plod on the smellies. Otherwise, this event is strictly for Hans Christian Andersen.

Here's my suggestion for a global warming soundtrack.

By: Jc

Jc — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 03:12:59 +0000

In another thread Bishop Hill finally does the right thing and declares conflict of interest issues he has when discussing climate science, admitting his now deeply compromised.

(Declaration of interest – I know a guy who works on an oil rig. That’s my credibility shot then.)