Don't call them Climate Deniers, Label them 'Pushers' of a Drug called 'Doubt'

I had a nightmare about deniers. Truth deniers, and how honest people can get drawn to them.

My field of speciality is a big muddy field: humankinds collective denial (by their actions) that there's any real climate problem.  In this muddy field its important to remember there are two very distinct types of 'denier' animal, that you will encounter. With totally different response strategies needed.

Actually "doubt pusher" may be a better name than 'denier'.  Get this:

Doubt is a popular feel-good drug.  

Whether we seek escape from the pain of being part of the species that 'allowed' the holocaust, or escape from the dull ache that we are now complicit in mass suicide and the future deaths of billions including our own children, we seek escape, distraction, cold comfort.

These are big emotional 'charges' in the air Dave!  But watch out when the climate taboo next crops up in polite conversation. We are talking about (or not talking out) latent near-universal abuse of our own children's Home planet. Hardly small talk :-)

So what are these two types:

My hero Miles Kington used to say "There are two types of people in this world. People who divide people into two types. And people who don't."  Think about it. I honestly don't know why but this is one of my favourite sayings of all time! 

Here goes:

Type 1 (or Class A!) Upstream - misanthropic - clever - bad - aware they are wrong -the doubt pushers 

and

Type 2 (or Class B) The carefully selected victims and prey of Type 1's: infected and used - the smidgeon of  doubt addicts

Now it turns out that doubt takers, soon become doubt addicts, and some fast become doubt pedlars.  (And of course some pedlars become pushers.)

Pedlars of doubt experience new found or fresh popularity - for the welcome relief they bring (e.g. at dinner parties) to the throbbing headache of dealing with the climate reality backlog.  Think David Bellamy - one of my childhood heros - and someone I still believe to be a good man.

I don't think there are that many Class A's left - but they are very toxic - very clever -motivated - and often superb at hiding what they do.

All we can do is help expose them, and hold them to what they have said.

And we need to hope less Class B's will get infected/poisoned/duped.  Which is more likely if we love them. (Class A's are usually immune to this tactic.)  This is a big learning point. You won't love a Class A into the light. 

What also gives me hope is belief that someone like Ann Widdecombe is not rotten to the core, she's just been duped. (Not atall easy to do in her case, and certainly not easy for her to admit.) She will get there eventually. She might want to listen to the Archbishop of Canterbury. He doesn't suffer fossil fools easily. 

Dominic Lawson though - I struggle to give him benefit of doubt. Maybe I'm wrong.  But I sense a man who justifies his immoral stance as being in some way 'right'.  Extreme right maybe!  History will judge Class A's harshly, very harshly indeed. 

All we can do is calmly and courageously expose them, and hold them to what they have said.

Comments

[Oisín]

Very good piece. Your thoughtfully analogy shines a bright light on our predicament. Thank you.

[Amir]

Doubt is a horrible thing. It is a sign that people are rejecting the Authority.

We must curb it. The Authority must never be questioned.

[GAry]

You might want to try offering some sort of support for the failed AGW doctrines.
Proof would be good, but since there is none, its not relevent.
Credible supporting evidence would also be good.
But since there is none of that either, that may not work.

How about offering up some logical arguments.
Oh Right,,, global warming stopped.

Hmmmmm.

Quit a delema. No proof. No evidence. No good arguments.

I really don't know how you will be able to convince anyone but 13 year old wide eyed innocent school girls.

Keep trying though.

[Michael Babbitt]

So how about calling the scaremongers, Fear pushers? Or how about watermelons (green on the outside, red on the inside)? Or how about reality deniers? Or how about, just plain stupid -- but some do have high IQs -- exhibiting the human trait of sensation seeking? I'm so sick of the pop psychology psychobabble trash talk pretending to actually make a valid point instead of just being another ad hominum logical fallacy attack. What if I just said that some areas of the planet have gotten a little colder, some areas a little hotter, some areas less icey and others a lot more icey? Wow, what a crisis! OMG, the world is coming to an end!

[Richard Treadgold]

You examine doubt quite creatively but you choose the wrong topic of study. Examine instead the facts: the normal temperature, normal sea level, the inability of carbon dioxide to dangerously heat the atmosphere, the lack of increase in storms, hurricanes, droughts and floods, the normal amount of ice at both poles and the evidence of flourishing coral reefs and polar bears all testify to the lack of abnormal change. The ONLY indication of future crisis is computer model output which the IPCC specifically state are NOT forecasts and which have never been verified by reference to the real climate.

One part of the model "scenarios" able to be tested was the tropical hotspot they said would result from CO2-induced warming. It's never appeared, so the warming (such as it was) was not from humanity's emissions. That's science for you. The hypothesis failed.

All climate parameters are within normal limits. The climate does not do unprecedented. There is no crisis.

The only result of a wealth-sharing treaty at Copenhagen will be the enrichment of carbon traders and governments of developing countries.

Oh, you say: "we are now complicit in mass suicide." What suicide? You must be bonkers if you believe that because there's no evidence for it.

It's clever to invent these "doubt pedlars", but genuine doubt exists too. People who study for themselves start to ask curiously: "Why isn't the temperature rising, when CO2 is rising? Why has the temperature never gone out of control in the past, when CO2 has been many times higher than today? Why do we say that man-made CO2 is the main driver of the climate and nothing else, when water vapour is a much stronger greenhouse gas and there's about 100 times more of it?"

Those doubts arise in the usual way, from honest enquiry. You're far from honest if you deny that happens.

Cheers,
Richard Treadgold,
Convenor,
Climate Conversation Group.

[Michael D Smith]

Interesting.

1) Recent studies show feedback to H20 is negative, not positive, therefore AGW cannot have a dangerous outcome (CO2 is not capable)
2) All proposed "solutions" have the outcome of drastically reducing economic wealth, while providing no measurable decrease in temps, even if (1) was wrong (it isn't).
3) Reduced wealth leads to environmental destruction as only wealthy nations and individuals can afford responsible measures to protect the environment (like the once-wealthy USA). Poverty leads to death.
4) The MWP was considerably warmer than the present, when humanity flourished.

So we have policies designed to reduce wealth, which causes environmental problems, and KILLS PEOPLE, but the same policies do not address do anything that will reduce temperatures, even if CO2 could significantly increase them, which it can't (the maximum increase from a doubling of CO2 is 1.2°C, which when combined with MEASURED feedback (not modeled GIGO), results in a warming of 0.3 to 0.6°C MAX (Lindzen, Idso, Spencer)).

There is no doubt about any of this. None. So what are you talking about?

[dave hampton]

To Richard, "Convenor of Climate Conversation Group" (gosh that sounds like some sort of legitimate positive enterprise doesn't it, rather than a drug dealer!).

I can't tell if you are a victim of misinformation, or a perpetrator.

All of your 'arguments' have been thoroughly debunked, a million times over, but you and other doubt pedlars keep spewing them out, because there are always *some* people, a shrinking minority, (often a bit slow and gullible) who will be fossil fooled.

I haven't invented 'doubt pedlars', I have just located them! And you, it would seem, are one of them. If you are sincere in the tired old misinformation you reproduce then you may not actually be dishonest as such. Just a dupe. But otherwise it is you who is far from honest. As you probably know. So long, I won't be indulging you with a further reply.

Keep giving the tablets.

[dave hampton]

To Michael D Smith
What am I talking about? er The truth.
What are you talking about? Misinformation. And a little obfuscation.
Keep giving the tablets.

[Spadecat]

Dogma, that ill-fated, blind religious faith, is all that remains in the AGW camp; it will be embraced as much as the suicide bombers' 40 virgins, with equal devastation.

[Bob Armstrong]

DH is clearly in the True Believers bubble . It's ironic they lack the healthy doubt to question this anti-green , indeed anti-life attempt at Global State enforced privation on the basis of a patent absurdity . In the name of being green , they seek to limit the available carbon , and therefore the volume , of the biosphere . They seek to suppress the gas out of which all life is constructed , including themselves and their children and every bite of food they eat . ( Each of us is about 93% CO2 + H2O joined by photosynthesis . ) This , the green gas was many times more abundant in those lush epochs when the vast fossil fuel deposits were laid down . It defies common sense that it would be the cause of life's demise . Were it so , we would not be here to debate it .

I've studied the classical physics of radiant heating which predicts that our temperature is highly constrained to be about 1/21 that of the sun . And we are . No runaways possible . ( See my http://CoSy.com . )

It's DH who could do with a little healthy skepticism , tho its clear he has a large investment in fear-pushing .

[Les Johnson]

If "Doubt" is a drug, then your site, Dave, is a crack house, looking at the responses.

I also note, as others have, that you don't actually have any evidence to present in this debate.

Would "appeal to authority" also qualify as a drug?

[Richard S Courtney]

But I have certainty and not doubt.

I am certain that constraining the use of fossil fuels would kill billions of people. Holding the use of fossil fuels at its present level would kill at least 2 billion people, mostly children. And reducing the use of fossil fuels below present levels would kill more millions, possibly billions.

That is not an opinion. It is not a prediction. It is not a projection. It is a certain and undeniable fact, and I explain it as follows.

The use of fossil fuels has done more to benefit human kind than anything else since the invention of agriculture.

Most of us would not be here if it were not for the use of fossil fuels because all human activity is enabled by energy supply and limited by material science.

Energy supply enables the growing of crops, the making of tools and their use to mine for minerals, and to build, and to provide goods, and to provide services.

Material Science limits what can be done with the energy. A steel plough share is better than a wooden one. Ability to etch silica permits the making of acceptably reliable computers. etc.

People die without energy and the ability to use it. They die because they lack food, or housing, or clothing to protect from the elements, or heating to survive cold, or cooling to survive heat, or medical provisions, or transport to move goods and services from where they are produced to where they are needed.

And people who lack energy are poor so they die from pollution, too.

For example, traffic pollution has been dramatically reduced by adoption of fossil fuels. On average each day in 1855 more than 50 tons of horse excrement was removed from only one street, Oxford Street in London. The mess, smell, insects and disease were awful everywhere. By 1900 every ceiling of every room in Britain had sticky paper hanging from it to catch the flies. Old buildings still have scrapers by their doors to remove some of the pollution from shoes before entering

Affluence reduces pollution. Rich people can afford sewers, toilets, clean drinking water and clean air. Poor people have more important things they must spend all they have to get. So, people with wealth can afford to reduce pollution but others cannot. Pollution in North America and Europe was greater in 1900 than in 2000 despite much larger populations in 2000. And the pollution now experienced every day by billions who do not have the wealth of Americans and Europeans includes cooking in a mud hut using wood and dung as fuel when they cannot afford a chimney.

The use of fossil fuels has provided that affluence for the developed world. The developing world needs the affluence provided by the development which is only possible at present by using fossil fuels.

We gained our wealth and our population by means of that use.

The energy supply increased immensely when the greater energy intensity in fossil fuels became available by use of the steam engine. Animal power, wind power and solar power were abandoned because the laws of physics do not allow them to provide as much energy as can be easily obtained from using fossil fuels.

The greater energy supply enabled more people to live and the human population exploded. Our population has now reached about 6.6 billion and it is still rising. All estimates are that the human population will peak at about 9 billion people near the middle of this century.

That additional more than 2 billion people in the next few decades needs additional energy supply to survive. The only methods to provide that additional energy supply at present are nuclear power and fossil fuels. And the use of nuclear power is limited because some activities are difficult to achieve by getting energy from the end of a wire. (If anybody doubts this then I tell them to ask a farmer what his production would be if he had to replace his tractor with a horse or a Sinclair C5).

So, holding the use of fossil fuels at its present level would kill at least 2 billion people, mostly children. And reducing the use of fossil fuels would kill more millions, possibly billions.

Improving energy efficiency will not solve that because it has been known since the nineteenth century that improved energy efficiency increases energy use: as many subsequent studies have confirmed.

The above is certain. Nobody with more than one working brain cell doubts it.

Richard

[rum]

you chaired the "Construction Industry Council's Sustainable Development Committee 2001-2004" yet make fun of richard's group name. you list "freedom" as an interest in your bio...in what sense?... you state that richard's arguements have been debunked a "million times over". well in science things only need be debunked once. you have that "concensus science " mentality. speaking of debunked, what is your thought on Spencer's work showing feedback mechanisms being negative? you talk of a shrinking minority yet all polls shows the public becoming increasingly disinterested in this scare. you can call us fossil fooled but you're lying when you call us shrinking. I noticed on your bio that you have 4 kids. I would consider you blessed by God. Your kind would consider you selfish, resourse greedy and a pig. hopefully you have no pets! peace, rich

[mike]

So the world has not warmed, the seas are cooler and yet the dounbters are in the wrong?

Good luck mate, the party is over you better find something else to try and scare people with. But I doubt you lack the intellect.

[Steve]

Dear All,
I'm going to respond comprehensively, but only once, to the excellent, although sometimes misleading, comments here.

---
Gary: great comment. Support for global warming...
1) Basic physics See http://forecast.uchicago.edu/Archer
2) Water vapour feedbacks from recent measurement of radiative outflow from satellites;
3) Models integrating these observations.
4) Observations of the climate warming up (see below for detailed refs)
5) Observations of the ice ages (showing evidence for positive feedback as well as a very close link between temperature and CO2 and Methane)

Evidence of warming: http://www.pewclimate.org/docUploads/Pew%20Center_Global%20Fingerprints_3.06.pdf very many different observations around the world e.g. temperature measurements, rate of glacier melt, species shifts, Arctic sea ice, sea surface temperatures, coral reef bleaching, heat waves

[Steve]

---
Amir, Are you questioning the right of scientists to their expertise? Of course, there is always discussion and debate, but the fact that there are big risks shouldn't blind us to doing something to secure ourselves against those risks.

---
Michael B., We know that the earth responds to a lag to our behaviours. We already have seen serious effects to climate change (see 'evidence of warming' elsewhere in this reply) and the rate of increase of greenhouse gas concentrations is itself accelerating http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/nov2006/2006-11-29-02.asp (think of putting the foot down when you see a road traffic accident) . Don't you think it might be good to be a little bit safe rather than sorry?

[Steve]

---
Michael D. Smith, I respect your opinion, but do not agree.

1) Water vapour: see this - http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2004ClDy...23..207D - H20 is a positive feedack of -1.6W/m2K (study quoted). This should be compared to 'Stefan Boltzmann' extra heat flow of 3.2W/m2K, giving net effect of 1.6W/m2K assuming no other feedback or a sensitivity of about 2C Per doubling of CO2; most studies overall give a net effect of 1.25 or sensitivity of 3C per doubling

2) Wealth? It has been estimated that the cost of decarbonizing the UK is around £600bn (spent mostly on UK resources). At present, we spend about £40bn on oil and gas.

http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/earth/climate/medieval_warm_period.html The MWP was considerably warmer than the present, when humanity flourished.

[Steve]

For all these points see http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11462

Why do some people (not the people here, but elsewhere in the blogosphere) want us to become more dependent on foreign oil??

Good, strong, climate policies would increase real infrastructure, providing jobs, and making us less dependent on foreign oil! Hurrah! Positive news for a change!

All the best,
Steve MA MSc MPhil (Cantab)

[Amir]

"Amir, Are you questioning the right of scientists to their expertise? Of course, there is always discussion and debate, but the fact that there are big risks shouldn't blind us to doing something to secure ourselves against those risks."

Steve, I question your depiction of doubt as something negative. Doubt is the root for the search of all truth. Without doubts and questions, we will not advance our knowledge.

Skepticism is healthy. It forces science to ensure that the answers are clear, demonstratable and uncontroversial.

I am not sure at all about the those doomsday risks you depict. I demand further objective research regarding those possible risks, the possible mitigations and the probability-cost-benefit analysis before we spend trillions.

The climate science is clearly tainted. It had become a political warzone. Climate scientists spend their time defending one selected theory with an automatic rejection of any evidence, theory, facts, opinions or persons who do not conform to the politically desired outcome. There is no science here any more.

You need to start doubting yourself my friend. I think once you dig in you'll find it hard to defend this "science".

[Craig Goodrich]

Steve, to anyone who actually understands and has followed the science, the New Scientist article is simply rubbish. The hard fact is that all the arguments you claim have been "answered" have been answered only with armwaving and (transparent) doubletalk, and after twenty years and nearly $100 billion in taxpayer-funded research, there is STILL no evidence for measurable anthropogenic global warming (much less catastrophic), and the silly models STILL are getting precipitation completely wrong.

The good news is our fossil energy use is not destroying the planet. The bad news is that our imbecile search for "renewables" IS destroying the planet, converting huge swaths of countryside and wilderness into industrialized wind wastelands, which produce no useful power but lots of taxpayer subsidies for Wall Street.

It's time to think about saving the environment from the environmentalists.

[MattN]

You are an idiot. Doubt pushers....puhlease...

[Michael Babbitt]

No, Steve. Being a little careful is one thing. Gutting your industrial culture and opening it up to every scam imaginable is another. Just scare tactics by people ashamed of being alive.

[Cam]

Dear oh dear Dave - you have my sympathies. Quite tragic really. I'm hoping you're OK. No seriously! I once had the same religious beliefs as yourself, but I sought help in the form of reverting to my scientific principles and let go of my guilt. I am an environmental scientist and geologist who in my career some time back kept quite busy developing climate change strategies and establishing greenhouse reporting inventories for some of Australia's largest organisations. I was a 'true believer' myself for a while too - I felt important, I was making a difference I thought. But as a scientist you have to suspicious and skeptical- otherwise you are not a scientist. To cut a long story short, after years and years of my own investigation I have come 180 degrees and am now a staunch critic of 'carbonlogists' just like yourself. It's nothing more than blind faith - just like any fundamentalist. Science after all is the enemy of religion. I have many colleagues, associates and family members just like you - and they have not got one leg to stand on when it comes to the discussion of the science.

CO2 DOES NOT CAUSE CHANGES TO CLIMATE - SIMPLE AS THAT - you can't get any more clearer than that. The game is over. If a 'warmist' just came out and provided some hard evidence - the game would be over, but they can't - rather they push childish, Hollywood-style scare campaigns that thankfully people are waking up to.

The science is indeed settled - and the way that the political and social idealists like yourself can't bear to comprehend. You just put your hands over your ears and scream "I dont wanna hear it!" There is not one piece of evidence even remotely suggesting the CO2 link (since when was a computer model evidence - crap in, crap out). Yet there is all the evidence to the contrary. I am sick to death of zealots like you that simply have no idea what they are talking about - refuse to even remotely consider the REAL science for one second and talk like some dilluded fundamentalist.

The carbon crusade has been formulated on corruption, fraud and the perversion of science of the absolute highest order. Religion is certainly alive and well again - just as the church stifled human development for hundreds of years, this new Church of Carbonlogy will do exactly the same.

Once again, you have my sympathies. I only hope that you and other religious nuts racked with this guilt can finally say enough 'Hail Gores' and buy enough 'carbon indulgences' to appease your guilt. Maybe enough that you might actually look at the real science. I wish you good luck!