Guest Opinion by Kip Hansen —21 January 2024 — 1750 words/10 minutes
When one is engaged in a politicized science controversy like the Climate Change Debate – and there are many others today – it is often difficult to tell if “my side” is making any impact in the overall battle for the hearts and minds of the general public.
Let’s look at two idealized groups engaged in a public communications battle over their differences in opinion about some politically important scientific issue. Say, Group A which is large and has powerful allies in important places and its opposition, Group B which is smaller but tenacious and is just as adamant that its views are correct. One might call Group B “anti-A” but that would be a over-simplification – Group B isn’t “anti” Group A, it just thinks the ideas and policies promoted by Group A are not correct and not what society should be doing and sees thing differently.
If you really want to know which of Group B’s public communications are best forwarding their efforts ask Group B’s opponents. Yes, ask Group A. One’s social/political/ideological/scientific opponents will gladly tell you. How? Group A will tell you by whom they most viciously and consistently publicly attack – they attack the most effective elements of Group B’s public outreach.
How does this apply in the Climate Change battle? Over the last twenty years or so, the UN’s IPCC has gathered around itself massive amounts of power which it uses to influence governments. It has used this power, directly and through proxies, to enforce its political views and preferred policies on governments, the press and media, and even scientific journals. Its proxies and operatives actively work to silence any public statement that does not exactly mirror its climate alarm message or even just calls into doubt any of the work of any of its supporters. It was not that long ago that a certain female candidate for the U.S. presidency is said to have engaged a political operative to destroy the life and career of a minor but vocal climate scientist. And it got a lot of help in doing this.
The reaction of the Climate Crisis Team to Roger Pielke Jr. tells us how successful Dr. Pielke was — and is – in countering the more hysterical claims of the IPCC politicians. He does so primarily by using the science sections of the IPCC’s own reports. It must be embarrassing and humiliating for the IPCC and its supporters.
There has been a long-running effort to force social media outlets to censor messages that those in power don’t like. Operating under the false flag of countering hate, the misnamed not-for-profit (in the UK and US) Center for Countering Digital Hate has run many successful operations to de-platform political and social opponents of its founder: Imran Ahmed. Apparently not wanting to get left out, it has joined into the Climate Crisis battle siding with the IPCC-ists under the guise of fighting what they term as climate misinformation: “Climate change misinformation sows skepticism creating the sense that there is a more extensive debate than there really is. Climate deniers spread baseless, unscientific climate denial harnessing the power of social media platforms.” [ source ]
The whole shooting match is contained in a report titled: “The New Climate Denial — How social media platforms and content producers profit by spreading new forms of climate denial” [ .pdf ].
The viewpoints in the report are reflected, at the onset, by the overly emotional and informationally questionable opening statement of Imran Ahmed:
“2023 was the hottest year on record. Once unprecedented wildfires, floods, unbearable heat, and droughts are becoming normal to billions of people worldwide. It is difficult to deny the simple fact that our climate is changing in predictable and yet, still, even now, shocking ways. The awe we feel when Mother Nature bellows with rage can only be matched by our fear that her final judgment will be catastrophic for our species.”
Digging in to this report reveals that it is not Mother Nature that bellows, but rather the ubiquitous Australian former cartoonist and web developer, John Cook. It seems that Cook and friends (Travis Coan, Constantine Boussalis and Mirjam Nanko – all three UK academic political scientists) created an AI tool, cutely named “CARDS, short for Computer-Assisted Recognition of climate change Denial and Skepticism” [ paper here ].
The CCDH report details how they ran the CARDS program to identify climate denial statements in the “text transcripts for climate related-videos posted by 96 YouTube channels run by individuals or organizations known to have promoted climate denial, all dating from the period from 1 January 2018 to 30 September 2023.”
Please, but only if you have a strong stomach, read the report…it is a fascinating study, not of so-called climate denialism, but as a self-reinforcing-perverse-viewpoint exercise. Most of the statements identified as “climate denial” are simply factually true (there are exceptions) . One example “One recent post on the platform denies that climate change caused “Maui’s wildfires, or ANY wildfires”, despite multiple studies showing otherwise.” This was a statement made once by Glenn Beck. This complaint is endnoted to this EPA page which lists the many factors that can contribute to wildfire extent, frequency, and severity – wildfire season in the US West and Northern Hemisphere evergreen forests are always associated with hot dry summers — which are the norm. But fires are not caused by heat and drought, these only contribute to fires caused by electrical line failures, lightning, or human ignition. But, as for the Maui fires, the Congressional Research Service report, “August 2023 Wildfires in Hawaii” [ source .pdf ] clearly finds no climate change connection and certainly not as a cause of the Maui fires.
In fact, the CCDH report admits that their AI tool has a more than 20% failure rate [false positives] when identifying “climate denial”.
Here’s one graphic example:
Will Happer at Heartland’s 14th ICCC.
What the small text says (you can click here for a full sized image in a new tab) is: “It features William Happer claiming that renewable energy will come “at the expense of decent ordinary citizens, who are forced to accept unreliable, expensive electrical power from environmentally devastating wind and solar power sources.” What Dr. Happer really says is truncated…they leave off the first phrase: “Green rent-seekers will get rich at the expense of decent ordinary citizens, who are forced to accept unreliable, expensive electrical power from environmentally devastating wind and solar power sources.”
The most visible climate realists, skeptics and contrarians? Using the “Ask your enemies” system, CCDH (as informed and influenced by John Cook) identifies:
Heartland Institute (which CCDH incorrectly labels “a climate denialist think tank”)
Jordan Peterson “influential, with a total of 7.5 million subscribers”
Steven Goddard (Tony Heller)
John Stossell (for hosting some of the above)
Oppenheimer Ranch Project (and here)
What is the GOAL of the CCDH’s attack on alternative climate views expressed on YouTube videos?
I quote from the CCDH report:
Google must update its policy:
Current policy: “We do not allow content that contradicts authoritative scientific consensus on climate change.”
Recommended policy: “We do not allow content that contradicts the authoritative scientific consensus on the causes, impacts, and solutions to climate change.”
In plain English, CCDH demands Google (the owner of YouTube) not allow any YouTubes that:
1. Contradict — offer different perspectives – the IPCC’s current narratives of Climate Crisis.
2. Contradict — offer different perspectives – on the causes of climate change. This means that only the CO2 Hypothesis can be discussed and only agreement can be expressed.
3. Contradict — offer different perspectives – on the future impacts of Climate Change. Only the IPCC’s “the era of global boiling has arrived” viewpoint may be discussed – anything else could be removed as “disinformation”.
4. Contradict — offer different perspectives – on “solutions to climate change”. Only the IPCC’s “stop using fossil fuels to reduce CO2 emissions” solution may be discussed, and only agreement with this solution would be allowed.
This recommendation is made in pursuit of the goal of the CCDH:
Our mission is to protect human rights and civil liberties online. We are fighting for better online spaces that promote truth, democracy, and are safe for all.
CCDH will do this by ensuring that no one who disagrees with consensus viewpoints (on a wide range of topics) – the CCDH’s version of what counts as “truth” — is allowed to exercise their most basic human right – that of Freedom of Expression, to freedom to have and express publicly one’s opinion, one’s understanding and one’s viewpoints on topics which CCDH (and their political masters) declare sacred to the politico-secular quasi-religious beliefs of its funders* and political allies.
Those who draw CCDH’s ire and attacks are those who are being most effective in presenting views that oppose their authoritarian anti-democratic viewpoints.
Those listed as CCDH’s worst enemies deserve your support.
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*CCDH’s U.S. IRS Form 990 for 2021 shows the entirety of it’s funders list as “restricted”. (Schedule B (Form 990) (2021) Page 2)
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Author’s Comment:
I have never listened or watched anything by Glenn Beck or John Stossell. I had never even heard of the Oppenheimer Ranch Project.
This bit of biased-to-the-ultimate research is valuable for those who want to know how to counter the foolishness being spread by the Climate Crisis propaganda crowd: Produce short punchy YouTube-type videos that tell the truth of Climate Realism – and do it over and over and over. The video’s that expose the Climate Crisis’s Top Ten Talking Points as false seem to be the most effective.
Missing from the list are the marvelous Jim Steele and ever-persistent Roger Pielke Jr. (for lack of presence on YouTube, I think).
And particular kudos to Anthony Watts, our host, and Heartland, for the great work they do. The CO2 Coalition, is also well represented by Will Happer and Patrick Moore. [Full Disclosure: I am a member of the CO2 Coalition as a Science Research Journalist.] I have read the work of all the others and/or seen them in live presentations.
The examples in the CCDH report (again, John Cook under the covers) show that CCDH uses misinformation, disinformation and outright falsehoods to smear those who it accuses of spreading mis- and dis-information (when we just tell it the way we see it….).
Thanks for reading.
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