Sigh —- Gleick, Heartland, And The High Road

I don’t often do this, mainly because it’s already being done.  But, once in a blue moon, I feel compelled to write a bit about something else going on at a skeptic site. 

Most readers here also read WUWT.  Heartland’s Joe Bast has a guest post up, responding to the latest warmista attack on Heartland. 

Some tool, Greg Laden, ranked The Heartland Institute’s efforts to expose global warming alarmism as one of the “top climate stories of 2012”.

The long and short of it is the lunatics think Heartland suffered something from their Unabomber billboard campaign.  “Implode” was the word used.

Bast points out…..

Heartland didn’t “implode” or “suffer major damage” in 2012. In fact, we increased receipts by about 15% from 2011, increased the number of donors nearly four-fold, more than doubled the number of policy advisors (to 237), and set records for press attention and online traffic for our sites. 2012 was a breakthrough year for us, thanks in no small part to the attention generated by our work on global warming/cooling.

He cleared up a few other inaccuracies, as well.  For some reason, which is beyond me, whenever Heartland and this event is brought up, some skeptics feel compelled to state it was a mistake for Heartland to do so.  They blather their own brand of idiocy and start talking about how Heartland lost the high road. 

By my estimation, Kaczynski did far less damage to humanity than has the alarmist advocacy.  It is never wrong to point out depravity and make the appropriate comparisons.  Indeed, it is our imperative and moral obligation to do so. 

The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil. —-Cicero

The argument is that politeness will win the day.  That we should not stoop to calling the alarmist advocacy for what it is —– evil.  They believe the calm retelling of the facts is all that is necessary to win the struggle.  IT IS NOT!!! 

Yes, it is very important to get the facts correct.  It is the first and necessary step.  But, once that is done, one must win the battle for the minds of the populace.  In the comments at WUWT, I listed some of the acts of depravity which can be laid directly at the feet of the alarmists.  I stated Heartland couldn’t lose the moral high ground until they advocated these acts of depravity, like the alarmists do.  I was informed that it was wrong for Heartland to engage in the billboard campaign because the average person doesn’t know about these acts of depravity. 

Well, how in the heck will they know about it if skeptics are afraid to point this out?  And, afraid is exactly what this is.  The easy part is done.  And, many skeptics are comfortable staying in the easy.  Do they believe we’ll change the minds of the typical person by showing them our energy calculation proofs? 

We’ve done that.  And, we’ve been doing that for years.  It is necessary, and very important for people to be able to see we know what we’re talking about.  But, that’s only part of it.  The average person doesn’t want to hear about Wien’s displacement Law.  Does anyone believe this formula is useful in a conversation with a typical citizen?  

Personally, every time I consider such things, I get a bit angry.  Were it not for the Global Warming Alarmism, I’m not sure what paths I would have take.  But, one could be sure I would have never bothered myself about the inconsequential polar albedo calculations.  I honestly don’t care pH calculations of sea water, or the amplification factor of ground vs atmospheric temps.  It pisses me off that I’ve felt compelled to learn about such triviality because some Malthusian Marxist Luddite is causing people to wet themselves, concerned over the progress of humanity.  

And what difference does it make, anyway?  In order for the squeamish skeptics to be successful, they have to take the above formulas and hundreds of others, make the typical person understand what it means, and then have them draw the conclusion that by misrepresenting the laws of physics, thermodynamics, and chemistry, that the alarmists are participating in evil.  

You can’t get from here to there unless the discussion moves to the acts of depravity the alarmists are engaged in.  We need to point out what their stupidity has wrought upon humanity.  We need to point out these things were pointed out and nothings been done to stop these things.  From murder, forcing people from their homes, burning alive people who haven’t moved, forced sterilizations which leave people dead, impoverishment, starvation, energy deprivation, ….. all of these things have been done in the name of fighting climate change.  We’ll never be rid of this blight upon humanity until the majority of skeptics show a willingness to point these things out. 

We must have the willingness and courage to engage these people in this manner. 

Heartland was engaged in the moral high ground when they came out with the Kaczynski billboard campaign.  It may be unseemly, but it is necessary.