In a moment of boredom, I strolled over to Ms. Laframboise’s NOconsensus.org to see if our friend was back at attention following her brief absence to write Decoding the Climate Bible (which I never fail to chuckle over when it comes to mind) which she said would be completed by mid-August. It seems that she’s finding it a little harder than expected to crack the code – did she remember to use the dark light on the Mona Lisa?!?!
No doubt the recent developments need to be included, such as the Professional Dutch review, which came to quite a different conclusion to her band of citizen auditors. I suppose a big part of her *cough* excellent review relied on an image of a corrupt chairman – Dr. Rajendra Pachauri – which George Monbiot clearly indicates is fictitious. Chapter 1 – DELETE. Chapter 5 – DELETE. Chapter 7 – REWORD. Chapter 11 – FOCUS ON RICHARD NORTH’S LATER COMMENT. Now the conclusion is okay again! The longer she takes, the more revisions she’ll need to make to keep it up to date – too long and Donna will probably find the book has the reverse message of her original plan and will ultimately criticise her own audit!
Anyway, I noticed something I’d previously overlooked on her home page (easy to do – as it’s a minor link among the rubbish); DeSmogBlog Parody: DeSoggyBog.com. It’s only two pages – the homepage (image below) and an “expert critique” of DeSmogBlog. Now, firstly, her choice of title made me laugh. DeSmog is clever enough – they’re attempting to clear the political nonsense AND to reduce emissions, which the name covers nicely. The amateurish “DeSoggyBog” sounds similar, but offers nothing more – it’s reminiscent of the bully of year four calling me, “Love-Key” as an insult of my last name (Lubcke) – which, even within that young crowd, backfired on him. It also calls to memory Jo Nova’s wildly silly attack on PNAS when they produced a paper that was not to her liking (Mike discusses it here).
I became interested in reporting on this site because, like yesterday’s post, here we have an excellent example of employing fear and hate in lieu of genuine evidence. A while ago, I commented on one of Donna’s favourite arguments;
She states that, “Climate skepticism is free speech.”
True Donna, climate scepticism is free-speech, but climate science isn’t; it’s the result of millions of hours of related research and debate… Alternative points of view don’t change the reality of the situation.
As like John Griffing, which I discussed yesterday, she argues that DeSmogBlog (but also arguably anyone who is convinced by the compelling evidence behind anthropogenic climate change [ACC]) is challenging your freedom through her childish statements like, “Our views trump your freedoms”, “We decide what’s true”, and “We are the keepers of the only permissible views on global warming… You have been scanned by our X-ray vision and found to be a deliberate liar.” Excetera… On her critique page, she goes as far as to suggest that they are like the religious/secret police of Iran and other places (note the xenophobic and fascist plea?).
She makes it clear here that she resents that her opinion regarding ACC is not taken seriously. I would ask her, “If a doctor had just informed you that the tests were positive for some infection/disease, but just then a bloke off the street burst into the room, screaming that you were fine, who would you trust? The individual who has spent years studying medical science, who can explain how your symptoms fit into the problem, or some random person who argues that, although you’re feeling ill, it’s definitely NOT what the doctor says it is? Is this random person’s opinion deserving of equal consideration?”
Likewise, if a scruffy guy on a street corner held up a sign that read; THE END IS NEAR, but thousands of experts in physical chemistry, environmental science, solar physics (etc etc etc), after tens of thousands of studies stated, “Well, no, the world isn’t going to end. However, we are witnessing a change in climate averages which is adding pressure to much of the ecosystems on which we are ultimately reliant upon. We’re more than 90% certain that the observed changes to climate over the past century are the result of our activities and emissions of greenhouse gases. We would be wise to reduce our emissions as it is highly likely that life, as we know and enjoy it, will be made much more difficult the more that climate changes.”
Who would you listen to?
To repeat myself; Alternative points of view don’t change the reality of the situation. This seems to really upset Donna who clearly demonstrates her ignorance of scientific protocol, which is summed up in her statement, “We’ll equate your opinions with pollution and say you are stupid.”
No Donna, but if you think science is done in this nature, that is to say, “Free speech is over-rated”, we won’t take your opinion very seriously. For it’s not a question of free speech at all, but rather investigation. Largely, as I’ve seen it, the cast over at DeSmogBlog mock only those political and industrial members who make ridiculous (or at the least obviously erroneous) statements regarding ACC. If they’ve targeted you as well, I’m not surprised – the few posts I’ve directed at your site and blog also question your ability to understand the science.
“Ms. Laframboise believes that when activists insist their cause is more important than other people’s free speech, we all need to worry.” This is like John confusing environmentalist or “lefties” as communists. Donna gets activists mixed up with science. If there are any crazed activists out there screaming about de-industrialising the world (I’m sure there are), believe me; no-one is taking them seriously except themselves.
By grouping the strong scientific basis for why we’re highly certain of ACC, with oppressive activism (arguably hitting the fascist note of John’s article), Donna has created a rather feeble strawman argument, rather than fault the science, which she’s obviously unable to do (note – you need to watch out for slight-of-hand techniques like this). Should we take every last person’s opinion on how we should look after our personal health or simply those we trust to have a greater understanding than most?
I suggest that if this photographer/journalist wishes to have an opinion that matters in climate science, she should take the time out to learn a little about the history of the various scientific fields, the methodology, the genuine scientific debate over different approaches and also why more than 97% of the researchers actively publishing in related fields are convinced by the evidence instead of stamping her feet into the ground, demanding that someone take her seriously.
Of course, if you look at her soggy page, you’ll see that she’s also out to attack SourceWatch and ExxonSecrets, which suggests to me that she’s either uninterested who’s funding whose campaign (would you trust a doctor who gets tobacco funding to give you the truth about smoking related health-risks?), or that she’s on the oil funds herself.
In all, we can sum it up with one of her most hypocritical statements, “DeSmogBlog views environmental issues through a highly selective lens. Far worse, however, is that it aggressively repudiates free speech in the same breath that it accuses other people of undermining democracy.” As we can see above, Donna seems to not even have a lens at all on environment science – she provides nothing but fear-mongering dribble, while accusing other people of undermining democracy.
For more on Donna Laframboise, see Donna Laframboise and Cloud screaming
newanthropocene.wordpress.com 