“Human beings are not very good at keeping secrets; individual self-interest is not interchangeable with group interest and the two are often in conflict, most particularly among small groups of plotters…” – James Howard Kunstler, The Long Emergency
Jeffery Wigand is a hero.
As Vice President for Research and Development at the tobacco company Brown & Williamson he discovered the company was deliberating adding ingredients to make their product more addictive. He was fired from his role for this discovery.
However, in 1996 he stated this truth in a 60 Minutes interview that definitively proved to the public what many had been saying: the tobacco industry had not only been lying about the harm of their products, but actively working to make them more addictive.
Wigand appeared on television despite repeated death threats [1].
Peter Buxtun is another hero.
In 1972 he exposed the Tuskegee syphilis experiment. It was a horrific experiment overseen by the US Public Health Service in which the disease to run rampant amongst poor black men. The intent was to better understand the course of the disease if left untreated. The men thought they were receiving free medical treatment and financial benefits, while never told they had syphilis.
No secret – no matter how closely guarded its holders believe it to be – is safe.
It is human nature to confess, or disclose.
Disputes amongst like-minded conspirators will drive some to leak documents or crucial facts to the media. This is especially so in the age of Wikileaks, Twitter and 24 hour news.
Which is why we can say with absolute certainty climate change is not a conspiracy orchestrated by scientists or communists.
What is remarkable for a science that has been understood since the early 1800s is the lack of whistleblowers; there are no climate science equivalents like that of Wigand or Buxton.
There are no scientists coming forth and saying “Look, we faked this temperature data”.
Not a single environmentalist has stepped forward to showcase a treasure trove of documents demonstrating the workings of a cabal dedicated to taking over the world.
Indeed, we have the very opposite: there is increasing certainty about the science. Every national science academy in the world affirms and supports the work of thousands of scientists.
The work of 97% of those actively researching climate change supports the view human activities are changing the climate.
There are literally millions of scientists, engineers, software programmers, policy makers, activists, writers and members of the world’s military and business community working on climate change and related environmental issues. They have been toiling away on the research and policies for years.
And yet somehow we are expected to believe these millions have managed to maintain a vast conspiracy of silence over decades. Just how probable that is?
How could this enormous conspiracy, spanning the globe and generations, still exist without at least one conspirator breaking ranks and coming forth with the damning evidence? [2]
Perhaps we should follow the dictates of Occam’s Razor and look for the simplest, most rational answer: climate change is real.
[1] How familiar does this sound? How many scientists have received death threats?
[2] Climategate proved nothing. After nine separate inquires the science and the behaviour of scientist remains unblemished. It was a manufactured pseudo-scandal.
Watching the Deniers 
Great post Mike! I had a ‘discussion’ with one of the denier clowns last night who was trying out the “000’s of former warmist scientists have switched camp” canard describing it as a “veritable flood”. When I asked him who, he named a couple whom I’d never heard of. He didn’t even offer up the “30000” from the petition project. It was quite an anticlimax.
Way to go Uknowispeaksense, you got that denier good.
I always wondered why common people, not CEOS with a stake in the environment, deny the existence of global climate change. Unlike evolution, there is no religious opposition to global warming.
My current theory is that people feel obligated to help if they acknowledge it as a problem. It reminds me a little of how long it took for the world to label the atrocities in Sudan as genocide.
” there is no religious opposition to global warming.”
Yes there is .
I have heard claims from creationist that
god would never allow his gift of fossil fuel to hurt us
god will arrive in the nick of time to save us
remember steve fielding AOG ?
TCS has a large following of YECies, even there pres is a fundamentalist
I guess you are right. To a certain degree, almost everything has religious opposition
You guy’s better do your homework. Who’s the biggest ‘whistleblower’?
It’s the IPCC themselves to the IAC.
Click to access IAC_PR_Completion.pdf
Click to access Climate%20Change%20Assessments,%20Review%20of%20the%20Processes%20&%20Procedures%20of%20the%20IPCC.pdf
Sorry to burst your bubble.
Hilariously funny your “argument” – and sad. Please, I encourage every one to read the report.The report, which I’ve read, suggested changes to processes and did not question the science. I’m going to suggest you’ve not read it, otherwise the contents of this very plain English and easy to understand document would not have escaped your limited attention.
The review was requested by the IPCC itself:
“In March 2010, the InterAcademy Council (IAC) was requested by the United Nations Secretary-General and the Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC) to conduct an independent review of IPCC processes and procedures.”
They found some processes that support the production of its reports could be improved:
“In the future, the IPCC may want to consider implementing available technologies to improve its operational efficiency. Commercial databases
and systems, for example, are available for managing nominations, citations, and drafts and revisions. Some emerging approaches also merit
attention. In particular, the notion of a Wiki-style process was raised in presentations to the Committee and in responses to the questionnaire. A
Wiki-style process is an electronic, web-based system in which the available literature on climate change can be uploaded, critically reviewed, and
synthesized with previous information in near real time…”
Yes, that wipes out the work of thousands of scientists.
I love how deniers clutch at straws, like the scared old white men they are.
You soooooo funny (^_^)
Um, I’m not clutching at straws, and I’m not white neither.
Oh No…the World is warming!!!!!
I’m meeeeeelting………..
Today, at my locale it went from 1.3C – 20.1C in 7hrs. Nothing happened to the planet, nor me with a 18.8C temp difference.
Now prove to the world that an increase of CO2 will cause alarming temp rates, considering that the 1930’s were warmer with only 315ppm CO2 levels.
OF course nothing happened to the planet because the global temperature did not go up by 18C deg
If the global temp increased by 18DegC humanity would have long gone at about half that increase.
December 2009 to November 2010 was the hottest twelve months since 1880 (NASA)
who are you citing?
The science is nearly two hundred years old, the prediction of global warming due to an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide was first made about 116 years ago.
you can read the whole history here http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm/
Who told him that the globe was warmer in the thirties, possibly referring to the USA,
now busted NOAA: May 2011-April 2012 Hottest Year on Record in U.S.
global http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2011/Fig2.gif
I think ‘snafu’ is just a Poe. This was a dead giveaway:
I know denialists have trouble with the whole climate vs weather thing, but contrasting temperature change within a day to global mean temperature change makes it pretty obvious you’re just taking the piss.
Ohhhh thanks.
That is only because it sounds too ridiculous for anyone to believe, but they do, i have come across it many times in the last five years, it’s the same as claiming that ocean pH is not a problem because the normal range between night and day is currently larger than the change.
.
The new norm continues
http://www.desdemonadespair.net/2012/07/drought-in-central-eastern-canada.html
.
Wow, a drought in eastern Canada. That’s never happened before.
Klem, this is a bit inane, even for you
An open letter to presidential candidates.
By Dominique Browning, Author, editor, co-founder Moms Clean Air Force
14 July 2012
DEAR Barack Obama and Mitt Romney – if I may be so familiar, as you are with me in your fund-raising emails.
You are campaigning for our nation’s highest office in a year of record-breaking heat waves, droughts, floods, and monster storms. More than half the contiguous U.S. is under drought conditions. In June wildfires destroyed 1.3 million acres across the country. More than 40,000 daily heat records were broken-by July.
Climate scientists tell us that the signals are loud and clear: We are experiencing global warming – NOW. Our climate is changing, more and more rapidly – because of greenhouse gas pollution. We have compromised the thin layer of atmosphere that protects our lives on this planet.
The weather is sending us a clear message: Danger. Danger. Danger.
Sirs: What is your message?
Thanks for all the posts John – Mike WtD
Dear Sirs,
What is my message?
I have been around for about, oh, ~4.5 billion years, had meteors thrown at me for a couple of thousands years, have been covered completely in ice for a few more thousands of years, then had dinosours walk and fart all over me (then, not now) until I decided, enough was enough, and I summond ‘my’ gods to send down another meteor to wipe them out……….I hate being shit on.
All this time I had a ‘gas’ problem. I had this darn pesky gas called ‘CO2’. Over time it would fluctuate from a very, very high level, drop slighly, rise again, and then drop very sharply to a very low level. Over the past few years, that ‘gas’ level has started to rise again, nothing major mind you, I’m still at one of the lowest levels recordered, but these darn ‘green’ humans that are presently running around me at the moment seem concerned and think that I should go to the doctors and have a check-up to see if I need to lower it some more. I’m quite happy with my ‘gas’ level at the moment and so are the trees and plants that cover my ‘chilling’ body.
Every now and again I might get a ‘fever’ at some stage and release it at certain parts of my body, again nothing serious, it’s just my way of ‘sweating’ it out.
I just wish those pesky ‘green’ humans would leave me alone to do what I do best.
Yours sincerely,
Mother Nature
“Over the past few years, that ‘gas’ level has started to rise again, nothing major mind you, I’m still at one of the lowest levels recordered, ”
Can I get a source on the claim that “CO2 is still at one of the lowest levels recorded”?
Here’s one. http://www.pnas.org/content/99/7/4167.full
Just look down the page to Fig 4.
It says “Fig. 4 reveals that CO2 levels have mostly decreased for the last 175 My. Prior to that point they appear to have fluctuated from about two to four times modern levels with a dominant period of about 100 My. The decline for the last 175 My is also present in several previous pCO2 reconstructions…”
Cheers
Interesting paper. I will have to read more into the methodology he uses to estimate CO2 levels and maybe some more recent papers on it.
Just one more item on my To-Do list for my plane/amtrak ride next week
Oh…..was that article about CO2 peer-reviewed or was it just disgusted around a round table with all your mates?
Are you talking about the article with 60+ references? Feel free to follow up if you think some of the references don’t check out
Do you mean CO2 ‘pal review’ ?
Not another Poe?
No Poe, Klem is very earnest in his reality denial.
Um, sometimes I’m a poe.
Correct! Climate change is real, absolutely, theres no denying it. BUT! A BIG BUT!. It can’t be proven to be man made. Simple. It HAS however been proven to he a natural process and consequence of our last major ice age (1 of only 5 ever) which we are still only in the process of exiting. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age. Take care to observe the diagrams and graphs for better understanding. Remember, the natural state of our planet is zero water at all, so you should be happy to realise that we still have a heck of a long way to go in leaving our recent major ice age so things can only be accepted as “we are to expect global warming” due to the nature of exiting an ice age. Kind regards. Think outside the box. 8^D.