A new study has revealed just how much more effective climate sceptics are at commenting on forums, posting stock arguments, and linking back to sceptic sites.
A fascinating new study commissioned by Oxfam and produced by digital mapping agency Profero has shed new insights into the way climate sceptics’ networks operate. The study’s conclusions, as yet unpublished but seen by Left Foot Forward, were presented to a closed meeting of campaigners on Wednesday night.
Profero’s study analysed online coverage of the “Climategate” debacle that broke last November, tracking its progress from fringe blogs to mainstream media outlets over the ensuing weeks and months.
Tracing the online paper trail back to its source, the researchers concluded that:
• The ‘Climategate’ story was first aired on climate denier blog The Air Vent, before wending its way onto more popular sceptic sites Climate Audit and Watts Up With That, and then featured by James Delingpole in his Daily Telegraph blog – whose followers propagated it further;
• From thereon in, the story was picked up by a wide range of media outlets, and went global –the culmination of a concerted effort to push it into the mainstream;
• The timing of the CRU email leak was calculated to have maximum impact on the Copenhagen negotiations, with the second wave of sceptic attacks after Christmas deliberately timed for when the environmental movement was at its weakest, exhausted from the UN talks; and
• The speed of information flow within the sceptic community, with its rapid publication of sceptical “research”, is far quicker than any scientist or NGO could hope to match – and handily unencumbered by peer review or sign-off processes.
This meant that because almost no-one from the climate movement responded to or rebutted the sceptics’ arguments, they ended up owning the story.
This allowed them to shift what political theorists call the “Overton Window”: the acceptable parameters within which a debate can be conducted. Suddenly after Climategate, it became acceptable for the mainstream media to question the fundamentals of climate science.
As cognitive linguist George Lakoff has written, if you don’t contol the way an issue is framed, you don’t control the debate. Climate progressives allowed this episode to be written on the sceptics’ terms. The result? A sizeable drop in the public’s belief in climate change (although the freezing winter may also have played a part in this).
Profero’s study then looked at the character of the online climate sceptic networks that permitted this information flow. It discovered that the sceptic community is extraordinarily well-networked and interwoven, with sites like Climate Audit and Climate Depot acting as hubs for a wide range of other individual pundits and bloggers. (And no, I’m not going to give these sites free publicity by linking to them.) Of the top five most linked-to climate commentators, four are climate sceptics.
The one exception was Guardian columnist George Monbiot, who was also the only significant voice countering the sceptics during the whole Climategate debacle. “I have seldom felt so alone,” he wrote early on in the scandal, with justification – Oxfam’s study shows that almost no-one bothered to back him up in defending the integrity of the science.
In many ways, the tactics revealed by Profero are not new. They were first tried and tested by American neo-cons in the 1970s long before the internet became a tool for campaigning. What is new is that the patterns of activity are now traceable, which means that the progressive response to climate scepticism can be more strategic – that is, if we listen to the findings.
Indeed, the reports’ insights should give pause for thought to progressives contemplating the strength of their own networks. Stuart Conway, the study’s co-author, declared simply that “there are no progressive networks” – just hubs of activity here and there, lacking interconnection. Whilst a number of blogs buck this trend – honourable mentions include Treehugger and, yes, Left Foot Forward – the pro-environmental community as a whole lacks brio and responsiveness.
It’s not that there we don’t have the numbers: it’s more than we’re not using our numbers effectively. NGOs, notably, were nowhere to be seen during the debate. Whilst there were some good reasons for this – NGOs feared they would be simply seen as “the usual suspects” in rebutting deniers – this clearly left a vacuum that needed filling by an activist community.
After presentation of the study, discussion moved onto filling that vacuum: how we can better combat sceptic networks and strengthen our own. The discussions ranged far and wide, and I’d love to tell you some of the creative ideas discussed, but you’ll have to watch this space…
For now, though, let me close with a challenge for progressive readers: one of the study’s more obvious conclusions was how effective climate sceptics are at commenting on forums, posting stock arguments, and linking back to sceptic sites. This is unsurprising for anyone who has ever trawled through comments left behind after any climate change article. By the time you read this, there will doubtless be sceptical comments posted beneath this blog, too.
So here’s what I’d like you to do:
• Read the comments, and if you notice any that cast doubt on the validity of climate science, post a response, be polite and use facts;
• You might like to make use of the handy checklist of arguments to counter deniers over at Skeptical Science;
• Link to some of the dirt dug up on sceptics’ funding by SourceWatch; or
• Refer to the discussions at RealClimate and Climate Safety.
Oh, and remember to check out James Delingpole’s column at the Telegraph. If any of it makes you angry, you might like to let him know. Did I say be polite? Scratch that.
UPDATE 23/3:
Profero, the digital mapping agency behind the Oxfam report have posted a message on their website. They say:
“We’re really excited that people are taking an interest in what we do and hats off to LeftFootForward for getting the scoop on this piece of work but we’d like to clarify what’s being discussed (most of the conversations focus upon a visual representation of some of the key conversations in the form of a landscape map) as it should be understood in the context of an entire report (120 pages or so) which hasn’t been made public.
“The report as a whole applies our own bespoke models and frameworks to both quantitative and qualitative data in order to bring to the surface complex dynamics and issues which would otherwise pass un-noticed if an automated technological monitoring solution had been used in isolation.”
201 Responses to “Combating the growing influence of climate sceptics”
The Blackboard » Climategate communication network?
[…] evidently tells use something about the communications network during the climategate story. I read Left Foot Forward’s discussion of the report — which I understand is not yet publicly available. The report […]
Steven Mosher
There are missing some facts in how the story got out and actually some facts about how it didnt get out.
The actual Timeline is on ClimateAudit.org in a post called the mosher timeline.
Short version:
On Nov 17 the LINK to the file on the russian server was placed at several locations: At climate audit in
the morning where it was ignored ( too cleverly hidden) and then later that evening the link
was placed at the air vent ( no consensus) at RomanM’s stats blog, and at WUWT.
At WUWT the link was intercepted by my Roommate Charles Rotter who moderates the site. He downloaded the files, made a CD, and gave them to me to vet. The vetting process went on for two days. During that two days nobody saw the link at the Airvent or other places. After two days of reading through the files and cross checking facts in them, I learned that UAE had informed employees that there had been a security breech and that files had been posted on the internet. A check of the UAE/CRU server configuration confirmed this.
The Link was being held in moderation at WUWT because the owner of the blog was concerned about the validity of the files. he was also concerned about entrapment. With the knowledge that I had obtained from reading the files and the notice from UAE about the breech I was able to say that the files looked real and that no trap was being set. Then on the morning of Nov 17th I went looking for other references to the Link and found the
Link posted at the airvent. I emailed the owner. I then posted about this Link on “rank exploits” The owner of that blog, a friend, then wrote a short article on it within minutes. I then notified andrew revkin, a facebook friend, shortly after noon. He was mentioned in the mails and thought he should get a scoop. That lead was not followed.
You can also read about it in Climategate: the crutape letters.
For grins Lucia has done this
http://rankexploits.com/musings/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Mosher.jpg
Steven Mosher
Correction: Morning of the 19th
Scott B
How about simply being honest to others and treating people with respect? This post sounds like some PR campaign instructions. That alone is enough for me roll my eyes and not believe a word that comes out of the author’s keyboard. If I have comments or questions to post about climate change, I simply post them. I don’t refer to some PR guide. To point out a couple of issues I have here:
“because almost no-one from the climate movement responded to or rebutted the sceptics’ arguments, they ended up owning the story”
I don’t agree. The response to climategate was the same as have been made to most other skeptic points. RealClimate basically said there was nothing to see except scientists working. The problem this time was that since the issues exposed didn’t require any high level of technical knowledge to understand, even the MSM could see that this was not a completely honest answer.
““there are no progressive networks” – just hubs of activity here and there, lacking interconnection.”
At least when it comes to climate change (obviously not health care or our financial issues) the progressive network is the MSM. I’m not sure what the size of those bubbles represent, but by most any measurement (especially money and power) the ones on the right side should dwarf the ones on the left. The only bubbles that could even be close to considered mainstream on the left side of the chart are a couple of British papers.
“So here’s what I’d like you to do:
• Read the comments, and if you notice any that cast doubt on the validity of climate science, post a response, be polite and use facts;
• You might like to make use of the handy checklist of arguments to counter deniers over at Skeptical Science;
• Link to some of the dirt dug up on skeptics’ funding by SourceWatch; or
• Refer to the discussions at RealClimate and Climate Safety.”
1. Sounds good. Hopefully people will follow it. (BTW, “denier” = not polite)
2. Good idea too. Some of you might want to focus on clearing up some of the questions in the comments to these stock rebuttals though. Again, since the polite point was obviously lost here, denier = not nice. Well, unless you think the conservatives calling you unpatriotic for supporting useless wars was nice. Same exact tactic.
3. Typical shoot the messenger argument. How about discussing the merits of the argument? The supporter’s side of this is going to lose any money arguments made. Also, anyone with a brain that is still undecided is going to see through it.
4. Can’t say I know much about Climate Safety, but you might want to be careful using RealClimte. If a person has any sympathy to the issues around climategate, sending them to the PR site for the same people involved probably won’t win too many points with the undecided. I’d suggest treating people like adults and giving them specific papers to read.
Jeff Id
The graph and description of the Air Vent are screwed up. First tAV is not a denialist blog, it’s run by an evil conservative which is completely different. Second, it has no links to or association with nofrakkingconsensus before cliamtegate although recently I copied one of her posts with permission.
Actually just switching the balls around between nofrakking and tAV would fix a fair chunk of the error but Lucia of the blackboard never heard of nofrakkingconsensus before this post.
You would think that a group analyzing the release of climategate emails would at least ask a question by email. Nope!
Most of my traffic is (and was) from CA, WUWT, Bishop Hill and Lucias blog, the blackboard. We’re all skeptics/lukewarmers to my knowledge but I’ll let them define themselves.