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 The study’s conclusions, as yet unpublished but seen by Left Foot Forward, were presented to a closed meeting of campaigners on Wednesday night.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”
D knight
More to the point why is the BBC in the ‘supporters’ network’
If it was fulfilling its charter obligations it should have been bridging the divide between the two networks reporting both sides of the argument
Tne other entities in these diagrams are free to be partisan, although it would be nice if some didn’t claim objectivity
Steven Mosher
Hi Kevin,
I’ll assume your comment is directed at me. If not I’m sorry
“As the resident Alarmist I’ve probably defended AGW more than anyone else on this site. So your accusations of in effect stalinism are accusations against me. Since I’ve already admitted problems with the application of statistics for the Hockey Stick that accusation fails at the first step. ”
. I’m not aware that I used the term “stalinist” in my description. Nor am I convinced that my description fits the definition of “stalinist” whatever that is, I really don’t know or care. I try not to label viewpoints with dead descriptions. You see “admitting there are problems in the application of the statistics” is just the kind of locution that breeds the mistrust that Tom and I have talked about. If you seek to convince an audience of people who are undecided, then I will tell you (since I write and read to them daily ) that this kind of locution will not impress them. Mann was wrong. I remember when Reagan said “mistakes were made.” That was fodder for the next days class on rhetoric.
So in my mind you demonstrate the very thing you seek to deny. Note, I’m not asking you personally to say the words “mann was wrong.” I’ve asked that enough times on enough blogs and had no takers.
proving yourself an exception to this rule would just enforce my point.
“As to the FOI I believe Phil Jones has a case to answer as part of the inquiry but since he has demonstrated on more than 2 instances in the e-mails that what he writes at a moment of anger and frustration and how he acts are different things there is no point in basing a judgement on his words alone which is why we have to wait for the inquiry. ”
I have no evidence that Jones wrote those words in anger. There are also more than two incidents. there is one incident, that happened even BEFORE there were any FOIA, two years before. If I were to speculate on the emotion he felt, it would be fear and bravado. There are also incidents after Nov 19th 2009 when he misrepresented his own record and his own actions WRT sharing data. He lied before parliament as I detailed in a post some time ago. That doesnt change the science. But it does make him unfit for duty as a member of a standing committee that advises NOAA on data archiving and access. I do not think we have to wait for an inquiry to call for his removal from this position. I let my congressman know as much. If you want to get into the particulars of his violation of confidentiality agreements, ( an action he admits to ) then by all means we can. But this action, admitted to in the mails 2 years prior to any FOIA should be enough for a fair minded person such as yourself to make a decision. ( hint: the opposition of “words versus actions” was an unwise opposition to use in an argument without first canvasing Jones actions. generally speaking it’s an unwise opposition to take in any defense. Typical defenses go like this ” you took the words out of context.” “he was upset when he wrote it” ” he didnt really do anything” In the book, as you can probably tell I already canvased all of these defenses.
Also, If you want to convince an audience of people who like to think for themselves, then telling them that you want to wait for the inquiry is not a good way to convince them of your ability to think and judge things on your own. Again, I self identify as a person who likes to judge things for myself in an interactive process in which I am involved. That is how I come to truth. And you say that you want to wait for the inquiry. I’ve spent enough years in PR to know what that means. If the inquiry finds against him, you will reserve the right to say anything. “he a sacrificial lamb, the science doesnt change, they were too hard on him, blah blah blah. If they find ( as the ICO did ) that CRU violated Mr Hollands rights you will have something mitigating to say. If they don’t find anything you will defend that. The last thing you will do is read the record for your self and render a judgment on those facts.
today. here. now. You won’t read the mails and try to really understand what when on. But the audience of undecided people are just the kind of people who like to see for themselves. When they see you duck an issue, they don’t give you any credibility. perhaps they are wrong in that. I am just giving you my view of how these people come to believe, rightly or wrongly.
“If you choose to see the inquiry purely as a whitewash then there isn’t much I can do about that.”
The inquiry is worse than a whitewash. The inquiry is a lost opportunity to regain credibility with an audience that is in doubt. the skeptics will of course call it a whitewash. No stopping that. I would encourage them to do this, but I criticize the inquiry on other grounds.
“A question: Would you consider WUWT and climate audit more reliable sources of information than sites like this one?”
i don’t consider WUWT to be a source of information. For me it’s a source of entertainment. Basically, if I am reading for scientific content I read papers. If those papers dont supply code and data, then those papers are advertisements for science. they are not science.
Climate audit is a source of interesting puzzles. When Mc posts data and code, then its information.
For the most part what you should see is that people like me will read what you write, take apart your rhetoric, and try to get to the source material. We are very active readers. If you dont talk back to me, then I question your commitment to a shared truth.
Here is the deal. When you share your data and code with me you are sharing your power. That breeds trust.
Anyways, here you dont have that to share. So we just have conversation. So far, it’s a nice conversation.
In the end I’m just telling you how to best convince people who share a certain way of coming to the truth.
I don’t want this to degenerate into a debate about the particulars of the case against mann or jones. That would be rude. I’m just here telling you what I perceive as shortcomings in the strategies. We can differ on that.
Oxford Kevin
@Steve
you said you side has the ability to disagree whilst ours doesn’t. Your claim was one of stalinist type behaviour. Your claim was easily disproved. You seemed to have made judgements about me and others on this website without evidence for it.
Kevin
Oxford Kevin
In what way did Jones lie before parliament?
Ed Snack
Amazing, on one side, just about every major newspaper on both sides of the Atlantic, all major TV channels except (maybe) Fax, Billions of dollars in funding from the UN, the EU (Oxfam alone receives many millions), and alarmist organizations like the Soros funded “think tanks”; and on the other a few blogs funded almost entirely by subscriber donations and google ad revenue. Oh, and Exxon once gave a few hundred thousand $ to an organization that once asked one of the bloggers to give a (free) talk at one of their (many) talk sessions. And let’s not mention that Shell, BP, Exxon, and other Oil comapnies have donated millions to AGW related research, including to CRU.
And, like, you think the skeptics are winning ! It can only be because they have the honest, compelling and truthful message. You have everything you accuse the skeptics of having, Billions of $, control of almost the entire MSM, and yet the lies just don’t cut it with so many people. There IS a limit to spin, maybe you should think a bit more about the fact that if you do little but lie and spin, that’s what people eventually come to associate you with, and discount even correct statements.
Perhaps you could start on the “rotten apples” on your own side, to show you are genuine about wanting to present what is at least an approximation of the truth. KIck Michael mann and his fraudulent “Hokey (sic) Stick” off the island, it is damaged goods. Stop sites like RealClimate censoring the “hard questions”, the questions they can’t and won’t answer. Try treating the general public as basically intelligent enough to make up their own minds, stop treating them like the cattle you seem to believe they are. And most off, have a long hard look at your own beliefs, what to you could Disprove AGW. If nothing, then it ain’t science, it’s religion.