Written by John O’Sullivan
Why is it that groups like the Heartland Institute and CFACT are very good at spending money holding seminars and presentations to their echo chamber of supporters but don’t change things for the better in the real world?
Have you noticed how ‘lukewarmers’ like Spencer, Happer, Curry, etc will say CO2 does something but none will quantify and qualify their statements with real metrics?
Perhaps you’ve heard of the famous quote by Soviet tyrant, Vladimir Lenin [pictured below] who said:
”The best way to control the opposition is to lead it ourselves”?
We need to delve into this question and seek to explain something of the origins of the controlled opposition strategy.
The concept of a ‘controlled opposition’ certainly pre-dates Lenin and the Bolshevik revolution of 1917. We know that during the French Revolution Count Mirabeau was controlled opposition, fooling the rebels who thought he was supporting the revolution. But in reality he was a personal friend of the king and a secret government agent.
It is when an individual, organization, or movement is covertly controlled or influenced by a hidden third party. The secrecy is paramount because the controlled entity’s true purpose must never be made public, or the plot will be undone.
The point of the subterfuge is to achieve mass deception, surveillance or political/social manipulation. Our ‘wolf in sheep’s clothing’ is dressed up to be loyal opposition battling the ‘hated enemy’ – the controlling party. The ‘sheep’s clothing’ is ‘lukewarmer’ world of skepticism where everyone parrots from the hymn sheet that carbon dioxide must cause ‘some warming.’ (don’t confuse ‘lukewarmers with real skeptics – we ‘Slayers’ (Principia Scientific International) who are vilified as the most extreme ‘deniers’).
To get the ‘ball’ rolling who better to ask than Dr Tim Ball who wryly flips the ’97 percent’ hoary old chestnut:
“I reply on radio to questions about the 97% by after explaining how it was created and is wrong, that it is most likely that 97% of scientists have never looked at the IPCC Reports, Summary and especially the original Science Report of WG1. Here is a good quote that I put on my book.
Ten years ago I simply parroted what the IPCC told us. One day I started checking the facts and data – first I started with a sense of doubt but then I became outraged when I discovered that much of what the IPCC and the media were telling us was sheer nonsense and was not even supported by any scientific facts and measurements. To this day I still feel shame that as a scientist I made presentations of their science without first checking it.” [Dr Tim Ball, by email: October 01, 2019]
But the hidden agenda goes back to at least the 1970’s as shown by valued PSI member, Tom Tamarkin who notes:
“I believe that my friend Marge Hecht and I were the first to flag Margret Mead and her side kick back then of Paul Ehrlich, as coming up with the CO2 AGW scheme before “The Club of Rome” at: “Where the Global Warming Hoax Was Born: 1975 ‘Endangered Atmosphere’ Conference” https://climatecite.com/where-the-global-warming-hoax-was-born/
Now, we did address this perplexing matter once before in our 2018 article, ‘Controlled Opposition’ Keeps Greenhouse Gas Theory On Life Support.’
Back then we examined how the radiative greenhouse gas theory, despite being discredited as a reliable explanation of earth’s climate system, was being staunchly defended by many prominent skeptics of man-made global warming. At the time this author wrote:
“Any such controlled opposition would work to ensure that the CO2-driven radiative greenhouse gas theory was maintained and unquestioned as the ‘settled science’; without that lynchpin no one could persuasively argue that human emissions were dangerously altering earth’s climate.”
We drew a parallel with what began in America in the 1950’s with Operation Mockingbird and a secret campaign by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to influence the mass media.
Of course, many who inadvertently serve as ‘controlled opposition’ wouldn’t even regard themselves as such. For example, a scientist employed by a university and protective of their position, is subliminally motivated to toe the official line. These may be among the jobbing supplicants who peddle the ubiquitous fake ‘lab experiment’ claimed to prove CO2 ‘trapped heat’?
“Al Gore’s Climate 101 video experiment (from the 24 hour Gore-a-thon) shows that his “high school physics” could never work as advertised.”
Time and again, we challenged government researchers, exposed fake data and corrupt scientists (e.g. Michael Mann’s ‘hockey stick’ graph.) Of course, Tim Ball was even prosecuted in court for his troubles but was finally victorious in August 2019.
We are faced with people who will ‘accidentally on purpose’ rig their science to fit the groupthink narrative. These groups fight for money and their high-level staffs are well paid. They don’t want to quickly solve the problem because their reason to exist ceases and any organism’s instinct is for survival.
Dr Pierre Latour, a renowned international expert in thermodynamics has repeatedly called out the insane ‘trick’ of government researchers who ‘simplify’ complex calculations of the innumerable variables in climate by mixing scalar numbers with vectors (a huge ‘no, no’ to real science). Latour took great issue with Dr Roy Spencer’s bizarre article, ‘Yes, Virginia, Cooler Objects Can Make Warmer Objects Even Warmer Still’ (July 23, 2010).
Spencer’s is regarded by believers in the greenhouse gas theory (GHE) as one of the most authoritative defenses. It claims that CO2 is causing the climate to be “33 degrees warmer than it would otherwise be” absent this gas. The crux of the argument which Latour powerfully disputes is Spencer’s bold admission:
“Well, I’m going to go ahead and say it: THE PRESENCE OF COOLER OBJECTS CAN, AND DO, CAUSE WARMER OBJECTS TO GET EVEN HOTTER.”
Yes, Spencer actually makes this unphysical claim and alarmists and ‘lukewarmers’ alike buy into it. Latour’s authoritative rebuttal of the GHE is his ‘No Virginia, Cooler Objects Cannot Make Warmer Objects Even Warmer Still‘ (January 2012).
Another good example of such ‘bad measuring’ by a government ‘expert’ who even got called out in the courts for his shenanigans, is alarmist Oxford Professor Myles Allen [pictured below] who was taken to task by a US Federal judge in California. See here. [1]
Professor Allen’s science was grossly exaggerating the proportion of CO2 in the atmosphere, but the judge spotted the ruse:
“It’s 400 parts per million but you make it look like it’s 10,000 part per million,” he said.
Professor Allen was forced to admit his slide was misleading. “Your honor is quite right,” he agreed.
Astrophysicist, Joseph E Postma is also no stranger to seeing scheming resistance to climate skepticism in academia. Postma has long taken issue with the fudging of data and over-reliance on averaging techniques, which can be a convenient means to falsify and distort mathematically what occurs in reality.
Postma, in his new book, ‘The Layman’s Guide to the Greatest Scientific Fraud in History,’ deftly exposes how the standard model of the greenhouse gas theory depicts the earth as a flat surface:
“Just because you can think of an average or a way of computing an average, it does not mean that that average has anything to do with reality. And so although you can think of spreading sunshine over the entire Earth’s surface at once as an average and you can compute that with mathematics, it actually has nothing to do with reality because in reality sunlight does not fall on the Earth in such a fashion.”
Postma then goes on to elaborate how government climate modelers took the step to remove the need for a time variable (night/day) and actual incoming sunlight across one hemisphere in their equations. They wanted to use a simple averaging technique (spreading strong sunlight from one hemisphere thinly over both earth’s hemispheres simultaneously as a tepid twilight). This thus created the false condition in the models that sunlight, itself, is not strong enough to melt ice. As a result, the academics then opted to fudge an additional 33 degrees into their numbers so that the model can replicate the true strength of sunlight which they had unphysically botched into tepid twilight in the first place!
But surely, don’t the best and brightest NASA climate scientists diligently apply super computers to fix this problem? Well, no, not if you speak to an actual NASA climate scientist who worked alongside Dr James Hansen and Dr Gavin Schmidt.
Let me introduce you to Dr Duane Thresher. In his revealing article ‘Follow The Money II’ (September 21, 2017) Thresher exposed the utter incompetence among his fellow government workers:
“The unqualified physicists and mathematicians carpetbagged it into climate science. (Just because everything has some physics/math in it doesn’t mean physicists/mathematicians know everything. While I (Dr. Duane Thresher) was at NASA GISS, we used to make fun of the physicists/mathematicians at the National Bomb Labs for getting into climate modeling.)
Everybody had to have their own supercomputer to model climate. I talked about NASA GISS’s experience with this: no proper place to put it, no tech support, no qualified climate modeling programmers. This was true at most climate research institutions.”
The closer we look, the more we see that despite having the best hardware for contemporary computer climate models, government employees still rely on those over-simplified algorithms devised a century ago that were only intended to serve as mere estimates. Back then, before insane climate alarm and trillion-dollar climate ‘fixing’ policies became the rage, no faculty of climate science even existed.
There is thus a distinct and disconcerting chasm between what has been believed in (government-funded) academia for three decades versus what is daily proven objectively in the highly-competitive, real world (results-focused industry) by applied scientists and engineers.
Now factor in the truism that the best and brightest brains seek lucrative careers in the cut-throat private sector, while mediocre, unambitious minds tend to opt for the safer job security of government work.
It appears to be more than coincidence that the ‘lukewarmers’ are invariably from academia; while the ‘slayers’ mostly are comprised of applied scientists and engineers (plus a smattering of retired academics).
To help unclutter the confusion, PSI provided ‘The New Three-Sided Climate Debate: A User Guide.’ [2] Our guide exposed Three Paradoxes in the Consensus Climate Theory as follows:
Paradox One: (the blatant fraud) Despite thousands of years of proxy data (e.g. from ice cores) proving all past rises in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels FOLLOW not cause increases in global temperatures, alarmist scientists have falsely reported the opposite;
Paradox Two: (an irrational love affair with models) Despite hard empirical evidence that solar energy first heats earth’s surface before rising up to warm the air, alarmists have turned this fact full circle to program their models to suggest it is the cooler air that somehow heats earth’s warmer surface even more;
Paradox Three: (the mathematical errors inc. L R Richardson’s etc.) The direct heat of the sun, which can only impact half of our three-dimensional planet at any time, has been crudely modeled as constant; a ‘flat earth’ heat source with one-quarter of the intensity averaged out over the entire planet (the ‘P4 number’)
Now, the general make-up of the membership of PSI (AKA the ‘slayers’) comes mostly from the applied sciences and engineering. A good few hold PhD’s in thermodynamics – the perfect discipline to help understand earth’s climate system. What really bothers such ‘hands on’ experts in empirical science is the glaring anomaly among climate academics – who dodge the question: why does carbon dioxide become a super heater in their theory when free roaming the atmosphere, yet it’s only commercial and laboratory use is for super-cooling?
After well over a decade engaged full-time in the fractious man-made global warming debate, it strikes many a seasoned ‘slayer’ skeptic that some of our fellow ‘lukewarm’ skeptics are not of the same flock. Perhaps, more than one or two really are the ‘wolves’ who serve as controlled opposition to stymie real progress?
Some, in all sincerity, simply don’t want to countenance that their life’s work was premised on a false assumption – that CO2 ‘must cause some warming’ of the atmosphere might be bogus. That would be a bitter pill to swallow if your last name was Spencer or Lindzen.
We don’t especially want to be mean about Dr Judith Curry, who has now retired from the academic hullaballoo. As we wrote in 2018,
“Perhaps Dr Curry is less the willing operative and more the unwitting groupthinker.”
Yes, groupthink may be the bigger villain here. As it is for the alarmist camp where so many scientists from various disciplines, not wanting to tread on the toes of a scientist in another discipline, will merely acquiesce along consensus lines. But as we all know, ‘consensus is not science!’
So, just consider that the purposes of controlled opposition include:
- Coopting or preempting a resistance movement to neutralize the threat that a grassroots movement would pose to an established power structure
- Preempt or neutralize true but negative information by having it be championed in a skewed or stigmatized fashion by a person or group. The truth can be peppered with misinformation or the truth of the message can be neutralized by association due to the extreme, radical, or unpalatable positions held by the controlled entity (person or group) who is disclosing the information or “championing” a position. The stigmatize truth or adulterated truth in turn steers people away from truthful information which would normally cause criticism or a serious backlash against the controlling party
- Hijack the goals and actions of an organization or movement for purposes other than those that were the original intentions of the grassroots movement
- Give the public the false illusion of choice by presenting a political party or organization that superficially speaks to the desires or frustrations of the people but whose actions do not further the stated goals of the organization
- Disinformation or deception of the masses. Steering the masses in the wrong direction or misdirect their energies, beliefs and actions
- Unmask and monitor the true opposition
- Create a chaotic and divisive environment in which the opposition cannot band together and there is general mistrust thereby ensuring that an organized opposition with clear goals and priorities never manifests
- Act in such a way that superficially appears to benefit the opposition, but in truth furthers the ends of the controlling party
Do you not get a sense that these factors are in play in the fractious climate debate?
The strategy of controlled opposition works best under circumstances in which the masses are gullible, credulous, lack critical thinking and are unable to connect the dots and see how the actions/inaction or manipulation of information from the controlled entity benefit the controlling entity. Isn’t that a fair description of every-day, average non-scientist voters?
For further edification we recommend watching this insightful video featuring Tim Ball: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1VJtER2IUE&feature=share
[1] Full report by Phelim McAleer, Producer/Director FrackNation here: https://www.facebook.com/notes/fracknation/a-bloody-nose-for-global-warming-alarmists/1737130993018427/
[2] The New Three-Sided Climate Debate: A User Guide https://principia-scientific.org/the-new-three-sided-climate-debate-a-user-guide/ (Published on September 15, 2017)
