Kerry v Massie, A Study in Democratic Party Failure. April 9, 2019

Considering John Kerry’s Failure to Communicate with and Confront GOP.

I made these remarks after finishing a review of some deceptive opining by Mike Hulme.  

It occurs to me I'd like to share the same message over here

since I seriously am looking for someone to work for.

citizenschallenge - at - gmail com

We must learn from our failures!  Case in point John Kerry’s implosion under Congressman Massie’s deliberately cynical and distracting questioning on April 9, 2019.  Here I propose an alternative version of how that exchange could have been turned into a winning moment for rationalism, constructive learning and honest science, rather than descending into the waste of precious time it turned into.

It takes more than superficially knowing climate science bullet points.  You need to internalize the understanding behind those bullet points.  This is impossible without a deep appreciation for our climate engine’s evolutionary story.  

You must also anticipate the GOP’s repetitive juvenile misdirection and the rhetorical dirty tricks they have honed to perfection over the decades.

{This is also an open letter that I sent off on May 3rd to 

GOP Massie’s three offices.  It begins with the following.}

Honorable US Representative Thomas Massie, 

I am an engaged student of Earth Sciences and since our global heat and moisture distribution engine, read climate system, dictates global environments, climate sciences has become central to my pursuit of understanding our beautiful magnificent Earth and her life story.  I’m simply a student, but I’ve been at it five decades now, so I know a thing or two.

I believe in constructive honest debate as opposed to theatrical political debate.  This exercise is a combination of sincere letter to you where I answer the questions you raised, in the hope you learn something;   > a direct challenge and examination of your malicious rhetorical games;   > along with an examination of Secretary John Kerry’s text book example of why Democrats keep losing;  > and of course, as always, a personal learning project.

Incidentally, it’s worth pointing out that it requires a serious appreciation for our planet’s deep-time evolution, a prerequisite, before any true understanding of our global heat and moisture distribution engine is possible.  I build my presentation around the video of your April 9th performance. 

A response would be appreciated.

Sincerely, 

Peter Miesler

aka Citizenschallenge

near Durango, Colorado

{I suspect GOP's Congressman Massie will hide, they aways do, but should I get a response I’ll be sure to share it here.}

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DSi2gzIkHM

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility needs help to block Pruitt's insurgency against the EPA

I received the following email from Jeff Ruch, Executive Director of PEER  (Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility) that I want to share.  PEER needs more help to block Pruitt’s insurgency against our nation’s EPA.  Can you offer them some support?

A new scheme by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt to raise private donations for a personal legal defense fund violates criminal conflict of interest laws and federal ethics rules, according to a new PEER complaint. 

Earlier this month, Pruitt admitted under questioning at a Senate subcommittee that he has created a “legal defense fund” even though he is not yet personally facing any civil suits or criminal charges.

Responding to congressional and other official inquiries is part of Scott Pruitt’s day job and he is not supposed to accept gifts for doing that job – a violation of the criminal conflict of interest prohibition against a government official having two paymasters. 

That offense is punishable by – Imprisonment up to one year for a knowing violation;

• Imprisonment up to five years for a willful violation; and/or
• Civil penalties of up to $50,000 for each violation.

Pruitt's Red Team Challenge, bunch of Hot Air

Updating Pruitt's Red team Blue team challenge, December 15th, E and E News’ Robin Bravenender reported, EPA air chief Bill Wehrum attended a White House meeting with Trump energy aide Mike Catanzaro, deputy chief of staff Rick Dearborn and others to discuss the future of the debate and it has been put on hold.  {Brought over from my new Confronting Science Contrarians.blogspot}

I’m not at all surprised, after all Republicans have way more to lose.  Republicans are the ones performing the flim flam.  I think it’s a wonderful idea, compose a Blue team of savvy, well spoken, sharp-witted science communicators who have a deep understanding of Republican's war on rational constructive science debate and learning, along with the ability to enunciate today’s climate science understanding under fire.

No, not real climate scientists!  Scientists have had their constructive debates (among competent experts who understand the details such as the math, science, unexpected complexities and such.).  Scientists have published their results.  Scientists' work is On The Record!  Scientists are busy using their talents to continue the research.  Leave the politics to the public arena.

Use the Red team Blue team confrontation to force Republicans to show their cards.  Seems to me a wonderful opportunity to publicly expose their fraud.  That's why I'm working on a few posts related to pursuing the challenge, even if only from a distance.

Trump team puts controversial ‘red team’ challenge to climate science ‘on hold’

By Robin Bravender, E&E News  |  Dec. 15, 2017 

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/12/trump-team-puts-controversial-red-team-challenge-climate-science-hold

Help confront the Republican attack on science and rationality.

I received the following email from ScienceDebate.org and figured I should share.  If you can help please do.  If you can help wake up friends and neighbors please do.  This is for keeps and so far we are only putting up enough of an effort to think we tried - but not enough to actually accomplish anything.  So sad.  USA's citizens general apathy will have devastating consequences in the coming years.  (undated, with additional information below the fold, Dec.22, 5:30PM)

{ OH AND WHAT ABOUT A FOCUSED NATION WIDE EFFORT TO FORCE DEMOCRATIC SENATORS TO VOTE ON MERRICK GARLAND JANUARY 3RD ??? }

 Support the push for evidence in our democracy! Donate today!

There has been, for many years now, a growing war on science, and that's part of what we here at ScienceDebate have been engaged in fighting, with your help.

This war goes far beyond partisanship; it is an attack on the fundamental idea that there are objective facts that can be discovered, and that these are the fairest and most just basis for public policy—the idea that if anyone can discover the truth of something for him or herself using the tools of science and reason, then no king, no pope, and no wealthy lord has any more authority to govern than anyone else, a truth that is self-evident. The idea of democracy.

That idea—democracy—is what is really under attack in this war, for as go science and facts, so go the tools the people may use to govern themselves. And as the press ceases to hold the powerful accountable to evidence, and instead "balances" their reporting between competing claims to the truth as if they are disinterested arbiters in a playground spat, they have opened the way for the sort of well-funded public relations campaigns that are now the scourge of the democratic process.

I, along with Matthew, Lawrence, Sheril, Michael, Nancy and others, have sought to mitigate this through ScienceDebate, through exposing its relationship to democracy in writing THE WAR ON SCIENCE, through speaking worldwide, though top quality television and online videos, and through reaching out to president-elect Trump as a bridge to the science community, since ScienceDebate was the ONLY place that asked him about climate change and other science-related questions during the election. Unfortunately, Trump and his team have ignored these and other outreach efforts.

Instead, president-elect Trump has appointed well-known science deniers and their funders to top government posts, as Lawrence recently pointed out in The New Yorker, and now his pick for budget director, the man that oversees the office that develops the president's budget including the science agencies, has asked on his Facebook page: 

“Do we really need government-funded research at all?” 

We need your help!

Clearly, much, much more needs to be done.

While we slumber…Behold “Turning Point USA”!

While we slumber…  Behold “Turning Point USA”!  

Steadfastly building a movement hell bent on keeping tabs on all non-faith-based academics they don’t like, with the promise of future intimidations.  Of course, they don’t audit the reactionaries, or people who’ve convinced themselves that their self-centered, body bound human brains are actually in personal direct communication with the God of Time and Creation, Life and Love, and that this personal conviction justifies ignoring all objective evidence that doesn’t fit into their self-certain personal dogma - something that is human egomania and hubris taken to it’s ultimate extreme.

If you count yourself a rationalist who respects the constructive learning process that is serious science and academia, …

If you count yourself amongst the humanists who care about respecting diversity and you believe in cooperation among peoples, and dealing with the world that is, …

If you like “progressive” ideas, etc. here is yet another extreme right-wing group who wants to mortally damage all you believe in as part of their personal conviction of being god’s own warriors.  

Here’s an example of the witch hunts they are already conducting within serous learning institutions throughout our country, with far worse coming our way in the very near future.  You’d better get prepared!

Professor Watchlist is a project of TP USA*. 

The mission of Professor Watchlist is to expose and document college professors who discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom. 

This website is an aggregated list of pre-existing news stories that were published by a variety of news organizations throughout the past few years. While we accept tips for new additions on our website, we only publish profiles on incidents that have already been reported somewhere else. TP USA will continue to fight for free speech and the right for professors to say whatever they wish ; however students, parents, and alumni deserve to know the specific incidents and names of professors that advance a radical agenda in lecture halls. TP USA will continue to fight for free speech and the right for professors to say whatever they wish.  

Just remember their “free speech” demands attacking and trying to deny your right to Free Speech and fact based constructive learning !

They have done one heck of a job of singling out all outspoken academics for profiling in the most extreme manner possible.  Randomly going down the list I find things said I certainly don’t approve of, but it’s also very clear that this is a one-sided prosecution effort and has nothing to do with rationally auditing or understanding what any of these professors were trying to convey.

I mean taking first day introductory talks were professors regularly inform their students of their own biases so that students have a better frame of reference as the instruction continues - always seemed like a very honorable American approach - but these paranoid souls see everything as a personal attack.  Or perhaps they are the ones who want to muzzle everyone else?  Think about it.

And what of this FREE SPEECH these right-wingers go on about?

Dupuis - Documenting Trump's War on Science

This speaks for itself, written by John Dupuis at ScienceBlogs.com it's a partial compilation documenting Trump's War On Science.  I myself believe we (that would be, the science respecting fact-over-faith crowd) need something more, a dedicated website that has the space to document, categorize, catalogue, fact check and followup on the multi-frontal assaults serious science is going to be weathering, or folding to, these next years.    But, this is a good start and hopefully an inspiration for some others to pick up the ball and run with it.  One person can only do so much.  Although for these early days John has put together a pretty collection of important information.

Wake up America, this is not a drill!  The oligarchs want it all and they couldn't care less about you and your needs.  America, it's your move.

Documenting the Donald Trump War on Science: Pre-Inauguration Edition

By John Dupuis on November 11, 2016, at http://scienceblogs.com

… This time around, I’m going to start a project about science in the new Donald Trump administration. I believe Trump will be terrible for science, technology, the environment and public health. And I intend to document that here. 

The History of Climate Science Denial and Conservative Think Tanks

Reviewing NC-20 Burton's various claims and researching various strands of his web of deception I came across the following synopsis of a book, "Climate Change Denial Books and Conservative Think Tanks."  It's a revealing one stop look at the history of the Right-Wing "Think Tanks" dirty tricks campaign of deception against rational constructive science and learning.

We The People have a Right to hear what scientists have to explain without the constant shrill onslaught of disinformation, lies and malicious slander.  Here is a scholarly review of the story behind the erection of a faith-based echo-chamber of fantastical thinking that's become seemingly impervious to hearing anything others are trying to explain. 

Currently in the US we are having the scariest elections yet, and I wonder how long will the rational liberal, science appreciating, Earth appreciating crowd continue allowing right wing fanaticism to direct our future?  We all need to get out, get informed, get involved.  Stand up and object to the right wing's willful disconnect from our planet's realities, and remember to vote in November. 

(yeah, yeah, I don't think much of Clinton either but, keeping the Democratic party (which at least accepts serious science and rational dialogue) in the executive office matters most.  I mean, think of the alternative, which will happen if more of us don't engage.  Can you help?)

______________________________________

Climate Change Denial Books and Conservative Think Tanks

Exploring the Connection

Riley E. Dunlap and Peter J. Jacques

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3787818/

Am Behav Sci. 2013 Jun; 57(6): 699–731.

doi:  10.1177/0002764213477096

Abstract

The conservative movement and especially its think tanks play a critical role in denying the reality and significance of anthropogenic global warming (AGW), especially by manufacturing uncertainty over climate science. Books denying AGW are a crucial means of attacking climate science and scientists, and we examine the links between conservative think tanks (CTTs) and 108 climate change denial books published through 2010. 

We find a strong link, albeit noticeably weaker for the growing number of self-published denial books. We also examine the national origins of the books and the academic backgrounds of their authors or editors, finding that with the help of American CTTs climate change denial has spread to several other nations and that an increasing portion of denial books are produced by individuals with no scientific training. It appears that at least 90% of denial books do not undergo peer review, allowing authors or editors to recycle scientifically unfounded claims that are then amplified by the conservative movement, media, and political elites.

Part 5a - Debating ClimateDepot fan: Myth of the noble climate science opposition

Will, if I'm ever going to get through your last comment I need to take it in segments, here's my first installment.  Your opening sentence raised my hackles because it's such a patently false description.  Therefore, in addition to my Reposts of the previous days, this session is going to be all about offering you a gallery of information that supports my claims regarding the base dishonesty at the root of the past decades worth of Climate Science Contrarianism.

WillH  at 7:44 PM, Oct 26, 2015

"There are great people on both sides of the AGW issue. 

It is sad that they are not all still with us. …"

_______
Nonsense!  

On the one side we have a very tiny group of über-wealthy individuals with passionate political convictions - sure "great" business magnets, power politic players, PR tacticians, able to purchase what they want.  Thing is, they are people obsessed with achieving their own goals, they have no interests beyond self-interest, and they buy people who are willing to sell themselves. Money enabled the megaphone, self-interest drove the message.

So it was, "think tanks" sprouted like weeds and an alternate universe of thinking was fabricated to serve their lord's myopic-vision. All of it ringing of Machiavelli empire building struggles, not of learning about our planet.  

What happened to curiosity and wanting to understanding how our planet operates or how our society has and is changing it?   What happened to that eons old human drive to make the world a better place for our children's generations?

WillH my friend, self-interest über alles is all this other side you love knows.  I can point you to the evidence.  The truth is out there.  You just gotta poke around.
____________________________________________________

Chances are if you read something of prominence that bad-mouths the "establishment" scientific community and their ability to form a rational fact-driven consensus - I'll bet its been authored by one of these characters.

Climate Science Misinformers

http://www.skepticalscience.com/misinformers.php

____________________________________________________

I understand that everything I share on this page has already been categorically ex-communicated from the Republican/libertarian realm of consideration.  
So Will will dismiss it with a breezy wave.
So it goes.
Yet...
Yet...
This information and the story it tells is real - 
pretending it don't exist, 
don't make it go away chump.  

WillH, you have been had by a great PR con job.  
The tragedy is it's our kids who will be paying the price for our failures.

Chronicling the timeline, the participants and their tactics:

To the best of my knowledge

Sharing some thoughts about debate and developing understanding that came to me while putting together the 350.org post.

When a rationalist such as myself makes a claim, there's always an undercurrent of "to the best of my knowledge."  Meaning that, yes, I firmly believe this and this, for such and such reasons.  Yet, I appreciate there's more to learn.  Here is the place for one's constructive-debate opponent to add new information to my store of knowledge.  

Give me stuff I hadn't considered; point out my weaknesses; make me think through why I'm making my particular argument; make me question my own certitude, you bet I'll reexamine my understanding in light of new information.  And though I'm no scientist, I do know that this is also the scientist's way.

Being shown to be wrong may hurt my ego, so what!?  It's an opportunity to understand my topic even better.  That's why I've spent many hundreds (actually thousands all told) of hours chasing down and trying to understand contrarian arguments.  They've been fabulous learning experiences.

The tragedy is realizing that no such love for intellectual adventure and learning about the planet we depend on exists within my Republican/libertarian debate opponents.

UCS | Our Analysis of abuses of science

This is part two of the previous list, I'm posting it simply to expose it to a larger audience and to add this information to my collection of resources for those interested in better understanding the ways of the Republican/libertarian war on science.

With much thanks to the Union of Concerned Scientists

Abuses of Science - http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/abuses_of_science/

ABUSES OF SCIENCE BASICS Business Trade Groups Drive Anti-Regulation Effort in Congress Science under Attack: Threats to Scientific Inquiry and Academic Freedom Expand in Virginia and Elsewhere Timeline: Legal Harassment of Climate Scientist Michael Mann A Scientist Letter to the Senate Concerning Science in the Endangered Species Act House Majority Launches Attack on Science, Public Health, and the Environment Virginia scientists and academic leaders ask Virginia attorney general to drop misguided investigation FDA Medical Device Approval based on Politics, not Science Surveys of Scientists at Federal Agencies 2008 Scientist Statement: Scientific Freedom and the Public Good 2004 Scientist Statement on Restoring Scientific Integrity to Federal Policy Making

IN DEPTH LOOK AT ABUSES OF SCIENCE Focus on Biodiversity and Endangered Species: Scientific Integrity at the Department of Interior Focus on Environmental Protection: Interference at the EPA Focus on Climate Science: Atmosphere of Pressure (2007)

OUR ANALYSIS OF ABUSES OF SCIENCE A Climate of Corporate Control (2012) FDA Survey Shows Progress, But Issues Remain How Corporations Corrupt Science at the Public's Expense (2012) Survey: FDA and USDA Scientists (2010) Minerals Management Service Accused of Errors and Violations in Offshore Oil Drilling Program Freedom to Speak? A Report Card on Federal Agency Media Policies (2008) Survey: EPA Scientists (2007) Scientific Integrity in Policy Making (July 2004)

TOOLS & RESOURCES FOR IDENTIFYING ABUSES IN SCIENCE Science in an Age of Scrutiny: How Scientists Can Respond to Criticism and Personal Attacks (2012) A Climate of Corporate Control (2012): Company Profiles Survey: FDA and USDA Scientists (2010) - Driving the Fox from the Henhouse - Frequently Asked Questions

Last Revised: 11/26/08

Also see:  http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/
~ ~ ~

Heads They Win,Tails We Lose
How Corporations Corrupt Science at the Public’s Expense

http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/scientific_integrity/how-corporations-corrupt-science.pdf 

UCS | Scientific Integrity News archives 'attack on science' < 2008

I came across an interesting archive put together by the Union of Concerned Scientists it's a sampling of media coverage of political interference in science, such as shutting down EPA libraries, censoring any number of scientists and studies/reports, and so on.

It's good information to have on hand next time some contrarian tries feeding you Dr. Lindzen's canard that scientist who disagree with the AGW consensus are too afraid to speak out.  It's actually the other way around.  

In keeping with my mission here at WUWTW to examine and expose the ways of climate science denialists and other contrarians for profit I'm mirroring UCS's list.  Sadly it is a bit outdated {If anyone knows of another more recent collection of such information please share.}.  Still being familiar with the historical record of this past decade is important and it speak for itself.  

Here's your quick'n dirty UCS collection of reports on the Republican/Libertarian war on science.

Scientific Integrity News Archives

Union of Concerned Scientists

http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/abuses_of_science/si-news-archives.html

This archive has a sampling of the media coverage of political interference in science since UCS released its first scientific integrity report in 2004. The coverage is organized into issues; articles that address the misuse of science in general, or were not easily categorized, are represented in "Other Scientific Integrity News."

For the most recent news, click here.

Examine articles on specific issues: