Green World Trust

[Lucy Skywalker]

Update: See Announcement re. new wiki actually running.

Neutralpedia

(Original text from 2009 left in place from here on) Here we are: a project to build a skeptics' climate science wiki. It's finally being birthed, thanks not least to Eric and all other fervent AGW science believers. All these people make me acutely aware: WE NEED A WIKI that warmists cannot just dismiss. The level of evidence needed, written down, all the rest of us probably have read or sassed out long ago: but it takes time, effort, and committment to put it clearly and unambiguously enough that even those who believe they are neutral but are not, cannot misread or misunderstand. We need to set down the best of skeptical science and the deconstructions of the warmists' debunks.

I've produced a page about it: - Skeptics' Climate Science Wiki project.

I'm planning to send it in time to WUWT for a guest post (hoping Anthony will take it), but comments would be welcome here meanwhile. If it's needed over time, I can set up another forum dedicated specifically to the wiki project - for use by those who want to help it start.

[Lucy Skywalker]

My prose can start off really bad

For this and other reasons I've been nervous about going for broke to develop a wiki. But events are pushing me again; and editorial skills can turn my original mess into something worthwhile, that's how my Primer came into being. I'm now in touch with Karl from the US who is interested in collaborating to make this project real.

The wiki project page is changing nearly every day. These are early days still, but the project is taking my time and interest and I shall probably post less on threads unrelated to a wiki. Every time I get frustrated, it channels my energies to this wiki project.

Now I'm interested in a clear statement on the radiative issues. I think this is one of the hardest issues to get clear understanding and agreement about. Gerlich & Tscheuschner consider the whole GHG to be nonsense but I'm not sure they are correct. Michael Hammer has some very interesting material but it is beyond me in technical details though not beyond me in following the logic and courtesy and intelligence of the debaters. I want to see all theses stated in simple language that bears scrutiny for accuracy.

If anyone here feels up to starting a comprehensive statement about all the research and writeups going, from G&T to Trenberth to Hammer to Kininmonth to... who? Monckton? that would be really really nice. And Monckton needs to be freed from the common misperception, furthered by Monbiot, that Arthur Smith, Gavin Schmidt and APS proved him wrong. The radiative material is iconic of the Climate Science difficulties and challenges. And someone has to present all the different stories and theories in a way that lay scientists can understand.

Obviously this is me fishing.

But please keep to "developing a wiki" here

[Lucy Skywalker]

The project page now has a suggested list of topics (first idea)

I'm thinking about seed-starting, so it starts appropriately even if small. Not yet got a handle on the platform technics but never mind for the mo. One thought is to expand an FAQ like this one. Or see if Warren Meyer (Climate Skeptic) would be willing to take his deconstruction of New Scientist's 27 debunks of skeptics' issues, and separate it out into 27 seed pages for the wiki "deconstructing AGW answers to skeptics" section. It's in A Laymans Guide to GW chapter 9.

We need material that is geared to deflate puffed-up and untruthful claims like the following. Here are the ways Denialist Blog reckons you can spot a denier (I find this one ugly, racist in its final implications of gagging us - what's needed IMO is to turn the mirror round, and show how it applies to them, plus to reinstate the truth about the science and the scientists reviled, plus good and open sources to verify all that)

• First is the assertion of a conspiracy to suppress the truth. This conspiracy invariably fails to address or explain the data.
• Second is selectivity, or cherry-picking the data. AGW denialists harp on about long discredited theories and the MWP.
• Third is the use of fake experts. Lots of big names are the same hacks for the tobacco companies, others are scientists who are wrongly included because they said something that was quoted out of context, others simply have no credibility as experts on climate like TV weathermen.
• Fourth – moving goalposts or impossible expectations – refusal to accept when denialists' challenges to the science have been addressed. This may be their most frustrating tactic because every time you think you've satisfied a challenge, they just invent a new one.
• Fifth is the catch-all of logical fallacies. Al Gore is fat! His house uses lots of energy! reasoning by analogy, ad hominem.
"It is important that scientific debate can stay rational. Otherwise we get sidetracked and paralysed by denialists who are not honest brokers in a debate. Their goal isn't to promote science, or truth, or human knowledge, but to delay and deny "

Or again, devise responses (with good science!) to 9 arguments whereby another emailer is a convinced AGW:

1. The current rate (30 year trendline) of average global temperature is unprecedented going back millenia.
2. The current level of CO2 is unprecedented for millennia.
3. 30% of current atmospheric CO2 is of anthropogenic origin (deforestation and fossil fuel combustion) - isotopic analysis.
4. Climate models that use only natural forcings do not show observed temperature increase.
5. Climate models that include the physics of GHG forcing do show the observed temperature increase.
6. Temperature increase is correlated with CO2 increase (30 year trendlines over last 100 years).
7. Cooling after volcanic eruptions is replicated in climate models by including the physics of aerosol cooling.
8. Stratospheric cooling (observed) is predicted by GHG models but not predicted by models using solar forcing of same magnitude.
9. There are no peer reviewed papers that, after publication and analysis, have been able to cast any serious doubt on the overall AGW hypothesis.

[Lucy Skywalker]

Then there's Climate Skeptic's Warren Meyer's 27 answers to New Scientist's 27 refutations of skeptics chapter 9. I'm very tempted to contact him to see if he'd be willing to have his Chapter 9 transferred to 27 wiki pages to seed-start the wiki section concerned with debunking the debunkers and discrediting the discrediters - no, that's not enough, the people discredited need their true stories up, alongside the discrediting of the discredits.

[Eric]

[Lucy Skywalker]

This thread is intended for things that can support a wiki coming into being. I've let the last post stand because, although I can comfortably deal with it (of course each rebuttal of rebuttals has to be checked) it is typical, iconic, of the informed, intelligent end of AGW supporters, and therefore is good to check against. I regret to say I finally chose to ban Eric, even though his contribution was, at times, germane to improvements. One was the resolution "we've got to get a wiki to work!"

[Richard111]

[Lucy Skywalker]

I need to revisit my wiki URL's to upgrade my proficiency with wikis, Richard. I believe the skeptics community is already capable of sustaining a MediaWiki platform (same as Wikipedia and RealClimate use) which has search facility incorporated - but I do not have the skill or means for this platform at this point. However, if I prepare more - probably break down my Primer into subjects, each to seed-start a wiki page, to get something of the spread of issues we need, this can be done even without a wiki platform.

Then I need to contact potentially capable authors

Should one allow warmists on the discussion pages of a skeptics wiki? I'm having second thoughts here. It is tricky because comments are inline, not a sequential thread, and so are difficult to monitor. We need a wiki that aims to eventually answer everything RealClimate etc says, but I think we have enough awareness of such sources that we don't need posters like Eric to keep on reminding us. I decided to ban Eric here eventually, because he was flooding out everyone else with his own agenda. But I told him I'd let him know if I felt I could cope in future.

Should the question be whether warmists arrive with agendas or not, and whether they can stick to the facts in a fair, balanced way? Ah, Eric taught me a lot - because he truly believes his point of view is balanced. Yet we need to create a balanced information source that can be the necessary counterbalance to the present official disinformation. And almost all warmists who really look at the evidence change sides! I've only encountered one who changed from skeptic to warmist, and they did not seem to be as scientifically bright as most of the posters at WUWT.

I think this means contribution to the wiki by invitation only; also one can allow requests accompanied by a little bit explaining why and what the requestor wants to contribute, etc. and decide if each seems allowable. The wiki needs to be open to as many as possible, with as much encouragement and as little hassle as possible; yet I think that to prevent disruption from the goal, all contributions have to be by invitation.

Perhaps this wiki needs a blog alongside it, where everyone can post, and where we can keep news and requests and interest flowing. But that can only happen if someone is inspired to oversee the blog; and that's not me. Not so far anyway. This Forum is fine for news pro tem.

[Richard111]

That seems like a reasonable way forward. Solicit email contributions which will be examined for content, accuracy and suporting citations if needed.

So, accuracy, here is where I fall over. I think there is a problem in the quote below.

[Lucy Skywalker]

A good wiki functions, as I've seen it, as a community. I cannot just solicit cold: there needs to be pages already up with enough good material and enough loose ends to attract creative support IMO. I think it'll be ready for WUWT and expert contributors when I've got some kind of rudimentary wiki structure visible, and some ideas about who to ask.

For instance, Leif is a solar expert... but he has his own take that tends to sideline what I regard as potentially important developments on the "fringe"... but I'm not expert enough to be quite sure either... I think there's gotta be someone who can appreciate Leif and write about the solar science he works with, but allow space for stuff like Landscheidt too - or explain in terms I can understand why Miskolczi or whoever is questionable.

My mistakeS on the Arctic page corrected - AFAIK - more proof we need a wiki!

[Lucy Skywalker]

well well, nice serendipity, next day 18 March WUWT

[Richard111]

Good luck Lucy. You need someone with that level of understanding of the science to guard against the "clever" posts that could detract from the credibility of your Wiki. The next problem is time !!!
I musn't say any more except that I buy an Irish lotto ticket every so often and if it comes up I will request the pleasure of making a donation.

[Lucy Skywalker]

Looking at WUWT currently I see two issues in particular. Both could use responses that don't actually need a wiki but would produce pages that are already useful and could transfer later to a wiki.

(1) the length of threads - I'm sure I'm not the only person who feels they are missing stuff and not able to give stuff thoughtful enough attention. This emphasises the need to distil out the good science. For instance, I'm now a lot more aware of Miskolczi - but I cannot follow his maths - and I want a distillation of his work, and work in the same field (Gerlich & Tscheuschner) that gets quoted by skeptics (Marc Morano) but laughed out of court by warmists - and may or may not have valuable contributions. I want to separate the good from the bad, and though I doubt G&T, there may be important bits. I don't want to see good scientists dismissed on trivial evidence; nor dismissed by association with others whose science may be flaky.

So I'd like to see write-ups by people who can fairly evaluate where I cannot - eg for G&T and Miskolczi (currently I'd put my money on M) and others like these whose work is circulating in skeptics circles. I've actually emailed Zagoni who works with Miskolczi requesting a write-up accessible to ordinary folk.

(2) the length of time taken to argue with warmists. I see the same old arguments reappearing all the time. Smokey and others patiently bat them away, mostly with good material - but even Smokey sometimes uses inferior arguments or evidence.

I'd like to see a compilation of core AGW responses in an FAQ style "How to answer a Climate Warmist who believes they know how to answer a Climate Skeptic" to which we can write clear and updatable refutations, reachable by a single click.

[Jeff Alberts]

Hi Lucy,

I got your comment over on my new site, and appreciate the feedback.

Perhaps we can work to a common purpose. I lease my own dedicated server, so I can install anything I want. If you want to pursue a wiki option, and need a place to run a sandbox or testbed for proof of concept, then let me know.

My site isn't a wiki, obviously, but it is better for content management than a forum. there may be a wiki module I can install to make it more wiki-like. My main goal for it was to act as a data repository instead of using sites like Imageshack, for storing documents, images, graphs, code, whatever. the blog/editorial portion is almost secondary (though more visible).

Anyway, let me know what you think.
_________________
Jeff Alberts
Whatcatastrophe.com

[Lucy Skywalker]

I'm currently mulling -

(a) how to incorporate both Miskolczi and SSB, both of which I believe are essential, and have enough good science behind them to write up for ordinary folk. But they are still "heretical"... as is all good science originally.

(b) whether an FAQ can be developed in wiki form (but obviously only open to skeptics to post), to start to debunk the "straw man" debunkers and reinstate the wrongly slandered.

Perhaps (b) is what's really needed most badly - an "ecological niche" that fulfills a need not answered elsewhere, and can therefore grow. Jeff I'm pondering this one.