‘Controlled Opposition’ Keeps Greenhouse Gas Theory on Life Support

Written by John O'Sullivan

As ever-more peer-reviewed studies prove carbon dioxide is not our climate’s control knob a stubborn clique of ‘lukewarmers’ persist in defending the discredited greenhouse gas theory. Why?

Let us consider the real possibility, that on a matter so critical to government policy that we are dealing with a controlled opposition. But what is controlled opposition? As the Urban Dictionary advises:

“A controlled opposition is a protest movement that is actually being led by government agents. Nearly all governments in history have employed this technique to trick and subdue their adversaries. Notably Vladimir Lenin who said ”The best way to control the opposition is to lead it ourselves.”

To sustain the Big Climate Lie for 30 years needed a lot of hard work and scheming.

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.

From Lenin to former US President Obama evidence shows governments seek to manage and control opposition. In America the strategy is said to have begun in the 1950’s with Operation Mockingbird and a secret campaign by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to influence media.

‘Mockingbird’ marked the official start of the US government’s infiltration of the news and entertainment media as editors, writers, reporters, and film makers were recruited as intelligence assets, made to sign secrecy oaths, and thereafter were under the control of their new masters.

During Obama’s presidency such subterfuge and propaganda was rife. Bernie Suarez (December 06, 2015) reveals:

“Obama’s Informational Czar Cass Sunstein specifically called for government to cognitively infiltrate the truth movement or as he called it “extremist groups”. “

It is thus no stretch of the imagination to infer that since the worldwide political launch of the CO2 climate fraud in 1988 (with Dr James Hansen’s testimony before the US Congress, and UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s speech to the Royal Society) perceived “extremist groups” of dissenting scientists have been targeted. No doubt, this article’s author and his colleagues are prime candidates.

For three decades we have been lectured at ad naseum that our atmosphere works ‘like a greenhouse’ and within it the trace gas carbon dioxide (a tiny 0.04{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} of the air) is the tail that wags the climate dog.

Time and again we expose fake data and a clique of corrupt scientists (e.g. Michael Mann’s ‘hockey stick’ graph and that fake ‘lab experiment’ claimed to prove CO2 ‘trapped heat’). Of course, we have been harangued, even prosecuted in court for our troubles (Dr Tim Ball defends Michael’s Mann’s libel suit; defeats Weaver, UN IPCC’s junk science climate modeler).

Sadly, it has needed the courts to show the world ‘Bad Measuring Made CO2 Our Climate’s Control Knob.’

For over a generation the mainstream media and prominent academics tried to hide how the infant science of ‘climate study’ had suddenly switched from advancing a theory of global cooling to selling catastrophic global warming.

No one, even on the skeptic side, seemed to be talking about the fact that the world-famous ‘Charney Report’ (1979) 13,500 words long and the most exhaustive US government climate report of that era, not once cited the ‘greenhouse gas theory’ as explaining the mechanism of climate change.

That glaring omission is just one example, but shows how the ‘back story’ of the greenhouse gas theory was sanitized and controlled; at least until exposed by Dr Tim Ball and Principia Scientific International (PSI) with their groundbreaking book ‘Slaying the Sky Dragon: Death of the Greenhouse Gas Theory.’

Censorship and ‘refining’ of critical information has been the norm in the climate debate. Trillions of dollars, fame and stellar academic careers were all up for grabs. A concocted and protected core narrative turned out to be a boon for government coffers. Also on the alarmist gravy train rode those academics, the ‘lukewarmers’ who helped muddy the waters.

A 123-page paper by Christopher Booker helps explain the “groupthink” belief system formulated and perpetuated by just a few key personalities.

Such a controlled opposition would never question the cornerstone of climate alarm – the greenhouse gas theory. Critical to their modus operandi is to make it a matter of faith that CO2 and the radiative greenhouse effect operate to keep earth’s climate ‘warmer than it would otherwise be.’

Divide and Conquer, Ridicule the Opposition

In the climate debate this clandestine opposition denounces, ridicules and ostracizes fellow scientists who present evidence that might threaten the ‘settled science’ storyline. Perpetrators would merge unnoticed into that broad group defined as ‘Lukewarmers’ – those who are moderate in their assertions that carbon dioxide ‘must’ cause ‘some’ warming.

The lukewarmer’s camouflage is equivocation; those middle-of-the-road pronouncements that stop short of the most extreme doomsayer predictions. Hidden in plain sight, while seemingly challenging the mainstream climate consensus, they remain supportive of the all-important assertion that carbon dioxide is proven to be our climate’s control knob.

It’s ‘settled science’ don’t you know!

A mass of evidence of the vicious attacks by lukewarmers against the ‘Slayers’ (authors and supporters of the book, ‘Slaying the Sky Dragon: Death of the Greenhouse Gas Theory’) can be found online.

One ‘lukewarmer’ who has been at the forefront of these attacks is Dr Judith Curry. On the corbettreport.com she raised suspicions as noted 12/14/2015 at 4:53 pm, when Fernando Negro accused Dr Curry thus:

“bla, bla, bla “…disagreement about the value of different classes of evidence…” bla, bla, bla… She only casts a certain (small) doubt on the amount of human influence in the supposed warming – and, doesn’t even denounce the fact that there is no warming, at all (but, that has actually been a cooling in the last years – as denounced in the e-mails that she admits to have read). And, her “critiques” have even been promoted by one of the publications involved in all the lying, with the latter writing articles calling attention to her declarations. (While people who really denounce this falsehood, are not only not mentioned/promoted by this same lying media, but even have to go into hiding…To me, this is clearly a case of “controlled opposition”.

Fernando Negro may have a point. Or do we go too far? Perhaps Dr Curry is less the willing operative and more the unwitting groupthinker. Curry revealed she is intellectually constrained because she has never studied higher-level thermodynamics and admitted, “I am personally not taking this on in any detail.”

She added, I’ve read Slaying the Sky Dragon and originally intended a rubuttal [sic], but it would be too overwhelming to attempt this and probably pointless.”

Probably pointless? Well, Judy we are seven years further on and despite ever-higher CO2 levels (now over 411ppm) global temperatures are flat, possibly even cooling. Are you still so sure?

Along with Judy’s admitted deficiencies isn’t it odd that other key lukewarmers (including Lord Monckton and Anthony Watts) are not even science graduates?

Nonetheless, despite their questionable expertise Curry and other lukewarmers persist in arguing CO2’s impact on warming the atmosphere is a logarithmic effect; they simply assume a direct monotonic relationship of temperature to CO2.

But the ‘Slayers’ (now Principia Scientific International) dispute that. We say Svante Arrhenius (1896) got it wrong when he calculated:

“if the quantity of carbonic acid increases in geometric progression, the augmentation of the temperature will increase nearly in arithmetic progression”

PSI’s position is that it is ludicrous to term CO2 as a ‘heat-trapping gas’ when – beyond that fake lab experiment cited above – it is proven in industry and by applied scientists with PhD’s to only COOL.

Apart from government climate ‘science’, nowhere in physics or chemistry does there exist actual evidence that carbon dioxide warms anything.

Group Thinkers Don’t Recognize CO2 Only Cools, Never Warms

PSI is comprised of hundreds of applied scientists, many with stellar careers. They can testify just how powerful CO2 is as the supreme COOLANT gas. It has been used for over a century in refrigeration and air conditioning because it EMITS energy within milliseconds of absorption.

Nonetheless, back in January 2011 on her blog Dr Curry put herself in the vanguard of outspoken and unequivocal attacks on any and all such scientists who present evidence debunking her beloved greenhouse gas theory. At that time, Curry and fellow academic ‘experts’ had insisted CO2 was up at “ten percent” of the so-called greenhouse effect. [1]

But nowadays, Dr Curry is walking back her former staunch position. Lukewarm ally, Anthony Watts on WUWT (April 24, 2018) explains:

“New paper by Nic Lewis and Judith Curry suggests future warming would be a third to nearly half of what the IPCC claims.”

But, as Kenneth Richard shows over on notrickzone, there are now no fewer than 75 peer reviewed papers discrediting the entire premise of a CO2-driven radiative greenhouse gas effect (GHE). Principia Scientific International scientists have two such papers published in mainstream journals, here and here.

Even ice core data shows that CO2 follows temperature, atmospheric CO2 change does not lead temperature change. Please stop mixing ’cause’ with ‘effect.’

It might be fear of ridicule from their peers; the desire not be seen as disloyal to fellow lukewarmers, that compels their circling of the wagons rather than embrace the paradigm shift away from that flawed and unduly-hyped hypothesis.

A perfect case in point occurred recently as S. Fred Singer appeared to break ranks conceding that carbon dioxide (CO2) DOES act to cool the atmosphere.

With ‘Does the Greenhouse Gas CO2 cool the climate?‘ (April 2, 2018) Professor Singer, emeritus professor of environmental science at the University of Virginia, admitted “Much further work awaits!”

Singer’s statement came as more peer-reviewed papers show scientists are abandoning the greenhouse gas theory with 17 such papers have been published in recent months. [2]

PSI is unabashed about declaring the failure of the greenhouse gas theory on both a contemporary and geological timescale to have CO2 levels in lockstep with temperatures. In fact, only in the period 1975 ~ 1997 can believers in the theory make a case for CO2 driving temperatures. Before and since there is no such correlation at all, as shown below in the graph:

Nonetheless, it is clear prominent ‘lukewarmers’ aren’t abandoning what all climate alarmists claim: that CO2 is our climate’s ‘control knob.’

Anthony Watts, owner of WUWT, the world’s most popular climate skeptic blog, is so certain carbon dioxide is guilty and PSI is wrong. Watts insists we “ignore real world measurements in favor of self-deduced science.”

Really?

Watts regularly promotes the work of fellow lukewarmer, Dr Roy Spencer.

Spencer boldly declared:

“All they have to do is provide an energy budget equation that produces the observed average surface temperature of the Earth, and support the values for the energy fluxes with observational evidence. They have not done this.”

Spencer lied. As PSI senior scientist, Joseph E Postma pointed out. PSI/Slayers published an alternative energy budget equation in 2011 but Spencer, Watts, et al ignored it (see here) [3]

Watts writes: “So far, he’s [Spencer] attracted lots of blowback rhetoric, but no serious takers. I doubt there will be.”

But Watts fails to admit he has banned any and all pro-PSI/Slayers comments on his site. No debate allowed!

Is WUWT therefore controlled opposition?

Only a fool would deny that a controlled opposition still exists (be it comprised mostly of the ill-informed and self-censoring), but the longer such characters defend the indefensible and nonsensical CO2 narrative the less likely are they to be afforded the benefit of the doubt. And so much in science exists among doubt.

If the Spencers, Currys, Watts and Singers of this world admitted they were now less sure about the CO2-driven radiative greenhouse hypothesis they would gain, not lose esteem.

The final word on the issue may best be left to the famous Nobel prize winning physicist, Richard P. Feynman who said:

“The scientist has a lot of experience with ignorance and doubt and uncertainty, and this experience is of very great importance, I think. When a scientist doesn’t know the answer to a problem, he is ignorant. When he has a hunch as to what the result is, he is uncertain. And when he is pretty darned sure of what the result is going to be, he is in some doubt. We have found it of paramount importance that in order to progress we must recognize the ignorance and leave room for doubt. Scientific knowledge is a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty—some most unsure, some nearly sure, none absolutely certain.” Nobel Prize Scientist Richard P. Feynman.

UPDATE (June 13, 2018): Further evidence Dr Curry serves as part of the ‘controlled opposition’ promoting the GHE is shown in yesterday’s ‘Judith Curry & Patrick Moore-v- Michael Mann climate debate‘. Here’s Curry’s transcript. https://goo.gl/SiZXqe

John O’Sullivan is CEO of PRINCIPIA SCIENTIFIC INTERNATIONAL, legally registered in the UK as a company incorporated for charitable purposes. Head Office: 27 Old Gloucester Street, London WC1N 3AX. Telephone: Calls from within the UK: 020 7419 5027. International dialling: (44) 20 7419 5027.

Please DONATE TODAY to help our non-profit mission to defend the scientific method.

[1] Where did “Carbon dioxide contributes 10{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} of the effect” come from? Kiehl and Trenberth (1997) calculate CO2 as about 26{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} of the “greenhouse” effect (see CO2- An Insignificant Trace Gas? – Part Five. Going back to Ramanathan and Coakley 1978, they had a wide range for CO2’s contribution to the ‘greenhouse effect’ – between 9 and 26 percent

[2] Richard, K., ‘New Scientific Papers Dispute CO2 Greenhouse Effect As Primary Explanation For Climate Change’ (June 8, 2017)

[3] Postma J. E. ‘The Model Atmospheric Greenhouse Effect’ (July 22, 2011), https://principia-scientific.com/publications/The_Model_Atmosphere.pdf

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