Reviewing John Cook’s "Cranky Uncle vs. Climate Change"

I was surprised to receive an email from John Cook the creator and driving force behind SkepticalScience.com inviting me to review his new book “Cranky Uncle vs. Climate Change.”  Having received the challenge, I couldn’t refuse.  An easy to read graphic book that at 164 pages frames important climate science and communication lessons within cartoons, artwork and concise sentences.

It reads to me as a light hearted, inoffensive, easy to comprehend look into the conundrum of conveying climate science facts to folks in a world that’s swimming in disinformation.

John Cook doesn’t shout or agitate instead preferring to explain the well understood science, while offering only fleeting glimpses into the past decades of full blown malicious dirty tricks that the contrarian campaigns against climate science understanding are guilty of.

The Cranky Uncle’s opening chapter is “How did Climate Change get so Controversial?” tells the story of a few corporate funded (Republican) political operatives who were able to completely distort how climate science was presented to the public.  

Mike Hulme's Tenacious Grip on Physical Reality. An examination.

After reading Hulme's "Am I a denier, a human extinction denier?" he invites us to read: "‘We Always Get the Weather We Deserve’: The Tenacious Grip of Moral Accountability."   So I did.  It was an even deeper exploration into his Mindscape rather than climate science.  Needless to say, this essay also deserves a serious examination.

I'm looking for a job, researcher and writer, 
dedicated to confronting the deliberate calculated lies 
of the climate science contrarian community!
PO Box 56
Durango, Colorado 81326
citizenschallenge - at - gmail com

@ mikehulme.org  |  25/01/2018

TEXT REPRINTED UNDER PROTECTION OF FAIR USE COPYRIGHT LAWS. 

My intention is a review of ‘libertarian' deception in action. 

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Abstract: 

Different cosmologies, religious thought, political ideologies, social practices and scientific paradigms of knowledge all contribute to the rich cultural matrix in which theories of climatic change and causation have emerged, flourished and declined. 

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Sure, but lets be clear, this is about our inner perceptions and not about understanding our climate system.

Mike Hulme gets lost in his Mindscape. An examination.

Last year I wrote an essay that looked at “The magisteria of Physical Reality vs the magisteria of our Human Mindscape.”  Yesterday I read an ATTP post about Mike Hulme’s controversial May 27th article, "Am I a denier, a human extinction denier?" It made me curious so I took a look.

I don’t know Hulme.  I do know his article did nothing to recommend him.  It was a contrived piece of…, of…, I don’t know, manipulative nothing.  A waste of time if constructive learning was one’s goal. 

However, it offers a great case study in getting lost within one’s own Mindscape and forgetting all about the Physical Reality ‘out there’.  That’s why I’ve decided to dissect it and add it to my collection.

In truth, I don’t know if Hulme considers himself a "libertarian" or not, I do know his words parrot "libertarian" arguments and logic so I’m comfortable assuming he is, until told otherwise.

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Am I a denier, a human extinction denier?

@ mikehulme.org  |  27/05/2019

REPRINTED UNDER PROTECTION OF FAIR USE COPYRIGHT LAWS. 

My intention is a review of ‘libertarian' deception in action. 

¶1  There has been a lot of talk recently about climate change and extinction.

¶2  It is undoubtedly the case that species go extinct.  And sometimes large numbers of species disappear together in mass events caused by the same physical stresses.  It is also true that at some point in the future the human species will go extinct, or at the least evolve into a new species partly of our own making.  

What's Natural about Jim Steele's Astroturfing?

After reviewing Steele’s odd April 17th “Safe Space” column about opinions regarding Polar Bears in the Inuit’s warming Arctic world, I became curious and looked up the word Kappiananngittuq which Jim tossed around so glibly. 

I googled _Inuit Kappiananngittuq_ and I’ll tell you, I was blindsided by the four pages worth of google search results to forty articles - it turned out that upon closer examination there were 29 links to articles that mirrored the same deceptive What's Natural? article.  

What is going on?  Have Jim Steele, Sherman Frederick, Anthony Watts mainlined into a social media troll factory or something?  Or is it just astroturfing?  

Then I thought of the rationalists, the science respecting side of this public dialogue, ten years I’ve been working at trying to network with like minded, but there’s no network out there.  Like everyone is off doing their own thing and no one has the time to care about the rest of it.  Or something like that.  

I don’t know.  It's like very few seem to appreciate the gravity of the Faith-Blinded political drive to destroy rationalism and democratic governance.  Think I'm exaggerating, ever listen to American Christian radio!?  Ever listen to FOX, or Trump?  

All I do know is the clock keeps ticking and the ruthless intellectual frauds and rhetorical bullies continue having free reign to mislead and deceive and slander and astroturf their utterly self-destructive delusional crap as much as they like.  It’s a disgrace, the founding fathers of the intellectual enlightenment would be appalled.

Below I include the google screen shots if anyone cares to investigate.  After that I share a good sized collection of articles about Social Media manipulation.

Google search results for _Inuit Kappiananngittuq_ (May 28, 2019)

click on the images for a clear view:

What’s natural about Steele’s take on Carl Sagan?- 97% - Pacifica Tribune 2/20

A study guide to Jim Steele’s  “What’s Natural?”, featured in the Pacifica Tribune.

What’s Natural? (#5)  Jim Steele, Pacifica Tribune, February 20, 2019

The Scientific Baloney Detection Kit. 

This is the second half of the previous post, please refer to it for an introduction.  

Basically Jim Steele is lecturing us on how to interpret Carl Sagan’s Baloney Detection Kit.  It promises to be an insightful journey into the workings of the libertarian deception.  

REPRINTED UNDER PROTECTION OF FAIR USE COPYRIGHT LAWS.  

My intention is a point by point review of libertarian deception in action.

(please click on image for sharp view)

Before we begin, let me share Sagan's (or was it Dr. Richard Feynman) sage advice for us science spectators: “Keep an open mind, but not so open that your brain falls out!”

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Jim Steele writes:  “To overcome our biases and strive for a greater scientific truth, our discussions will be well served if guided by Sagan's principles. Below I paraphrase the most pertinent points in Sagan's Scientific Baloney Detection Kit. (I add my comments in parentheses.)” 

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Wait a minute.  Check out what’s going on here, reread that first line.

“To overcome our biases” and “striving for a greater scientific truth.” Those are two very different things and must be recognized as such. 

Carl Sagan’s book was written to and for us regular people, non-scientists, we who look at the scientific community and their studies from the outside.   

Recognize that not everyone can be an Earth scientist.  It takes a particular perspective on life and a burning curiosity to understand nature, along with a disciplined character that’s always striving for greater scientific truth.  

The point I’m trying to get across is that before we can continue with this discussion - we must openly recognize who’s who.

c) Intellectually Confronting Faith-Based thinking and Dogma Driven Deceptions

Why not challenge people to realize no human has ever been born capable of understanding the true “God Almighty of Light and Time, Creation and Love” ?

( 2018 was the climax of a decade long crescendo in my decades long effort to network with rationalists, scientists and science communicators, in what I fancied was our communal struggle to confront the dishonest nonsense that corporate funded science contrarians and select politicians were so successfully peddling to an under-informed and mostly disinterested public - and since New Year's Eve is upon us, I feel like collecting some of my favorite essays in an effort to summarize my perspective.  

This is half of a flier that I circulated at the Colorado Democratic Assembly and Convention and where I did my best to summarize a challenge to confront faith-based thinking and dogma driven deceptions - along with some retrospective at the end. )

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The Memes Courier

    Colorado Democratic Assembly -  April 13, 2018  

      

Intellectually Confronting Faith-Based thinking and Dogma Driven Deceptions.

The opposing sides: Children of the Intellectual Enlightenment vs Faith-based dogmatism spearheaded by the evangelical movement (driven by wannabe oligarchs).  Winning at the polls is only half our challenge when well over a third of our country fully supports this amoral president and his white supremest bullying and his attacks upon our government and democratic institutions.  

Beyond winning in the 2018 elections, we need to nurture a massive grassroots movement of informed and engaged voters who are willing to confront faith-based delusional thinking on an individual level, while also standing behind those we elect to make sure they get their jobs done.

Faith-based thinking demands a rejection of serious science along with hostility towards learning from down to Earth evidence.  This attitude is enabled and reinforced by a constant flow of contrived high pitched fear-mongering and paranoid machinations towards “the other” be it different people or ideas.

Why have we allowed their religion and God a free pass?

Intellectually Confronting Faith-Based thinking and Dogma Driven Deceptions - ColoradoDemocraticAssembly 2018

I'm at my fourth Colorado Democratic Assembly and I've always been a pamphleteer.  Not the easiest for a private shy sort of guy.  So I've been rather passive, offering my pages and ready for dialogue but not stepping forward to engage people.  Time passes, we learn more with every day and this year I've promised myself to step it up a little and reach out to people to introduce the topic and establish an interest before offering my flier.

Had a little practice during the short district assembly this evening.  At first looking at the 350+ District 3 delegates it seemed the crowd of the usual old folks, and not that many young faces.  But, then I started spotting them.  Not in the numbers I had hoped.  Then I heard a couple powerful speeches by young speakers.  Followed by a few good conversations,
as in 'yippy, they get it.'  I realized their small number way under-represented the energy and substance and power they possess.

It was fun.  I'm feeling a little better already and I'm looking forward to tomorrow.  Here's side one, a lifetime's distillation.  I'll share side two tomorrow, now I'm going to bed, it's late and tomorrow will be a long busy day.

The Memes Courier

    Colorado Democratic Assembly -  April 13, 2018  

      

Intellectually Confronting Faith-Based thinking and Dogma Driven Deceptions.

The opposing sides: Children of the Intellectual Enlightenment vs Faith-based dogmatism spearheaded by the evangelical movement (driven by wannabe oligarchs).  Winning at the polls is only half our challenge when well over a third of our country fully supports this amoral president and his white supremest bullying and his attacks upon our government and democratic institutions.  

Beyond winning in the 2018 elections, we need to nurture a massive grassroots movement of informed and engaged voters who are willing to confront faith-based delusional thinking on an individual level, while also standing behind those we elect to make sure they get their jobs done.

Faith-based thinking demands a rejection of serious science along with hostility towards learning from down to Earth evidence.  This attitude is enabled and reinforced by a constant flow of contrived high pitched fear-mongering and paranoid machinations towards “the other” be it different people or ideas.

Why have we allowed their religion and God a free pass?