Free Republic

In April 2009, as the political right was finding its voice in the tea party, South Carolina Republican Rep. Bob Inglis was making the case for a carbon tax. “I’m a conservative. I believe in accountability,” he said. “Global warming is not a matter of belief. It’s a matter of facts.” He added, “We don’t want to be a party of deniers.” Most of his party disagreed. A year later, Inglis was trounced in a Republican primary, his staunchly conservative record proving insufficient to overcome this heretical deviation. On the surface, it may appear that little has changed in the...

The Gulf Stream is slowing faster than at any time in the last millennium, claims a new paper published in the alarmist journal Nature Climate Change. But the paper, whose co-authors include one Michael E Mann, appears to be contradicted by real-world evidence which shows nothing of the kind. Here is what the leading expert in the field, H Thomas Rossby, a professor at the University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography said in 2014 about the Gulf Stream, which he has been measuring for the last 20 years. “We find absolutely no evidence that suggests that the Gulf...

Dozens of climate scientists and environmental groups are calling for museums of science and natural history to “cut all ties” with fossil fuel companies and philanthropists like the Koch brothers. A letter released on Tuesday asserts that such money is tainted by these donors’ efforts to deny the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change. “When some of the biggest contributors to climate change and funders of misinformation on climate science sponsor exhibitions in museums of science and natural history, they undermine public confidence in the validity of the institutions responsible for transmitting scientific knowledge,” the letter states. “This corporate philanthropy...

The Delphi Technique and consensus building are both founded in the same principle - the Hegelian dialectic of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, with synthesis becoming the new thesis. In group settings, the Delphi Technique is an unethical method of achieving consensus on controversial topics. It requires well-trained professionals, known as "facilitators" or "change agents," who deliberately escalate tension among group members, pitting one faction against another to make a preordained viewpoint appear "sensible," while making opposing views appear ridiculous. The facilitators or change agents encourage each person in a group to express concerns about the programs, projects, or policies in...

"Ninety-seven percent of scientists agree: #climate change is real, man-made and dangerous." Remember that statement, a while back, from some bloke on Twitter? What we now know with more than 97 per cent certainty that this guy - or whoever is in charge of running his Twitter account - is either wilfully dishonest or woefully ill-informed. The "97 per cent" claim is an utter nonsense. This report released today by the Global Warming Policy Foundation explains exactly why. First, that word "dangerous". This is a concept that was never mentioned in the study responsible for that 97 per cent claim....

...[C]urrent U.S. intelligence and defense officials who spoke to The Daily Beast on Monday say the process for exchanging Taliban for Bergdahl this time was rushed and closely held, in some instances leaving little room for any push back against a policy clearly favored by the White House. “This was an example of forcing the consensus,” one U.S. military official said. “The White House knew the answer they wanted and they ended up getting it.” The White House did not even consult or inform Congress until after the prisoner release had begun. Dianne Feinstein, the Democratic chairwoman of the Senate...

MARQUETTE, MI -- Remember how bad the winter was? The polar vortex, inches upon inches of snow. While the season has passed for most of us and Memorial Day weekend is underway, there are reminders in Michigan's Upper Peninsula of the historically cold and snowy winter. There's still ice on Lake Superior. As MLive's John "Gonzo" Gonzalez and I traveled the state looking for Michigan’s Best Taco, we noticed there is still ice cover on Lake Superior. We were just sweating earlier this week in Kalamazoo, not because of the hot sauce but the temperatures. We were surprised there is...

Evidence is accumulating that quality control is a serious issue in academic publishing, which is the key to career advancement for scientists and other scholars. In an age when appeals to "peer reviewed" "settled science" have become standard operating procedure in efforts to impose radical increases in government control over our lives, corruption in the mechanisms for reviewing  scientific publications has very real consequences for all of us. Nature magazine tells us: Publishers withdraw more than 120 gibberish papers. Richard Van Noorden writes: The publishers Springer and IEEE are removing more than 120 papers from their subscription services after...

Is it LITERALLY a consensus with 100% agreement?Let's put it this way, it looks like universal truth compared to the "consensus" liberals insist exists on Global Warming (even still as the Antarctic ice levels have reached a 35 year high)My only problem with this graphic is I think it actually understates the situation...

WASHINGTON -- Frankly, I wish the Pew Research Center would occasionally keep its thoughts to itself. Sometimes those thoughts are merely insipid and beneath the attention of serious minds. Sometimes they are alarming and capable of stirring up an already excitable populace. There is talk of cannibalism being practiced by the criminal element. There is Lady Gaga. These are worrisome times. Yet the Pew Research Center has gone and done it again. The Center released a study Monday that employed exhaustive polling and ingenious charts to render my fellow Americans restive, or so it seems. The Pew Research Center's overall...

“It has come to our attention that Arms Trade Treaty proponents are attempting to change the rules mid-stream, prior to the upcoming Treaty negotiations in early July,” researchers Paul Gallant, Alan Chwick, and Joanne D. Eisen wrote in a breaking story published yesterday in AmmoLand Gun News. “Ted R. Bromund, Senior Research Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, alerted the public to the very real possibility that ATT proponents are changing the meaning of the term ‘consensus’ and to the political ramifications for the US if ATT proponents prevail,” they warn. “Until now, ‘consensus’ has been understood by the US and...

...Were this a story in any field other than "Climate Science" it would be given massive play by both the BBC and in the print media – for what has happened here is a national scandal. An institution which was manifestly good has now been made bad, for no other reason than the arrogance and egotism of three blinkered men who took it upon themselves to behave like political activists rather than scientists. You don't even need to be a climate sceptic to understand that what May, Rees and Nurse have done is wrong. All you need is a rudimentary...

In the 1960s, I came across a small training manual distributed by the Communist Party that showed how a small group of people – as few as four – could dominate a much larger group and sway the outcome of any action taken by that group. It was called the Diamond Technique. The principle is based on the fact that people in groups tend to be effected by mass psychology. They derive comfort and security from being aligned with the majority, especially if controversy or conflict is involved. Even if they do not like what the majority is doing, if...

A group of movement conservatives has called an emergency meeting in Texas next weekend to find a “consensus” Republican presidential hopeful, POLITICO has learned. “You and your spouse are cordially invited to a private meeting with national conservative leaders of faith at the ranch of Paul and Nancy Pressler near Brenham, Texas, with the purpose of attempting to unite and to come to a consensus on which Republican presidential candidate or candidates to support, or which not to support,” read an invitation that is making its way into in-boxes Wednesday morning. The meeting is being hosted by such prominent conservative...

Having watched this clip all the way through several times, I still can't stop chuckling. Here's a quick primer to prepare you for what you're about to see: The video begins as civil rights pioneer Rep. John Lewis rrives at #OccupyAtlanta, hoping to express solidarity and articulate support with some brief remarks. Unfortunately for him, the Congressman is totally unacquainted with the gathering's "rules," which make the US Senate look like a model of efficiency. The group's "leader" (the hippie with the bullhorn) speaks in three-second intervals so the rest of the assembled group can chant his partial sentences back...

The US government is offering private intelligence companies contracts to create software to manage "fake people" on social media sites and create the illusion of consensus on controversial issues. The contract calls for the development of "Persona Management Software" which would help the user create and manage a variety of distinct fake profiles online. The job listing was discussed in recently leaked emails from the private security firm HBGary after an attack by internet activist last week.Click here to view the government contract (PDF)According to the contract, the software would "protect the identity of government agencies" by employing a number...

While I think the deficit commission’s final product was less than adequate to its mission (as I argue below), it is worth remarking on the extraordinary moment we appear to be in on the deficit and debt questions—a moment which the commission has had a lot to do with creating. Between the Simpson-Bowles proposal, the Rivlin-Ryan proposal, the Domenici-Rivlin proposal (which came from outside the commission), and a number of other ideas thrown around in recent weeks, people in the center and on the right (helped no doubt by the election results) appear to be moving closer together on the...

Gosh. A “Climate rapid response team” from Minnesota? What will they be armed with? Wits and a hockey stick? So far that hasn’t worked out too well.  From the Chicago Tribune:Climate scientists plan campaign against global-warming skepticsThe American Geophysical Union plans to announce Monday that 700 researchers have agreed to speak out on the issue. The effort is a pushback against congressional conservatives who have vowed to kill regulations on greenhouse gas emissions.Reporting from Washington — By Neela Banerjee, Tribune Washington BureauFaced with rising political attacks, hundreds of climate scientists are joining a broad campaign to push back against congressional...

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change misled the press and public into believing that thousands of scientists backed its claims on manmade global warming, according to Mike Hulme, a prominent climate scientist and IPCC insider. The actual number of scientists who backed that claim was “only a few dozen experts,” he states in a paper forProgress in Physical Geography, co-authored with student Martin Mahony. “Claims such as ‘2,500 of the world’s leading scientists have reached a consensus that human activities are having a significant influence on the climate’ are disingenuous,” the paper states unambiguously, adding that they rendered “the...

The Obama administration said Friday it has lifted sanctions against four Russian groups that had been accused of helping Syrian and Iranian weapons programs. Russian officials have publicly suggested that the removal of the groups from U.S. blacklists was a precondition to their support of a new sanctions regime against Iran, presented to the United Nations Tuesday.