Tactics - Part 1

How does someone like Al Gore get away with peddling what is an obvious farce?

The first is to appeal to fear. This is a tried and true tactic used by many leaders. Consider the "Terror Alert Status" days of the US. The higher the status the easier it was to get legislation through the congress. Now closer to home consider statements of gloom and doom by former 'Australian of the Year' Tim Flannery. Al Gore told us that the seas were going to rise and flood out most of the coastal towns. Ironically he owns a condo on Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco.

"The debate is over", "the scientific community says", "the government has to do something". The use of testimonials and appeal to those in authority is another common tactic. Instead of detailing which scientists and what peer reviewed evidence is a vague group with equally vague credentials and proof. Flannery's specialties are mammalogy and paleontology, hardly core climate change disciplines. Instead reputations are used as weight and proof.

"We all have to join together" or get on the bandwagon because you will feel better if you join us and our cause. The tactic is to imply that everyone is already there and that you are just part of the remaining few who have not. Its the consensus versus the deniers paradigm. If you are not with us then you are against us, and against the Earth.

If that fails you can always try flag-waving, "it is for the good of Australia", "as global citizens we must protect the planet". "we have done this before when we fought together against tyranny in World War 2".

My personal favorite is where you attack someone who is against you. This can be in a general way like "they are just deniers", or a bit more specific "they are the kind of people who also believe that the Earth if flat" or directly personal "he is just a dissenter who goes against the majority, and he picks his nose." This kind of attack is called the ad-hominem and is used particularly when an individual has good research or evidence that contradicts your view. This is a very common form of attack on Global Warming forums. Attack the person not their science.

The latter is the most common method used by the alarmist. They insult anyone who disagrees with them, accuse people of being in the pockets of 'big oil', of being intellectually inferior, questions their commitment to the environment etc.

There is a distinction between ad-hominem and a proper challenge. Consider my mention of Tim Flannery above. I mentioned his qualifications being not directly relevant to climate change but I need more than that. That he jumps from cause to cause is also not enough. What I can challenge are his outrageous claims of catastrophic results of climate change as being based not on science but in wildly inflated results of heavily challenged climate modeling techniques. Also that when any of these are found to be false instead of apologizing he moves on to another outrageous example instead. You cannot listen to or believe this kind of person except to do you own research to find out just how inaccurate their views are.