Be kind to Roger
Ethon, and the other charter members of the "be kind to Roger" club went out for beers and liver nachos. They fell to talking about how mean the folk over at Real Climate (ok, Mike Mann) were to Roger and how it wounded him to the core. Now obviously this traumatic experience has wounded Roger very close to Ethon's food source, and Ethon is quite concerned, what with the other scandels over chicken feed and all. Thus the were quite concerned when we read at Deltoid
I'm happy to see that the Nature blog will attract the usual online trolls and conspiracy theorists, should ensure a continued focus on ad homs which I am sure Nature will love ...New responsibilities are getting to the kid.
However, there are points to be made. Some of which are that as Michael Tobis put it in our comments
In a public forum, when somebody exasperates you to the point where you become emotional, you should STFU and leave the floor to someone else, lest you harm your cause.The other is Eli's position
I don't deny that Mann was at the end of his rope, and I am certainly willing to entertain the hypothesis that Pielke deliberately pushed him there. Nevertheless, Mann is in a position of considerable responsibility.
there were better ways for Michael Mann to handle Roger Pielke's taunting, but one can understand his exasperation. In cases like that it is important that the rest of us provide support by demonstrating how out of bounds Roger was.Something that appears to have happened very well at Deltoid and even in Climate Feedback. Eli has been giving some thought to that misadventure
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Personally, I think that people have bent way over backwards to deal with Roger. Even after Roger began baiting Mann by attempting to broker the argument between Mann and McIntyre, Gavin Schmidt still posted over at Prometheus. And I believe that Stoat still does.
But Roger remains dishonest. For instance, he denied ever banning anyone.
Anyways, Roger has a Sourcewatch page up now that will track much of his nonsense.
Isn't odd that Roger has never addressed how much money he was paid to write for Cato?
Mus musculus anonymouse
Michael Mann's remark was quite restrained; does this exchange really count as a flamewar amongst the science blogs? Good thing then that PZ Myers doesn't work in climate science ...
By the way, I note that now that Michael Tobis has a blog, all of the late-90s-era sci.env O.G.s seem to have migrated over (if you count Stoat, various members of RealClimate, and others who I've no doubt missed.) I remember Michael T. saying the same kind of thing back then; I predicted that he'd radicalize, and to an extent he has, but doing so within the same communicative style is pretty amusing. At least he can write STFU, if only to friends.
The best thing to do is ignore people like RP and MT.
They present the same old tired "Roger and I are in the middle and you're not so just run along" argument which is what got us into the mess we are now in.
You can use some HTML tags, but there's one stuck in the Sourcewatch link above that breaks it.
This works:
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Roger_Pielke_Jr.
--- a Mousterian
Hi to Rich Puchalsky, whom I actually tried to contact in email a few months ago, to invite him to the globalchange googlegroup at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange actually.
Regarding the anony who wants to classify me as a knee-jerk centrist, you'll have to get in line behind all the people trying to classify me as a knee-jerk marxist.
(Sheesh. The trouble a person gets into for using their own damned brain sometimes...)
I consider that the IPCC by definition should be at the center of the debate, not at a fringe. That is its purpose. I myself believe that IPCC systematically underestimates risks and I argue for a very vigorous response.
I just don't think anything is achieved by being rude about it. To the contrary, being rude only preaches to the choir. If you want to save the world without sacrificing democracy, it's the people on the fence you have to win over, and you don't do that by being shrill.
Mr. Tobis, I'm the one who initially called you out for your Pielke nonsense. I have to agree with you on the conservative nature of the IPCC. But what can you do?
By the time you get through the whole IPCC process, the science has already moved on. So the end result is always conservative.
As for Pielke Jr., I think the issue is much the same. Many people have already looked at his arguments, encountered numerous errors....and they have moved on.
If you still see him as credible, then it's probably just that you haven't spent enough time reading him.
It's really nothing personal against you. I think it's just that people feel that Pielke Jr. is disingenuous and fools people. And when people are smarting from having been fooled, it's much easier to pick on the current fool than to think, "Hey, why the hell did I fall for that?"
Just my attempt at internet analysis.
Mus musculus anonymouse
"Regarding the anony who wants to classify me as a knee-jerk centrist, you'll have to get in line behind all the people trying to classify me as a knee-jerk marxist."
I see that you don't like it when someone tries to button hole you and dismiss your views as irrelevant.
Funny how that works, isn't it, Mr, Tobis?
That would be pigeonhole, not button hole. But the "true believer" vs "persuade the undecided" split will get a very long discussion going.
Pigeon holes, button holes, black holes, a-holes.
They are all places to put things, right?
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