Delingpole: Alarmist Scientist Advises How to Deal with Skeptics – Rebrand Facts as ‘Smokescreens’

“Smokescreens”. This, apparently, is the fancy new euphemism used by climate alarmists to describe what we on the skeptical side of the argument prefer to call “facts.”

The word appears in an interview given by Katharine Hayhoe, professor at Texas Tech where she is director of the Climate Science Center, and a leading member of the climate alarmist establishment. She was a co-author, for example, of the 2014 National Climate Assessment produced during the Obama era. She also featured prominently in the first episode of the global warming propaganda documentary series Years of Living Dangerously.

Here she is, talking to someone calling themselves ‘Sierra Club’, at EcoWatch.

Hayhoe vehemently advises against engaging with the “smokescreens” skeptics tend to offer as the reasons they couldn’t possibly agree with or act on the issue of climate change. “There’ll be no progress that way,” she insists. “It’s a lot easier for people to say, ‘I have a problem with the science’ than it is to talk about what the real problem is.”

Hayhoe might not realize this but she could scarcely have provided more damning evidence of the political nature of “climate science.”

If climate science were robust and real, it would be more than capable of standing up to questioning and debate. But because it’s not really about science at all, only about propaganda used to push political outcomes, Hayhoe is only capable of recommending this response when asked challenging questions: change the subject.

What about when you get stuck? Say you’ve landed on shared values—you and a climate denier agree the weather has been wild, but they just insist, “Oh, it’s just part of the natural cycle.” What then?

Here’s where you pivot and move on, beyond what they disagree on, to something you both agree on. You might offer one phrase of dissent—perhaps, “According to natural cycles we should be cooling down right now, not warming.” But then, before the conversation becomes a game of whack-a-mole, change the subject. Try, “Did you know that China and India have more solar energy than any other countries in the world? I’m a little worried the U.S. is falling behind; aren’t you worried, too?” At this point you’ve moved the conversation beyond what they don’t agree on. Because whether it’s a natural cycle or not, a lot of people are worried about losing the fight in the nuclear energy field. You want to acknowledge what people have to say but not to engage.

Even when she’s changing the subject, she can’t get her facts right – as Paul Homewood notes here.

Katharine Hayhoe was listed by Time as one of the ‘100 most influential people of 2014’. She has been described as “perhaps the best communicator on climate change.”

I don’t mean to be ungallant. But the phrase does rather come to mind: “Is this seriously the best they’ve got?”