I don't know if anyone watched the Panaroma show from Mr Sweeny and his piece on Scientology, I have no inclination towards Scientology nor would I attempt to explain it, but the jist of the show pertained to the way in which opponents of the movement were often attacked personally and publically humiliated, as much dirt as possible being dug up about them and where possible their careers and livelyhoods destroyed.
My Sweeny was Mad very Mad but I thought to myself all this sounded very familiar.

Replace Scientology with the Theory of Man Made Global Warming and you get the idea, I firmly believe the climate is changing but I am not convinced going Carbon Neutral or buying recycled trainers is going to make one jot of difference.

I have noticed "Man Made Global Warming" is being "indoctrinated" on the minds of the Great British Public by the BBC with an almost Religous zeel!.

In fact after todays show "Declan" who I thought was there to present the Business News has now it would appear become a Lay Preacher in this new Religion and or Cult. However it is probably a Religion because you can get Tax Relief by promoting it..

Simple Question for BEEB. If the science is so good for man made Global warming and those scientists that oppose this view are so wrong then how about a proper televised debate between the two points of view in the Scientific Community, rather than politicains and the usual suspects from the Green Party.

Or are the special interests scared of true debate.

I saw part of that program and thought that if I was in the scientologist's position I would have been infuriated and not felt I was getting a fair hearing with that insistence on the use of cult. Surely a fair hearing demands that their condition of not using this description calculated to prejudice is valid.
I have only met two scientologists neither of whom had family within the "cult". Both of them were very close to their respective families in spite of this.
As to their wierd methods one of the two had eczma over 80 of his body and the methods they taught him to control it worked to the point where it was limited to small patches on the inside of his elbows. The other was a reformed druggie who was on a chip design course again following failure to cure the problem by conventional routes. Neither even mentioned their affiliation or attempted to recruit and it was only a chance discovery in both cases neither initiated by the respective people. Not really the methods of a cult as I understand them.

A very good point, charlieG. The amount of political bandwaggoning on the whole climate thing is enough to put one off for good. As it is, I think the whole thing is the epitome of deception.

As for the BBC - well, see my remarks elsewhere on here. They seriously need their power curbing. Just look how much legislation has been crammed through under Blair with this lot shouting the odds on the quarter hour.

It's true, man-made global warming in some quarters is a form of cult. I know there's plenty of definitions, but I generally define a cult as:

(1) Absolutist - Followers will only feed their minds with material supporting their worldview, and absolutely deny opposing views, sometimes to the point of harming others who do not agree with them ('heretics').
(2) Rationalising - Tied with (1), followers will work around and circumvent sometimes obvious and powerful opposing evidence by training themselves to think in a very specific way.
(3) Purism - Normally, underneath all the terminology and philosophy associated with the cult, it's an unobtainable purity that is being searched for, whether the cult be religious or not.
(4) Escapism - The follower may be dissatisfied with their life, and 'doomer' cults particularly attract these sorts by 'freeing' them from their current feelings about their lives.

Those are the 4 I've observed - for some people, Man-Made global warming certainly falls into these categories.

Likening the way that the Scientologists treat dissenters with the way that the mainstream climate change establishment treats sceptics is way over the top. It is true (and IMO right) that undeclared conflicts of interest such as oil industry funding are exposed, and that flaws in their scientific findings are criticised, but I am not aware of any evidence whatsoever that GW sceptics are personally harrassed or have details of their private lives published.

I used to think of the BBC as the most reliable and objective source of news and information, but I am no longer a big fan of the BBC. One often suspects that they have some sort of an "agenda" nowadays. Their sloppy, dumbed-down reporting of climate change and their incessant, in-your-face alarmism really annoys me. But I am equally annoyed by this new fashion among the denialist community of trying to portray GW as a "religion", when it is obviously nothing of the sort. Anybody who seriously believes that does not understand the basis of either religion or science.

As for public debate, bring it on. The science can stand up for itself, and I have yet to see a science-based denialist argument which makes any significant difference to the general conclusion that anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are very likely to be the principal cause of the warming observed in recent decades and are very likely to continue to be so for the forseeable future.

Mark23, when you say that you've observed your 4 signs of cult behaviour in people, are you talking about the scientists, the politicians, the media or the general public? To diagnose (4) you'd surely need to know the individual personally? How do you see GW followers "harming others who do not agree with them"? I assume that by "powerful opposing evidence" we are back on ice-cores, Medieval Warm Period and all that stuff again are we?

charlieG very good post, this how establishments discredit people that criticise them, or try to bring attention to aspects that damage their credibility.
This is exactly how people who openly question the official 911, and 7/7 government conspiracy theories are dealt with.. they get ridiculed, rather than anyone actually dealing with the arguments and facts being presented.
http://mediamatters.org/items/200609260014
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBEN7zPqJmQ

.....Roverdc I too agree that scientology is not black and white - I'm sure there are many people who have benefited from it, however with any powerful and secretive organisation, there will be negative affects and experiences, and not everything will be as it seems.

Yes charlieG,

People within the BBC are "scared of true debate" on things such as climate change, in the sense that a form of groupthink is at play following some sort of corporate diktat that the "BBC's view" basically parrots whatever the IPCC's Summary for Policymakers comes out with. [I assume this isn't just about flogging more David Attenborough series/DVDs around the world, or the need to be nice to the latest Reith lecturer, but who knows?...]

Jermey Paxman has almost admitted to groupthink when acknowledging that he personally has no idea as to the truth of the science, but that the BBC's coverage "abandoned the pretence of impartiality long ago".

Jana Bennett is supposed to have suggested that the reason is that the Royal Society's take on the issue dictated its decision. [1] That Society's view was in turn determined by its close connection with the IPCC.

What few people have grasped yet is that (apparently) the writing of that Summary was led by just 21 scientists, all of whom have a vested interest in climate models and, as a group, do not reflect the breadth of climate science opinion or specialty. [2]

Climate models, it should be pointed out, do have scientific value but not as predictive tools, at which they apparently display virtually zero skill (multi-decadally).

The bias of that IPCC Summary will "come out" eventually and, just like many other things the UN gets its mits on, will almost certainly cause something of a political row, possibly around the world.

It should be obvious to anyone who values the BBC's traditional role in remaining impartial that its position is utterly unsustainable.

We need proper debate in the media from qualified climate scientists who actually disagree about the science.

People should also note "scientific consensus" is a non-starter -- consensus is for politicians and diplomats. There is however, merit in seeking public consensus as to how to act to reduce environmental vulnerabilities. In that debate, scientists' views are only as valid as anyone else's: essentially because it requires political judgements as to how to deploy resources.

For an insightful interview involving climate scientists (following publication of that first Summary for Policymakers, in Feb 2007) see [3].

As far as Tory policy is concerned, remember to make sure any legislation you pass is stuffed full of sunset clauses, or better still only pass legislation based on a "no regrets" approach.

[1] Claire Fox News The Media and Climate Change and Degrees in Alternative Medicine 18 Doughty Street 12 April, 2007 http://doughty.gdbtv.com/f.ppvDetail.php?h=e7b02b2bde2422c3b0dbf82ff9b56abd
[2] Roger A. Pielke, Sr. The History of the IPCC And Recommendations For Unbiased Science Assesments Climate Science blog 2 April, 2007 http://climatesci.colorado.edu/2007/04/02/the-history-of-the-ipcc-and-recommendations-for-unbiased-science-assesments-which-the-ipcc-has-failed-at/
[3] On The Line Global Warming Report Voice of America 10 February, 2007
http://128.11.143.113/uspolicy/archive/2007-02/2007-02-09-voa1.cfm?CFID=69745863&CFTOKEN=46512199

Sensible and useful post bsacr

I know for certain from one experience that it is not over the top to accuse the environmental lobby of harrassment. I realise that if one pays for a study the data is yours and therefore the funding organisation has the right to cancel a project because doesn't like the answers it is about to give. Threatening to sue an individual for the entire project funding if any of the information is released is to my mind over the top and by accident I got an email intended for someone else saying just this. It also had a verification attachment that allowed tracking and a ban from use by any unauthorised reader. Not nice to my mind.