Google search manipulations show power and skill of climate activists at silencing dialogue and creating division

Evolution continues. We went from two arms, two eyes, two ears, etc. to two new online services that are like new limbs. YouTube and Google – would modern life be possible without either?

YouTube has, in addition to endless videos of Russian car crashes and every conceivable human activity, an endless stream of video help for virtually any problem or situation or irritant. No matter how unique and obscure, some loveable quack out there has found the gumption to document it with extreme precision. Need to know how to install a tail light in a 1993 Buick Lesabre? Need to know why that’s different than a 1992? It’s all right there at your fingertips. Try it. The above example was the most whimsical I could come up with after a leisurely G&T, and 5 seconds later I had multiple viewing options for a topic that almost no one will care about, except the 3 people on the planet that each year really need to know.

Google is an entirely different beast. It is just as helpful, but its dark side, as opposed to YouTube’s buffoonery, is more akin to a venomous snake. The company is legendary for gathering data, and if you think about the profile they can build on you based on your search history, viewing and shopping habits, you will soon conclude that they know all and that someone somewhere knows that you are a very weird person.

Besides the data gathering, Google has become insidious in the way it is gamed by very clever people. Sometimes that’s just the way marketing works, and the onus is on us to realize that we are being marketed to. In other ways though, the distortions are much more nasty and devious especially when our familiarity with the search engine leads us to trust it. That is not a good idea.

Take, for example, a chap named Roger Pielke. I’m not particularly familiar with the guy, but was forwarded a link to an article he wrote for Forbes magazine called “Net zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 requires a new nuclear power plant every day”. The article as fascinating and logical, and brings to light a topic which is critically misunderstood – the extreme difficulty of converting to a renewable energy world. Renewable energy advocates gloss over the challenges by pointing to over-simplistic and/or ignorant assessments based on how easy it’s been to get to 3 percent renewables, or whatever. The challenge of going from 3 percent to 30 percent is almost unfathomable, never mind aiming for 100 percent (and some wag will say that has already happened in Germany or somewhere, which is not true at all – they may get 30 percent at certain hours on certain days, but that says nothing about the challenges of getting the country or the world there in totality).

Mr. Pielke wrote an excellent article on the topic (which I wrote a whole book about, and therefore am glad to see bits of sanity like this appearing in the mainstream media), and the world desperately needs to start understanding these things. But when I Googled Mr. Pielke’s name to find out more about him, it became obvious how the modern Google game is played.

Searching for Roger Pielke yielded a lot of results; the first two were Wikipedia entries, and the following two were well-funded and orchestrated smear campaigns by climate activist groups. The first attack-link was to the Skeptical Science website, which I refuse to link to, and the smear attack is obvious without even visiting the site (the very link is entitled “Climate Misinformation by Source”). The following link is to a nest of vipers under the Desmog Blog banner. This site catalogues “deniers” and claims to be a pillar of truth that stands up against climate disinformation. (Their claims are absurd; I’d earlier visited the site to read what they had to say about “climate denier” Dr. Tim Ball successfully defending a lawsuit brought by arch-climate activist and “scientist” Dr. Michael Mann; the judge threw the case out when Mann refused to produce data to support his case (and the judge ordered Mann to pay Ball’s legal bills to boot.). DeSmogBlog catalogues every “denier” utterance Ball ever made going back 15 years, including note of when Mann actually sued Ball in 2011, yet the site refuses to mention the result of the lawsuit. So much for fighting disinformation.)

What is disturbing out of all this is the question: how on earth do these repulsive, dishonest, and “fake news” sites consistently find such a high rating in Google searches? Search for any known public figure that has ever questioned the climate religion, and at least one of these two sites gets top-5 ranking even though none are designated as “ads”. They surely are, but they don’t pay for this exposure, because they’ve found a way to sneak their way in, and Google does nothing to stop it. I’m sure there are smart tech people out there who can explain how it’s done; can anyone explain why it’s allowed to go on?

Anyone curious about Pielke after reading that excellent and realistic article, who goes to Google to find out more, is now faced with blatant character assassination and innuendo. I understand if groups take issue with his climate positions, that’s their right, but it is not right that the world’s most popular search engine can be used so easily for political purposes (because, as 350.org founder Bill McKibben states, he’s happy that climate change dialogue has moved past the environment and on to social issues).

So yes, Google’s analysts know everything about your queries about every obscure medical condition you’ve ever been curious about, and at the same time the most powerful search tool in the world is a manipulated, fake-news-tool shit hole. Be careful out there.

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