Analyse this! Climate mind games

After completing a review of Morano's submission, Professor Owens concluded that, inter alia:

1. The focus of Professor Lewandowsky's research relates directly to his interest and expertise in scepticism and the updating of memory. As such, the topic of this paper of is well within his remit and consistent with the University's Code of Ethics and in particular the academic freedom of staff;
2. The research was undertaken in a manner compliant with the University's strict Human Ethics approval;
3. A review of all correspondence to the blog sites was undertaken confirming the contact with blog sites;
4. The paper has been peer-reviewed and accepted in a high quality, international journal.

That, however, is not the end of the matter. Questions are now being raised about the UWA Ethics Committee's approval process.

How did we get to this point? A key driver has been the discipline's enthusiastic embrace of the alarmist orthodoxy, both nationally and internationally. The Australian Psychological Society's Climate Change Reference Group and Public Interest Team became concerned about climate change - "this profoundly important environmental and social issue" - two years ago.

Determined to get a slice of the multi-billion dollar climate Magic Pudding, it released a position statement: "to emphasise the urgency of climate change as a global problem with significant psychosocial and health implications; to advocate for government, businesses, and organisations to develop effective strategies to minimise climate change impacts; and to position psychologists as a professional group with expert knowledge, skills and resources that can help in climate change science, including mitigation and adaptation (my italics).

The statement, unsurprisingly, stressed how APS research could contribute to understanding "the psychological dimensions of global climate change", including "how psychologists can assist in limiting climate change" (my italics).

There are other perspectives on what is going on here, such as blogger S Ender's prophetic assessment three years ago (Nov 20, 2009 6:05 PM):

This psychologising of the climate-change debate betrays two things about its proponents; firstly, an attitude towards sceptics that is deeply cynical, contemptuous and patronizing; secondly, a belief that subliminal psychological techniques (brainwashing, in all but name) [Lewandowsky et al's "de-biasing"] can and should be used to make sceptics change their minds - a belief that is perfectly Orwellian in its sinister implications.

"There is nothing so absurd," Marcus Tullius Cicero wrote in 44BCE, "that it has not been said by some philosopher" (De Divinatione, book 2, section 58). At this strange decarbonising moment in our history, he surely would extend his observation to include the many now getting their daily bread - and cognitive kicks - from psycho-babbling about climate change; and to at least one "conspiracist ideation" theorist?