Guest Post by Steven Goddard
Over the last year or so I have been taking an informal survey of a key news metric – Google news searches for the term “global warming.” A year ago, the ratio of alarmist/skeptical articles was close to 100/1. About six months ago, the ratio was 90/10, Two months ago it was 80/20, and today it hit 50/50 for the first time – including the lead skeptical story “A Cooling Trend Toward Global Warming“. One thing that has changed is the rise of blogs written by informed citizens, complemented by the demise of corporate newspapers which make money from keeping people continually alarmed about one thing or another.
Congratulations to Anthony and all the readers for being a big part of this. Democracy in it’s purest form – hope and change we can all believe in.
The top two items from Google news “global warming” search today. The distribution of all stories through the first few search pages was similar in makeup as seen below:
A Cooling Trend Toward Global Warming
The New American – 1 hour ago
With the election of a president who is solidly in the global–warming-alarmist camp – and with many high-level appointees who are bona fide climate-change …
Global warming and climate change: facts and hype Examiner.com
UN global warming stand criticized Delta Farm Press
UN Con on Global Warming Nearly Foiled NewsMax.com
Opposing Views – Atlanta Journal Constitution
House Democrats release draft energy, climate bill
New York Times – 8 hours ago
By DARREN SAMUELSOHN AND BEN GEMAN, Greenwire Democratic leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee today unveiled a 648-page draft global warming …
House Democrats unveil sweeping plan to reshape energy in America MiamiHerald.com
Waxman’s clean energy draft includes cap-and-trade proposals Oil & Gas Journal
US lawmakers present draft bill on ‘clean energy’ AFP
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Bout time the world woke up to the lies of AGW and saw that the reality of cooling is real and a much bigger threat and NOT caused by CO2
Thanks for a very encouraging article. I sense for the first time that the end is nigh for the “greatest scientific scam in history”. We just need one major MSM organisation to opt for the truth. Then we will be at the beginning of the end of this pernicious movement.
Best wishes
Jack
It helps a little bit that this winter keeps dragging on into spring, here, in North America, but it’s more than that — it’s the science — it just keeps piling up like a snow drift.
May God Bless the Great State of Texas,
these United States,
and Anthony Watts!
Steamboat JackMaybe
Well, you would think that after no warming for 10 years, people would get the idea that maybe there isn’t any warming.
They can’t keep waiving their arms and creating warming through “adjustments” to observations forever. At some point people will realize … “hey, it isn’t getting warmer”.
The problem with the IPCC projections is that by now we should be so much warmer than the 20th century average that there should be almost no possibility of record low temperatures and record high temperatures should be happening every week. They aren’t.
I sincerely hope this is never a joke on the April Fool’s Day!
The value of a piece of information is inversely proportional to its (perceived) probability. I think Claude Shannon said that; if he didn’t, he should have.
This is part of what drives the “hype/anti-hype” cycle in news media (and why bad news sells while good news doesn’t). The mainstream media chased collectively after horrifying news about AGW until coverage reached a saturation point — people started tuning out. So the only way keep reader interest was to start covering the skepticism, first with a skeptical-about-the-skeptics point of view (see the NYT article on Freeman Dyson this past week). But it will shift. Look for phrases such as “growing number of questions”, “skeptics even among respected scientists”, and so on.
If things continue to cool for a few more years, look for Time or Newsweek to run a cover story along the lines of, “IS HELL FREEZING? New questions about global warming.” That will open the floodgates for a re-evaluation of AGW. The Holocene Optimum, Roman Optimum, Medieval Warm Period, and Little Ice Age will be presented as previously uncertain or unsupportable climate variations that now have been somehow validated with fresh evidence. Hansen and Gore will be portrayed as well-meaning advocates for a cleaner environment, and they will not be held to account for their repeated extreme statements (cf. Paul Ehrlich, the Club of Rome, and their ilk). In the meantime, those who challenged AGW early on will be treated as being “accidentally correct” and largely ignored (cf. Julian Simon).
Anyone want to bet against me that this is what happens? ..bruce..
Well, so much for the idea that hype sells.
They pushed and pushed, and shoved and shoved, and kept raising the shrillness of their message.
I suspect that people are responding the way I respond when someone tries to rush me into a course of action without allowing me time to consider my actions — someone’s trying to slip something past me and I don’t take too kindly to that.
Over the last year, another thing I have noticed is a sharp increase in letters to the editor by informed citizens disputing politicized, scientifically-baseless pro-AGW news articles.
And I’m as guilty as anyone when it comes to leaving reader comments on a number of websites. I’ve been doing it for as long as those websites have allowed it.
Three years ago I was outnumbered 1,000 to 1 and everyone else would pile up on me. Not so anymore.
We’ve still got a fight on our hands, but we’re making progress.
AGW believers must act now or irreversible damage will be done to their side!!! AAHHHH!!!
Although i agree that more and more people are questioning global warming, i think the change in terminology from “Global Warming” to “climate change” might have a bit to do with it.
People I know are shaking thier heads over this global warming stuff. It’s the joke of the year. Crying wolf has given way to blaming everything on global warming, and that’s how the joke goes.
Expecting a January snow level of 1500 feet next Monday, April 6th.
It warmed up twice here today, in No. Ca, but each time the icy winds returned and put a big global warming chill on Spring.
The cooling trend and the truth of it should be established in the public mind about the same time that General Motors produces their first cars with no heaters or defrosters, in line with government directives.
I recently posted two items on my blog that threw doubt on the conventional global warming metric. Both were documented with NOAA or NOAA/Canadian Ice Services graphics that hadn’t been circulated on the climate blogs. Both were picked up by IceAgeNow and I had an instant, massive increase in his. The first was about three of the Great Lakes freezing over and the second challenging Obama’s intimations that the Red River flooding was caused by global warming. Both were tagged with the keyword, Global Cooling.
The response was workdwide. I was linked by several other sites including a Jeff Jacoby article in the Boston Globe. There were French and Spanish translations of my and Jacoby’s articles.
My advice: If you want a high volume blog, do some digging about Global Cooling. There is an overwhelming hunger for these articles that have been suppressed in the MSM. That ‘s the reason WattsUp has had such a growth in readership. Some day, if it’s not too late, the MSM will provide the news readers are hungry for not the agenda they think we should be fed.
That’s the reason for Fox News’s success and the decline of newpapaers and network news. They would rather die delivering propoganda , than live with the truth. Very sad!
I looked closer at the top Google story, and discovered that Anthony is prominently mentioned in it for his surface stations work.
Many of the Main Stream Media Corporations are bankrupt, or getting there soon, and whatever pronouncements/fads they embrace these days are becoming increasingly irrelevant to the public.
I believe we are participating in the up and coming MSM right here, now, folks, at least the part that pertains to climate issues. Outstanding work, Mr. Watts. Participatory news media is undoubtedly the future, and thank goodness for that. Now, if we could just somehow extend the idea to federal and state government. Blog your reps!
It`s the following I’d like to see change:
The Economist
New Scientist
Nature
DaveCF (21:21:00) :
The cooling trend and the truth of it should be established in the public mind about the same time that General Motors produces their first cars with no heaters or defrosters, in line with government directives.
Might as well call them “Federal Motors” they will be owned by the US Federal Government…
I was going to ask in another thread if anyone noticed how shrill the true believers were getting lately, now I know why they are. The thing’s slipping away from them, and not too long ago it was so easy…
A good tipping point, all depends on a great fulcrum! Hehe!
A wedge of understandable data, influenced by the size of good tipping!
We should not be held accountable for a bad fulcrum tipping point. : p
Getting your letter published:
I send letters to editors of large circulation newspapers and magazines with the expectation that they will NOT publish what I might write because I am not known. Thus, I write to nudge them to pay attention to something – such as the recent ICCC in NYC. I suggest they may want to have a staff writer do a report on something.
On the other hand, small city newspapers will frequently publish a letter from someone responding to a story or editorial they have printed. It is not hard to find a story using global warming either as the main theme or incidental to the story. Recently I responded to a story about “clean coal” and the problems with trying to get to that stage, but mention was made as to the CO2 that needed to be gotten rid of because of global warming issues. This was enough for a letter to say that AGW is not happening.
You don’t reach millions this way but you do have an audience and many are happy to hear they are not alone. I had an e-mail and a phone call from folks that know me – the phone call came before I was aware my letter had been printed.
You will be limited to a few words so you need to think and write clearly and you need to present your idea in proper spelling and grammar.
On a recent post some problems were:
your — for — you are
its — for — it is
to — for — too — or — two
There are others but you get the point. Find a reliable reader if you are not sure of such things. Words are the editor’s business. He or she will appreciate your well presented material.
Good stuff…. But I’ll be much happier when opinion turns to action… When our Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, tears up his policies that will implement an Emissions Trading Scheme.
When he does that. I will know that sanity reigns once more.
Such as articles like this one
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25274973-12377,00.html
“Farmers unsure climate change is man made”
Great to see some good news for once.
Michael
New Scientist still published a complete farcical one this week. Apparently the whole artic is melting…LOL. I Don’t read this magazine anymore
The bursting of the Dot-com bubble.
The bursting of the real estate bubble.
The bursting of the AGW bubble in the pipeline…