From the: University of Michigan
It’s all in a name: ‘Global warming’ vs. ‘climate change’
ANN ARBOR, Mich.—Many Americans are skeptical about whether the world’s weather is changing, but apparently the degree of skepticism varies systematically depending on what that change is called.
According to a University of Michigan study published in the forthcoming issue of Public Opinion Quarterly, more people believe in “climate change” than in “global warming.”
“Wording matters,” said Jonathon Schuldt, the lead author of the article about the study and a doctoral candidate in the U-M Department of Psychology.
Schuldt co-authored the study with U-M psychologists Sara Konrath and Norbert Schwarz. For the research, they conducted a question wording experiment in the American Life Panel, an online survey conducted by RAND, with a national sample of 2,267 U.S. adults. Participants were asked to report their level of certainty about whether global climate change is a serious problem. In the following question, half the participants heard one version, half heard the other:
“You may have heard about the idea that the world’s temperature may have been going up [changing] over the past 100 years, a phenomenon sometimes called ‘global warming’ [‘climate change’]. What is your personal opinion regarding whether or not this has been happening?
Overall, 74 percent of people thought the problem was real when it was referred to as climate change, while about 68 percent thought it was real when it was referred to as global warming.
These different levels of belief may stem from the different associations carried by the two terms, Schuldt said. “While global warming focuses attention on temperature increases, climate change focuses attention on more general changes,” he said. “Thus, an unusually cold day may increase doubts about global warming more so than about climate change. Given these different associations and the partisan nature of this issue, climate change believers and skeptics might be expected to vary in their use of these terms.”
As part of the study, the researchers also analyzed the use of these two terms on political think tank websites, finding that liberals and conservatives used different terms. Conservative think tanks tend to call the phenomenon global warming, while liberal think tanks call it climate change.
And when the researchers analyzed responses to the survey by political orientation, they found that the different overall levels in belief were driven almost entirely by participants who identified themselves as Republicans. While 60 percent of Republicans reported that they thought climate change was real, for example, only 44 percent said they believed in the reality of global warming.
In contrast, about 86 percent of Democrats thought climate change was a serious problem, no matter what it was called. Why weren’t they influenced by question wording? “It might be a ceiling effect, given their high level of belief,” Konrath said. “Or it could be that Democrats’ beliefs about global climate change might be more crystallized, and as a result, more protected from subtle manipulations.”
The good news is that Americans may not be as polarized on the issue as previously thought. “The extent of the partisan divide on this issue depends heavily on question wording,” said Schwarz, who is also affiliated with the U-M Ross Business School and the Institute of Social Research (ISR). “When the issue is framed as global warming, the partisan divide is nearly 42 percentage points. But when the frame is climate change, the partisan divide drops to about 26 percentage points.”
For a free reprint from the journal’s online depository: http://poq.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/nfq073?ijkey=YcGpwzhzykOYkl7&keytype=ref
U-M Sustainability fosters a more sustainable world through collaborations across campus and beyond aimed at educating students, generating new knowledge, and minimizing our environmental footprint. Learn more at sustainability.umich.edu
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From that reprint, the results in Table 2, proving once again that the people belive the climate has changed and will continue to do so. It is a rather obvious result. – Anthony
These people should do some real research. It does not matter what you call it if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck it is a duck. And Climates Change.
So the climate is changing. HOW is it a ‘problem’?
How much money did we pay for this research that totally misrepresents the debate? Do they seriously think that the sceptical position is that the climate is not changing? …that we are arguing about whether the globe has warmed over the last 100 years?? Can they really be so removed from reality, or are we lead to conclude that this is another type of “careful speaking.” I would call it passive agression if I did not know so many others floating around in the same bubble.
…the latest idiocy from our local ideologues of our West Oz green group Conservation Council of WA…who have failed to mention climate change, global warming or whatever it is called this week, for some time now, but have constantly preached on about emissions instead…
is this from Facebook: Neville Numbat
Numbats! The PERTH launch of the Beyond Zero Emissions Zero Carbon Australia Stationary Energy Plan is this Monday 14 March at the Perth Town Hall. RSVP on this link for the free event.
Events to create change by beyondzeroemissions.org | Beyond Zero Emissions
http://www.beyondzeroemissions.org
Solar and wind can supply Australia’s energy needs within 10 years. This forum will discuss what steps need to be taken now to make it a reality.
(Numbat is a rare furry marsupial with a pointy nose)
I thought the IPCC or is it the EU or UN or Mickey Mann?
Were committed to keeping the ‘inexorable’ rise in Temperatures [due of course to man made CO2 emissions] to 1.5 deg’ C by the year dot or 2050, or has all that gone out of the window with the science too???
Thus, it still is AGW we’re battling, isn’t it??
You can change the terminology, call it misspeaking, when you mean lying… but it is all in the end, total BS…..because…..:-
Controlling Climate Change, well that’s still God’s job, isn’t it?
“In contrast, about 86 percent of Democrats thought climate change was a serious problem, no matter what it was called.”
And the other 14% are WUWT regulars, so please remember when discussing the political aspects of “climate challenge” to throw away your broad brush and write most Democrats instead of Democrats.
(BTW, I vote Indie but I have seen many appeals posted here from those among the 14% not to paint all Democrats or liberals – U.S. version – with the same broad brush. Now they have numbers to back up their plea.)
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.
[Banzai voice]
“It’s the Great Banzai Crazy Climate Challenge!”
“Will tempeture go up? Or will tempeture go down?”
“PLACE BETS NOW!!!!”
‘Do you believe in climate change?’ Are you kidding me? They might as well ask: Do you believe in the moon?
The only reason that any rational person would ever answer ‘no’ to the question of whether the world’s climate system changes, is because that person is sick of hearing about how Manhattan will be under water by the end of this decade and the residents of Kiribati and the Maldives are all about to become climate refugees.
You can usually tell a lot about the impetus behind a survey by the particular wording of the questions that are asked.
Andrew Bolt this morning on the radio in Melbourne this morning:
“We chat to Jill Duggan, from the directorate-general for climate action at the European Commission, who says the opposition here to a carbon dioxide tax is ”slightly bizarre” when Europe has no problem with its own price on carbon dioxide. Really, I ask, with European unemployment at 10 per cent and growth at just 1.6 per cent? So I ask this salesman of the EU emissions trading scheme the two basic questions everyone should ask of anyone selling anything: how much does it cost, and what will it do? How many billions will Europe spend on this scheme to cut its emissions by 20 per cent by 2020, and by how much will that cut the world’s temperatures by 2100? The interview suddenly goes very pear-shaped for one of us – and is a stunning indictment of the EU’s foolishness. The question about job losses caused by Europe’s green schemes goes no better. ”
Please listen to this show. It will inform and greatly amuse. The link to the recording is under the picture of Jill Duggan. Make it viral.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/mtr_today_march_9/#commentsmore
“You may have heard about the idea that the world’s temperature may have been going up [changing] over the past 100 years, a phenomenon sometimes called ‘global warming’ [‘climate change’].
This question is obviously false and misleading from the get go.
There is no doubt that the climate has changed since the end of the little ice age, it has gotten noticably warmer, therefor, one could honestly answer that it has gotten warmer. The real question is, is that caused by human created CO2? Is it even possible for human created CO2 to do that? Is any human CO2 caused warming big enough to have any noticable effect? That is the real question, the above question is a non question.
As for strictly 100 years, can we say that it has gotten warmer since, oh, say, 1934? It has only gotten warmer after the data (if it can even be called that anymore) was ‘adjusted”.
As for belief, belief is irrelevent, it is either getting warmer, or it is not. If it was getting warmer, we wouldn’t need scientists to tell us that it has gotten 0.1 degrees warmer in some faraway place like Siberia or northern Canada where no one lives and then that means the gobe is getting warmer, or other obscure things such as that, we would see the signs ourselves. If it was really getting warmer, the ice would be melting. If the ice was melting, the sea would be rising rapidly and noticably. No one would be able to mistake that. yet, last I heard, not only has there been no noticable change in the very slow and steady rise of sea level since the end of the little ice age, it has actually leveled off and may right now be dropping.
Therefor, this question is seen to be only about belief, “how do we get people to believe us despite the evidence, how do we get people to believe, I mean really buuuuuh-leeeeeeeeeave!” How do we get people to to actually buy the statment “who are you going to believe, us colledge professors or your lying eyes?” The very wording of the question is a slap in the face of science, even the very idea of science. I mean, who the hell cares WHAT you “believe”? If enough people believe it, is that what we now call truth? I guess astrology is then “proven” true now, right? Therefor, this very question shows that the questioners have intent to lie, since they only care about “belief” and how they can assure it, not about what is or is not proven true.
I, instead, plan to base my “belief” on the scientific method, which says:
Hypothesis, if it was warming, the ice would be melting.
If the ice was melting, the sea would be rising.
If it was human created CO2 cuasing the ice to melt and the sea to rise, that rise would have started a very noticable accleration around say 1940.
No such rise has been seen, the very slow and steady rise since the end of the little ice age hasen’t budged.
Conclusion, human caused CO2 has not created any noticable warming.
The second hypothesis, that any change in ice melting and sea rising is caused by the true cause of “global warming”, the sun (DUH!), and that changes in the sun cause ice to melt and sea to rise (specifically noticed by the cold in the little ice age coinciding with low sunspot numbers), would be born out if the sun went into another little ice age style funk which would coincide with sea levels leveling out or even dropping.
The sun has gone into a funk.
The sea level rise has slowed and stopped right at the time the sun went into it’s funk. and may be dropping as of right now.
Conclusion, the SUN causes global warming, or cooling.
The first hypothesis has been conclusively proven false. The second is looking to be proven true.
So much for “belief”.
The question is missing the point by a long shot. The climate has been changing for the last 4 billion years, and continues to do so now. About half of that time it was getting warmer, and half of it cooler. It may well be that we’ve been in a warming phase for the last couple of decades, but that alone is not an interesting observation. It’s pointless asking an audience their opinions on these facts as they are facts, they should not be a subject of an enlightened debate.
The debatable points about “global warming” are:
(1) Climate has been changing at an unusual pace or to unusual conditions recently and/or is likely to do so in the immediate future.
(2) The supposed change is disruptive/dangerous/damaging to humanity (and not neutral or even beneficial).
(3) The supposed change is monocausally attributable to human activities.
(4) Humanity has the technological and logistical means to stop the supposed climate change.
(5) It is desirable to do so; specifically, the damage done by supposed climate change outweighs the overall cost of attempting to stop it.
Supporters of policies that supposedly combat “climate change” are challenged to argue for all points 1 through 5. If they fail to convince us of even one of the above, “climate policies” have no legitimacy. Unfortunately the public debate (where it takes place, which it doesn’t everywhere) rarely addresses these issues and instead focuses mostly on the question if “climate change” is happening or not. But that is mostly irrelevant.
“Mass Deception” is it’s real name. Quacking or not.
As pointed out, lying can be referred to as misspeaking, or better still, describe someone as being “economical with the truth!”. I thought it was all in the name. Note how the EU/UN/Greenpeace/WWF/FoE all refer to inexorable temperatre rises, but never call it Global Warming. I have never heard any of them talk about Global Cooling through CO2 with any seriousness, but Climate Change is the catch-all heads I win tails you loose scenario. How scientific does a body become when it refers to scenarios & storylines when these are terms the entertainment (if it could be called such) industry uses in soap operas!
I also note from Ice-core graphs that those peaks with their little squiggles all seem to be about the same length, & the little squiggly peak we’re in is of similar duration. Can anyone lend credance to the apparent scientific claim that we won’t be entering an ice-age for agt least 50,000-100,000 years?
Next we shall call it…………………………………………..bad weather!
I ran a road transport business, from the age of 21 years. Much of my company’s work
in 40 years involved long distance movements of agricultural produce, as a consequence my eyes were constantly on the weather. Road conditions for me and
and harvesting conditions for farmers and growers were paramount. Now retired,
but working in my garden, Iam still a keen weather watcher, as I grew up in the 1940’s
I can assure you that I have seen a lot of weather, but have not seen any difference
in recent years its just as changeable as it ever was!
Actually according to you poll they thought it was “happening” not that it was a “serious problem”. Also you forgot to mention that by the same measure 30% of Republicans think climate change isn’t happening. Yet you say
and one of the comments here is
So while you highlight the response of the Democrats is it really the Republicans you think our allowing political bias cloud their judgement?
Why don’t they just cut to the chase and call it what it really is, “Global Liberal Activist Nest Padding”.
The Earth is going to continue on being the Earth with or without a good chunck of sweat and treasure being sent down an agenda driven rat hole, but what does my opinion count for, I’m not an elitist egg head. My betters have handled everything so well up to this point, they can’t possibly be wrong, greedy or have ulterior motives can they. Does the fact that I have a splitting headace and am getting real tired of these folks trying to repackage manure so it doesn’t stink so much, appear to be seeping through here?
Oops sorry, misread. We are in agreement that all politicians are allowing their political opinion influence their opinion on science.
Note to moderator, could you pretty please change the “Libal” in my previous post to read “liberal” . Thanks
Reply: Ok, but I’m not going near chunck or headace. ~ ctm
I think we should forget about how the questions were/were not framed and concentrate on the fact that AGW is mass deception pure and simple. (thnx wayne 3:15am)
The same word games are being played out right now here in Oz regards the proposed carbon (dioxide) tax. The leftards insist on calling it Carbon Pollution when in fact it is Carbon Dioxide Emissions, or more precisely Carbon Dioxide Equivalent Emissions.
Andrew Bolt and the various conservative contacts of his on radio and press are now insisting that it be called a Carbon Dioxide tax.
Amazingly, a caller to Bolts radio show, an adult, asked if it was a tax on Carbon the black stuff or a tax on CO2 the clear gas stuff. So there is massive ignorance out there.
I urge all commentors and debaters to insist at every opportunity that this scam be called for what it is…Anthropogenic Global Warming and the taxes proposed to curb emissions as Carbon Dioxide taxes.
p.s. What’s the bet these many terms (Climate Challenges etc) emanate out of the marketing offices of WWF and or similar advocacy charity groups.
I think it is incumbent on skeptics to hammer home that the alleged problem is real increased CO2, which is alleged to be caused by human activity. CO2 really absorbs some bands of long wave radiant energy (often referred to as “heat”). CO2 also re-radiates energy in relation to how hot it is. When something absorbs energy, all other things being equal, it gets hotter. To refer to the possible changes that might be caused by increasing CO2 as anything other than “warming” is an attempt to muddy the waters. It is disingenuous. In fact, I would suggest that we specifically refer to human generated CO2 generated warming (oh wait, that is what we mean when we say AGW). Specifics are much easier to defend (and refute, if they are wrong).
It’s much worse than that…. Christine Milne (Aussie Green Politician) has referred to it today as a “Climate Emergency” no less! Man(n) the hoses……
In discussing the selling of the recently announced Carbon Tax….
“Greens senator Christine Milne called for a better sales pitch in the face of a successful scare campaign by Tony Abbott (Opposition Leader)
“We need to link much more closely (with) the climate emergency,” she said.”
ctm – thank you for a morning laugh!!
The climate is changing?? Really?? How astounding. When did this begin?
/sarc off
The worrying thing is that 24% did not agree with the concept that the climate can change. Do they really think the climate is static? (Did this survey sample include the certified insane, perhaps?)
Still, on this side of the pond we can smuggly say, “Well, it was an American survey.” OK, OK – I’m leaving – no need to throw things.
Whether we call the changes “global warming” or climate change”, the effects on ecological systems are the same. When glaciers melt in Greenland, for example, and fresh water is added to the oceans, the currents slow down and this affects weather in northern regions. This phenomenon has been well documented.With the loss of sea ice, much more solar energy is absorbed by the oceans, warming them, and causing causing a thermal expansion which is resulting in rising sea levels everywhere. (This too is well documented)
Information such as this is poorly understood in the USA largely because the media either avoid the subject, or they present muddled information made available by “amateur scientists”. The effect then is obvious; large numbers of people simply don’t understand the problems, and many others “believe” that the issues being described by the scientists are really within God’s sphere of influence.
It is only in the USA that doubt regarding climate change is prevalent. This is not unexpected, given that a significant minority of people do not accept the most basic tenets of science, especially the theory of evolution.
It all reminds me of :
It seems to me that they missed the central point of the whole Global Warming Climate Change debate when phrasing the question. IMHO it would have improved their survey had they also asked participants to respond to the terms Anthropogenic Global Warming and Anthropogenic Climate Change. I wonder how that would have panned out amongst the political classes.
“Hugh Pepper says:
March 9, 2011 at 4:31 am”
Where is your proof Gleenland ice sheets are melting AND cooling the oceans AND slowing currents? I’ve seen it in the movies, but there is not one shred of proof it is happening AND it os caused by AGW.
Hugh Pepper says:
March 9, 2011 at 4:31 am
Whether we call the changes “global warming” or climate change”, the effects on ecological systems are the same. When glaciers melt in Greenland, for example, and fresh water is added to the oceans, the currents slow down and this affects weather in northern regions. This phenomenon has been well documented.With the loss of sea ice, much more solar energy is absorbed by the oceans, warming them, and causing causing a thermal expansion which is resulting in rising sea levels everywhere. (This too is well documented)
Information such as this is poorly understood in the USA largely because the media either avoid the subject, or they present muddled information made available by “amateur scientists”. The effect then is obvious; large numbers of people simply don’t understand the problems, and many others “believe” that the issues being described by the scientists are really within God’s sphere of influence.
It is only in the USA that doubt regarding climate change is prevalent. This is not unexpected, given that a significant minority of people do not accept the most basic tenets of science, especially the theory of evolution.
1. Its not only in the US that belief in AGW is waning, same is happening in the UK, Australia and in Europe even in Germany home of the Green political party. Mainly due to the tempetures not actually rising, the predicted endless doughts being replaced by floods and the no more snow in winter predictions being shown to be 100% false.
2. Belief in scientists is not 100% and never should be, if we believed Scientists in the UK we would still be eating BSE infected beef and being told its safe. Thats just one of many.
Media coverage of the carbon tax “debate” is shocking in Australia, I mean really, it’s way overkill every days since the Govn’t announcement that it would install a “carbon tax”. If the “consensus” was so solid and the “science was so settled” and most Australians believe all “facts” are presented in support that emissions of CO2 from activity is killing the planet, then why is Gillard having such a hard time selling the tax to the public? The answer, to me at least, seems obvious.
The question on whether GW has been happening is a tricky one because, while hardly anyone would say that it hasn’t warmed some the past 100 years, it now appears the warming has stopped. Therefore, although warming did happen (past tense), it no longer appears to be, therefore, to say it has been happening (present tense) would be incorrect. Republicans and Independents would be more apt to suss out that difference, whereas Dimocrats would not.
In other naming news:
“Top Climate Scientists to Give Themselves Nicknames.”
In an effort to build a bridge between the elite climate science community and ordinary, common citizens, top climate scientists will be referring to themselves using colorful nicknames. “I think we can better reach the public with our message” said James “Jimbo” Hansen. “Yes, and removing formal titles like ‘Dr.’ should make us more accessible,” offered Gavin “Bubba” Schmidt. Also on board with the new approach are Michael “Big Mike” Mann, Kevin “Kiwi Kev” Trenberth, and Mark “Moondoggie” Serreze.
\sarc
The “100 year warming” argujment is nionsesne. Even IPCC admist that AGW started only since 1975.
Truth is, at least Northern hemisphere since 1900 warmed a lot, then cooled, then warmed barely above the previous peak and now it is cooling again.
Alas, we haven’t all drowned, broiled or been blown out to sea, as Gore & Hansen promised.
The only dangerous thing about Climate Change is the vermin who are out to de-energize the West, leaving it helpless to cope with any change in climate, physical, economic or political.
A rose by any other name ….
Yikes!
Reading this thread has ruined my whole day and I may not be able to sleep tonight.
The climate is changing?
Whoa!
Why wasn’t I informed?
Why hasn’t this been discussed somewhere on the Internet?
I like it here in Florida but I’m not staying here now. I’m moving to a place where the climate isn’t changing. Change is just too disruptive and challenging for me.
The first step in my search for a new place to live will be to look at http://www.surfacestations.org/ and find the place that is the furthest from any of the monitoring stations. The logic – if there is nothing there to detect the change, it might not be changing.
You just gotta believe.
/grin
How unbearably stereotypical. They’re “focus-grouping” new global warming euphemisms.
Whatever the science may eventually converge to (catastrophe or non-problem or somewhere inbetween), I’d expect renaming and reframing at this stage, in fact I’d exxpect more to come…
http://judithcurry.com/2011/03/06/climate-story-telling-angst/#comment-53804
These doctoral candidates 🙁 seem quite unaware of the political evolution of the concepts of their “research.”
When temperatures were higher during the 1998 El Nino, the term used by the converted was ‘Anthropological Global Warming.’….. But then, post 2000, temperatures plateaued. Not to worry, the Ministry of Truth knows what to do, let’s call it ‘Climate Change.’ Fits the facts, (climate always changes and any skeptic who disagrees is shown to be scientifically unaware and we can call them ‘flat earthers!’)
Things get hot! (Metaphorically, that is.) Climategate- delete all emails! McIntyre/ Mosher& Charles the Mod, et al, Anthony and WUWT Award winning Blog & Surface Stations exposures, Willis’ postings… we all know the history 🙂 Hmm, change it to ‘CLIMATE DISRUPTION’ …. That’ll scare the living daylights out of them…
LOL!
On topic, remember that the issue for the naive left is neither weather, nor climate, nor any empirically verifiable hypotheses. Indeed, the word ‘hypothesis’ would be anathema to these folks, for it explicitly challenges ‘belief’. ‘Climate change’, ‘carbon pollution’, etc., are just codewords, telling the listener that you accept and pay obeisance to the prevailing politically-correct ideology of ‘sustainability’ and statist intervention to ‘save the planet’ from man and his works.
To say that you ‘believe in climate change’ is in effect to say that you subscribe to the good feeling you get from joining with other fellow-traveling watermelons in opposing the nasty right-wing capitalists, warmongers, and other despoilers of the Earth. Never mind that it was those evil men who built the factories and refineries and power plants that keep you and your family housed and your Toyota Pious running.
/Mr Lynn
Put AGW into perspective. The “scientists” say 10 years is too short a time to determine a temperature trend, i.e 1998-2008/9 for cooling. Yet they would concede though that 30 years is too short a trend for warming/cooling, but they say their 30 year ranges are appropriate for the purpose. However, the planet is 4,500 million years old. If the planet is that old, & let’s say the atmosphere was relatively fixed component wise by 4,000 million years ago, for argument sake, we’re talking about 150 years of temperature increase, which means we’re talking ab out 150/4,000,000 x 100% = 3.75 x 10^-6% of the Earth’s history, which I personally think ain’t worth a brass farthing of worrying about!
U-M Department of Psychology!!!!! Blimey! Everyone wants a piece of the AGW grants!
Is anyone in the study qualified as a “Climate Scientist”?
Sarc<
Every time one of the AGW gang accuses us on denying Climate Change makes me want to………….Phttttttttt!
It’s what happens when you get a bunch of closed in true believers trying to figure out what went wrong, then someone pops up claiming that it wasn’t that they were wrong, but that they just didn’t market it properly. Suddenly the mood elevates to near delirium as they convince themselves that they have dodged a bullet, when in fact all they have done is change the subject without dealing with the problem. The original issues still remain, but wishful thinking overwhelms their senses and they force themselves to act as if nothing is wrong–and continue making the same mistakes. This usually precedes a massive failure, which finally forces the participants to face the problems head on, but by that time it is way too late. Look at how GM has behaved, or Egypt etc. Same thing.
Cheers! (ex-INGSOC)
“the lead author of the article about the study and a doctoral candidate in the U-M Department of Psychology”
Yet another example of how, IMHO, ‘higher education’ is becoming not only worthless but harmful to the intellect of those involved.
“Intelligence appears to be the thing that enables a man to get along without education. Education enables a man to get along without the use of his intelligence.” – Albert Edward Wiggin
The name game… Yeah, “carbon dioxide emissions” are now “carbon pollution.” Why do they just pick on the carbon of carbon dioxide? I mean, there are TWO oxygens for each carbon in carbon dioxide. Wouldn’t it make twice as much sense to refer to carbon dioxide emissions as “oxygen pollution”?
As for “climate change”, I make it a point to always say “Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming.” Anytime CAGW alarmists use a name that leaves out any of those four attributes — catastrophic, anthropogenic, global or warming — then they are moving the goal posts to cover up their lack of accurate predictions.
This is obvious. Can’t believe a doctorate can be awarded for this. Obviously more people will agree with a wider statement than a narrower one. It does not require research.
The various rebrandings of AGW as “climate change” or “climate disruption” or whatever just aren’t catching on with the public. The new term is “Clean Energy,” as in maybe greenhouse gases aren’t really changing the climate, but we need to get off carbon anyway.
This isn’t a name change so much but an attempt to change the topic. The greens decided long ago that fossil fuels are evil and jumped on the global warming bandwagon as a justification of that belief. (Notice the belief came first and the purported reason for that belief came second.)
Another attempt to change the topic of discussion is claiming we need to stop using fossil fuels because of national security. Never mind that we buy almost new oil from Arab nations and especially never mind that producing our own oil would also help ensure our own security. Debating with facts and logic won’t win points in this game. The greens decided long ago what the solutions should be based upon their beliefs, not facts.
Wowser, what is happening in the middle troposphere lately in the NH AMSU TMT Brightness Temperature The TLT channel is cold too.
“Overall, 74 percent of people thought the problem was real when…”
When looking at the inferred results of a survey *always* look at the actual question that was asked:
“You may have heard about the idea that the world’s temperature may have been going up [changing] over the past 100 years, a phenomenon sometimes called ‘global warming’ [‘climate change’]. What is your personal opinion regarding whether or not this has been happening?”
You’ll note that this question says nothing (all-caps underlined, bold, italics) about there being a problem. Stating that 74% of people thought there was an actual problem is just plain lying.
Mike.
CO2 Hypochondria.
What the study does point out is that many Democrats are more suggestible to CO2 hypochondria.
Simple hypnotic suggestion.
People accept hypnotic suggestions from ‘supposed authority’ only when they don’t believe in themselves.
The weak minded.
And it really is a hypochondria. It’s all imagined.
Classic hypochondria where all other information is completely denied, or blocked from consciousness. Then the imagined problem is focused upon and blown way out of proportion.
The medical sciences recognize the reality and existence of hypochondria, they are the ones who defined it.
Why haven’t they been looking into the extent of CO2 hypochondria??
Didn’t ya’ll hear?
Al Gore announces the new name of global warming to be an unpronounceable symbol: “The Phenomenon Formerly Known as Global Warming” (with apologies to Prince (or rather, The Artist Formerly Known as Prince)
http://algorelied.com/?p=2824
You forgot to list, “Climate Chaos.”
Why not ask if those polled believe in gravity? It’s as equally meaningful or equally useless. How many people really believe the climate is not supposed to change? As others pointed out, there were no questions about whether global warming or climate change is a problem or whether either was natural or man-made.
Are the pollsters that stupid or are they being deliberately misleading about their results?
Shameful.
It should be called Prediction Change because that’s the one thing we can expect to happen.
ShrNfr says:
March 9, 2011 at 7:28 am
Intriguing! I wont put away the snow shovels just yet.
But if I may return to the topic… What is abundantly clear to virtually everyone–with the exception of the “True Believers®” still peddling AGW BS like nothing has happened–is that without acknowledgement and contrition for having misled everyone, and pledging to change the entire process in an open and transparent manner, they will never be able to convince anyone of anything! No matter how trivial. These folks need look no further than the celebrities they use to push their propaganda to see what happens when one falls from grace in the public eye due to some flagrant indiscretion. The fools have convinced themselves that to even acknowledge a minor error or mistake would bring the whole house down, and odds are this hunch will prove correct. But continuing as they are in a “nothing has happened, never mind the man behind the curtain” sort of way will ultimately lead to a vivid and spectacular demise. I have come to believe that the damage to their “industry” is irreparable, and nothing short of a full scale retreat will come close to saving even a shell of the Global Warming and Climate Change Pandemonium Medicine Show™.
Cheers!
I just noticed Steven Goddard coined the term ‘climochondria’ on his blog:
https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2010/09/12/climochondria/
That was great insight, but it needs to be probed more.
All ‘hypochondria’ is the result of persistent ‘hypnotic suggestion’ that over rides the natural physical stance of the body and mind.
For people who do not trust their own primary experience, their own sense of self, of their own self worth…they will too easily accept the suggestions of those whom they ‘think’ know more than they do.
That’s why placebos work. In the case of placebos, they are usually used to help people heal.
But, medically, there are also ‘nocebos’. They are the opposite of ‘placebos’.
They are meant to harm.
Fear mongering is an example of the ‘nocebo’ effect.
They did not properly identify peoples’ politics. It’s not Rep/Dem, it’s more like leftist, liberal, libertarian, conservative, agnostic. If you use those categories, it’s mostly leftists that believe CAGW.
I thought this was settled:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/19/after-global-climate-disruption-next-name/
and
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/014900.html
and
http://poll.pollcode.com/DD0R_result?v
Where . . .
Irritable Climate Syndrome
. . . Wins with 23% of the vote, with ‘Climageddon’ (13%) and ‘Climate Derangement’ (12%) as runners-up out of 2,734 votes.
Sweet Jesus! Will this silly crap never end? Surely there is some way to drive a stake in the heart of this monster and kill it once and for all!
Reply: Ok, but I’m not going near chunck or headace. ~ ctm
Thanks, i needed a good laff this morning.
The more you qualify something – take away its firm bits because they do not withstand direct challenge – the less you command attention and motivate your fans. If you change “The End of the World is Near!” to “Some Parts of the World Will Have Possible Shortened Histories Sometime Within Your Lifetime or that of your Children!”, don’t expect to be compared to Jesus.
“Doug Proctor says:
March 9, 2011 at 9:04 am”
At least Jesus could build a boat. Not sure about the carpentry abilities of Al Gore however, I am also not sure of his floating capacity.
The man is correct, words do matter. That’s why this whole matter of ” climate ” has become a ‘belief’ system. The wording in all these surveys and discussions appears to start with ” do you believe…”. I don’t believe 2+2 = 4, I accept it. Once an idea is pushed to be a belief, then all level-headed thinking disappears as a belief suggests faith that something is so and should not be challenged. This is why climate sceptics, agnostics or what you will, will always be branded heretical as they “don’t believe” and therefore reasoned debate is seen as anti-orthodoxy. Until the wording is changed this will always be the case.
It is OK to ask which use of words produce the most affirmative and negative answers on climate, in my opinion they should first establish how much knowledge each individual has on the climate considering there are varying differences in interest among the public and learning among the participants and take it from there. It would be interesting to know how the number influenced by the change in words shake out between those with knowledge and those who responded off the cuff.
Reading the comments it seems the change in words used don’t mean that much to WUWT readers.
The results of the study seems to depend on belief and the ability to be influenced or not by a small change in words.
The fact they broke it down between republicans and democrats points to the political interest in climate.
If you ask me and no one has the study is an advisement for global warming and all the other names they wish to change it to keep it alive in the minds of a more disbelieving public.
Orwell’s 1984 is their manual.
You’ll note that this question says nothing (all-caps underlined, bold, italics) about there being a problem. Stating that 74% of people thought there was an actual problem is just plain lying.
Mike.
It’s implied, Mike. If it weren’t considered a problem, why would they even ask about it?
No one would care.
As soon as they rename it to Barely Measurable Warming Mostly Caused By Solar Influences (BMWMCBSI or short BMW) i’ll agree.
As a scientist, I would rather explore whether there is a better term for AGW than “hoax.”
That people like Hugh Pepper above cannot logically comprehend the difference between natural variability and the propaganda that they are told is the real tragedy.
“climate change” last fall I looked up the IPCC’s founding documents. Unfortunately I lost the stuff I downloaded in a hard drive crash, but I would swear that the docs said that the mission of the ipcc was to “summarize the effects of increased temperatures caused by human emissions of green house gases on the world’s climate” or something to that effect. Now the missions statement only talks about “effects of man-made climate change”.
Can anyone find a cached version of the orginal ipcc documents. The actually were in the minutes of various UNEP sessions, not on the IPCC website.
Although the people pushing the notion of a human caused climate crisis have been cycling through nomenclature variations at an accelerating pace, if you examine the deluge of PR science that has been produced to suggest that there really is impending doom in our future, which provides the only actual justification for the clearly destructive solutions they propose to solve this “crisis”, you will in most cases find that they are premised on assumptions of future warming. And not just warming, but warming at the upper bounds of projections that barely capture present trends at their lower limits.
If the illusion of crisis is to be maintained, continued and accelerating warming of the climate must be demonstrated, which of course it is not. Thus the clever lads have engaged in another “trick” to conceal the fundamental weakness of their hypothesis. At this point the evidence continues to mount that, even if they are proved to be correct about CO2’s role in the atmospheric effect, the net result will be much less damaging than any of their current and proposed solutions have been and will be. The “hide the decline” necessary at present is the decline in the likelihood of truly catastrophic consequences from whatever our climate future presents. Without impending doom there is no justification to invoke the “precautionary principle”. The ongoing resort to the linguistic fascism of endlessly renaming the problem has the same intent as the original Mann version. It’s a 3 card monte move to distract the eye and the mind of the gullible from the all to obvious flaws.
I can see why they were eager to move away from “climate change” as the preferred meme. It points to what I have always thought was the major flaw in their intellectual edifice and argument. The implicit assumption that the climate is fundamentally static and requires the action of anthropogenic CO2 to move it out of stasis. Though never explicitly stated as such, this notion is at the heart of all the model based arguments that are the core of their hypothesis. It seems to me fairly obvious that change is the fundamental mode of the climate and that it would require a fairly massive “forcing” to stop it from changing. Certainly larger than any present prospect and well beyond anything humanity, even with our high tech toys, could hope to achieve.
I would never suggest that we should be doing nothing to mitigate our effect on our environment, but if the choice comes down to the current and planned actions based on the demonization of carbon and nothing, I think the evidence is mounting that doing nothing would lead to a much more livable future.
Over a period of time, we will learn to handle the delicate matter of naming this in a more sensive way for people who are most prone to worrying about it. It needs a polite and sensitive phrase such as “Climate Special Needs”.
There is a veritable treasure trove of research to be carried out in classifying and describing a range of consequential climate behavioural phenomena. More technically minded folk will call these “Climatic Behavioural Spectrum Disorders”.
Such as the alarming and unpredictable “Episodic Climatic Apnea Disorder”. Characterised by periods with little or no significant weather disasters to report in the media, it will result in worries that climate variability might have ceased permanently. A particularly difficult aspect of epsisodic climatic apnia disorder is that it can persist for surprsingly short periods before the worry sets in.
Equally alarming is the phenomenon of “Sporadic Climatic Attention Deficit Disorder”. This is likely to be the underlying cause of significant disruption due to bad weather. It must be properly diagnosed and expert climatologer opinion should be sought on each occasion.
Winter weather will be renamed to “Seasonal Affective Climatic Disorder”. Expect next year to be worse than last. Sigh!
The use of the term “anticyclone” will be abandoned in favour of a “Depressive Spectrum Weather Event”. It’s gonna be gloomy.
About half an hour ago I was watching “The One Show” on BBC1. The main guest on the show was a stand up comic who makes jokes about climate change to raise awareness. I’m afraid I wasn’t aware of his existence and have already forgotten his name. A lot of publicity was also given to “Climate Week” which will be 21-27 March. As part of that week there will be a Climate Week Challenge for school children.
The Climate Week website says:
“The Climate Week Challenge is the biggest single activity of Climate Week. It will involve tens of thousands of people in schools, colleges and workplaces all over the country tackling the same task.”
http://www.climateweek.com/
An information pack for schools in the form of a PDF file can be downloaded from the website. At the top of the first page it says:
One Task – One Country – One Day
I hope I am not being too tactless in saying that those words remind me of another slogan:
“Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer.”
Coming to your local Community College and/or online degree mill, the new “hot” degree for the 21st Century, a BS in Climate Science Marketing! Aren’t good with numbers? All those equations make you go woozy? No worries! As long as you can grimmace earnestly, and speak with urgency, you too can become a “Climate Expert” and haul in massive wads of cash in Climate Claptrap Fundraising and personal appearence fees! Please note if you are a Hollywood Celebrity, failed politician, or a particularly angst riddled leftist gurrrl or minory, you may have already earned pre-enrollement credits!
Roy (March 9, 2011 at 11:52 am )
Great to see the UK indoctrination system following their heroes:
“Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.” – Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
“Education is a weapon, whose effect depends on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.” – Josef Stalin
“The education of all children, from the moment that they can get along without a mother’s care, shall be in state institutions at state expense.” – Karl Marx
Perry at 2.48 am said listen to Andrew Bolt chatting to Jill Duggan. Thank you Perry. It was well worth listening to. If only the BBC could do that kind of interview. The BBC is a disgrace. We should know in the UK what the EU is doing with carbon taxes and we don’t because there is no Andrew Bolt over here.
Make it go viral Perry said – I wish I could, but I don’t know how, but I hope that somebody reading this does. It’s the best think I’ve heard for a long time.
berniel says:
How much money did we pay for this research that totally misrepresents the debate? Do they seriously think that the sceptical position is that the climate is not changing? …that we are arguing about whether the globe has warmed over the last 100 years?? Can they really be so removed from reality, or are we lead to conclude that this is another type of “careful speaking.”
I would say they really think their detractors are actually that stupid.
Frank K. says:
“Top Climate Scientists to Give Themselves Nicknames.”
…said James “Jimbo” Hansen.
Obviously trying to get us to confuse him with our own “Jimbo”
Patrick Davis says:
At least Jesus could build a boat. Not sure about the carpentry abilities of Al Gore however, I am also not sure of his floating capacity
I forget, do witches sink or float?
If the climate never changed, if it has always been truly stable, would our language have ever thought of the word “climate”?
R. Shearer says:
March 9, 2011 at 11:11 am
“As a scientist, I would rather explore whether there is a better term for AGW than “hoax.””
I agree. Hoax sounds too minor and ‘unscientific.’
How about a Piltdown hypothesis?
“You may have heard about the idea that the world’s temperature may have been going up [changing] over the past 100 years, a phenomenon sometimes called ‘global warming’ [‘climate change’]. What is your personal opinion regarding whether or not this has been happening?
Ask a different question… get a different answer. Who knew?
The flawed premise is that the terms Climate Change and Global Warming are equivalent. They are only to the indoctrinated.
What they proved is that the terms are equivalent to one group of people but not to the other. In doing so they show which group they identify with.
Some may have attempted to answer accepting the terminology of the questioner, and some may answer using their own terminology. This could account for the differences in responses attributed to the more conservative.
With regards to the question of global warming, we can’t be confident that there has been any warming in the instrumental record when considering the error. We also know, thanks to Anthony, the sad state of the collection network and the erroneous corrections to the record, if you get Hansen’s drift.
Once they prove there has been warming, then they can try to attribute it’s cause. Until we have actual evidence there is only faith. Fortunately the believers identify themselves by adopting the mantra of their masters.
One day they will call it Climate Science
“Conservative think tanks tend to call the phenomenon global warming, while liberal think tanks call it climate change.”
I find this result odd, since I am pretty sure ‘climate change’ was popularized by Fox News.
Climate challenges? So we’ve got to be politically correct about this crap now?
Someone here suggested “the CACA Cult.” (CACA = Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Alarmism)
“74 percent of people thought the problem was real when it was referred to as climate change, while about 68 percent thought it was real when it was referred to as global warming.”
not referred to as ANTHROPOGENIC GLOBAL WARMING, naturally.
obviously those who didn’t thought it was a problem when it was called “climate change, were being asked about a “problem”, so associated with the AGW.
in australia, the “carbon” tax for “climate change” refuses to use any proper definitions, so many people believe it’s about soot to deal with pollution. some believe it’s about carbon monoxide. the MSM on the whole, does nothing to enlighten them.
a breakthrough of sorts:
8 March: Herald Sun Australia: Terry McCrann: Carbon not the same thing as CO2
ASTONISHINGLY, the PM, the Cabinet and members of the Canberra Press Gallery don’t know the difference between carbon and carbon dioxide.
There are two great lies told about the need to “put a price on carbon”. Lies which I can’t recall a single member of the gallery ever confronting the liars with — far less the prime liar herself.
And it’ll be a cold day in hell before you see a critical commentary from any of the supposed leading lights of the gallery such as Fairfax’s Michelle Grattan or Peter Hartcher applying a critical analysis to the claims…
Every time Gillard or Climate Change Minister Greg Combet mouths the term “carbon pollution”, a competent journalist would ask questions like:
Do you understand that you are referring to what you are breathing out? Please explain how this is pollution? How are you going to stop personally polluting? Why don’t you use the accurate term carbon dioxide?…
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/business/terry-mccranns-column/carbon-not-the-same-thing-as-co2/story-e6frfig6-1226017312737
reclaiming the language is vital.
@Tom
Reply: Ok, but I’m not going near chunck or headace. ~ ctm
Hey ~ ctm, thanks for that. I got an extra laugh because I understood “splitting headace”.
As always, in grateful appreciation of our moderators.
Cheers Jack
Hugh Pepper says:
March 9, 2011 at 4:31 am
Whether we call the changes “global warming” or climate change”, the effects on ecological systems are the same. When glaciers melt in Greenland, for example, and fresh water is added to the oceans, the currents slow down and this affects weather in northern regions. This phenomenon has been well documented.With the loss of sea ice, much more solar energy is absorbed by the oceans, warming them, and causing causing a thermal expansion which is resulting in rising sea levels everywhere. (This too is well documented)
Perhaps you haven’t heard, sea levels since about 2006 have slowed their slow but steady rise since the end of the last little ice age, and as of right now, that formerly very slow rise has stopped, or even started going negative. So, tell me, where is this “well documented”?
The statement you have made here is, frankly, a bald faced lie. Perhaps you can be excused if you are merely repeating the constant propaganda you are bombarded with where you live, which tells me that that place does not have a free press any longer. Even if that is true, however, you are posting on THIS site. This site has presented the evidence of the actual non rise in sea levels (as have many others, many of them official government agency in charge of that sort of measurement/peer reviewed etc type sites) Thus, at the very least, you have not done due dilligence to find out if what you beleive is fact or not.
Conclusion, the central tenet of your argument is easily demonstrated to be false, your argument is rejected. You should go look up the meaning of this word >SCIENCE.
“How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it a leg.”
— Abraham Lincoln
Hugh Pepper says:
March 9, 2011 at 4:31 am
It is only in the USA that doubt regarding climate change is prevalent. This is not unexpected, given that a significant minority of people do not accept the most basic tenets of science, especially the theory of evolution.
So, in contrast to the alleged lack of scientifc thinking allegedly proven ipso facto by those who are deniers or questioners of evolution – which I don’t find to be the case, as a ‘believer’ in evolution in some sense myself – if you and, allegedly, the majority of “the rest of the world”, say or repeat things enough times, or there is a “consensus” about “what most people say”, or receive as true simply on authority from “experts” and then repeat, therefore what is said becomes true?
No, Hugh, as to your claims above, instead there is almost no doubt that you are merely another foreigner, here to tell us what the whole rest of the world outside of the U.S. thinks, which by now always seems to need to include the usual pro forma self-gratificational diss of Americans.
Or, Hugh, are you even aware of the existence of a “rest of the world” outside of America and wherever you are?
Regardless, since you obviously don’t know what the whole rest of the world believes in terms of the prevelance of a belief in CO2=CAGW, don’t you think that perhaps the rest of what you say could be on shakey ground, too?
Because, where the rubber meets the road, both China and India have convincingly communicated via their concrete actions involving crash programs to construct at least hundreds of coal-fired electricity plants each, that they think what the ipcc Climate Science alleges to be the cause of its alleged catastrophic CO2=CAGW disease, the burning of fossil fuels such as coal, to instead be necessary to the cure of their own current diasaster, underdevelopment. It’s really that simple, they “voted with their feet”, and their decision was reasonable and eminently based upon “the science”.
Therefore, Hugh, since you don’t seem to know even the rudiments of proving a rational argument and thus are at best probably only repeating vacant memes that you’ve heard “most people say” regarding the rest of the world and America, and have probably taken what “experts” and “scientists” say as true on authority, it’s not surprising that you also don’t know that the CO2=CAGW ipcc Climate Science is not only not doing real, scientific method and principle, science, but is also even assiduously avoiding doing it.
Because, Hugh, ipcc Climate Science is nothing more than a massive Propaganda Operation, directed at people like you, which aims at looting and controlling as much of the people of the world as possible. It’s just that simple in this case, too.
For example, are you aware that since the ipcc Climate Science Propaganda Operation – via its drastically failed “word game” sophistry – has now even managed to make the term “climate change” mean or equal “CO2=CAGW”, therefore, its “Climate Science” now essentially asserts the “denalistic” absurdity that there was no “climate change” ever, prior to the alleged CO2=CAGW “climate change”? And that concerning which its “science” so far has been unable to make even one successful prediction uniquely attaching its CO2=CAGW “science”, that is, a real prediction born out empirically by what then happens in the real world? Or as having produced anything at all provenly abnormal for the usual “natural” climate – something you, too, can even see by the fact that its “science” is now reduced to having to propagandize any possible fear mongering weather event of its choice which happens to occur, as an alleged effect of CO2=CAGW, but which never pans out to be abnormal in the light of facts.
From there on, Hugh, ipcc Climate Science “science” even gets worse, while its disasterous effects on Humanity continue to get worse, and will continue to get worse, unless we stop what is really a criminal and infiltrative Propaganda Operation from being on course toward its completly non-scientifically based and oriented goals of looting and controlling as much of the world as possible, which also involves at some level the intentional creation of true “man made disasters”.
Hugh, if you by chance want to save the world or do anything meaningful regarding the ipcc’s, enc., Climate Science science, you need to somehow get yourself on the right side.
No way its Irritable Climate Sydrome, I saw the poll.The words these acedemically educated ignoramists are seeking is , “Among the Climatically Challenged, belief as opposed to logic/real life experience allows the systematic and continual looting of 86% of this group.
Both questions are useless, as the answer has to be yes to both of them. Both climate change and global warming are happening – always have and always will. The question should have been : “You may have heard about the idea that the world’s temperature may have been going up [changing] over the past 100 years, a phenomenon sometimes called ‘global warming’ [‘climate change’]. Do you think human influence is significant in causing this to happen?”
It’s been fascinating over the last couple of years to observe the behavior of people of good intelligence, good will, and honorable inclinations – who’ve been exposed to precisely zero credible information discrediting the CAGW model(s) they’ve been fed, and fed by the very people that we were all raised to respect – scientists, and purveyed in publications that were once rightly respected for rigor and empirical veracity.
Interestingly, the more “political” they are, in the sense of their politics representing a larger as opposed to a smaller part of their self-identity, the more likely they’ve been to react to skeptics with more than one reflexive label: The “Flat-Earther” smear of course we’re all familiar with but it isn’t really the cheerful initial response I’m thinking of. I’m more intrigued by the slightly less disrespectful sobriquet for skeptics that’s popped into the minds of the kindlier of these folks and that is the label “Denier” or “Denialist. ”
Now most of us are aware of all the pseudo-pathological baggage such terms have picked up over the last decades. Although there seems to have been a recent lull in this sort of response as we proud Denialists have become more in evidence and are beginning to be perceived as clearly capable of primitive reasoning, if not even some crude but recognizable patterns of ape-like reflection.
The evolution of these labels, along with all the rank political jockeying of the Warministas for the terminological high ground, reminds me of the Bolshevik mentality, and its bizarre apotheosis toward the end of the Soviet “experiment” with their invention of what I’d call a politico-psychiatric diagnostic theory – especially as described by Alexander Solzhenitsyn in The Gulag Archipelago.
The disease model for describing threateningly individualistic behavior (e.g. drunkenness, fondness for drugs, excessive flash and panache etc., think of wild men like Charlie Sheen or Andrew Jackson) enjoyed a bang-up success in the West. Consequently, Soviet psychiatrists, when tasked with the growing predicament of clearly intelligent, if not brilliant, celebrity dissidents to Communism, had an inspired idea. These creatures were no longer to be seen as slimy lickspittle running-dog lackey-tools and dupes to Capitalist/Imperialism – and therefore intrinsically evil. No, they were just really sick, the poor devils. It was realized that just as one could be politically healthy, one could likewise become politically sick.
When the wall came down, a lot of this kind of thinking migrated west into Western Europe and even, dare I say, Great Britain and the US.
But hereabouts nowadays lately, the burgeoning Twelve Step Industry in the States has put the notion of “dissident as sicko” firmly into the heads of our own home grown proto-Bolshevists, a great many of whom have gravitated into both the radical Gender Movement and the Academy. And alcoholism and drug addiction have long since been visualized as diseases (and with about as much justification for being so designated as say, a talent for billiards or a hankering after limericks – IMHO)
Anyhow, if the hallmark symptom of sickness is DENIAL, then we dissidents from the party line of CAGW are almost certainly going to be tagged as suffering from the disease of CAGW Denialism, and therefore worthy and therefore worthy of pity for being “sick” as opposed to merely Ignorantly and Parochially Evil. It’s not only a dandy way to trivialize someone; it’s an even more effective ad hominem technique for shutting them the f*** up.
All of which babbling leads to this:
It’s imperative to beat them to the draw. I would propose that in order to get out front in the Great Terminological Climate Disparagement Race and stay there, it’s time to understand the CAGWism problem not as political, or even religious, but pathological. It’s a disease you see, and they can’t help it. And like all brain problems, its first tip off is of course the phenomenon of being – I’ll say it again – in DENIAL.
But in denial of what, you may ask? Elementary, Watson. They suffer from a serious case of Scientific Triumphalism and Modernity and what might be called the “Humans are God” Problem. Or HAG. More precisely put, they’re in denial of the clammy, disquieting certainty that the world is so much bigger than they are that they can’t flatter themselves with the ability to slow it down, or stop its rotation or revolution, or divert its orbit, or change its ocean level, or anything that’s noticeable from even a miniscule distance into space.
And it terrifies them that they’re really really little too. And the earth is still really really – I mean really – BIG. In the late sixties, Bucky Fuller proved mathematically that he could fit the entire human race on Manhattan Island with two feet separating each individual – if he could use all the floors of the buildings, parking decks, etc. Today I imagine it’s down to one foot, or maybe six inches, but that’s not the point. Even the bio-mass of the world’s insects outweighs the combined weight of all the humans on the planet by some huge factor that I can’t seem to recall at the moment. But you get the idea…
So you see, they aren’t evil or a pack of timorous hand-wringing little neurotic pessimistic wusses and worry-warts. Well…they’re not evil at least. They’re just really really sick with a dormant case of Stinkingthinkitis or something. And I for one feel sorry for them and firmly believe that every day that passes without one or more complete Twelve Step programs set up to help them, and maybe a whole bunch of Montessori schools to reach out to their poor miserable terrified children, is just one more day of prolonging their misery. The time has come. Our common humanity dictates that we have to reach out to those suffering from this disease. I speak of course of “HAGism” and especially that most virulent form of it known as “CAGWitis” (pronounced kag-why′-dis)!!
The expression “Climate Change is real and we must take action now” is so incredibly funny.
It’s amazing that so many seemingly intelligent folks do not get the joke.
Jimmy Haigh says:
March 9, 2011 at 1:24 pm
Climate challenges? So we’ve got to be politically correct about this crap now?
This is really bad…..but how about “Special Climate”
Neither. As I attempted to point out earlier (March 9, 2011 at 6:39 am), these student pollsters and their audience alike understand that these terms (‘global warming’ and ‘climate change’) are just codewords, meaning roughly, ‘accept the prevailing ideology of the enviro-Marxist left’. The pollsters’ aim is to simply help the propagandists decide which term furthers their (currently faltering) campaign to convince the American people that, as Algore said, “The planet has a fever!” and requires draconian state intervention in our lives to cure it. They have no interest in whether there is actually any scientific basis to the claims of so-called ‘climate science’, which practitioners have simply been enlisted as ‘useful idiots’ in the cause, and are either dupes or willing participants.
/Mr Lynn
It sure would help if those who are knowledgeable and realize this “Climate Change” is merely a ploy would stop using that very coined term in discussions, it only helps instill some incorrect validity. Probably someone can come up with a better term but it needs to tell it as it is, hold back no punches. Whatever decided of a good term I will follow suit from here out and I’m sure most other would also. See, I’ve already modified my first stab made at it earlier.
Climate ChangeMass Climate Deceptionor
Climate ChangeThe Mass Climate Delusionor
Climate ChangeThe Climate MirageMost here know this is a psychological disorder and it should be treated so. It will take clinical psychiatrists years to cure the worst as
Hugh Pepper has displayed above, and I feel sorry for him. And this is a during a period when a 300+ year temperature record recorded the same mean temperature as it was in the 1600’s. But he is in a panic, and blaming whole countries for his delusion, and clearly needs some help. Being somewhat like a cult mentality, it would be better termed “de-programmed” that removes the brain washing.
I’m sure others here also hate speaking with “terms” they know deep down are not only incorrect but very misleading. Simply stop doing it.
ctm,
Thanks for making the change I asked you to make for me, it was above and beyond your call of duty. My head was pounding so bad, I couldn’t even look at the screen. As for “headace” and “Chnuck”, I propose that these are the two new words we can use to refer to the whole Global Warming debate.
Tanhk you for yuor hmour and wit.
‘Climate Fraud’?
‘Globaloney’?
‘Carbophobia’?
/Mr Lynn
This is an excellent idea for a Grade 5 Science Project.
These days it appears they include free college degrees & doctorates inside cereal boxes.
How pathetic.
Hi Mr Lynn,
‘Carbophobia’, not bad, very descriptive of the effect. The others are, of course, true but best not be so strong to cause a backlash from the soft spoken. Need to stay serious on this so what is happening now in Great Britain and Australia doesn’t find it’s way here.
I continue to hold out for “Climate Damage”. It expresses what the Alarmists really mean.
New terminology from “comments” on “Scientific” Ameri”k”an: Temperature differentials.
“Temperature has not started to increase, only temperature differentials have increased”
Comment #2 on http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=failure-climate-satellite-sets-back-earth-science ; by the way, just like 9/11, the rich companies did the satellite failures to avoid carbon tax — Scientific Amerikan is owned by Holtzbrinck
Or, “Do you mean the fizz in a Coke?”
They’re trying to “put the ocean in a cup.” This disorder affects the climatologists who think they’ve got their arms around the world’s climate system with their models. We know too little as yet to model it confidently.
People who persist to believe the AGW-nonsense may become Climatally Challenged.
Allencic wrote:
“If the climate never changed, if it has always been truly stable, would our language have ever thought of the word ‘climate’?”
Of course it would. You don’t have to wait decades for signs of a change in climate. You just need to travel from one country to another. By the Bronze Age traders would have been well aware that the climate of Egypt differed from that of the island of Crete where the Minoan civilisation was based.
hugh pepper~
I am attempting to find a way to address your comments without using phrases such as [snip ]
More people fear dihydrogren oxide than they fear water. Of course words have an effect on people.
*lol* Ok, granted.
Beth Cooper says:
March 9, 2011 at 6:38 am
Odd, it’s been called the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) since 1988…
Carbophobia? A Latin/Greek hybrid? No, thanks.
Anthracophobia or misanthracy.
A description in plainer English is HOGWASH:
Hysteria over global warming and suchlike hooey.
I think the new terror-inducing catch phrase SHOULD be:
“Man-Caused Planet-Killing Catastrophic Climate Horror”
It’s “Climate Damage”, I tell you! “Anthropogenic Climate Damage”, if you want redundancy for emphasis.
>:-(
The cure or deprogramming method if you like,human hampster wheels connected to the grid where the Carbonic cultists can work off their self loathing and their debt to society. Think real green energy on demand. Could even be dependable power with proper incentives.
Hope for the UK yet?
In the April 2011 issue of the magazine FOCUS published by the BBC, an organization not known for its balanced view on matters Global Warming, in answer to a question from a reader of ‘How will global warming affect Britain’s weather?’ The following answer:
‘Sceptics have seized on last winter’s snow and record low temperatures as proof that global warming is nonsense. But as Britain makes up just 0.05 per cent of the world’s surface, what happens in our tiny part of the planet can hardly be regarded as representative. In fact, on a global scale, last year was one of the warmest ever. That suggests it would be dangerous to dismiss the predictions of global warming for future British weather.
The trouble is, the predictions themselves are pretty broad brush. Put simply, they suggest that while average temperatures will creep upward, there are likely to be more extremes, with severe winters mixed in with sweltering summers. Similarly while average rainfall is expected to decline somewhat there may be marked seasonal changes, with more droughts and downpours. That’s in line with what we have been experiencing in the UK over recent years, but is also consistent with natural weather cycles.
The fact is that computer models just aren’t powerful enough to reveal which explanation is more plausible – and they might never be.’ Quote unquote.
Whether it is call climate change or global warming it is not really that important. When talking about a phenomenon as important as this, the main point is that people need to be informed of what this phenomenon is causing and why it is a problem. A research about what name is more accepted by people is totally useless. Scientist should not be concerned about what name should it be called, but how to solve the problems that it is causing, if it is really causing any. Scientist should proof why it is a problem instead of wasting time figuring out if people prefer to call it climate change or global warming.
If you ask someone if they believe that the weather is changing, they probably say yes because the weather changes every day. So if they really need to figure out a name for global warming that does not only refer to the rise of temperature they should get a name that is actually led people to think about the seriousness of the problem without being to general, like climate chaos. A research about the consequence of the global warming would be more useful than one about the name of the phenomenon.
The fiddling about with changing the name of the game from global warming to climate chaos is very important: it is by words that we communicate what we are concerned about, what the problem is, what we should do. Without a clear definition of the problem you cannot get a clear idea of what might be done about it.
Of course, this is the reason for the shifting name-game: keep clarity out of the discussion so that you can achieve your end-result without letting anyone understand what you are really doing. In Canada, back in the ’90s, Quebec separatist politicians wrangled a provincial referendum on whether the province would become a separate country. The question was so well worded, that what the people were actually approving was the provinical government to discuss the possible options to change the relationship, power-wise, between Quebec and the federal government of Canada. Nowhere was there a mandate to do anything but talk, and yet the Quebec separatists considered it a mandate to separate if the answer was “yes”. The referendum failed at 50.1% against (a suspiciously high number “for”).
Across Canada there was outrage that such a manipulation was allowed, and the federal government came up with the “Clarity Act”. The Act says that any question put to the people must be clearly stated and interpretable in the manner intended, i.e. for separation, one had to ask, “Do you agree to separate and be your own, independent country?” or some such. Well, the separatists were very angry, as they knew that such bald questions allowed no wiggle room. There has not been mention of another referendum.
Taking lessons from the Clarity Act incident, if the skeptics could get the name fixed, then a high-noon showdown would be possible. If it is AGW, then the A could be falsified. If it were CAGW, the C part would be dissected. Getting towards climate chaos or disruption – we are now two or three steps from CO2. Impossible to fight an enemy that is a ghost in the woods.
Bait and switch – global warming to climate change to climate disruption or chaos. AGW, CAGW – Gavin Schmidt recently said in a response to me that CAGW did not have any meaning to him, and was not under discussion at RealClimate (disingenuous, for sure). Of course not: even though Hansen et al clearly use the images of CAGW to promote their social agenda, by describing the threat clearly, like the Quebec separatists, they open themselves up to questions they cannot answer and do not materially impact their true purpose. The only result from open debate for the warmist side is uncertainty in the minds of their followers.
Gore, in refusing to accept questions from journalists, was the first to publicly demonstrate he understood their perilous position. The Gores, Romms et al understand the importance of not defining the “problem”. Otherwise they would stick at AGW, trot out their supportive evidence and let the facts speak for themselves. As the facts do not offer anything but evidence of a slow warming that began in the 1850s continues today, and all causation is still speculative, they must embrace any re-branding that obscures the reasoning but maintains the brightness of their objective.
The re-naming of … I prefer CAGW, as that is the most honest .. will not stop, but by diluting the threat into undefinable meaninglessness the Hansen-Gore-Suzuki crowd may give themselves an “out”. None will admit error in principle, though Gore did admit to an error in specifics when he reversed himself on the the food-for-fuel issue. The financial, social and personal stakes are too high. There are too many acolytes and too many politicals who have climbed aboard the gravy train of CAGW. If this is what the warmists are doing, we should let them. The sooner the nonsense stops, the better.
The skeptical camp will never be recognized as being right, any more than the anti-witchhunter camp was recognized as being correct. Skeptics will have to accept that the best we can do is help the warmist thrust dissipate.
Doug P;
I suggest a NEW, new, name: BAGW.
Beneficial Anthropogenic Global Warming.
Since both increased CO2 and a degree or few warming would substantially improve food supply and global habitability, it seems the best descriptor, to me!
Brian H.: good idea – Beneficial Anthropogenic Global Warming (BAGW)
Imagine if a pro-human enviro-group figured out that CO2 was, on the whole, good for the people and planet. BAGW as the new rallying call – more plants, more phytoplancton, more food, more fish, more happiness among the third of humanity struggling for a meal. Imagine the environmentalist crisis then! The BAGW side would be legitimately saying that the CAGW people wanted poor people to starve while they drove SmartForTwo.