Help Launch Climate Skeptic Film Project: 50 to 1

thank you Andrew and Lord Monckton….

The way things work in Washington, you’ll have to hire a lobbyist with the money.
http://m.townhall.com/columnists/kenconnor/2013/05/01/want-to-know-how-washington-really-works-just-follow-the-money-n1582950?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl
http://blogs.rollcall.com/moneyline/wall-street-increases-association-lobbying-decreases-corporate-visability/

I thought we were all funded by Big Oil /.Big Koch… 😉

Complimentary (with an ‘i’): expressing a compliment, praising or approving, given or supplied free of charge. Complementary (with ‘e’): completing; forming a complement of two or more different things; combining in such a way as to enhance or emphasize each other’s qualities.
I think it should read “different, complementary ways” (with ‘e’) – unless it is intended to mean (and legally commit to?) “supplied free”, when it could instead become a play on words such as “in different, complementary (and complimentary) ways”.
Just checking – could be either!

Contributed. Lets go for it. Maybe this will be the tipping point in a return to sanity

Topher has produced several short videos of particular interest to Australians. This is the first that has an international interest. He does good stuff and his research is always accurate. I have supported him in the past and will do so again.

To all the people who do not live in Australia Topher is a real gem, and his videos made on a shoe string are magic. This is why Monckton has singled him out, I am sure it will end a game set and match changer. Thank you Mr Watts.

AUS$100 on their way.

One youtube video is not going to undo anti-CO2 policy in Europe. It’s not even going to make a dent. However, I would love to see this video.

dp says:
May 2, 2013 at 1:00 am
” “

My contribution has been pledged – I really hope this guy gets to his target as I consider his previous videos excellent and he is such a great communicator to old and young alike. Thanks to WUWT for bringing this to my attention – I’m very happy to help this effort.

It is only fair that I contribute to this project.

THE TROUBLE IS…
Although we may respect Monckton (as I do ) he is well-stereotyped in the broader audience as a crank. And he comes up in line one. Perceptions matter…otherwise why make a movie?
As soon as you refer to the mooted title, you hand the gaffawwers a gigantic cache of ammo. Its controversial that title…so why mention it?
Anyone can make a movie but the challenge is getting people to watch it rather than hear it traduced in the media and go with the sheep.
UK Channel 4 aired a superb documentary: “The Global Warming Scam” (or some such title). That was a decade ago (and most people have not only forgotten the title but that it existed) Made not a blind bit of difference.
I cannot seethe point in banging your head against a wall.

Lets see how L Svaalgard handles this one LOL from Hockey Shtiick
“New paper finds another amplification mechanism by which the Sun controls climate
A paper published today in the Journal of Climate finds tiny variations in solar activity over 11-year solar cycles have greatly amplified effects upon climate via changes in the Arctic Oscillation, North Pacific sea surface temperatures & sea level pressure, and via changes in stratospheric ozone from solar UV. The authors find the Arctic Oscillation evolves from a negative mode a few years before solar maximums to a positive mode at and following solar maximums. The IPCC claims the tiny variations in solar activity during solar cycles cannot affect climate, but this paper and many others demonstrate solar activity has greatly amplified effects upon climate via ocean oscillations, atmospheric oscillations such as the Madden-Julian oscillation and Quasi-biennial oscillation, stratospheric ozone, and sunshine hours/clouds”.
Journal of Climate 2013 ; e-View

The recent changes in WUWT, probably made to free up some of Anthony’s time, have born fruit. Ripe juicy fruit.

I wanted to contribute, but they only provide for payment by Credit Card. Why not PayPal? I won’t give my credit card details unless I’m 100% sure of the security measures provided. In this case I have no such assurance and so, alas, I am unable to contribute. Unless they provide for Paypal of course.

Erratum: “Any effort to do stop CO2 emissions. . .” should be “Any effort to stop CO2 emissions . . .”

“People will be convinced…”
“game changer”
etc.
I’m going to contribute, but I in no way buy that this will alter the climate debate in some fundamental way. Bit of the old “pie in the sky.”

I agree with J.A. – we are dealing not with rational beings but with idiots – followers of a faith as sinister as any we have seen in recorded history.
Yes,, I’d like to contribute, but not by card – sorry. Paypal would be OK.

No time to read the comments, but I did have time to contribute. I look forward to seeing the finished video. Thank you, Anthony!

I suggest they set up a PayPal account for contributions.

So… the IPCC is now deemed completely correct ???!!! ROTFLMAO 😉 🙂 🙄
It’s all CO2?? Stop thinking the sun affects the climate ??
Tell me, who just hacked WUWT?

I don’t think the justification for passing an Australian carbon tax has a whole lot to do with local damage over a ten-year period. If you want to “change the debate” perhaps you should examine the costs to Australia of 800-1100 ppm(how much carbon is in those clathrates everyone is so excited about?) over the next several centuries.
It is true that Australia alone can’t stop global BAU emissions, but thinking that this calculation is going to convince anyone who is worried about climate is just a little revealing of the average information level on this forum.

I’ll contribute. Make sure to install the best anti-DoS and other hacker safe guards on the site. You know it will be a target for the malevolent types out there. They will be funded by Big Green, a.k.a. the crony capitalist bunch, and the rent seekers from the “centers for higher education.”

I just contributed.

I’m a big fan of Topher videos, alas this particular venture epitomises why us sceptics have not and can not win the AGW debate for decades to come. (Does everybody realise that the resurgence of the alarmists side is a mere El Nino away?)
Firstly, we fight too cleanly and honourably, like in old John Wayne movies. Reality is so much different.
Secondly, so long as we concede that AGW exists and the debate is a matter of degree, then the debate will last for as long as it takes for that degree to be narrowed down. That will be a life time or more away. In the meantime, the other side has annexed our universities, our institutions, our political parties and even the upper echelons of some of our biggest companies. Now they’re after primary and pre-schools. Good luck winning any debate whatsoever when these kids become voting adults.
In summary, I regretfully dub my side- the sceptics side -The Chamberlains.
My heart and mind wishes I could dub us The Churchills.

“Its controversial that title …”
No it isn’t. It is only controversial to non Brits who do not understand the difference between being a “Lord” and a member of the “House of Lords”.
His title of Viscount is hereditary. It is passed down from father to son. It is on his passport. In the UK you would call a Viscount: Lord. So the title is 100% genuine.
In days gone by, every Lord would automatically have been eligible to sit in the House of Lords. However, and this is where it gets difficult, our members of parliament have made some new rules stating that that is no longer the case. This allows them to select the members of the upper house in an attempt to stop them chucking out all their proposed legislation.
The question remains, although parliament has made some new rules, were they entitled to do it and should they have any effect? You might think that what parliament says, goes, but we have the Queen involved here as well. Parliament may be trying to change something that only the queen can change, technically. His Lordship, ever a stickler, is merely pointing this out. I appreciate that 99% of the world will probably not understand and it gives scope for his enemies.
So, in summary, he is a Lord but for all pratical purposes he is not a member of the House of Lords, but, even so, he may actually be a member on a technicality.

“The original calculations were done by Lord Christopher Monckton who has since presented his conclusions to audiences of scientists, economists and mathematicians all over the world.”
===========================================================
I remember Monckton referring a couple of times to other scientists who allegedly proved that thing about future costs. Now the calculations have become his own? This is not a good sign.
Second, he never presented even a more or less convincing outline of such a study. Everyone can claim to have proven whatever. My guess is that Monckton does not have a case here, just speculations.
Third, making a film based on assumption that the IPCC is right and speculations on the other side is a bad service, wrong strategy and distraction from the core issues. It is a good strategy only for warmists, because such an approach gives the public the impression that the IPCC is indeed right, because why would anyone make a film assuming that the IPCC is right if they were wrong.
Fourth, it is much easier to demonstrate that the IPCC is wrong on the core issues. In short, the “greenhouse effect” as presented by the IPCC (warming by back radiation) is even in theory physically absurd and therefore impossible. “Global warming” is practically impossible to prove scientifically, like any other “global” warmings and coolings in the past. Attributions (global warming causes…) are simply illogical, because they contradict the definition of “global warming”. All this is very simple to demonstrate in such a way that laypersons like politicians and journalists could understand it.

dp says:
May 2, 2013 at 8:54 am
We got to where we are now (almost) by ignoring climate. The present obsession with it can be viewed as a political strategy or a mental illness (fear of the unknowable).

He chose some wrong interviewees
REPLY: Why Harry? Because he didn’t ask your office buddy at UCAR, Trenberth? Sour grapes. – Anthony

$100 sent

So, is saying we should adapt to climate change an admission that the climate is changing?

Sent $50..
Thanks Anthony only gave because of your recommendation

Although I support this sort of effort, I still think we’re fighting the wrong battle. I’m sure there is a portion of the CAGW crowd that truly believes that higher CO2 levels is a serious problem and will lead to catastrophe. That’s not really the group we need to be most concerned about. The real problem group is the socialist left that has adopted CAGW as another means to implement their agenda which is to control the world through government with them in charge as the elite ruling class. Right or wrong in the CAGW debate is irrelevant to these people. They only need to have enough low information people on board with them and to convince enough politicians to implement their policies. Of course this is a lot easier when they are already in high government positions. You’ll never see these people debate the CAGW issue because they can’t win a rational debate and therefore it doesn’t serve their purpose. Ignoring the truth and repetition of the lie is what works for them.
The mainstream media will be of no help in this battle because they consider themselves part of the left elite. For over 4 years now I’ve heard President Obama stand in front of the gathered media and lie about all sorts of things. The latest is that the Head Start preschool program makes a significant difference in the lives of children in the long run and therefore we need more of it. Nearly all studies on the subject conclude the difference is erased by the end of the first grade. The media is unquestioning. The truth doesn’t matter because truth is not the agenda. The agenda is to indoctrinate children as young as possible in the socialist “government is a vital part of your life” mindset.
The battle we need to be fighting is that the socialist left agenda is wrong and we need to get them out of power. If that were to happen then all these schemes like CO2 regulation whose real purpose is to control your behavior would disappear.
Although it’s necessary to have the correct scientific and economic analyses available to refute the true CAGW believers, it’s of no help to defeat the socialist left and their agenda of controlling the world.

I donated because Christopher is a great presenter and it is about time for an easy to understand youtube climate video bite that I can send to everybody I know.
I also suggested to provide the video with subtitles (closed captioning it is called?) in several languages, to enlarge the target group. I offered to translate into Dutch.
Anybody here who speaks German/French/Spanish/Portugese/Japanese/etc and willing to translate? Let Christopher know at the link above!

CO2 is a “trace gas” in air, insignificant by definition. It absorbs 1/7th as much IR, heat energy, from sunlight as water vapor which has 80 times as many molecules capturing 560 times as much heat making 99.8% of all “global warming.” CO2 does only 0.2% of it. For this we should destroy our economy?
Carbon combustion generates 80% of our energy. Control and taxing of carbon would give the elected ruling class more power and money than anything since the Magna Carta of 1215 AD.
See The Two Minute Conservative via Google or: http://tinyurl.com/7jgh7wv When you speak ladies will swoon and liberal gentlemen will weep.

@JohnWho
Yes.

@milodonharlani “Assume a lighting tech & video/sound cam operator, each at ~$100/hour for four or five hours filming & set-up. Call it $1000.” 10 hours of labour for a 7 minute final product??? can I work for you PLEASE! I thought the civil service was slow! I say again this is just a money making scam.
If you want to donate to someone Anthony Watts has done more with less, and has done it better than this guy ever could.
Anyone donating to the sad little youtube video should at least give an equal amount to Anthony for all this YEARS of service.
You know, I donated to WUWT years ago, maybe it’s time to donate again.

It is a nice idea, but it is not a new one (the substance of the economic argument, not the idea of turning it into a video). Many economists have made the same point. For example, Bjorn Lomborg has long argued that, accepting everything the IPCC says about climate change as accurate, it still makes no sense to adopt hugely expensive measures to address it — that was the central theme of his book, Cool It! (2007), aimed at a non-technical (in econ, not climatology or physics) audience, and his many op-eds since then. William Nordhaus reached broadly similar conclusions in his book, A Question of Balance (2008), and has expanded on the theme in lots of follow-up in the economic literature since then as well.

Anthony, I am disappointed that you would concede the “reality” of AGW. Human activity is a statistically insignificant fraction of an infinitesimal factor in climate change. Whatever effect it does have is way too small to separate it from the thousands of other factors driving climate change. Is that a “reality”?
The Oregon Petition statement has it right: there is no discernible effect. That is what skepticism should proceed from. We have an airtight (pun intended) case, why make concessions like that? All that does is let the alarmists say, “AHA! You believe it too,” with the corollaries that “You’re lying after all,” and “SEE! We’ve been right all along.”
Sorry, but I see no good reason to leave them that kind of opening. What do other posters here think?

REPLY: and I’m disappointed that you don’t pay any attention to absorption spectra. My involvement isn’t a debate – I’m already promoting this. Please, either help or get out of the way. – Anthony

Anthony, I do pay attention to absorption spectra, but regardless of these or other properties of carbon dioxide its effect on climate is nugatory. Such properties as CO2 does have do not make it a discernible factor in climate change, in the circumjstances, and with human activity representing a tiny percentage of CO2 activity, human activity is even less of a factor.
I’m sorry if you perceive this as “getting in the way.” My object in commenting here is to share whatever perspectives I have and help to rally the troops – and more personally, to support your efforts, not hinder them. You are doing a tremendous service and the last thing I want to do is get in the way of it. But I also see a need for a solidly united front on the issue, if we are to make any headway against alarmism.

This video seems aimed at VERIFYING the false claims of bad science while weakly advocating that we have to adapt to the false claims. Its only argument is economic, and it’s pretty clear that the EU Parliament is already acting on the economic problem by canceling subsidies. So what’s the point in persuading the public of the economic problem while helping to advance the bad science?
Sorry, no support here.

Oh dear!
Lord Monckton encourages you to make a video, but his lordship doesn’t have the cash at hand to make it happen? So he doesn’t put his money where his mouth is? Is his money tight at the moment, or does he simply prefer to let others pay for an insecure investment?

Anthony,
Just a comment.
I am not involved in any way with what ‘2fer’ is doing but I do encourage the nay sayers to check out his manner of delivery and his ability to present cogent facts by checking out what he has already done.
And if anyone doesn’t like it then do your own.
Its a case of put up or shut up!

Reich.Eschhaus says:
May 2, 2013 at 8:22 pm
===========
Tried to dissect your name, to no avail.
If German, your writing hides it well.

I have donated.
I have not read all the comments , so I apologise in advance if I’m repeating what someone else has said.
I don’t see this video as being aimed at the warmists as such. I think it is and should be aimed squarely at the politicians ( and financiers). As I understand it, the promoters are saying ” Lets assume the IPCC is correct, so there is no distracting scientific arguments afterwards” This does not mean anyone is agreeing with the IPCC.Then lets just look at the economics based on what the IPCC says.
This whole issue has fundamentally been about politics and money — so that is why this idea is great. Show everyone what a waste of money it has and will be. This will get the politicians rattled when the public start asking awkward questions.

Please allow me to weigh in on some of the questions being raised by readers here on this thread.
Firstly, Paypal is on it’s way, unfortunately due to the ‘not for profit’ status of the Lord Monckton Foundation, the account has proven more complex to set up than a normal account. We are getting it done as a matter of top priority and we will let you know as soon as it’s able to be used.
I’ve seen a few people suggest that the project should not ‘assume the
IPCC is correct’. Some people feel that this is too much of a
concession and undermines the potential benefit of the project. I see
it differently and Ross P is spot on in his reasoning.
Ross P: “As I understand it, the promoters are saying ” Lets assume the IPCC is correct, so there is no distracting scientific arguments afterwards” This does not mean anyone is agreeing with the IPCC. Then lets just look at the economics based on what the IPCC says.”
My approach is that I am determined to INFLUENCE people. Influencing is
different to arguing. I could ‘argue a point’ which would be applauded
by many, but influence none.
The key to influencing someone is to meet them where they are at, and
THEN to shift them, not to start at YOUR position and try and drag them
over. Getting someone to go from ‘We’ll all be killed by AGW’ to
‘Whatever, there’s no problem’ in a single step is pretty much
impossible, but it is possible to shift people one small step at a time.
The hardest shift is the first one. That first shift, no matter how
small, is the key to releasing them to explore and discover for themselves.
The 7 minute video IS that first step, aimed at shifting people from ‘We
need carbon taxes to combat climate change’ to ‘carbon taxes are a
waste, we should adapt as necessary to climate change’. This is an
achievable shift.
Some people will stop there, however there is another step wrapped up in
the project. The interviews. The interviews are what finish the job
once the 7 minute doco has caused someone to budge. There is no telling
how far someone might be influenced by the time they have watched the
whole project and been exposed to experts with logical, reasonable and factual counter-arguments to the consensus they thought existed, but it’s crucial we start with a SMALL step.
To be clear, my own personal view on the subject is that whilst Co2 IS a
‘greenhouse gas’ it is of negligible effect within the context of earths
climate and may in fact be beneficial. In no way do I personally accept
the IPCCs claims. I could ‘argue’ this point in a video and would gain
the applause of some, but it would influence no-one.
Thanks again for the incredible support so far and please, do whatever you can to spread the word!

Government is presently attempting to control fossil products – this plan asks goverment to take action over the conceded warming effects which will be imaginitively noted by the Corps of Engineers and others. I fear big government will be more invoved controlling both mitigation and adaption too.

Contribution made!

[i]”Janice Moore says:
May 2, 2013 at 10:17 pm
“50:1″ or “50 to 1″ is FAR too clinical and sterile… In the U.S, such an abstract title would only appeal to scientists.”[/i]
Okay, I’m not from the U.S. but I disagree wholeheartedly. “50:1” is punchy and to the point, like the “350” campaign, except this is based on reason and logic, not some arbitrary number.
I do see your point about the fast talking though. We Brits and the Auzzies do talk naturally faster than our American friends, therefore are probably more adept at absorbing spoken information a little quicker.

Topher Field says (May 2, 2013 at 10:10 pm ): “My approach is that I am determined to INFLUENCE people. Influencing is different to arguing. … The 7 minute video IS that first step, aimed at shifting people from ‘We need carbon taxes to combat climate change’ to ‘carbon taxes are a waste, we should adapt as necessary to climate change’. … Co2 IS a ‘greenhouse gas’…”
=====================================================
Yeah, and there is “global warming”, right? I know the narrative. Monckton is never getting tired to convey this core IPCC message, he’s just inserted it again in his post on the parallel thread.
Your alleged determination does not prove that you have a case about costs. And why did you tell people that the calculations are Monckton’s original? So far I see a further promotion of the core IPCC claims. On the other side, Monckton could have presented the calculations long ago, since he mentioned it a few times.
What I see at the moment is that you are asking people for money. Yes, you have apparently influenced a few already here, but now I suggest you start arguing by presenting you calculation or whatever. Until you have done that, I do not see any reason to believe that you really have a case.

dp, thanks for your question. The key to my answer is that I will be advocating adaption AS and IF necessary. I won’t be going any deeper than that in the space of 7 minutes for obvious time reasons, but were I to be asked what that means I would say firstly that adaptation will mostly happen naturally (assuming for the purposes of the question that there is anything to actually adapt to) as part of free market decisions made by each individual according to what they deem best at the time, not top-down policy responses by politicians. If there is to be a ‘policy’ for adaptation then it needs to be evidence based and shown to be necessary, not based on modelling or theory, and certainly not based on ‘precautionary principles’ stemming from perceived threats from computer models, which is where we are now.
To be clear, ‘adaption’ is not a POLICY response which can be advocated, argued over and paid for out of taxes. Adaptation is a MARKET response as people respond to the price signals generated by changing conditions (again assuming that things do actually change).
For your own interest, I’d encourage you to look up the book ‘The Virtuous Corruption of Virtual Environmental Science’ by Prof Ainsley Kellow of the Uni of Tasmania. He blows apart many of the claims from environmental groups of X number of species going extinct every year and what have you. In fact he even demonstrates that animals which never existed have made it onto the ‘endangered species’ lists used for fundraising purposes by various animal welfare groups.
At it’s core his book demonstrates beyond doubt the dangers of making policy decisions based on ‘virtual’ science (computer modelling) and has equipped me for dealing with people who advocate such. Given your evident interest and thoughts around the ‘animal’ aspect of AGW theory and the use of animals to manipulate policy responses, I think you’d find it a pretty good read.

Only 50? Must be using very conservative figures.

Hey topher, another Devil’s Advocate question…
The warmists will say:
“Yes of course adaptation is 50 times cheaper than mitigation, that’s because it’s 50 times more profitable to offer a treatment than a cure, but prevention is way better than cure so we should still subsidise the prevention and renewable energy.”
The video will have to sow the seeds of a counter argument against this kind of attack too.
Countering the renewables argument specifically is easy, just point out how solar and wind don’t deliver a benefit of reliable energy regardless of what cost you believe you’re mitigating.
But I’m not sure how you counter the general argument of mitigation without moving out of economics and into the realm of questioning the IPCC consensus that you say you are going to accept. Perhaps highlighting that any argument by analogy (eg a medical illness) is ultimately a logical fallacy would get you halfway there, but raising doubt about mitigation is not as effective as providing certainty about the do-nothing alternative, and only real science can do that.

Topher Field says:
May 2, 2013 at 10:10 pm…………
I agree with the strategy. However it might be a good idea at the end of the video to give a point by point bullet style type rebuttal with voice over. It could be compacted into 1 minute with an intro pointing out that “even though this video started by assuming the IPCC is correct here are some sceptical points for you to look up for yourself. Don’t believe me, look it up for yourself”.
* 15 years of flat temps in face of rising co2 (not projected by most models)
* Show the IPCC divergence graph
* Sea levels have been rising since ice age & no acceleration
* Antarctic near maximum extent
* Hurricanes, no trend to worse
* They predicted less snow for Europe now we have more & they now ‘predict’ more.
etc………………

The Warmists from 350.org have also got a new film out.
The Do The Math Movie!
http://act.350.org/signup/math-movie/
The Do The Math documentary is a 42-minute film about the rising movement in the United States to change the terrifying maths of the climate crisis and challenge the fossil fuel industry. While it is set in the United States, the maths the film outlines apply globally — making it important for all of us to watch. It is in English with the option of subtitles in Chinese, French, German, Portuguese or Spanish.

I am a bit disppointed by some of the comments here.
While we can have a discussion about the science and debate whether climate sensitivity is more likely to be something under 2 rather than over 3, there most important debate for us as it will effect our lives and the lives of our children is the policy debate.
Topher’s strategy is exactly what is needed in the public domain. If the it can be said that the policy of mitigation makes us worse off – and by a large margin – we should wait and adapt to actual outcomes. This is what soceity has typically done for all slow moving issues. And this is definately a slow moving one.
My only suggestion to Topher, along with my encouragement, would be not to ignore the potential (fallacious) rebuttal that could come from alarmist. If they felt the mititgation argument was lost, they could demand rapid, centrally planned (and expensive) adaptation policy. We could end up in the same heavily taxed, hevily regulated world with unwarranted public directed investment and subsidy for private investment in things that will not be needed.

Adaptation to what ? With the cooling that a lot of people seem to predict for the coming years , the adaptation would not be the same as for warming.

Adding to Jimbo’s Missing Hot Spot link: http://joannenova.com.au/2013/04/ipcc-plays-hot-spot-hidey-games-in-ar5-denies-28-million-weather-balloons-work-properly/

I agree with Kev-in-Uk above that it is important to have a clear understanding of who the target audience is. I think he is probably right about older people, and it is also probably true that You-Tube is by nature going to potentially reach a much larger proportion of younger than older.
Even if an impact on older people can be made, I still think as a general principle with anything to do with AGW, getting a message across to under 30’s is most important.
And I also think they will be receptive. Despite relentless imprinting all their lives, it seems that this has failed. A major Mission Australia Youth Survey for 2012 (taken June 2012, released Dec 2012) covering 15 -19 yo showed that concern about “Climate Change” fell from being the number one issue in June 2011, rated at 37%, to the number 6 issue at 17% in 2012.
This Survey covered about 1.5% of the population. Unless there is something very wrong with the methodology, there has been a Weather Event comparable to a Tsunami, which of course at any time clearly proves a Climate Change. In this case, anyway, it does. Something turned over that one year period, and “commitment” or much more likely, acquiescence, collapsed. With that sort of rate of decline, this issue must now be of significance to only a core group: the Believers in Teacher, and the Spawn of Climate Rightousness. These are incorrigible and don’t matter, but it seems that 90% will be more than willing to listen.
Having previously been part of the support for this, this is remarkable. But they will need real reasons that they probably don’t currently have to assert that they do not consider this an important issue. They are not currently allowed to.
If under 20’s feel that are on firm ground to make a stand, then they will influence their parents.
If this is true for under 20’s then there must be some resonance for older people, up to 30. I suspect that in fact this collapse is actually across all age groups, to a greater or lesser degree.
Some here are concerned that by addressing the financial aspect, not science, this will be too dry. That may be the case. But by suggesting and illustrating that the costs of adaption are much less it does two things.
It removes the foreboding of looming doom that has been a major major part of this. And in itself by showing it can be “managed” it reduces it to simply a – potential – problem of an undramatic sort. By doing this it indirectly addresses “The Science”. But instead of being helplessly subject to The Findings, it drags (apparent) science back into the domain of human utility.
This depends of course how it is done, but I can see that it could be.
In any case as many others know, this is not about science it is about cultivating a response to existence in a manner designed to achieve certain aims. Whilst the validity of the claim has rested on science, the ensemble of responses has been psycho-sociological and has been intended to be. So these things are inseparable. Put a hole in it and the rest can collapse.
Whether it is the best approach I don’t know. As part of any change however, it is important.
What I wonder, given the1000000 trillion videos on You-Tube is how anyone will ever encounter it. It has always been a mystery to me how anything can be found, and I suspect 95% of the “content” has never been seen by anyone outside the maker and friends.
As with anything on the internet, genius will not only go unrecognised but will simply never be seen unless there is a very good understanding and strategy about how to make that happen. Otherwise its just make it and hope for luck.
Is there any reason to believe it can be placed effectively?
As producer, is this part of Topher’s role?
Has he triggered the viral mechanism previously?
Does producer also in effect incorporate writer/director?
Is Topher known for producing videos that use spread sheets to visually show the difference between abundance and poverty, life and death?

Topher, In Al Gores film, the glacier falling apart had a major influence for many people to change their minds. Using the same/or similar clip might be useful. Because what that actually showed was a growing glacier. Through gravity, growing glaciers find their way downhill using travel of least resistance until they meet the warmer water and calve (break off). Glaciers melt from lower warmer levels up to colder higher levels.
Also if you need filming in UK, I may be able to help.

Topher Field says (May 3, 2013 at 12:37 am ): “You will see in the description a clearly linked document named ’50 to 1 calculations and sources’.”
========================================================
Thanks, I opened it (http://o.b5z.net/i/u/10152887/f/Is_CO2_mitigation_cost-effectove_Single_Page_Lord_Monckton_Foundation_Briefing_20130411.pdf) and see my argumentation confirmed.
The point there is, in short, that local Austalian carbon tax has little influence on global warming. It is self-evident. A part is less than the whole. What a scientific discovery.
So, I suggest again that you present right here, where you are asking people to give you money, your or whoever’s calculations proving that GLOBALLY “mitigation would cost more than adaptation”. Until now neither you nor Monckton have done that, either here or anywhere else.

Just saw Monckton’s comment above as I posted my previous, which may make it redundant.

You guys thought about ‘Kickstarter’ as a way to get funding?p

Monckton of Brenchley says (May 3, 2013 at 10:10 am): “The bottom line is simple enough to understand. If it is 50 times less cost-effective to mitigate today in Australia than to adapt the day after tomorrow, then scaling up globally …”
======================================================
The bottom line is that you are asking people for money here presenting to them a claim that you apparently have never proven to be correct. Otherwise you would not have beaten around the bush, but instead presented your calculations already.
My strong impression is so far that you are selling a fiction here. You might well be able to make a propaganda film based on a fiction or on unproven claims. One important problem of this approach, however, as I told you before, is that your claim can be easily dismissed, but your support of the core IPCC claims will not get unnoticed by the viewers, so in effect you would effectively strengthen the core IPCC position, what you in fact have been doing all the time by posting on climate blogs, despite some critique you expressed concerning minor or secondary inconsistencies.

Topher says further up thread. “…….. be influenced by the time they have watched the whole project and been exposed to experts with logical, reasonable and factual counter-arguments to the consensus they thought existed,”
Some years ago the following comment was made on this webste.
“Today, one of the most powerful religions in the Western World is environmentalism. En-vironmentalism seems to be the religion of choice for urban atheists. Why do I say it’s a re-ligion? Well, just look at the beliefs. If you look carefully, you see that environmentalism is in fact a perfect 21st century remapping of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and myths.
There’s an initial Eden, a paradise, a state of grace and unity with nature, there’s a fall from grace into a state of pollution as a result of eating from the tree of knowledge, and as a re-sult of our actions there is a judgment day coming for us all. We are all energy sinners, doomed to die, unless we seek salvation, which is now called sustainability. Sustainability is salvation in the church of the environment. AGW theory has become part and parcel of this growing Pantheist ideology.”
My concern is based on my own experiences, that people are not interested in facts and data irrespective of how cleverly presented. They are driven by emotional and irrational beliefs that no amount of data and facts wil budge. They believe there is a consensus and the experts say lots of money needs to be spent to save the planet for the sake of our children and grandchildren.
In my opinion only the climate itself (Mother Gaia) has the capacity to shake the foundations of these people’s religious beliefs. And that will take a long time.
However this is my personal opinion and it may be entirely wrong. I sincerely hope so and wish you good luck and look forward to viewing the video.

@James Allison says:
May 3, 2013 at 12:09 pm
You may be right about the strength of the adherence to this orthodoxy. But you may also have become a prisoner of the propaganda yourself. We constantly hear cries that the “people” demand action on AGW from their governments. That is simply a huge f… lie.
There are a very small number of agitators, with a committed support base. Those that are religiously inviolate is not large. Those that have accepted the orthodoxy is much larger, but still, is not the majority. And they don’t all think that something should be done at any cost.
The core problem in countering this is that there has not been a coherent alternative position available. People must have something to hand their hats on. If they are rejecting a comprehensive package, it is much easier to do – maybe impossible to do otherwise – if there is an equally complete alternative. From the above, Topher seems to understand this.
I think you are assuming that this must cut through with the truly committed. It won’t and it doesn’t have to. This is a matter of getting through to those who think there is (or might be) a problem but have no where to go with this. And for those already disinclined to adhere, to give them a solid base to strengthen resolve and from which to refute.
Unrelated to the video, I found your relationship with foundational aspects of Christianity interesting. Indeed a very close fit, and perhaps not surprising. I think one thing that can be done, apart from waiting on Gaia to lose fever, is to show to people to what degree these adherents have in effect inhabited the carcass of a human religion and replaced it with something essentially non-human, devoid of human values and morality.
They can be shown to be parasites and degraders in this way. Again, it doesn’t matter what the Believers think. With a change in perception, they isolate themselves.

jc says (May 3, 2013 at 12:12 pm): “If, somehow, it comes across very clearly that the IPCC is untrustworthy, and that despite their machinations they can be undone on their own terms, I think it can succeed. … Without knowing exactly how the video is to be paced and structured, and how and what will be emphasized, its not really possible to make a judgement on the type of risk you bring up.”
=========================================================
There is no reason to believe, that it can “come across very clearly that the IPCC is untrustworthy” on economic issues, because nobody has presented anything scientific that proves that point. So far we have only heard/read repeated claims by Monckton. At first it were references to other people, now it has become Monckton himself, but if you read the linked document they provided, you will only find a ridiculous comparison between a part and the whole.
Therefore “how the video is to be paced and structured, and how and what will be emphasized” can have some propaganda effect, right, but again, they do not seem to have a scientific point. I do not like propaganda, sorry. As I do not like supporting the core IPCC statements for no scientific reasons, what Monckton has been doing all the time.

Here in Australia, Topher has form (see TophersUnpopularView channel on YouTube). I consider him an excellent communicator and more than able to carry the argument forward. Since Australia’s Carbon Tax is being used as the prime example, it is encouraging to see an Australian pushing against it for all the world to see.
My suggestion is to make the movie, then follow up with a series of short ‘Myth Busters’ type videos that focus on individual Green porkies such as polar bears, 100m sea rise, Great Barrier Reef, etc, etc. etc.
Good luck Topher, I will be making a contribution via Paypal.

richardscourtney says:
May 3, 2013 at 7:56 am
cwon14:
Your post at May 3, 2013 at 7:36 am displays complete misunderstanding of the existing reality.
It says
“Perhaps many of the skeptic/lukewarm warriors are living in their own false status quo? Neither peace or victory can be expected any time soon with pandering ideas like accepting IPCC meme’s.”
In reality we climate realists have won and the warmunist defeat was conceded at Copenhagen years ago.
The priority now is to limit the damage from the AGW-scare as it fades away.
Clearly, you have missed my explanation of this need to limit the damage so I will repeat it.
The AGW-scare was killed at the failed 2009 IPCC Conference in Copenhagen. I said then that the scare would continue to move as though alive in similar manner to a beheaded chicken running around a farmyard. It continues to provide the movements of life but it is already dead. And its deathly movements provide an especial problem.
Nobody will declare the AGW-scare dead: it will slowly fade away. This is similar to the ‘acid rain’ scare of the 1980s. Few remember that scare unless reminded of it but its effects still have effects; e.g. the Large Combustion Plant Directive (LCPD) exists. Importantly, the bureaucracy which the EU established to operate the LCPD still exists. And those bureaucrats justify their jobs by imposing ever more stringent, always more pointless, and extremely expensive emission limits which are causing enforced closure of UK power stations.
Bureaucracies are difficult to eradicate and impossible to nullify.
As the AGW-scare fades away those in ‘prime positions’ will attempt to establish rules and bureaucracies to impose those rules which provide immortality to their objectives. Guarding against those attempts now needs to be a serious activity.
The message of the proposed video is precisely what needs to be publicised at this time.
I find your post rather confusing. How have we won and how will this scam fade away when the only example you give is of the machinary of scams continuing and growing stronger – we’ve lost.
We’ve lost because we will continue to be penalised by the destructive policies to the poor and middle class and outside of the cartels businesses while those who think themselves the elite sitting on the top of pile will continue to use the emotional energy of the oik greenies to make sure their perch is secure by taking over control of every aspect of our lives.
The theme of this in itself is, quite frankly, too boring to warrant a short film which should be punchy and should offer some possibility of active response against this scam, but as others have noted, the only message it puts across is that the IPCC and therefore the whole global warming and demonisation of carbon dioxide propaganda it is manipulating by its unscientific models and use of data fraud is not an issue for sceptics.
It is a propaganda film for the warmists and for those controlling, or thinking they control, the show.
The damage is best limited by destroying the base on which this scam was built, it will follow naturally when the science fraud of temperature manipulations are addressed – that they at the highest levels of science have been hiding the fact that temperatures haven’t risen for nearly two decades while continuing temperature manipulations for their ever more shrill scaremongering to boost the destructive social and economic policies which they have helped put in place and which have grown like topsy in that time, is the only story worth telling as a sound bite short film, imo..

Richard – I read your post, I’m confused by your claim that we have won because the rip off machinery is already in place, the Copenhagen set back has done nothing to stop the continued proliferation of economic and social policies detrimental to the majority of the world’s population built on this science fraud.
“As the AGW-scare fades away those in ‘prime positions’ will attempt to establish rules and bureaucracies to impose those rules which provide immortality to their objectives. Guarding against those attempts now needs to be a serious activity.”
The message of the proposed video is precisely what needs to be publicised at this time.
They will continue to win when the best defence you think possible is to tell them you’d be ever so grateful if they should see fit to limit their greedy consumption of our goods, chattels and freedoms by not creating any more perks for themselves..
We’ve lost already, the draconian measures are already in place and goverments fully behind it all, we’re the one’s running around like headless chickens.
More of the same in one variation or another is inevitable unless this science fraud on which it was all built is brought into the consciousness of all. No one likes to be conned, not even the greenie oiks who have been so easy to manipulate, as Maggie used them..

“The bottom line is simple enough to understand. If it is 50 times less cost-effective to mitigate today in Australia than to adapt the day after tomorrow, then scaling up globally will give much the same ratio” -Chris
Scaling out to multi-decadal or century time scales however, will not. It is surprising that many comments on this thread can understand that costs will affect people beyond the ten-year mark but somehow nobody has realized that warming keeps going too…

Contributed – where do I make my tax claim?
,blockquote>Australian Screen Production Incentive
The Australian Screen Production Incentive is the Australian Government’s primary mechanism of supporting film and television production.
It provides generous tax incentives for film, television and other screen production in Australia and is available in three streams:
the Producer Offset, to encourage the production of Australian film and television projects. For information on this offset visit Screen Australia which administers this scheme
the Location Offset, a 16.5 per cent rebate which supports the production of large-budget film and television projects shot in Australia
the PDV Offset, a 30 per cent rebate which supports work on post, digital and visual effects production (PDV) in Australia, regardless of where a project is shot.

OOps not quite the right link in my comment above (though that will do as well)
here is the correct link to the EU report
http://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/adaptation-in-europe/at_download/file

Aren’t you a little embarrassed by how childish the ‘backup calculations’ provided by Monckton are?

Monckton of Brenchley says:
May 4, 2013 at 12:40 am
Many commenters continue to struggle with the notion of my accepting the IPCC’s central climatological estimates for the sake of argument. The worst that can happen if anyone actually believes that in adopting the IPCC’s position for the sake of argument I have adopted it altogether is that my argument that even on the basis of the IPCC’s own estimates it is 50 times costlier to mitigate today than to adapt the day after tomorrow will be seen to have still greater force.
Should we have to read your mind in a seven minute film? If it is made clear first of all that there is no problem, that the IPCC has created the illusion of AGW by faking “the consensus of climate scientists”? As you succinctly pointed out some time ago when showing that Santer admitted he had cooked the 95 report by excising the real consensus of the climate scientists that there was no AGW discernible*.
If you first informed that Houghton brought in Santer to re-write the report so as to fraudulently claim through the ‘authority’ of the IPCC that AGW was a fact when it clearly was not and the science has been corrupted ever since by the IPCC, then who wouldn’t continue to listen to the rest, however entrenched they were in the fake fisics memes of anthropogenic global warming?
Which was relaunched as “climate change” because the charlatans knew there was no global warming..
*http://larouchepac.com/node/12823
.IPCC’s Santer Admits Fraud
December 18, 2009 • 10:16AM
“Ben Santer, a climate researcher and lead IPCC author of Chapter 8 of the 1995 IPCC Working Group I Report, admitted last night on Jesse Ventura’s Conspiracy Theory national TV show, that he had deleted sections of the IPCC chapter which stated that humans were not responsible for climate change. Accusing Santer of altering opinions in the IPCC report that disagreed with the man-made thesis behind climate change, Lord Monckton told the program, “In comes Santer and re-writes it for them, after the scientists have sent in their finalized draft, and that finalized draft said at five different places, there is no discernable human effect on global temperature — I’ve seen a copy of this — Santer went through, crossed out all of those, and substituted a new conclusion, and this has been the official conclusion ever since.””
Then follow with the milk sop of 50 to 1.
That will certainly give them a solid first step into exploring the science corruption promoted by the IPCC and from this promoted by all the once great science bodies now in control of the same agenda which informed Houghton and the IPCC contrived.

@Greg House says:
May 3, 2013 at 1:19 pm
“There is no reason to believe, that it can “come across very clearly that the IPCC is untrustworthy” on economic issues, because nobody has presented anything scientific that proves that point.”
———————————————————————————————————————-
That the IPCC is untrustworthy is established. It is the very spawn of that.
You have revealed yourself.
You are a creature a deceit.
An abuse of human trust.
Read my post of 4.02am above.
It describes you. You are an offense to all things of real value.

I continue to suspect the people who need to see this will not watch. If they do, they will dismiss the math as tricky skeptic math, not what the “scientists” know….
What about a tv series, plus availability on YouTube, in a debate format. Every week an expert skeptic on an aspect of the problem will debate a “climate scientist.” Citizen scientists would be encouraged to participate…. The AGW “climate scientists” won’t debate? Ok. List the credentials of all the ones invited to participate and make an honest effort to portray their thinking through research papers and news comments. Put a mannequin in the chair.
Next week repeat the exercise with another expert citizen scientist, or Lindzen or Pat Michaels or Fred Singer or…. against yet another mannequin.
Force the engagement the AGW folk refuse to have.
Here’s a list of possible topics I just copied from Cook’s SKS site, with their vapid uninformed rebuttals. Take ’em out, on every subject, not merely cost.
Global Warming & Climate Change Myths
Here is a summary of global warming and climate change myths, sorted by recent popularity vs what science says. Click the response for a more detailed response. You can also view them sorted by taxonomy, by popularity, in a print-friendly version, with short URLs or with fixed numbers you can use for permanent references.
Climate Myth vs What the Science Says
1 “Climate’s changed before” Climate reacts to whatever forces it to change at the time; humans are now the dominant forcing.
2 “It’s the sun” In the last 35 years of global warming, sun and climate have been going in opposite directions
3 “It’s not bad” Negative impacts of global warming on agriculture, health & environment far outweigh any positives.
4 “There is no consensus” 97% of climate experts agree humans are causing global warming.
5 “It’s cooling” The last decade 2000-2009 was the hottest on record.
6 “Models are unreliable” Models successfully reproduce temperatures since 1900 globally, by land, in the air and the ocean.
7 “Temp record is unreliable” The warming trend is the same in rural and urban areas, measured by thermometers and satellites.
8 “Animals and plants can adapt” Global warming will cause mass extinctions of species that cannot adapt on short time scales.
9 “It hasn’t warmed since 1998” For global records, 2010 is the hottest year on record, tied with 2005.
10 “Antarctica is gaining ice” Satellites measure Antarctica losing land ice at an accelerating rate.
11 “Ice age predicted in the 70s” The vast majority of climate papers in the 1970s predicted warming.
12 “CO2 lags temperature” CO2 didn’t initiate warming from past ice ages but it did amplify the warming.
13 “Climate sensitivity is low” Net positive feedback is confirmed by many different lines of evidence.
14 “We’re heading into an ice age” Worry about global warming impacts in the next 100 years, not an ice age in over 10,000 years.
15 “Ocean acidification isn’t serious” Ocean acidification threatens entire marine food chains.
16 “Hockey stick is broken” Recent studies agree that recent global temperatures are unprecedented in the last 1000 years.
17 “Climategate CRU emails suggest conspiracy” A number of investigations have cleared scientists of any wrongdoing in the media-hyped email incident.
18 “Hurricanes aren’t linked to global warming” There is increasing evidence that hurricanes are getting stronger due to global warming.
19 “Al Gore got it wrong” Al Gore book is quite accurate, and far more accurate than contrarian books.
20 “Glaciers are growing” Most glaciers are retreating, posing a serious problem for millions who rely on glaciers for water.
21 “It’s cosmic rays” Cosmic rays show no trend over the last 30 years & have had little impact on recent global warming.
22 “1934 – hottest year on record” 1934 was one of the hottest years in the US, not globally.
23 “It’s freaking cold!” A local cold day has nothing to do with the long-term trend of increasing global temperatures.
24 “Extreme weather isn’t caused by global warming” Extreme weather events are being made more frequent and worse by global warming.
25 “Sea level rise is exaggerated” A variety of different measurements find steadily rising sea levels over the past century.
26 “It’s Urban Heat Island effect” Urban and rural regions show the same warming trend.
27 “Medieval Warm Period was warmer” Globally averaged temperature now is higher than global temperature in medieval times.
28 “Mars is warming” Mars is not warming globally.
29 “Arctic icemelt is a natural cycle” Thick arctic sea ice is undergoing a rapid retreat.
30 “Increasing CO2 has little to no effect” The strong CO2 effect has been observed by many different measurements.
31 “Oceans are cooling” The most recent ocean measurements show consistent warming.
32 “It’s a 1500 year cycle” Ancient natural cycles are irrelevant for attributing recent global warming to humans.
33 “Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions” The natural cycle adds and removes CO2 to keep a balance; humans add extra CO2 without removing any.
34 “IPCC is alarmist”
Numerous papers have documented how IPCC predictions are more likely to underestimate the climate response.
35 “Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas”
Rising CO2 increases atmospheric water vapor, which makes global warming much worse.
36 “Polar bear numbers are increasing” Polar bears are in danger of extinction as well as many other species.
37 “CO2 limits will harm the economy”
The benefits of a price on carbon outweigh the costs several times over.
38 “It’s not happening”
There are many lines of evidence indicating global warming is unequivocal.
39 “Greenland was green” Other parts of the earth got colder when Greenland got warmer.
40 “Greenland is gaining ice” Greenland on the whole is losing ice, as confirmed by satellite measurement.
41 “CO2 is not a pollutant”
Through its impacts on the climate, CO2 presents a danger to public health and welfare, and thus qualifies as an air pollutant
42 “CO2 is plant food”
The effects of enhanced CO2 on terrestrial plants are variable and complex and dependent on numerous factors
43 “Other planets are warming” Mars and Jupiter are not warming, and anyway the sun has recently been cooling slightly.
44 “Arctic sea ice has recovered” Thick arctic sea ice is in rapid retreat.
45 “There’s no empirical evidence” There are multiple lines of direct observations that humans are causing global warming.
46 “We’re coming out of the Little Ice Age”
Scientists have determined that the factors which caused the Little Ice Age cooling are not currently causing global warming
47 “There’s no correlation between CO2 and temperature” There is long-term correlation between CO2 and global temperature; other effects are short-term.
48 “It cooled mid-century” Mid-century cooling involved aerosols and is irrelevant for recent global warming.
49 “CO2 was higher in the past” When CO2 was higher in the past, the sun was cooler.
50 “It warmed before 1940 when CO2 was low” Early 20th century warming is due to several causes, including rising CO2.
51 “Global warming stopped in 1998, 1995, 2002, 2007, 2010, ????”
Global temperature is still rising and 2010 was the hottest recorded.
52 “Satellites show no warming in the troposphere” The most recent satellite data show that the earth as a whole is warming.
53 “It’s aerosols” Aerosols have been masking global warming, which would be worse otherwise.
54 “It’s El Niño” El Nino has no trend and so is not responsible for the trend of global warming.
55 “2009-2010 winter saw record cold spells” A cold day in Chicago in winter has nothing to do with the trend of global warming.
56 “It’s a natural cycle” No known natural forcing fits the fingerprints of observed warming except anthropogenic greenhouse gases.
57 “Mt. Kilimanjaro’s ice loss is due to land use” Most glaciers are in rapid retreat worldwide, notwithstanding a few complicated cases.
58 “There’s no tropospheric hot spot” We see a clear “short-term hot spot” – there’s various evidence for a “long-term hot spot”.
59 “It’s not us” Multiple sets of independent observations find a human fingerprint on climate change.
60 “It’s Pacific Decadal Oscillation” The PDO shows no trend, and therefore the PDO is not responsible for the trend of global warming.
61 “IPCC were wrong about Himalayan glaciers”
Glaciers are in rapid retreat worldwide, despite 1 error in 1 paragraph in a 1000 page IPCC report.
62 “Scientists can’t even predict weather” Weather and climate are different; climate predictions do not need weather detail.
63 “Greenhouse effect has been falsified” The greenhouse effect is standard physics and confirmed by observations.
64 “2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory” The 2nd law of thermodynamics is consistent with the greenhouse effect which is directly observed.
65 “CO2 limits will hurt the poor”
Those who contribute the least greenhouse gases will be most impacted by climate change.
66 “The science isn’t settled” That human CO2 is causing global warming is known with high certainty & confirmed by observations.
67 “Clouds provide negative feedback” Evidence is building that net cloud feedback is likely positive and unlikely to be strongly negative.
68 “Sea level rise predictions are exaggerated” Sea level rise is now increasing faster than predicted due to unexpectedly rapid ice melting.
69 “It’s the ocean” The oceans are warming and moreover are becoming more acidic, threatening the food chain.
70 “IPCC were wrong about Amazon rainforests” The IPCC statement on Amazon rainforests was correct, and was incorrectly reported in some media.
71 “Corals are resilient to bleaching” Globally about 1% of coral is dying out each year.
72 “Volcanoes emit more CO2 than humans” Humans emit 100 times more CO2 than volcanoes.
73 “CO2 effect is saturated” Direct measurements find that rising CO2 is trapping more heat.
74 “Greenland ice sheet won’t collapse” When Greenland was 3 to 5 degrees C warmer than today, a large portion of the Ice Sheet melted.
75 “CO2 is just a trace gas” Many substances are dangerous even in trace amounts; what really matters is the total amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.
76 “It’s methane” Methane plays a minor role in global warming but could get much worse if permafrost starts to melt.
77 “CO2 has a short residence time” Excess CO2 from human emissions has a long residence time of over 100 years
78 “CO2 measurements are suspect” CO2 levels are measured by hundreds of stations across the globe, all reporting the same trend.
79 “Humidity is falling” Multiple lines of independent evidence indicate humidity is rising and provides positive feedback.
80 “500 scientists refute the consensus” Around 97% of climate experts agree that humans are causing global warming.
81 “Neptune is warming” And the sun is cooling.
82 “Springs aren’t advancing” Hundreds of flowers across the UK are flowering earlier now than any time in 250 years.
83 “Jupiter is warming” Jupiter is not warming, and anyway the sun is cooling.
84 “It’s land use” Land use plays a minor role in climate change, although carbon sequestration may help to mitigate.
85 “Scientists tried to ‘hide the decline’ in global temperature” The ‘decline’ refers to a decline in northern tree-rings, not global temperature, and is openly discussed in papers and the IPCC reports.
86 “CO2 is not increasing” CO2 is increasing rapidly, and is reaching levels not seen on the earth for millions of years.
87 “Record snowfall disproves global warming” Warming leads to increased evaporation and precipitation, which falls as increased snow in winter.
88 “They changed the name from global warming to climate change” ‘Global warming’ and ‘climate change’ mean different things and have both been used for decades.
89 “Solar Cycle Length proves its the sun” The sun has not warmed since 1970 and so cannot be driving global warming.
90 “CO2 is coming from the ocean” The ocean is absorbing massive amounts of CO2, and is becoming more acidic as a result.
91 “IPCC overestimate temperature rise” Monckton used the IPCC equation in an inappropriate manner.
92 “Pluto is warming” And the sun has been recently cooling.
93 “CO2 is not the only driver of climate” Theory, models and direct measurement confirm CO2 is currently the main driver of climate change.
94 “Peer review process was corrupted” An Independent Review concluded that CRU’s actions were normal and didn’t threaten the integrity of peer review.
95 “Arctic was warmer in 1940”
The actual data show high northern latitudes are warmer today than in 1940.
96 “Southern sea ice is increasing” Antarctic sea ice has grown in recent decades despite the Southern Ocean warming at the same time.
97 “CO2 limits will make little difference”
If every nation agrees to limit CO2 emissions, we can achieve significant cuts on a global scale.
98 “Sea level rise is decelerating”
Global sea level data shows that sea level rise has been increasing since 1880 while future sea level rise predictions are based on physics, not statistics.
99 “Renewable energy is too expensive”
When you account for all of the costs associated with burning coal and other fossil fuels, like air pollution and health effects, in reality they are significantly more expensive than most renewable energy sources.
100 “It’s microsite influences” Microsite influences on temperature changes are minimal; good and bad sites show the same trend.
101 “Phil Jones says no global warming since 1995” Phil Jones was misquoted.
102 “Humans are too insignificant to affect global climate” Humans are small but powerful, and human CO2 emissions are causing global warming.
103 “Lindzen and Choi find low climate sensitivity” Lindzen and Choi’s paper is viewed as unacceptably flawed by other climate scientists.
104 “Dropped stations introduce warming bias” If the dropped stations had been kept, the temperature would actually be slightly higher.
105 “It’s too hard” Scientific studies have determined that current technology is sufficient to reduce greenhouse gas emissions enough to avoid dangerous climate change.
106 “It’s not urgent”
A large amount of warming is delayed, and if we don’t act now we could pass tipping points.
107 “It’s albedo” Albedo change in the Arctic, due to receding ice, is increasing global warming.
108 “Tree-rings diverge from temperature after 1960” This is a detail that is complex, local, and irrelevant to the observed global warming trend.
109 “It’s soot”
Soot stays in the atmosphere for days to weeks; carbon dioxide causes warming for centuries.
110 “Hansen’s 1988 prediction was wrong”
Jim Hansen had several possible scenarios; his mid-level scenario B was right.
111 “Roy Spencer finds negative feedback” Spencer’s model is too simple, excluding important factors like ocean dynamics and treats cloud feedbacks as forcings.
112 “It’s global brightening” This is a complex aerosol effect with unclear temperature significance.
113 “Arctic sea ice loss is matched by Antarctic sea ice gain” Arctic sea ice loss is three times greater than Antarctic sea ice gain.
114 “It’s a climate regime shift” There is no evidence that climate has chaotic “regimes” on a long-term basis.
115 “Earth hasn’t warmed as much as expected” This argument ignores the cooling effect of aerosols and the planet’s thermal inertia.
116 “Solar cycles cause global warming” Over recent decades, the sun has been slightly cooling & is irrelevant to recent global warming.
117 “Less than half of published scientists endorse global warming” Around 97% of climate experts agree that humans are causing global warming.
118 “Ice isn’t melting”
Arctic sea ice has shrunk by an area equal to Western Australia, and summer or multi-year sea ice might be all gone within a decade.
119 “Over 31,000 scientists signed the OISM Petition Project” The ‘OISM petition’ was signed by only a few climatologists.
120 “IPCC ‘disappeared’ the Medieval Warm Period”
The IPCC simply updated their temperature history graphs to show the best data available at the time.
121 “Climate is chaotic and cannot be predicted” Weather is chaotic but climate is driven by Earth’s energy imbalance, which is more predictable.
122 “It’s ozone” Ozone has only a small effect.
123 “Freedom of Information (FOI) requests were ignored” An independent inquiry found CRU is a small research unit with limited resources and their rigour and honesty are not in doubt.
124 “The IPCC consensus is phoney”
113 nations signed onto the 2007 IPCC report, which is simply a summary of the current body of climate science evidence
125 “Sea level is not rising” The claim sea level isn’t rising is based on blatantly doctored graphs contradicted by observations.
126 “Climate ‘Skeptics’ are like Galileo” Modern scientists, not anti-science skeptics, follow in Galileo’s footsteps.
127 “Tuvalu sea level isn’t rising” Tuvalu sea level is rising 3 times larger than the global average.
128 “A drop in volcanic activity caused warming” Volcanoes have had no warming effect in recent global warming – if anything, a cooling effect.
129 “Trenberth can’t account for the lack of warming” Trenberth is talking about the details of energy flow, not whether global warming is happening.
130 “Renewables can’t provide baseload power”
A number of renewable sources already do provide baseload power, and we don’t need renewables to provide a large percentage of baseload power immediately.
131 “Ice Sheet losses are overestimated” A number of independent measurements find extensive ice loss from Antarctica and Greenland.
132 “CRU tampered with temperature data” An independent inquiry went back to primary data sources and were able to replicate CRU’s results.
133 “Naomi Oreskes’ study on consensus was flawed” Benny Peiser, the Oreskes critic, retracted his criticism.
134 “Melting ice isn’t warming the Arctic” Melting ice leads to more sunlight being absorbed by water, thus heating the Arctic.
135 “Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup” By breathing out, we are simply returning to the air the same CO2 that was there to begin with.
136 “Satellite error inflated Great Lakes temperatures” Temperature errors in the Great Lakes region are not used in any global temperature records.
137 “Soares finds lack of correlation between CO2 and temperature” Soares looks at short-term trends which are swamped by natural variations while ignoring the long-term correlation.
138 “We’re heading into cooling” There is no scientific basis for claims that the planet will begin to cool in the near future.
139 “Murry Salby finds CO2 rise is natural” Multiple lines of evidence make it very clear that the rise in atmospheric CO2 is due to human emissions.
140 “CO2 emissions do not correlate with CO2 concentration” That humans are causing the rise in atmospheric CO2 is confirmed by multiple isotopic analyses.
141 “The sun is getting hotter” The sun has just had the deepest solar minimum in 100 years.
142 “It’s waste heat” Greenhouse warming is adding 100 times more heat to the climate than waste heat.
143 “Water vapor in the stratosphere stopped global warming” This possibility just means that future global warming could be even worse.
144 “It warmed just as fast in 1860-1880 and 1910-1940” The warming trend over 1970 to 2001 is greater than warming from both 1860 to 1880 and 1910 to 1940.
145 “An exponential increase in CO2 will result in a linear increase in temperature” CO2 levels are rising so fast that unless we decrease emissions, global warming will accelerate this century.
146 “Record high snow cover was set in winter 2008/2009” Winter snow cover in 2008/2009 was average while the long-term trend in spring, summer, and annual snow cover is rapid decline.
147 “Mauna Loa is a volcano” The global trend is calculated from hundreds of CO2 measuring stations and confirmed by satellites.
148 “Venus doesn’t have a runaway greenhouse effect”
Venus very likely underwent a runaway or ‘moist’ greenhouse phase earlier in its history, and today is kept hot by a dense CO2 atmosphere.
149 “Antarctica is too cold to lose ice” Glaciers are sliding faster into the ocean because ice shelves are thinning due to warming oceans.
150 “Positive feedback means runaway warming” Positive feedback won’t lead to runaway warming; diminishing returns on feedback cycles limit the amplification.
151 “Skeptics were kept out of the IPCC?” Official records, Editors and emails suggest CRU scientists acted in the spirit if not the letter of IPCC rules.
152 “Water levels correlate with sunspots” This detail is irrelevant to the observation of global warming caused by humans.
153 “CO2 was higher in the late Ordovician” The sun was much cooler during the Ordovician.
154 “CO2 increase is natural, not human-caused” Many lines of evidence, including simple accounting, demonstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt that the increase in atmospheric CO2 is due to human fossil fuel burning.
155 “It’s CFCs” CFCs contribute at a small level.
156 “Scientists retracted claim that sea levels are rising” The Siddall 2009 paper was retracted because its predicted sea level rise was too low.
157 “Warming causes CO2 rise” Recent warming is due to rising CO2.
158 “Coral atolls grow as sea levels rise” Thousands of coral atolls have “drowned” when unable to grow fast enough to survive at sea level.
159 “It’s internal variability”
Internal variability can only account for small amounts of warming and cooling over periods of decades, and scientific studies have consistently shown that it cannot account for the global warming over the past century.
160 “Greenland has only lost a tiny fraction of its ice mass” Greenland’s ice loss is accelerating & will add metres of sea level rise in upcoming centuries.
161 “DMI show cooling Arctic” While summer maximums have showed little trend, the annual average Arctic temperature has risen sharply in recent decades.
162 “Renewable energy investment kills jobs” Investment in renewable energy creates more jobs than investment in fossil fuel energy.
163 “CO2 limits won’t cool the planet” CO2 limits won’t cool the planet, but they can make the difference between continued accelerating global warming to catastrophic levels vs. slowing and eventually stopping the warming at hopefully safe levels
164 “Royal Society embraces skepticism” The Royal Society still strongly state that human activity is the dominant cause of global warming.
165 “It’s only a few degrees” A few degrees of global warming has a huge impact on ice sheets, sea levels and other aspects of climate.
166 “It’s satellite microwave transmissions” Satellite transmissions are extremely small and irrelevant.
167 “CO2 only causes 35% of global warming”
CO2 and corresponding water vapor feedback are the biggest cause of global warming.
168 “Sea level fell in 2010” The temporary drop in sea level in 2010 was due to intense land flooding caused by a strong La Nina.
169 “Arctic sea ice extent was lower in the past”
Current Arctic sea ice extent is the lowest in the past several thousand years.
170 “We didn’t have global warming during the Industrial Revolution” CO2 emissions were much smaller 100 years ago.
171 “Ljungqvist broke the hockey stick”
Ljungqvist’s temperature reconstruction is very similar to other reconstructions by Moberg and Mann.
172 “Hansen predicted the West Side Highway would be underwater”
Hansen was speculating on changes that might happen if CO2 doubled.
173 “Removing all CO2 would make little difference” Removing CO2 would cause most water in the air to rain out and cancel most of the greenhouse effect.
174 “Postma disproved the greenhouse effect” Postma’s model contains many simple errors; in no way does Postma undermine the existence or necessity of the greenhouse effect.
Many thanks to Dr. Jan Dash, Director of the UU-UNO’s Climate Portal for writing many of the one line responses in ‘What the Science Says’, with some edits by John Cook.
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The curious responses of so many commenters here that this idea of focusing on the cost of adaptation versus the cost of attempting to block climate change is to throw a life-line to the IPCC and global warmists in general, is cause for concern. Surely it is obvious that it does no such thing. Surely it is obvious that to say “even if the IPCC is right about CO2 and man-made global warming, it will be far cheaper to adapt than to suppress CO2 production” does not help the IPCC or warmists. What it does is destroy their entire case for spending large sums of money on reduction of CO2 emissions.
However, as so many commenters seem to think it does help the IPCC and warmists, it will be very important in the construction of the 50 to 1 argument, to explain in very simple terms why it does not. I will make no attempt to set out how this should be done as it is self-evident, but strongly advise the authors of the project to take on board how resistant some people obviously are to the simple logic of the case.