Newest scam: donate money to help alleviate the fears of 'scared scientists'

scared_scientistsWow, this is just nuts. I mean really, really, “Trenberth’s missing heat is going to jump out of the ocean and get you” kind of nuts.

The website scaredscientists.com looks like this at right.

Like the wailing we saw in the hand written letters of feelings last week, this one is also from Australia. Personally, I think this is some sort of mental disorder on display coming to light because Australia has done an about-face on the carbon tax and have put a lot of climate change programs on the back burner or eliminated them altogether.

And of course, there’s an “ACT NOW” button, which is a code word to send money, but  there is no mention of what that money will be used for. A list of “fears” follows with comments by me interspersed in blue.

They write in the About page:

A quick chat to the experts and it’s immediately apparent that climate change is not only real: it’s serious. Very serious.

But this isn’t what scares scientists. They’re afraid humanity will continue to bury its head in the sand; instead of facing its greatest challenge head on.

Scientists don’t want to be right, they want to be wrong. Research shows this is our last decade to slow climate change before it’s too late. The science community believe if people are willing, we can transform the current trajectory from one of fear to one of hope. But the science can only take us so far. If we want a safe and sustainable world, we need to take the facts seriously – and do what needs to be done to change them.

Source: http://scaredscientists.com/About

Here’s the big list of scared scientists:

WILL STEFFEN

Earth System Scientist

University of Florida, University of Missouri, Australian National University

FEAR: LOSS OF CONTROL OF THE CLIMATE SYSTEM

The climate is related to many parts of the Earth; the land, the ocean, the ice, the atmosphere. We’re noticing abrupt changes in all of these areas.

We’ll reach a point where we’ll lose control over the system. Right now, if we reduce our emissions, we can probably stabilise the system. If we push the climate too far, if we start losing ice too rapidly, start flipping things like the Amazon, then the internal dynamics of the climate will take over – and even if we pull emissions back, we won’t be able to stop very large changes – that’s my biggest fear.

The thing people don’t realise, is getting emissions down is not only feasible but economically promising and will actually lead to a better life. The narrative needs to change, it’s not all doom and gloom. Yes, it will be another massive transformation in human history, but it will lead to a cleaner environment, to more jobs, and an easier lifestyle.

We still have a chance to pull back climate change, but we need to act vigorously and we need to act soon.


(Funny, I never knew any scientist who said we were “in” control of the climate, much less lost control of it. The hubris on display here could fill a stadium.)


LESLEY HUGHES

Ecologist, Macquarie University, Sydney

FEAR: SPECIES EXTINCTION

My work on the potential impacts of climate change on species and ecosystems has made it clear that the human species is now threatened.

We need to acknowledge the time lag between what we do to the atmosphere and its impacts on the climate. What we do now, affects the climate decades into the future. This means we need to drastically cut our emissions, now and forever, to stabilise the climate in the second half of the century.


(Odd, she  doesn’t seem frightened at all. Good luck stabilizing the climate though, because in the entire history of the planet, the climate has never been stable.)

next%20ice%20age[1]


TIM FLANNERY

Mammologist, Palaeontologist

University of New South Wales,

Monash University, La Trobe University

FEAR: DISRUPTION OF GLOBAL CIVILISATION

Climate Science underestimated the pace of climate change, it was too conservative. We’re now having far more rapid change than originally projected. Change that if not slowed, will undoubtedly affect my children and my grandchildren.

There is genuine potential for a change in climate to disrupt our global civilisation. If that happens, we know human nature has a dark side, people will fight over an ever diminishing resource pool, and that is a future we want to avoid.

This decade is critical, it is our last chance to prevent our children from that type of world. We have to make significant progress and get the global emissions trajectory turning downwards. That is the urgent task at hand.


(I think maybe Tim has been smoking the same thing that always-wrong doomster Paul Ehrlich has been smoking. “We’re now having far more rapid change than originally projected.” Hmmm. I suppose he must not know about ‘the pause’ and all the excuses being made for it.)


SARAH PERKINS

Extreme weather researcher

University of New South Wales

FEAR: INCREASE IN EXTREME WEATHER EVENTS

As the background climate warms due to human activity, this increases the frequency and intensity of hot temperature events. I am concerned about how the very broad and damaging impacts of heatwaves will affect human health, infrastructure, agriculture, and natural systems. By the time we realise we need to make changes and start to put these changes in place, it might not be enough to balance out the range of catastrophes we will be facing.


 

(This lady should read my 2014 paper with Michaels and Knappenberger to understand heat waves, plus my essay on how technology and reporting bias figure in to extreme weather fears. She should also spend some time reading why some of the much touted heat waves have nothing at all to do with “climate change”.)


 

MATTHEW ENGLAND

Oceanographer, Climate scientist,

University of NSW, Sydney

FEAR: CLIMATE INDUCED GLOBAL CONFLICT

Accelerated warming and expansion of water in the oceans, and increased melting rates of glaciers and ice caps are expected to increase sea levels by a metre or more over the next 100 years. This will pose a decisive threat to the existence of human settlements, infrastructures and industries across the world that are close to the shore lines. Those environmental degradations will aggravate global conflict as tens of millions of people migrate and their food supplies become threatened.

We need to understand that the cost of solving the problem is so much less than the cost of dealing with it down the track; that cost is going to be huge for future generations. Not dealing with it is selfish, short-sighted, narrow minded and obscene. It represents such a level of injustice as those that are going to be impacted are not playing a role in the decisions that are being made now.


(Hmmm, the only climate wars I’m aware of are those being fought in the mind of Michael Mann, who fits England’s description of “selfish, short-sighted, narrow minded and obscene” pretty well.)


SHAUNA MURRAY

Biological Scientist

University of Technology Sydney, University of Tokyo, University of New South Wales

FEAR: REACHING THE FOUR DEGREES OF WARMING

We’ve recorded all sorts of climate change shifts in multiple areas. However, the scientific process is consistent. Every single individual study that has been done, has gone through the same rigorous process, data collection, research analysis, and qualified peer review. At the moment, we’ve at least 10 000 different papers, completed over 20 years, each using different data sets, and they are all coming to the same climate change conclusions. We’ve a weight of evidence that the average person is simply not aware of – and this frightens me.

I’d like to think that we’re not going to reach the projected four degrees of warming this century; because I can’t even imagine what that would look like. 80 years is not that long, and unless we act soon, my seven year old daughter will probably have to live through that.


 

(Apparently she only reads the papers that scare the crap out of her. Or maybe Skeptical Science, who posted this graph:

Marcott_rcp6

Meanwhile, The BBC reports ‘the pause’ may go on for another 10 years or more.)


 

PETER MACREADIE

Marine Ecologist

University of Technology Sydney, Deakin University

FEAR: GLOBAL CATASTROPHE

IPCC predicts that the impacts of climate change will be catastrophic. This affects everybody. Nobody is safe. We’re going to lose low lying countries, there will be a loss of live stock, potential wide spread famine and species extinction.

One thing people need to remember, is that scientists are the biggest skeptics on Earth. We’re constantly trying to disprove each other. This is the one thing we agree on. The evidence is endless. We’re not making this up, this is really serious, we’re very concerned and there’s not enough being done about it. We really need to be pushing our governments. Let’s not look back and regret what we’ve done.


(“Nobody is safe“, and this guy has the temerity to suggest scientists like him are the “biggest skeptics on Earth”? Wow. )


PENELOPE AJANI

Biological Scientist

University of Macquarie, Sydney

FEAR: UNKNOWN REPERCUSSIONS OF CLIMATE CHANGE

The scientific community know sea levels will rise, people will be displaced and food resources will diminish. But I work on the small things, the ocean’s plankton, and we are already seeing climate shifts in these organisms. How those changes will affect the global ocean is something we really can’t answer – and that scares me. For example, the fact that we’re seeing tropical species all the way down the east coast of Australia, means massive changes are occurring. However, we currently can’t predict the exact impact of these shifts.

Another example is that climate change will create winners and losers, there’ll be some species that get wiped out and some that will become prolific. Will it be the toxic algal species that are going to survive?

There will come a time when we need to have answers, when these changes will greatly challenge humanity.


(Any biologist who thinks that life is a static enterprise really should go back to school. Like climate, life changes. It also evolves, and adapts.)


 

Each “scared scientist” vignette ends with:

If you think these facts are frightening,  help us change them.

Take action here

I’ll point out that there isn’t a hard sciences person in this group, and not a one of them appears to have any basic meteorological training, much less any climate science training. In their case, ignorance is not bliss, but a ticket to being scared out of their wits.

You gotta love the black and white photography and the caricatures of dark doom the portraits exude. It looks more like “performance art” than science.

Note the website traffic rank:

scared_scientists_alexa

http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/scaredscientists.com

Nearly 15 million. Wow, off the scale of lower than low.

Meanwhile, WUWT is at:

WUWT_alexa

http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/wattsupwiththat.com

Lower traffic rank numbers are better, for example Google is #1. This comparison says a lot:

WUWT_scared-alexa

Finally, about that money they ask for when you “act now”, I wonder if it ends up here? Gotta love the domain registrar they use, quite appropos.

==================================================

Domain Name: SCAREDSCIENTISTS.COM

Registry Domain ID: 1801341743_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN

Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.syrahost.com

Registrar URL: http://www.crazydomains.com

Updated Date: 2014-08-08T02:08:31+08:00

Creation Date: 2013-05-15T00:00:00+08:00

Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2016-05-15T00:00:00+08:00

Registrar: CRAZY DOMAINS FZ-LLC

Registrar IANA ID: 1291

Registrar Abuse Contact Email: 

Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: +61.894220890

Reseller: CRAZY DOMAINS

Domain Status: ok

Registry Registrant ID: 12093151

Registrant Name: RACHEL GUEST

Registrant Organization:

Registrant Street: 6/5-13 LARKIN ST

Registrant City: CAMPERDOWN

Registrant State/Province: NSW

Registrant Postal Code: 2050

Registrant Country: AU

Registrant Phone: +61.299944154

Registrant Phone Ext:

Registrant Fax: +.

Registrant Fax Ext:

Registrant Email: 

==================================================

In case anyone gets bent out of shape for me posting that info, I’ll point out it is public domain information, available to anyone who makes a WHOIS query, like this one:

http://whois.domaintools.com/scaredscientists.com

Anyway, good luck with the gloom and doom Rachel, you’ll need it to get past the laughing, especially after your last flop, the Years of Living Dangerously, which tanked in ratings after burning through several million dollars in production costs.

 

 

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inMAGICn
August 24, 2014 5:56 pm

Losing money=losing minds.

August 24, 2014 5:56 pm

I think I am going to throw up.

August 24, 2014 6:01 pm

Reading their “fears” reads like a history of the planet – and recent history at that!
I guess some people need to be scared like McKibben needs to be a victim.

August 24, 2014 6:01 pm

This time the world really is going to end…..really…..just watch….you’ll all be sorry. How many times do we alarmists have to tell you skeptics, that we’re all about to die. Really, we’ve been telling you now for decades, and decades… just wait and see. For sure. It’s coming soon. We are all going to perish from the heat, then freeze from the cold, and after that happens, ferocious storms will wipe the last of us off the face of the earth. Just cause you wouldn’t listen to our wailing….and build wind turbines, and transfer your wealth to the Illuminati, and agree to our new world order. So there. Now you know……He he he!

August 24, 2014 6:03 pm

They’re scared of losing their place on the gravy train.

Robert
August 24, 2014 6:08 pm

Desperation. Fear is definitely a proven political technique. They’re afraid there funding money is going to dry up.

Robert
August 24, 2014 6:08 pm

“Their” that is…

PaulH
August 24, 2014 6:10 pm

Astonishing. “Loss of control of the climate system” implies that they actually believe they have control of the climate.
I’ve been told that it is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt. Maybe I’ll send them a few schillings. That way they’ll keep talking and remove all doubt.

August 24, 2014 6:15 pm

A quick chat to the experts and it’s immediately apparent that climate change is not only real: it’s serious. Very serious.
But this isn’t what scares scientists. They’re afraid humanity will continue to bury its head in the sand; instead of facing its greatest challenge head on.

When I think of being scared, I think of people not doing an action they want to do because of fear of retaliation or some other negative consequence. If I am scared of the dark, then I avoid dark places. If I am scared of losing funding, I don’t speak up against CAGW.
But, these people aren’t scientists, but manipulators. How often do you see pro-AGW’ers say “think of the children!” or “think of the cute animals!” or some other emotion. In my state, a small anti-fracking movement is going on and the protests are short on factions, long on emotion.
Being “scared” is a new tactic I’ve seen more than once recently by this people. But you know what I am afraid of real problems. I am afraid of a possible global cooling that will strain the already weak economies. I am afraid of mass-starvations if the planet cools too much. I am afraid of my rights being sacrificed in the name of Gaea. I am afraid of inferior medical care when electricity is sacrificed to Mother Earth. I am afraid that real environmental crises will go unresolved because it is not about climate change. I am not afraid about something that has happened every day since the earth came to be.

jabre
August 24, 2014 6:17 pm

This obsession is unfortunate. I am not a psychologist. But, I understand a little human nature through several decades of observation. This mantra of the failure to accept the science is the last bastion of excuses before they come to the true realization. It is not climate science that we are failing to believe. It is much more personal. It is *their* science that we don’t believe. It is their poor judgement and their failure to execute credible science. There are many scientists which are credible and which are trustworthy. But those who choose to turn to emotional, over-reaching scare tactics are not credible.
I am reminded of an observation the other day. I was at my child’s school and watching an eleven year old simply ignore it’s parent. The parent was not demonstrating control or reason and was acting emotionally. The child was bright enough to simply look at the parent, turn and walk away. That is the appropriate response for these ‘scared scientists.’

Patrick
August 24, 2014 6:22 pm

Anything Tim Flannery puts his name to you know its going to be nothing more than a money making scam! One thing that surprises me however is there is no coverage about this in the Australian MSM.

Reply to  Patrick
August 27, 2014 12:02 am

There is now coverage of this on the front of news.com.au
So sad that many will take the bait….

Anything is possible
August 24, 2014 6:23 pm

Are there any depths to which the alarmists won’t sink to get their message across?
Nope.

Bill Marsh
August 24, 2014 6:24 pm

We have control over the climate system? Umm, okay then …..

August 24, 2014 6:24 pm

Surely this is just a new version of the infamous “Nigerian” scam?

CodeTech
August 24, 2014 6:26 pm

I thought “nutty professors” was just a Disney thing…

August 24, 2014 6:26 pm

OK try this version: Surely this is just a new version of the in_famous “African” letter sc_am.

August 24, 2014 6:28 pm

You know….it would probably be cheaper, to pay for anxiety medication and therapy for the terror-ridden scientists, than to go along with their crazy schemes….LOL!

R. Shearer
August 24, 2014 6:30 pm

None of color, all obviously racist.

Patrick
August 24, 2014 6:30 pm

Funny, when you click on act now button it takes you to Flannery’s Climate Council website. He set this up, with privte donations, after he was sacked from his AU$180,000 3 days per week part-time job by the newly elected Abbott govn’t.

Jeff-FL
August 24, 2014 6:30 pm

“LESLEY HUGHES
Ecologist, Macquarie University, Sydney
FEAR: SPECIES EXTINCTION”
Not sure of the taxonomy but climate alarmists are at best a sub-species?

Admin
August 24, 2014 6:32 pm

Ever seen “The Producers”? That was a story about a couple of crooks who found a way to make money out of failure – all they had to do was to produce a play which they were sure would flop, then they sold 2000% rights to the profits of the play to punters.
Just saying 🙂
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Producers_(1968_film)

HGW xx/7
August 24, 2014 6:33 pm

Oh! It’s THIS decade that’s our last one for action. Gotcha. I was really confused. I thought it was the last “last” decade. Glad that’s streightened out.
Also, how does one “flip” the Amazon? Is it akin to Guam tipping over or is it more a really bad lead-in to a sexist joke?

August 24, 2014 6:34 pm

The climate hypochondriacs fear they are losing their green sex appeals and at the same time their stream of public funding. That’s understandable.

August 24, 2014 6:34 pm

It is obviously nuttier than we ever imagined, and it is still getting worse. It won’t be long before we see the absolute nuttiest, and I am not sure what comes after that.

August 24, 2014 6:36 pm

Okay, okay. I admit that Australia produces some real shockers…but I would argue that only 3% of climate buffoons are from here (survey results later). And were they born here? Lot of people think Mel and Russell are Aussies – but theyr’e not! Same with climate buffoons.
Also, just remember that, regardless of where he was born, Mawson got here at age two. And Mawson is totally an Aussie. Totally.

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