Guest essay by Matt Manos
Skepticism has had an amazing impact on climate science given its size and persecution. Yet it still languishes as a social pariah in the green room of society. To grow, skeptics need to find a group of people that can be influenced.
Skeptics have benefited greatly through their association with Conservatives. Unfortunately, skepticism among the Conservative population has been maximized. Future growth has to come from the political middle.
According to 2014 survey by Pew, 61% of Americans believe
“…there is solid evidence that Earth’s average temperature has been getting warmer over the past few decades.”
What’s amazing is that 35% are willing to admit that they don’t believe the Earth has been warming in the past few decades (the remaining 4% don’t take a position). That 35% has resisted more than a decade of bellwether pushing and government campaigns. Skeptics have been out-grouped and Othered by their friends and even family members. And yet they still don’t accept CAGW or possibly even AGW. These are some stubborn people.
Are most of the 35% scientifically literate? Have they researched AGW and come to a contrary conclusion? Many scientists have reluctantly followed a lonely path to skepticism. Others in the 35% have detected a disconnect between the rhetoric of climate change and the reality on the ground. When the sky doesn’t fall for years, skepticism grows all by itself. Still, a majority of the 35% are probably skeptical because of the culture war.
Conservative leaders rally support against climate change not because they’ve done a survey of the scientific literature but because they find the policy outcomes of climate change undesirable. The association is so strong that skepticism has become linked to the Conservative movement by the general public. This linkage drives away many moderate and independent minded people before a discussion about CAGW can ever occur.
I’m not suggesting Conservative leaders temper their views and I am not trying to blame them. What I’m suggesting is that the way to grow skepticism is to engage other segments of the political sphere. Libertarians in the US are a good example. They often partner with Conservatives on policy issues but not so much on climate change. Libertarians have Othered skeptics. One way to change that is through direct lobbying by skeptic experts. Not just with Libertarians but any civic group that will host a debate. Scientific, non-partisan, debate.
That is a good message for all skeptics to have. My first post on WUWT led to some interesting rabbit holes in the comments. When I wrote about rational ignorance, I didn’t expect discussions from Truthers and anti-vaxxers. I’m not trying to pick a fight with those groups. What I am humbling suggesting is that for CAGW to become accepted by moderates and independents, skeptics need to appear above reproach on all other controversial topics. Skeptics are being lumped into a guilt by association with groups that are even more out of the mainstream than they are. Skeptics need to become single issue communicators untarnished by other controversial topics.
Skeptics need to know what they stand for and what they don’t. Skeptics get painted as deniers and conspiracy theorists and changing that perception won’t happen overnight. But it won’t happen at all if it’s not communicated. What skeptics need is a strong spokesperson. Preferably a young, charismatic, non-partisan scientist to go on daytime TV, YouTube and TV news shows. This would be a true skeptic of CAGW who could point to their belief that CO2 is a greenhouse gas as a defense against being labelled a denier. The skeptic spokesperson would be trying to reach low information viewers. The types of viewers that are most prone to rational ignorance on climate change.
I’m not calling out Conservatives or the other groups I mentioned. I’m addressing the specific topic of how I think skepticism can grow. I don’t claim these are the only ways to grow skepticism or that they’re even original. It’s easy to see what needs to happen and a lot harder to get things done. Personally, I think skepticism could grow if skeptics could get the science presented to more people. The pause is amazing stuff. To effectively communicate the pause requires different skills then influencing the scientific debate. To grow, skepticism needs a playbook and a face.
Simple questions that linger for years work the best.
Q) How long with flat or falling temperatures and rising CO2 before you admit that CO2 does not control the climate?
Then gently point out that all 5 of the major datasets (RSS, UAH, HadCRUT4, GISS, NCDC) show no
warming for between 15 and over 18 years. In that time CO2 has risen 8-10%.
At that point I get called names. Denier etc. I just smile and wave. The seed of doubt has been planted firmly and will germinate for years to come. As the negative phases in the oceans take hold and the solar minimum continues and China/India continue to burn coal like crazy it dawns on them that they’ve been had.
That sinking feeling in their gut won’t leave them. Some will just ignore it but a lot just stop believing. That is the first step. Once they actually start asking questions they get kicked out of the warmista camp and realize how dogmatic they whole thing was. They move on.
Reactions I have received when mentioning TRM’s excellent points have been looks of shocked disbelief, but when I show people some of the diagrams posted on WUWT, they get engaged. They may not agree but when I point out that the impacts of changing climate may be very minor the general comment is, “I hope you are right.”
Guess it depends with whom you talk!
People hear hard facts about how the atmospheric temperatures have not statisticaly significantly increasd any additional amount for 18 years and recall the last article that siad 2014 was hotter than 2013 without pointing out this was not statisically significant and the tirvial additional temperature rise is so small it is lost in the variability of the measurements. Most people don’t know statistic, nor do they know that computer climate models are worthless if they are not validated by accurately predicting past, present and future climate changes. Not one computer climate models has ever accurately don this. The climate science also in not settled because acertian number of scientists say ,”They agree the earth has warmed in the past 400 years and believe umans may be contributing to warmig.” How much is burning fossil fuel contributing to atmospheric CO2 levels? Decaying plant matter and burning fossil fuels togther emit 68 GIgatons of carbon into the atmosphere a year. A gigaton is a billion tons. Sounds ominous to people who can’t deal with numbers as big as their balance in their checking account. 8 divided by 68 equals 11.7%. Whichs means only 11.7% of carbon emitted into the atmosphere from just these two sources which have unique C12-C13 ratios in the emissions is from humans. That is pretty samll and it is therefore absurd to blame manmade CO2 for being the primary driver of AGW when ignoring decaying plant matter which humans don’t affect.
I doubt there are any scientists not just climae sciennntists, that would have the nerve to claim the computer climate models are accurate and climate science is settled, as claimed in the popular press. the UN IPCC report had 107 computer climate models, all giving different predicts. Does that sound settled?
“Then gently point out that all 5 of the major datasets (RSS, UAH, HadCRUT4, GISS, NCDC) show no warming for between 15 and over 18 years”
You may gently point it out. But say you get asked for numbers? Sources? It just isn’t true. That isn’t so good when trying to win friends and influence people.
Oh look, a pause/hiatus/plateau/etc. denier. How quaint.
No warming to 2-sigma probability for 18+ years or more, depending on which dataset you use.
60+ unconvincing attempts to explain/make excuses for/deny this inconvenient fact.
Computer
gamesmodels becoming increasingly discredited with every passing day.As for numbers and sources, the databases say everything necessary.
And that’s ignoring all the other problems you’ve got, such as missing tropospheric hot spots and the stubborn refusal of atmospheric water vapour to behave according to the alarmists’ predictions.
As for the NASA OCO2 satellite data…
http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/mainco2mappia18934.jpg
Nope, it’s looking bad for Warmists.
I hate to say it, but Nick is correct. However it raises a more interesting question — why do the data sets from the high tech, precisely calibrated, modern instruments (RSS and UAH) show no statistically significant warming for more than 15 years, while the data sets that come from weather stations that are poorly maintained, inadequately sited and have inadequate spacial coverage (so much so that they require comprehensive manual adjustment) do show warming. The growing divergence between these is becoming scandalous and must be examined.
When they find out that
“all 5 of the major datasets (RSS, UAH, HadCRUT4, GISS, NCDC) show no
warming for between 15 and over 18 years”
actually means
“No warming to 2-sigma probability for 18+ years or more, depending on which dataset you use.”
I don’t think you will have won friends.
I believe it is, if you consider error bars. NOAA gives the margin of error at 0.08C for a measurement. Looking at the period from 1999 to 2015, the four main dataset trend end points look like this:
GISTEMP LOT 1: 0.48 to 0.64. Apply the error and you have 0.56 to 0.56.
HADCRUT4 : 0.40 to 0.52. With the error, they overlap.
UAH Lower Trop: 0.05 to 0.25. With error, 0.13 to 0.17. Some significance. Change the date to 2000 and it disappears.
RSS Lower Trop: 0.20 to 0.25. They’ll overlap.
I don’t know how it can be said to be not true.
I’ve given the dataset names and all you have to do is look them up. All the data from those global temperature datasets are publicly available and anyone can look them up to verify that they are not being lied to. I actually recommend that people assume I’m lying and to go look up the numbers for the datasets themselves. It gets them involved.
The 2 satellite datasets (UAH & RSS) show the longest flat lines but all are in a pause.
So Nick, the question still stands. How long with flat or falling temperatures and rising CO2 before you admit that CO2 doesn’t control the climate?
“I’ve given the dataset names and all you have to do is look them up.”
This post is about how to make progress in the outside world, where people actually ask for some backing. Saying “You can look it up”, won’t wash.
I know the data. What you said just isn’t true. Surface temperatures are not flat of falling. If you want to claim that they are, you need to quote numbers and sources.
giving people the names of the datasets and expecting them to look it up doesn’t work. we’re talking about people who already haven’t bothered to look anything up. they hear the prez say it is warming and sea levels are accelerating, they hear hottest year claims on huffington post and cnbc, and they feel like they already have all the data they need.
the problem is that the argument already IS politically polarized. there are vast numbers of reasonably intelligent people out there who buy into the idea that half of all politicians are crooked and corrupt, but that half are honest and trustworthy….anything that comes out of their party is gospel (myself, i assume that all of them are pretty sleazy, either party). they listen to npr, cnbc for facts and get their opinions from rachael maddow. you aren’t going to get them to open a scientific journal, even if they could understand it. you certainly aren’t going to get them to open their minds to scientific debate by talking datasets….they believe that they were told correctly that it IS warming.
what we need is scandal. al gore and ken trenbreth and mike mann and the rest of the crowd need to fall as hard as bernie madoff and lance armstrong did. we need another insider with a conscience to come forward with the second round of climategate. i once thought that the climate scientists were just well meaning self-deceived types, but this has gone on too long and the climategate evidence was too ugly and clearly too indicative of deception….they are clearly underserving of representing any science. somebody needs to pop the bubble.
Nick Stokes
May 31, 2015 at 7:52 pm
Then why are so many excuses being made for a ‘pause’ if it doesn’t exist Nick?
I suspect that you do not know the data, you have seen some figures that were derived from the data. From what I understand the raw as-it-was-observed data is not published that is if it was saved at all.
I’m bemused to see that after years of access to professional statistical explanation many people are still unable to understand (or intellectually accept) that the temperature time-series data contain variability (referred to as “noise”) around a human emissions-caused warming signal. This variability means that as one shricks the time span considered one is increasingly pixilating any capacity to see the undlying pattern.
I’m curious to know how many folk can answer this simple question – if one selects at random any year in the global temperature record going back for over a century, on average how many years previous are required before it’s possible to identify with statistical significance the warming signal emerging from the noise of variability? For brownie points explain the significance of the varibility in this average value, and what this means for making statements about pauses extending back from present day.
For those in any doubt that was “shrinks”…
Bernard J.
I’m bemused to understand why after years of access to professional statistical explanation you and a few others are still unable to understand that discernible global warming stopped nearly two decades ago.
I’m curious to know your explanation for your denial of reality.
Richard
Nick, I noticed you didn’t answer his question, so I’ll repeat it for you:
So Nick, the question still stands. How long with flat or falling temperatures and rising CO2 before you admit that CO2 doesn’t control the climate?
the temperature time-series data contain variability (referred to as “noise”) around a human emissions-caused warming signal.
==================
“you” are assuming facts not in evidence. your assumption is that any variability not caused by human emissions is due to noise. this ignores the possibility that the time series data contains natural signals that are not noise but rather actual signals of varying time lengths.
until these natural signals are identified and quantified you cannot separate out the human signal because you cannot identify what is noise and what is signal. the problem for climate science is that they have not done this work, which is evident in the increasing divergence between models and observations.
“Surface temperatures are not flat of falling. If you want to claim that they are, you need to quote numbers and sources.”
You want numbers, Nick?
Here you go, RSS from 1997-present day and 2001-present day.
#File: RSS_Monthly_MSU_AMSU_Channel_TLT_Anomalies_Land_and_Ocean_v03_3.txt
#
#Time series (rss) from 1979 to 2015.33
#Selected data from 1997
#Least squares trend line; slope = -0.000619877 per year
1997 0.243761
2015.33 0.232397
#Data ends
+++
#File: RSS_Monthly_MSU_AMSU_Channel_TLT_Anomalies_Land_and_Ocean_v03_3.txt
#
#Time series (rss) from 1979 to 2015.33
#Selected data from 2001
#Least squares trend line; slope = -0.00410635 per year
2001 0.274572
2015.33 0.215714
#Data ends
http://www.woodfortrees.org/data/rss/from:1997/trend/plot/rss/from:1997/plot/rss/from:2001/trend
Both show cooling.
Why do you persist in making stuff up?
Nick,
Real surface temperatures are falling, as shown by increasing ice and snow and the unstepped upon insturment record. HadCRU and GISS cook the books to make it appear that they’re not.
Besides which, “surface” temperatures aren’t. For the land, yes, although they’re execrably measured and often made up. For the sea, it’s not the surface for most of the “record”, but under it.
The gate-kept “surface” series are worse than worthless garbage.
catweazle666 June 1, 2015 at 9:23 am
“Surface temperatures are not flat of falling. If you want to claim that they are, you need to quote numbers and sources.”
You want numbers, Nick?
You gave no numbers for surface temperature. For good reason.
Nick I see you still haven’t answered the question that was put to you. With good reason.
Nick Stokes: “You gave no numbers for surface temperature. For good reason.”
Ah, you’re going to get all disingenuous – not to say mendacious are you Nick?
You know, I somehow suspected you would try a little trick like that.
You prefer “adjusted” Micky Mouse data to nice clean satellite data do you?
As you wish.
#File: hadcrut4_monthly_ns_avg.txt
#
#Time series (hadcrut4) from 1850 to 2014.58
#Selected data from 2001.6
#Least squares trend line; slope = -0.000904283 per year
2001.67 0.485512
2014.58 0.473832
#Data ends
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2001/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2001.6/trend
Wriggle, squirm, froth and deny all you want, the pause/hiatus/plateau/etc. is real, and all your flapping around and refusing to accept reality won’t alter that.
So live with it Nick, you’re the denier now.
John Endicott June 1, 2015 at 5:25 am
“Nick, I noticed you didn’t answer his question, so I’ll repeat it for you:
So Nick, the question still stands. How long with flat or falling temperatures and rising CO2…”
I gave a complete answer. We don’t have flat or falling temperatures to present day. No-one has presented any evidence of flat surface temperatures. Only bluster.
Nick Stokes says:
We don’t have flat or falling temperatures to present day. No-one has presented any evidence of flat surface temperatures. Only bluster.
Nick, are you rejecting satellite data? Why? It is the most accurate data. Data is ‘evidence’, but you reject it out of hand.
$Millions are spent every year maintaining and analyzing temperature data provided by the two global temperature satellites (RSS and UAH). That data is corroborated by thousands of radiosonde balloon data points. They are all in agreement: global warming stopped many years ago.
There comes a point, Nick, when an honest scientist must admit that his original premise was wrong, if that’s what the facts, the data, and empirical observations show. No one would blame you if you said, ‘Like most people, I thought there was a problem with AGW because in the late 1990’s, that’s what appears was happening.’
But after two decades of observational evidence that flatly contradicts the ‘dangerous AGW’ claims, you really begin to lose a lot of credibility by insisting that “We don’t have flat or falling temperatures to present day.” That is simply untrue.
Isn’t it time you faced reality, and admitted that your original premise was wrong? If you refuse, then what would it take? Twenty-five years with no global warming? Arctic ice completely recovering, and going to new record highs? A Polar bear population explosion? (Actually, that’s already happened).
Or can nothing whatever convince you that your original conjecture was in error?
Cat,
“#Least squares trend line; slope = -0.000904283 per year
2001.67 0.485512
2014.58 0.473832
#Data ends”
Ends a year ago. Hadcrut 4 from Aug 2001 to April 2015 is trend 0.27°C/Century.
Nick Stokes says: June 1, 2015 at 5:02 pm
I gave a complete answer. We don’t have flat or falling temperatures to present day. No-one has presented any evidence of flat surface temperatures. Only bluster.
———————
No Nick, you complete dodged the question. Being a pause denier doesn’t answer the question, which was a basic question of falsifiability. That you can’t answer the basic question of falsifibility shows that it’s not science for you (science is all about falsifiablity) but rather a religion for you (you don’t believe in the pause despite the 18+ years pause in the satellite data, you do believe in CAGW despite failed prediction after failed prediction – religion is all about belief).
John Endicott says:
Nick, you completely dodged the question.
He completely ignored mine.
John, we must be asking him uncomfortable, inconvenient questions.
On statistics, and the embarrassingly common cherry-pick of a too-short time interval:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php?a=11&p=5#89115
The short of it is that 1) there is a long-term warming signal in the global temperature dataset, and 2) there is short-term “noise” (resulting from various climate-influencing phenomena) in the dataset. Consequently the shorter the interval of time that is considered in trying to identify a warming trend, the lower the “statistical” resolution one has. It’s like pixilating an image – beyond a certain level of coarseness the lack of resolution leads to an insensitivity that completely masks the underlying pattern.
It’s fascinating to watch how this relatively simple notion has escaped so many people for so many years, and to see the same mistake of cherry-picking short intervals repeated again and again even after being told, and even on this thread.
On natural forcings:
https://www.skepticalscience.com/its-not-us-advanced.htm
http://www.skepticalscience.com/a-comprehensive-review-of-the-causes-of-global-warming.html
ironically, Bernard, it was based on a period of time just as short (and according to some datasets even shorter) as the current pause that the whole rapidly accelerating CAGW nonsense that kicked off the current alarmist concerns back in the 1980s was founded. So, if in your book the pause is too short a time frame, the same question that Nick dodged applies to you: How long with flat or falling temperatures and rising CO2 before you admit that CO2 doesn’t control the climate the way you and your fellow travellers have claimed it does? How much bigger does the divergence between models and real world observations need to get? How many more failed predictions will it take?
Fortunately for you that question was answered by a very competent, professional expert in time-series analysis:
https://tamino.wordpress.com/2012/07/06/how-long/
For added understanding read:
https://tamino.wordpress.com/2014/12/04/a-pause-or-not-a-pause-that-is-the-question/
https://tamino.wordpress.com/2015/04/30/slowdown-skeptic/
In other words longer than was used to claim there was a problem with accelerated warming due to man-made CO2 and if the pause continues for just a few more years (we’re already at 18-20 in the satellite data) you and your fellow travellers will finally admit you were wrong about CAGW? somehow I think you’ll just come up wiht a larger number same as the previously stated 15 years is now 24 years according to your link
I agree that the ‘pause’ is a most effective argument. Most people are not even aware of the fact ( which is understandable since it never gets mentioned in mainstream media on which they depend for information ).
They start with “What ? Are you sure?” Then they ask where I get that information from. When I point to nation meteorological bodies like UK Met Office and satellite data, the penny drops.
What pause?
Define using appropriate statistical analysis.
I think you need to check the data sets you are quoting. GISS NCDC and HadCRUT4 clearly show warming.
Simon
I think you need to change your facts.
Both GISS NCDC and HadCRUT4 are severely corrupted but neither shows warming different from zero at 95% confidence for several years.
Ross McKitrick (of RSS) provides these values he has computed for the length of the period to present when global warming was not discernibly different from zero at 95% for each data set.
SATELLITE INDICATIONS
UAH: No discernible warming since July 1996: i.e. for 21 years.
RSS: No discernible warming since December 1992: i.e. for 26 years.
SURFACE INDICATIONS
HadCRUT4.3:No discernible warming since May 1997: i.e. for 19 years
Hadsst3:No discernible warming since May 1995: i.e. for 21 years
GISS: No discernible warming since June 2000: i.e. for more than 14 years.
Clearly, there has been no discernible global warming at 95% confidence for at least the most recent 14 years with only the GISS determination indicating less than 16 years and RSS indicating for the most recent 26 years.
The data is best summarised by the statement that discernible global warming stopped more than 18 years ago.
And I tell you what I told Bernard J., I’m curious to know your explanation for your denial of reality.
Richard
Simon, the figures that GISS, NCDC and HADCRUT4 give out each month are not data sets, they are the outputs of models. Model output is not data. The calculations that these organisations perform each month not only produce a modelled global temperature for the current month but change the modelled global temperature for the previous month. And the month before that. And every month in the record. The same applies to the annual records.
This is not data. It is debatable whether the output of these models is of any use at all. It is certainly not fit for purpose when it is used to announce that this month or year or whatever is the ‘hottest ever’, let alone to change the energy production systems for the entire world.
Richard…. Sheeesh!!! Google HadCRUT4 and look at the first graph in front of your eyes. Here I will help you.
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/HadCRUT4.png
Simon, with regards to NCDC – over 45 percent of the temperature data is ‘Made UP’.
?w=640
From the story started at Real Science we have a posting at WUWT that I have never seen answered.
NCDC needs to step up and fix this along with other problems that have been identified.And they are, I expect some sort of a statement, and possibly a correction next week. In the meantime, let’s let them do their work and go through their methodology. It will not be helpful to ANYONE if we start beating up the people at NCDC ahead of such a statement and/or correction. I will be among the first, if not the first to know what they are doing to fix the issues, and as soon as I know, so will all of you. Patience and restraint is what we need at the moment. I believe they are making a good faith effort, but as you all know the government moves slowly, they have to get policy wonks to review documents and all that. So, we’ll likely hear something early next week.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/06/28/the-scientific-method-is-at-work-on-the-ushcn-temperature-data-set/
That was nearly one year ago and did anyone read about any corrections and where the methodology has changed, because fake numbers have been over 50% still fake they are only making more.
DD More
So are all the ground stations made up? If so, someone better tell them.
Simon,
Here is HadCRUT 3 & 4.
If you see warming, you probably have the chart rotated 90º. Try looking at it the right way, and you will see that there is no global warming.
DB… but then there is the NOAA data that is telling us we have just had the warmest year ever and if we stay on track, are about to break that record again this year. Hard to know who to believe isn’t it?
simon
Sheesh! Determine the 95% confidence limits on the trends.
And, NO, I am not going to help you further because i provided the pertinent data and you ignored it.
Richard
Simon says:
…but then there is the NOAA data that is telling us we have just had the warmest year ever…
That is simply not true:
There were many warmer years this century. Cooler years, too. Nothing being observed is either unusual, or unprecedented. You’re just parroting the gov’t/media alarm. Best if you stop it, because it isn’t true.
Too busy destroying the planet and oppressing good guys to read this book, sorry.
WUWT should have a contest for the best, strongest, most effective short arguments that will cause doubt in the mind of an undecided or a warmist. The articles would have to be calm and rational and address one or two topics at a time. Idea is to create a database of the strongest, most convincing and most rational articles that people can use to debate with warmists and the undecided crowd of onlookers. Do not need to immediately convert but need to get a foot in the door and create doubt such that they go investigate further or are open to further arguments. This is much like an intervention to pull someone out of a cult.
My two submission are:
https://climateequilibrium.wordpress.com/2015/05/31/climate-sensitivity-to-carbon-dioxide-concentrations/
https://climateequilibrium.wordpress.com/2014/09/03/climate-change-for-dummies/
None of this is new but we all have to work at bringing people back to their senses one at a time.
It depends on the audience.
Showing that green energy is a Big Business might be a strong argument in circles where people despise money.
Showing that green energy is a Big Business that gets away with rules (like endangered birds rules) is a strong argument in circles where people cannot accept that “the chosen ones” are getting away with stuff.
Showing how Lew crap is accepted in the community of climate something is proof that this community is not about sound science. (Lew crap is unimportant in itself, but it is the canary in the mine.) If they accept that crap, it is clear they would accept anything as long as it goes in the “right” direction. In a criminal trial it would be enough to destroy the case.
Showing that the French Academy of Sciences accepts global warming, but says that the positive feedback is not so certain, is a big blow against “world consensus”.
Since many Greens seem to want o do away with capitalism and democracy, ask them what they intend to replace the present system with. If they answer that they don’t know or favour anarchy, point out that creating a political vacuum almost always results in an extremely unsavoury individual seizing power by force. Give examples anywhere from the Bronze Age to 20thC, and you probably get dumb stares. Suggest they go look up these facts.
creating a political vacuum almost always results in an extremely unsavoury individual seizing power by force.
============
the US withdrawal from Iraq left a vacuum that ISIS filled.
I checked BillK’s links. They are great for the informed scientist. Problem with them that they are too long and wordy for e general public and no-scientists. Need a set of diagrams with great,catchy one liners like sound bites.
CHeck the book “Words that work” by Frank Luntz on the type of prose needed to pull this off.
Two levels of information. Ad campaign level of a picture and a slogan and then short focused articles for follow up. The slogan level only works on bill boards, TV, pop up ads and Twitter to catch their attention but will only work for the undecided or unsure. ” Climate Change Overestimted – Scientists Cried Wolf” with a temp graph vs model will hook in some people but not true believers. Calm rational non political articles that can be emailed or handed out are needed for persuading the grassroots people in our various circles. This movement is nearing a tipping point and each of us needs to push the message that it is absurd that anyone still believes that CO2 controls the climate and that policies to control CO2 are a expensive waste.
If the CO2 curve don’t fit, you must acquit!
An oldie but a goodie.
http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/sh1/the_skeptics_handbook_2-3_lq.pdf
or a best seller
https://ipa.org.au/publications/1957/climate-change-the-facts
BillK:
You are in luck. An excellent start, and just what is needed. “The Skeptics Handbook”
Surf over to Jo Nova’s outstanding site, link on the WUWT blogroll to the right.
First stop is “New Here? The “ten second guide”
http://joannenova.com.au/2011/03/new-here-the-ten-second-guide-to-the-world-of-skeptics/
Next, the Sceptics guide, itself. Both vers. I + II at this link.
http://joannenova.com.au/global-warming/
A big Shout-Out to Jo Nova for her outstanding efforts.
TonyL – thank you – JoNova’s 10 second site and the Skeptic Hand book are great info but almost too much at once for the
Need the five best arguments condensed down to short statements or articles that can be sent separately. People are wary of websites or large amounts of statements in one place. A short non political article makes them think and doubt what they have been told. I have used the climate sensitivity article as a letter to the Editor for a large professional society and received many good responses and no negative feedback at all. It has also worked well in many small circles of friends.
JN makes great suggestions, but I’d start with “CO2 is plant food, not pollution” and after the ” 2 centuries of warming” I’d insert “and cold weather still kills 20 times more people than hot weather”.
I would use the following:
http://www.climate4you.com/images/HadCRUT4%20GlobalMonthlyTempSince1958%20AndCO2.gif
Clearly this graph shows three different phases with extremely reliable measurements of CO2 from Mauna Lua starting in 1959.
In the first phase, we see CO2 increasing and atmospheric temperature decreasing. Then a second phase, perfect correlation between increasing CO2 and increasing atmospheric temperature. Then a third phase, continuing increase in CO2 but no longer increase in atmospheric temperature.
This site also has more info on the relationship of CO2 and atmospheric temperature measured in all different ways. Same conclusion.
The issue is not global warming. The issue is increased atmospheric CO2 is causing global warming. Yes, there was a correlation for a while in our time, so to speak, but just before it surface temperature was going slightly lower and after it surface temperature is just about the same year after year.
The same plots from different sources are available on the Internet. Just search for “correlation between CO2 and surface temperature”. Slightly different plots but the same conclusion: 3 phases since 1958 between atmospheric CO2 concentrations and surface temperature.
“I would use the following:”
And a one sentence rhyming sound bite, like this one:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/05/31/how-climate-skeptics-can-win-friends-and-influence-people/#comment-1950339
Don’t know about a contest, but your overall idea is spot-on. Any message to the 95% has to be prepared in simple, non-scientific terms (no radiative forcing, etc.) or you immediately lose the 95%.
The skeptic scientists have done great work to combat the alarmist group pushing the agenda, but to target the 95% a different approach needs to be generated.
Where the hell d’you come by that conclusion? Maybe some among the self-anointed Libertarian Party “establishment” might could’ve gotten suckered by the cAGW fraud – and that poor sap, Ronald Bailey, over at Reason magazine got that hook down his gullet, but libertarian scholars, writers, and thinkers have largely been in the skeptical camp for decades.
And they are right. The question is why. And thus, will it continue (after the Pause)?
If you want any mainstream political view to endorse scepticism point to the costs and benefits to their side.
From the Right, it’s that fossil fuels are the cheapest energy source and thus allow most spare resources for individuals to spend on seeking the best outcomes. And that creates most resilience against the impacts of climate change at the most efficient time.
From the Left, it’s that elitism keeps the resources to survive trouble (manmade or not) in the hands of the few and thus damns the unfortunate. The best source of wealth-creation for the whole economy is the best answer (with an income tax).
This is not a partisan issue.
It’s a optimistic/scared issue
Define “anti-vaxxers”.
“anti-vaxxers” is like “denier”. It’s a meaningless derogatory label. You could as well write vaccine deniers.
Many MD criticise the official view that all recommended vaccines are useful.
And if anyone says that they believe Tower 7 came down because of fire then they’re advertising a willingness to believe absolutely anything. Seriously – if a person, after looking at the footage of Tower 7 coming down, concludes that a fire was the cause then they’re a little bit special.
Maybe it had something to do with being smashed by the wreckage of the largest building in the world falling on it, while in flames and at about 2000 degrees, from a quarter of a mile in the sky.
How many times had a building survived being smashed by the falling incandescent wreckage of a 102 story skyscraper?
To all WTC 7 doubters and metal buildings fire hazard sceptics: please search “lycée pailleron”.
The effect of the Twin Towers collapsing which included its girders being driven down through the subway was like an earthquake. The footings of all the close by buildings were affected and some like Tower 7 became unstable. You do not return into buildings after earthquakes until they have been checked as they can often collapse without warning some time after the quake.
Some buildings of that vintage were extremely vulnerable to minor damage in that way. Search on “Ronan Point” where a relatively small domestic gas explosion caused a collapse of one side of an apartment block.
Similar stupidity, and tend to be the same people.
I’m not sure exactly what group the author means by “skeptics”. Skeptical that the earth has warmed? Skeptical that the warming is caused by man-made CO2? Or skeptical that the warming is going to be catastrophic? I think it makes a difference. I consider myself a skeptic because I think trying to stop global warming is worse than the global warming.
Manos – The Hands Of Fate!
Sorry, couldn’t help myself, Crow was egging me on.
I thought he was in the film with Sean Connery, but no.
“61% of Americans believe “there is solid evidence that Earth’s average temperature has been getting warmer over the past few decades”
Well as a mere engineer I agree. The trend for the last 3 or 4 decades is generally upwards. The pause is at the high end, and recent (OK it’s half the period in question, but the trend is upward). What a ridiculous quote to base your argument on.
I’m a skeptic that believes an unabridged temperature record would only show a continuation of the Gradual warming of the past 19,000 yrs. Not a thing to do with greenhouse gas
latecommer2014
May 31, 2015 at 4:01 pm
The trend for the past 3000 to 5000 years has been global cooling. Holocene warmth peaked at the end of its Climatic Optimum about 5000 years ago.
Say what? Gradual warming for 19k years?
Um…not.
http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4111/4994030265_2de8169af7_z.jpg
http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4149/4994240435_b68b77ea6f_z.jpg
And since the historical data has been so compromised, we really do not know what the trend looks like for the past 100-125 years.
Although if I had to bet on it, I would go with what the record said before all the “adjustments”:
http://realclimatescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/ScreenHunter_2112-May.-31-08.35.jpg
I would categorically disbelieve anything that anyone who had anything to do with, or said nothing about, this:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/01/Global_temperature_1ka.png
Menicholas,
My guess is that Latecommer was thinking of since the Last Glacial Maximum, which ended about 18,000 years ago.
But the long-term warming trend ended with the Minoan Warm Period, if not before. For instance, the East Antarctic Ice Sheet stopped retreating over 3000 years ago.
No one knows how much long the Holocene interglacial will continue, but its best, ie warmest, days are behind it.
It’s interesting that the two OZ blogs of Jo Nova and Jennifer Marohasy are both libertarian. And they are sceptical about CAGW, although they probably agree there should be some small impact from co2 emissions.
I typically use an approach that I think I picked up from Bjorn Lomborg. Let’s say its all true: is keeping 1/3 of earth’s population in subsistence poverty conditions really the answer? When the number 1 predictor of infant mortality and early childhood death is extreme poverty, and the number one cause of extreme poverty is lack of affordable energy?
You have to be talking with someone with at least a moderate amount of intelligence for this argument to make sense to them, since it has two steps rather than just one.
Also don’t forget the C.P.Snow effect: those calling themselves intellectuals these days generally can’t look at numbers or any kind of chart or graph and be able to make sense of it. They live and die by narrative alone, and it took me a few tries in an email exchange once to realize that the genuinely high-IQ guy I was talking with didn’t have any clue how to interpret a graph.
I had success with him by switching to that energy-use ‘narrative’, the way poverty and lack of access to energy go hand in hand, and challenging him to think outside his U.S.-centric worldview and understand the horrific effects Green recommendations (to increase the cost of energy and phase out the cheapest fuels altogether) would have on the world’s most vulnerable.
It was a pretty effective approach in this case.
Correct. The argument with this group needs to be framed in emotional terms. They are more likely to respond to such appeals, which fortunately are supported by fact, than a simpler version of the facts.
Also keep in mind that Greens are a subculture generally consisting of college educated, middle and upper class white males whose limited understanding of the world outside suburbia, much less outside their country’s borders, means that the primary targets of their wrath are others in the same demographic who don’t agree with them.
Pointing out how a particular policy idea hurts the world’s poorest and most vulnerable can be effective since they regard themselves as saviors of such people. When done with kindness and sensitivity, Greens can be induced to see what it is that many of us are concerned about regarding policies that go after inexpensive energy.
I think not. They (the progressive left) view all conservatives as lying lunatics who are criminally insane and wrong about everything.
Whereas the conservative and center groups are more likely to be charitable and call it a difference of opinion or a misunderstanding, or even the other side being just plain wrong, they (the progressives) do not return the sentiment.
They see any on the Right as either evil, o insane, or both…at best.
Among the Greens I know, they’re about 70% female… purely an anecdote, of course.
None of which show any willingness to listen to anything outside of their beliefs.
Menicholas
You say
The above article is important because it specifically refutes the kind of nonsense you have asserted and I have quoted.
It is a rare day when there are no examples on WUWT of those on the Right asserting that those on the Left are either evil, or insane, or both…at best. Indeed, when I and others point out that this is harmful of opposition to the ‘global warming scare’ (because “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”) the Rightists respond with insults and abuse.
In reality, all opponents of the ‘global warming scare’ need to provide a concerted effort of opposition from each and all of their different political positions and philosophies. Effectiveness requires maximum inclusivity and not internecine sniping.
Richard
Menicholas
For examples of the opposite of your assertion you need look no further than this thread.
For example see here (which is the opposite of reality (i.e. the global warming scare was deliberately created by Margaret Thatcher for reasons of her own personal political advantage) and here.
Richard
It’s used to be hip to be anti-establishment. To be skeptical of all things governmental.
I’m still hip.
Perhaps some t-shirts with
Youthful rebellion can bring about a lot of change. The Hippies who are now in charge know this better than anyone.
As they used to say on the Saturday morning wrasslin’ shows…in order to be the man, you have to beat the man.
Elections are the only way to turn this crazy train around.
how about “Never Trust the MANN”?
Not only that, but back then a big part of message was to be self-reliant and independent of the need for government. But that went by the boards once their communes didn’t function as planned. Now they think if everyone is in the same commune then it will work this time.
The record shows without doubt, that ghg is a product of warming….not the cause
Have no fear comrade. Those records will be changed in due course.
“It appeared that there had even been demonstrations to thank Big Brother for raising the chocolate ration to twenty grams a week. And only yesterday, he reflected, it had been announced that the ration was to be reduced to twenty grams a week. Was it possible that they could swallow that, after only twenty-four hours? Yes, they swallowed it.”
Mr Manos
Having three or four sets of data showing the same thing will not be good enough for everyone.
Most of us know that climate data show natural cycles of around 60 years, even Mann says they persisted in the N. Atlantic at least for the last thousand years.
Since 1960’s solar scientists have actually measured solar magnetic cycles of about 22 years. Nothing new about any of that.
NOAA, the British Geological Survey (BGS) and the ETH Zurich maintain geomagnetic data bases from which one can get the changes in the Earth’s magnetic field for any location on the globe.
I did that for the Yellowstone caldera coordinates. Looks rather ordinary until very low frequencies are filtered out and spectral analysis run on it.
The ‘old faithful’ has two most prominent periodicities, exactly as mentioned above; 22 years as in the solar magnetic field and 60 years as in the climate data.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/YS.htm
Are you persuaded?
This post does not pass the smell test.
I read it as a casual smear of people sceptical of climate sciences ridiculous certainty, unsupported assertions and political dogma.
61% agree that the planet has warmed in the last few decades.. specify please.year ? to year ??.
Sceptic = conservative?
Sceptics need to know what we stand for?
You trying to herd cats?
Sorry this whole idea is pandering to the fools and bandits, sceptical persons need do nothing more than challenge the true believers and wait, CAGW has already been retreated from by the Cult of Calamitous Climate.
They no longer dare use the term global warming, instead they are in a steady retreat changing their labels and BS as fast as they are pinched by reality.
As for reaching the masses, not a problem, the Alarmed ones and their political enablers have imposed so many expenses onto the tax and bill payers that there is going to be no way to evade the blow back as the economy crashes and the planet cools..
True believers, you say?
“The followers of a mass movement see themselves on the march with drums beating and colors flying. They are participators in a soul-stirring drama played to a vast audience–generations gone and generations yet to come. They are made to feel they are not their real selves but actors playing a role, and their doing a “performance”, rather than as the real thing.”
The True Believer
Eric Hoffer
1951
I have to agree. To me the article comes across as a Luke-Warmer trying to cajole skeptics to ‘come on and stop denying the science and being so conservative, so we can all agree to a new consensus of our own’.
And I AM a Luke-Warmer >_<
A skeptics’ skeptic.
Mark wrote: “Conservative leaders rally support against climate change not because they’ve done a survey of the scientific literature but because they find the policy outcomes of climate change undesirable. The association is so strong that skepticism has become linked to the Conservative movement by the general public. This linkage drives away many moderate and independent minded people before a discussion about CAGW can ever occur. I’m not suggesting Conservative leaders temper their views and I am not trying to blame them.”
I do. If leaders can’t stand up to the ignorant or self-deceived fringe who don’t believe in the existence of a GHE, then they don’t deserve – and will never get – the support of “moderate and independent-minded people”. If Conservative legislators today can’t openly recognize the existence of real problems and support rational solutions*, democracy could be headed for the trash heap of history and the world towards the tyranny of left-wing collectivism. And as long as “the world most widely-read website on climate change” continues to publish badly flawed posts on scientific topics – in the name of free expression – without making any effort to warn readers about dubious material or correct the record based an a critical review of comments, Lewandowski and Cook will continue to win the propaganda war.
* It’s perfectly rational to say the the developing world can’t afford to restrict their emissions and the developed world can’t afford to cut their emissions by 80%. Since we are currently burning enough fossil fuel to raise CO2 by 4 ppm/year, but CO2 is only rising 2 ppm/yr, global emissions only need to be cut by 50%.
Well now, that’s a hefty can of Movement Madness you’re whipping up.
1. Despite your statement, it has been my observation that Libertarians are far more prevalent in the skeptic camp than Republicans. Somewhat ironically, the Democrats have a habit of Othering both as Conservatives. Whilst some of the Republicans have a habit of Othering Libertarians by calling themselves Republicans. And quite oddly the more big-tent Republicans often include Libertarians under the heading of Conservative. It’s a wide word, Horatio.
2. Fringe ideas, or ideas that are *considered* to be fringe, cause the more pro-social types to flee from comment or staking out any unfortunate positions that might cost them socially. The rather obvious consequence is that many vocal members of such fringe ideas are similarly on the fringes with other things. The reasons run the gamut from madness to methodology. But fringe ideas collect fringe walkers, be they anti-vaxxers or Libertarians. Get over it.
3. There are no short, sweet scientific arguments to sway the masses; whatever your reasons are for dipping your toe in the Climastrologist lament about needing better messaging. The problem here is that the science either does not support, or outright refutes, the entire hypothesis. And that’s entirely aside any other facts on the ground, such as:
a) The repeated claim that climate models don’t do predictions — eg, they are not scientific models
b) That the IPCC is an exlusively political and purposesly one-note political activist junket by their own statements.
c) That all the ‘cures’ proposed make the hypothesized problem worse.
d) People believe most readily what media tells them is ‘true.’ And the media bleats constantly about the ‘reality’ and ‘consensus’ of global warming problems.
4. Studies, if you lend them credibility, show that the fastest way to close someone’s ears is to disagree with them. Rather, you’re better off with mockery, associating the Others with moonbattery and hoaxing without ever claiming that of your immediate audience, and using agreement with their position to descend into enthusiastic absurdities that follow. It’s all a bit Machiavellian, so you can keep your own counsel on it.
5. Teaching is all about repetition, repetition, repetition.
That was a very excellent comment. I hope many read it.
I am not a skeptic. Nor am I a denier. Labeling does not sit well with me. I am a practical-minded person who wasn’t born yesterday. And guess what? There are millions just like me who look at reality – data, money, politics – and chuckle at all the knuckle-heads trying to make something that isn’t into something that is. The thinking process involved for practical people is straightforward and organic and inexorable. ‘Science’ cannot explain the lack of warming during a period of increasing CO2… and that theory collapses. Further, I cannot be bullied into supporting something that is, on the face of it, a laughable assertion. Practical people know this much to be true, and we don’t need a spokesperson to tell us that.
Well said
Not a single skeptic I know had their skepticism formed by suggested policy solutions. In fact they supported solutions from past scares because they thought they were not being lied to even though the solutions also came at a similar cost as AGW mitigation.
What is different this time is the cost is so much more and the time frame is different.
Solutions, if you think it through, are to build thousands of new mines to unearth all the new minerals needed to build all the windmills and solar panels required. Ok, reasons are dozens if not hundreds in scope that I don’t feel like writing right now, but the bottom line is skepticism is created from the actual real world observation and not because of ideology.
“Solutions, if you think it through, are to build thousands of new mines to unearth all the new minerals needed to build all the windmills and solar panels required.”
No problem for you if we wipe out every last migratory bird on the planet, eh?
And for what?
For nothing, because what we really need is RELIABLE power, so every kilowatt-hour of those windmills and solar panels will have to be backed up with duplicate capacity kept in reserve and ready to go anytime the wind stops or gets too strong, and the sun sets or goes behind a cloud.
BREAKING NEWS !
The mystery of the Global Warming hiatus is solved:
http://uk.businessinsider.com/the-mystery-of-swiss-cheese-and-its-disappearing-holes-has-been-solved-2015-5?r=US
According to this quote
“The (Swiss) government-funded Agroscope institute said in a statement Thursday that the transition from age-old milking methods in barns to fully-automated, industrial milking systems had caused holes to decline during the last 15 years”
Now it’s quite obvious that the decline of holes in Swiss cheese during the last 15 years and the Hiatus of man-made Global Warming of nearly the same duration must be connected, because the volume of CO2 produced during cheese fermentation is directly proportional to the amount of holes in this material.
Well, isn’t that astonishing? Who would have thought that Swiss cheese could rescue the planet from the runaway CO2 climate hell?
BTW:
In Switzerland, Cheese and its holes are highly political and a topmost priority of the Government as you can see by this Ministerial declaration about the topic:
https://www.admin.ch/gov/de/start/dokumentation/medienmitteilungen.msg-id-57378.html
The extremely high priority of the Swiss Government for all sorts of cheese and its holes might also be the reason why the IPCC has its Headquarters in Switzerland and is very dearly pampered by all Governmental authorities there… 😉
My twin daughters are in public high school and receive the standard warmist bs, so when the topic came up at home I pointed out to them that there had been no measurable warming during their lifetimes.
I could see in their eyes that they understood how they had been fed bs in school.
I have the same experience with all my English Language students in a Chiang Mai. THEY all accept and apply Kipling’s truth discovery maxim translated into Thai and displayed in the classroom;
I KEEP six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When And How and Where and Who. …
AND they use the Internet freely to question and verify…
I am not worried about THEIR future,
The followers of AGW can be ignored and their unquestioned beliefs fade into obscurity in their own time …
So why would they believe you? Did you teach them that science must provide data. No. You just told them.
Try this instead. Show them real data.
http://www.climate4you.com/images/HadCRUT4%20GlobalMonthlyTempSince1958%20AndCO2.gif
The issue is not no warming in their lifetime. The issue is no correlation between atmospheric CO2 and surface temperature. There is none, then there is some, then there is none. Show them data.
KIds are virtually immune to being lied to and told what to think by their parents and elders.
They usually will disbelieve everything such people say even if it is true, if there is the slightest doubt.
Does anyone think children are somehow not aware that a lot of people are big fat lying liars who tell big fats lies every time they open their mouths?
Trust me, they are aware.
IMO the best way to influence persuadable people is to elect conservatives who will cut off the funding of the most egregious “climate change” hucksters (if not in fact prosecute them for fr@ud) and support real climatology rather than “climate science”.
I simply say that the scientific method requires you to discard a hypothesis when the data does not confirm it. It is almost 19 years of no warming despite accelerating CO2.
That is a clear fail. Thus no need to worry about CO2 doing anything extreme, indeed, it is beneficial as plant food. Check out our living Einstein, Dr. Freeman Dyson.if you like.
By coincidence, I was just watching this video with Dr. Dyson, done in April:
Cool, calm. Emminently listenable. If he can’t get through to those “on the fence”, no one can.
Sorry. Talk is cheap.
Here are numbers:
http://www.climate4you.com/images/HadCRUT4%20GlobalMonthlyTempSince1958%20AndCO2.gif
And Dyson leans toward Svensmark with Cosmic Rays and their effect on cloud cover.
Rd50,
And that’s using the bent, folded, spindled, mutilated, stepped upon, cooked to a crisp, adjusted beyond all recognition so that its mother wouldn’t know it HadCRU “data” series.
‘What skeptics need is a strong spokesperson. Preferably a young, charismatic, non-partisan scientist to go on daytime TV, YouTube and TV news shows. This would be a true skeptic of CAGW who could point to their belief that CO2 is a greenhouse gas as a defense against being labelled a denier.’
Obviously, having a young, charismatic, non-partisan scientist to go on daytime TV, YouTube and TV news shows criticizing CAGW is a great idea.
What is not a great idea is thinking that this person would be inoculated from attack by simply stating that they believe that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. That particular technical point is buried under all the other ‘scientific consensus’ noise and would simply be met with the response ‘well, if you believe that then you should believe the rest of the CAGW stuff!’
What is needed are convincing reasons NOT to believe the CAGW stuff:
* Global temperatures have been increasing naturally since the Little Ice Age ended around 1850. That is nothing to do with man-made CO2 which only began to increase significantly around 1950, a hundred years later.
* Global sea levels have been increasing slowly and steadily for hundreds of years and the rate of increase did not accelerate after 1950 when man-made CO2 began to rapidly increase.
* Global warming stopped eighteen years ago. No children alive in the world today have experienced it.
* None of the CAGW doomsday predictions have come true which is why normal people have stopped believing other people who cry wolf.
* The difference between the global temperatures predicted by the IPCC models and actual observations is now so large that anyone looking at them can see that something is wrong about the IPCC’s CO2 theories.
* The most accurate and reliable data on global temperatures comes from satellite observations which have been available since 1978. The satellite temperature data show no global warming emergency at all.
These six talking points are convincing and easy to make in any discussion to any audience. They are not extreme at all but successfully destroy the CAGW case to anyone with an open mind.
One final piece of advice from my kids. In today’s world, opinions are driven by social media. Social media works through a combination of mockery and peer pressure. If the above convincing arguments don’t work, try this one:
* Everyone knows that runaway man-made global warming has turned out not to be true – have you only just found out?
You will probably find that this simple statement saves you an hour of argument using logic and is probably more effective!
I strongly suggest you read Feynman’s Cargo Cult speech:
http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.pdf
No amount of factual evidence, even through first hand experience, will dislodge an individual human’s belief in some strongly held philosophical position. Human neurons are not too dissimilar from other creatures — not even pigeons… read a little about BF Skinner and you’ll get the idea.
The CAGW debate is not about science. It might have been in 1990… but in 2015, it is not about science.
The Cargo Cult speech should be required reading at all universities and not just in the sciences. It was obviously not read by anyone working on those infamous IPCC summary reports!
Your points on Skinner are interesting but I am more optimistic. I think most people have not yet reached the position of being a lost cause with regard to CAGW. Even if you are correct, I assume that it takes some time before a person forms a strongly held philosophical position. Until that happens, they should be open to a bit of ‘respondent’ feedback – either positive or negative.
Until I have been ‘conditioned’ otherwise, I will keep giving them that feedback! I think Skinner would be ok with that.
Irrelevant.
The issue is: more CO2 in the atmosphere is responsible for increase in temperature.
So here are the results:
http://www.climate4you.com/images/HadCRUT4%20GlobalMonthlyTempSince1958%20AndCO2.gif
rd50,
Why does your squiggly red line go up and down every year? I think it is because atmospheric CO2 goes up and down each year in RESPONSE to seasonal temperature changes.
Also, everyone knows that the ice cores show that in geological times, atmospheric CO2 changes several hundred years AFTER global temperatures changes.
Yet you seem to believe that more CO2 in the atmosphere leads to higher temperatures.
Are you saying that atmospheric CO2 can be a dependent variable and an independent variable at the same time? If you can explain how that works, there’s a Nobel prize waiting for you!
rd50,
Just noticed your post was a repeat from above but you did not include your text. Apologies – absent that text I had interpreted your message backwards! I think we are in agreement.
rd50,
That’s a good graph. So is this one.
IPCC’s AR4 unequivocally predicted steady warming at 0.2 deg C per decade if CO2 concentrations continued to increase – which they did.
It is clearly undisputable that the ‘science is settled’ predictions were wrong and that climate scientists don’t have a credible explanation for the failure of the models.
The above facts make it very simple to be skeptical about the CO2 tuning knob while agreeing that there will possibly (likely?) be a continuation of the gentle warming for unexplained reasons that has taken place since the Little Ice Age.
So call me a denier!
I agree. Here are the numbers:
http://www.climate4you.com/images/HadCRUT4%20GlobalMonthlyTempSince1958%20AndCO2.gif
Denier.
As mentioned before when talking about climate change with those that believe in both AGW and CAGW, I always ask two questions. Theses two questions I’ve found stump most alarmists. Simply ask 1. If the climate has changed, what climate would you go back to? Secondly, if Global Warming has caused the change in climate, in order to return to the desired climate, how cold should that climate be.
Mainstream climate science has benefitted from skepticism. Period. The criticisms from climate skeptics have pushed climate science to improve models and address inconsistencies. You have demanded some accountability. Do not expect any gratitude for this, but be content that your efforts are valuable.
It’s nothing to do with PR, but it’s all to do with telling the truth.
I am not a sceptic – scepticism gives the impression of people who bestow some credence to the original premise – of man made emissions of CO² will [is] cause runaway warming.
Whereas, realists just tell the truth.
And if the public can’t get on board with the science and true correlation: rising CO² is as a consequence of global Temperature increase in a gentle background warming – ie it [up or down CO²] lags warming/cooling.
Furthermore and despite what Obama and Penn State climatology dept may say, mankind will never be able to detect a signal identifying any human fingerprint among the ‘noise’ of said background warming – period………………..
The public must apprise themselves of the facts and if they cannot, then, that’s their [Jo and Joanna Public’s] problem sonny – not mine.
However long it takes though, Jo and Joanna will come round to seeing the truth, trouble is by then, the political cowboys with their corporate pardners with the loot will have long skedaddled to the hills with the rest of the scientist alarmist varmints. Though, dead or alive – it will be some mighty posse.
Follow the data:
It will mean that you will have idealogical problems within the following groups:
1. Modern liberals.
2. Modern conservatives.
3. Sports fans.
4. Religious people.
5. CAGW believers.
6. Environmentalists.
7. Programmers.
8. UFO searchers.
9. Creationists.
The data show that all of the above are wrong in several core beliefs. When the core beliefs are attacked via logic and data – the attacked individual predicatably becomes defensive.
I have lost friends and family in logical debate of each of the above.
Best movie quote ever:
“You can either be oh so smart, or oh so pleasant.”
–Elwood P. Dowd [‘Harvey’ -1950]
“A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still”
Most people haven’t the interest and/or the intellect to understand the issue. Here’s a simple, verbal judo technique that I have found effective. It’s a little crass but it works.
When the drought in the southwest comes up I just say, “Too much carbon.”
Floods in the southwest; “Too much carbon.”
Hurricane; “Too much carbon.”
Tornado; “Too much carbon.”
Windy day; “Lot’s of carbon blowing around out there.”
Colder than usual; “Carbon.”
Warmer than usual; “Carbon.”
I’ve been known to say the weather is “Carbony.”
Sooner or later someone asks why I keep blaming the weather on carbon.
And isn’t that the real question?
It’s not going to change through mainstream channels as those channels themselves are part of the propoganda. The sad fact is there is a conspiracy out there so not pointing out how that conspiracy is linked to the CAGW rhetoric, frankly does people a great disservice.
All we can do is keep chipping away person to person. It managed to open my eyes and I am a long long way from a Conservstive.
The way to influence people is with facts. What would be v. useful would be a a listing of summarized facts and actual data for all the major climate questions along with with cited sources. Subjects could include: The relatively v. small warming of 0.8 deg.C since 1850 (most people think there has actually been substantial warming.) the 18 yr.”pause” while co2 goes up 105, climate model failures vs actual temps, co2 sensitivity and latest estimates, the high costs of “green” power and its serious problems in Euro countries, the advantage of low cost fossil fuel power in bringing poor countries out of poverty, the salutory effects of co2 on plant growth including food crops, the deconstruction of the 97% faery story, the failure to relate catastrophic weather events to “climate change’, the true Arctic and Antarctic sea ice data, true sea level rise , temperature data fiddling to create ‘warming, . some data on the actual numbers of scientists and engineers who are “skeptics”, the vast amounts the government spends to support their warmist political policies, etc..
This would provide an invaluable tool for skeptics to whip out and answer critics as well as to use for helping to educate reporters, editors, politicians, etc.. Perhaps one or more of the talented and knowledgeable WUWT people and/or its contributors could perform this feat.
Facts have been there.
http://www.climate4you.com/images/HadCRUT4%20GlobalMonthlyTempSince1958%20AndCO2.gif
All right, I’ve actually lost track of how many times you’ve comment bombed someone with this thing, and the really sad part is I STILL don’t know what your trying to prove with it. You might want to try adding a little more description of your point.
Srsly, I can’t even till if your trying to make a skeptic argument or an alarmist one.
schitzree
The graph shows two things over the same time period. The blue line is a plot of global average temperature with a scale on the left. The red is the CO2 levels with the scale on the right. CO2 has gone up steadily for some 50 years. No acceleration due to increased industrialization, just steady rise despite what humans have been doing, which points to something other than human activity controlling the CO2 levels. At the same time, global temperature has gone through 3 distincts trends (note the grey line showing the phases). The temperature seems to move quite independently of CO2 levels which has a steady slope.
The total disconnect between CO2 levels and human activity, and no relationship between constantly rising CO2 levels and alternating rising/falling temperatures mean the fundamental assumption that underlies the global warming theory is not supported by facts.
Engage the labor unions. For three quarters of a century the Democratic Party has held a lock on labor union support. Funny to see that change in the last election, and for the very first time, among the miner’s unions of West Virginia. That’s a harbinger of things to come. Ah, but the unions have shrunken over the last couple decades? If the economy continues to remain moribund that may very well change. Those student loan burdened, and un or underemployed recently graduated college students are going to start to get restless.
This climate change nonsense truly is a classic case of a program for the big man to kick down the little one. Just look at it. Obscene tax credits going to show offs wealthy enough to afford $75,000-$90,000 electric automobiles. Tax credits for big bucks efficiency enhancements for one’s designer Eco mansion. Multi-billionaire Maurice Strong disparaging the affluent middle class. (And he was talking about mere single family homeowners; many of whom are now being foreclosed on: I’m seeing, just this week, a new wave of unmowed lawns and vacant homes in my neighborhood.)
This climate change crap is what people have attempted since they got up off of all fours and began to walk on two. It’s a classic case of people at the top doing what they can to solidify their position and restrict entrance into their exclusive club by ensuring that those at the bottom and on the lower rungs stay there. That’s really the message people need to hear. That’s the one they’ll listen to.
USW strongly backs the climate scare. It takes plenty of steel infrastructure for renewable energy projects.
Climate change chasing manufacturing jobs to other countries is one big union buster. What will be left of the UAW? Or other unions!
From the OP article:
“This would be a true skeptic of CAGW who could point to their belief that CO2 is a greenhouse gas as a defense against being labelled a denier. The skeptic spokesperson would be trying to reach low information viewers. The types of viewers that are most prone to rational ignorance on climate change.”
…Good luck with that…
First: the use of the word ‘belief’ is contrary to the scientific understanding of testable, repeatable, and falsifiable material cause and effect relationships.
Second: Low information people just don’t care. There’s a reason why they are low information people.
Third: Rational ignorance is the normal operational mode for most people on most topics most of the time.
Lastly: In order to make a difference, the general public must be seriously injured by CAGW policies. In America, that usually means money. If a carbon tax is listed directly as a ‘carbon tax’ field on 2018’s 1040 form — I can bet that a very large proportion of Americans will suddenly see the data and its meaning.
I suppose the best way to influence people is direct them to PR studies that back up your arguments. Like this Calvo et al study of Holocene temps from SE Australia.
http://people.rses.anu.edu.au/dedeckker_p/pubs/12.pdf
The team found that temps were much higher than today for thousands of years and this was supported by other studies of the Holocene temps from central Oz as well.
I appreciate that this essay is written in good spirit, but I wonder if the author really understands skeptics. The reason there is a strong association of skeptics with conservatism is that the left has made an alarmist opinion on this scientific issue into a doctrine of their political ideology. Therefore, no leftist skeptics; therefore, statistically, a strong correlation exists with conservatism. But there are enough alarmist conservatives to demonstrate that the correlation is not within conservatism, but due to the anti-correlation outside of it.
Even within conservatism, there is a strong push to conform. Our Australian Prime Minister knows full well that CAGW is baloney (he said so long ago, before the focus of high office fell upon him), yet he puts up placating policies like his “planting trees” finance, with remarks like (from memory, not a direct quote): “Well, whatever you think, you can’t object to some more trees.”
In my own case, it was a scientific investigation, pure and simple, that convinced me: the alarm comes, not from the CO2, but from the amplification of its effects to dangerous levels by extra water vapour. Yet we find the predicted water-caused hotspot is missing, there is less upper-troposphere water instead of more, and more radiation into space instead of less. The theory is disproved as clearly as any theory possibly can be. The total hostility of the left to this simple and obvious truth has been one reason (though not the only one) why I have had more sympathy for political conservatism over the past several years. I hope Matt Manos can see that (in my case at least, but I suspect a great many others) he has the arrow of causation the wrong way round.
– from the real Ron House, not the deranged loon who forged my name to some hate-filled garbage recently.
Ron, this is the usual one sided argument that loses the battle. I am a “leftist” skeptic. If you want to be persuasive drop the dogmatism. Conservatives hold many opinions or beliefs that liberals find either looney, or abhorrent or both. Attaching conservative beliefs or value comments to skeptic arguments turns off the target audience before you get to square one. Yes the AGW argument has become politicized, but face the fact that it is just as compulsory for conservatives to be skeptics as for liberals to be warmists. It just happens that even the conservatives who don’t know what they are talking about are lucky to be right on this one. Contributors to discussions on this blog frequently make comments that AGW is a pretext for the UN to effect global government. Idiotic arguments like that ensure that your perfectly valid skeptic arguments will be rejected without consideration. If you want to persuade believers, keep the aspersions and the politics out of the discussion.
THIS IS AN IDENTITY THIEF. NOT THE REAL RON HOUSE.
Murrayv, your comment “it is just as compulsory for conservatives to be skeptics as for liberals to be warmists” is simply false. Counterevidence can be found trivially, on a daily basis. A week ago the Australian Liberal (conservative) environment minister on a conservative tv show (The Bolt Report) simply couldn’t be prodded by Bolt to denounce or even to doubt catastropharianism. It is common knowledge that about half of Liberal members are warmists, including senior cabinet member Malcolm Turnbull, reputed to earn many millions from environmental businesses.
My comment is a simple observation: statistically, an anti-correlation outside a set will positively correlate the members of the set compared to the entire population. Your comment seems to be a combination of not understanding that simple statistical fact, combined with a farcically counterfactual belief about the real world (that conservatives are just as ideologically bound to this issue as leftists).
And yes, in a world of 6 billion people, all general statements are false, so hello there, one of exceedingly few leftist skeptics, you! But insofar as all general statements are intended by the nature of existence to be only approximate, I submit: leftists are bound by ideology to be alarmists. Challenge: name one solitary Australian Labor or Green federal politician who is a skeptic. (As for the obvious counterchallenge, I have just shown you two.)
Another very leftist skeptic here. My only other post about this on this precise subject and it’s something I feel quite strong about.
There are many of us, scientists and otherwise (I studied astronomy at university, for what it’s worth), who hold political and economic opinions which for whatever reason, most of the people on this site disagree with.
Due to this political polarisation, we (CAGW skeptics on the political “left”) are almost completely isolated. I have had some quite vicious arguments whenever I have tried to raise the issue within my social circle before, to the point where I haven’t bothered for years and can’t see myself doing so again at any point in the near future out of the genuine fear of losing close friends.
My issue is simply with the abuse of science. The collossal waste of money, wholesale abuse of the media, hiding of data, etc is completely wrong and goes against everything the Scientific Method stands for.
The fact that “climate skepticism” is commonly held to be the preserve exclusively of Conservatives and religious lunatics does nobody any good at all in the search for truth. If it’s eventually exposed and everything “comes out”, there will still be many people who will still harbour irrational resentment purely because they will feel they have been the victim of a “right wing conspiracy”.
This has no need to get political. It’s about science. I’m comfortable with the fact that I vehemently disagree with much of the rest of what you guys talk about. It’s fine. 😉
I have collaborated on other single-issue causes before with people with whom I would otherwise have very little in common, and our success was partly down to that precise strength – that we could convince everybody.
“to the point where I haven’t bothered for years and can’t see myself doing so again at any point in the near future out of the genuine fear of losing close friends.”
Why is that the case? If friends are worth having, they should be able to accept that people have different opinions, and that it is defending those opinions that constitutes democracy. I am afraid you are witnessing the demise of the very heart of Western Civilisation.
[snip -unsubstantiated rant -mod]
Telling alarmists the facts is the only way. There is a huge hint pictured to the right of this posting. It’s a book called Climate Change The Facts. I have it and it is an easy read. Because so many authors are included, the writing style changes from chapter to chapter as does the approach to stating facts. If you know somebody who is so scientifically illiterate that he or she still believes the alarmism and if he or she can read, buy them a copy, send them to the library or lend them your own copy. It is full of Facts.
Actually, no, that hasn’t been my experience. Demanding that warmists hand over their net worth at some future time in the event they are mistaken causes them to go slack jawed. Educated, engaged, and responsible, people are much better at cognitive thoughts. I’d suggest 2 books by Dr. Thomas Sowell: “The Quest for Cosmic Justice” and “The Vision of the Anointed: Self Congratulation as a Basis of Social Policy”.
Preface to my comment: I thank the lead post’s author, Matt Manos, for stimulating an important discussion.
The lead post ‘How Climate Skeptics Can Win Friends And Influence People’ by Matt Manos begs the question on persuasion from skepticism.
It incorrectly presumes skepticism, per se, is a position on any climate issue that needs selling and does not address that skepticism is only a process. It proceeds from there to present how to sell a proper position considered by the post’s author as being validly skeptical. Then it concludes that more selling is indeed needed for a position it judges as being validly skeptical.
Skepticism is a process. The outcome of the process in not necessarily a scientifically valid position, however, the process outcome is more likely to be scientifically critical of most climate research being favorably utilized / emphasized by various gov’t institutes, NGOs and scientifically focused organizations.
The author should being selling process not position wrt skepticism.
John
influence? the game is fixed and the outcome predetermined – the only influence you have is the money you keep sending these guys to keep doing what you keep fretting over.
you’ll find out just how much you can petition your predator with precious punditry, prayer or votes or burning jah sticks in the temple when you are lying on the dining table about to be served.
it’s all about serving man.
it’s your fault. if you wanted it to stop, you’d make it stop.
There is really only one number that matters, and that number is “one”.
Who honestly will admit to agreement with the claim that “warming” (or “climate change”, either) is the tippy top a-level singular number ONE priority for every nation, corporation, religion, charity and individual to come together, as ONE, to sacrifice choice and resources towards?
Would you put your church, and donations to outreach missions, ahead of paying more tax to mitigate warming? If so, you must be a skeptic.
Would you want other nations to demonstrate the success of a carbon dioxide emissions tax, or a carbon dioxide commodity trading market, or some other emission scheme, before you would support a similar program in your own nation? If so, you must be a skeptic.
Would you demand that your employer and company be entitled to “fair play” and a “level playing field” for energy procurement and sourcing, without undue taxes or subsidy by governments? If so, you must a skeptic.
Belief in “warming” is not about how many degrees of Celcius or tons of carbon dioxide gas or dollars of expense. These aren’t the numbers we’re looking for.
There are those who would say, (whatever they privately believe, or do, or spend their own money upon) that reforming the international processes of “business as usual” to repair the damage done and the risks impending is the greatest, highest, biggest, and FIRST priority of all. It is more important than guarding the coasts, deterring nuclear war, insuring personal health, ensuring just courts and humane prisons, writing truthful journalism, or respecting the integrity of science as an institution.
If you disagree, if you would put fixing warming at priority two, or lower, you must be a skeptic.
Climategate did more for skepticism because it didn’t involve trying to convince anyone what side of the issue you were on, but exposed an ‘echo chamber’ of near conspiratorial behavior in regards to manipulation and censorship of scientific data.
To continue to expose this cesspool of rhetoric, we only grow in numbers from data that CONTRADICTS their echo chamber and the so-called data that’s produced to convince others of this belief of man-made global warming.
In some respects, you could say that Climatology has become more like politics. The topic is polarizing and leaves little room to convince anyone of anything. Yet just like politics, what people want is someone who has the balls to stand up against the establishment. Americans elected Obama not because he had balls, but because his opponent had none.Mccain and/or Romney had the opportunity to show some, but in the end, PAC’S strangled them.
To fall into this trap of mirroring the behavior of your opponent, is suicide. Scientific suicide.
Our strength as a CAGW sceptic lies in our unfettered approach to science. We are not limited or controlled by the established powers. That established power is NASA. Our second most powerful strength is using that established powers data against them.
We must remain mavericks. We must continue to expose their echo chamber of idiocy.
We have already proven that with Climategate.
We must continue to expose them of their false predictions.
Let MSM continue to call us denialists and proclaim every weather event as evidence of CAGW, because it will be their undoing.
I didn’t become skeptical because I was in need of ‘convincing’, but because men like you Anthony were mavericks willing to expose the establishment.
Don’t forget that.
Actually, as a person outside of the world of scientists, I found ClimateGate to be completely unconvincing. I remember how disappointed I was when I read extensively on it and thought, “What is the big deal?”
No…ClimateGate isn’t a good way to try to convince the layman. It requires you to be plugged in to the world of the scientist and its rules and standards.
I wish this were not true. but I believe it is.
Unfortunately, a great amount of actual technical and scientific understanding is required to form even a partially reasoned view of the CAGW issue. It’s nearly impossible to grasp what a given graph, chart, data point means unless you’ve done the analysis work yourself. And that’s why most lay people just toss the problem over the fence…
Well… I suppose the next question is:
As a lay person, what specific events led you to your CAGW Skeptical view?
unknown502756 – In answer to your question about what convinced me…no clue. It was so long ago. My earliest memory was in the winter of 1990 when the east was submerged in a record cold snap there were commercials on the radio that went like this…”Have you noticed? It’s getting warmer.”
As my project team on a printing plant I was building was scouring the country for propane to fuel our temporary heat I couldn’t help laugh at the incompetence of the timing on the ads.
Since then, I have just watched it. Not until I found WUWT did I feel like I had a source that discussed the science. As I said before, the hard science of the model projections way over-running the actual temperatures was the clincher. It was then that I realized that the models are the only proof and they are just plain wrong.
Since then I have come to understand how weak the science is. I could give many examples.
So far no data points have fallen outside the range of known natural variability. AGW is a theory with no real world foundation.
Mr. Manos – you wrote –
“I didn’t expect discussions from Truthers and anti-vaxxers. I’m not trying to pick a fight with those groups.”
You just did though, I mean pick a fight with those people, because you have described their honestly hel beliefs in contempt, by describing them in disparaging terms. This is why folks like you will never “Win Friends and Influence People”, at least not those people whom you profess to acknowledge, yet in the sam breath dismiss as “Truthers and anti-vaxxers”.
Why not go the whole hog, and ask for support from “Doomsday Preppers”, and “Birthers” as well ?
Your whole article is based on some false premise, that it is only “Conservatives” who are “Skeptics” and yet it is EVERY genuine Scientist’s ethos to be skeptical about all claims, unless they can be backed up by repeatable empirical experiment. Such ethos is not restricted by a person’s political allegiance, though you appear to think so. Every person is a “scientist” who holds this ethos, whether or not they have some paper certificate to say so.
Regrettably, you will not succeed in your aims, Mr. Manos, until you see ALL people equitably.
Why is Obama arming local police with tanks, M-16s, Red-Eye Antiaircraft missiles and others? What is the objective of local police fielding howitzers and anthrax bio mutinous against the local populous across the USA? After all Obama only has 19 months left in office.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-mann/president-obama-no-cars-i_b_7472886.html
The last time I checked the Pope of the Church of Rome believes things that are not too far different from you. Apparently, he is not a skeptic of CAGW philosophy.
Unfortunately, and perhaps too judgmentally, I think your post demonstrates precisely the problem of conservatives simply ‘checking the box’ – so to speak – with CAGW.
CAGW is not a conservative ‘value’ it’s a science term to be proved or disproved by evidence based reasoning. If your evangelical Christianity leads you to climate skepticism — that’s fine — but what if your Church begins pointing its believers the other way?? Which will you follow? Will you follow the evidence or the Church?
BTW – From the current data: CAGW seems fully debunked.
> It may come as a surprise to you, but I do think for myself too. My Ph.D. in electrical engineering
It doesn’t come as a surprise to me that people who think for themselves would be led to doubt the severity of the CAGW problem and various other climate change claims.
It does come as a surprise to me that a belief in a specific religion would present you with evidence based reasoning that would lead you to doubt CAGW.
And with your new well written and well reasoned post, it’s clear that your engineering background and your abilities in scientific analysis has led you to your proclaimed position as a CAGW skeptic.
I don’t mean offend… but I probably will…
Religion will not lead you down the path of free inquiry which is required to fully accept the evidence based reasoning behind the analysis of the climate data.
You could argue that ‘god’ gave you the powers of reasoning… but then again didn’t ‘god’ give everyone powers of reasoning? Don’t fool yourself, it’s not ‘god’ nor your religion leading your skepticism. Religion requires a non-skeptical mind.
I’m an EE as well. RF Engineering. But it’s mostly IT work now.
Here’s an idea that I’ve been mulling over for months: A series of short (five- to ten-minute) weekly “climate-change counterpunches” on Fox (say), each critiquing some common claim of warmism. Many warmist quotes asserting each claim, ideally from bigshots, would be presented at the outset. The series would avoid tackling the whole subject, or even large segments of it. Instead, it would “pick its spots” and take potshots at the weakest parts of the warmists’ case.
Only subsets of major topics would be treated, where warmists have blundered. For instance:
Coral bleaching would be dealt with by critiquing specific mistaken claims.
Similarly with glaciers–the case of Kilimanjaro would be featured.
Ditto with:
Polar bears
Butterfly migration
Frog extinctions
Spain as a failed poster-child (failed claims vs results) for renewables
Temperature predictions
Other failed predictions (hurricanes, rainfall, snowfall, humidity, etc.)
Spread of disease
asthma
climate refugees
Himalayan glaciers
lifetime of renewables
output of renewables (nameplate vs. actual)
environmental impact of renewables
cost of renewables (purported vs. hidden)
funding of skeptics
funding of alarmists
salaries of alarmists
other income of alarmists
“false balance” in the media?
motivated reasoning?
beetles
wildfires
droughts
benefits of CO2
predictions of rising oil prices
“warmest-decade” argument
flooded islands
more hurricanes
more tornados
more disaster deaths
more disaster damage
Etc., etc.
This approach aims to diminish our opponents’ credibility by piling up instance after instance of their corner-cutting, half-truths, evasions, data-diddling, arrogance, bad predictions, etc. This will lead to a desirable outcome: the audience will react to future warmist propaganda with dubiousness and reserve (“yeah, maybe”) rather than unthinking acceptance. This is the ultimate Win. Or anyway, it is the only Achievable Win, in a mass media environment, with a mass audience.
There needn’t be one presenter, and they needn’t be professionals. Some skeptical scientists with good presentation skills could tackle topics on which they are experts. But professional media people like Stossel would be good too–although that would add to the cost. Maybe that popular presenter for the BBC who was fired for his skepticism (David Bellamy?) would be willing to do the job for an affordable fee.
These videos would be archived and comments would be allowed under each. (Strong moderation would be desirable, to edit out parts of comments that are off-topic or too heated–and perhaps to include moderator-comments on exceptionally illogical or ill-informed statements. A “borehole” would be a good feature too.)
Some videos already up on YouTube and elsewhere might be incorporated, in whole or in part, or rewritten and re-shot, as part of this series.
Video script-creation might be largely a grass-roots effort, which would cut the cost. E.g., some organization (OAS?) would put out an online list of CACA claims to be countered, with a thread for each, to which members of the contrarian community would post scripts, partial scripts, and graphics. The community, with possible editorial assistance from the organization, would then critique submissions and mash the best parts of these together into something concise and coherent. Lots of time would be allowed for chewing things over, and for having scripts reviewed and re-reviewed by a panel of experts, to eliminate errors and overstatements, to anticipate and forestall objections (very important), to smooth out rough spots, etc.
The great thing is that wonderful text for these scripts already exists in skeptical books and blogs. It need only be “mined.” (I’ve got 15,000 Word pages of quotes I’ve copied from WUWT and other sources, sorted into about 200 categories and sub-categories. Other people probably have larger collections.)
If video-creation is done in public, there could/should be a parallel thread where warmists could critique “our” thread as it is being put together. Most of their input would be silly, but the parts that aren’t would be very helpful–they would illustrate where our script is liable to misinterpretation (and needs clarification or bolstering), and where it is in error. Warmists are much more likely to spot these errors or overstatements than we are. It is vital to our credibility not to be “caught out.”
We would need to have at least a dozen videos “in the can,” and a dozen more scripts fully developed, before approaching a network like Fox. (Say–if the series is successful, Fox might fund the development of future episodes.)
This series could lead to a second video series, in which one or more warmists would rebut a particular counterpunch, and then someone from our side would rebut the rebuttal, etc. In effect, the counterpunch series would be a way to lure warmists into debating the topic. Eventually, high-level scientific debates might occur, on a par with the stuff on the Climate Dialogue site. These wouldn’t likely be broadcast, being too arcane for the general public, but they could be archived under the original Counterpunch video, where everyone interested in the topic could access them.
I’ve written this online off the top of my head. I hope Anthony likes it and elevates it to a thread–where the idea can be fleshed out (and/or shredded!).
AFTERTHOUGHTS:
OTHER VIDEO TOPICS:
Specific examples of temperature fudging
USCHN network vs. USCRN
Consensus mistakes in the past (e.g., diet)
97% of doctors’ fallacy (non-experts can judge experts by their track record)
The focus should be on finding indefensible prominent warmist claims and mangling them. The newsletters of greenie foundations would be a good source.
The average viewer has absorbed scores of beliefs about the climate-change debate. What we want to do is disabuse them of those that can easily be disabused, making him more open to the possibility that the rest of his pro-warmist beliefs are wrong too. We don’t want to get bogged down debating points where warmists can easily muddy the waters with half-baked, superficially convincing responses.
We should sometimes (depending on topic and person) let our targets preview our videos and offer rebuttals, which we could in turn rebut as part of the video. (Occasionally their rebuttal would be correct, which would spare us the embarrassment of making a public flub.) Perhaps targets should be offered the opportunity to be interviewed and defend their claims.
To avoid making Fox feel it would need to host a warmist series for balance, their side could set up a similar series on CNN or MSNBC where they attack our side’s flubs and over-statements. Then both sides could set up another seires consisting of rebuttals to episodes in the first series. Etc.
You asked.
Incorrect assumption.
Skepticism is unwelcome at gatherings of extremists only. At all other discussions when the subject turns to the science behind CAGW, the alarmists lose, catastrophically.
Skepticism has grown steadily every year since CAGW alarmism began and is rapidly gaining momentum.
Improper assumption and generalizations.
Alarmists have repeatedly linked skepticism with conservatives from the beginning of CAGW. Many skeptics are not conservatives by any stretch of imagination
Incorrect assumptions.
A) Pew is not a reliable source. Pew has been deep into the eco-nonsense movements for decades.
B) Surprisingly, most people do not need alarmists to tell them that temperatures are more moderate the last few decades. Not surprising, is how many are noticing that seasons are getting colder now.
A) Not a clue what is meant by ‘othered’.
B) Bad assumptions.
C) Absurd notions about stubborn people. Keep to science!
An insult under the guise of a question.
Incorrect assumption.
You need to read WUWT historical files.
Absurd and incorrect assumption!
“…Conservative leaders rally support against climate change not because they’ve done a survey of the scientific literature but because they find the policy outcomes of climate change undesirable…”
Incorrect assumptions.
Conservative leaders did engage in discussion with experts. All they needed to see what a long term temperature graph to be convinced.
Policy is what conservative leaders do!
“…The association is so strong that skepticism has become linked to the Conservative movement by the general public…”
Thanks to the ongoing insistence that only conservatives are skeptics.
Again, absurd assumptions.
ATheoK on May 31, 2015 at 7:28 pm
– – – – – – –
ATheoK,
Razor sharp.
John
My apologies. I missed a closing slash blockquote at the end of this sentence.
“…The association is so strong that skepticism has become linked to the Conservative movement by the general public…”
deanfromohio,
You said; ” Here’s my two cents: when people reject Truth with a capital T (that God exists and as my creator has a claim on my life), they are easy prey for any lie, sine such a world via so at odds with reality of creation and human nature leads to putting other things in God’s place, such as Money, Government, the Earth, Sex, Equality and a host of other cheap substitutes.”
I can’t imagine who put a value of two cents on that garbled, ungrammatical nonsense, but I’d advise you to take the money and run!
Your comment speaks more of your hatred of GOD then it does to anything wrong with the comment your were replying to.
“skeptics need to appear above reproach on all other controversial topics”. I’m not saying you’re wrong, or that you have double standards, but I’m p’d off with the double standards. A CAGWer can say anything they like about anything and remain untouched. A rationalist can’t move without being attacked on issues unconnected to climate. The venom with which I have repeatedly been told that I have no right to speak is mindboggling. Some of the most absurd came when I was involved in arranging for two climate scientists with different views to appear on the same stage. But I have noticed a change. I am finding many people are now prepared to voice agreement, or express their own anti-CAGW take. I really do think the tide has turned. Some will never listen, but many people are listening, we just need to maintain the message and know who we are talking to.
I’ve found it hopeless. Any link at all to this site is quickly dismissed. I have had people claim CSIRO (concerning sea ice) must be a denier website and that NOAA data (concerning historic tornado activity) must be presented wrong or misleadingly in the charts I provide.
It’s bad enough to tell someone their ideology is wrong. When you actually present evidence to show them they’re wrong…well, then they really go ballistic.
I disagree that moderates and independents need to be brought into skepticism of (C)AGW. Most skeptics I know are both moderates and independents. So am I. Few, very, very few are conservatives.
It would be more appropriate to say that progressives need to be brought into skepticism of (C)AGW. However, progressives are neither moderate nor independent and, consequently, the chances that they will listen to reason or evidence are as small as conservatives doing the same. They will talk as scripted by their overlords out of fear of ostracism.
We are going through a period of pseudo-ideological violence and people are afraid to speak up. Thankfully, suffrage laws ensure that the right to vote is carried out by means of a secret ballot. As the population continues witnessing alternation of governance, fear of green-mongers gradually lessens.
It is hard to beat something with nothing. Skeptics spend a lot of time discussing the IPCC methods and showing that the GCM projections on which the whole UNFCCC juggernaut depends are wrong or inadequate. For several years I have been trying to persuade readers to abandon the meaningless reductionist model approach entirely and move to a discussion of forecasts based on the natural periodicities ,especially the 60 year and quasi-millennial cycles so obvious in the temperature data and using the neutron count and 10Be record as the most useful measure of solar “activity”. For a discussion of this approach and forecasts of the amplitude and timing of the coming cooling see:
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2014/07/climate-forecasting-methods-and-cooling.html
Here is Freeman Dyson’s comment on this blog-post.
“E-Mail 4/9/15
Dear Norman Page,
Thank you for your message and for the blog. That all makes sense.
I wish I knew how to get important people to listen to you. But there is
not much that I can do. I have zero credibility as an expert on climate.
I am just a theoretical physicist, 91 years old and obviously out of touch
with the real world. I do what I can, writing reviews and giving talks,
but important people are not listening to me. They will listen when the
glaciers start growing in Kentucky, but I will not be around then. With
all good wishes, yours ever, Freeman Dyson.
Email 4/9/15
Professor Dyson Would you have any objection to my posting our email exchange on my blog?
> Best Regards Norman Page
E-Mail 4/9/15
Yes, you are welcome to post this exchange any way you like. Thank you
for asking. Yours, Freeman Dyson.”
Readers who think that this natural cycle approach has merit might like to spread the word by posting a link to this comment on twitter.
I wish I had your optimism Dr, Page.
I do have a question though. You mention that you want readers to ” abandon the meaningless reductionist model approach” and have them discuss a theory you’ve written.
Im at a loss here.
Do you mean skeptics here should:
A) quit challenging/debunking the GCM’s of the warmistas
or
B) challenge other scientists that read this post to abandon a particular systems theory model for your emergence model?
Its difficult to tell, because you start off writing that we spend too much time pointing out the flaws of GCM’s, and then your verbiage seems to redirect in discussing solar drivers, etc.
It has been my understanding that a part of the scientific method is falsifying a hypothesis to determine its validity. And considering that the warmistas have but all debunked solar drivers from the effects of Climate Change, I don’t see how we can further the science until we can falsify their method or replicate empirical data with a systems theory, or both.
I do not know if the latter is possible while the empirical data is in the hands of those that wish to manipulate it, And how do we choose which data to use. Surface station records? Altimetry records? And which versions and from which time?
When I start to think about the condition of historical data. I wonder if it’s possible to determine if any of it is actual anymore. I guess we got Phil Jones to thank for that one.
Unless you can replicate historical records using your emergent theory, I am afraid the only way to actually be effective in making the makers of CAGW ineffective is to destroy them from within.
ClimateForAll . Challenging the GCMs is like discussing details of the Emperors non existent clothes when it is clear beyond doubt that they do not exist.
I do not have to replicate the historical records via some complicated theory because the basis of my approach is to use the actual historical records themselves- see the periodicities and project them forward in a transparent and rational way.
Climate forecasting is not terribly complex – the key question is very simple – where are we with regard to the millennial cycle. The data from the Oulu neutron count can very reasonably be interpreted as showing a solar activity peak in 1991 see Fig 14 at
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2014/07/climate-forecasting-methods-and-cooling.html
There is plenty of room for discussing the various lag times in the various climate metrics in different regions before this peak appears in the climate response.
The RSS data suggests a 12 year lag between the driver peak and the Millennial Global Temperature Peak in 2003.
See
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1980.1/plot/rss/from:1980.1/to:2003.6/trend/plot/rss/from:2003.6/trend
I suggest that instead of Earth Day skeptics should have an annual global 4th July Celebration of Peak Millennial Heat Day ( actually about 4pm.) This July 4th would mark the 12th anniversary.
The lead post misses the point. The ‘Climate Change’ (née ‘Global Warming’) ideology was never really about science. It was seized upon as a considered means for Western activist intellectuals on the far Left to promote global Marxism. They were able to throw up enough of a scare to get the UN to create an organization to put scientific frosting on the Marxist cake, called the IPCC. From then on it was a production-line bakery, enlisting thousands of eager academics, bureaucrats, faux scientists, politicians, media hacks (‘journalists’) and millions of young, easily-led Useful-Idiot muffins, willing to march, squat, and fawn for the Climate Cause.
You aren’t going to win them over. They don’t know anything about climatology, nor care about satellite temperatures. They want to Change the World, Destroy Capitalism, and establish the Socialist Paradise. To do this they will march, and parade, and throw money and adulation to their political saviors, all in the name of Social Justice, which for the nonce is currently ‘Climate Justice’.
If you are a ‘skeptic’, you are really a ‘D____’, an enemy of Climate Justice. If you want to win them over, you have to join The Movement; otherwise, be prepared to fend off stones and excrement.
There is a positive side, at least here in the USA: The Movement has captured large numbers of the political, academic, and media Ruling Class, but it has not endeared itself to the average American, who remains skeptical, not just of ‘Climate Justice’, whatever the hell that might mean, but of all such movements and their noisy adherents. That even the President seems to have been captured by such nonsense will not sway the guy who goes to work every day just to keep a roof over his head and feed his family. And this is the guy we have to talk to. He will laugh at the “three feet of global warming” on his lawn this last winter, and wonder what in the world President could be talking about. And “if the Good Lord’s willin’, and the creeks don’t rise,” he will save us from the insanity of the ‘elites’.
/Mr Lynn
L.E., I am sorry to break the news to you, but climate change is not a communist plot. It is a far more broad-based phenomenon than that. For every possible Marxist trying to subvert Western Civilization, there are ten capitalists making a mint on it.
Hate to break it to you but yeah its classical collectivism… and for every ten capitalists making a mint on it millions of commies are filling mints with stolen goods as well… and then plotting to steal the mints the capitalist made. The goal of any form of socialism is complete greed and control of everything. Plus very very few capitalists left on this planet….
L. E. Joiner
Sorry, but you are plain wrong.
The global warming scare was deliberately started by (right wing) Margaret Thatcher for reasons of her own personal political advantage. My analysis of this (which was made before the scare started and predicted why the scare would occur) can be read http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2012/09/12/richard-courtney-the-history-of-the-global-warming-scare/.
Richard
Like that famous quote from Hillary Clinton: “What difference, at this point, does it make”- who started the whole mess? Who throws the most fuel on the fire? In the US, we have our own POTUS and his coterie of fellow travelers spread throughout the bureaucracy, but while they are all very much akin to a bunch of Commie Socialist Pinkos in hidden drag with their not so hidden agendas, calling them what they are still does not get to the problem. This is not and never has been a left/right issue. The CAGW issue is at its deepest core, continuously perpetrated by a comparative handful of people who would enslave and even destroy everyone else if they could get away with it. Their aspirations to tyranny might at times fit this or that political label, but they are all statists merely because the state has the most guns. They are the same ones who’ve made humanity suffer throughout history and they will not stop until we stop them. They are the tyrants- the sociopaths and psychopaths and those without remorse or moral fiber, the ones who manipulate the feelings of the concerned and the useful idiot and titillate the greed of the shallow opportunist who would sell them the rope…
Richard, we have discussed this a couple of times before. I greatly respect your expertise and experience, but suspect they are a bit hampered by UK blinkers. Here’s how I responded back in 2012:
[That’s from http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/14/why-we-need-debate-not-consensus-on-climate-change/#comment-1057657 ]
/Mr Lynn
Alan Robertson and L. E. Joiner:
I reply to both of you in one post for clarity and not as insult to anyone.
This dispute goes to the crux of the issue raised by the above essay from Matt Manos. He says of opposition to the global warming scare in the US
Assuming he is correct about that, then it is an error for “skeptics” to promote falsehoods that appeal to the right but not to the left.
Alan you say
I completely and wholeheartedly agree that “This is not and never has been a left/right issue.” But your rant portrays it as that.
Saying, “all very much akin to a bunch of Commie Socialist Pinkos in hidden drag with their not so hidden agendas” is not likely to gain support from any except the extreme right.
And, me being a socialist, I am very opposed to communism but I helped the communist Chinese to ensure failure of the Copenhagen COP that attempted to impose a successor to the Kyoto Protocol. We need all the allies we can get at the Paris COP to be held in December.
Who started the global warming scare and why is very important. It goes to the hub of the fact that as you say, “This is not and never has been a left/right issue.”
Mr Lyn,
I put to you that gaining supporters from other than the right requires adherence to the truth and needs to acknowledge the fact that “This is not and never has been a left/right issue.”
Margaret Thatcher started the global warming scare for political reasons that had nothing to do with science. The scare is a political issue and from its start it always has been. But the scare is not and never has been a left/right issue except in the US.
The anthropogenic global warming hypothesis had existed for a century and many people had tried to use it for their own ends before Margaret Thatcher succeeded in using it as a tool to start the global warming scare for her own ends.
You are simply wrong when you assert
Margaret Thatcher created the global warming scare for her own ends and, thus, she was typical of all who have since promoted the scare from all parts of the political spectrum because they all do it for their own ends.
And that truth needs to be proclaimed if opposition to the scare is to extend beyond the political right in the US.
Richard
Preferably a young, charismatic, non-partisan scientist to go on daytime TV, YouTube and TV news shows
Yes, that’s what we need. Someone charismatic. Form over substance you know, that’s how science works. A real slick talking head and suddenly the mainstream media will be tripping over themselves to interview them. Right.
dmh, Matt has a point. You NEED someone to reduce cognitive friction when the message is presented. I have watched for instance Richard Linzen in action, and he simply lacks the public speaking skills to drive the points home. You could counter that he is “too honest,” but that is not the point. Outer space didn’t have many friends until Carl Sagan came along; now we have people like Neil De Grasse Tyson carrying the torch for space science. Atheists had a rough go until Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and Richard Dawkins came along (perhaps Ricky Gervais should be mentioned too). As a result, atheism is becoming more acceptable.
Climate skeptics? Lord Monckton is probably the closest to a charismatic spokesperson, and I enjoy his presence a great deal. Unfortunately, his mainstream reach is probably a little limited for a variety of reasons.
You miss my point entirely. How did CNN deal with Roy Spencer? By not letting him finish a single sentence and then cutting the interview off before he had a chance to even make a point. The notion that a single person could represent “the skeptics” is as preposterous as a single person representing (for example) all of Christendom. That they would get fair airtime is just as silly.
The first and most important course of action is to label global warming alarmism correctly. It is not a conspiracy, it is a scare. It has much more in common with the Pitted Windshield Phenomenon of the early 1950s than anything sinister.
Second: I think the best way to help people turn the corner on climate science is to give them an out. An example, figuratively speaking: instead of “you are wrong!”, perhaps the argument is “we have been looking at data from a period that is too narrow to give relevant results.”
Giving people an opportunity to save face may go a long way towards moving the opinions of many lukewarmers.
I think facts presented such as what follows would be great talking points to mention:
“Plants evolved in an atmosphere with an order of magnitude more CO2 than currently obtains. It is amazing that they could still grow at all. But somewhere in the 150ppm range, growth stops and plants die.
Isn’t it odd to think of a substance as a “pollutant” where, if two-thirds of it were removed, it would effectively end most life on the planet? This would be the case if our current 400ppm were cut to 133ppm.”
And… “Since the LIA, the planet has warmed a mere 1.5C, half of which occurred before the onset of significant human CO2 emissions. In addition, according to satellite and weather balloon data, the most accurate way to measure the earths average temperature, there has been no additional warming at all so far this century. The minor increase in temperature and CO2 concentration is without question, been very beneficial for the earth and it’s inhabitants. The earth is 15% greener and crop yields have increased enormously thanks to CO2.”
May also want to mention “Surface temperature measurements seem to require corrections a couple of times a year because they appear to keep finding new errors in old data. These corrections always tend to increase the discrepancy between the satellite measurements and increase the observed warming rate over the past century. Either the satellite measured temperatures must be horribly wrong or the corrections to the surface record are suspect. Given that falls are starting earlier and winters lasting longer with increased snowfall, and the climate around the country is practically mimicking the climate of the 1970s when there was the global cooling scare, a good bet is the continual corrections to the surface record are the problem.”
“The pause is amazing stuff. To effectively communicate the pause requires different skills then influencing the scientific debate”
Better hurry!
Matt Manos says:
“What I am humbling suggesting is that for CAGW to become accepted by moderates and independents, skeptics need to appear above reproach on all other controversial topics.”
Really ?? And why would a skeptical scientist want [quote] “CAGW to become accepted by moderates and independents”? Possibly you didn’t really mean this?
wayne
You wrote
The above essay by Matt Manos’ was “humbling suggesting” a prerequisite for “CAGW to become accepted by moderates and independents”.
The essay is about the US general public and the point you quoted from it did not mention “scientists”, you did. And all scientists are “skeptical”. So what?
Richard
For me, the convincing argument is the data. I would like to see people looking at the plots of model projections and measured temperature over the past 50 years, showing that the pro-AGW crowd are the deniers of actual data. Second, I would like to show CO2 concentration over millions of year, showing that the present values are not unprecedented.
Since arguing about data is the best science, how about a visual campaign by printing the above graphs as tee-shirts. Maybe this can reach the “low information crowd”.
I think it is easiest to get these points across when you look at the actual data. It is then totally reasonable to be skeptical about AGW.
#climategate = #gamergate.
wattsupwithat.com = deepfreeze.it
Ive debated many on this, the main thing that worked for me was showing people the “pause” (or lack of temps rising as fast as predicted) is in fact real. Showing people charts of it never helped. Instead linking 2 dozen papers by some of their favorite alarmist heroes mentioning it in the abstracts of their papers as they attempt to explain it in various ways, along with showing published works on feedbacks not working as once thought have proven to be semi effective.
Also there are two papers on deep ocean temps, one from NASA which makes the case for a stable deep ocean temp and another that makes the case it is dropping a little.
“What skeptics need is a strong spokesperson. Preferably a young, charismatic, non-partisan scientist to go on daytime TV, YouTube and TV news shows.”
Disagree with the second part. What is needed is the voice of one of the gods. Just supposing one of the following were to become publicly known to be unconvinced of the CAGW issue:
Bill Gates
Warren Buffett
George Soros
I would bet there would be a paradigm shift quite rapidly…
“Conservative leaders rally support against climate change not because they’ve done a survey of the scientific literature but because they find the policy outcomes of climate change undesirable. The association is so strong that skepticism has become linked to the Conservative movement by the general public. This linkage drives away many moderate and independent minded people before a discussion about CAGW can ever occur.”
This is both an outright lie and well proven propaganda… right-wingers do research for their position sure the dirty centrists aka conservative tend to tag along but they bother to do a little research as well. Anyone who knows anything about sciences knows “scientific literature” is a joke. No scientist needs to conduct a survey to see the complete and utter BS that is global warming “science”.
” Libertarians have Othered skeptics.”…. No libertarians are the backbone of the denialest movement. They are the ones dragging everyone to the truth only if you consider skeptic to be skeptical of insanely doomsdayish propaganda thats completely on its face fake but still believe that milder doomsday predictions are real would skeptic fit.
“Preferably a young, charismatic, non-partisan scientist to go on daytime TV, YouTube and TV news shows.” Sir put the propaganda down….
“I’m not calling out Conservatives or the other groups I mentioned. I’m addressing the specific topic of how I think skepticism can grow. I don’t claim these are the only ways to grow skepticism or that they’re even original. It’s easy to see what needs to happen and a lot harder to get things done. Personally, I think skepticism could grow if skeptics could get the science presented to more people. The pause is amazing stuff. To effectively communicate the pause requires different skills then influencing the scientific debate. To grow, skepticism needs a playbook and a face.”
The only playbook it needs it to get the info in people face.
Collectivist little in bubbles and in order to get non-collectivist approved info in the bubble you need to either break in or force them out.
Forcing them out has been a successful tactic for awhile now… ppl like watts are a prime display of this. Demanding they do real research and prove themselves right can work for more moderate collectivists… however the reminding 61% are not even close to moderate, centrists or anything near the middle ground.
The only way to get info to them is to pierce the bubble. That means you need to find a weak point… and that weak point is pretty universal for collectivists… pride in their collective. People need to get up and call these racist doomsday cultists, racist doomsday cultists… this wounds their pride… makes them angry. Then they want to fight. Once they want to fight you can argue and force feed them info that they would completely ignore because they now want to prove you wrong… and they can only prove you wrong by learning the info…
Never in history is their any scientific evidence to support the belief that a collectivist can be rationally dealt with. They ignore everything until they are forced to deal with it. Even then how many collectivists walked into ovens, gulags and mass graves… all while singing along “this can’t be happening”…. hundreds of millions.
After reading Nick’s comments above I was reminded at how supporters of AGW can get away with simply saying “It just isn’t true.” on things like the Pause.
This is a remarkable psychological phenomenon that should be factored into the thinking of anyone who thinks a skeptic can win this debate.
Also, having NASA and NOAA on one’s side is a powerful weapon. Why would they lie? After all…these are the best scientists in the world, right? Go ahead…give me an answer that doesn’t make you sound like a tin foil hat conspiracy nut.
The question “why would they lie?” is itself a logical fallacy, and a trap. It’s an Argument from Authority with a twist, that of putting the onus on us to ascribe motive. What they are really asking is “How did we get here?”, and that is far too complex a question, requiring giving a history lesson. Indeed, an entire university-level course could be given on it, and maybe it will someday. It is best to side-step traps like that, because the question itself isn’t an honest one. It is meant to trip you up.
Exactly. And the tactic is working. President Obama is using exactly this tactic to successfully push the agenda.
I have been following this issue for a very long time. To be honest…even ten years ago the skeptic’s argument was pretty weak. Since then, however, climate science and the models have proven themselves to be wildly inaccurate in their predictions. No rational person has ever successfully challenged the so called “Pause”. Instead, there have been explanations…about 60 of them…as to why it is happening (the key point here being “it is happening”.)
With all that, most people still believe for some reason that the science is settled.
This is a tough fight, huh?
“What’s amazing is that 35% are willing to admit that they don’t believe the Earth has been warming in the past few decades (the remaining 4% don’t take a position). That 35% has resisted more than a decade of bellwether pushing and government campaigns”.
Ok so far we have a reasonable statement made… I dont recognise that anybody claims the world didn’t get a little warmer in the past 35 years myself, but we will let that pass..
“Skeptics have been out-grouped and Othered by their friends and even family members. And yet they still don’t accept CAGW or possibly even AGW. These are some stubborn people.”
And then sudden;ly we have the outrageous implication that skeptics are in fact people who dont believe that any warming has occurred…Nor even that a proportion of it is down to human activity.
This is pure straw man concern troll stuff and I dont understand why it is even allowed to be a post.
For the record, skeptics do not deny global warming. Not one, not ever. They do not even deny that mankind has almost certainly had some effect on cliamte – after all what doesn’t? They do not even deny the possibility that CAGW might exists.
What they deny vehemently is that the models that are used to map human activity into massive cliamte change have validity, or that such climate changes as has been noted cannot be explained by other causes – such as innate variability – than pumping a very small fraction of a fairly harmless gas into an atmosphere that already has enough of it in to do nearly all the global warning it can ever achieve.
And most of all they deny that curve fitting a minor effect or radiation absorption and multiplying it by a large and scary positive feed back factor from still as yet unspecified mechanisms to give scary predictions is a valid way to do science, when all the indications are that the existence of such a destabilising mechanism that amplifies temperature change from ANY cause, not just CO2, would have lead to a wildly unstable climate in the past.
I really am not interested in crossing swords on a jousting field alreday mined by someone to give them victory.
I am a skeptic, but I do not match your criteria, and the reason why I am a skeptic, is because first and foremost I am a rational person with a very great deal of experience in modelling, science and mathematics, and whereas the skeptics case makes sense, and is rational, the CAGW an AGW case does not, except as a profound example of political power and emotional narrative construction.
Why am I stubborn? Because despite the fact it costs me friends, and all sorts of other things, in the end the truth has to be told, because even if they do not believe me, people need to be warned that a far far greater danger faces them than the hypothetical AGW, and that is the complete political takeover of science by political and commercial forces.
AGW the global warming fact, is far fare less a threat to humanity than AGW the global warming myth, that will in the end destroy all credibility in science and allow the takeover of human affairs by people ill qualified to deal with reality, only the manipulation of public opinion.
Unfortunately whilst it may appear – and certainly to today’s urbanised society it seems to be the case – that humanity rules the planet, and that anything can be done of enough of someone else’s money is diverted into research and development to make it happen, innate experience of technological development leads me to the utter conviction that this is a dangerously false perspective.
AGW has become the excuse for rent seeking on a global scale never before seen, except perhaps in the arms races of the 60s and 70s..
It is a monumental diversion of human effort and public money way from areas that it is desperately needed in.
Nick Stojkes:
I know the data. What you said just isn’t true. Surface temperatures are not flat of falling. If you want to claim that they are, you need to quote numbers and sources.
A true denier in every sense..
The alarmist machine has been tuned in to the PR strategies for many moons. See, e.g., C-Span 2 for 5/29 1 hr.21 minutes presentation: “Anti-Science: Denial in the Face of Facts” a panel of the 67th annual Conference on World Affairs, hosted by the University of Colorado at Boulder, April 6-10, 2015.
C-Span2 description of event reads: “Scientists, authors and journalists examined the phenomenon known as “science denialism.” Topics included the religious and corporate roots of those beliefs. They talked about how to get “science deniers” to believe scientific facts about issues such as climate change, space exploration and vaccinations.”
Tom Blumenthal, Professor of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology at UC-Boulder, introduced Richard B. Alley, Evan Pew Professor of Geo Sciences at Penn State U, as the educator who “taught me that for what man has done to the atmosphere NOT to have caused global warming, the laws of physics would have to be wrong.”
Other panelists included Chip Berlet – “long term activist in the cause of human rights. A democratic socialist and absolutist, author of new book, Too Close for Comfort: Forget the Tea Party Movement..”
Leonard Pitts, Jr., Columnist, The Miami Herald
Michelle Thaller, Assistant Director, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Science Communication and Higher Education.
Ms. Thaller at about the 1 hr. 7 minute mark talks about meeting at NASA HQ regarding their advertising strategies in which helpful ad execs from the MARS candy company schooled on designing an ad campaign … the way they design their campaign has nothing to do with candy: we are selling SELF-ESTEEM. [In the same way, Alarmism has nothing to do with science, we are selling being in the smart set – not Other] All the facts are not helping in the debate — so we are drawing into our skills as storytellers [and then there’s a story targeting Fox News, to be followed with references to Koch Brothers]
Ms. Thaller: ” As a federal official I cannot comment on what we should do about … carbon cap and trade, about whether we should, you know, NOT use fossil fuels. That is not my right, my right as a federal official; I take that very seriously . … I will give you the best information NASA has … [but] Are we not allowed to be human? Am I not allowed to go on television and say, “I’M SCARED.” [Be afraid. Be very afraid.]
As Professor Blumenthal opined in opening remarks and panel demonstrated throughout, “This isn’t a scientific issue; it’s a political one.” QED
the US has Marc Morano. a brilliant communicator who should be a household name. the MSM won’t allow it.
Australia has Joanne Nova, ditto.
the occasional MSM appearance is not sufficient to impress on the public the failure of the scientific predictions, the impossibility of solar & wind replacing fossil fuels, even in the long-term, or the tyranny of replacing the present financial system which a brand-new system based on energy, specifically carbon dioxide emissions.
when MSM can have a NASA “climate scientist” forecast a “Godzilla El Nino” or an “El Wimpo” in the same breath and still not arouse scepticism about CAGW predictions on the part of the reporter or, in this case, CBS, then you know the MSM still has no intention questioning the “consensus”:
29 May: CBS News: Ben Tracy: Is an El Nino next in pattern of treacherous weather?
Scientists say the floods could be a sign the weather-pattern known as El Nino is gaining strength in the Pacific. If so, California could finally get the drought-busting storms it desperately needs…
Josh Willis, a NASA climate scientist, tells CBS News that in the past two years, scientists have seen a change in the jet stream that could be attributed to climate change. It often takes on a wavy pattern, causing more extreme weather – such as all that snow in Boston this past winter. Now, scientists are watching an El Nino rapidly grow in the Pacific Ocean…
Willis tells CBS News that while it’s a bit early to say for sure, “this El Niño has all the markings of a big one.”
“The cycle will continue throughout the year and peak sometime in the winter.
***So it could be Godzilla El Nino, but it could also be El Wimpo,” he says…
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/is-an-el-nino-next-in-pattern-of-treacherous-weather/
We can all try and spread the message in everyday life – so long as we avoid becoming a ‘climate change bore’ ! There are many opportunities …….
I try and use any suitable opportunity to make some short, simple and memorable relevant points on climate change in conversation to engage interest, questioning and thought.
Short and simple to be memorable and to avoid hijacking a conversation but relevant to the conversation or the person or group’s interests. But always have facts to quote to confirm the point if someone raises any objection to it – and objections are the time when, if handled carefully, someone’s blinkers (I think ‘blinders’ in the US) can be lifted if not removed.
I find one simple way is to compare global temperatures in Roman and Medievil times to those of today which are still cooler than they were then…… easy for someone to appreciate and non-technical and seriously questions man-made global warming / climate change.
Wine is a great subject of conversation as large amounts are drunk in the UK and our wine industry has grown significantly since it was re-established in the between-war years (but properly since the 1950s). Apart from the obvious of drinking wine in company it often crops up on tv as British sparkling wines now often beat Champagne in blind tastings !
Very simple to point out that it is a shame that Britain isn’t as hot as it was in Roman times when grapes were grown up as far north as Hadrian’s wall, or in medievil times when also grown across Britain.
A follow-up along the lines of ‘I had hoped that climate change would help the UK wine industry grow but it is still too cold to grow vines further north than parts of the midlands and after nearly 20 years of no increase in global temperatures it doesn’t look as if we are going to get back to the temperatures we had here in Roman and Medievil times.’ can take the conversation forwards.
Depending on the reaction that either opens the conversation up to discussing how early temperature records have been reduced which makes it appear hotter now; or the satellie temperature records etc. etc or a throw-away line that I am now convinced the whole climate change ‘thing’ is a scam. (Amazing how many people agree with that)
‘Flu – a standard topic of conversation in winter time. Simple to talk of the similarity of flu symptoms to Ague or The Ague which was common in medievil times but was actually malaria in a time when it was hot enough for malaria-carrying mosquitoes to flourish in Britain – but not hot enough today despite ‘climate change’.
Another simple one is the topic of rising sea levels ever comes up is mention of the villages in England and France which were seaports in Medievil times, when global temperatures were higher than today, but are now inland away from the coast as sea levels have dropped since then as it is colder now – despite ‘so-called’ global warming.
Current political discussion and activism in the UK has highlighted ‘austerity’ and with that poverty – an ideal chance to raise fuel-povery which not only hits the poorest hardest but forces the elderly to choose between heat and food and kills tens of thousands annually, far more than hot weather does. A direct result of the price hikes in energy to pay for windmills and solar panels which don’t even reduce CO2 because they are so intermittent that conventional gas and coal has to be kept running on standby. That begs the question – if the back-up of conventional power generation means that CO2 is not reduced then why are the politicians (who all know this) forcing us to pay for windmills ? Is it because they know that there is no reason to be afraid of CO2 emissions ??
And with the British weather, which by its very nature is a routine topic of conversation, there is always the throwaway line “I wish global warming was real rather than a scam, we could do with some decent warm weather.”
There are a myriad opportunities to make short, simple and telling points in everyday life and the more that simple points like the above are made the more people will think and hopefully share those doubts with others.
Anyway, that is what I do.
Interesting post. It reminds me of the an-cap (radical libertarians) view of trying to make allies with conservatives once upon a time. Turns out the conservatives will give the libertarians some rhetoric during election season and then pretend there was never an alliance afterwards.
What the skeptics need to do is continue to hammer home the facts on the ground. Expose the lies and propaganda of this delusion. Show that the king is truly naked. Heck, it might be time to take an honest look at how CO2 is supposed to warm the surface of the planet by “back radiation”. (no, seriously; perhaps it is time to look at the physics of it all)
The best line is to show that CO2 is skyrocketing while temperatures are flat despite all the “scientific consensus” that says CO2 is the control knob of the planet. And it is time to take an honest look at the motivations of the alarmists and the luke-warmers. But the author is correct in saying we need to reach out to the “great middle”. There may be a hundred million people sitting “on the fence” — let us give them some facts to support a skeptical view. We don’t have to win them over: we only have to show them that there is great doubt that the “CO2 will destroy us” meme.
I’m not sure I’m comfortable identifying as a “climate skeptic”. I prefer the more general descriptor “sane educated person.”
All the empirical data in the world, and clever presentations by people like Dyson won’t sway The True Believers (TTBs) one iota. They have found a new religion and paying carbon taxes is the new indulgence to assuage their feelings of environmental guilt.
Two things will need to happen to turn the TTBs. Global temperature will need to maintain a significant downward trend long enough for TTBs to experience/suffer increased cold over extended time. Secondly, the Climate Scientists advocating the CAGW/Climate Change/Climate Disruption agenda will need to become immensely unpopular in the public eye. This can only be achieved by being publicly mocked and humiliated – by any means possible!
Aye its gonna be a long row to hoe – indeed.
Here are two things that could stall the CAGW bandwagon:
1. A second financial crisis.
2. A collapse of the economies and/or grids in the warmist pioneers UK and Germany, mirroring the collapse of the same in poster-child Spain a few years ago as a result of its headlong rush into renewables.
I have just been given a copy of ‘Bad Science’ by Ben Goldacre. He of the guardian newspaper in the UK.
His book is a useful weapon against disbelief, His book rails against poor science in nutrition, health care and the poor performance of the media in educating the public in science, he stalwartly refuses to take a stand against climate science.
A case of a metropolitan London luvvie not backing his own opinion, just to stay on the gravy train.
Don’t buy the book….borrow it somehow.
Dear Matt (Manos),
Your “post” is reasonable enough and I must agree that “skepticism” may well need a “play-book and a face” as you put it, however; there will be a number of very highly paid persons reading ALL of this website’s posts and whose duties are to constantly “flag up” any potential hazards which threaten the Great Global Warming Gravy Train (GGWGTrain): yours is probably not one of them.
It is good to read your post but it is also good to know how people are reacting to it.
The subject(s) of your post are indeed very important, otherwise they would not be here.
My point is:- the “problem” is NOT just in the U.S.A..
Although the GGWGTrain was built in North America it has been developed into a financial belief-system which has gripped people like a vice (worldwide).
In thinking back to my own inadvertent entry onto this “battlefield” about. five and half years ago (i.e. approx 10 days BC [Before Climategate]) one of the first things that made me sit up and take notice was when I learned that the dreaded CO2 constituted a mere 3 percent of our atmosphere – and that’s the total, so it’s not even all human-generated!
My mind positively boggled!
To this day, I have found that during “real life” conversations with the oh-so-dedicated (well, at least partially … none of my friends and acquaintances have gone the Tesla or Prius route, although they do their part to line Al Gore’s pockets by dutifully separating their household waste) when I ask them ‘how much C02 do you think there is in our atmosphere?’ they haven’t a clue!
So I give them a Helpful Hint from Hilary – and gently point out that it is a mere 3 or 4%. Then I suggest that they might want to take a look at a few videos, demonstrating (Saint David) Suzuki’s lack of knowledge and introducing them to Topher Field’s (IMHO) excellent video and series of interviews: Saturday night at the movies: Suzuki 0, Ezra 10; IPCC’s Stocker brigade 0, Topher 10.
I ask them to let me know if they’d like any pointers to sites of the more nitty-gritty scientific kind. To the best of my recollection, so far, the above seems to have worked quite well.
And I also mention that not too long ago, I inadvertently discovered that:
Amazing, eh?!
Hilary Ostrov
You say
I don’t know who told you that but they were wrong by a factor of 100.
CO2 constitutes a mere 0.04 percent of our atmosphere.
Richard
OMG! It’s worse than I thought;-) Actually, I really do know this, Richard! My excuse is that I have a new kbd – and my proof-reading skills aren’t up to par, today. And I see that I made the same error twice. Aaaargh and Thanks!
“This would be a true skeptic of CAGW who could point to their belief that CO2 is a greenhouse gas as a defense against being labelled a denier.” My first reaction to this article is “try to catch up” / “Keen sense of the obvious, Champ.” Also, for more than a decade, every skeptic source I read has pointed out that it’s mainly the emeritus types that are independent enough to buck the system.
Any individual can be “othered.” A public spokesperson or two is a bad idea as a strategy. They even “otherize” Lomborg. But when and if one does emerge, it will be a signal that CAGW has been rejected politically – not the cause of it.
Keep in mind the political strategy of the liberal progressives in America. They have bundled several issues together and campaign and demagogue on these. For example, Gay rights and climate change is often used together in progressive arguments. If you are a skeptic of human caused catastrophic climate change then you get labeled as a cruel person who denies human rights to Gay people. See how that works, one progressive issue protects the other.
For people who love science and would like to see the return of good science and communication about Earth’s climate, it’s critical to disassemble the lefts platform of connected issues. If you are a supporter of Gay rights, say so clearly and then voice your skepticism on the climate debate. Doing this is purely a political exercise but necessary to drive the charlatans out of science and away from the impressionable voting public.
“Q) How long with flat or falling temperatures and rising CO2 before you admit that CO2 does not control the climate?”
Since AGW does not assert that C02 controls the climate its a pretty stupid question,
C02 is one of MANY forcings identified in the literature. read harder
Steven,
What part of “control” don’t you get?
The IPCC is more than 90% sure that 90% of the alleged warming since 1950 (or so) is due to man-made GHGs. Hence, CACCA advocates claim that CO2 is the “control knob” on climate change.
Steven,
“Since AGW does not assert that C02 controls the climate its a pretty stupid question”
Disagree: IPCC use CO2 as the main forcing agent in most all their climate models, which certainly states that they consider CO2 as the Control Knob.
“AGW does not assert that C02 controls the climate” – Steven Mosher
Great. Can we cancel all the expensive research now, and roll back the policies to control CO2? No need for carbon credits. No need for the EPA to try to control it as a “pollutant”. Let’s fire up the coal plants and get cheap energy back on track.
Mr Mosher perhaps have another take on the definition of “largely” LOL. To quote the IPCC for Policymakers. “Cumulative emissions of CO2 largely determine global mean surface warming by the late 21st century and beyond.”
Steven Mosher: “Since AGW does not assert that C02 controls the climate its a pretty stupid question,”
Steven, if there was an Olympic medal for disingenuousness, you would win it hands down.
Er, hang on, make that a Nobel Prize!
Steven Mosher says: June 1, 2015 at 7:25 am
Since AGW does not assert that C02 controls the climate its a pretty stupid question,
C02 is one of MANY forcings identified in the literature. read harder
———————————————-
So then Steven, why all the focus on reducing CO2? Why isn’t the focus on all those other forcing to anything appraoching the same extent as it is on CO2?
[snip – Mr. Mosher that was unnecessary insult, broad brush, you know better than that. Try again with some professionalism please -Anthony]
While I understand the general message of the post, there is something about it that I find a bit uneasy. The sceptical approach should always be about promoting the facts and truth.
”To grow, skeptics need to find a group of people that can be influenced.”
And
” What skeptics need is a strong spokesperson. Preferably a young, charismatic, non-partisan scientist to go on daytime TV, YouTube and TV news shows. This would be a true skeptic of CAGW who could point to their belief that CO2 is a greenhouse gas as a defense against being labelled a denier. The skeptic spokesperson would be trying to reach low information viewers. The types of viewers that are most prone to rational ignorance on climate change.”
I’m sure it’s not what the author means, but it sounds like, let’s get some suckers and reel them in. Ultimately the message has to come from relevant scientists who are not politically influenced or in receipt of suspect pay outs. Difficult to find in this day and age as everyone has to pay their bills and mortgages etc. We have seen how alarmists capitalised on the Willie Soon paper and their disgraceful conduct towards him. I say the biggest obsticle is the alarmist’s reluctance to debate. In any other field this would be seen as a huge weakness in an argument. The usual excuses of the ”settled science” brigade have worn thin, and I think are no longer readily accepted. The honest way forward is to encourage open debate and those not willing to engage will be left behind.
Eamon.
”Obstacle”
“Since AGW does not assert that C02 controls the climate its a pretty stupid question,”
Not as stupid as trying to control C02, to control human caused warming, that is not occurring……
The madness will only end when governments stop paying for the convenient lies.
Australia and Canada have ostensibly skeptical leaders. Add the US to that august company and the spigot just might get turned off.
I’ve donated the maximum allowable to every announced presidential candidate who is unequivocally opposed to CACCA.
Dean,
One of the biggest obstacles to wider acceptance of skepticism is precisely because so many skeptics object to CACCA on religious rather than scientific grounds. Alarmists find it easy to attack skeptical climatologists and lay their supporters because so many of them have religious objections to real science, ie evolution, as well as to bogus “science”, ie CACCA.
One of the Warmunistas’ most effective lines of attack is that conservatives, especially fundamentalists, are “anti-science”, when in fact it’s the alarmists who trash genuine science.
So please try to keep your conception of God out of the discussion.
“To grow, skeptics need to find a group of people that can be influenced.”
Skeptical groupthink? To what end?
The people who need to be influenced are political representatives and media opinionators. And for that you need dedicated individuals armed with facts, not a passel of anti-parrot parrots. One good letter to a congressman or local newspaper is more effective than 100 more echoes in an echo chamber.
Those working to prevent an irreversible power grab based on unfounded fear-mongering do not need to be “above reproach” on other topics (whatever that means). They need to be capable of reasoned ridicule of catastrophist claims and willing to take the time to engage in it.
The alarmists have a US President who parrots the message.
He knows nothing about Earth’s climate, but can read a teleprompter.
One third of the US population will believe everything he says.
.
Skeptics need a leader who is already well known — not necessarily a scientist.
.
That person needs to speak in clear, concise sentences, so a good public speaker would be best.
.
But he or she will face severe ridicule from leftists, and character attacks, for merely stating that more CO2 in the air is good news for green plants, and if CO2 causes slight warming, that’s good news for humans.
.
That communication task is almost impossible without using unusually clear climate charts (sadly, few charts presented at this website would quality). such as the one at the link below:
.
http://www.elOnionBloggle.blogspot.com
Secular opiates. It works for liberals, progressives, and moderates, too. Material incentives and secular reprobation are a consensus’s best friend. Perhaps the Earth is flat.
The Earth is flat from peculiar frames of reference… and human life is the product of spontaneous conception that may occur at any time between conception/fertilization and around birth.
Well, RSS, UAH, HadCRUT4, GISS, NCDC
For the 36 years all datasets above are overlapping, between 1979 and 2014, their respective trends are
Please note the last three trends (surface temperatures) are substantially higher than the first two (bulk of troposphere).
It is absolutely curious, for according to simple theory (no complicated computational general circulation model is needed), it should be the other way around.
As surface temperature increases, you get more evaporation, which makes more humid air. Moist lapse rate is smaller than dry one, therefore average lapse rate decreases. Consequently the bulk of troposphere warms faster than the surface (by some 20% faster globally, according to simple calculations).
That’s not what is observed.
There are only three possibilities and no more.
1. Satellite data are flawed
2. Surface data are flawed
3. Even simple theory is flawed
No one ever suggested a way satellite data can be substantially flawed, but that’s possible. Surface data is much more likely to be flawed, because it was never figured out, how to eliminate temporal UHI on the one hand, and there is way too much ad-hoc adjustment in the final datasets on the other hand. Last but not least, it can well be the case, that even simple theory fails. If rate of precipitation increases even faster than evaporation with increasing temperatures, average atmospheric humidity may decrease. However, it is a great no-no for computational climate modellers, because it would imply a strong negative feedback, which falsifies the basic assumptions all such model is based on.
In any case, a huge inconsistency is lurking somewhere, which proves beyond reasonable doubt that climate science is not settled.
”
1. Satellite data are flawed
2. Surface data are flawed
3. Even simple theory is flawed”
Well, the original claim here was
“all 5 of the major datasets (RSS, UAH, HadCRUT4, GISS, NCDC) show no warming for between 15 and over 18 years”
Different period, but yours are all rising trends.
As to what is flawed, you have UAH closer to HADCRUT than to RSS, and about the same from the others. So satellites hardly speak with one voice. And the UAH voice is a bit quavery lately.
Don’t be so wishy-washy, please.
1. False propositions like “you have UAH closer to HADCRUT than to RSS” do not promote understanding.
2. All datasets above, except UAH, have a strong decelerating trend over the past 36 years.
3. If the claim of water vapor amplification stands, actual rate of surface warming should not be more than 0.116 K/decade for the same timespan, even according to UAH, an outlier.
4.No truth value can be assigned to ill-defined statements like “UAH voice is a bit quavery lately”.
Nick Stokes,
No temperature data set agrees exactly. There are good reasons for that, including calibration regimes, different equipment vendors, differences in design, and many other factors. But the important thing is that both global temperature satellites, and thousands of balloon radiosonde measurements, all agree to within about a tenth of a degree. That is amazingly good accuracy considering the different data sources. They all agree that there has been no global warming to speak of for almost twenty years.
Trying to argue that a tiny, tenth of a degree difference negates the measurements only shows that you have run out of credible arguments. Why do you keep going? The real world is falsifying your position, and it has been for many years.
Finally, you say that RSS and UAH “hardly speak with one voice”. But in fact, they do. The satellite data has been steadily converging, and as stated, it is matched by radiosonde data: many thousands of temperature recording balloons that are continually launched, and which cover the globe from the ground, up to twenty miles altitude. They all agree!
So your basic premise was wrong. I challenge you to admit there is no good evidence showing that dangerous man-made global warming is occurring. That was a false alarm, Nick, and it’s time you admitted as much.
Well, turns out that was UAH 5.6. The improved UAH 6.0 beta dataset shows a substantially lower trend for the 36 years mentioned above, 0.113 K/decade. Neither it is an outlier any more in that it shows deceleration just like all others. It is also much closer to RSS than UAH 5.6 was.
However, the enigma only gets more profound by that. If theory is taken at face value in that global average tropospheric warming should be 20% faster than that of the surface, it implies a surface warming rate of less than 0.1 K/decade (0.098 K/decade), which is absolutely inconsistent with the three surface datasets, because it is well outside their claimed error bounds.
Therefore either the lapse rate amplification do not exist, but some lapse rate attenuation instead, which sends all computational climate models into the trash bin, or rate of warming in surface datasets is greatly exaggerated (by some 50-60%), which makes them utterly unreliable and really, useless.
Make your bet.
O just a side note on those evil anti-vaxxor who you know do basic science….
https://sharylattkisson.com/government-wipes-recent-vaccine-injury-data-from-website/
no adjustments going on there either…
The first problem is you need to change the form of the argument/discussion. You can’t do numbers with folks who do not do numbers. Most of the committed believers in AGW have a different thinking and analysis style than the majority of the skeptics. You show them charts and numbers and their eyes glaze over.
You need to a capture the concept you are trying to communicate in a emotionally charged visual image not data.
They got hooked by pictures of drowning polar bears, and lonely bears sitting on an isolated ice flow.
Use visual images like the snake oil salesman who puts his thumb on the scale to communicate the concept then explain that the way they are rigging the scales is by cooking the the numbers. First like any salesmen you need to find a way to get them to say yes to some question first. That opens the door to investigation. If their very first exposure is something that they deny happened the harder you push with data the harder they will dig in their heels.
When they pitch consensus as the proof, point out that the consensus in 1692 Winston Salem was that there were witches, that the consensus in the 1960’s was that continents don’t drift, that the consensus in the 1830’s was the malaria was caused by bad air, that the consensus in the 1300’s was that the black plague was a curse from an angry god, that the consensus was in the 1940’s was that Japan could not attack Pearl Harbor because it was too shallow, that the consensus in 1952 was that the wings would not fall off the De Havilland Comet airliner in flight, That the consensus was in 1912 that the Titanic was unsinkable, that the consensus was in 1775 that the American Colonies would not take up arms against the strongest military in the world, that the consensus was in 1930’s that Fascism was a marvelous system of government and everyone was talking about Mussolini and what he was doing in Italy.
It is the form of the message which is important, as well as the content.
I don’t believe a true signal of anything can be found in the data. Looking at real actual, adjusted GISTEMP data for a station at random (Parkersburg, WV Wood County United), with records going from 1880 to 2004, is an eye-opener. First off, the natural variation in annual mean temps is from 10.2C to 13.3C., and that’s from 1919 to 1921. No AGW then, I don’t believe. If you then add the +/- 0.08C error bar, you’ve got a range from 9.4C to 14.1C of pure natural variability. And we are supposed to see an AGW signal in increases of tenths of a degree? In case you’re curious, that particular station shows zero warming since 1880.
The author makes various good points.
Many skeptics needlessly preach that the CAGW agenda is communist, naively assuming that the entire establishment is on board with the supposed shift to “socialism.” (note that just because you abandon market economics you are not necessarily switching to socialism)
Other skeptics promote the proven disaster, nuclear energy. Why? What could possibly put skeptics in a worse light? Recklessly indifferent to environmental calamity and economic devastation.
Still others childishly claim that CAGW is about transferring wealth from the powerful first world to the powerless in the third world. Could they make themselves seem more greedy or fear-driven with any other silly assertion? In fact the opposite is the case, the CAGW agenda is about depriving the world of access to the energy needed to elevate itself to the economic level of the first world. Take a look at the actual amounts that the climate funds have received, most of which goes to GE or Siemens in the end anyhow.
Since climate scientists have a poor grasp of political science they should stick to their field and skip the theories.
Spouts aletho:
Then what the hell else might it be? Government controls to limit as “carbon pollution” a product of the complete combustion of organic materials, the better to exert political command over the basis of industrial civilization.
The political left is not contemptible and hateful only because they’re pushing the CAGW fraud. They’re a bunch of thieving, murderous, arrogant sociopaths who’ve merely taken the anthropogenic “global climate change” hokum as their latest and most effective opportunity to perpetrate pillage upon their neighbors, and to hell with them.
Tucci78,
Love the von Mise quote.
John
“Many skeptics needlessly preach that the CAGW agenda is communist, naively assuming that the entire establishment is on board with the supposed shift to “socialism.” (note that just because you abandon market economics you are not necessarily switching to socialism)”
Must admit i’m very confused by this statement… socialism is the attempt(which always fails) to deny reality that the real world exists. Sure you have forms of socialism that can work somewhat like fascism or corporatism. These however will end up failing as well just more slowly. “Market economics” is most commonly associated with free market economics aka capitalism… so moving away from capitalism you can only move toward socialism… since you know capitalism is the most extreme form on the right/individualist scale and communism is the most extreme form on the left/collectivist scale.
“Still others childishly claim that CAGW is about transferring wealth from the powerful first world to the powerless in the third world.” Didn’t know genocidal third world dictators were powerless… they seem to have alot of power based on history and science.
” Could they make themselves seem more greedy or fear-driven with any other silly assertion? In fact the opposite is the case,”
You seem to have a very very odd definition of greed and fear driven… being most of this money is being forcible taken often at the point of a gun or the threat of jail…. I don’t see any greed in wanting to keep what people worked for… and fearing these threats.
“the CAGW agenda is about depriving the world of access to the energy needed to elevate itself to the economic level of the first world.”
Yeah so why are you supporting third world dictators by giving them money to further oppress their people and prevent economic growth?
” Take a look at the actual amounts that the climate funds have received, most of which goes to GE or Siemens in the end anyhow.”
Really greenpeace and the WWF get over 1 billion dollars per year… the EU has spent a good 100 billion dollars almost every year for the last 20 years…
Destroying wealth is destroying energy and you fulling believe in destroying wealth.
A little late to the party, but correct me if I’m wrong.
From “hot” to “cold” over the last twenty years the datasets are:
GSS
NCDC
HadCRUT4
RSS
UAH-6
“Ownership” of those sets, in the same order, are:
Government agency
Government agency
University
Private company
University
The only group touting “warmest ever”: government agency
I don’t know about elsewhere (though what I’ve read about the UK, things are the same there), in the US, government agencies are hitting rock-bottom in respect, with the suspicion that corrupt political influence is running rampant, and that growing incompetence not far behind. Both the FBI and the CIA were held in relatively high esteem until lately. Even the IRS, though hated, was once respected. No more. Add to that scandals in the State Department, Veterans Affairs, the GSA, the EPA, and others, and you have a citizenry ready to reject anything from the government.
I think merely stating that the “hotter than ever” junk (euphamism for the correct word) is only coming from government agencies, would create immediate climate skeptism in a broad-spectrum of the population.
If a person says, but it’s NASA, I would respond, yes, I wonder how their Muslim outreach program is doing. The clear political meddling even with NASA will likely not be missed.
Yes, Matt Manos –
we needed the spokes person Marilyn Monroe plus Einsteins obstinate outlashed tongue plagued by Mick Jagger.
We’d win.
____
Don’t think so.
____
Why not stay earnest.
Just say you have no clue confronted to mass psychosys.
Hans
plagued, plaginated:
plain Status question.
Holloring SUV’s -Hans
[Or plainly plagiarized poorly plagued plaided status question? .mod]
America lost it’s charmes since working for McDonalds, Coca Cola is deminiorazing.
Ever thought of – Hans
[??? .mod]
mod,
it’s a way of live to work for Mc.Donalds. Or Coca Cola.
Why diminuishing?
Thx for reply. Hans
easy now.
its just Matts advices on cheer leader ship.
To: Dean From Ohio
You said earlier today … “with the help of wikepedia”.
Question
Is the “wikepedia” source RELIABLE ?
I ask this because I have never used it but more to the point, Christopher Monckton of Brenchley once referred to it as “wicke-bloody-pedia” in the address he gave in St. Louis, Missouri.
I am given to understand (correct me if I’m wrong) that ANYONE is able to edit the entries on wikepedia. Perhaps you would assist in this regard; thank you.
WL